Cailan ducked. The tiny flask smashed into the wall behind where his head had been less than a moment ago. Another one came dangerously close to where his head was now, but a swift roll to the side got him out of the way fast enough.
"Can't run forever, little bird!" A sneering voice chided, accompanied by several others laughing. More flasks, and more dodging and ducking and weaving around the classroom. Cailan would have had an award for his dodging, if there was some competition for it. He took residence behind a desk and muttered a quiet spell under his breath, his hand lighting up with blue flames. He couldn't help but let a smirk appear on his face. The Slytherin might be of the cunning and pack like variety, but Ravenclaw's like Cailan were lone wolves, their own men or women. A bookworm through and through, Cailan fit the bill of a typical library-stoked nerd-but at the same time, he was most definitely not typical.
A devious streak ran so deep through his psyche that he spent a full hour arguing with the sorting hat whether he should be in Slytherin or Ravenclaw.
But not in an evil way. He was articulate, not so much fixated on acquiring knowledge as his fellow Claws were, but more on the practicality and the more outcaste practices his studies could wield. It was for this reason that he was the odd one out, the true shunned one of the school, even by his own house. And also the reason he was excelling in wandless magic, aside from his unusual heritage from his father. With one flick of his hand he sent a spear of blue flames towards the group of green robes, and they screamed and dispersed.
"He's using that fancy seventh year magic again!" He heard one of them shout, and he could only roll his eyes. They never seemed to catch that he was doing magic without a wand, only that it was high level magic. And considering he was a seventh year, it wasn't too out of his class to be using Azurious Tempasura in an attempt to fend off his bullies. He shook his hand and the flames dissipated. The grin on his face didn't fade as he flexed his hand. It'd taken him two weeks to learn how to do that spell and not burn his sleeves-everyone had given him odd looks when he'd taken to wearing his robe with one sleeve missing, and now he didn't have to do that anymore.
With a hop in his step he stood up and walked out of the room, everyone already leaving him alone and gone back to their common room. Filch, the caretaker, would probably be lurking the halls. In fact, he was there now, glaring at Cailan like he was the source of all the misery in the world.
"A scuffle in the Potions classroom?" The broom wielding man hissed, his broom shaking slightly. Cailan shrugged.
"I fended them off. I'll help you clean up." Filch grumbled under his breath but reached into his pocket and pulled out another broom. One of the many gifts Dumbledore had given him to aid his caretaking duties; pockets with no limits to the objects they could carry. Multiple broom closets, spare clothes, a few cats, and from what Cailan had seen one day on one of Filch's 'off days', numerous explosives. Second broom in hand, Cailan walked back into the room with Filch and began sweeping the broken glass into a substantial pile in the middle of the room.
"Stupid Slytherin, making a mess for me to clean up..." Filch mumbled, brushing along the wall where a significant amount of flasks had impacted.
"We could always set off a stink bomb in their common room again." Cailan suggested absentmindedly from across the room.
"Hn." Filch grunted back. "We'd have to clean it up, though, after."
"Do we really? Could always say that since it was in their common room..." Cailan replied, now a grin widening on his face as he locked eyes with Filch twenty feet away. The groundskeeper, a very reserved and irritable man, did not typically smile. But, at the thought of such vengeance and wonderful torment of the students, he allowed his lips to curl upwards in a cruel, cruel grin.
"I believe we could arrange something..." Filch muttered, forcing his lips back down as they finished pushing the broken glass into the pile. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a muggle vacuum cleaner, and flipped the switch, sucking all the shards into it. High durability, maximum suck, the thing was ten times scarier than a Dementor. No, seriously, Cailan would rather face a hooded being of soul sucking kisses than look into the black void of the vacuum. He could recall doing so the time he first met Filch.
Time for a flashback!
Cailan wiped the soot off his robes, muttering things that wouldn't make sense to anyone except someone else who'd read the same book he did. And considering that book was restricted to students, the audience was a small one. Half the library was up in smoke, students were running around screaming, Pince, for all her worth, was shooting steady streams of water out of her wand, shrieking things like 'my precious books!' and 'burned to bits, nothing left!' It surprised Cailan that everything, everything, was on fire. The spell he'd failed surely wouldn't have lit the other side of the library.
Amidst the chaos, seemingly showing up in the middle of the flames, was FIlch. Filch, who carried a single broom, and had a tiny, evil looking cat at his leg.
"Fire." He muttered. "And in the library too." He seemed rather content with the situation, flames burning all around him and actually catching his shoulder on fire. He didn't seem to care, even as smoke began to come off of him. "I wonder who started it?" He asked aloud, glancing around nonchalantly. Suddenly he was holding the vacuum, and had begun sucking flames into it, walking around slowly, like he didn't really care if any of the books weren't burned.
His eyes settled on Cailan as he entered the restricted section. His glare had a fire of its own, contrasting with the real one surrounding them.
"You started the fire, didn't you?" Cailan froze, as much as he could when the bottom of his robes was burning. The tip of the vacuum was an inch from his nose, and he could see into the all-encompassing blackness. It was like having his eyes ripped out of his sockets, just looking at it.
"Ah-no." Cailan tried, stepping to the side of a large smoldering bookcase that would have crushed him as it fell. Filch didn't seem to notice. "I didn't start the fire." The caretaker just stared at him, then gently scruffled his beard with one hand, absentmindedly vacuuming a few ashes up from the floor. The cat meowed.
"I didn't start the fire either." He mumbled, his gaze flickering up to Cailan, a moment their eyes locking and truth came to both of them in an instance of almost telepathy. Realization dawned on Cailan; the other side of the library was in flames because...
"We didn't start the fire." They both said at the same time. Next thing they knew they were grinning and walking out of the library together, their clothes burning but they couldn't find the capacity to care.
"How did you not start the fire, Filch?"
"I didn't light 'Hogwarts; A History' on fire after soaking it in hippogriff oil and throw it into the History section. What about you, Ravenclaw?"
"Cailan. And I didn't mess up Burtanou Engourgious in the restricted section." For the first time, but not the last, Cailan heard Filch chuckle.
Flashback complete! Back to the present!
Filch stuffed the vacuous device back into his pocket and held out a hand for the broom Cailan had, then stuffed that into his pocket as well.
"These scuffles are getting more frequent." He grumbled, walking out of the classroom with Cailan by his side.
"You know how the snakes are. Leak all their venom and they'll just get more of it."
"Just rip the fangs out." Filch said, smacking his broom against the ground, sending a patch of dust into the wall where it would collect for a few weeks until Filch made his rounds with the device of death. "Either way;" He stopped Cailan and fixed him with a serious stare. "I've gotten the next set of books for you." A grin they both knew well appeared on Cailan's face as he held out a hand. Filch reached into his second pocket and pulled out three books, all old, ratty, dusty, and thin. Journals.
"These are the first editions?"
"The originals." Cailan nearly spat out his spittle.
"The what?" Filch nodded, tapping the top book with one finger.
"Had to call in a favor to get them. Not easy to find the original journals of Jules Baccano." With that, the caretaker turned and walked the opposite way down the hall. Cailan couldn't help but laugh, caressing the books in his hands as he made his way back to the room.
Please review!
