"I don't want to sound cheap, Professor, but what will this cost? We can afford regular private school tuition - couldn't for all of them, but we can as long as the rest of 'em don't all turn out magic - but if you guys are the best magical school in Britain that might imply things about your price point."

     She laughs. "No, no - we're very generously subsidized by the Ministry of Magic. Tuition plus room and board are free, and the shopping list amounts to about five hundred American dollars per year. No one wants untrained wizards and witches running around."

"That does sound like it'd get pretty dangerous," Daddy Michael admits. "Um. That being the case, how do you deal with families who don't want their kids going to boarding school?"

     "There are magical tutors. You wouldn't go to them if you wanted the best education for your child, but in cases where the family is really recalcitrant, they can be engaged."

He breathes a sigh of relief. "I was worried you were gonna say something about - wizard CPS turning us into frogs, or something."

     "We try not to turn anyone into anything," the witch says primly. "If you failed to provide your wizard child with any formal education, naturally we would involve ourselves, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're thinking of?"

"I'm not thinking of anything," Daddy Michael clarifies hastily. "Just getting a feel for how all this works."

"Don't scare the nice witch, Dad."

"I'm not! I'm not!"

     She chuckles indulgently. "Any further questions?"

"Do you have - I feel like a tool, but. Brochures, pamphlets, anything like that?"

     "Yes, let me-" She reaches into one of the deep pockets of her robe and pulls out a small stack of thick vellumy paper, which she places on the coffee table. "There you go. Anything specific you were wondering?"

Joey picks one up himself, and starts leafing through, then makes an undignified squeaking sound and drops it back on the table.

     "Oh, yes, the pictures move, I should've warned you," the witch says nonchalantly.

He picks it back up. "Cool," he breathes. "Um, okay, so the core subjects are - Transfiguration, Charms, Potions... Herbology? Enchantment, History of Magic, Healing, Defense against the Dark Arts- is that, um, a common problem for wizards, the Dark Arts and defending against them-"

     "Ah, not a common problem, but common enough that we wouldn't want anyone to run into it unprepared."

"Oh, that makes sense. I'm guessing Transfiguration is how you turned the mug into a mouse? Just going off word roots."

     "Yes, Transfiguration is the art of turning one thing into another. Charms covers common spells, Potions and Healing and History are fairly obvious, Enchantment is the art of creating magical objects, Herbology is the study of magical plants, and Defense covers both the study of Dark creatures and spells to defend oneself in magical combat."

"Cool, magical combat. Hopefully I'm better at that than I am at Tae Kwon Do."

"I don't know if you could realistically be worse."

"Thanks, Daddy, I knew there was a reason Daddy Jordan was my favorite and I just could not put my finger on it."

For this comment, Joey receives an intense and remorseless hair-tousling.

     Professor Suliman clears her throat.

Daddy Michael remembers his audience and tries to stifle a chuckle. "Ahem. I did notice that there's no... math, science, English, the common core requirements?"

     "Yes, if you are particularly interested in Muggle subjects then there are student study groups within Hogwarts and you can of course find tutors over the holidays."

"Understood," Daddy Michael says. "Well, I expect Joey will keep up with... at least English... and Arthur can hammer the rest into him during the summer."

     "Arthur being your eldest?" she asks. "Most professions in the Wizarding World do not require any particular proficiency in those subjects, you understand - this would only be relevant if he chose to return to Muggle life in adulthood."

"I understand that magic is more important to you folks, but I'll be more comfortable if my son knows what an electron is by the time he's twenty."

"I know what an electron is now, Daddy."

"You understand what I'm getting at, though? I want you to know everything you would've if you'd never heard of, uh, Hogwarts. I don't want this to take anything away from you."

"I get it, yeah. I don't want to be dumb either."

"You're never gonna be dumb, Joey. Just keep working as hard as you can, okay?"

"Okay. Uh, I think that's all, Miss - Professor Suliman."

     She nods and stands up. "Well, Mr. Reed, it was lovely to meet you, and Joseph, I very much look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts."

"Same to you, Professor."

     And she spins around and, with a loud crack, vanishes into thin air.

Joey and his daddy are left sitting by the coffee table, a mug of cooling tea sitting on its surface. Joey stands up and stretches, producing a litany of ungodly crackling sounds.

"Christ, my joints don't sound like that, where do you get off?"

"I probably have extra-crackly wizard bones."

There's a family meeting that night. Everybody's there, except Finn, who can't meaningfully participate because he's two, and would be cranky to miss his bedtime. Daddy Michael explains the situation: Joey has some kind of magic, and- 

     "Sorcery!" Dylan crows excitedly. "I knew it!"

          "He's not a sorcerer," Arthur says severely. "He's just - what actually are you, Joey?"

"Wizard," Joey mumbles.

          "He's a wizard," Arthur says. "...the distinction admittedly seems kind of academic."

               "Is that how you did that-" Gil makes an explosion noise and gestures broadly. "Thing? On the London trip?"

"It wasn't really a-" Joey makes a smaller explosion noise, "thing. But, um, yeah."

"And he's going to have to learn to control his magic. So he's going off to boarding school. In Britain."

     "What?!"

          "No!"

               "Why?!"

"Nobody likes this," Daddy Michael says firmly, "but it's the only way. The lady came all the way from Scotland to tell us about this school, and they say it's one of the best in the world."

     "Everybody says their school is the best," Jake says, folding his arms. "Couldn't he go to the best school in LA?"

Daddy Michael sighs. "It's- complicated. Wizards don't follow the same rules that we do, and apparently they consider Joey legally a British national because of the London incident."

          "Is it an incident when you set people on fire now?" Nathan wonders.

               "But-" Ben has tears in his eyes. That's not unusual. "Family has to stick together! Nobody gets left behind!"

"We're not leaving him behind. He'll be home for Christmas and summer break. But it's important that he learn to control this. What if the next person who - gets on the wrong side of an incident - doesn't do so well? Besides, don't you want your brother to have the best opportunities he can?"

               "I want my brother," Ben wails.

Joey lets out a strangled noise, leaps off the couch and runs up the stairs.

     "No, Joey, wait-" Arthur shouts as he disappears upstairs.

          "He moves fast," Gil muses. "Is that a wizard thing?" Arthur glares at him.

"Okay, that's my cue to go make sure he's okay. I know this isn't going to be easy," Daddy Michael says to the assembled family members, standing up. "But - it's gonna happen anyway. And it's not going to help Joey if we get messed up about it. So - I'm not saying we can't be sad, just, remember that he didn't choose this."

And he ascends the stairs, leaving the rest of his kids to talk amongst themselves, and Daddy Jordan to calm Ben down.

Ben is talked down pretty quickly, still sniffling but no longer sobbing.

Joey's in his and Ezra's room, predictably; the door isn't locked but it is closed. When Michael opens it he turns, obviously having been crying himself.

"It really sucks that I'm getting to go back to Britain and I'm not even excited," he says morosely.

"Yeah," Daddy Michael sighs, and scoops him into a hug. "I'm sure it won't be that bad once you get used to it, but getting used to it is probably gonna suck."

"Great pep talk, Dad," Joey mumbles into his father's shoulder. "I feel infinitely better."

He does, actually, feel somewhat better. Hugs are good for that.

Daddy Michael tousles his hair apologetically. "I think by the time you come home for Christmas you'll be fine. It's just about - getting there."

"Yeah," Joey sighs. "Just- wish I didn't have to get there. And that Ezra was a wizard too - it's gonna be. Weird. Not having him around."

"I know. You can do whatever it is wizards do instead of phone calls about it, but. I know."

"Maybe it's compatible with hugs." He doesn't sound very hopeful.

"You're gonna be great," Daddy Michael says, instead of engaging with that. Then he relinquishes the hug, after a final squeeze, and puts Joey back down on his own two feet. "Wanna come back down? We're gonna watch The Sword in the Stone. To - commemorate the occasion."

"I think I'm all out of family time juice right now. Have fun, though."

"...Okay. Feel better, okay kiddo?"

Then he heads downstairs to rouse everyone and have a TV night.

At some point in the evening, Ezra slips away from the press of siblings and makes his way upstairs to their shared room.

They talk. There's some crying.

"-I don't want to - not have you - but I can't not have this - it's awful I hate it we were gonna do middle school together - please don't be mad -" "I'm not -" "-if I could share I would -" "-I'm not mad -"

Eventually Joey is just crying with his head in Ezra's lap, and it doesn't feel good but it feels familiar, like home boiled down into one thing, and he'd better start stocking up on that feeling now, before he's on the other side of the planet in Scotland learning to do stupid magic.

"It's- I said this to Dad but it's the most messed-up thing that I'm not happy about this," he mumbles. "This should be so cool."

Ezra says something soothing. Ezra always knows what to say. He's not going to have Ezra in Scotland. He cries some more, and eventually falls asleep.

He wakes up with the sun shining on his face. Ezra's in the bunk above him, and for a second he thinks he dreamed it all. But it doesn't feel like it was a dream, and he's still wearing yesterday's clothes, and even though Ezra seems to have wiped his face clean (thank you Ezra) he can tell he went to sleep crying.

Well, he's not going to start the day by crying. Seriously, screw that. He's going to start his day by showering, and then having some cereal, and then Ezra's awake and they can go swimming. And then he can paint with Gil, and play blocks with Ben, and try to play soccer with Arthur and Nathan, and-

This sort of world-defying attitude, of goddammit I will have FUN, lasts for another week. Then Daddy Michael and Daddy Jordan sit him and Ezra down and explain, mostly to Ezra, that they know it's going to be hard but they've looked at the way the money works and the family just can't move to Scotland. And he realizes that Ezra's been asking them to move to Scotland for him - that he knows how Joey really feels and he's been trying desperately to find a way around the way the world is and it just isn't working - he cries some more. They hug him.

He still tries to have fun after that, but a little less manically, and he leaves himself time to be sad too. The Reeds read the list of stuff he needs for Hogwarts, and take a day trip to a magical village on the outskirts of Sacramento, where they purchase most of the list and get him enough wizarding currency to buy in Scotland what he can't get in America.

After some reassurances from a pet shop employee, Daddy Michael also buys him a bird. She's called a faegrecrawe, and she's lovely - she looks like an oilslick-rainbow grackle with a single peacock eye on her tail, but she makes a sound like a finger on a wineglass. The shopkeeper tells him that the species averages about as intelligent as a Kneazle, whatever that is, but this particular specimen is unusual even for a faegre. She'll live thirty years without a significant upset, so he warns them not to buy casually.

"I'm Joey," he says, marveling at her shimmering colors. "I'm gonna call you Thalia. She's my favorite Muse."

     "Joey," she repeats musically, and nuzzles his index finger, then ducks to preen. "Nice to meet Joey," she says around a pinfeather. "Nice to be Thalia."

"Okay, when he said 'smart' I didn't know he meant that smart," Daddy Michael says with some concern. "You be nice to that bird."

"Of course I will," Joey says indignantly.

     "Bite Joey if mean," Thalia comments.

"And I'll apparently have help. Thank you, Thalia."

Time keeps passing. (It's notorious for that.) Joey and Ezra walk downstairs the morning before he's scheduled to leave, Thalia riding Joey's shoulder, only to find the entire family gathered under a colorful banner reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY EZRA AND JOEY.

     "Surprise!" They don't shout it, because Joey's sensitive about loud noises and it'd be a pretty sucky way to start off a birthday to give him an anxiety attack. Still, everybody's enthusiastic about it, even Finn who isn't talking very coherently yet and Ben who's up really early for him.

"It's - it's not our birthday yet!" Joey laughs.

     Arthur shakes his head with great dignity. "No, but under the circumstances we decided to make an exception. Don't make a habit of it." He pauses. "If you do make a habit of it we'll forgive you. Under the circumstances."

"You absolute dork-" Joey hugs his eldest brother. Then he makes the rounds to hug everyone else, Ezra following behind him.

There's two cakes. One’s got pale pink marzipan encasing jam-separated layers of fudgy chocolate cake, with JOEY piped on top; the other is a relatively conventional cookies-and-cream ice cream cake, but much nicer than something you’d get at Baskin-Robbins or even Cold Stone, with EZRA in bubble letters.

“These are so nice,” Joey says, slightly suspicious.

"We wanted to make this birthday good enough to make up for... all the other stuff," Daddy Michael says. "And even if it can't make up for all of it, hey, it's a good party."

For this, Daddy Michael gets a hug.

Cake is eaten (for breakfast, but if you can't have cake for breakfast on your not-actually birthday when can you have it?). Presents are opened. Joey gets a big pile of books, as usual - his brothers know him too well - and a personalized teddy bear from Clarice - who also knows him too well but more embarrassingly - and...

He hefts the last package consideringly. It's heavy, and cubical, and wrapped in newsprint-patterned wrapping paper. He rips it open. Inside is a leather case, which opens up to reveal a typewriter.

"It's... beautiful. Why?"

"Professor Suliman said they use quills at Hogwarts, which would be a nightmare with your dysgraphia. And she also said electronics don't work there. But that typewriter's totally mechanical - nothing's going to interfere with it except maybe a paper jam. The manual's in there, and you'll figure it out in no time."

Further hugs are clearly required.

Ezra opens his own corresponding present, which turns out to be a camera and a bottle of some unidentified purple liquid. He looks quizzically at Daddy Michael, the Explaining Things Parent.

"Joey's going away, but we can send letters. And pictures, with the letters - and wizards can make their pictures move, with that potion. We've got a subscription to a potion service now, and they'll send us a bottle of it every month, and we want you to take a bunch of pictures so he's not missing as much, okay?"

Ezra nods seriously. Michael ruffles his hair.

The rest of the birthday is fun and totally exhausting, and Ezra takes a bunch of pictures even though Joey keeps telling him to put the camera down and have fun because it's his birthday too, and Joey flumps into bed at 9:00 tired and happy and barely even thinking about the fact that the next day he's going to go to Scotland and he won't see his family again for months.

This lasts until he wakes up and showers and goes downstairs and Professor Suliman is sitting in the living room with a cup of tea in one hand, absently twitching her wand to manipulate a set of enchanted knitting needles, and chatting with Daddy Jordan while he feeds Finn.

     "Joseph," she says genially. "Are you packed?"

"Yes, ma'am," he says in a very small voice.

     "Well, I'll give you 'til noon to say your goodbyes - I'm sure you've got a lot of them - and then you can come back down with your luggage and we'll get going."

So Joey retreats upstairs and goes into Ben and Dylan's room to say goodbye to them, and there's hugging and a promise to bring them candy for Christmas, and he goes into Gil and Jake's room to say goodbye to them, and there's hugging and they claim they'll be good while he's gone, and he goes into Arthur and Nathan's room to say goodbye to them, and there's hugging and a brief lecture from Arthur on how he really has to keep up with his schoolwork, not just the English but all of it, all while Nathan makes jackoff motions behind his back, and he knocks on Clarice's door and she runs out in her sleeping sweats and hugs him and tells him to have as much fun as he possibly can, and to send her testimony from at least one of his roommates that he's set up the teddy bear in a place of honor and not just hidden it away in his luggage, and then he goes back into his room and hugs Ezra until about 11:30 and cries on him some more, then he double-checks he packed everything and hugs Ezra one last time and takes his giant suitcase and Thalia’s cage downstairs.

His daddies are waiting with Professor Suliman, and he hugs them one last time and gives Finn a kiss on the forehead and turns to Professor Suliman, looking desperately unhappy.

     She looks at him with a lofty sort of sympathy. "I do think you'll like it at Hogwarts."

"Morituri te salutant," he says petulantly.

     At this, she coughs out a surprised little laugh, then puts her hand over her mouth. "You'll especially like Professor Jenkins, I think," she says. "Or at least he'll like you. Or you'll kill each other."

Then she takes his arm and turns on the spot, and there's a loud crack, and they're gone.

They land, after a very disorienting few seconds, in what looks like a very old, very fancy train station, with roaring green fireplaces along the walls with various robed figures entering and exiting the flames.

"That... is very cool," Joey admits.

     "Isn't it just?" Professor Suliman says, leading him to a baggage handling area. "Just put your suitcase on that rune - good. Now, we'll need to Floo to Labrador for the next leg of the trip - just stand in front of the fireplace and clearly say 'Hopedale Station,' then step on in."

"And Thalia and I won't catch on fire? That's very important to me."

     "No, no - make sure to keep the birdcage in front of you and your arms around it, but that's the only danger, there's a persistent Flame-Freezing Charm on the fire when it isn't Floo-capable."

"I have no idea what that means," Joey says, "but you seem to, and I think that's what matters."

     "Indeed. Just follow my lead," she says, and walks up to the nearest fireplace and states "Hopedale station!" The flames flare green, and she steps through.

Joey steps up, shakes his head vigorously, says "Hopedale station!" and walks in.

It's less disorienting than the earlier teleportation was. He feels like he's falling, which he doesn't love, but it's not like he's being aggressively compressed, which he liked even less. After a while he lands, and stumbles out the other side, clutching a complaining Thalia.

     Professor Suliman awaits him, and she beckons him after her. "From here we'll take a series of Portkeys," she says.

"Words, words, words," Thalia comments.

Portkeys turn out to be a class of small enchanted objects that teleport people with yet another entirely distinct unpleasant sensation. They take four of them, from Labrador to Greenland to Iceland to the Faroe Islands, from which Professor Suliman Apparates them (the squishy-uncomfortable kind of teleportation) to Scotland, then London. Specifically a bar, where she sits down, lays a silver coin on the counter, and orders something called Firewhiskey.

"Can I have some too?" Joey asks. Then the bartender pours some, and he smells it, and he wrinkles his nose. "Actually, never mind."

     "It's intensely alcoholic," Professor Suliman explains, "which I currently want very badly, because I hate intercontinental travel." She downs the shot, shudders, and allows a trickle of steam to escape her ears and nose. "Much better. Do you have any shopping to do before we turn in for the night?"

"...It's noon."

     "Time zones, mister Reed, wait for no man. It's 8:00 PM."

"Oh, disgusting," he says, making a face. "I'm not going to sleep in an hour."

     "I have a phial of Sleeping Draught in my pocket that says you will!"

Joey makes another face. "Alright, I guess I'll do the rest of my shopping and then you can drug me. Can I let Thalia out of her carrying cage? She really prefers riding on my shoulder."

     "As long as she prefers it enough that she'll stay there and not fly off, that's fine."

They shop somewhere called Diagon Alley (what is with wizards and giving things weird names), and Joey picks up a couple of things he wasn't able to get in the States, mostly textbooks and a couple of locally sourced potion ingredients. He also looks longingly at various other books in Flourish & Blott's, but decides to come back after the shopping's over and he knows how much he's got left to spend.

They enter a shop with a sign reading OLLIVANDERS over the front. It's dusty and weird, with narrow boxes lining the walls. Professor Suliman rings a bell on the counter.

     After some insistent dinging, a man of about thirty with large glasses steps out of a back room, blinking owlishly. "Are you here for a wand?" he asks.

"Probably!" Joey says.

     "Well, um, give me one moment, I'm in the middle of-"

         "No, Dorian," Professor Suliman snaps. "You will find Joseph a wand, and then you will return to whatever undoubtedly engrossing experiment with Bowtruckle wood and mermaid hair you were working on. Because if I allow you back into that room, you will not come out again."

     The man makes a wounded face, then sighs. "Alright, fine. Come here, lad - what’s your wand arm-"

"Am I supposed to already know that?" Joey asks Professor Suliman.

         "He's right-handed," the professor says.

     "Alright..." The shopkeeper waves his wand a few times, and a tape measure begins harassing Joey of its own volition. Thalia pecks at it a few times, but when it goes on undeterred she flutters off, muttering tuneful obscenities.

"Thalia-" Joey starts. Then she tugs a box off a nearby shelf. It falls to the floor, and a wand clatters out, which she picks up in her beak and wings back to Joey.

     The shopkeeper raises his eyebrows and recalls the tape measure. "Well, you may as well try it out, if the bird wants you to. We don't discount omens in this shop."

He takes the wand from Thalia's beak. It's long and straight, the white wood densely etched with strangely iridescent designs, and as his fingers close around the handle a feeling spreads up his arm like sinking into a pool of hot water on a cold day, or cold water on a hot day - but it's not hot or cold, just electric.

He waves the wand in a long swooping motion, and a cascade of fat purple sparks drizzle through the air after it. They hang in place for a moment, then drift towards the floor, winking out before they reach it.

"Thalia, you're very good at this," Joey says, turning to the bird.

     "And pretty," she says happily, preening.

"Very pretty," Joey agrees. "How much for my wand?" he asks the shopkeeper.

          "Seven galleons. Wouldn't you like to know what it's made of?"

Joey blinks as he counts out the heavy gold coins from his little beaded coinpurse. "Oh! Sure, I guess. What's it made of?"

          "Willow heartwood and powdered fairy wing," the shopkeeper says. "Thirteen inches, flexible but not whippy, with powdered opal resin in the detailing. A wand for delicate work. You may never be a duelist, but you might well be a Healer."

Joey hugs the wand to his chest for a moment. "That sounds nice."

Professor Suliman brings him back by Flourish & Blott's on their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, and he picks out enough books to wipe out his remaining funds. It's a lot of books; his daddies didn't know exactly how much he'd need, and they erred on the generous side. Soon he's got a pile of books including copies of the Standard Book of Spells for the next six grades, a hefty encyclopedia on the magical properties of various materials and two companion volumes, beginner texts on Arithmancy and Runes, and a paperback about dueling technique and fundamentals.

     "You've got a Ravenclaw's taste in literature," Professor Suliman notes. "Not interested in the young adult fiction section?"

"My life has enough drama in it already, and if I'm magic I want to learn magic," he says absently, considering a tome entitled Dark Arts and Why They're Dark. "What's a Ravenclaw?"

     "One of the Houses at Hogwarts. You'll be Sorted into one of them based on your aptitudes and personality. Ravenclaws value knowledge and skill, Hufflepuffs value loyalty and kindness, Slytherins value ambition and cunning, and Gryffindors value courage and strength."

Joey nods. "And when they're not being pitched... Nerds with no empathy, fluffy pansies, sociopaths, and jocks?"

     "Has anyone ever told you you're a very cynical child?" Professor Suliman asks wryly.

"On occasion. Usually when I'm right."

     "I didn't say you were wrong. Though there are exceptions in each House. Especially Slytherin; ambition can take many forms."

They return to the Leaky Cauldron with full bags, and Professor Suliman hands him the Sleeping Draught and their room key, then settles herself at the bar.

Joey goes upstairs to the room, brushes his teeth in the washbasin while a mirror tells him to buy a comb, and lays out some clothes for tomorrow. He changes into his pajamas, sits on one of the beds, and downs the draught.

He falls asleep listening in vain for the sound of his brother breathing.

When he wakes up, there's a thin wash of sunlight through the window, nothing like the light that pours through his window every morning in California. He feels fuzzy, like he slept for way too long. "Ezra?" he says blearily.

     "No," Professor Suliman says, sitting at a small table with a plate of scones and a cup of tea. "Sorry."

He remembers now. He's in England, Ezra's back in California. He's a wizard, Ezra isn't. Tears well up in his eyes, but he wipes them off irritably. He's so tired of crying. He stands up, goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth, change into his clothes and wash his face. He comes back out and sets his shoulders. "What now?" he asks.

     "Now we have four hours to kill before going to King's Cross and getting on the Hogwarts Express," the witch says, then takes a sip of her tea. "You've got your books, and I've got lesson plans to write; do we need anything else?"

Joey considers. "Um. Breakfast? Otherwise no, I can definitely just read for four hours."

So she takes him downstairs and they have some breakfast (Joey flatly refuses beans on toast, but fortunately the English breakfast contains other food items), and they spend the next four hours reading and planning lessons respectively.

Eventually, Professor Suliman's wristwatch chimes, and after ensuring they have Thalia's cage and all of Joey's luggage, she Apparates them onto a train platform bustling with witches and wizards.

     "Here's where I'll leave you," she says. She looks at him for a moment, then crouches down so she's at eye level and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Don't let your homesickness isolate you from the friends you could make here. Your family will always love you, but you need friends for when you can't be with them."

He nods reflexively. "I- I know."

     She stands up, turns, and vanishes.

Well.

He might as well get on the train, then.

He hefts his suitcase and Thalia's cage up with him, and passes between the compartments until he reaches an empty one. He manages to get the suitcase onto a luggage rack, and lets Thalia out to flit around the space. She trills, explores for a little while, and then lands on Joey's shoulder. He reads a bit; when the train leaves the station he puts the book away and spends a while looking out the window. He's kind of wishing he'd spent more time in the fiction section of the bookstore; these books are useful and cool but they're not really engaging.

After several hours of travel, a teenager knocks on the glass and slides the door open without waiting for a response.

"I'm sorry to bother you - just - have you seen my cat," he says somewhat frantically.

"No, what do they look like?"

"He's all over black, half Oriental Shorthair half Kneazle - he's slim but his ears are enormous - um, he wouldn't hurt your bird, he's pure nice, but he ran off and I can't find him-"

"Alright, let's look for him then." Joey sets his book down and stands up. "I guess there isn't some kind of cat-finding spell?"

"There's a spell to find things but I'm supposed to learn it this year in Charms," the boy says miserably. "He's never run off like this before, I don't know what I did wrong..."

"Don't worry about that right now, let's find him first. Hmm... Thalia, you don't have some kind of special cat-finding abilities yourself, do you?"

     "Sorry, no," she twitters.

"Alright. We'll do it the old-fashioned way, then."

He opens the compartment door and immediately comes face-to-face with a slim black cat with enormous ears.

He blinks. The cat blinks back.

"Apparently the old-fashioned way involves miracles from God," Joey comments.

"Solomon!" the teenager says happily, scooping the cat into his arms. Solomon permits this with dignity.

The teenager turns back to Joey. "Um, thanks for offering to help, even if it... turns out I didn't need it... I'm Aaron March. Hufflepuff prefect."

"Joey Reed," Joey says. "Um. American."

     "Thalia!" Thalia says. "Pretty bird."

"What's an American doing on the Hogwarts Express?"

"Uh, my first accidental magic happened on a trip my family took to London a couple of years ago, and... apparently that means I'm legally a British national? And so I get to learn magic at supposedly the best school in the world, and leave my family and live on a different continent and all that fun stuff."

"Do you want a hug?"

"A hug would be nice."

Aaron hugs him. He's big and warm, not as big as Arthur but a bit softer. "It's rotten," he says sincerely. "Just a rotten way to treat somebody. Are you Muggleborn too?"

"S'what Professor Suliman said," Joey mumbles.

"Then you've got to learn your way around wizard culture, and British culture, and boarding school culture, all at once... You'll need plenty hugs. Sort into Hufflepuff and I'll get them to you, alright?" He pauses. "I'll still hug you otherwise, just if you're Slytherin or something it'll be harder to give you as many as you need."

"That's very kind of you. Do you make the same offer to all the homesick eleven-year-olds?"

He considers this. "More of them than I probably should? I spend a lot of time hugging."

"Aw. I was making fun of you a bit but that's cute actually."

Aaron grins. "I know, and I know. Listen, I'd better get back to my compartment and get changed into my robes, but remember what I said. About hugs especially."

Joey lets go slightly reluctantly. "Bye, then."

     "Bye, bye," Thalia whistles.

After Aaron leaves, Joey changes into his own robes. It feels really weird and kind of drafty wearing them over just his underwear, but he's reliably assured that's how wizards wear them, and he doesn't want to seem weird. (Apparently some of them don't wear underwear under them either, but that really seems like a bridge too far even if it does sound kind of interesting.) He's also reliably assured that no one under the age of forty wears a pointed hat except on very special occasions, but arriving at Hogwarts for the first time seems like a special occasion if ever there was one, so onto his head it goes.

     "Pointy Joey," Thalia says. "Looks silly."

"I know it does," he sighs. "I feel like I'm playing dress-up."

Idly, he takes out his wand and rolls it between his fingers. Then he puts it back in his pocket, takes out his book, and reads until he feels the train start to slow down.

Joey's first thought, when the castle comes into view, is: holy crap. It's enough to make him forget his complaints entirely. That's a castle. He's going to live here. And learn magic.

There's a little sign on the luggage racks saying to leave your luggage on the train so the elves can bring it to your dormitory. He has no idea what an elf is, but he'll presumably find out at some point. He leaves his suitcase and Thalia's cage where they are, and she perches on his shoulder as he leaves the train.

"First years over here," intones a deep voice. Its owner is dark-skinned, and painfully thin, and about six and a half feet tall. He waves a long staff over his head, its skull-shaped topper lit up with a silver glow.

Joey runs over, almost tripping in the twilight gloom. "Hi! Is that your wand? Is that allowed, you can have a staff instead of a wand? How come nobody offered me that? Staves are way cooler than wands!"

The man looks down at him and smiles. "It's an obscure branch of wandlore, one that many think is obsolete. But it suits me well." He waves the staff again and calls "First years, over here!"

More kids exit the train. The bigger ones go over to some strange horseless carriages, while the smallest filter in around the tall man. After the last one arrives, he nods and waves his staff in a complicated pattern. Several spheres of light split off from the silver aura, and float over to illuminate a small fleet of rowboats.

"Four to a boat," he says. "Pile on in, don't be shy."

The children obediently begin piling on in.

Joey ends up next to a girl with her hair in twists, opposite a freckle-dusted blonde boy and a girl with short-cropped black hair who's got her wand out and trailing in the water of the lake.

"Is that a good idea?" Joey wonders. "Getting it wet, I mean."

She shrugs. "Nobody's told me not to," she replies. "And it's varnished, isn't it? Probably waterproof."

"Can't argue with that," Joey admits. "-I'm Joey," he says. "Should we do the whole introduction thing, since we're boatmates?"

"I'm Riya," says the girl with the wet wand. "Charmed, I'm sure."

     "Sheila," says the girl next to Joey, looking much less sure that she's charmed.

          "Callum," says the blonde. "This is so exciting! Being at Hogwarts, I mean. What Houses are you lot going for? I want Gryffindor. Seems like the best."

     Sheila shrugs. "Probably Ravenclaw," she says apathetically.

Riya looks at Joey. "You got any idea what they're talking about?"

"Yeah, it's like - you get a horoscope based on whether you're a Gryffindor jock or a Ravenclaw nerd or a Slytherin politician or boring Hufflepuff. And then that determines who you spend the next five to seven years with. I'm not sure which one I want, I'm not a jock but I don't know if I have a strong preference between politician, nerd, and boring."

Callum looks mildly offended. Sheila snorts.

"Oh, that explains so much, this is a public school public school," Riya says. "I thought, well, it's state funded so it must be a state school? But no, I'm going to Eton For Witches. Uh, I think I'm a... 'jock'? - are you American," she asks Joey with mounting glee.

"Yes, I'm American, can you not tell from the accent, also it's so weird having that be the strange and exotic character trait it apparently is."

"Kind of? Thought you might be one of those kids who watches too many movies and ends up with the accent."

"Ah. No, I'm 100% not-from-concentrate Californian."

She nods thoughtfully. "That's one of the - little countries that you have there? Honestly, I can't keep track of-"

Then the boat passes under a bridge, and they get a full view of Hogwarts, and they're stunned into silence.

Joey's first thought is I wish I could show this to Ezra.

He refuses to be sad about it. He lets that thought stay, but he thinks, very deliberately, I'm glad I get to see this, even if Ezra can't be here.

Then he lets out his breath. "Wow."

Riya nods dumbly. Callum and Sheila look slightly less awed, but still pretty impressed.

Eventually, Riya finds her voice again. "That's way better than Blenheim Palace. Jesus."

"It's incredible."

     "Pretty," Thalia agrees, then sets herself to preening his hair.

They sit in silence for the rest of the boat ride. They pull into a grotto beneath the castle, and they're led into a room with massive double doors at one end.

A ghost swoops overhead. A couple of the eleven-year-olds squeak with alarm. Joey just giggles delightedly.

After a few minutes, Professor Suliman comes in and clears her throat, quieting the murmuring of forty eleven-year-olds instantly.

"Good evening," she says. "I am Deputy Headmistress Elizabeth Suliman, and I am here to welcome you to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In a few minutes, you will be Sorted into your Houses. Your House will be your home, and contain your closest friends for the next seven years. But it is important that you not simply isolate yourselves within your Houses. We must not become four factions pitted against each other; we are four parts of the same whole. Now."

She waves her wand, and the massive double doors open silently.

"Welcome to Hogwarts."

She walks through, followed by the crowd of kids.

Professor Suliman strides up to a stool which has been placed on a raised dais, reaches into her pocket, and pulls out a tattered old pointed hat. She places it on the stool and stands off to one side. It begins singing a bizarre song welcoming the first years to Hogwarts and explaining the Houses, and the intentions of Hogwarts' Founders. Joey doesn't catch most of the song, because he's too busy wincing and clenching his teeth to make his ears rumble so he can't hear it, because it sets off his auditory problems really badly.

When the song is over, Professor Suliman starts calling names in alphabetical order. "Ahmad, Hakim" is sorted into Ravenclaw, as is "Carter, Liam," though his apparent twin "Carter, Sean" is sorted into Slytherin. Joey mostly tunes that out too, because after each kid is Sorted there's a bunch of loud cheering from the corresponding House's table, which is also not great for his auditory problems.

Eventually, though, Professor Suliman calls out "Reed, Joseph!" Joey scurries forward through the aisle to the hat stool, taking the hat from "O'Malley, Katherine" as she flees to Ravenclaw. Then he sits on the stool, takes a deep breath, and - well, first he takes off his own pointy hat, setting it on the floor next to the stool. Then he puts the Sorting Hat on his head.

Well, well, well, says the Hat silently. You're an interesting one. Potential, certainly, but... hmm. I don't suppose I could sell you on Slytherin?

I don't know if I'd like it there, Joey admits. They sound mean. He didn't mean to say "mean," that sounds like something a kid would say, but he's just thinking it and that doesn't let him pick his words carefully.

They're really... well, it's not my job to sell you on something that'd hurt you, the Hat sighs. Don't write them off, though. So it's Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff... You'd get a lot out of Ravenclaw, you know. You can do great things, if you've got the right motivation, and motivation they'd give you in spades.

I can motivate myself, Joey says.

When it's fun you can motivate yourself, the Hat counters. When it gets hard you give up and convince yourself you never wanted it in the first place. Ravenclaw's got plenty like that, them who need a trail of sweets to get them to the end. They've found ways of handling it.

Then I'll ask Ravenclaws for study help, Joey says. But for the people I'm around all the time, I want... I want people who'll like me. People who'll hug me. Not to replace my family, but maybe to give me something to lean on when I don't have them.

The Hat sighs again. Alright. I suppose if you're sure, you'd best go on to "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Joey hops off the stool, puts the Hat back on the seat, puts his own hat back on, and scampers over to the Hufflepuff table, which is cheering. It doesn't bother him quite so much now, though he's sure he'll reconsider when they're being loud and he's right there at the table. But right now, they're cheering for him, and that's kind of nice. He slides into a seat next to Aaron. "Hi! Hug me," he demands.

Aaron laughs and hugs him.

The rest of the Sorting progresses much as the first half did, though it turns out there are only six kids with names after "Reed" in the alphabet, so there's not much of it. Once they're all at their assorted tables, an elderly woman in a lavish green robe and hat stands up and clinks a spoon against her goblet. She introduces herself as Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, and gives a brief speech about school rules and a few announcements, including that Filius Flitwick has left academia to rejoin the duelling circuit and that Professor Jenkins will therefore be moving from Transfiguration to Charms, which he is much better at (some laughter) and to replace him as Transfiguration professor please welcome Professor Safiya al-Fulani (Professor al-Fulani stands and bows with a smile) and that the Forbidden Forest continues to be very thoroughly forbidden.

"Now, I've talked enough; time to eat." She claps her hands together, and a feast appears on the tables.

"I know what, like, half of this stuff is," Joey says to Aaron. "Please help."

"Sure!" Aaron introduces Joey to the arrayed food, which is partly just English and partly wizarding (Yorkshire puddings appear to be Muggle in origin, whereas the fairy caviar to be spread over them is definitely not).

Joey ends up with a very eclectic plate, reasoning that he should try a bit of everything at least until he knows what he likes and what he hates. Yorkshire puddings turn out to be a hit. Fairy caviar is apparently closer in flavor to an oddly textured mixed berry jam than to traditional eggs. Shepherd's pie is nice, as is steak and kidney pie, as is mooncalf jelly, though it looks disconcertingly like a giant blue eyeball.

"Is it always this heavy on meat?" he asks, trying a sausage. "I have occasionally enjoyed a vegetable. In my time."

Aaron shakes his head. "There's a variation usually, it's just the start and end of term feasts are very traditionally British. But they do loads of different stuff normally, and some of it's got vegetables in."

"Good, good. Not that this stuff isn't great, but if we just had this every day I think I'd get rickets."

When they've finished the main course, dessert appears. Aaron once again leads Joey through disambiguation.

"This is easier, because I'll eat basically anything presented to me as a dessert," Joey comments, loading his plate with treacle tart and toffee pudding and rosemallow clouds.

Predictably, he eats until he feels slightly sick. "I have no regrets," he lies.

Aaron lets this falsehood slide. "Alright, Hufflepuff first-years, come over here," he says loudly. "You too, Ananda."

     Ananda turns out to be a sixth-year girl with the same pin on her robes as Aaron, and her hair done up in a complicated braid. She joins him and the first-years, as the rest of the table heads out the doors. "Alright, little ones - and that does include Aaron - we're going to introduce ourselves. You'll be doing a fair deal of that over the next few days, so it's best to start now. I'll start: My name's Ananda Luthra. I'm from London, I'm a pureblood, I want to be a Healer, and one fun fact about me is that my twin sister is a Gryffindor prefect. Everybody got the formula?"

"Well, in case you didn't," Aaron says smoothly, "I'll lay it out: Full name, where you're from, whether you're a pureblood or a halfblood or a newblood, what you want to be when you grow up, and a fun fact about yourself. I'm Aaron March, I'm from Aberdeen, I'm a halfblood, I want to be a musician, and my fun fact is that I have a half-kneazle named Solomon, who's back in the dormitory sniffing everything to make sure nowt's been tampered with, as is his duty and his right." He looks around the circle. "Ah, Joey, how's about you go next, us both having pets and all."

Joey nods. "So, I'm Joey Reed and this is Thalia, my Faegrecrawe. I'm from California, in the United States. I'm a - newblood? I guess?" He glances over at Aaron, who nods. "I'm a newblood. I don't know what I want to be yet, I used to want to be a writer and maybe I still will but magic changes stuff kind of a lot. And my fun fact - I've got two dads, and eight brothers and one sister and one of the brothers is my twin and I kind of miss him a lot."

Aaron pats him on the head. "Well, that'll get better with time."

     "I didn't know Muggles could make a baby from two men," says an olive-skinned boy sitting next to another, identical olive-skinned boy.

          "Is that one of the innovations we're going to learn about in Muggle Innovations?" his twin asks.

"No, um, Daddy Jordan was born with girl parts and Daddy Michael wasn't so they just made us the normal way," Joey says, blushing a bit. "A lot of people think we must be adopted but they've got pictures from the hospital and everything."

The first twin furrows his brow. "Is that another Muggle thing? Being born with the wrong parts?"

"It is not," says a slight boy, sitting crosslegged on his chair. "You just haven't heard about it because there's potions for it and people don't like talking about it."

"Makes sense," the twins say in unison without seeming to notice. "Sorry about your twin not being a wizard, that sounds awful," one says to Joey.

     Ananda nods. "Leonardo, why don't you introduce yourself next?"

Leo waves. "Leonardo Carlos Santana Vega del Monte de la Cruz, for the love of Morgana just call me Leo. I was born in Barcelona, but my family moved to Birmingham shortly after my birth for various reasons. I'm a pureblood, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up except that I don't want to be a healer, and I had a pet fairy from the ages of six to eight."

"Don't fairies live for like sixteen years?" Joey asks.

"Not around my sister Marisol they don't."

Joey winces. "I will bear that in mind if I ever meet your sister Marisol."

"If you do, please hex her in the face."

"Okay!" Aaron claps his hands together. "Gavriil and Konstantin, which of you wants to go first?"

     "Alphabetically and by birth order it'd be Gav," says the second twin,

          "so let's introduce Kostas first," says the first seamlessly. "Konstantin Manos, call him Kostas. We're from Greece by way of Coventry, we're purebloods, his life's ambition is to become a famous singer, and when he was six he used to perform concerts for an audience of the family house elves and our pet Puffskeins."

     "Gavriil Manos," continues Kostas, "call him Gav. His life's ambition is to become a famous artist, and when we were seven he stole blackberries from the kitchen and rendered them down into paint, which he used to paint a really lovely mural on the wall that attracted a colony of ants into our room."

The rest of the Hufflepuff first-years introduce themselves, one more boy and three girls. Frederick Conway, a newblood from Cork with an older brother in Gryffindor, wants to be a Crup breeder and has a scar on his butt from a fireworks accident in which his trousers caught fire. Clair Delmonte, a pureblood from Cheddar (Joey's not sure he heard that right), wants to be a professional Quidditch player and her family land is chronically infested with fairies, which she doesn't mind nearly so much as her parents do because they're so pretty. Sally Paloma Martin, a newblood from London, wants to be a Healer and she has a friend in Gryffindor already and his name is Ari (Ananda has to tell her to speak up a couple of times). Katherine O'Malley, a halfblood from Bristol, wants to be a research witch and her mum has a Faegrecrawe like Joey's except he's wicked old and can't travel anymore.

                Ananda nods. "Well, it's grand to meet you all. Now that we all know each other and we've had a few minutes to digest, let's troop down to the dormitory and see the Common Room. Up we all get, come on."

Everybody rises, with a certain amount of groaning, and Ananda leads them out of the Great Hall, through a single hallway and down a flight of stairs. In the basement, Ananda takes a sudden turn into a seemingly disused corridor, and raps her wand on a large barrel in a certain pattern: tap, tap, taptaptap. The barrel's lid swings open, and Ananda climbs through, beckoning the children after her.

"Remember that pattern, and that barrel," Aaron warns. "Get the wrong one, or the wrong rhythm, and it'll douse you with vinegar."

                "Damned stupid of old Helga if you ask me," Ananda mutters. "Why let on that they're in the right place at all? If you want to defend the common room just make it act like there's nothing there. Lock the door if they get it wrong three times, if you must."

"Ananda has opinions," Aaron explains cheerfully. "Strong opinions."

      "She's right," comments Thalia.

"You just have a crush on her," Joey whispers. Thalia pecks him warningly.

After climbing through, they find themselves in a big, round room full of burnished copper furnishings and yellow-and-black upholstery.

     "This is the Hufflepuff common room," Ananda says grandly. "No outsider has been in this sacred space in over a thousand years." She pauses. "I'm just messing with you, obviously we have guests in here all the time, we're Hufflepuffs. Keeping your common room a secret is for belligerent weirdos, that is to say Gryffindor and Slytherin. But make sure any guests you bring don't see you tapping on the barrel so they can't get in themselves, we don't want uncontrolled traffic through here. And you can't take them into the bedrooms, that's not on."

          "There's a couple of things you should know before we let you go to bed," Aaron says. "You're going to run into a lot of people saying we're a House of dullards - ignore them. We've got our fair share of great alumni, and fewer dark wizards than any other House, which in my book is pretty good. Moreover, it doesn't matter. Your House doesn't determine your future - you can be a Gryffindor researcher, or a Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, or a Hufflepuff duelist, or a Slytherin healer. Your House is just the people who make you feel at home. And that's what we Badgers do better than anyone."

                "Very nicely said," says a slightly mousey woman who looks a bit young to be a teacher but rather too old to be a student, suddenly fading into visibility in a plush armchair by the fire. "First-years, I am your Head of House, Sophie Milliner. I will also be teaching you Enchantment and, if any of you take Artifice at the NEWT level, that too. And I do hope at least some of you will take Artifice at the NEWT level, because teaching a class of all Ravenclaws gets insufferable very fast. More importantly, as your Head of House I am here to instill in you all the virtues of Hufflepuff, and ensure-"

                She shakes her head irritably. "I sound like Liz Suliman. Listen, you're Hufflepuffs, right? That means you support each other. But it also means you support anybody else who won't knife you in the back for it. And sometimes, if you think you can take it, it means supporting the ones who will. There's this Greek word, agape, means 'the kind of love you have for everybody in the whole world'. That includes the bastards. Because everybody deserves to be loved, and maybe we're the only ones who'll do it for them. You've got to be braver than the Gryffindors to do it, but sometimes it's what you have to do." She stands up. "That's my speech. Now, you've all got classes tomorrow, but tomorrow being Friday, we've got the whole weekend ahead of us after that, and I'm sure your prefects have some lovely plans made up for your first weekend at Hogwarts. So why don't you go off to your bedrooms and get some sleep? Tomorrow's another day."

Joey likes this lady. Idly, he wonders if she planned out the part where she complained that she was sounding like Professor Suliman and started talking more earnestly. Probably, right? Probably.

Alongside the other first-year boys, he follows Aaron through the door with a big copper "1" over it. The room beyond is much like the previous, except that it contains five four-poster beds with black-and-yellow patchwork quilts, and a pile of luggage. Aaron points out the door to the communal shower and toilets, lets them know that as in all Hogwarts dormitories the beds have been the subject of so many Silencing Charms that there's a permanent muffling effect on them so don't worry if you snore, and then leaves them to choose their beds.

Beds are divvied up according to no particular system. Luggage is unpacked. Joey sets Thalia's cage on his desk next to the typewriter, and she flutters in and takes her perch with a happy sigh. Then he sits down on the little stool and starts typing.

Hey everybody,

Just got to Hogwarts. Well, I got here a couple of hours ago, but we had a big feast first thing...

...castle is huge, like ENORMOUS, but there's really not that many kids...

...Hufflepuff, which is one of the Houses. Basically they sort us into nerds, jocks, politicians, and huggers. I'm a hugger. As well you konw know. There was an older boy showing us around who called himself a Prefect, his name's Aaron but and I met him on the train when he lost his cat...

...still getting used to the e typewriter. As you can probably tell. It's wie not quite like using a computer keyboard. You have to think more, I think...

...and Leo, who has like seven names most of which I don't ream remember, but he prefers to be called l Leo anyway, so it's no skin off my back...

...give Finn a kiss from me. Ben, make sure to wear your favorite underwear at least once a week or you'll never wear them. I'm going to ask around tomorrow about sweets you'd like, like I said I would. Dylan, look after your little brothers. There's a class called Enchanting and I plan on seeing if I can enchant you a wooden sword to defend them with. Jake, you're adorable and I'm finally far enough away fom from you that you can't bite me for saying that, so I'm saying it, ha. Also they have enchanted combs that detangle your hair for you and I'm definitely gonna see if I can get you one. Fi Gil, sorry for almost misspelling your name, I'm ruffling your hair in spirit from the other side of the world. Can you feel it? That's me. Ezra, please ruffle F Gil's hair for me. (Why do I keep misspelling Gil's name?) I'm getting you a Slythi Slytherin scarf, I don't know yet where to get them but I will find out. Nathan, I know you're devastated not to be sharing a room with Arthur anymore; stay strong. I will send you my finest macaroni portrait to hang on your wall. As a talisman. Send Arthur and Clarice my love at college, tell Arthur he's a dork and tell Clarice I expect her to have cured cancer by te the time I'm home for Christmas. I don't care that she's not pre-med. Chop chop, Clarice.

Love, your beloved son and brother,

Joey

He's filled a few pages by the time he's done. He folds them into one of the envelopes he brought with him, and scrawls the address of the intercontinental wizarding mail center Daddy Michael found on the front, with their box number - there's some kind of complicated system where it goes into the box in France and comes out in Kansas and an owl flies it to California. Then he starts on another letter.

Ezra,

I miss you already. It's only been 24 hours and I miss you so much it hurts. I want to swim with you and play games with you and hug you and hear you breathing. I can't wait for Christmas...

...doing okay? I know this letter isn't going to reach you until after the worst is over. I know this isn't going to get there in time for the worst of it. I'm sorry. I'd say I couldn't sleep last night, but Professor Suliman very considerately drugged me...

...love you. I don't know what I'm going to do without you here. I know I've said it but I'm saying it again.

Love, your favorite twin,

Joey

This one's shorter. He puts it in a second envelope, wipes his eyes, and cracks his neck.

"Merlin, that sound is unholy," Leo comments, his quill scritching away as he sits at his own desk. "Do you need a healer?"

"I guess that's not a wizard thing after all," Joey says. "Wanna go drop off our letters together when we do? As the First Night Letter Writers Brigade?"

"Sounds good. You took my fun fact, you know, I was going to tell everyone 'and I've got six older sisters!' but then you came along with 'and I'm one of ten siblings' and I was very neatly upstaged. Had to go with the fairy story."

"Six older sisters! I've only got one, but I think I like having more brothers. It's a fun atmosphere. And Clarice is a lot to handle even just on her own, I don't know if I could handle six of her."

"You probably wouldn't get six Clarices. I've got five sisters who are perfectly nice in various distinct ways, plus Marisol who was sent to us from Hell and is a demon."

"Wanna tell me about them? I can tell you about all of mine. Like trading Pokémon cards."

"What in the world is a Poké- no, nevermind, we'd be here all night, I'll wait for Muggle Innovations. Um, my oldest sister is Delilah, she's twenty-four, really sweet and loyal, she'd be a Hufflepuff if she went here. Second is Salome, she's kind of shy but she sings really beautifully, she's actually got a record out even though she's only twenty-two, and people bought it and stuff, which seems crazy until you hear her voice. Third is Jael, twenty, she's really fierce and protective, definite Gryffindor, she's on the duelling track at la Torre Azbache where all my sisters went to school. Fourth is Tamar, seventeen, she wants to marry a nice girl and brew potions for the rest of her life and probably she will because she's lovely. Fifth is Zuleikha, fifteen, can you tell my parents were running out of Bible names, she loves acting and telling stories but she's got no face for cards, it's hilarious watching her try to lie. Plus she's nice - they're all nice except Marisol and me. Marisol's a sociopath and I'm kind of a dick. And Marisol's thirteen, so you've got all the numbers. And we've all got six names apiece but I won't subject you to that."

"That's very thoughtful of you. They do sound cool - um, so, my family - the eldest are Clarice and Arthur at eighteen. Clarice is really sweet and considerate, she kind of took care of the rest of us when we were growing up. She loves kids. Arthur's kind of - stiff and awkward with family, because he loves us but he can't really express it right, but he's really cool and charming with other people. Nathan is sixteen, he likes to take things easy, he's the best babysitter because he'll let you get away with anything. Ezra and I are eleven but our birthday's on the tenth, Ezra's - sweet and reliable and kind of the opposite of me in every way. Well, we're both fun, I guess. And smart. But other than that we just - fit together." He wipes his eyes surreptitiously. "Um. Gil's nine as of August, he's so cute and he knows it, the little bastard. He's also super manipulative, which nobody would put up with if he weren't so adorable. Jake's eight, he's cute too but don't tell him that or he'll bite you. He acts like he doesn't like anybody, but really he loves everybody, he's just acting out and nobody's letting him get away with it. Dylan's seven, he loves fantasy stuff and he's got a collection of plastic swords and he wants to take care of everybody even if they're bigger than him. Ben's six, he's the sweetest thing, he can't stand raising his voice or making decisions even if he knows what he wants. Dylan's really good with him, Dylan can make decisions for him and he's loud enough for two kids. And Finn's the youngest, he's almost two, he's really quiet and happy and he likes when people hold him even though he can walk pretty well now."

"They sound lovely."

With that, Leo turns back to his own letter-writing.

Joey unearths his toiletries from his bag and decides to get them arranged in the bathroom, however that's supposed to work. In the process he manages to take a shower and brush his teeth.

Then he goes to bed. It helps, having people around. It doesn't help as much as having Ezra around would help. But it's almost okay.

He wakes to sunlight bathing his face. Nice, in principle, but in practice, very bright. He sits up, rubbing his eyes, and looks around the room. His roommates seem to still be sleeping, except for Leo. Well, he's not getting back to sleep; he hops out of bed and goes to perform his morning ablutions, as he has been known to refer to them when he feels particularly inclined toward self-parody.

After that's all been taken care of, he heads back into the room and retrieves Thalia, who trills affectionately, and his typewriter, which does not, then goes out into the common room to see if anybody's awake out there.

Aaron's awake out there! He's talking with another older boy, and he looks up at the door as Joey enters. "Ah, an early bird!"

"Well, my bed gets all the sunlight," Joey says. "But yeah, I've got a history of beds that catch the sunrise, so I tend to get up pretty early."

Aaron nods. "It's good to get up early! Means you get to the Great Hall in time to have a good hearty breakfast. Personally I'm going to wait here and wake your yearmates before they're in danger of sleeping through their first breakfast."

"Well, have fun." Joey goes to get breakfast. Now that Aaron's mentioned it, he's kind of starving.

He remembers the way to the Great Hall (it's not a long walk), and he gets there in short order. It's almost empty, this early in the morning, though there are some students scattered around the room and the teachers' table is relatively full. The tables aren't as loaded down as they were last night; there's serving bowls of granola, fresh fruit, various cereals both hot and cold. There's rashers of bacon and sausage and platters of eggs, and toast with jam and butter and tureens of baked beans (what is with these people), and various breakfast pastries. Pitchers of milk and juice and pots of steaming coffee.

He gets himself a plate of pastries and an egg in a cup with some toast soldiers and a bowl of granola and a goblet(?!) of milk and sits down. He leaves the other people at the table their space, because they're all upper years and that's a bit scary. Instead he eats, incredibly quickly because that's how he always eats.

"They're called toast soldiers," a voice says over his shoulder, "but they're not actually going to make a tactical retreat if you don't eat them fast enough. Why don't we all take a moment to breathe."

Joey starts coughing, and has to take a long gulp of milk to clear his throat.

"It's - it's my way of showing appreciation," he says. "Compliments to the chef, and that kind of thing. Anything less would be an insult."

"I'm sure the elves will understand if you eat slowly enough to actually taste their food," Leo says, sitting down with his own plate (granola, buttered toast, oatmeal with an enormous amount of fruit, and a cup of coffee).

"What actually is an elf?" Joey asks. "Apparently they - cook and do the laundry and collect our things from the train?"

"In a nutshell," Leo says, taking a spoonful of oatmeal. "They're a kind of magical slave race, they were designed to love menial work and be terrified of freedom. Hogwarts collects free elves, both to take care of around-the-castle tasks and as a sort of humanitarian effort."

He sips his coffee. "Mother always says we should find whoever invented elves, reanimate his corpse, and nail it to a tree. Abuela Carla left her a breeding pair in her will and it pissed her off so badly she personally carved her a gravestone that just said Carla Isabella Arroyo del Monte, 1841-1998: Quemate en el infierno, zorra."

"Jesus. What'd she do with the elves?"

"She tried to convince them that their whole thing about freedom is a social construct and they should self-actualize and be their own people, and they just kept crying, so she let them stick around and clean the house. She did convince them not to reproduce, though, so they'll only be around another forty years or so. And Marisol isn't allowed near them."

"Eesh. I guess there's not a great solution."

     Thalia shivers. "Joey be nice to elves."

"Well, obviously I'll be nice to any I meet, but that's different than having a solution to the problem."

     She nods and accepts a blackberry from his granola.

"Like I said. Find corpse, dig up corpse, nail it to a tree. She's very emphatic."

Joey nods, and returns to his toast soldiers. Somehow, the egg remains runny and perfect despite the minutes of intervening conversation. Magic is so cool.

An hour and a half later (he spends most of this time back in the common room, reading his books), it's time for his first class. "Acclimation to Wizarding Culture," apparently. He and Frederick and Sally head up to the first floor and find the classroom, and file in.

There's a witch in her twenties sitting on the desk at the front of the room, chatting with a boy and three girls all wearing blue-trimmed robes. She waves when the Hufflepuffs walk in. "Hello Hufflepuffs!" she says cheerfully. "My old House, ah, the memories. I'm Professor Sally-Anne Perks. You're all newbloods, right, you haven't been cruelly misdirected to my lair?"

"Unless I've been very badly misinformed we're all newbloods, yes," Joey says. "Which is - the same thing as being a muggleborn? Unless I'm also very badly misinformed about that?"

"Well, that's getting into curriculum material," she says, "which I really would have expected from the Ravenclaws, here, that'll show me to stereotype. That's the first thing we'll cover, worry not."

     "Why not just tell us now?" asks the Ravenclaw boy, sounding rather frustrated.

"Because I don't like to repeat myself, and until 8 sharp I'm not on the clock. You will eventually learn that Hogwarts professors are tragically overworked, and will take any chance to be lazy."

Joey and his Hufflepuff compatriots sit. The desks of this classroom are arranged in a semicircle, indicating that Professor Perks thinks she's cool. "Well, if you won't teach us off the clock, will you tell us funny stories? That's very important in a teacher."

"Of course!" she grins. "-but not on the first day, because all of my stories require a great deal of context that I will be providing in today's class."

     "Boring," Thalia opines.

"Well, at least we'll get stories at some point," Joey says, petting her head with a finger. "That's worth something."

The Slytherin and Gryffindor newbloods file in within the next few minutes, Gryffindor arriving just before the belltower strikes eight. They're the largest contingent, five kids to Slytherin and Ravenclaw's four apiece and Hufflepuff's three.

Professor Perks claps her hands together. "We're all here on time! Lovely. Now, as I have now said three times, I am Professor Sally-Anne Perks, and it is my job to get you acclimated to wizarding culture. What do you already know about wizarding culture?"

Joey raises his hand, and when she points to him, he says "One of my housemates explained house elves to me? They're - pretty messed up."

She winces. "House-elves, yes. Not the best introduction to our culture, I'm afraid." She gives the rest of the class a condensed introduction to the concept of house-elves, with the added note that the wizarding government, as of the past few years, has been introducing stricter controls on how people can behave towards their elves.

"So there's a whole species of - fucking magic slaves - and your excuse for not doing anything about it is 'well, three years ago we started caring whether people physically abuse them'?" one of the Gryffindors growls.

The professor smiles tightly. "I'd love to hear your solution, Mr. Richards."

"Maybe you should stop having fucking slaves!"

She sighs. "I mentioned that they're pathologically afraid of being free. It sends them into a crippling depression. You would be giving them freedom at their own expense."

He grinds his teeth, but doesn't seem to have a response to that.

"It is generally acknowledged that the creation of house-elves was a terrible crime by today's standards," Professor Perks continues. "That does not mean there is an easy solution to the damage it caused. The first lesson of this class is that when you see a societal problem that has existed for centuries, you are usually not the first person to try to solve it. If you have a clever solution, you are encouraged to bring it up - without implying that I and every wizard and witch for fifty generations is evil - and if I don't know offhand whether it's been tried, I'll look it up."

After a few more students give examples of things they've learned (the Ravenclaw boy has a whole little list of incongruities), the professor gives them a general run-down of blood divisions ("you'll learn more about this later, obviously - first class is for covering the basics of everything, then we get into details") and explains the cultural context of the First and Second British Wizarding Wars ("I myself fought in the Battle of Hogwarts") and manages to hold a quick question-and-answer session in the last fifteen minutes.

"So, um, why are wizards... secret?" Joey asks hesitantly.

Professor Perks sighs. "That's a very old, very complicated question, and the answer isn't simple either. There are those who say that if the wizarding world were revealed, muggles would want us to solve all of their problems. That's transparently stupid, but points at an actual problem: the disparity between muggle and wizarding capabilities. Frankly, there's not much that they can offer us that we can't do ourselves, or get by watching them from our invisible cities. We could help them a great deal, but we wouldn't be getting much out of the trade except a case of the warm fuzzies. There are also those who say that if we revealed ourselves, the muggles would start burning us at the stake again. Once again, this is absurd but points at a very real issue, namely that muggles' ability to wage war has advanced far beyond our own in the past few centuries. Up until the nineteenth century, a muggle stood no chance against any but the most lackadaisically educated wizard or witch. As of the second world war, that was no longer true. As of today, if the muggles discovered our existence and wanted to wipe us out, they could likely do it. That's not to say that it would be costless to them, or that it would be easy, or for that matter that they would do it at all. But the possibility cannot be discounted. Of course, with the increase in muggle capabilities, the likelihood that they will find out about us is increasing by the decade as well. Obliviation is only so good a tool. Current projections aim for a controlled revelation of the wizarding world in 2030, at the latest. That timeline gives us time to... clean the skeletons out of our collective closet, if you will."

"Wow. Okay."

The belltower rings three times. "Alright," says Professor Perks, "off you all go. I'll see you all next week at the same time and we'll talk some more about the wars."

Students rise and trickle out of the classroom.

Joey and the other Hufflepuffs stick close to the Slytherins on their way to their next class, which turns out to be Herbology. Joey's not sure why gardening is in the core curriculum, but whatever.

In the greenhouse, there's a tall man who looks about the same age as Professor Perks, laying out trays with little golden flowers in pots. He smiles crookedly at them. "Welcome to Greenhouse 1! And to Hogwarts, if you're not already sick of people saying that. I'm Professor Longbottom. I'm guessing you lot are coming from Sally-Anne's lecture?"

"Yeah," Joey says, considering and discarding the idea of asking how is that actually your name?

"We're going to wait for the other half of the class to-" Professor Longbottom starts. Then the doors to the greenhouse open again and another cluster of kids filters in. "Great! For the ones who are just joining us, I'm Professor Neville Longbottom, and I hope you're all ready for your first Herbology class! If you're not, don't worry, I'll get you ready anyway."

He launches into an explanation of greenhouse safety. ("Since this is Greenhouse 1," he mentions, "some of this isn't strictly necessary. But it's better to be safe than sorry, and in later greenhouses it will definitely be necessary.") Then he sets them to their task: repotting Golden Glories.

"Golden Glories are a very accommodating flower," he says enthusiastically. "And they only need repotting twice annually, which is really convenient for my purposes. You'll be doing this again in the spring, to see how much you've improved. Hold the pot firmly - it might feel a bit off at first, wearing your gloves, but you'll have to get used to it - and gently but firmly tap on the bottom..."

He demonstrates twice, to make sure it sinks in, then sets them to it.

Joey gets distracted halfway through the first demonstration, but the second lets him fill in the gaps. He repots his Golden Glory with a minimum of fuss, though he has to be reminded to put a layer of rocks at the bottom of the pot before filling it with soil.

Following this, he has a Golden Glory in a new pot! He's neither the first nor the last to get it done; Sally and one of the Slytherin girls both appear to have had prior experience, and Clair knocked her pot over and needed to be given a new one and reassured that this was perfectly fine.

Professor Longbottom stops by to check on his work. "Nicely done!" he says. "You can put your pot on the done shelf and go on to lunch, then." 

"Thanks!" he chirps. He puts the pot away carefully, takes off his gloves, and wends his way back to the Great Hall.

It's not full yet, but a good number of students are there already. He serves himself a very appealing sandwich and some fruit salad and sits at the Hufflepuff table next to Leo, who seems like a good and nonthreatening person to sit beside.

"How'd you like your first classes?" Leo asks idly, picking at some greens.

"They were cool! Wizard Culture was really interesting, and Herbology was fun, I liked getting to work with my hands. It's going to be cool seeing all the different magical plants we'll get to work with!"

"Just be careful when we're working with Devil's Snare. Won't kill you, at least the strains we'll be working with, but you don't want to get too tangled up in it. I've heard Professor Longbottom ends up having to rescue a couple of kids a year."

"...and they have eleven-year-olds work with it because..."

"Said it wouldn't kill you, didn't I? Worst case, you get choked and pass out and it drops you."

"I will be very careful around Devil's Snare," Joey decides.

"Good!"

They finish up their respective lunches in good time (moreso Joey than Leo) and head off to their final class of the day: Flying. It seems that all of the first-years take this one together. A black man about Professor Longbottom's age introduces himself as Coach Thomas, and has them line up in front of a number of slightly worn broomsticks.

"First thing you do: hold out your hand over the broom. Second thing: say up."

Joey follows these instructions. The broom - floats into his hand. Looking around, he's gotten a middle-of-the-road reaction: some kids' brooms leapt into their hands like hungry dogs, some are just rolling lethargically on the ground. Joey decides to be pleased that he got it to work in the first place.

"Now, hook your leg over - clench it between your thighs - and, gently, push off with your right foot, then lean back to stay in a hover."

Joey hooks his leg over, and clenches the broom between his thighs. He pushes off - and he's floating into the air.

Also, he's dissociating.

This is probably not a good time to dissociate.

He was supposed to pull back, right? He pulls back on his broomstick, which causes it to rise sharply.

"No no no - Reed, get down here -"

"Trying!"

He leans forward, which causes him to go forward. He pulls back, rises again. He pushes the handle down, straightens up, coasts into a hover. He is now forty feet or so above the ground, quite a ways away from the rest of the group, and completely disconnected from his body and experiences. His hands and thighs are continuing to grip the handle of the broom, which is good.

Coach Thomas is shouting something which he probably couldn't hear even if he could process sound right now.

Yeah he's going to stay where he is. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open, staring vacantly into the distance, that sort of thing.

After a few seconds, Coach Thomas rises up on his own broom.

"You alright, Reed? I just need you to keep your back straight and push down on the handle."

That does not appear to be happening, possibly because it requires having a functioning brain.

Coach Thomas removes his wand from his sleeve and taps on Joey's broom, which begins a controlled descent. He follows behind.

They reach the ground, and the coach asks "Can someone take Reed to the Hospital Wing? Needs a Recombobulating Draught, I think."

"I'll take him, I already know how to fly," Leo says immediately. "Come on, Joey, breathe, alright? Can you let go of the broom?"

Joey can eventually be induced to let go of the broom, and to take Leo's hand and stumble along toward the Hospital Wing.

"S-sor. Sorrrr. Sorry."

"...what?"

"Sorry?"

"I have no idea what you're apologizing for. Let's not have this conversation until we've gotten some potions into you."

"Sorry."

Joey continues stumbling along, occasionally trying to wipe drool and tears from his face.

"I'm p-probably fine," he says, eventually, as they approach the Hospital Wing. "You can - go back. If you want."

Leo does not dignify this with a response. He pushes open the doors to the Hospital Wing and pulls Joey through behind him, calling "Healer?"

A woman in a lilac robe emerges from behind some curtains. "Yes?"

"Healer, Joey was flying and he went too high up and he just sort of - froze, and couldn't move, and he's been crying a lot and trying to apologize for something."

The healer nods. "Sounds like a panic attack, but I'd like to be more sure... Hold still, Joey?" She takes out her wand and waves it in long, swooping gestures, murmuring incantations to herself. "Yes, looks like... got a lot of problems crammed into that little head, huh. I'll be seeing you around."

She turns and grabs a potion off a shelf. "Recombobulating Draught. Drink it. Then we'll start on some of the other stuff."

Joey drinks most of the Recombobulating Draught, though he spills a not inconsiderable amount of it down the front of his robes and makes an unhappy noise about it.

"Tergeo," the healer says, and siphons off the spilled potion. "Don't worry, it's designed so you only need about three-quarters of it. Feeling better?"

Joey considers the question.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm feeling a lot better, actually. Sorry," he says to Leo.

"I still don't know what you keep apologizing for but I bet it's dumb."

"Um. Making you... miss class?"

"I was right," Leo diagnoses. "That's dumb. I already know how to fly, and if you somehow had a panic attack on purpose I'd expect you to be apologizing for that."

"Well. Alright."

"On that pleasant note, I think we should... hmm. Joey, I'm going to be conducting your intake examination early. Usually we'd do this in your second week, but I've got you here anyway and you clearly need some potion regimens. Other kid, you can go back to class if you want or you can stick around, I don't particularly care."

"Joey, d'you want me here?"

"Yes please."

"I'll stay then."

"Fine by me."

She turns to her desk and grabs some chalk. She crouches down and starts marking up the floor around Joey's feet. "This'll take a couple of minutes, I want to do a detailed inventory of what's wrong with you."

"Your bedside manner isn't great."

"Yeah, but I'm the only healer who'll come anywhere near this Godforsaken castle. Stay still and I'll get it over with quickly."

She finishes chalking the runes and waves her wand, causing them all to glow. Her eyes glow with them. "Hmm... okay. Mild scoliosis, latent stomach and skin problems, low blood pressure, we can take care of those, I'll run up some potions. Weak eyesight - figure out if you want glasses or potions for that. That's all easy. Your brain, meanwhile, is a mess. Half of the damn thing is flooding itself out trying to make up for the other half not working. I want to take this thing out and study it."

"Please don't?"

"If you insist. Anyway, I can work out something to do about that, it'll just be more involved. Bigger problem, your nerves are shot to hell. Without intervention, your wand hand is going to shake like a leaf, and the ideal intervention would've been five years ago. We can still manage something, don't worry - it's just going to suck."

"...okay. So I'm going to be drinking a bunch of potions - I'd rather drink a potion than wear glasses - and... what's going to suck about fixing my tremor?"

"Eight-month potion regimen. With side effects. Sorry."

Joey winces. "What kind of side effects?"

"Muscle weakness, dizziness, exhaustion, random aches and pains... there's a lot of potential side effects, and none of them are fun. But it'll rewire your nerves so you can use a wand properly. You'll be able to stop shaking if you concentrate on it, at first, and then it'll take less and less concentration until it's automatic, and eventually you'll be steady even under stress. And no, you can't stop once it seems like you're doing fine, that'll just make you relapse three years later."

"Okay. Well. Any of these potions I can take right now?"

"Sure thing. Sadly we can't just give you a cocktail of everything you'll need; for one thing it'd be about a liter of fluid, for another thing potions interact and it isn't pretty. So you'll get a different potion every day for a couple of weeks, breakfast and dinner. Don't worry, they all taste foul. Today's lucky potion is..." She summons a tall bottle labeled SKIN, pours a tot of liquid into the cap, and hands it over. "Drink up."

Joey swallows the SKIN. It tastes exactly as foul as advertised. He makes a deeply unhappy face.

Felicity hands over a bottle of butterbeer wordlessly.

Joey drinks it down. "Thanks," he says when the taste is out of his mouth.

"Oh, thank me when you're done. You're not going to like me very much for the next eight months."

"We'll see. What about the nerve potion?"

"Brave little thing, aren't you."

She summons another tall potion bottle, pours out a generous shot and hands it over. "Here you go."

Joey drinks it.

This one actually tastes kind of nice, weirdly enough. It's not nice enough that he'd drink it recreationally, even if it wasn't a strange medicinal potion, but it doesn't make him recoil in horror like the first one did.

"Is that all?" he asks. "Or did you have something else you wanted me to do?"

"Nah, you can go. I'll have the elves send the potions with your meals, and examine you again after two weeks, see if we've fixed those problems or not. Till then, no flying and no dueling. Let me write you a couple of notes about those, hang on a tick -"

She scrawls notes on some prewritten waivers, excusing Joey from any and all dueling and flight. "I'll send these to Dean and Stephen. Doubt you'll be getting into many duels as a first-year, but it's best to be sure. Now you can go."

"Thanks again. Uh, for - the potions. I know you said not to thank you but it's kind of reflexive."

And he leaves the Hospital Wing.

Leo trails behind him. "Medical potions! Exciting stuff. I'm excited to learn about potions, I've made a couple but I don't know how good I actually am because I only have my mum's feedback."

"It does sound exciting, doesn't it? Wizarding Culture is useful, so's Herbology, and... you saw how I took Flying... but I'm really looking forward to actually doing magic, you know?"

"Exactly. Come on, let's... well, it's another hour before Flying's over and after that we don't even have anything, want to go exploring?"

"...I'd kind of rather read? But maybe we can read in one of the courtyards so Thalia can fly around?"

"Sounds like a plan!"

They head back to the dorm and fetch Thalia, then head out to read together in the nearest courtyard until dinner.

At dinner, Aaron informs them that they are to return to the dorm after they eat, for a fun surprise.

The surprise turns out to be a start-of-term party, attended by nearly every Hufflepuff and much of the rest of the student body. There are games! There are recreational potions! There are spaces with bubbles of dampened sound around them for people who do not want to be participating in a party!

"I'm probably going to end up in one of the bubbles," Leo confesses. "Care to join me, or would you rather try to party first?"

Joey is already wincing at the sound level, but he shakes his head. "I wanna try a recreational potion. I have no idea what that even means but it sounds great."

There are many potions available! They are labeled with their name, effect, and brewer! Some of them have an Age Line requiring that you be sixteen or older to get them!

Potions that Joey can try include Cheering Concoction (a mild, nonaddictive upper), Bubbleblower Brew (which will let him exhale clouds of iridescent bubbles of various sizes for ten minutes), and Synaesthetic Solution (this batch of which is specified to let you taste colors). Potions that Joey cannot try include Glee Tea (a much less mild upper), Psychedel (a hallucinogen), and Sweet-Sweat (which makes your bodily fluids taste and smell delicious - "yes, that too," it notes mysteriously).

Joey grabs a vial each of the listed potions that he is permitted and retreats to the quiet area in which Leo has sequestered himself.

"Hi," he says.

"We last spoke under a minute ago," Leo says.

"I'm aware of that," Joey sniffs. "-I forgot to ask if you wanted a recreational potion. When we spoke under a minute ago."

Leo shrugs. "Most of them aren't that fun after the first couple of times. Especially the kiddie potions that people will actually give to minors."

"Well, I haven't had them before. So I'm going to try them."

He downs the potions in sequence. The Cheering Concoction tastes remarkably like a Shirley Temple, the Bubbleblower is simple-syrup-sweet, and the Synaesthetic Solution tastes like purple.

The difference between potions and drugs is that potions can and usually do hit immediately. Joey's pupils dilate, and he looks around in awe.

"Wow," he says.

He hiccups a cloud of tiny iridescent bubbles and makes a delighted little squeaking noise.

"Okay, that particular combination does look like fun," Leo admits.

Joey is checked out right now. He stares at the bubbles, tasting the tiny rainbow on each one.

Then he wrenches himself away from the pure enjoyment he's feeling, because he has science to do. What happens if he purses his lips and tries to whistle? (Thin stream of teeny-tiny bubbles!) If he exhales slowly? (Large bubble!) If he breathes in as much air as he possibly can and exhales slowly for as long as he can manage??? (He gets very dizzy, but gosh that sure is a big bubble!)

(Meanwhile, that angry boy from Intro to Wizarding Culture has inserted himself into their quiet area and is chatting up his poor neglected roommate.)

Joey might, under other circumstances, be worried that he's being rude. Right now, though, he's in Bubble Mode.

Ten minutes pass entirely too quickly. He's bemused, at first, when the bubbles stop; then he's disappointed. But he doesn't want to take another Brew, because then there'll be less for other kids who want it. This is a conundrum.

He elects to crawl up into the big overstuffed armchair that Leo is in and snuggle his friend about it.

"-which is great until you - uh? Hi Joey, what're you doing?"

Joey makes a noise at him which could not reasonably be characterized as a word.

Words are hard. Snuggles are better.

"...Cheering Concoction isn't supposed to do... whatever's going on here. Xan, you up for a trip to the Hospital Wing?"

Xan shrugs. "Sure, long as neither of us has to carry him. Also, if he throws up, or anything else in that vein, I'm leaving. Those are my conditions."

"Cool, great, let's go. Upsies, Joey."

Aw, but he just started snuggles.

Fine, fine, upsies. He wobbles precipitously on his feet.

Leo catches him under the shoulder and makes a face. "Xan, I know you just said no carrying but I weigh thirty kilos, can you -"

"Fine, fine, let me -"

He takes Joey's other side. In this formation they stagger out of the Hufflepuff common room and off towards the Hospital Wing.

"I'm going to know how to get to Madame Felicity's office better than I know how to get to my own dorm by the end of the year," Leo says.

"Why, what happened besides this?"

"Some kind of episode during Flying. She gave him a Recombobulating Draught and prescribed him a boatload of potions for the next couple of months. He took one of them right there."

"...okay, I'm beginning to think - from what you told me Cheering Concoction is really mild, right? But if somebody takes something really mild and it gives them a reaction, and then I find out they're already on different drugs, that makes me think maybe there's an interaction going on?"

"Oh."

"And that makes me think we should maybe be running, because if this is anything like the drugs normal people take that shit can get bad."

"No, yeah, let's."

They pick up the pace.

Madame Felicity opens her door after a couple of knocks. "Did I or did I not just heal this kid?" she asks.

"You did but he took some potions at the start of term party and he's having, um, some kind of reaction, and we didn't remember that he's already on potions, and-"

She has her wand out at "took some potions", and Joey is soaring through the air into a cot by "reaction".

wheeeeeeee

The healer's wand twitches and flicks in tightly controlled patterns.

Then she exhales. "He's fine. High as a kite, but fine. Good instincts both of you, five points to Hufflepuff five points to Gryffindor. I need to talk to that March boy, there should've been a warning on the potion table about interactions. You can take your friend back to the dormitory and put him to bed - he'll have a wicked headache in the morning, give him this -" She proffers a vial from one of the innumerable cabinets. "And tell him that I don't want to see him again for at least a week, for the sake of my own mental health if nothing else."

"We can do that. Um, can you - Mobilicorpus him, or something, carrying him here was not very fun."

She casts the spell, floating Joey over the floor and then tapping Leo with her wand. "He'll follow you until you tap a flat surface three times. I recommend his bed."

"Thanks Madame Spark." Leo trots off, followed by a pensive Xan and a gently bobbing Joey.

"...glad he's alright," Xan ventures.

"Yeah," Leo sighs. "Keeps scaring the hell out of me."

"Flbfrbrbl," Joey contributes. 

"I was gonna ask why bother but that's kind of cute," Xan admits.

"I'm not sure I understand the question."

"I mean like... he keeps getting hurt and it scares the hell out of you. What do you get out of it?"

"...friend...ship?"

"Well, yeah, but - you could be friends with anybody. Is this kid in particular worth the tradeoff?"

"Well, I guess we know why you're not in Hufflepuff. Friendship isn't... about that. I want Joey to have somebody who'll drag him to the Hospital Wing and tell him not to take potions when he's already on potions and read with him in the courtyard while his bird flies around. Conveniently, I'm a person who can do that. It's not about me. The fact that he's smart and funny and laughs at my jokes is - a bonus."

"How do you live like that. Thinking - it's not about me, it's about everybody who isn't me. There's so many people who aren't you. You'd drown in them."

"You're not responsible for everyone. You take responsibility for who you can handle, and they take on what they can handle, and - if you do it right, if you've got people taking care of you, it works."

Xan ponders this.

"Where'd you get all this rhetoric, anyway?"

"My dad, mostly. He's very big on, uh, generally being a decent person. Which is weird since he married my mum."

They make it to the dorm in good time, and Leo deposits Joey on his bed.

"...I think I might be done with the party," he says. "So I'm going to write some letters. You can go back out if you want?"

"Eh," Xan shrugs. "Rather hang out here with you."

Joey wakes up several hours later, following some very weird dreams, with a pounding headache.

He groans hoarsely. "Wh'appened?"

"You got absolutely wrecked on Cheering Concoction because apparently it interacts poorly with whatever skin potion Madame Felicity gave you. Drink this," he says, handing Joey the vial from last night.

He drinks it and gags. "Potions suck," he whines.

Then the stabbing in his head recedes. "Okay, potions are pretty cool actually," he admits reluctantly. "They just taste really nasty."

"Yeah, it turns out that for things to not taste awful they usually need sugar and sugar is extremely alchemically reactive. Soz."

Joey shakes his head. "- sorry if I worried you last night," he says hesitantly.

"You really will apologize for anything," Leo notes.

"Well, yeah - I don't want to make people upset!"

"Doesn't mean you have to apologize to me for accidentally poisoning yourself! Come on, let's get you a shower and some breakfast, you'll feel better."

Joey hops out of bed and follows dutifully.

Showering can be executed with a minimum of shenanigans, and they can get dressed and head out into the Common Room, where... Aaron is waiting for them.

     "You alright, Joey?" Aaron asks genially. "That was pretty scary last night."

"He's fine," Leo says offhandedly. "Or at least well enough to be guilty about scaring everybody."

     "Well that's no good," Aaron says, frowning.

"I don't like worrying people!" Joey protests. "That's not weird!"

     "Well, no, but people are allowed to worry about you, and it does us no good if you feel bad about it."

Joey looks extremely dubious.

"Anyway, we're off to breakfast," Leo interjects. "Want to come with?"

     "I'd love to," Aaron says. "It's early yet for a Saturday, but that doesn't mean I'm not hungry."

"Growing boy," Leo nods. "Perfectly understandable."

Off to the Great Hall they go. Fortunately it's about fifty feet away.

Joey collects some breakfast (what actually is a muesli? our scholars investigate). Aaron collects some breakfast, mostly sausages and coffee.

Leo gets fruit salad.

As soon as Joey sits down, a pair of slender bottles appear at his elbow. He startles, but manages not to knock them over. Then he examines them, and remembers about the potion regimen.

"Oh," he says. "Yay. Today's auxiliary potion appetizingly titled EYES."

     Aaron munches a sausage thoughtfully. "Yeah, Healers have a habit of just not naming custom potions. And I think Madame Felicity has a sense of humor."

Joey downs the potions and makes a face. "Well, that one tasted like wormwood. So that's nice."

"How d'you know what wormwood tastes like?"

"I was being poetic. Actually it mostly tasted like oversteeped tea."

"For the record: not what wormwood tastes like."

"I bow to your superior expertise."

Joey gets through about two bites of his muesli before an owl drops an overstuffed envelope on his head. He squeaks with surprise, then squeaks with delight and starts cutting the paper open with a butterknife.

     "Let me -" Aaron says. He points his wand precisely and incants "Diffindo!" and the envelope splits open.

"Thanks!" Joey pulls out a letter and starts reading.

It's from his family. Naturally. Who else would be sending him letters?

This one isn't a response to the letter he sent the first night; he bets they crossed each other in the air. Without his letter to respond to, there really isn't that much to say, on their end. What they've all done in the few days since he left. Little details about whichever brother had an adventure they want him to know about. They don't want him to miss out.

There's pictures too - and they move. Everybody's waving at him from a group shot, and there's one of them all splashing around in the lake, and there's a handful of test shots where a more or less blurry Ezra is grinning or making faces at the camera. Joey indulges in the urge to hug them, though it's mostly just hugging himself while holding them.

"From home?" Leo guesses.

"Yeah - here, take a look -"

Joey passes over the lake picture.

"Aw, cute - which one is this, you told me about all of them first night but it was more who they are than what they look like -"

"Oh, that's Nathan, you can tell because his hair's kind of red -" He identifies the entire cohort in succession. "And Ezra's behind the camera. But he got some test shots in, here!" He hands over an Ezra.

"Nice, I've got the whole set."

"World conquest is within your grasp."

"What are you talking about?"

"Like - like with the Dragonballs. I guess you don't have Dragonball."

"...I'm not touching that one."