Dave Terschak had been about 7 years old when he realized there was something faintly different about him. He had been sitting, completely bored out of his mind as he had been grounded for getting caught jumping on a trampoline he was explicitly told not to jump on, when he realized that the ball he had been staring at for the past 10 minutes was suddenly floating.

Yes, floating.

This would have shocked nearly any other 7 year old in the entire world. But this was David Michael Terschak and he had just recently watched Star Wars for the first time ever the week before.

"I'm a Jedi!" He exclaimed. His excitement sent the ball rocketing up through the ceiling—shattering the light hanging. At the sound of the explosion Mr. and Mrs. Terschak ran into the room to make sure their son was okay and were stunned at the sight before them.

"David, why did you throw a ball at the ceiling?"

When young Dave explained to them that he was actually a Jedi, he found himself not surrounded by gasps of shock and joy as he expected, but rather another week of being grounded from his Gameboy. He then decided that it would be best for him to study his Jedi Powers in secret.

He frequently got annoyed, as he never seemed to be able to access them until times of great distress. Once, when he was 8, he was frustrated that his older brother JJ wouldn't let him have a bite of his cheesecake. Dave stomped his foot angrily after being pushed away and the cake flew out of his brothers hands to Dave's feet…almost like magic. Both brothers were so stunned that Jefferson the doggo got to eat the rest of it before they came to their senses. The two laughed about it and JJ chalked it up to a twitch in his hands and a breeze in the wind. Dave refrained from mentioning his oneness with the force.

Dave didn't discuss his power with anyone, until one day at school when he was 9 years old. He was at recess and prepping to join the next race to the big oak tree at the end of the parking lot near the woods. Over the past few days there had been an unbeatable boy on the playground and everyone was prepping for their own chance to race and defeat him. The only person ahead of him was a girl with brown hair, who was about a year younger than him. He thought she was very pretty with her long brown hair and bright brown eyes.

She walked up for her turn to race the fast boy and he rolled his eyes and said "C'mon Liz, really?"

"Yes, really. I'm going to beat you, Brian," she said confidently. So confidently that Dave wondered if she actually would. Everyone in line counted down and Dave watched eagerly, hoping that the girl would lose so he could race Brian. They were neck and neck the whole way but at the very end, Liz nudged Brian with her shoulder and he stumbled a bit, giving her the edge she needed to burst forward and touch her hand to the tree. Everyone started laughing and someone behind Dave mumbled "how embarrassing to lose to your little sister!"

As everyone was laughing he saw Brian turn bright red with anger and embarrassment and watched as a small branch cracked off the tree and hit Liz in the shoulder, causing her to fall to the ground and cry. Dave hated to see girls cry (especially pretty ones like Liz) and he ran over to her.

Brian was already holding onto her and looked like he was about to cry when Dave reached the duo. As Dave walked up, neither of them paid him any notice.

"You used magic in front of muggles and I'm going to tell mom-" Liz's yelling stopped as her eyes widened in slight horror once she noticed that Dave was within hearing distance. Brian didn't notice and continued "Don't you dare! You know it was accidental. I was just really upset about losing because people aren't going to think I'm fast anymore so I accidentally made the branch-"

Liz hit her older brother in the shoulder and pointed at Dave who stood excitedly bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

"You guys can use the force too!?" He nearly shouted. He had been starting to think he was the last Jedi alive or something.

Liz and Brian stared at him blankly.

Dave got anxious and stuffed his hands in his pockets and shuffled on his feet as he quietly explained "the branch….I can do that stuff too…and uh…"

Brian's eyes lit up and he yelled, "You're a wizard too?" Liz hit him again and shushed him.

"Well, uh, I thought I was a Jedi or something," Dave said, getting excited again.

"Oh, your parents must be muggles, then!" Brian said, his voice rising with his joy. "Don't worry, I'll explain everything to you!"

The champions strolled into the Great Hall and Liz and Ginny were rating each of the girl's dresses. Hermione and Ron were arguing, as per usual, in the corner and Claire and Brian, the Golden Gryffindor Couple were gazing lovingly into each other's eyes causing Dave to gag obnoxiously at them.

They didn't notice.

Fleur Delacour was a total babe-a-tron in David's humble opinion, but she was with some nerd from Hufflepuff. Dave mentally kicked himself- you're in Hufflepuff. You can't be mean to your own house. With a glance at his friend next to him, Dave actually did kick Dewey, his fellow housemate whose mouth was literally hanging open as he gazed upon the Veela. Dewey blushed bright red and then pointed someone else out.

"I haven't seen her before," Dewey said, pointing at the girl hanging on the arm of the Viktor Krum. She floated in the room and he heard Liz and Ginny audibly gasp. Her dress was very quaint—cream, and reaching down to about her ankles. Blue poppies adorned the dress, and they made her cerulean eyes pop. She was breathtaking.

"Just some Russian thot from Durmstrang, I assume" Dave said, averting his gaze to Laura hanging on the arm of Harry Potter. No, wait, Harry was definitely clinging to her arm and he looked absolutely terrified of all of the eyes hanging on him. Poor git, thought Dave. Laura was muttering to him and Dave could only assume that she was saying something along the lines of man the fuck up, Potter.

The victors and their partners began dancing, and Laura had to force Harry to grab her by the waist. Cedric was dancing with Sammy from his house, and they were just laughing as Sammy twirled him around a few times. Viktor and the mysterious other girl didn't seem to be having as much fun. She kept tripping over Viktor's feet and laughing awkwardly, and a snort echoed around the hall. Dave didn't want to admit how endearing he found it. Viktor wasn't laughing though, and seemed to be quite embarrassed.

Hermione sending a jinx to Ron and storming out of the Hall interrupted Dave's watching of the dancers. The girls ran out after her. As usual, Dave glanced over to the lowest of the Slytherins and noticed Draco's tense jaw. Dave had a theory that Draco Malfoy was secretly in love with Hermione Granger and Dave was going to prove it, god damn it. Not that he really cared what any Slytherin did anyways. They were all jerks, and nearly every boy in Dave's year kept an eye on Hermione, as they all sort of felt like a big brother to her, in some way or another.

"So, what your favorite bean?" Jane, his own date for the night, asked. Dave sighed and pulled out the flask of firewhiskey he had kept in his pocket. Dewey pulled out his own and the two cheered to one another and began their night.

The Weasley twins plan to spike the punch was quite the success and everyone was feeling rather giddy by the end of the ball. Dave decided to take a walk outside, as Jane was having far more fun with the girls than with him. Not that that was ruining his night. He was pretty drunk, and he was having a great time with everyone.

He heard someone laughing loudly, and then a much less joyous voice say "You are not who I should have taken to this ball. You're not taking it seriously." The laughter stopped. Dave immediately stepped in and found Viktor Krum standing over his very drunk date.

"Is there an issue, here?" Dave asked. He tried to sound intimidating, and he felt was doing a good job at it. He may not be a world-renowned super star athlete, but he was the greatest chaser that Hufflepuff had ever seen (quoted by last years Quibbler, thank you very much). Krum shook his head gruffly and began to walk away.

"She's your problem now" Krum muttered.

Dave and the girl stared at each other for about a minute before Dave managed to ask her name.

"Kailey," she said, standing up and going to shake his hand. She stumbled a bit so he caught her. They looked into each other's eyes for just a moment too long and Dave said, without even realizing it, "You're so beautiful."

She laughed and looked like she was about to say something to him, but threw up right on his nice dress robes instead.

There had been rumors over the summer that there was going to be an exchange student coming to Hogwarts. Not much was known about her, other than that she was coming from Durmstrang. The gossip mill of Hogwarts was running at full speed and whispered words spread on the train of what this girl would be like. The more fearful students were spreading around that she was a spy for He Who Must Not Be Named who was trained heavily in the Dark Arts. The more gossipy girls in the bunch were telling people that she was a student who came from Durmstrang last year who had gotten pregnant at the Yule Ball and was returning to be with the father of the child.

As the first years nervously came in, everyone sat on the edge of their seats, eager to catch their first glimpse of the newcomer. The doors opened and the first years gushed in and

"it's her!" Dave said breathlessly.

"huh?" Dewey asked, through a mouthful of food.

"The Yule ball girl!"

Jane, on Dave's other side asked what house he thinks she'll end up in, as Jane was the only other friend Dave had told about Kailey.

Dave was sweating by the time that Kailey reached the stool and sat down with the hat on her head. She looked as though she were having a silent conversation with the magical artifact. Dave's fingers were crossed as he silently prayed to God or Merlin or whoever the hell else would listen to him that she would end up in Hufflepuff. He hadn't been able to get her out of his mind since that night. Not just because she threw up on him, but also because they had had just a genuine connection. They laughed, and they danced outside together (equally terrible), and Kailey kept on saying how much nicer he was than Viktor bloody Krum. And he even walked her back to the ship the other Durmstrang students were staying on.

She had reached up on her toes to kiss him, but he didn't want to take advantage of her just because she had been drunk. Instead he handed her heels back that he had been holding on to and leaned down to kiss her forehead. She grinned like an idiot as he walked away, before stumbling into the ship.

"Hmm…. Better be Slytherin!" The hat's bellow brought Dave back to reality. Kailey grinned smugly and skipped, yes, the newfound Slytherin skipped to her new housemates. Their year made room for her and she found herself a spot in between two decent girls that Jane and Sammy had befriended from the house, Rachel and Sophie, and she sat across from Malfoy, who grinned at her.

Dave felt a little hopeless, as he knew that Slytherins and Hufflepuffs could barely be friends, let alone date.

It was his 17th birthday, which meant that David Terschak was finally a man, but more importantly, he was now a man who could drink legally and not get yelled at by Professor Sprout any more for doing so. The year had been a long one, with Umbridge breathing down the DA's neck. He wanted nothing more than to use an unforgiveable on that Pepe-faced bitch, but for now he was with his dearest friends in the kitchen, and the elves were making him all of his favorite foods, and Dobby had finally grown on him (mostly because he snuck him as much butterbeer as he wanted.).

Claire had her arm wrapped around Kailey and the two were loudly telling jokes to each other that no one really enjoyed except for Mitch and Luna, who nuzzling into the former's shoulder. Neville had his arm around Sammy, who had finally found someone who made her heart feel alive for the first time since losing Cedric. Draco was giving Hermione a kiss on the cheek as Ron sat disgruntled on the side of Harry, who was sitting just the perfectly awkward amount away from Liz. Laura rolled her eyes at her best friend and kicked him on the shin to "subliminally" send the message to make a move. There was so much inter-house unity happening in this room they deserved to be on a diversity poster.

Yes, the world around them was scary, and a new leader was rising who was terrible and mean and probably wanted to terminate entire groups of people, and they were going to fight that. But it was Dave's fucking Birthday and he was going to party, and more than that he was finally going to do it.

He watched with a sparkle in his eyes as Kailey laughed so hard she couldn't breathe anymore. Minnie, her beloved pet snake was wrapped around her wrist hissing every now and then so that Kailey would pay her more attention. Dave smiled fondly at the little creature that he had come to love.

He hated to admit it, but he had been wrong. His whole life he had spent believing that every Slytherin in the world were inherently blood-supremacist selfish freaks. In reality, he had actually come to respect most of them, and even come to like a few as well.

When the golden trio of Hogwarts had introduced the DA, it had featured various members of all houses, except for Slytherin. During the first meeting, Jane had pointed that out to everyone by very subtly stating "Dave wants to get with the new girl in Slytherin. Can we invite her?"

"Over my bloody corpse," Ron growled. "First that durmstrang slag, and then we'll have Malfoy in here."

Everyone turned to look at Harry for his opinion.

"I, uh, think that, uh…" He looked around helplessly before Laura sighed and shot a glare at him. He gulped and then said, "I think if Jane and Dave trust her, we should let her and anyone else who wants to learn to defend themselves in." Ron gaped at him like a fish. Dave smiled so broadly he knew he looked like a goof.

Kailey blended into the group as if she had always belonged. She got close to all of the girls and Mitch quickly. She would send Dave a big grin every time she saw him and would always choose him as her dueling partner and liked the fact that he didn't just let her win duels. He challenged her intellectually, and that was something she really admired about him.

Pretty soon, Kailey started bringing more Slytherins to the DA meetings. It turned out that most of them had wanted to learn real defense but didn't know how to go about it. The real test of the Slytherins came when Draco Malfoy strutted in to a DA meeting. Everyone had their wands pointed at him, accusing him of being a spy for Umbridge. The only reason he didn't get hexed out of his mind was because Hermione stepped in front of their wands and simply said "I trust him" and grabbed his hand. No one questioned him after that.

And now they all sat around, celebrating Dave's birthday, cracking jokes together as if a war wasn't looming on the horizon. Slowly, everyone began to trickle out, as there was still school the next day. Eventually it was just Dave and Kailey sitting alone in the Kitchen. This had been happening quite a lot lately. The two of them being the last to leave group activities, as if there was something still needed to be done. They moved closer and closer the longer they talked. They never ran out of things to talk about. They would talk about anything from Muggle Movies they'd both seen, their fears for their friends, and the relationships they could see blooming in their friend group and lately Dave had been showing Kailey something muggles had developed called "memes". He was already regretting it though, because the last time he had shown her something muggle, she didn't stop dabbing for a month.

Dobby paced into the room they were sitting in and timidly told them, "It is 4 in the morning and Dobby wanted to remind yous that yous have class. Dobby is sorry." It was then that the two realized how close they had been sitting to each other and they jumped apart and began to head out.

"Thank you, Dobby," Kailey said to the elf; whom she was quite fond of. Dobby grinned at her as if it was Christmas morning.

The pair headed out of the Kitchen and Kailey walked with Dave towards the Hufflepuff common room, as she knew it wasn't too far and she wanted just a little bit more time with him.

"Your patronus today was amazing," Kailey began and Dave smiled softly to himself. After weeks of practicing, he had finally gotten it. "What did you think of? Learning you were a wizard for the first time?"

Dave stopped and looked at Kailey meaningfully.

"I did, at first," Dave started, and Kailey nodded her head to show she was listening. "But I just kept getting little wisps. So I thought of something different."

"What was it?"

Dave hesitated before telling her, "The night of the Yule Ball, actually. And erm, when I took you back to the ship. You looked so happy from just one little kiss on the fore-"

He was cut off before he could finish by Kailey jumping up and wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close to her. Before he could respond she gasped and stepped away.

"I'm sorry, I didn't even ask permission….I'm sorry I just, I've wanted to do that for so long and I am in love with-"

Kailey was the one cut off that time.

The two of them remained like that for a while, in the middle of the corridor just snogging the absolute hell out of each other. Their tongues wrestled for dominance and they eventually had to break apart only to gasp for air. When Dave pressed his lips back to hers, he was much more gentle and ran a hand softly through her hair.

"I love you too," he said, "just so you know."

She simply smiled and stood up on her tippy toes and gave him a kiss on the forehead and began walking away slowly, all the while grinning she said, "I think I finally have a memory good enough to cast my own patronus next meeting."

He continued to watch her as she walked away and right before turning the corner she yelled "Happy birthday, Dave. I hope it was a good one." Her throwing a dab at him was the last thing he saw her do before she disappeared.

Dave knew that even though the sun hadn't risen yet, this was already the best birthday of his life.