A/N: Okay, so, erm, there's gonna need to be a bit of an explanation to this one. So I apologise for this rambling straight off and say if you wanna skip, go on and skip. Right ... so I received some lovely reviews for my Weirdsister focused fics (I will actually write something more Worst Witch related one day - I have a lovely idea for Miss Hardbroom, I just have difficulties writing her character) from someone who had signed their reviews as Ephie. Ephie's reviews, as previously mentioned, were lovely, but brought up a point that made me kick myself for not realising earlier - my characterization of a one Nick Hobbes. Now I study psychology, a student cliche I'm sure, and I happen to slightly good at it. Part of the reason for this is that I sat and tried to work out reasons for each of the character's actions using what I had been learning in psychology. The more interesting results happened to lie with Nick, which made me begin to build on what I thought his character's backstory might be. I sorta did this before I wrote my first fic for this section, and, as a result, I ended up using that backstory for writing Nick, and the same with all subsequent fics. However, it never really occured to me to write up this history until I recieved those reviews. So, for that, I do apologise, and present this erm ... well I labelled it as a character study, as a way of trying to make up for this. Hope it helps, and makes sense, and that people like it. So, erm, yeah, that's all really. On we go then.

Hang on to Yourself

Nick Hobbes was almost positive that he was really two different people. It was the only way he could describe it. For the most part he was twisted, insane and dangerous, and he liked that. It fitted him, he thought. True, he hadn't always been that way, but compared to how he had been before, well, dangerous was something better. And that other part of him …

When he had started at Weirdsister's, he was only the latest in a long line of Hobbes' to arrive at the infamous university, and he was the latest in the long line to want what all his family wanted: power. Except he wanted more than that, he wanted power beyond what anyone had ever seen before. He wanted to be someone to be feared, powerful, and in control. And he knew exactly how to achieve all this; it was all a matter of defeating the Eye. Which lead him to her, and to his current belief.

If one were to actually ask him when he first developed this lust for power, he would claim that he's always been that way. That wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't as though he would ever admit that. Except, in a round about way, he sort of did, to only one person. Nick supposed, and this was a big suppose when you considered his family, that it really started back in wizard school, at Albion College for Wizards.

It was considered the superior wizarding school, though certain families would debate that due to the fact that the Grand Wizard taught at Camelot College. To those people he often chose to point out that the Grand Wizard was more than a little unhinged in the mind, and decidedly boring, making it seem as though the only thing students at Camelot learnt was how to make the smallest of magics seem like the most incredible act to have ever taken place. And anyway, Albion had a nicer building.

Of course, despite being willing to stand up for place, Nick had hated every second he had actually spent there. He hadn't the confidence he had now on entering Albion, and this lack of the necessity led to him being a quick target for the over-zealous bullies, who really seemed to enjoy the very act of torture. The lead bully had been in his year, and was a complete cliché as far as the idea of the 'most popular in the year,' went. Needless to say, as the victim, Nick was not impressed by the bully. Or by the way he insisted on fighting him, declaring it to be no magic then turning round and hitting him with a hiccupping curse. He always maintained that being attacked with magic wasn't so bad, he knew all the counter spells to the curses the bully chose to use, but it was the bully decided to fight using actual violence, that was when he had a problem.

His father had become furious at him, when for the fourth holiday period in a row he had come home with a note about his being bullied, and had signed him up with a personal trainer, teaching him any fighting methods he could pick up quickly. Nick honestly saw no point in this, as it was not as if he couldn't fight back if he wanted to, he simply chose not to as it made the incidents end faster. But what with the way his family seemed enraged that someone dare take on a Hobbes, let alone win… He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and had to chose a way out quickly.

On the odd occasion, when the moment took him, he regretted the choice he made. That poor boy …

It was that choice that had lead to his difficulty with the All Seeing Eye, and as a result, brought him into contact with her. Miss Mildred Hubble, the creator of the other Nick Hobbes. Well not really, he supposed the potential of the other was always there, but he liked to lump her with the credit, or should it be blame? He often found himself annoyed at this, and annoyed that he seemed to have inherited another trait connected with his family, at least the males of his family; they tended to bend over backwards, and would rip open holes to various different demons dimensions, making pacts with all sorts of hell creatures, all for a pretty face.

Actually …when he thought on it, he was pretty sure that was part of the reason no one spoke of his Uncle Edward anymore …

But that was getting off the point slightly. The point was that when he met her, though he still remained his twisted self, which grew by the day, mostly influenced through boredom, it was as though there was another him, one that was decidedly nicer than his usual. A version of him that was more inclined to tell the truth, on occasion, and attempt to fit in properly amongst his peers. It became worse as the year went on, and he found himself disillusioned with the course that he had hoped would have opened his eyes to ways of gaining power. Oh how naïve he had been. His desire for power grew, but so did his … hope … for her.

Maybe life would have been easier in that respect had he fallen for Ethel Hallow who, admittedly, was very pretty, and wasn't such bad company. They got on for the most part, with what the actually having things in common, and often thinking along the same lines. On paper, they would have been a perfect couple, apart from the tiny little fact that the most affection he felt towards her was that of a friend. On a good day, on a bad day it was an incompetent minion. But she wasn't all bad he supposed, apart from her tendency to gloat every time his attempt to be nice blew up in his face in a rather spectacular manner.

And people wondered why they argued a lot. He did somewhat regret the decay of their friendship though, he did enjoy having someone other than Azmat and Tim to talk to.

But as time continued progressing, as it tended to do, in its seemingly linear fashion - Nick was a firm believer that if, in theory, time travel was possible, it suggested that the abstract concept that was time wasn't, as most people believed, a linear concept, but a different shape altogether - with the two versions of him fighting to become the one him. Which all completely blew up after that incident with the Whisperer. Nick, as well as becoming disillusioned with his course, had been whispered too by that force all year, though he hadn't told anyone, there were already enough comments on his mental health, (He had simply stopped going to the meetings Jenny Wendell held for members of her tutor group, after the fifth time she had suggested that he perhaps find someone he could talk 'open and honestly' with.) but he was aware that these whispers most likely had some effect on the way his desire for power grew almost ridiculously quickly.

But that was all over with, and here he stoos, halfway through his second year and, compared with the previous year, he was decidedly nicer. Perhaps this was a side effect to the more twisted side of him being pushed so far the previous year. Perhaps it was due to not having the Whisperer whispering to him anymore. Or maybe, and this was a big maybe for Nick to even consider, he was simply maturing. At any rate, he wasn't going to be quick to complain about the after-effects of this new niceness about him. He had managed - somehow - to repair the decay of his friendship with Ethel, which he was relatively pleased about. He also had managed to get into, well, an actual relationship. With Mildred Hubble, the girl he blamed, and credited, his contradictions in personality for. Even odder still, the relationship showed signs of lasting.

He didn't quite know whether to be terrified or pleased.

Well, that was a lie, he was exceptionally pleased with the way events had turned in his favour. Even though it did mean he had rather forgotten about his aim he had when he had first entered Weirdsister, but, truth be told, he felt freer without having to concern himself with living up to the family standard. Which, though once very appealing to him, seemed rather boring now. He had grown apart from his family's dogma, and had gotten to a point where, although still quite power hungry, it just wasn't as important to him anymore. Not if it meant losing other, considerably more important things to him.

Though … there was a lot of fun in pretending.