...this isn't (not home not home) there. People are rich here. Their hospitals won't be like — 

"Please?" 

"Okay. It's this way."

On his dad's advice, Christopher has memorised how to get to the hospital wing from any of his classes. He stays on Mikhailov's right so no-one can bump into him on that side and hurt his hand worse. 

That's good of him. Sasha's very very quiet; he keeps his hand as still as he can. 

The hospital wing isn't empty of other students when they get there. It very rarely is. 

He gets the matron's attention and tries to pretend he hasn't noticed a Slytherin girl from their year watching curiously from one of the beds as he explains what he knows about the injury. 

He's very good at pretending he hasn't noticed things, by now. 

Parsons doesn't know what happened; he doesn't know how to explain in English. He keeps his right hand as still as he can and pretends to be following the explanation. 

Madam Pomfrey grabs Sasha's hand and inspects it closely, prodding it for breaks. She tuts, then waves her wand at it while muttering "Episkey!" several times in succession. The bones snap back into place one at a time, with an almost painful hot-and-cold sensation. 

"How many bones did he break?" Christopher wonders out loud.

"You can be quiet while I'm working or you can leave. Episkey!" 

He squeezes his eyes closed and doesn't flinch doesn't move bites his lip and keeps perfectly still. 

After another round of prodding, Madam Pomfrey pronounces him healed and tells them to get out and go back to class. 

"Is your hand alright now?" 

He nods. 

"...thank you." 

They're out in the hallway now, and there's no-one around, so he can smile and say, "You're welcome. Thank you for letting me help."

It feels good to have accomplished something, anything, even if it's nowhere near enough. 

...a cautious, tentative smile. 

Smiles all around! But now they should stop smiling and start walking or they'll be late to their next class. 

In his head, Christopher moves Aleksander Mikhailov into the mental box marked 'friends'. He's the only Slytherin in there so far; the rest are either filed under 'allies' or 'pretend you don't think they're evil'. This feels like another small victory, as does the smile.

A day or two later, in one of their free periods, Christopher goes to the library. He's a little disappointed it took him this long to think of checking whether they had any books in Russian.

Madam Pince, when asked, isn't optimistic, but she bustles off to look for some anyway. He waits. 

The Hogwarts library is mostly English; some Latin, some French, but not much else. The only Russian books on the shelves are a two-part treatise on potionmaking, 800 pages in total and written more than a hundred years ago, and half of a volume on wandmaking (the other half is, inexplicably, in French.) 

If Christopher looks around while he's waiting, he might be able to see Sasha curled up under a table. 

...huh. So that's where he sleeps. Or at least one of the places. 

Christopher casually leans on a table near Mikhailov and watches out for anyone getting too close. 

A Gryffindor boy (the same one who broke Mikhailov's hand the first time, not that Christopher would know that) who looks like maybe a third or fourth year approaches, not particularly purposeful about it. 

There's a decent chance he'll be scared off just by a Slytherin trying to talk to him. Well, not scared, not of a lone first-year, but something close to it. Gryffindors. 

"Hi." 

"Hi." He doesn't look scared; if he looks anything, it's contemptuous. 

That's fine, 'scared' isn't the goal. He goes into making-friends mode; either the other kid will back off so he doesn't get associated with a Slytherin, or he'll finally have a Gryffindor friend. 

"I'm Christopher Parsons," he says, plastering a smile on his face and acting like there's nothing at all strange about what he's doing. "What's your name?"