Potions and self-retrospection

Oh my god. Oh my god! Ohmygodohmygod OH MY GOD! HE TALKED TO ME! HE DID! OH MY GOD! I'm going to DIE! Oh my god I have to talk to Emma about this!

To an otherwise untrained eye, Charles Xavier, a fifth year Ravenclaw at Hogwarts, must have seemed completely composed and absolutely normal. No one could tell, from his posture or even his speech, that an internal monologue, such as presented earlier, was going on stoutly and unceasingly in his mind.

When said young wizard entered his common room, a trained eye, so to say, snapped up in his direction, while the few other students adorning the room, including the house snobs led by Amelia Fitzwell, noticed nothing. The trained eye was a fellow Ravenclaw, why of course he was in the Ravenclaw common room after all, a tall blond with piercing eyes and a cold demeanor.

Emma, in all her grace, appointed a scrutinizing look at the young Xavier and fixated on him for a few seconds more than necessary. To anyone else, it must have seemed like a very small glaring match, but it was in fact a very small conversation.

Emma! EmmaEmmaEmmaaa! I have to tell you somethiiiiing!

Calm down or you'll have an aneurysm.

Don't be so sour, Emma. Rejoice! He talked to me! He talks!

Who? The Slytherin boy you occasionally fantasize about?

Occasionally?

Okay, very frequently fantasize about.

YES!

No need to shout, Sugar.

WHY YES I NEED TO SHOUT HE TALKED TO ME.

Did you declare your undying love to one another? Or at least make out?

Unrelated!

Then stop shouting, you are giving me a headache.

Sorry... We watched the sunrise together.

You did?

And we shared Bertie Bott's beans.

Oh yeah?

Yeah...

You should have shoved your hand down his pants.

EMMA!

Just sayin'.

For a very strange reason, the few Ravenclaws surrounding the telepathic pair suddenly winced as a small but dull headache settled into their brains.

―X―

In another part of the castle, another student, perched on a balcony and listening to music on his MP3 player, had a somewhat different internal monologue about the exact same events.

Charles Xavier. Mmh. He's nice, I suppose. He's not the bratty rich kid I thought he would be. He's very... smart. I have to admit that is pretty attractive... He's pretty attractive... I guess. I mean, he has a nice face. He's got a nice a lot of things, actually. He's a bit, uh, adorable. Like a lab rat. I wish I could put him in my pocket... But then if I wanted to... No, that would be gross. I like him normal sized. I should talk to him more often.

To anyone else passing him by, Erik Lehnsherr, fifth year Slytherin at Hogwarts, must have looked very menacing. No one could have guessed that very mundane thoughts were currently crossing his mind, a thing that happened very much more often than not. People attributed this fear to his features, square and brooding by nature, but strikingly handsome.

Erik tried to explain time and time again that this was actually his resting face and that he was not constantly thinking murderous thoughts, as according to some nefarious rumours. After a few years of constantly insisting on the fact that he was not actually a brute, he finally resigned from trying and started to ignore the frightened people that passed him in the halls. Not that there was a whole lot of them, but a few first and second years were absolutely terrified of him. He tried smiling at them once, which just further accentuated their fear of him.

Despite his reputation, Erik Lehnsherr was far from friendless. He was a boy of many talents, especially in muggle games and drinking challenges, and with a little bit of fire whisky in him, he became the life of the party. He was not a house snob either, like a particular Ravenclaw clique, and had friends scattered through every house in Hogwarts.

Of course, he would have darker periods and sulking moments, such as the month of February, and he was not the cheeriest or the most talkative of students, but with the past he had, he was in a pretty good condition, so to say.

The girls, though, did not see his gloomy allure as something upsetting. On the contrary, a great deal of the feminine population of Hogwarts found him mysterious and sexy, of course. Countless women would send him from the shyest box of love-laced chocolates to a pair of sultry underwear. He would get almost daily attention from girls in his classes, and even a teacher at one point, to which he was partially clueless. Erik did not pay a particular attention to women. Only Magda had ever been with him, until he eventually found out he preferred Magda's older brother.

With a shrug that only had meaning for himself, Erik pulled out his cherry wood wand and proceeded to twirl it in the air, changing the floating leaves in his vision into small fireworks. That's what a summer working at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes will do to ya'.

―X―

The next week, in a nutshell, consisted in Charles and Erik randomly bumping into each other (har! har! Charles, you infant) and smiling shyly at each other, sometimes exchanging a few words.

That, surprisingly, was actually something the students noticed, and mildly paid attention to. For one, a smiling Erik, out of the confines of his house rooms or the Quidditch pitch, was as rare as a unicorn sighting in the muggle world. Even the portraits, to whom Erik talked very often, were somewhat surprised that Erik showed so much friendliness towards a boy he had only recently made proper acquaintance with.

All of a sudden, the first and second years weren't as frightened by Erik as they used to be. As a matter of fact, and to Erik's utter confusion, some of these anxious kids started greeting Erik with determination, exhaling sharply and unbelieving when Erik dumbfoundedly greeted them back, to the hilarity of Erik's closest friends.