A/N: I do not own Soul Eater or the Harry Potter franchise. Rated T for language and HEAVY sexual references. This is a three-part story.
Also, obviously, Blake = Black*Star.
Enjoy.
Where Dwell the Brave at Heart
Lisp.
ONE
This had to be the most dreaded class of his day, his week, his entire life maybe. Because of course the Gryffindors had to take Charms with the Hufflepuffs, and of course his idiot of a best friend had to try and use the hours impressing Nakatsukasa because when else would his godly presence be able to lighten up her day?
Soul shook his head resignedly as Professor Nygus wheeled around, her grey eyes steely, the scathing lecture already rehearsed and sitting patiently behind her lips for the moment where it could burst free and tear Blake Barrett to pieces. His end of the desk was now slightly scorched, and emitted a nasty chemical smell. He shuddered and gathered his books to flee the scene of the crime before Nygus somehow got it into her head that he had been an accomplice to Blake's pyrotechnical display.
It was really a testament to his character that he was still friends with the blue haired boy after how many detentions he'd been roped into. Maybe I should be a bloody Hufflepuff, Soul grimaced internally. He scooped up his belongings and dumped them on the empty desk beside theirs – other students knew by now to stay well away from Blake's incantations. The spell they were learning today, the Revealing Charm, was fairly complex for their level and so far he was having absolutely no luck with it. Each student had been given a piece of parchment scrawled with random words: shopping lists, textbook paragraphs, Kilik thought his was a love note. However, under the useless text was the true writing, concealed by Nygus. To get a passing grade on this Charm in the OWLs, Soul knew, he'd have to be able to write down whatever secret message was hidden on the parchment. If this practice was anything to go by, he was nowhere near an Outstanding, or even an Exceeds Expectations for Charms.
"Aparecium," he muttered half-heartedly, drawing his wand in a horizontal line above the paper. For a moment he thought he saw a few words shudder, but ultimately he remained with the same scrap of recounts about a troll battle in 1902. Resignedly, he pushed it out of his sight.
Nygus' tirade on Blake seemed to have ended because when he snapped out of his bad mood he saw her smiling and holding up a piece of parchment which read, 'Five Points.' "Well done, Miss Albarn. Those five points will be going straight to Gryffindor. It's a pity you didn't get one of the ten point papers."
Of course, he thought, partly sour and partly that something else he always felt whenever she entered his thoughts. Perfect Albarn, Gryffindor Prefect, Keeper for the Quidditch team, golden child of famous Ministry parents. He was surprised it had taken her this long to succeed with the charm, if he was being honest. Fifteen minutes into class time was something of a poor effort for her.
Maka had attributes that would make her a prize for any of the Hogwarts houses. She was determined to improve and trump her parents' reputations, which always caught the attention of Slytherin. She was fiercely loyal and caring towards her close friends, so Hufflepuff would want her in a heartbeat. Of course, she was the top of the grade and probably even the top of the school despite being a fifth-year, so Ravenclaw was about as horny for her as they could get. And yet when she'd been a tiny thing, all ankles and giant eyes and a chest like a board, the Sorting Hat had mulled around on her head before yelling, 'Gryffindor!' A bit of a surprise from a combination of her Ravenclaw mother and Hufflepuff father, but hey, stranger things had happened. If her bravery and power was enough to override her megawatt brain, she must be the most courageous kid in this whole place.
Which made her that perfect, wonderful and unattainable level of everything good, and yet she was so nice that Soul didn't even have it in him to hate her. In fact, he was probably her closest friend at Hogwarts. She'd come right up to him after Sorting with a hi, I'm Maka, want to be friends? and ignored his response, sitting down beside him and launching into an excited speculation about the night's feast. He wondered how it felt, being so likeable and confident, such a welcome attribute to any House. Probably the complete opposite of him; he didn't feel like he had anything special to offer any of them. He was too pessimistic to be ambitious and cunning, too much of a jackass to be warm and trusting, his piano playing was decent enough but his brains were far too pathetic to be called knowledgeable, and he was so cowardly that he couldn't even tell the school's perfect princess that he'd had a Maka-shaped hole in his chest for like, three years now which he desperately needed filling.
In short, he was a shitty Gryffindor and yet all of his other characteristics were so bad that this was the best the Sorting Hat could do for him. He remembered his Sorting, remembered the anxiety welling in his stomach because he'd never belonged anywhere in his old muggle life, how could a hat figure out what was right for an odd thumb like him? It had taken close to two whole minutes before the tattered thing had given up and shoved him off to the House of bravery, courage and Maka Albarn the brilliant.
"Evans," Nygus said with a furrowed brow. "Don't you care what's hidden under your parchment? You don't seem to be making much progress."
The words stung but he pinned on an easy smirk. "Not at all Professor. I'm just really interested in troll history." A few people a row down from him snickered. Well, he certainly had a little bit of wit, but not enough for Ravenclaw to want him. If only there was a House that valued being a self-loathing asshole, he'd probably succeed in his duties all the way up to Head Boy.
"Well, unless you want to spend Saturday evening with me doing lines about that history, I suggest you get a move on."
Nygus' attention was diverted mercifully away from him again after that when Blake tried to conjure up flowers on Tsubaki's desk across the classroom. Now there were two burnt desks. Soul rolled his eyes heavenwards before taking his wand back up again.
"Do you want some help, Soul? I can show you if you want!" came the bright voice from behind him, and he could practically feel the sunshine and rainbows oozing out of her pores, hear the angel bells toll as Maka graced him with her presence. If anybody else had offered help after a professor's call-out, it would be seen as a jibe, but with Maka he was pretty sure she was just trying to help him out so he didn't look like such an uncool failure.
"Do I really look that much of a lost cause to you? You wound me, Maka."
She took the empty seat beside him at the desk and placed her wand down. "Shut up, I'm just trying to help. Here, give me the paper."
"No – if you swish your wand over it and reveal what's underneath then I won't know if I can do it before the OWLs," he said, drawing the line above the words again.
She snorted. "Like you care how you do on your OWLs. I thought being academic wasn't cool?"
"Yeah," he replied, "but neither is being a total moron. I think the almighty Black*Star has proved that pretty well."
She laughed and he felt his insides doing that disgusting constricting thing again. How long had he suffered this horrible heartache for her? He always seemed to have his heart in his throat whenever she was around, which was super sucky considering she was one of the few people he actually enjoyed spending time with. Their friendship was equal parts stinging insults and strangely enough, support. He hadn't ever missed one of her Quidditch matches. She'd worked with him in secret for weeks while he tried to get his head around the amortentia potion (which had been super awkward for him because, you know, she was sort of the most desirable person in the world for him and he couldn't be sure if the potion smelled like her or whether she was just standing too close to the cauldron). They had such an easy bond and yet he was royally fucking it up, but he couldn't just avoid her because then she would know he was royally fucking it up, and it was just hard because everything in his life was hard. . .
He really needed to stop digressing. Maka had clearly figured out that he wasn't listening to her because the next thing he knew, a well-loved copy of A History of Magic was careening down into his skull. "Fuck!" he swore loudly, earning him a frigid glare from Nygus. Apparently, attempted murder to his person was fine, but cussing was not. "That fucking hurt, Maka."
"Then maybe next time you should listen when I'm talking to you," she said haughtily, nose in the air. How could he love this monster? "Go on then, try the charm again."
"Don't try to change the subject – fine!" he groaned at her glare, the book raised as if for another hit. "Aparecium." To his shock, when he dragged his wand through the air, the text on his parchment seemed to lift off along with it. It peeled away like skin before vanishing, leaving two words in blue ink beneath it.
Ten points.
"You did it!" Maka exclaimed, shaking his shoulder. "Good job, Soul! That was really good."
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, but inside he could feel the stirrings of pride. Ha! Look at that, he'd been the second person in the class to pull it off! Nygus came over and only glanced at Maka suspiciously once before shrugging and smiling. He came out of that class still on a high, with ten points for his House, no less.
Blake came over and slugged him on the arm as they made their way towards Gryffindor Tower. "Nice man," he grinned, loosening his tie. "Get Little Miss Nerd to do your classwork, and get points for the House. All the girls are going to love you this close to the House Cup."
"For your information, I didn't help him!" Maka said angrily from Soul's other side. "He did it all by himself! And you're disgusting, there's no wonder Tsubaki doesn't give you any attention."
Blake stuck out his tongue. "Tsubaki may be the only one equal to standing above everyone with my godly self, but that doesn't apply to a mortal like Soul. He should be out to conquer all his witches. Or should I say, all his bit-"
"Shut the fuck up, 'Star."
"Whatever dude, wasted opportunity," Blake shrugged. Soul couldn't help but notice the way Maka's shoulders hunched over at his friend's words, and a scowl plastered his face. For God's sakes, he was constantly fighting a losing battle in convincing her that he wasn't some sort of sleaze like her father and every other male figure in her life. He needed her to know that he wasn't just hanging around her and building up this important friendship only to run off after finally nailing her.
Not like he wouldn't give his soul to do just that and have her look into his eyes and want him like he wanted her (in the cheese fest forever kind of way). But that was beside the point.
The three of them paused outside of the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, where the Fat Lady seemed to be invested in a conversation with a nearby painting of a dining scene. She raised an eyebrow as Blake said the password wrong ('Beluga') and Maka shoved him out of the way ('Balora'). The common room was warm as ever and for once, by a miracle, the poufy chairs by the fire were actually free. Soul didn't even bother to take his bag up to the boy's dorm, instead choosing to careen into the couches before the precious prize was gone. Maka sunk down beside him and due to the age of the thing, sagged until their shoulders and thighs were touching.
"How's your Defence Against the Dark Arts homework going?" he asked absently, staring into the flames.
"I finished it this morning!" she beamed. Of course she did, damn bookworm. "It's due tomorrow, have you done it?"
"I'll do it later."
"Soul!"
He couldn't help his laugh. "Relax, pigtails. I've finished it too. I'm just messing with you."
"Honestly, sometimes I think you're trying to stress me so my hair goes as white as yours!" She nudged his side playfully and he pulled on one of her pigtails, grinning when she swatted at his hand with a hiss. This was how their friendship was supposed to be; he would be pretty content if they could just continue on in this comfortability.
Of course they couldn't. One way or another, something was going to break. Either it would be their friendship or his heart. Gryffindors were meant to have courage, and yet here he was cowering away from anything he wanted, like a child.
Although he would rather be follow a Hinkypunk into a bog and drown there than ever go back to living the mundane muggle monstrosity of his early years, Soul sometimes had to admit that being a wizard came with some really stupid hindrances.
Number one – why the fuck did the people at this school think that going all ye olden times and dipping pointy feathers into an inkpot was the better way of writing? And why did they have to scrawl everything out on parchment rolls rather than a neat spiral-bound notebook? Sure, all of the movie-prop school supplies gave the castle an aesthetic, but God it was impractical.
He sighed resignedly as his quill tip scraped the bottom of the inkwell and leaned away from his parchment. It was curling already, smudging words and struck out lines. He knew Sid would be wanting that essay on the most effective counter-jinxes to combat a Paralyzing spell, but after totally lying to Maka and pretending it was done, he was having real trouble grinding it out. Counter-jinxes were definitely going to be on the OWLs, they always were; Boggarts and Redcaps and defensive dueling were also rumored to be on the table. Soul was doing fairly well in Defence Against the Dark Arts so far (even though his paperwork royally sucked) so he didn't want to tank the exams. There were whispers, as usual, about Patronus charms sneaking their way on there again, and he'd been trying to practice them privately for the better part of two weeks, but only once had he managed to produce a wispy veil out the end of his wand, and at that moment Kilik had walked into the boy's dorm and scared him so badly that he'd nearly set his bedclothes on fire.
It was slightly depressing to think that most of the student body thought he was just 'too cool' to try in class. In reality, he tried damn hard – just not on essays or history lectures. Whenever he couldn't master a spell in class, he'd sneak off somewhere and practice it for days until he could make birds out the end of his wand or summon chalk from the other side of the room with ease. As long as he looked like he didn't have to try, everything was good and he was cool. Being hopeless at wizardry wasn't cool, even if being a sparkly nerd like Maka was even less so. Waking up on his eleventh birthday to find that letter telling him there was a reason he was different from his family, not as good as his brother, had been the best and most relieving moment of his life, even if his parents had had a conniption at first. If being a wizard was his escape from the life of an Evans served up on a platter, there was no way he was going to dick around and end up a third-rate sorcerer.
He'd escaped his muggle life, and he was never going back. Even if it meant late night studying for him. This slacker façade he'd carefully molded and perfected by the end of his second year may have been enough to fool practically everyone here, but at the end of the semester his results were usually pretty good and nobody had to be any the wiser about the fact that he actually cared about this new life.
Well, nobody but Maka. He was pretty sure she'd been seeing through him like plexi-glass from the out, but she hadn't blabbed when he'd come crawling to her asking for help with Potions, so she was a safe ally.
The library was pretty crowded, as could be expected at this time of year. Fifth and seventh years were flitting around in what ranged from boredom to pure terror. If OWLs were giving him this much grief, he didn't even want to think about how sucky NEWTs might be. Soul grunted and started packing up his stuff. He didn't have another inkwell on hand (underprepared as usual) and it was clear his creative juices were gone for the afternoon.
On his way out, he saw what looked very much like a pile of books with legs coming in his direction. Really, that was probably likely – Hogwarts wasn't a place where students did many double takes. However, as the books wobbled a bit he realised he recognised those legs, dreamed about them more often than not, and therefore the book monster was actually just Maka.
"Wingardium Leviosa." At his wand's command, half of the books rose out of her arms. He could see her eyes now as a few more books floated up into the air.
"Thanks, Soul!" she said brightly, not even sweating despite the fact that she was probably carrying twenty or so kilograms. "I should have done that in the first place but I just kept finding more things to grab!"
"Don't tell me you're reading for leisure at a time like this?"
She scoffed, but when her eyes didn't meet his he knew he'd hit the bullseye and she was too proud to admit it. He set her floating pile down at a table behind them and she set down the rest until he could count no less than thirteen books surrounding her. She settled in happily, retrieving a quill from one of her robe pockets, before getting to work on filling out the sign-out slip in the nearest tome.
He snatched up the one by his elbow. "'Happy Memories – The Story of How I Saved my Soul'? Sounds a bit glum, doesn't it?" Soul put it down and seized another. "'The Shape of the Soul' . . . Maka, these are all about Patronuses."
"Yeah, so?" she muttered, signing her name with a flourish on a copy of Dementors, Beware! "It makes for interesting reading!"
"Everything makes for interesting reading for you, nerd," he said with a grin which she did not return. "You only get obsessive over something like this when you can't wrap your head around it, or when you're studying up for something big . . ." All of a sudden, suspicion started seeping into his bones. "Maka, have you spoken with your dodgy dad lately?"
"No!" she squeaked, too quickly. Her eyes snapped to him, big and green and guilty, and he knew he'd got her. At his raised eyebrow, she said quickly, "he might have met up with me when we went to Hogsmeade on the weekend."
His insides warmed slightly at that because when she'd bailed out on him in Honeydukes with a nervous duck of the head and a squeaked out goodbye, he'd had a sick feeling she'd been dashing off to Madam Pudifoot's for a date or something equally nauseating. He squished down the feeling though. He was at the Spanish Inquisition now, and Maka was on the rack. "When you saw your dad, did he talk about work at all?"
"Of course! Papa's in the Ministry, he's been very busy at work lately and wanted to tell me all about the latest developments in the Auror's offices. Did you know he and Professor Stein used to take Potions with the guy who's been going on a rampage through Chiswick . . . ?"
"Somebody's rambling," he nearly purred. She was scooting into her chair now and he could tell that Perfect Prefect had done something bad. "Tell me, when you were chatting with the old man, did he mention the OWLs at all?"
"Just what are you implying?!"
"Did he mention eavesdropping on the Department of Magical Education?"
"I don't know what you –"
"Any discussion of the Wizarding Examinations Authority come up, in this little heart-to-heart of yours?"
Maka's mouth was gaping open and closed as she floundered for a way out of this, so he went in for the kill-strike. "But a perfect student like you wouldn't have talked to your dad about the OWLs, would she? You'd never stoop to asking him what's going to be on the exams. That's just against the rules and not fair to everyone else – right?"
She shot to her feet, grabbing for his tie and bringing him right up in her face until their noses were nearly touching. "You tell anyone and you're dead, Evans."
Ooh, he liked how his last name came hissing out her mouth, and boy, their lips really were close, and what would happen if he just leaned forward? Before he could do more than stare into her glare like a deer in the headlights, a loud chuckle burst out from behind them.
"Look at that, Pat – told you they'd be getting it on before we knew it. God knows Maka needs to blow off steam."
Maka let go of his tie as if it was burning her and stepped back two whole feet in seconds. He sighed and started cursing Elizabeth Thompson to the depths of Hell for ruining a moment in which he was going to be too much of a damn wuss to make a move anyway. Sure enough, she was standing there with a smarmy smirk written all over her pretty face, arms crossed and long dark blonde hair thrown over her shoulder as if it were a victor's cape. Her younger sister stood at her side, but she didn't really seem to be paying attention. He gave her a grimace. "See, this is why people are convinced Gryffindors and Slytherins have to hate each other."
"Whatever, buddy," she laughed. "I've never understood that whole rivalry, but I sure get that whole, 'your House is your family' thing when I look at you two. When's the wedding?"
"Liz, don't be gross," Maka said, and his heart did this pathetic flop right into his kneecaps. "Soul was just getting on my nerves as usual."
He'd almost forgotten that he'd just caught the Prefect in the middle of a crime. He shot her a loaded glance and then dropped his eyes down to the books. We aren't done discussing this! Her warning glare basically yelled back, not in front of Liz! He gave her an almost imperceptible nod and moved to help her start stacking up the books.
"I sure don't miss doing OWLs," Liz grimaced. "I had circles under my eyes for weeks, I looked disgusting."
"No worse than usual, you old hag," Soul laughed, earning him a thwack upside the head from her well-manicured left hand. "Sorry, geez, take a joke. Or weren't jokes around when you were our age?" Smack.
"I'm only a year older than you guys!" Liz hissed as the four of them made their way to the counter for Maka to check out her books. "I already feel old enough thinking about how young Patti is, I don't need it from you too!"
Liz was a bit of an enigma. She had come from a muggle family, like him, but with pretty well opposite living circumstances. He hadn't gleaned much from the older Thompson except that she and Patti had had to fight for their place in the world while they were young, and that Liz had pretty well raised her younger sister despite only being four years older than her. He was sure it must have been tough when her letter came – well, actually, a witch had shown up to tell her about her true powers because she hadn't had any guardians to hash it out for her. Apparently she'd tried to fight the witch until the lady had calmly explained that Patti would be given a good home with the Headmaster's son himself, and lots of food, while she waited to get her letter. That had done a lot of the convincing, because a stable place for Patti had always been her first objective. Hogwarts' headmaster had taken a particular interest in them, and it meant going from back alleys to mansions.
However, that life on the streets had formed her into Slytherin through and through. Years of making ends meet by doing whatever she had to had made her cunning and manipulative, and now that the Headmaster's son was basically acting as her own personal charity, she was determined to have every luxury in life. That raw ambition, the desire to get every last coin out of this new life, meant that the Sorting Hat had barely even touched a thread of her golden hair before sending her off with the Slytherins. Surprisingly, Patti had followed her there a few years later, even though the girl seemed much more a Hufflepuff or even Gryffindor most days. Soul wouldn't be surprised if Patti had forced her way into Slytherin just to stay with her sister, but then again, she'd lived her childhood in that same rough way too. Maybe she was more than met the eye.
Either way, both of these girls were loose cannons as far as he was concerned, but Maka's dad had been chummy with the Headmaster and so Maka had known his son, and the Thompsons lived with him and Soul was close with Maka and through that convoluted mess their friendship had been born.
"Actually, where is Kid?" he asked, continuing on his own inner monologue. Not like 'Kid' was really his name, but since Mortimer sounded so ridiculous and they'd always teased him by calling him Headmaster's Kid, it had pretty well served as his new alias for the last four years.
Maka shot him a strange look but Patti beamed, "I left him a surprise from Zonko's in his bed! He's probably still cleaning it up."
Poor Kid. The guy was already wired up enough with his crippling OCD without Patti's antics. He could see him now, desperately rearranging his bedsheets which were probably splattered with colour or muck or whatever the younger Thompson had brought back from Hogsmeade.
"It's no wonder he's got those white stripes in his hair, with all the grief you two cause him," Maka fretted. "He's probably going to miss dinner now and then you'll feel terrible."
Liz snickered, but Patti immediately sobered. "You're right. I better smuggle him some chicken wings."
"Make sure there's exactly eight and that they're all the same weight!"
They parted ways at the staircases as Maka and Soul made their way to return their bags (and Maka's book mountain) to their dorms and Liz and Patti headed towards the dungeons, presumably to rouse Kid out of what was likely a full scale meltdown.
Maka seemed a bit desperate to outrun him the moment the two of them were alone, but she was weighed down with all those books and his long legs kept stride with her easily. "So," he said. "Where were we? Oh yeah, you were a fucking criminal."
"Shh!" she hissed, earning a startled look from some second years in passing. "Do you want the whole school to know?"
"Maybe I do! Either you've been kidnapped and replaced with a body double who acts the exact opposite of you, or you've gone crazy. Either way, how the Hell could you do it?" He paused in horror. "Wait, is this how you always get such good grades?"
"No!" she spat. "This is the first time I've ever talked to Papa about anything assessment related! I was just . . . super stressed out about OWLs because my Mama got all O's and I want to do the same, so when he brought up the tests I sort of maybe got him to tell me some of the stuff that's on it by manipulating him into thinking it would make me want to spend more time with him?" The last part was said in such a rush that he wouldn't have understood it if it was anyone other than her.
Soul couldn't fight the grin. "Oh my God. Maka Albarn is a sneaky little badass. Would never have seen that coming!"
"Shut up, Soul! I swear, if you tell anyone –"
"Don't worry, I won't," he said as they climbed through the portrait hole together, towing all of Maka's books. "Well, for a price."
"A price?" Maka's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "Are you blackmailing me, Soul?"
"Don't think of it like that, think of it as a plan with mutual benefit."
She glared furiously for a moment before her shoulders sagged. "All right. What do you want?"
"First, you're going to tell me everything your pervy-ass dad told you would be on the OWLs," he said quietly, waving to Blake as they made their way to the stairs.
"Done," Maka agreed immediately, turning to go to her room. Soul's arm shot out like lightning to grab her elbow and she turned, face red.
"That's not all, Albarn. You're also going to help me study for these OWLs. You're officially my private tutor. I want all E's by the time those things are done."
"But - !"
"Oh, and one last thing," he said with a wicked smirk. "Next time you're using the massive Prefect's bathroom, I want in."
And then he lets go and trudges his way up to the boys' dorm, his hand burning from her touch. She waits, red-faced, until he is out of sight before a tiny smile hits her lips. Mutual benefit, huh?