A/N: Something to note about this story is that Bucky's situation is inspired by the show "Political Animals," which Sebastian Stan starred in. You'll therefore notice some parallels between things that he says throughout the series and that show. Thank you so much for reading, and I'll have the next two chapters migrated here tomorrow!

Chapter Two: Letters (2007)

Dear Mr. Barnes,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books, equipment, and guidelines for behavior. You must have all requisite supplies prior to the start of term.

Term begins on the first of September. Please send confirmation of your receipt of this letter and plans to attend via owl before July 31st.

Sincerely,

Nicholas J. Fury

Headmaster

Bucky's mom gave a squeak of excitement and clapped her hands while his father smiled proudly after Bucky read the letter aloud. It didn't seem to matter that they'd known he was going to end up going to a Wizarding school ever since he was born (unless he turned out to be a Squib); their excitement was still nearly tangible in the room. As soon as he'd folded up the letter and put it back in the envelope with his school supply list, his mother scooped him into a bigger hug than she'd given him in years.

"Oh, I'm so proud of you!" she exclaimed right in his ear, squeezing so hard he thought his rib cage might just collapse.

Cringing, Bucky returned the hug while simultaneously grumbling, "Maaaa…"

"Sorry, sorry!" She jumped back but was still grinning as she straightened his shirt. "I know it's not cool to hug the woman who spent twelve hours giving birth to you—"

"Gross, Mom!"

"—but this is a big day!"

His dad, chuckling, put an arm around Bucky's shoulders and shot his wife a fondly long-suffering look. "Give the kid a break, Winnie. We are very proud of you, though, Buck. I hope you know that." He gave Bucky a quick squeeze before letting go, earning a playful smack to the shoulder from Bucky's mom.

"Yes, well, of course we are. Now, there's so much to be done. We need to send an owl back straightaway to let them know you're coming. Then there's the matter of getting all your supplies…" She plucked the envelope out of his hands to pull out and scan his book list, nodding distractedly as his dad pointed out that they still had plenty of time to get it all done.

For a moment, Bucky considered telling them he didn't get what there was to be proud of. It's not like he'd passed some magical test or anything—the letter just sort of came with the territory.

He waited a few more minutes to be sure his parents were sufficiently engrossed in his letter before making his escape up to his bedroom, ruffling Becca's hair on his way past where she was watching television on the couch. Her squawk of indignation followed him up the stairs as he turned into his room and closed the door behind him. He made a beeline for his computer, hit the power button, flicked on the webcam, and spent the next few minutes spinning around in his desk chair while the machine booted up. This room was smaller than his bedroom in Brooklyn, but he'd found out quickly when they moved to London that pretty much everything was smaller here than back in the States. He got used to it.

In the three years since they'd moved away from New York, Bucky had come to see this place as something like home. His walls were plastered with posters of Quidditch teams (he refused to admit that he had made a little shrine of posters and action figures for the Galactic Guardians, but they were the best Quidditch team in the history of the sport!), bands, and pictures from vacations back to Brooklyn. Muggle school was just as boring as it had been before, but he'd made a couple of friends he hoped he could keep in touch with after he started Hogwarts. He'd explored the city with his mom, dad, and Becca—in a lot of ways, it was pretty similar to New York. There was always something to do and lots of art and people all over the place—they even had a theatre district just like Broadway, which his mom gushed over and dragged them to constantly.

But separate from all the Muggle things that made London pretty cool, the most amazing part of moving there was the Wizarding community. Thanks to some law he'd remembered his mom telling him about in the States, Muggles and wizards didn't really have much contact for a couple hundred years—they weren't friends, they didn't get married (until pretty recently, anyway, otherwise his family would have ended up very differently), and they didn't try to work together on anything. In the rest of the world, apparently that wasn't the case. The Ministry actually worked with the Muggle government, according to his mom, and there were places all around the city where wizards in particular could go to hang out without having to hide. Diagon Alley had quickly become one of Bucky's favorite places; it was even somewhere his parents didn't mind him wandering around by himself to explore the various things the Wizarding world offered. In Brooklyn, they'd kept away from any underground places catering to just wizards (which were all seedy at best, his mom had said), but here it was a normal part of life. They were used to living in plain sight of Muggles, and Bucky had to admit that that was a really cool change. (Learning the new currency, however, was just annoying—it took him forever to remember how to count out Galleons instead of Dragots.)

Still, much as he liked London and called it home, Brooklyn had always been his first home and they hadn't gone back nearly as often as his mom had promised back when they first left.

Tapping his foot impatiently, Bucky whirled his chair back around to find that his computer finally finished loading and clicked the icon to open Skype. With his best friend thousands of miles away, he'd had to get really good at using technology pretty quickly, although his mother still insisted to this day that he could just as easily use the Floo Network.

"No one uses the Floo Network anymore, Ma," he'd scoffed at the suggestion. His mom had just rolled her eyes and muttered about kids today.

Wednesday nights had become his weekly Steve night, and their families knew not to interrupt them when they were Skyping unless the world was ending or something. They tried to talk as much as they could over the weekends as well, but that was more hit or miss. Wednesdays were something they could commit to even though it was a school night, and Bucky found that the last three years' worth of Thursdays were generally miserable during the school year because he tended to stay up so late talking to Steve the night before. (His father had issued a strict curfew that Bucky had to be off the computer and in bed by ten-thirty on Wednesdays during the school year, but it hadn't really stuck.)

They rarely had any real news to tell each other and basically just spent hours recounting the mundane events of their week, but Bucky actually had news this time even if a large part of him still wished he would be going to Ilvermorny rather than Hogwarts.

Once he was logged in, Bucky immediately called Steve, who picked up after a few seconds and appeared on his screen with his trademark Skype Night Grin. While Bucky had grown a lot in the last couple of years, Steve was still just as skinny as he always had been. He'd grown a couple of inches, but his stature still made him look a lot younger than a kid who was about to turn eleven. Still, some things had changed: he didn't get sick quite so often anymore, and when he did potions usually wiped it out.

The fighting was still a problem, though, and without Bucky to back him up, he'd appeared on the webcam looking like premium ground beef more than once. It was a work in progress.

"Hey, Buck!"

"Hi, Steve," Bucky greeted him, trying his best to smile brightly in return. It obviously didn't work, because Steve's expression automatically turned serious and marginally concerned.

"What's up?"

"Nothin'."

Steve scoffed, shooting him his most unimpressed look. "Please. You look like when Becca chewed off Bucky Bear's head."

Bucky Bear was Steve's nickname for the teddy bear Bucky had had since he was born and was therefore entirely justified in being upset about the potential destruction of, thank you very much. "I do not."

"You're just not crying this time."

"I didn't cry!"

"You were so crying," jeered Steve, and Bucky flipped him the finger right up close to the camera lens, making the blond snigger.

Lifting his nose high in the air, Bucky mustered all the dignity he could when he retorted, "I was a child, Steven."

"You're still a child, James."

"Whatever, punk," he replied with a roll of his eyes, but his smile came more easily now. Talking to Steve never failed to lift his spirits no matter what had put them in the toilet, even if it was only a little bit.

Steve simply grinned back at him for a moment before his smile toned down a few notches and that slightly worried look came back. Tilting his head to the side, he gently steered them back to the conversation Bucky had been avoiding.

"Seriously, Buck, what's up?"

Rocking back in his chair, Bucky looked up at his ceiling instead of Steve and quietly admitted, "Got my Hogwarts letter."

"That's great! Congrats," Steve immediately cheered through the speakers, and Bucky lowered his gaze back down to the screen to see that his smile truly did look entirely genuine.

Good thing one of us thinks this is good news.

"Thanks." He tried to go for gratitude, but his appreciation fell pretty flat. That made Steve's eyebrows fly up so far it was a wonder they didn't vanish into his hair.

"You don't sound very excited," he observed carefully.

Bucky shrugged. "I mean, I am, yeah… It's just… I don't know, I always thought we'd go to school together, that's all."

Frowning, Steve pointed out, "Yeah, but wizards in England always go to—"

"I know," interrupted Bucky with a frustrated sigh. He didn't want to be mad at Steve, especially over something that wasn't his fault, but he really couldn't help giving the irritation he'd begun feeling as soon as he'd seen that letter on the dining room table some room to breathe. "Still."

As always, Steve knew what he was trying to say without him needing to articulate it and nodded sympathetically. It was real now. He'd been able to ignore it for the last couple of years, but it was actually happening now and there was no way to stop it. Sure, you could get a waiver to go to a different Wizarding school, but those were usually for pretty major reasons like wanting to be in a particular program that only that school offered or something. There was no way he would get one of those, not even with his mom having been appointed Senior Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic earlier in the year. Actually, that more than anything solidified the fact that he was going to Hogwarts and it was final.

Bucky refused to let that ruin his Wednesday Steve Night, however, and took a deep breath to steady himself and get back in a better frame of mind. His smile was only slightly strained this time when he looked back at Steve on the screen and asked, "What about you? Have you gotten your Ilvermorny letter yet?"

Steve's eyes darted away from the camera a couple of times before he muttered a quick, "Yeah, I, uh… I got a letter. Yesterday."

"Awesome," Bucky congratulated him with the most sincere smile he could manage. Steve only spoke like this when he was nervous, upset, or lying. This was good news, though, and the envelope he flashed before the camera told Bucky he wasn't lying, so he could only assume Steve was trying to be sensitive to the fact that Bucky wasn't as excited as he should be by deemphasizing his own enthusiasm.

Great. Way to be a real jerk.

Struggling to find a way to lighten the mood, Bucky smirked. "So my mom's already freaking out about shopping for school supplies and everything."

Steve barked a laugh. "Seriously? We've still got, like, over two months!"

"That's what my dad told her, but I swear, if we could have gone to Diagon Alley tonight, we'd already be there."

Bucky continued to regale Steve with a slightly hyperbolic account and imitation of his mom's reaction to his letter while Steve giggled uncontrollably at the mental image, which contagiously left Bucky in stitches as well. Once they'd both settled enough to get their breath back, Steve chortled and shook his head.

"My mom was pretty cool about it compared to yours."

"Really?" Bucky mused, frowning. "I totally would have thought she'd be just as bad."

Shrugging, Steve surmised, "She's probably too worried I'll drop dead as soon as I get there to be too excited about it."

Bucky winced faintly, but he couldn't deny that there was something of a point there. Although he'd gotten considerably better as they got older, Steve still had his health issues. Just a few months ago, he'd ended up in the hospital when he passed out after an asthma attack at school and didn't have his inhaler. Bucky had gone out of his mind with worry when Sarah had texted him to let him know, but his parents insisted that everything was going to be fine and they absolutely did not have to Apparate to Brooklyn on a school night, James Buchanan Barnes.

Still, they'd come to an unspoken agreement years ago that they didn't talk about Steve's health stuff more than strictly necessary (even if Bucky had carried an extra emergency inhaler with him every day for years in case Steve forgot his), so Bucky expertly evaded that conversation.

"Nah, she's probably just worried about you having a wand next time you see a bully look at someone funny," he chuckled instead. Even Steve couldn't help smiling guiltily.

"It wouldn't be that bad."

Nodding, Bucky admitted, "True. Least then you'd stand a chance in a fight."

"Hey!"

They continued laughing and talking well into the early hours of the morning for Bucky (it was still late at night for Steve), and by the time they disconnected, Bucky felt better than he had since getting that stupid letter. The thought lingered in the back of his mind that he wouldn't have his Wednesday Steve Nights anymore once he went to Hogwarts (unless he got off his high horse and actually used the Floo Network, if they were even allowed to), but he shoved it aside for now as he got into bed. They still had almost three months before that would happen, which left them plenty of time to talk all they wanted and maybe even guilt Bucky's parents into letting him stay with Steve in Brooklyn for a couple of weeks the way they'd been hoping to for Steve's birthday. They'd make it work—they had so far.

With that comforting thought in mind, Bucky rolled over and drifted off to sleep, finally allowing himself to wonder briefly about what Hogwarts was going to be like.


Somehow, Winifred Barnes managed to last a whole week before she finally got around to taking Bucky shopping for his school supplies. Mostly it had to do with the fact that there was some kind of big meeting of wizards from a bunch of countries happening that she just couldn't miss, but Bucky wasn't exactly complaining. He felt a little better about the whole Hogwarts thing after talking to Steve, yet it still gave him misgivings when he thought about it too much. So he'd put it out of his mind as best he could and focused on the good things for now. He and Steve had even managed to Skype each other Saturday and Sunday, a rare oddity, and got a "we'll see" from Bucky's parents about going to stay with Steve and Sarah in Brooklyn before the end of the summer. For now, it looked like that was as good as it was going to get.

By the time his mom told him they were going to be heading to Diagon Alley, Bucky had mostly been able to forget about his letter and all it entailed. Reality came crashing down on top of him in that moment, though, and he'd reluctantly grabbed his Hogwarts letter to peruse the school supply list attached.

Most of it was nothing he wouldn't expect—cauldrons, scales, a wand, the usual wizard fare. He was crossing his fingers that his parents might let him bring a pet, but it was apparently going to be another dreaded "we'll see" scenario. As he read through the behavior guidelines, though, he was disgruntled to see that the school didn't allow any Muggle technology whatsoever.

"I can't bring my cell phone?!" he'd exclaimed the night before their trip, completely aghast at the concept. He'd at least hoped that he could text Steve if they couldn't use the internet.

His dad had immediately taken the list out of his hand with a frown and read over the rules, but his mom was obviously already aware of the situation and had calmly explained, "You won't need it there."

"But Ma—"

"No buts," she'd cut him off with a sternly raised eyebrow. "It won't work there anyway, and besides, you'll have owls if you need to send messages. Or you could just use the Floo Network."

Honestly, there was just no living with her some days.

The following day found them walking along the sidewalk just off Charing Cross Road toward the Leaky Cauldron, his mom leading the way with Becca's hand held firmly in hers. Bucky followed along next to his father, glancing into the windows of the Muggle shops and restaurants that lined the streets. A great thing about London was that the weather usually wasn't quite as hot during the summer, which meant that walking around outside didn't mean sweating buckets. It was great…unless you wanted to go to the beach.

Bucky spent most of the walk lost in thought until he felt something bump into his left arm and squinted up at his dad, who had apparently been watching him mope.

"You know," he began after a second, turning his eyes ahead to watch where they were walking. "For a kid who's about to go to a school where you get to learn magic, you sure are pretty quiet about it."

Shrugging uncomfortably, Bucky shoved his hands as far into his jacket pockets as they could go and stared at the ground. "Got nothin' to say."

His dad hummed without answering. They kept walking for a couple of minutes before he spoke again. "This wouldn't have anything to do with a certain best friend, would it?"

A glance at his dad's face told Bucky he wasn't mad, but he had that little line between his eyebrows he always got when he was worried. Great, first Steve can't talk about Ilvermorny and now this… Pull it together, Barnes!

"I just wanted things to be different," evaded Bucky without meeting his father's eyes. A moment passed before he felt his dad's arm around his shoulders pulling him into his side as they walked. Bucky didn't hug him around the middle (that was for little kids—he was practically grown up now), but for a second he really wanted to.

"I know you did," breathed his dad so quietly Bucky almost didn't hear him.

Biting his lip, Bucky nodded into his side before whispering, "I miss home."

He'd never told his parents that. How could he? His mom was so happy here: it was where she'd grown up and now that she lived so close to work, she could be around a little more often. Becca had taken to London like a fish to water, but she'd been too little when they left Brooklyn to leave much of anything behind. Bucky wasn't quite sure about his dad, but he missed Brooklyn. He missed going to Coney Island and Rockaway Beach, seeing Steve every day, going to school with the friends he'd made when he was little. All of that was gone, and even though London felt like home now, it wasn't home home. It wasn't New York home.

He couldn't exactly say that out loud, though, and he wasn't sure if he'd made a mistake when his dad didn't answer him right away. With slight trepidation, Bucky angled his head up a bit to catch a glimpse of his father's face and was just in time to see the sad expression his dad quickly rearranged into something a little less morose under his son's gaze.

After that, he got a smile and a kiss on the top of his head.

"I know, Buck. I miss it too."


"First years are not allowed to have their own brooms, James. You know that."

"But if I'm gonna play Quidditch, I need to practice!"

"First years don't play on the house teams either."

"What?!"

His mom didn't bother answering him, which made it clear the subject was settled, and walked straight past Quality Quidditch Supplies without so much as a backwards glance. Bucky made a loud noise of disapproval—not a whine—and stomped along in her wake, arms folded tight across his chest.

They'd gotten just about everything he needed and visited nearly every shop in Diagon Alley in the process, including a stop at Ollivander's for his very first wand—which his mother had excitedly informed the old man who ran the store no less than seven times. He'd tried six wands (and caused enough damage that his father had actually tried to pay extra but was kindly turned away and everything magically repaired) before walking out with an eleven-inch cedar with a phoenix feather core. According to the old man, it was a very good combination: loyalty and strength.

Bucky just nodded and decided to take his word for it.

By the time they'd covered everything on the list, it was well past noon and Becca was agitatedly tugging at their mother's hand every time they passed one of the many colorful restaurants, so they decided it was about time they found something to eat anyway. They popped into the Leaky Cauldron for a brief lunch before heading back into Diagon Alley, his mother insisting that she had been meaning to visit Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions but hadn't wanted to while they were getting Bucky fitted for his school robes. Bucky made to follow her inside but was stopped by his father's hand on his shoulder.

"Winnie, why don't you and Becca take a look at robes while Bucky and I walk around a bit," he suggested. By the smirk on his mother's face, Bucky figured this wasn't entirely unexpected.

"That's fine, darling. We won't be long, but how about we meet you at Florean Fortescue's when we're all finished for some ice cream?"

The words had barely left her mouth before Becca gave a little gasp of excitement and hopped up and down in anticipation. Even Bucky couldn't help but grin—Fortescue's had the best ice cream ever.

"Sounds like a plan," his father agreed with a chuckle. "Come on, Bucky."

They waved as his mom and Becca disappeared into the shop and turned to rejoin the flow of foot traffic heading down the main stretch of Diagon Alley. All of Bucky's Hogwarts things were with his mom, who had come prepared with a bag and a well-cast Extension Charm, so they were free to browse the shops without being weighed down by a pewter cauldron and a ridiculous number of heavy textbooks.

It was always funny walking around with his dad, who was not exactly the most Muggley Muggle that ever Muggled, but he had been pretty close before meeting Bucky's mom the way she described it. As such, he always got just as excited as Bucky over new magical things he'd never seen before; it was something they shared while his mom just shook her head and commented that apparently she had three children instead of just two. His dad was never ashamed of it, though, and Bucky had to admire that.

The two had been so deep in conversation as they compared the specs on the newest line of Firebolt racing brooms to the last Nimbus model that Bucky didn't notice his father had stopped until the latter took hold of his elbow and pulled him out of the flow of shoppers. Puzzled, Bucky frowned up at him before reading the sign of the shop they'd stopped at: the Magical Menagerie.

"What're we doing here, Dad?" he asked, trying not to let the little glimmer of hope spread too far.

His dad shrugged exaggeratedly and looked over his shoulder into the shop. "Well, we haven't exactly done anything to celebrate you getting your Hogwarts letter yet, and they did say you can bring a pet with you…"

Bucky didn't care if he looked like Becca and people stared as they passed—he couldn't stop himself from jumping up and down and grabbing at his father's shoulders as he laughed at Bucky's antics.

"Really?! You're serious?"

"I'm serious," his dad confirmed, teasingly pinching Bucky's cheek the way he always hated but it didn't matter because his dad was gonna let him get a pet!

"Thanks, Dad, you're the best!" he declared, throwing his arms around his father's middle and hugging him tightly.

"Tell me something I don't know. Now listen a second." His dad pushed him a step back and squatted down to his level to look him in the eye, still smiling but more seriously now. "This is going to be your pet. That means that the only way this is going to work is if you are the one taking care of it."

"Okay, okay—"

"Uh-uh, just listen. That means feeding it, washing it, taking care of it when it gets sick—it's not just fun and games and playing," he warned Bucky. "Your mom and I are not going to do it for you, is that clear?"

"Yes!"

"You promise?"

"Yeah, I promise," whined Bucky, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Can we go in now?"

"Yes, we can go in now."

Bucky didn't even wait for his father to get back to his feet before he darted inside the shop to look around.

There were animals everywhere, some of which he had never seen before in his life. Cages lined every wall of the small shop, filled with squawking birds and owls. There were some nasty looking snails (the sign over the container read "Poisonous – See Sales Associate"), tortoises, and more rats than Bucky figured were wandering around the Tube tunnels. Apparently you could get anything you needed here for your pet, or so the sign proclaimed, and Bucky saw a huge display of various tonics and care guides for new owners on a table by window.

Bucky wasn't even sure where to start by the time his father joined him, wandering around aimlessly looking at all the different animals to choose from. After a few gentle reminders from his dad that Hogwarts would only allow him to bring an owl, cat, or toad, Bucky booked it over to where dozens of kittens and older cats were situated on the far side of the store. There was another kid there as well, a boy who appeared to be around his age with dark skin and hair and wearing a necklace with some kind of animal fang dangling from it. There wasn't much room to avoid him, so Bucky stepped up beside the other boy and surveyed the various cats on display.

Most of them were kittens tiny enough that they would fit in Bucky's hands easily, but there were a few bigger cats that had clearly been in the shop for a while. They didn't seem as pleased to be the objects of the boys' scrutiny and turned away to primly lick themselves or nap as Bucky knew cats were wont to do anyway. The kittens, on the other hand, were already clawing at the bars of their cages, abandoning the little toys they must have been playing with earlier to garner the attention of their two spectators. The boy next to him bent down to look at one of the cages on the bottom shelf, sticking a finger through the bars so the little black fur ball inside could nibble at his fingertip affectionately.

"You thinking of getting that one?" Bucky asked kindly, squatting to get a better look. The cat was sleek and slender, sort of shaped like a tiny panther with eyes as sharp as one.

The boy looked up at him and shrugged before focusing back on the cat. "Maybe. I'm not sure if my father will let me get one yet."

Bucky nodded sympathetically; he'd been begging his parents to get a dog or something for years and it took a damn Hogwarts letter before they finally gave in. Glancing back to see his father perusing the books Bucky had seen on the way in, Bucky commiserated, "I know that feeling. My dad's finally letting me get one now that I'm going away to school."

That seemed to pique the boy's interest and he turned back to look more closely at Bucky, tilting his head curiously. "Hogwarts?"

"Yup."

"I'm starting this year as well," he offered, smiling a little. "Maybe I can persuade my father with that."

Bucky laughed. "It's worth a try! I'm Bucky, by the way."

"T'Challa, and I suppose so."

They fell silent, T'Challa still playing with the little black cat while Bucky surveyed a few of the other kittens vying for his attention. He poked his fingers through the bars to scratch a little calico's head where she mewed pathetically at him. Apparently it was just a trick to get his attention; once she had it, the kitten rolled onto her back and started batting her paws playfully at his fingers.

Glancing back at his companion, Bucky observed, "You don't sound British."

"Neither do you," was the immediate response, and T'Challa quirked an eyebrow at him. Bucky wasn't sure if he'd said something wrong, but it didn't seem like the other boy was angry, so he pressed on.

"Nope. We moved here from New York a few years ago," he explained with a shrug. It didn't seem to matter how many English words he used—he had never picked up the accent. That was just fine by him. "What about you?"

"I come from Wakanda." At Bucky's perplexed frown (he'd never heard of that place before), T'Challa clarified, "It's a country in Africa."

Must be pretty small, Bucky thought, racking his brains to remember his geography lessons in school and still coming up with a huge blank. He stopped trying after a minute and inquired, "How come you're going to Hogwarts instead of Uagadou or something?"

T'Challa didn't answer right away, stroking the black kitten's head slowly and clearly thinking about his answer. Finally, he deliberately stated, "My father travels to England a lot to work with the Ministry here, so I got a waiver to attend. He thinks it is a good idea for me to broaden my horizons."

"Oh. Guess that makes sense," muttered Bucky, his mood darkening slightly. If only he could be lucky enough for his mother to send him to another school to broaden his horizons. He let his hand trail across the fronts of the cages until something rough and wet brushed his skin. Frowning, Bucky stepped up closer to see big round eyes peering back out at him. The kitten could probably fit in the palm of just one hand and had a round face with tiny, folded ears; her eyes were enormous and black with thin pink-orange irises. She was entirely black except for her left front paw, which had a white patch almost all the way up to her torso.

"Hey there," Bucky whispered, leaning forward to take a closer look. The kitten mewled in response and tucked her head under his extended finger, rubbing up against it with a satisfied purr. Bad mood effectively evaporating, Bucky turned his head slightly in T'Challa's direction and mentioned, "My mom works for the Ministry. Maybe she's met your dad?"

"Uh…maybe." For the first time since their impromptu conversation started, he actually sounded sort of nervous. "What does your mother do?"

"She's Senior Undersecretary."

It was quite possible that T'Challa's eyes widened further than Bucky's kitten's. "That's… That's right underneath the Minister, right?" When Bucky nodded, he smiled tensely. "She, uh… She may have met my father before."

"That's cool," Bucky cautiously replied, shooting T'Challa a small grin. Apparently this wasn't a topic the latter really wanted to talk about, so he quickly changed the subject. "Think I'm gonna get this one. What do you think?"

T'Challa's answering smile turned slightly more grateful and he stepped up beside Bucky, peering into the cage where the kitten was bumping its nose against Bucky's fingers. Taking in the pudgy little ball of fur, T'Challa laughed and declared with mock-sobriety, "Looks like she'll be a fierce warrior."

The two dissolved into a fit of giggles, and even the kitten got excited and mewed along with them, which just made them laugh harder.

"Yeah," Bucky managed to say once he composed himself. "A real fighter."

The witch overseeing the shop chose that moment to approach them, probably to tell them off for cackling enough to disturb the animals, and Bucky immediately pointed to the cage in question. "I'd like to buy this one, please!"

Pulling out a pair of spectacles and setting them evenly on her nose, the witch leaned forward to look before nodding in approval. "That's Winter. She's three weeks old—and fifteen Galleons," she added with a raised eyebrow.

Bucky nodded right away before calling to his dad and waving him over. He took a look at the kitten and immediately turned to the witch, barraging her with questions—where was she born, how long had she been in the store, had she been sick at all—to the point where Bucky was beginning to wonder if he was even going to be allowed to buy the animal after all. Eventually, however, his father was apparently satisfied and asked if Bucky was absolutely positive that this was the animal for him before pulling out the requisite compensation.

Once she had the coins in hand, the witch shooed Bucky and T'Challa away from the cage and waved her wand before the lock. The barred door popped open and she stepped aside to let Bucky pluck the kitten carefully out of its former home. Winter automatically pressed her paws to his chest and nudged his chin with her nose, sniffing delicately and attempting to climb up his shirt.

"Ouch!" yelped Bucky when he felt sharp little claws dig shallowly into his skin.

T'Challa snorted, folding his arms while his dad chuckled, "Yeah, that's cats. You'll need to keep her claws trimmed."

Staring at him with wide eyes, Bucky busied himself with disconnecting Winter from his T-shirt while the witch started rattling on about a bunch of things he'd need to know with regards to feeding and taking care of his new kitten. He managed to catch most of it, but ultimately it overwhelmed him enough that his father shot him a reassuring smile and said he'd grab a few necessities while Bucky picked out some toys.

He perused the small section with T'Challa, not quite sure what to get and finally deciding to just hold Winter out in front of him and choose whatever she started pawing at with interest. By the time his dad came back to collect his selections and pay, Bucky had picked up a little stuffed mouse that magically ran away and made you catch it, a feathery thing on a small pole that sent up tiny fireworks every time it was captured, and a ball that was advertised as cleaning teeth while magically reinforced to never scratch or dent. His father added a small cat bed, two bags of food, and a bottle of tonic before paying more Galleons than Bucky could ever have saved from his allowance.

"All set, Buck?" he asked when everything was settled. He joined them at the front door where Bucky and T'Challa had been talking about the Galactic Guardians, which T'Challa also thought was the best Quidditch team in the world. (Bucky couldn't wait to tell Steve, who was incontrovertibly convinced that that honor went to the Asgardian Vikings.)

Bucky nodded, turning to T'Challa with a grin as they stepped back out into the sunlight. "So I'll see you at school?"

T'Challa answered in the affirmative and waved as he set off, presumably to find his dad, and Bucky turned in the opposite direction with his own father to head for the ice cream parlor. Now that he knew he would at least know one person going to Hogwarts with him, he unexpectedly felt a little better. T'Challa wasn't Steve, but he wasn't a jerk, so that was a step in the right direction.

"Making new friends already, huh?" prodded his dad with a huge grin on his face.

Groaning, Bucky rolled his eyes. "It's not a big deal, Dad."

"I'm not saying it is!"

"Uh-huh." Bucky gave him his best suspicious glare but gave up when it just made his dad scoff at him good-naturedly.

"Now that you get from your mother."

They made their way through the crowd toward Florean Fortescue's and spotted his mom and Becca already sitting outside at a table when a thought occurred to Bucky. Catching his son's sudden giggle, his father quirked a brow. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just…" Bucky smiled down at Winter where the kitten had curled up against his chest, head tucked inside his jacket, and fallen asleep. "How pissed off do you think Mom will be that my cat's nickname is Winnie?"

Winter yowled and sank her claws into his jacket as their laughter woke her from her nap.