CHAPTER SIX: In Which Akutsu Visits the Kitchen And Akaya Gets Hit In The Face With A Broom.

It was with little reluctance that Atobe left the Slytherin table and made his way out of the Great Hall with the rest of his fellow house-mates. A thin, blonde boy with an expression of the utmost disdain herded them quickly back into the entrance hall, down a long, narrow flight to the left of the large marble staircase, and through a jumbled labyrinth of corridors, until they came to a perfectly blank stone wall.

The blonde boy turned with a flourish and began speaking without even waiting for silence. "The password this term is 'veni'. Since Professor Snape has seen fit to grace me with what is my rightful place as prefect, I have the authority to leave you crying on the doorstep all night if you forget it."

It occurred to Atobe that this might well be a kindred spirit. The boy continued talking for several minutes more, waxing lyrical about his appointment to prefect while the rest of the house waited patiently for him to get out of the way so they could go to bed.

"Malfoy always likes to give us a little talk at the beginning of the year," someone whispered to the first years, whose confused expressions cleared--marginally.

"In addition, because of my new powers, I have the authority to order you around if, and I quote, what you are doing is potentially harmful to yourself or your fellow students. Therefore, you should all know that my boyfriend is not to be confronted, baited, or insulted by anyone except myself unless I give explicit permission. Doing so is potentially harmful--and by that, I mean that I'll send you to the torture chambers."

The surrounding Slytherins, except for the baffled first-years, made various noises of disappointment. "He has a boyfriend?" one of the first years asked, crinkling his face up with disgust.

The boy--Malfoy--turned away from the crowd; his robes swirled about him, then settled. The movement was impressive, and Atobe could only faintly tell that it had been practiced to pieces. Malfoy said the password, and as the stone door grated open, added, "Someone escort the twit down to the torture chambers and assist him in experiencing the dual effects of Tarantallegra and Jelly-Legs."

"Ooh, Draco, can I?" asked a sour-looking girl, who had already clamped her hand on one of the first year's shoulders--he had developed a pasty-complexioned expression of abject horror.

"If you wish, Pansy," said Malfoy with generous benignity. "You--exchange students." Malfoy had entered the common room, and now he turned with another grand, sweeping gesture. "Won't you step into my parlour?"

"My father," said Malfoy, as an after-dinner nightcap was poured for the little group, "is quite influential in the Ministry."

"My father," Atobe replied, sipping politely at the drink, "is also quite important to the Japanese government."

"Our mansion has forty-eight bedrooms, a swimming pool, and its own Quidditch pitch."

"Our mansion has forty-seven bedrooms, but it has two pools and twelve tennis courts."

"I have an entire wing for my own private use."

Mukahi, who (with the rest of the present group) had been watching the exchange go back and forth as if it were a tennis match, made a small, smug noise into his goblet--Atobe ignored him since it was clear to both him and Mukahi who the winner was, and only said, "Only a wing, aah? My father gave me my own mansion for my fourteenth birthday." He paused and took another sip of the nightcap, carefully not looking at Malfoy. "Later he regretted it. He felt it was too inconsequential, and so also gifted me with the penthouse of one of our hotels three days later. This is quite a good drink."

Inui was pondering the logistics of the ceiling of the Great Hall that morning, whilst on his right, Fuji hummed a little song over the toast and marmalade, and on his left, Yanagi examined a tray of bacon. Across the table, Tezuka was drinking tea with an air of morning irritability that Inui found inexpressibly comforting. The ceiling might have been making illogical changes, the food might have appeared on the table for no apparent rhyme or reason other than that it was time for it to be there, but Tezuka was mildly annoyed with the universe for not living up to his expectations, and therefore, Inui could accept the little oddities of life.

"Renji!" Yukimura shouted from across the hall. "Didn't you hear? Slacker! Get up and run laps with the rest of the team! And what are you doing eating with that riffraff?"

"Please excuse me," said Yanagi as he returned the strawberry jam to the middle of the table and rose, a slice of toast in either hand. "Seiichi seems to be a little stressed today."

"Tell Yukimura-san I said good morning," Fuji said, smiling widely at the toast on his plate as if they shared a secret special something. Then he began devouring it.

Yanagi gave a short bow to the group. "Of course, Fuji-san. I'll see everyone in class. Sadaharu, the ceiling won't love you back, no matter how much you stare."

"Renji!" Yukimura shouted again.

Inui stared after Yanagi as he went, then glanced at Tezuka. "There's an 74.6 chance that within a week, Yukimura will be soothed enough to allow Renji to breakfast with us."

Fuji dusted the crumbs from his mouth with the napkin and smiled. "That will be very pleasant, don't you think, Tezuka?"

Tezuka merely stared across the table.

"Flying!"

"Flying!"

"You know, Akaya," Niou said, draping himself over Akaya's shoulders. "The only insects around here are fairies. The midges from last night? Baby fairies. Keep your mouth shut so you don't accidentally swallow them--"

"Leave off," Marui said, as he and Akaya both shoved Niou away. "It's flying."

"Yeah, sempai. It's our first lesson ever in anything, and it's flying."

"Only been coming to school for the tennis, then, eh?"

Akaya, still striding purposefully forward, glanced scornfully back over his shoulder. "You're one to talk."

"Don't quarrel, children," Yukimura said, linking elbows companionably with Niou. "Yagyuu, are you excited?" He leaned forward--Yagyuu was on Niou's other side--and grinned.

"As you say, Yukimura-kun."

"He's no fun," Yukimura whispered to Niou, leaning in, then unlinked their arms and jogged ahead to catch up with Marui and Akaya. He slung an arm over each of their shoulders.

"You're cheerful today, buchou," Marui noted.

"All the better for having my two favorite midgets by my side."

In reply, Akaya squirmed under Yukimura's arm--it would have been an outright flail for anyone else. "I'm not that short," he grumbled. "I grew."

"And a fine job of it you did," Yukimura beamed. "Five whole centimeters, Renji told me."

"Six."

Yukimura ruffled Akaya's hair, but allowed his hand to be knocked away.

Marui wasn't at all sure this exuberance was completely genuine, but he didn't say anything--wisdom was in the watching, after all. "Ah," he said as they came into a corridor lined on one side with windows and, through them, spotted a group outside. "They're out on the lawn."

"There's a door further down this hall," Yagyuu noted.

"Onwards, comrades!" Niou declared, and Akaya, startled, tripped over the hem of his robes.

"Eight," the others said in unison.

"Put your wand hand over the broom and say 'up!'" Madame Hooch instructed.

Marui glanced down at the broom by his feet. "Up!" he said, and it rose swiftly into his hand.

He looked around, smiling--clearly the broom recognized his genius. Not everyone was having the same luck: Akaya's broom had walloped him on the forehead, which he was now rubbing while casting a suspicious look between the broom and Niou--but Niou was having his own problems. He and Yagyuu's brooms rose, yes, but at an angle which brought them to a midair-collision, and they clattered to the ground again. Across the swath of grass that separated the lines, that manager from whatever half-rate upstart team had managed to coax the broom into his hand, while Atobe-san and his redheaded, physics-defying doubles player's brooms had both jumped into their awaiting hands.

He leaned over to Akaya, who had managed to get his broom to fling itself at him again, although he had escaped unscathed this time. "It's too bad Renji's missing this, isn't it?" he snickered.

"What?" Akaya panted, staring balefully at the broom that innocently lay, once again, by his feet.

Marui noted the other members of the group--the little British first years were having the same mixed reactions: Some had brooms that came eagerly, or, failing that, at least willingly, some brooms twitched, some rolled over, some merely lay there.

And then Marui saw something interesting. A few first years separated him and Akaya from Yukimura, who was the tail end of one line--the furthest from the teacher. Yukimura's face was white, and he was glaring down at his broom. His hand, outstretched over it, looked as if it was thinking of--maybe, perhaps, if the weather was good--trembling.

Nah. Not... not buchou, Marui thought. He shook away the thought. Yukimura had commanded the broom again, softly, and it had risen--wobbling, perhaps, but swift. Yukimura glanced up and around, and Marui looked away.

Thwack.

"Sempai!" Akaya wailed, tugging on Marui's sleeve. "It keeps hitting me!"NA

Madame Hooch continued along the line, offering corrections to the students whose brooms were still stubbornly earthbound. Marui watched with amusement as she scolded Echizen-kun into commanding his broom with enthusiasm in place of apathy.

"Right," she announced, now that everyone had their brooms in hand. "Please mount your brooms. When I whistle, kick off from the ground. Go straight up, just a few feet, and then lean forward slightly to come straight back down."

A flurry of movement. Marui glanced left at Akaya and edged a touch away. His kouhai was gripping the broom so hard his knuckles and fingernails were white, but there was a terrifyingly excited grin across his face, and his eyes were glittering.

"Ready!" called Madame Hooch. "Three, two, one--" Wheeeet!

Marui kicked off--the broom quivered a little. He flinched away when Akaya rocketed up past him.

"WOOO! Oh my god, sempai, I'm FLYING!"

Marui had leveled out and was now hovering in the air ten feet above the ground. He looked up: Akaya was already twice as high up and still going.

Wheeeet! "Come back down!"

The broom trembled again as he descended softly. Akaya landed with a heavy thump beside him.

"I flew! Marui-sempai, did you see that? I flew! Buchou, did you see me? I'm going to be so good at flying that I'll crush fukubuchou!"

Marui looked down the line. "Are you feeling well, Yukimura? You look a little--"

"Oh, just adrenaline; please don't worry about me." Yukimura smiled brightly at him.

Hm. Don't worry. Right.

After Madame Hooch had made another round of corrections, the next hour was spent learning and practicing a few basic techniques--varying the speed of ascent and descent, stationary pivoting, and forward acceleration--and then the class had a second hour of free practice, during which Madame Hooch flew about between each student and shouted criticism.

Somewhere in the chaos that was created when Niou rocketed towards Mizuki with intention-to-nearly-collide, closely followed by Akaya, who did collide, albeit not intentionally, Yukimura disappeared.

Marui only noticed because he was expecting something--a sharp command for Akaya and Niou to run laps, or at least an amused, chuckle from somewhere nearby--that didn't come. He looked around, then up, then down, and couldn't see his captain anywhere in the cloud of fumbling fliers.

"Just adrenaline; please don't worry about me." The words rang in his head again, with that bright, too-sharp smile--when had he seen that expression before?

Marui dismissed the thought, and concentrated on practicing flying circles.

Yukimura appeared again a few minutes before the end of class, trembling and sweating like everyone else, but just a shade too pale.

Inui was having the most fun he'd ever had in his life. He had been given cooking utensils and a heap of extremely strange ingredients, and instructed to mix them in subtle and arcane ways to create a final product that he felt certain would be gorgeously vile.

Not only was he expected to brew odd concoctions, but he was to do it with Renji! Ah, the nostalgia of their youthful culinary adventures--discovering the science of mudpies when they were three, using magnifying glasses to bake beetles when they were six, inventing grass and raw-egg smoothies when they were--

"Sadaharu," that smooth voice cut into his thoughts like a fast serve, "feel free to continue staring at the wall for as long as you please. But if you are feeling up to multitasking, would you mind chopping the porcupine quills?"

Inui blinked and returned his attention to the task at hand. Renji was standing before him, holding dried nettles up with one hand and the long quills with the other. They framed his face, which was arranged in an expression of weary resignation.

"Sorry, I was just thinking--"

"--about mudpies and baked beetles and grass/egg smoothies. Please focus on the task at hand, or I shall ask Kabaji-kun to be my lab partner instead."

"I calculate that chopping the porcupine quills into three-millimeter wide slices will ensure a 87.6 success rate."

"Ah, that would be correct if these were African porcupine quills, but as they are from Rothschild's porcupine, scientific classification coendou rothschildi, it would be more beneficial to slice it into two-and-a-half millimeter pieces. No thicker, or--"

"--it will not release all its humours--"

"--and the potion will fail. However, with a two-and-a-half millimeter slice size, there is nearly a 91.8 success rate."

"Your data..."

"Thank you, Sadaharu, your expression of awe is quite enough of a compliment without the both of us suffering while you attempt to express your wonder. You never were very adept at verbalizing your emotions."

The seventh-year Ravenclaw student who was tutoring them that day in place of the usual professor strolled by their desk, firmly keeping her eyes away from their work. This was not the first time she had circled the classroom, nor the second. Inui rather appreciated that it had only taken her two rounds before she realized that it would be best to leave well enough alone.

"Don't waste your time doing that too precisely," she'd said the first time, and Inui had stared at her uncomprehendingly until she'd finally frowned, mumbled, "Just a suggestion," and walked away.

"The potion really doesn't require that level of painstaking care," she'd said the second time, and Renji had looked up from dicing horned slugs into perfect one-half centimeter cubes to tell her exactly what he thought of advocating sloppiness--not that she realized it. He'd quoted something... Either it was an obscure Chinese fable or perhaps something Renji had made up on the spot; Inui was never sure when it came to these literary outbursts of Renji's. They had no logic, no clean-cut fact, and thus, the few times before that Renji had pulled something like this on a higher authority, Inui invariably developed an apprehensive, squeamish sensation in his upper gastric system which defied all attempts to replicate.

Tennis.
Karupin.
Ponta.

Thus read Echizen's list of Things To Like.

Unfortunately, the directory of available electives, of which he had been told to choose at least one, included neither Tennis nor Carbonated Beverage Appreciation class, which was why he found himself, that late Saturday morning, not outside with a convenient bit of wall and a racquet, but in a classroom while some upperclassman that smelled and looked like horse sketched a diagram of some random fairy-tale creature that Echizen really couldn't care less about.

Fortunately, he had Kaidoh-sempai for company, so things could have been worse. While the student who was tutoring them pointed out various points of anatomical diagrams, he mused that it could have been Eiji-sempai, who would have crooned over the cuter animals in the textbook and then attempted to strangle him. Or Inui-sempai, who would have muttered the entire time. Or Fuji-sempai, whose creepiness was reason enough not to sit next to him in any class.

The student tutor paused and looked around, overeager for questions.

"I thought we were supposed to be learning about animals," Echizen said, not bothering to modulate his volume. The tutor, at the front of the classroom, blushed a little and frowned.

"This is a supplementary class," he said, placatingly. "You're only a year behind, but the rest of the class is two or three."

"Che. It's boring."

"It's not!"

"It's boring," Echizen said again, leaning back in his seat, lacing his fingers behind his head and staring at the ceiling. "Why are you teaching?"

"I..." The tutor spluttered. "I'm taking a NEWT in Care of Magical Creatures."

"You have newts?" Jiroh demanded, delighted. "That's so cool! I saw some in that alley place where we went to buy our stuff, but Atobe said that newts are for plebians, but he says that for everything. It makes sense that you have some, though, 'cause you like animals, right? You really have newts?"

The tutor gawped for a moment. "No! No, no, the NEWTs, not amphibians. They're the big exams that the seventh years have--Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests."

"Oh," said Jiroh, and dropped his chin back into his hands. "Echizen-kun has a cat, right?" he inquired drowsily. "I saw him with it on the..." He paused for a jaw-splitting yawn, "on the train."

"Ah," Ohtori said. "Mr. Poole--"

"You can call me Tom, I told you."

"I--sorry--so... you're studying for a job or something?"

"I'm going to be a vet, but can we get back on track? This bone structure is really quite interesting--"

The great belltower began, distantly, to toll the slow, shuddering alert for the end of the period.

"Lunch!" Jiroh leapt up joyfully. "Marui-san will be there! Ohtori-kun, we should go eat with him--"

"Wait!" said Tom. "I haven't dismissed you yet!" They stopped jumbling their books together. "Oh. Um. Yes, you can go."

"Choutarou's eating with me," Shishido growled, as if the interruption hadn't occurred.

"Sorry, Jiroh-sempai, but I did say I would... We can go talk to him another time? But you should definitely go anyway."

"I heard he had flying first thing this morning!" Jiroh continued, ignoring the pair. "I bet he was awesome! I bet he was the most awesome ever! Because Marui-san is a genius, you know."

"Wasn't that class so lame?" Shishido asked as they trooped out the door.

"Shishido-san!"

Echizen glanced back--the tutor had overheard and was looking hurt and purple. He shook his head and kept walking.

"I liked it," Ohtori said. "I thought it was interesting."

"Oh," said Shishido. "Well, I guess it was okay; the guy obviously just needs some practice--if we were looking at something besides bone structure it would be okay, but other than that, I suppose it was alright."

Ohtori beamed. Echizen snorted: Shishido was such a kiss-ass.

"You," Akutsu said, catching a likely-looking kid by the collar and hoisting a few inches. "Where's the kitchen?"

"Who are you--let go of me!" The boy writhed in Akutsu's grip. "They're downstairs! It's in the entrance hall, there's a door--"

"Which one?"

"It's on the left--no, right--wait, put me down." Akutsu let him go. After a huffy moment of straightening his robes, the student held both hands out in front of him, with his fingers and his thumbs in the shape of "L"s. "Yes, first door on the right of the main staircase." He adjusted his thick, wire-rimmed spectacles and straightened his tie to a more prissy level of neatness. "And then you go all the way down until you come to the picture of the bowl of--"

"Yeah, I got it, shut up," Akutsu grunted and walked off.

"Look here, I haven't finished!" the brat ran after him, round face all indignant. "It's through the still life picture of the bowl of fruit! It's painted in the style of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin! You don't know how to get through."

"Gotta do something to the pear."

"Well, I--Look, you're one of those foreign students, aren't you?"

Akutsu stopped walking and glared down at the boy. "What's it to you, runt?"

"Runt--! I'll have you know I'm a third-year! And a Ravenclaw!" He pushed his glasses up his round nose and sniffed. "My name is Timothy Augustus St. John-Watkins III." He added, "Esquire."

"And I'm the one who's going to punch your face in if you don't get out of my fucking way." Akutsu shoved past Timothy Augustus St. John-Watkins III, Esquire, and left him gaping in his wake.

He made his way down the meandering staircase and came to a wide corridor which stretched on into darkness allayed only by flickering torchlight. The painting was not far from the stairs, and easily found, for it seemed to be the only one in this section of the hallway. Sitting still and quiet in front of it, a small, hunched figure waited.

'Still and quiet', however, were soon concepts that were unapplicable to the subject.

"Akutsu-sempai!"

"The fuck are you doing out here?" Akutsu demanded before Dan could make any more noise.

"I was waiting for you!"

"Idiot--anyone could have come along." Akutsu wrestled his hand out of Dan's grip and patted his pockets before remembering that Dan had thrown out all his cigs the first night they'd spent in Diagon Alley, and that none of the shopkeepers had succumbed to lies or intimidation to allow him to purchase replacements.

Sometimes Akutsu wondered what was keeping him from wringing Dan's skinny neck. Or at least making him cry a bit. Or a bit of a hurt expression--well, yes, Akutsu did know what was keeping him from that, but he had a stiletto knife in his boot for the person that mentioned it. "I'm fuckin' starving," he said instead, and was promptly dragged towards the painting (Dan stood on tiptoes and barely reached the bottom curve of the pear to give it a... tickle?) and, subsequently, through it.

The room was the same size and shape as the Great Hall, and like it, there were four House tables and the single staff table arranged exactly like the Great Hall. "This is so cool, Akutsu-sempai! They put the food on the table and then send it through the ceiling."

"Whatever." And there were these things running around--some of them were bat-eared, some snub-nosed, some googly-eyed, some droopy-faced--busy as ants or other hive-minded beings. Some of them were nearly Dan-sized. Or Dan was nearly them-sized. And where had Dan gotten all that food?

"Please eat, Akutsu-sempai!" Dan said, cheerful but breathless and straining, propping the enormous silver platter on a smaller table, which was accompanied by three wooden chairs. The tray was definitely bigger than most of the house-elves--for the creatures were undoubtedly what Dan had described in the note Akutsu had found on his dresser that morning--and nearly as big as Dan himself. "I got plenty, and Kob said I could take my lunch break now."

"Who the hell's he?" Akutsu asked, mouth already full of some sort of meaty pastry and elbows on the table.

"Akutsu-sempai," Dan chastised. "You didn't say anything before you started."

"'Cause I'm fucking starving, twerp," Akutsu snapped, tearing another bite out of the pastry.

Dan stared woefully at him for a few more moments, as if disappointed down to the cockles of his heart, which did not punch Akutsu in the gut whatsoever, then folded his hands and said, solemnly, "Itedekimasu!" A few moments later, he added, "Akutsu-sempai, it's not good manners to put your elbows on the table."

Akutsu flung his pastry down on the plate. "What the hell are you, my mother?"

"Of course not."

"Then piss. Off." Akutsu glared at Dan, who only stared solemnly at the meat pie he'd chosen, and at the neat bites he was cutting it into.

"They're very nice here," Dan said a few minutes later. "We just sleep anywhere, and there's so many of them that there's hardly anything for me to do. And they have magic, so it's not like they need me for fetching things from high shelves or anything. But Dumbledore-sensei said--"

"Who?"

"The headmaster! Kob--one of the supervising house-elves--took me up there last night."

Akutsu would have choked on the fruit tart if he was less cool. "They know you're here? Fuck. Fuck, I can't believe this, Dan, I told you that if you came along, you'd have to live under my bed or something and not fucking move--Fuck!"

"No, it's okay."

"How the hell?"

Dan shrugged and picked at a roll. "I just told him that there was someone here who had been very very special to me and that I wanted to be near him no matter what and--"

"Shut the fuck up. What have I told you about blabbing that shit to people?"

Dan hunched further down in his chair and continued as if he hadn't heard Akutsu. "--and he looked really sad and he said that I didn't really have any magic of my own so I couldn't be a student, and one of the paintings said that you shouldn't have told me anything about it in the first place. And he said that Dumbledore-sensei should do a... a Memory Charm and send me home."

"Shit." Akutsu slumped back in the chair. "Well. Obviously he didn't."

"No," Dan agreed. "He said I could stay. I'd already told the house-elves that I'd work for them if only... Like I said."

"But you said they had enough fuckin' help. What sort of shit do you do around here?"

Dan twisted the edge of his shirt. "Well, I help collect laundry, and I polish trophies and things... House-elf things, I suppose." Far above, over the entrance hall, the bells began to ring again, their sound rumbling and cascading down to echo through the corridor. "Oh! I have to get back to work now. Oggly is going to try teaching me elf magic for washing dishes."

"Shit, Dan, you don't have to run around like some fucking slave. Have some spine."

"But... Well, I can't stay here and talk, sempai, I have to go work. And you have class!"

"So fucking what?"

Dan glowered. "So you're going to go to class, Akutsu-sempai, and learn things!"

"Why the hell should I? I didn't want to come here, but some fucking twit I know thought it'd be 'cool'."

"You could have said no, sempai," Dan said quietly. "And if you really don't like it here, we can leave." He looked out at the kitchens wistfully.

"For fuck's sake." Akutsu snorted. "It's not that bad. Food's better than at home, I guess." He'd expected Dan to light up at that, and when he didn't, it was...definitely not a stab to the heart, nor any other sort of wound to his inner organs.

"I like it here," Dan whispered. "I have friends."

"Them?" he demanded incredulously. "Dammit, they're--" He stopped at the sad look Dan gave him. "Well, if you're so dead-set on it, it's not like I can fucking up and leave," he grumbled. "Your mother would kill me. My mother would kill me."

Then Dan smiled. "So you have to go to class, sempai! So you can learn things, and then you won't get thrown out!" Dan grabbed Akutsu's sleeve and pulled him out of the chair and towards the portrait door. "Go on, run or you'll be late!"

"You're not my fucking mother!"

"You have Charms tutoring in an hour, so spend it looking for the classroom! It's really complicated around here! Go! Run!"

"Fucking hell, I'm going! Fuck off!"

"That," said Niou, for the twentieth time, "was excellent."

"I must agree with you, Niou-kun," said Yagyuu, who was looking pleasantly shellshocked.

Atobe leaned across the aisle of desks. "Yukimura-kun, do what Niou and Yagyuu are rhapsodizing about."

Yukimura smiled wryly. "They just got out of Arithmancy class."

"Fucking excellent," Niou said again. "Did you see Inui-san's face?"

"Did you see Renji's?" Yagyuu replied.

"I did!" Niou said hysterically. "They looked--"

"--blissful--"

"--orgasmic."

"Aahn, I saw it on the electives list, but it didn't strike my fancy. What's it about?" Atobe asked, perching on the corner of Yukimura and Kirihara's desk.

"Numbers," answered Yagyuu, who was sitting directly behind Kirihara.

"Magic numbers!" Niou corrected.

"Mathematical formulas for magic."

"Beautiful ones."

"And theorums, Atobe-kun."

"Kami-sama save me, the theorums," Niou purred, clasping at his heart.

"Methinks," Yukimura whispered, leaning confidentially towards Atobe, "that Renji and Inui-kun were not the only ones experiencing mental ecstacy."

"Sempai," Kirihara said, twisting around in his seat, "it's just maths."

"No, Kirihara-kun," said Niou, more solemn than anyone in the room had ever seen him before. "No. It's not just maths. Yayguu. Paper, pen."

Yagyuu rummaged in his bag and produced a small notebook. "What are you doing?"

Niou ignored him and hunched over the notebook, pen gripped tightly. "Buchou, what rhymes with godly?"

The door swung open and everyone looked up--Akutsu slouched through and sat at the furthest desk from anyone, glowering. Yukimura smiled and waved in reply.

"We've got another student tutor, right?" Without waiting for a reply, Mukahi added, "Oh, and who else thought that Herbology was totally disgusting? All that..." He shuddered. "Dirt."

"I found it distasteful, to say the least," Atobe agreed.

"I quite liked it. I have my own garden at home." Atobe didn't like the way Yukimura was smiling now, so he moved off the desk and sat back down in his own seat.

The door slammed open again, and this time, a distracted-looking young lady with wildly-tousled blonde hair and a harried expression made for the teacher's desk, whereupon she dumped a load of books on it and turned towards the class.

"So you're it, then?" she asked. She spoke in a shrieking, hysterical tone. "Everyone must forgive me, I'm not having the best day." She gripped the edge of the teacher's desk with one hand until her knuckles turned white. There was a long pause. "If you must know," she burst out, tearfully, "my boyfriend was cheating on me all summer long with that bitch, Amanda Cornfoot! I'm sorry," she said immediately, clamping her sleeves to her eyes. "I should be concentrating on--" she broke off with a sob.

Atobe looked at Mukahi, next to him, then at Yukimura, across the aisle. Yukimura looked back and shrugged. He looked at Niou and Yagyuu--Niou shrugged too, and Yagyuu just pushed his glasses further up his nose.

Help came from an unexpected quarter.

"Oh my god, what a manwhore!"

Atobe froze and slowly turned his head just enough to the right that he could see Mizuki sitting somewhere by that wall, in one of the middle rows.

"You're better off without him," Mizuki added with conviction.

The tutor scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeves--Atobe grimaced slightly. How graceless. "I guess so. Anyway, um. Have I introduced myself yet?" She tugged on a bit of hair uncertainly. "No, right? Right. I'm Sabrina Fawcett, then. Professor Flitwick asked me to tutor you exchange students to help you catch up, since I'm taking my Charms NEWTs this year..." They'd heard pretty much the same speech from their Herbology tutor. "I'm looking at a career in Charm Development and Research with the Ministry." She nodded, gulped down another sob, and sniffled massively. "Let's get started, then. A simple Wingardium Leviosa. It makes light objects levitate--at first, you'll only be able to lift things like these feathers--" she flicked her wand and a beautiful snowy white downy feather flew to each student, "--but once you have more practice, you can lift bigger, heavier things. It's the first of the Nine Flight Charms--you'll learn others like Summoning and Banishing Charms later. If you'd all take out your wands?" She sniffled again, and rummaged in her pockets.

"Miss Fawcett?" Yagyuu asked. Atobe glanced back, then did a miniscule double-take and began vowing to himself that he would carry around a handkerchief as well from now on.

"Oh," she said, staring at Yagyuu. She scuffled forward and took the handkerchief from him with a mumbled, "Thank you," and proceeded to blow her nose thunderously.

"Feel free to borrow it until the next class," Yagyuu said.

Miss Fawcett's eyes watered up again. "I can just do a cleaning charm, you know...If you needed it."

"Don't say it, don't, don't," Niou hissed, barely audible.

Yagyuu ignored him. "It's no trouble," he told her.

Miss Fawcett burst into fresh tears, and Atobe decided that he loathed her with every particle of his being. After an interminable wait while she blubbered her way back to the teacher's desk, sobbing something incoherent about stupid boyfriends and perfect little gentlemen--who were too young for her, Atobe added disapprovingly--she at last directed them on how to perform the charm. First she had them practice the wrist movement with pencils--swish and flick, swish and flick, swish and flick. It brought to Atobe fond memories of swing reps. "Yours is very good," she told him. "And yours," she added to Mizuki. She flitted around the class, pointing out things like, "Um, perhaps not that...vehement?" to Akaya, and "No, lighter, more graceful," to Akutsu, and "Not that light!" to Mukahi. To Yagyuu, she inquired, "Why are you doing that?" when he dramatically swept his pencil instead of swishing.

"Ah," he answered. "My apologies. Old habits."

Presently, she deemed them ready to attempt the spell with their wands. "Remember something," she said. "The teachers don't think to tell you this, but magic is founded primarily on intent. When you're saying the words, you have to picture what you want to happen. And mean it. Please repeat after me--Wingardium leviosa! and then swish and flick."

"It twitched!" Kirihara shrieked. "It did! I saw it!"

"Good!" Miss Fawcett exclaimed--she seemed to have forgotten her woes, at least for the moment. "Try a bit more swish--go on."

The others stopped muttering and swishing and flicking so that they could watch. Kirihara set his shoulders with determination. "Wingardium leviosa!"

Personally, Atobe would have described the gesture as twirl-and-jab, rather than swish-and-flick. Nevertheless, he and his compatriots were most astonished when the feather rocketed so enthusiastically and so violently that it dented the plaster ceiling and stuck there for a few moments.

Kirihara was staring straight ahead with shock. A small, brief stream of plaster dust trickled onto the desk in front of him.

"Was that really a feather?" Mukahi murmured, in the silent moments afterward. The (probably) feather sailed gaily down and lit somewhere on the floor.

"And she has this freakish name that none of us can pronounce when we aren't near our language charms," Shishido said, finishing his summary of English tutoring. "No, wait up, we turned left at this passage, because the lake is that way."

"My most excellent prowess tells me that it would be less circuitous to take this hall down to the lawn."

"Well, your prowess can shove it," Mukahi grumbled. "I have to meet up with Yuushi. Haven't seen him all day."

"He'll be at dinner," Atobe pointed out.

"He has Arithmancy after Flying--we traded schedules at breakfast--so I'm going to sneak in and see why those Rikkai bastards are making such a fuss."

"I hear screaming," Shishido noted.

"Yes," said Atobe. "That means we're close."

"Did your prowess tell you that?"

"No, Shishido, it was one of the other voices," Mukahi corrected.

Shishido gasped sharply, tensing, then relaxed.

Atobe rolled his eyes; Mukahi snickered.

"You guys are so lame," Shishido informed them.

"We're not the ones jumping a foot in the air every time our doubles partner's broom moves."

"It looked like he really was going to fall that time!"

"Hardly," Atobe scoffed, leaning against a tree with what he knew was grace and poise. They stood (or, in Shishido and Mukahi's case, sat) at the edge of the lawn where their teammates, alongside Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw first-years, were having their second hour of Flying--free practice. "Ohtori-kun is more competent than you're giving him credit for, although that pivot just now was shameful."

"Come on, Yuushi!" Mukahi screeched. "Don't look so baffled! It's not rocket science! Even Shishido managed it, and he's nowhere close to being a genius!"

Shishido would have been mightily offended, but Ohtori had accidentally discovered how to dive. He'd leveled out plenty early, and was ascending again with a sheepish grin towards Madame Hooch. Shishido hadn't yet noticed the two enormous clumps of grass torn from the earth and still clamped in his hands.

"It's not just Oshitari who's looking baffled." Atobe smirked. "Look at Inui-kun."

Inui did indeed appear confounded, and they could just hear him calling, "But what makes it go, Renji? Consider Newton's First Law! Where is the outside force to change its motion? Fuji, this is illogical!" Fuji was orbiting Inui with joyous swoops.

"He creeps me out," said Mukahi. "Both of them." A moment later, "Aw, look at Jiroh."

"I'm trying not to," Shishido said tensely. "I keep thinking he's going to get over the novelty any moment."

"Sanada!" Atobe yelled. "That was an embarrassment!"

Sanada, high aloft, seemed inclined to agree: He descended closer to the ground and flew in large, careful circles with Yanagi and Jackal.

"He doesn't look too comfortable either."

"Of course he doesn't, Mukahi," Atobe said sagely. "Flying is not kendo, nor is it tennis. You ought to realize this now, before you disappoint yourself."

"I spend enough time with my feet off the ground in a match that it's not that different," Mukahi retorted.

Atobe snorted, turned his attention back to the lesson. "Kikumaru-kun is very--"

"Don't talk to me about that twit!" Mukahi snarled.

Shishido started violently.

"He only turned," Mukahi scoffed. "Be a little less of a stalker."

Sanada was having trouble.

There were only two reasons that he had agreed to sign up for Divination. The first was sitting across the small, round table, drinking his assigned cup of tea and looking agreeably bored.

The second was that the word "please" had been involved. Yukimura had only needed to say it once.

And, he thought morosely, it wasn't even very good tea.

Yukimura drained his cup, grimaced, and set it upside down on the saucer, as they had been instructed. "So, Ibu-kun," he said, turning to their table-mate, "are you enjoying classes?"

"Everyone is, but I think that we should have stayed in Japan where there was tennis. At least Tachibana-san is here. He seems to be having a good time. I wonder how his Flying lesson was. I'll have to sneak over to his table during dinner and talk to him, but when I did that at breakfast people scowled at me. I wonder why they did that. He's my buchou, after all, and we're friends--they don't expect me to stop speaking to him because we were sorted into different houses, do they? The house system is stupid, but Fuji-san and Tezuka-san were both assigned to mine, so I guess it can't be as bad as the rest of them. Yukimura-san seems to have gotten into an evil house of annoying people who I don't want to play tennis with... they'd probably kill me before match point..."

Sanada tried to express to Yukimura, using only the power of eye-to-eye communication, that he shouldn't pay any attention whatsoever to Ibu-kun, but Yukimura just gave him a concerned frown and asked, "Sanada, are you in pain?"

"Of course he's in pain, we had to fly immediately after lunch. I was nauseated... who uses brooms, anyway? Haven't they developed any further technology? At least he flew better than Yanagi-san. He looked bemused by the whole thing, I think he'd rather travel in a way more reliable than flying--a good gust of wind and we'd've been knocked right off our brooms..."

One of their two tutors--the one who resembled, to Sanada, the woman who owned the restaurant with the best curry in Kanegawa--came to sit at the fourth chair at the table. "I'm Parvati, in case you forgot," she said, with a wide, shiny smile at Sanada. He stared solemnly at his teacup. "You can probably turn them up now, and pass them to your left." They did so--Sanada took Yukimura's, Yukimura got Ibu's, and Ibu received Sanada's. Sanada looked askance at the gobs of tea leaves in the bottom of Yukimura's cup.

"And now we..." Sanada trailed off.

"Interpret them," Parvati said helpfully, playing with the end of her long plait. "You know. Like how sometimes people look for shapes in the clouds? And then you look up the meanings of the shapes in your book."

"I see," said Yukimura.

"Who wants to go first?" said Parvati, and looked around the small table. She smiled brightly at Sanada again. "How about you, Genichirou? Can I call you that?" He must have looked borderline-scandalized, because she giggled and said, "Oh, sorry, sorry. They said you lot might be iffy about the names. No worries. Go on, then." She nodded to Yukimura's cup in Sanada's hands, and smiled again.

Sanada wasn't sure he was entirely comfortable with that smile. Nevertheless, he looked into the cup again and tried to find pictures. "That one looks like a tennis ball."

"Well, I am planning on getting the team out for practice tomorrow," Yukimura said, nodding and smiling back at Parvati.

Sanada frowned more deeply and looked in again. "And... a moving tennis ball."

"What else could it be?" Parvati asked.

He blinked at her.

"Maybe a comet?" she prompted.

"Hn." He twisted the cup to one side and peered. "And towards the bottom, some blob."

"Here, let me help," Parvati said, dragging her chair closer to Sanada's and leaning so close that her breasts brushed lightly against his arm. "That's an hourglass," she said, pointing to the wiggly thing. "And also a star. Here's a ring--next to it is either an S or a wave or a snake--it's not clear yet. There's a coffin and a pair of scissors, but a little further on there's an acorn and a little evergreen."

Sanada stared into the cup again. "I just see lumps of tea."

Parvati giggled and pushed her chair back to its original place. "It takes a lot of practice," she admitted. "Now, interpret it, please. Ibu--look up the ring and that S-slash-snake-slash-wave; Sanada, the hourglass, coffin, scissors, and evergreen; Yukimura--the star, acorn, and comet."

Sanada sighed a very small sigh, and began to dutifully flick through the dictionary of symbols. "A comet, you said?" Yukimura asked absently.

"And a tennis ball."

"Well, we already did that one. It was obvious. Comets are..." Yukimura flicked a few pages--Parvati's mouth was shut tight, as if she was trying to keep from saying something. "Misfortune and trouble. Well, I get that from Akaya and Niou every day, so that's not much of a surprise, is it?" he asked, laughing.

"Ibu, what have you found out?" Parvati asked, sitting her chin on one hand.

"The ring is for marriage, and if the wiggly line is an S, than it's one of the initials--"

"Either the given name or the surname," Parvati pointed out.

"But if it's a snake, then it's for illness, and if it's a wave, it stands for a loss."

"Pretty good. At least you have the happy ring," said Parvati, smiling at Yukimura. "What else do you have?"

"The star is a good luck symbol," Yukimura read, pointing at a line in his textbook, "and the acorn is an improvement in health."

"Good! More happy signs--but the acorn came after the coffin, which means...?"

"A long sickness," Sanada muttered.

"But I've already had that," said Yukimura.

Sanada wished Yukimura wouldn't remind him of it. "The scissors are supposed to mean illness too, or a separation of... lovers." He glared at the book.

"And the evergreen?" Parvati asked

Sanada turned back a few pages. "Continuous happiness."

"Not a bad cup, on the whole," she said. "You've got your mix of good and bad--I'd stay out of damp weather, just in case. You wouldn't believe how dragonpox gets around during the winter. Let's go on to Sanada's cup."

An hour later, Sanada shuffled out of the classroom and took huge, clearing breaths of the free air. "It was a little stifling in there, wasn't it?" Yukimura asked, coming out behind him and fanning his face with one hand, and then, when that wasn't efficient enough, with his Divination notes. "How did you like it?"

"I didn't," Sanada replied, stiffly.

"Oh, don't be like that," Yukimura said, companionably linking elbows with him and guiding him to stroll down the corridor. "It's just a bit of fun for you and I. Fluffs up the schedule, you know? We won't have to spend time studying or anything, so there will be more time for tennis, right?"

"It's dull."

"But you predicted my plans for tomorrow at dawn exactly!" Yukimura said, faux-shocked. "You must have heaps and heaps of natural talent!"

Sanada snorted. "How were your other classes?"

"Excellent in every way. I saw the first hour of your flying lesson."

"Yukimura, I am prepared to take whatever punishment you deem necessary."

His captain laughed, and it echoed, ringing bright against the stone walls. "It was your first day," he said solemnly, while his eyes danced. "I'm prepared to forgive the team just this once."

"You are a kind and benevolent captain." Sanada nodded seriously.

Yukimura smiled and bumped their shoulders together. "Let's go down for dinner."

Thanks to everyone who has been reading, and even more thanks to commenters--you make my day!