Note: I came to this most wonderful of fandoms back in February, just in time for Set's hobbit-style birthday celebration week and so I'm celebrating mine the same way! Every day I'll be updating this story with a new chapter, to be completed on August 2nd. Chapter Six is my favorite, so I'm scheduling things this way to post that one on my birthday, July 30th! Once the final chapter goes up, I'll add a link on Tumblr to the Tumblr post that gave me the idea for this. I am much excite! I hope you all enjoy this, my friends! :D
Great Aunt Rachel belongs to Setepenre-set and is borrowed with their permission.
"Are you two fighting again?" Wayne asks her around a mouthful of sandwich. Roxanne barely hears him. Her eyes track the black-robed blue-skinned figure through the crowd streaming out of the hall and heading down the path towards the far classrooms.
"Hmm?"
They brought their lunch outside today, despite the heat, and are sitting together under the big oak tree at the far edge of the cobblestone path which led into the kitchens. Roxanne hadn't been able to bring herself to settle down in the Great Hall, not with awareness of Megamind pulling at her consciousness. He should have been beside her, and instead he's sitting with the other Slytherins and she feels his absence like a missing limb.
The little frosted cake from her lunch sits untouched at the edge of her tray. She always saved it for him. She'd grabbed it today without even thinking, too consumed with maintaining her composure.
"Yesterday you didn't even show up for Astronomy and when I asked Megs why you didn't sit with us in Charms he got all huffy and went kinda purple and wouldn't talk to me."
If Wayne didn't shut the hell up, she is likely going to smash the cake in his face and to hell with composure.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she says through her teeth, trying for calm and sounding coldly furious.
Wayne responds with a low whistle. "That bad, huh?"
Her cheeks flush. Roxanne takes a breath, trying to rein in her temper and aware that she is failing miserably.
"'Cause...the last time you two got all prickly about each other I almost flunked Potions, and we've got that project—"
She turns back to him, fixing him with a glare and Wayne swallows the rest of his sentence. "I know about the bloody project, okay? Maybe if you studied on your own for once instead of spending all your free time at Quidditch you'd finally actually learn something."
There is a pause, Wayne staring back at her, infuriatingly unruffled by her outburst. He arches one perfectly manicured eyebrow. "Want me to talk to him?"
Roxanne shuts her eyes. "There's nothing to talk about. We're not fighting. Everything's fine."
Wayne seems to get the hint at last, and drops the subject. They gather their things and drift into the crowd, following the flow of bodies through the halls. Wayne pats her on the shoulder, awkwardly, before splitting off. Roxanne continues on to Charms alone.
It's sweet of Wayne to offer, even if she doesn't appreciate it. At least he still puts with her.
Talking to Megamind isn't going to help because it's not Megamind's fault.
She's lost her best friend in the world, and the only one to blame is herself.
At the train station, the first time three years ago, Roxanne had felt very out of place and out of her depth; very unsupported. She felt like she was walking over thin ice, like any moment everything would go wrong and come crashing down around her. Tightly clutched in one hand, she had the note from her Great Aunt on what she might expect but Great Aunt Rachel was old like dinosaurs and Roxanne really doubted that what she remembered would be of use. It was more comfort than anything; evidence that she wasn't entirely alone, not entirely—
"Hello. Are you going to Hogwarts, too?" Roxanne had turned slowly and found herself staring a boy around her age and height, with an enormous head and bright green eyes and a friendly smile. He was blue. She blinked, and glanced down at the note. There was nothing in there about blue people.
"Um. Yes. But I'm not...really sure what I'm doing. She says platform nine and three quarters, but—" Roxanne looked around again, at the crowds of business people in suits. Professional grown ups walking briskly here and there. None of this seemed like magic.
The boy clapped his hands in delight. "Yes! That's Hogwarts. Here, it's this way."
Roxanne followed him through the crowd, pushing her cart of luggage and books along in front of her, until he stopped at the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, and turned to beam at her.
"The Warden told me—"
"The who?"
He dropped his eyes, scuffing the toe of his boot against the ground. "The, ah—he's kind of my guardian, at the orphanage? Where I live. Anyway—" He brightened again, determinedly she thought. "Anyway, he says you just run at the wall."
Roxanne eyed the stone skeptically. She'd known him for all of two seconds but there was something very...open, about this boy. She didn't think he was trying to trick her.
Watching her expression he said, "It's easy, I'll show you."
She'd hesitated, just a little, at the thought of being left alone out here, alone again in the midst of all these strangers—her stomach fluttered unpleasantly.
The boy smiled at her, softly, and stepped close, aligning his cart beside hers.
"Here. Take my hand. We'll go together. Ready?"
They stepped through the magic together.
"See?" he said, turning to her with a grin. "I told you."
"Thank you. Um. My name's Roxanne," she said, and carefully let go of his hand.
"Lovely to meet you, Roxanne. I'm Megamind."
On the train, he told her all the stories he'd heard from the Warden about Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, about Sorting and the Houses and all the classes he wanted to take. Listening to this animated discussion, drawn in with questions despite herself, she soon found herself in the middle of a heated debate about which world events had been magic in nature or not. He was smart. But more than that, he listened to her points and didn't hesitate or get angry if she was right.
They hadn't ended up in the same House and she'd been terrified all over again, for a little while, but it worked out anyway. He was, in Roxanne's quiet opinion, smarter than anyone in her House, anyway. No one mocked her for being his friend. Some of them were actually even jealous.
Roxanne had found someone she could argue with. Someone whose wit matched hers, whose thinking complimented her own.
They spent the first Christmas there at the school. Her family had gone on a trip for the holiday, and she wasn't invited. And the strange this was that as much as that hurt...she was glad to be here instead. Megamind taught her to play wizard's chess.
Roxanne gave him Great Aunt Rachel's address when the school year was over, in case he wanted to write her. Then hugged him, there on the platform, brief and hard, before turning her back and ducking her head and dragging her luggage along behind her.
(She would not cry, she would not—this wasn't goodbye—he wouldn't be like all her other so called friends, he was different, this was real—)
When the first owl arrives at her Great Aunt's, it's carrying more than a letter—he'd sent along the whole magic chessboard, and the poor owl spends the summer hauling the thing back and forth between them, as well as letters and books to be shared.
The second year they befriend Wayne, first out of pity and necessity more than anything else—he was flunking hard in several subjects and the Headmaster approached Megamind to tutor him. The Scotts paid him for it.
Wayne wasn't actually all that bad, beneath the white teeth and perfect hair and general air of good-natured hammy obliviousness. He invited them to his place for Christmas. Everything was high cathedral ceilings and shiny gold and thick, plush carpet. The closet was bigger than the entire second floor of Roxanne's house. Only three swimming pools, Wayne said, while she and Megamind exchange a wide-eyed look.
The next year the two of them stay at Hogwarts for the holiday, and it feels like they have the whole school to themselves. It had been—at first, before she'd ruined everything—the best Christmas of Roxanne's life.
She'd spent all summer on his present, and his face when he opens the gift sends her heart lurching. She'd pestered Great Aunt Rachel into teaching her to crochet, just so she could make it for him. It was a beanie, black with blue lightning bolts all over and on the front she'd added the word WIZZARD and enchanted it to stretch and fit him comfortably, not too tight or constricting. She'd used the softest material she could find. The thing felt like a cloud.
Megamind lifted it out of the wrapping paper, staring in awe.
"You can wear it even in the Muggle world," she said. "Because they'll think it's a reference to Terry Pratchett. Which it is, really. Just not only."
Megamind looked at her and drew a tight breath. "I love it. Roxanne, this is—perfect."
He'd hand-made her gift, too—a pair of hair clips, carved to look like ravens, with polished blue stones inset for their eyes. "For your, um—'cause you know, you're always—" Megamind stammered, and when she looked up at him he swept his hands across his face in the gesture she used to push her bangs out of her eyes. His cheeks were tinged with color.
They'd gone to Hogsmeade, for the first time, each wearing their new gifts. They'd listened to music and walked through the snowy streets. Megamind used some of his money from tutoring to buy gifts for the others at his orphanage. Roxanne spent far too much money on extravagant things she knew Great Aunt Rachel would love. They had candy for dinner.
Then Roxanne had kissed him.
And it was a bit like the end of the world.
Her world, anyway, the one framed with logic and organization, the one which followed a reliable routine. A routine in which Megamind featured, quite prominently. You can't just get rid of your best friend because you had a weak moment in the falling snow and she knew it was all her fault but she wanted to blame him, she wanted to so very badly.
The way he'd smiled at her, and taken her hand, and pointed at the shooting star.
Make a wish.
How was she supposed to have resisted that?
Megamind's fingers were tight around hers and she'd felt like there were stars in his eyes, and that stupid warm feeling had swelled within her until she thought she'd burst—
So she'd kissed him. Twice.
Once on the cheek, while he was still looking up at the stars. Megamind's skin had been cool and soft under her lips and he'd sucked in a breath and turned toward her, eyes wide and round and—and she'd brought her free hand up to his other cheek, holding his face, and leaned in and pressed her lips against his.
Megamind had looked so stunned, blue cheeks flushed the most gorgeous shade of lavender and his eyes had been so dark, their breath frosting in the cold air between them, snowflakes stuck in his hat.
He tasted like candy, because that's what they'd been eating, sitting at the big wooden table with their backs to a corner in the open room. Bright sparkling lights and music so loud it vibrated the air and they'd been—they'd been eating something like hot chocolate soup with big fluffy clouds of marshmallow floating in it, all sprinkled with cinnamon.
(This...this is right, isn't it?)
She remembers—
Roxanne remembers powdered sugar and cinnamon dusted over the rich chocolate...and marshmallows...and candied cherries. Megamind had ordered it—she'd always known he had a sweet tooth...doughnuts and cookies and coffee so sweet it tasted like caffeinated chocolate milk.
(...This is right, isn't it? Why does it feel like a shimmering soap bubble in her mind, fragile and ringing like a fingertip over wet glass? Why does she remember—spikes...?)
Candy for dinner.
They'd had...candy...for dinner...
Roxanne remembers her back against the rough wood of the booth, in the noise and bright lights and merry singing, pressed close to Megamind's side in the corner booth. He had a smear of red cherry across his mouth and she'd used her own napkin to wipe it away and pretended not to notice how wide his eyes got. Roxanne had ordered something fizzy and alcoholic and the bubbles bursting in her brain made her brave where she never ever otherwise would have had the courage...
When she'd kissed him she'd thought the stars in the sky were like that, the fizzy bright bubbles, and when he'd turned to look at her Roxanne had been entirely unable—unwilling—to quell the impulse and had reached out, cupping his sharp cheekbone in one mittened hand and turning his face towards her and capturing his lips with hers and he'd tasted like candy and...
That was what had happened, that was right; they were—they are children, still, and had chocolate for dinner and—
The spoons had been made of peppermint, candy-cane spoons, and she kissed him, under the stars, tasting it on his lips, feeling like she held her beating heart trapped and fluttering like a bird at the base of her throat and—
(make a wish—)
And you don't go around kissing your best friend and expect things to be okay.
Maybe they should have talked about it. Maybe if she hadn't been such a coward, after, and had said...something, god, anything at all. But he's not spoken a word to her, in the months since, and Roxanne has been walking around in a bit of a daze, alternating between miserably furious and furiously miserable.
Nothing like losing the only real friend you've ever had in your life to make you realize how isolated you are; how alone inside yourself. It hurts; like a fish hook caught in her heart, line drawn tight with longing for someone who can't even stand to look at her.
It makes for a amazingly awkward group assignment.
They'd started the Potions project as a favor to Wayne. The only extra credit Professor Snape was offering involved a long and complicated series of potions as a group effort. Neither she nor Megamind needed the extra, but Wayne could hardly brew a potion to save his life so they'd agreed to it for his sake.
Besides, if you have to spend time in class, it's always better to have your friends there.
Until you kiss one of them. Because you're stupid, and hopeless and pathetic—
"Um, Roxie?" Wayne's voice, soft in the quiet classroom, catches her attention. She glances up at him, and he points down. "Your wand's smoking."
There is a soft noise from Megamind, on her other side, and it takes every bit of willpower Roxanne has to smooth her features into neutrality before looking over at him.
He's frowning in concentration, slowly pouring liquid from a flask into the cauldron and stirring with the other. "You didn't add the dandelion root," he murmurs.
Roxanne lets a breath out through her teeth and carefully adds the ingredient.
There is silence for another moment, then Megamind says, "Will you please pass me the rose oil?"
His relentless politeness and quiet comments and passing her things with his fingertips and not looking at her and standing angled away from her is like gasoline slowly and gently poured onto a fire.
He is infuriating, why couldn't he just yell at her and get it over with—Roxanne you ruined everything, why couldn't he just say it—
"Um—" Wayne taps her carefully on the shoulder. "Roxie, your wand's smoking again—"
Megamind finally looks at her, eyes wide, before turning his gaze away again. Deep breath. Flattening his lips together. "We need to focus on the assignment."
"Are you guys fighting?" Wayne asks, eyes flicking back and forth at them below raised brows.
"No!" they snap, at the exact same moment.
Wayne's brows climb higher towards his hairline and he keeps his gaze fixed on the table as he lowers his book. "Oh-kay, he says, well, no worries then, huh? 'Cause this never ends poorly for us."
This is it. This is the end of her patience, the dying breath of her willpower. Another moment more and she's going to scream or start crying or—
The cauldron explodes.
A plume of golden smoke billows out, sparks lighting on the table top. Roxanne yanks her book out of range, jumping backward. Across the room, Professor Snape sighs and begins walking towards them.
"What did you do?"
"Me? I didn't do anything! I was following what you said, like we always—"
"Um—" They both turn to look at Wayne, who is holding a half-full vial of some kind of shiny liquid. "You, uh. I thought you said saltpeter? But maybe it was supposed to be salt water—"
Roxanne chokes on a snort of laughter, turning unthinking to look at Megamind, biting back a smile and Megamind is wearing the same expression, green eyes bright with mirth. Roxanne's heart lurches at the familiarity, longing welling up swiftly, tightening her throat—oh, maybe—could he maybe—
Megamind's face twists into a scowl, and he tears his gaze away from her.
She doesn't look at Megamind again, but quietly gathers her things and leaves while Wayne is still bearing out the lecture on following precise instructions precisely.
Anger—anger is. Easier. Don't cry, damn it, don't cry, get angry. If you can't be angry at him, be angry at yourself again, it's better than this; better than sick misery churning in her gut.
"Roxanne! Hey, Roxanne—wait up!"
She glances over her shoulder. Hal is pelting down the hall towards her. Roxanne scowls, lengthening her strides but he catches up anyway, sweating and out of breath.
Sweaty face beaming at her, wiping the hair back from his brow. "Hey, wow—slow down, where's the fire?"
"What do you want, Hal? I'm not having the best day, all right? I just want to—"
"Geez, relax, will you? I just wanted to say that was super cool back there. What you did with that potion."
Rolling her eyes. "It was as much Megamind as me Hal, you know that."
"Yeah but—that guy won't give me the time of day, you know? We're not exactly buddies." Glancing at her sidelong, pressing his lips together. "I, uh. I noticed you two haven't exactly seemed all that friendly lately, either and I—"
"Not your business, Hal—"
"I know! Geez, I know. I'm not trying to get all up in your drama, okay? I just...like, he's not the only guy out there that thinks your really great. I just thought...I dunno, maybe you could use a friend or something."
She wants Megamind back, but. That's never going to happen. Hal isn't exactly her first choice—honestly, Hal isn't anyone's first choice. Roxanne bites her lip, eyeing him sidelong.
"I know I'm not, like...a supergenuis or anything, but like.." He smiled at her, a real smile, sweet and a little shy and she thought he probably knew he was no one's first choice. "I thought I could at least, like. Carry your books for you or something. That's what friends do, right?"
Well. What could it hurt? "Sure, Hal. Here. Thanks."
He shuffled her stack on top of his own, holding them in the crook of one elbow and reaching into his robes with his other hand. "Sure, no problem. Listen, it's hot out. You thirsty?" He held out a bottle of water. "It's not magic or anything but I usually bring stuff like this from home. It's still pretty cold, too."
She almost has it in her hand when a bright light flashes from behind, and a blast of magic sends the bottle flying away.
Megamind, striding down the stars, face dark with fury. Roxanne feels her own anger rising in response. How dare he butt in—
Hal looks shocked, sputtering and angry but Megamind sweeps between them, one arm out as if to shield Roxanne.
"Hey," she says, "I don't know where you get off thinking you can—"
"It was spelled," he snaps, his voice low and cold. "That water. He'd stuck a love potion in it."
Her mouth falls open in shock. There is no need to ask for proof—Hal's murderous glare is proof enough.
"I've seen him working on it in his dorm," Megamind says softly, not taking his eyes away from Hal's face. "He told me it was a memory potion. As if I didn't know better."
"So what?" Hal says, sneering, gaze locked with Megamind's. "So what if it was? You think just because you don't want her anymore, no one else can have her? Doesn't she deserve the chance to be happy with someone else?"
A small crowd begins to gather, drawn by the tension, excited to watch a fight. Wayne casually moves along the edge of it to stand in Hal's blind spot.
"She deserves the freedom to make up her own mind about what she wants—"
"It was just for fun, okay? It was just for fun, 'cause she's been—" Hal tears his gaze away from Megamind and meets Roxanne's eyes. She takes a small, instinctive step sideways, putting more of Megamind between them. "Roxie, you've been so miserable lately, ever since Christmas, I just wanted to see you smile again—"
Outrage flares, sharp and sudden, over the horror. "By drugging me?"
"It's not like that, why aren't you listening? It wasn't going to be—it was just for fun, I didn't—"
"You can't even lie," Megamind sneers. "How are you a Slytherin? You aren't cunning in the slightest. I bet you can't even spell guile. Slime like you isn't worthy of any house, it's a pity 'trash heap' isn't an option for sorting—"
Hal's face had twisted more with every word, eyes dark and vicious, fixed on Megamind's face. He lunged, sudden and swift, swinging his fist—Megamind ducks smoothly aside, pulling Roxanne with him, and while Hal is off-balance from his swing Megamind's wand snaps up.
A swirl of light spirals around Hal, spinning him in a circle and then down and when the light clears there is no Hal, only a small confused looking ferret.
There is a burst of laughter and cheering from the crowd of students. Megamind turns to her, and smiles, looking very pleased with himself. Roxanne realizes suddenly she's holding onto his arm and quickly lets go. "Sorry," she says. "Um—"
"What's going on? Stand aside—what's going on here?" Professor Mcgonagall shoves through the crowd and she stops short, staring suspiciously at them the three of them surrounding the ferret before sighing. "Why is it always you three?" She sounded as though she were complaining to the universe at large.
Megamind drew a breath and stepped forward. "Professor, I can explain—"
At a shrill shriek from the ferret, her eyes widened. "Is that—is that a student?"
Megamind winced. "Um. Technically it's a ferret..."
Of course they get detention.
After depositing Hal in the Headmaster's office, she led them down to the library and into one of the back storerooms.
Wayne tried to apologize. "Sorry, Professor. We were just trying to—"
She stops in front of a table which held a mountain of books, clearly piled haphazardly with no thought to order. "Sorry?" she says, looking at each of them in turn, letting her gaze linger on Megamind. "For defending your friend from the unwanted advances of that—that—" She flattens her lips together and shakes her head. "You should have come to me, or your own head of House, when you knew what he was up to. That would have been the right thing to do. But you shouldn't be sorry for protecting Miss Ritchi, however wrongly you may have gone about it."
She smiled at their surprised expressions, then waved a hand at the table.
"Shelve these, please. All of them. By hand. I'll have your wands now." Reluctantly, they handed them over and she tucked them into a pocket inside her robes. "Come see me in the morning during breakfast hour and I'll give them back to you."
"A spell could do this," Wayne mutters, lifting a book and wincing at the cascade of dust that cascades down.
She stops on her way through the door, fixing him with a look over her shoulder. "Yes. That's rather the point, isn't it? This is detention, Mister Scott, not a walk in the woods with unicorns."
They sort books in silence and stack them onto the cart in silence and then begin shelving, working all together in one aisle and Roxanne finally steels herself and turns to Megamind and bursts out with, Why didn't you tell any of the professors.
He blinks at her, taken aback. "I knew he'd never manage to brew it. You know how awful he is in Potions. But then I saw him talking to that poufy-haired Ravenclaw—"
"—Bernard?"
"His head is like brown dandelion fluff and he wears glasses and always sort of looks like he's bitten into the rind of a lemon?"
"Bernard."
"I didn't think anything of it then, but when you left—today, um, when you—left after Potions class... The way he watched you go, all shifty eyed and smiley—everything just sort of came together in my mind, and—well—
"And you came to save me," she says, softly, swallowing hard.
His face flushes with color. "Yes. Of course I did."
Silence descends once more and then Wayne heaves a massive, groaning sigh. "You two. Geez Louise. I'm just going to take these—" he says, piling a stack of books onto his arm, "and go shelve over there. For no reason at all." He vanishes around the corner of the shelf, heading for another aisle.
Roxanne's head thumps forward onto the weathered spines and the edge of the shelf. She feels more than a little bit like she's going to be sick, all hot under her skin and hard to breathe and—tell him, just tell him, you coward just say it. You can't make things any worse at this point.
"I'm sorry for kissing you," she says, and the words feel a bit like vomit, burning her throat and stinging her eyes. There is silence, and she turns her head to stare him full in the face for what will probably be the last time.
Megamind is wide eyed, mouth agape, staring back at her in shock. "You're sorry you—Roxanne, I—I kissed you—"
She blinks, standing straight, heart fluttering wildly against her ribs. "What? What? Megamind, no—I kissed your cheek, I put my hand on your face and—"
"You kissed my cheek like—like a friend, that was friendly affection and—" His cheeks are flushed deep purple. "That...that wasn't...friendly?" His voice wobbles on the word.
They stare at each other for one tense moment.
Roxanne takes a step forward, heart slamming against her ribs, and touches his face, palm cupping his cheek. Megamind smiles, and her heart lifts and she kisses him, softly at first but with increasing intent—she's wanted this for so long—ever since the beginning, ever since—
(Good girls don't run towards danger, Miss Ritchi—)
There is a noise swelling in the air, a sort of monotone ringing, pitched achingly high, vibrating through her skull and setting her teeth on edge, resonating like a glass chime.
Megamind breaks the kiss, wincing and holding one hand to his head. "What is that?"