Okay. 

Okay. There's only so many things that an open textbook and a paper and an inkwell can be for. He can copy, he writes slowly but he can look at a word on a page and write it down even if he doesn't know what it means. The hour ticks by.

Sasha finishes copying the page after around forty-five minutes, then sets the quill down and stretches out his fingers. He probably shouldn't try to sleep here, getting in the habit of sleeping in desks whenever he's done with notes is a bad idea, but it's not like there's anything else to do and he's so tired — he presses his fingernails into his hands, forces himself to stay awake. Kennilworthy already thinks he doesn't care, he doesn't want to make that worse. He pulls out a Charms textbook and looks for words that Flitwick put on the board that afternoon, copies out sentences that probably have nothing to do with each other but are better than turning in nothing. 

He'll still be doing that by the time Kennilworthy gets back. 

Kennilworthy is gone for nearly the entire time. He comes back dripping wet and with singed sleeves, muttering to himself about how much he hates poltergeists. 

He inspects Sasha's copied page and seems to be satisfied with it, then glances at the clock and notices how late it is. "Good lord, look at the time. Well, I'd better let you go; it's almost lights out." 

"Time" and "lights out" is enough to tell him what that meant. He nods at Kennilworthy and smiles and collects his things and goes. 

He could probably just sleep out here somewhere, there must be tucked-away places where he wouldn't be seen, it wouldn't be impossible — but it's not a good idea. He goes back to his common room, intending to keep working on homework like he usually does at night, and instead curls up in one of the chairs that's not so close to the fireplace that other people will want it but not so far away that he'll freeze, and sleeps through the night. 

He's woken up in the morning when someone tips his chair over, sending him sprawling onto the ground. 

Lesson learned. He won't try doing that again. 

It's been two weeks. Christopher has befriended—or at least had friendly conversations with—three of the other four boys in his dorm, and two of the Slytherin girls. He's still cultivating a friendship with Cedric, but one compared to five isn't enough. He needs more non-Slytherin friends. 

Accordingly, he starts paying more attention to the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors they share classes with, aiming to have at least one friend from each house by the end of the week. He still talks to his housemates enough to avoid offending them, but he's distracted by his new goal and paying less attention than he might have been. 

The Ravenclaws are friendly enough — their help in class tends more theoretical than Cedric's did, which would be helpful if they had Transfiguration together but is somewhat less so in Herbology — but trying to get a Gryffindor to talk civilly to a Slytherin during Potions is like pulling teeth. 

Of course it is.

He'll work on it. 

He's not actually desperate enough to try spending the night in the halls. Yet. It's almost certainly a matter of time.

Weekends are great for catching up on lost sleep — it's still warm enough that most people go outside in their free time, which leaves the castle empty enough that he can stay in corners or unused classrooms and have nobody bother him, and there's no need to be anywhere in particular — which makes it easier to avoid his housemates during the day.

He still sees them at mealtimes and in the evenings. He's started hearing the word Mudblood more often, now, still in that same tone of voice, still with that same sneer; it's coming from the older students, not the people in his own year. He pretends not to hear, pretends not to notice, pretends not to care. It's not like he's not already aware that they could hurt him if they wanted to, he doesn't need it demonstrated. 

It's not just the Slytherins, either: a Gryffindor girl tries to trip him; a boy shoves him forward while he's walking down a staircase. Sasha sticks to staircases that don't get used as often, sticks to strange roundabout routes to wherever he needs to go. That week it's a miracle he gets to all of his classes on time — Professor McGonagall frowns disapprovingly and asks him a question he doesn't catch more than two words of, but she moves on to the next student when he just looks blank. 

Christopher might notice some of this and be concerned, but this week he's not paying much more attention to his housemates than is necessary to maintain the friendships he's trying to build. By now it's common knowledge in their dorm that Mikhailov is Muggleborn, but it's still easy to write him off as a loner who doesn't care about classes. 

At the end of the week, Christopher has befriended a couple of Ravenclaw girls and thinks one or two of the Gryffindors might be getting as far as 'not actively hostile'. It helps that he's not that good at Potions, so he doesn't give Snape many opportunities for blatant favouritism.

Blatant favoritism might be the only reason he's scraping by — that, and being able to watch and copy what other students are doing. 

It's not impossible to keep up, in most of his classes. He has plenty of time to do homework at night, he can get some of the practical work done by watching his classmates. It isn't that it's just not doable — he could manage, if he could concentrate, if his hands didn't shake so much, if his eyes would focus and stay focused. If he didn't occasionally notice himself staring blankly forward with no memory of the last five, ten, fifteen minutes. (He pinches himself alert every thirty seconds in Defense, in Potions. One detention is enough, and there's already been one explosion this year.) 

...did the weird loner just pinch himself?

Christopher pays slightly more attention to Mikhailov for the rest of Potions and manages to catch him doing it again by the end of the lesson. It's not worrying, exactly, but it's a piece of a puzzle he can't immediately fit with what he knows, so he's thinking about it while walking to their next class. 

Mikhailov hasn't been sleeping in the dorms. Hasn't been spending his nights there since the first day, in fact. Maybe he's not getting enough sleep; that would explain the pinching, and why he's been paying even less attention in class.

That...probably isn't Christopher's problem, and he can't think of a good way to solve it right now anyway. He doesn't know Mikhailov well enough to talk to him about his problems yet, and besides, this is Slytherin. He can't just offer to help without wanting anything in return, or he'll look like he's trying to trick the other kid into owing him a favour. It might be worth it for something more serious if he had an easy solution, but this isn't and he doesn't.

He'll be mentally poking at it for the next few days, though, like a loose tooth. 

If he's paying attention, he'll be able to catch Sasha pressing his thumbnails into the pads of his fingers and biting down on his lower lip in other classes — he's trying to keep to things that are hard to notice, but he can only bite his tongue so hard and so many times before he causes actual damage. Astronomy is cold enough that he doesn't have to do anything to keep himself awake, and he doesn't bother to try in History of Magic where half of the class is nodding off anyway but his eyes fall closed more quickly than any of his classmates'. 

He's getting the hang of the moving staircases; the ones he prefers to use, on tucked-away routes that get less traffic, move more often, but it's a small price to pay to not have to worry as much about being pushed down them. It's not like he never falls, sometimes he's distracted and tired enough that he trips over his own feet, but there are fewer bruises than he'd have expected if you'd asked him two weeks ago, and almost all of them are on his legs and torso where they're barely any effort at all to hide. He hasn't slept in the common room again, has tried curling up under his bed during free periods but decided it was easier to just stay under a library table. 

Most of the other Slytherin first years barely pay attention to him anymore, and although the curly haired blonde (Parsons, right?) has been watching him for the last couple of days when he wasn't doing that before, Parsons isn't trying to approach him or ask him for anything, hasn't tried to hurt him yet. There's plenty of food here, so much of it that he's stopped worrying about what happens if someday there isn't. He turns in his homework and doesn't worry about what his teachers will think of the quality anymore. It's getting easier not to worry, or maybe he's just too tired to worry about anything he doesn't have to. Either way it's easier to deal with, now. 

He wanted to make friends with the loner anyway. He can do that even without trying to jump in and solve all this kid's problems straight away, right? 

The problem is, having gone this long without interacting with Mikhailov, it's hard to find a way to start without looking suspicious. Christopher spends a few days waiting for a natural opportunity to talk to him, without success. 

He has a nightmare one night and wakes up shaking and sweating. He sits up, still breathing hard, and looks around the darkened room for something, anything to distract him from the all-too-vivid image of himself as a new Dark Lord, facing down his own father at wand-point. 

He's already slipped back into the dorm, gotten dressed, and collected his books for the next day, and is sitting on his bed. 

When Parsons sits up, obviously frightened of something, Sasha sits up straighter, moves just enough to make it obvious that he's awake. 

Another person: the best possible distraction. Moving slowly so he doesn't wake anyone else, Christopher gets out of bed and wraps himself in a blanket before going over to Mikhailov. 

"You're awake early," he comments softly. 

"I....am always." Each word sounds hesitant. 

Shrug. "I never noticed before." He pauses, considers.

Eh, it can't hurt. "Wanna talk about it?" 

He catches noticed and want to talk and the rising pitch at the end, which is enough.  

"I do homework. Most nights." 

"Oh." That...doesn't fit with any of the puzzle pieces he has so far. He was right; this is a great distraction. 

"...why?" 

"I…" 

It isn't like Parsons hasn't heard the others. 

"I cannot sleep here." 

Yeah, he thought so. Why not is reasonably obvious—Mikhailov's worried about bullies, and not without good reason. Slytherin doesn't exactly have a reputation of being safe for Muggle-born students, let alone welcoming. 

"Where do you sleep?" Christopher asks, instead, since that's one he can't guess. 

He catches "where do," which is all he really needs to. 

He is not, in fact, stupid, whatever it might seem like to his teachers. He doesn't answer that question. 

…he realizes after a couple of seconds that this could, if Parsons was inclined to see it that way, look like a challenge, and if it comes down to any kind of actual conflict then he'll lose. 

He lowers his eyes, keeps his hands open and where Parsons can see them, lets himself curl slightly inwards and lets some of the fear show on his face. You could hurt me, I know you could hurt me, so you don't have to actually hurt me. 

He sees the fear and winces, realising his mistake almost immediately. As far as this kid's concerned, he's no less of a threat than the others. 

"Sorry, it's fine, you don't have to answer that." 

He keeps his head ducked but looks up at Parsons' face. He doesn't look angry. Sasha still keeps the posture he has, not-a-challenge-not-a-threat. 

Subject change, subject change...oh!

"What d'you think of Hogwarts so far, anyway?" Christopher asks. He quickly checks the others are still asleep, then fake-casually adds, "Not much like Muggle school, is it?" Tone sympathising, saying I know that feeling, not mocking.