Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Thank Faded Nights for fixing my horrible spelling errors! I just really hate to actually flip through the books to find correct spellings of things… irresponsible, I know, but it saves the time it takes for me to write a chapter, yes?
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Roxas waited until Dumbledore had finished his Welcoming Speech and had announced the return of Professor Lupin - most of the Slytherins, Roxas aside, had opted not to clap - and trays of food magically appeared on the table. He noticed that a great amount of it had strayed from the center of the section down towards where he sat alone.
However, he turned his nose up at the steaks and casseroles, filling his plate with a fresh garden salad and some fruit before he even realized what he was doing. When he did notice, he scooped out a bit of a meat pie onto his plate.
"Well, I can't believe," someone started loudly, "that Professor Snape is letting them put a mud blood in our house!" Roxas chomped down harder than he meant to on his fork-full of lettuce and turned a glare on Puggy Parkington - wasn't that her name? - who was speaking loudly around a bit of bread, glass held in between the thick fingers of her other hand.
Needless to say, the Keyblade wielder was less-than-impressed.
"Just let it alone, Pansy," Draco spoke up firmly. "There's nothing we can do about it now. Besides, we've gotten mud bloods before."
"That's true," a rat-like, black-haired boy commented, "I put a Galleon that this one doesn't make it through the week."
Most of the people around Draco burst into laughter and even the blond boy managed to make a little laugh. Roxas just continued to coolly munch on his dinner, catching a pair of emerald green eyes from across the room. Axel smiled and wrinkled his nose, cutely, looking a bit bored. Just as Roxas was about to mouth something about 'how this couldn't suck any more than it already does', Harry walked up to Axel and started talking to him.
'Oh sure,' Roxas thought a bit unkindly, 'Axel gets friends in his house; I get a group of people calling me 'mud blood' and Draco, who is, apparently, too much of a pansy-boy to go against the group.'
He took a bite of the meat pie and found that, for containing random animal parts, it wasn't that bad. Shrugging, he continued to munch on his dinner, trying to pretend that he was totally unaffected by some of the loud bursts of conversation that came from the other end of the Slytherin table where he was the main topic of conversation.
"You don't really think he and that other boy are poufs, do you! Just what Slytherin needs! A mud blood faggot smelling up our dorms!"
Oh, Roxas lost it!
"EXCUSE ME!" He stood up from the table and walked up to the smart-mouthed boy who was not only taller than he was, probably older than he was, and more built than he was, and grabbed his shoulder. 'Fuck calm!' "Say that to my face, asshole!"
"Roxas, let it go," Draco warned, trying to keep peace between the Nobody and the upperclassman. Unfortunately, neither of the other two was trying to make his job easy.
"You heard what I said, you fairy!" The seventh-year slammed his hands down on the table and the dishes jumped with a clatter, drawing attention to the rising conflict along the Slytherin table. Axel and Naminè both left their own tables to hurry over, watching Roxas for any signs of Nobody energy.
"Keep it street, Kiddo. We don't need a death on our hands this early in the year." Surprisingly, Axel seemed totally non-concerned that Roxas was about to get into a fight with someone that much bigger than he was without his Keyblades.
However, Roxas knew that, whether he remembered it or not, he had kicked the asses of much more domineering bastards before. Pulling back a fist, he slammed it upwards into his opponent's nose.
"You little bitch!" the seventh-year shrieked, hand immediately clamping over his bleeding proboscis. Every single eye in that room was on the pair about to 'engage in combat'. The older Slytherin began to dig in his robes for his wand and Roxas remembered some of the effects the wooden sticks had caused in Olivander's shop. Resolutely, the now-black-haired Nobody pounced, sending the other onto the floor in a flurry of swipes and punches.
"NO, Roxas!" Naminè cried out, trying to get into the fray to look after her brother, even with Axel's arms around her holding her back so that she wouldn't get hurt. "Draco, do something! They're going to get hurt!"
"What can I do!" the blonde demanded, looking just as worried simply because he should have expected something like that to happen after the way his 'friends' had talked to Roxas earlier.
Professor Snape shoved his way through the building crowd and grabbed Roxas by the back of his black robes, hauling him off of the thoroughly whipped seventh year. He caught a clip to the jaw by mistake and Roxas froze, realizing what he had accidentally just done.
"Mr. Clearwater!" Snape ground out, "Your first night here and you have the audacity to get into a knock-down, drag-out fight with an upperclassman! Detentions! For both of you! Clearwater, come with me!"
Roxas tried to squeak out a protest as Snape grabbed him by the arm and hauled him out of the Great Hall by the arm, Naminè and Axel both complaining at the 'kidnapping' of their friend as loudly as he was. Snape ignored them and dragged Roxas down innumerable flights of stairs until it was freezing cold and the professor dragged him into an office, closing the door behind them.
"You couldn't help yourself, could you, Clearwater? Your first night here, you get sorted into the one house I did not expect you to be - mine! - and make enemies out of well over… all of your housemates. Needless to say, you're well on the way to ostracizing yourself from Slytherin.
"However," he added, raising a slender hand to stop the rebuttal Roxas was about to spout off, "I am proud of you for not resorting to use of your Keyblades. Headmaster Dumbledore informed me that you did not receive a magic wand. That means that we will have to transfigure one of your Keyblades into a wand for you to use during the year. It would not do," he explained, "for you to pull out a sword in every class."
Reluctantly, the Nobody agreed and looked at the two Keyblades hooked onto his belt. Finally, he pulled out Oathkeeper, which he knew had much better magical capabilities. "This one, Sir."
"Very well." Snape pulled out his own wand. "Truncheon!" Oathkeeper writhed, actually became rubbery and squirmed on the desk, before going into rigor and shrinking down to a thin, white stick with one yellow stripe around the end. "There you go, Mr. Clearwater."
"Thank you, Professor Snape," Roxas responded, stuffing the white wand into his pocket.
"…." Snape didn't answer, unused to any of his students actually giving a shit about what he did for them. "… Well, Headmaster Dumbledore wanted myself and the heads of house for your two friends about the extra classes that most students take. Now, personally, I would rather see you spending at least one of the two classes being tutored by a sixth or seventh year, or even a professor, so that you can catch up with the rest of your peers."
"Oh," Roxas commented, easily. "I didn't even know there were electives, so it's no skin off of my back, I guess. So now I pick one class?" he asked. "What are Axel and Naminè taking?"
The teacher did not answer for a long moment. "I don't know, Mr. Clearwater. I haven't found out yet. The other professors have not, and probably will not, tell me. Normally, a teacher would take this moment to talk about how 'you need to develop a personality away from your friends', but I'm not going to do that." Roxas gave him a 'well GOOD' look. "Instead, I'm going to make you sit right here until you decide.
"These are your options: Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Ruins, Divination, Arithmancy, Muggle Studies. Not as many options as there were before, but we are in the middle of a war. Do any of these sound-," he sneered the next word, "interesting to you?"
Roxas sat there and considered his options. 'It would just be fucking stupid,' he concluded, 'to take a class about muggles when the 'muggle' world is all I've known, even if it is in pieces. Ancient Ruins - when in the hell will I need that? "Sir? What exactly does 'Care of Magical Creatures' include?"
"Well," Snape answered, "generally you go outside to pet the man-eating monsters that the resident giant keeps tethered to a tree and hope not to loose a limb. Your friend, Draco Malfoy, almost lost an arm to an eagle-horse hybrid. I wouldn't suggest that class to anyone who planned to live to the end of the year."
"That's nice," Roxas responded in his usual, non-caring, smart-assed way. "Well… I guess I'll take Divination then. With Sora being the Chosen One, he'll need all of the help he can get. Besides, I always wanted to know what job I'll have when I grow up."
The professor looked very ready to try and talk the black-haired Nobody out of his choice but sighed resolutely and marked it down. "Very well. Trelawney will have a book for you in her classroom in your first class with her. I'll hand out your schedule tomorrow morning. For now, go down to the Slytherin Dorms. There will be a brass plate over a door with 'R. Clearwater' on it. Along with your roommates. Yes, you have roommates," he added, "get over it."
"Aw, dammit," Roxas commented, lightly. Honestly, he didn't give a flying, but he had seen how pleasant his peers were and would be damned if he would take any crap from them.
"Don't worry. I put you with Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. You met them; they won't eat you. Go down to the dungeons and you'll find a tapestry of, believe it or not, the Heartless Symbol. A little way down, you'll find the Nobody symbol. Dumbledore set that up for you. The password is 'Hallowed'."
"Thank you, Sir." Roxas had to note that, away from the stress of stupid students and what-not, Snape was almost mild and pleasant.
"Don't thank me; just get out!"
Note Roxas thought 'almost'.
"Yes, Sir." The Nobody stood up and tilted his head before turning and walking out of the office firmly and managing to locate the stairs in the middle of the castle. Several of them lead down while others lead up. He shrugged and stepped on one of the down ones.
The second he put a foot on it, however, the staircase began to move! Roxas yelped and collapsed onto his ass, sliding downwards until he managed to hook his arms around one of the bars. When the motion finally stopped, he got to his feet with a flushed, false-haughty look on his face. "Okay, from now on I'm taking the fucking elevator."
He stood on unsteady legs and managed to rush down a few more flights of stairs before they began to move again, casing a similar but less-panicked reaction. 'Of course Bat-Man couldn't warn me about the stairs, now could he?' He finally found one of the tapestries that he had been told about and stared in between them.
"Um… Oh, shit. Uh… Hallowed!" He jerked in surprise as a door formed on the wall in between the cloths, just large enough for him to slip through. "Nice," Roxas murmured, making his way inside.
Most of the Slytherins in the common room turned to stare at him, several with sneers on their lips. "What the hell are you looking at?" he demanded in a tone only wrought from spending far too much time with Saïx and Xemnas.
No one came out and said anything so he headed down the torch-lit hallways, trying to find the sixth-year rooms. Finally, he located the plate stating, in curvy print:
'R. Clearwater
D. Malfoy
B. Zabini'
Pushing open the door, Roxas poked his head in and saw the blonde and black-haired boy rearranging the room that they had been given. "Roxas," Draco greeted, calmly. "I'm sure you remember Blaise. Make nice, you two; I'm not refereeing this whole damn year."
"I have no problems with him," Blaise stated coolly and Roxas found that his voice was not totally undesirable. Not that he had a crush on him or anything; he just noticed weird stuff like that. "As long as he doesn't try to bust my face in like he did to McQueer."
"Georges McKing," Draco added. "Don't worry much about it; he's an asshole. Just give him another shiner if he tries to start anything with you. Inevitably, he will. The rest of his little fan-group will glare and hiss, but their barks are worse than their bites."
Roxas nodded in acceptance. "Great, great."
He walked over to the trunk at the foot of the only bed not cluttered with objects, assuming correctly that it was his. He shifted his clothes out of the way and pulled out his books, trying to find a more convenient place to store them. "Hey, Draco!" he snapped, "Show me how to make a bookcase for my shit, okay?"
Blaise cut in before Draco could make some smart-ass comment about how much he 'freakin' HATED Transfiguration'. "Put something you don't give a fuck about on the floor, flick your wand and say 'protuberancium'."
The black-haired Nobody followed the orders and found five shelves staring back at him. "Hell yeah!" he commented, shoving the books where they belonged. "You know, you're alright, Zabini."
"Yeah, same, I guess." Blaise stretched out on his own bed, rolling onto his stomach and resting his head on his knuckles. "Gotta admit, it was funny as sin when you beat the fuck out of McKing. I hate that bastard," he added.
"Yeah, well, he's my favorite person too if you haven't heard." Roxas turned back his own covers and laid down, throwing an arm over his eyes.
"No kidding. Hey, Roxas?" Draco started in suddenly, "are you and Axel really… you know, queens? Nothing against, but I'm just curious. I mean, Axel's probably a handful to deal with. He seems like he's two eggs short of a dozen, doesn't he?"
Roxas rolled his eyes. "Yeah, no shit. But Naminè will probably help me clasp a leash on him if he gets too worked up."
"Oh yeah," Blaise commented, "that chick that was with you guys. Blonde, little? Damn, she was pretty bloody cute. Kinda am hoping you and Red are gay; gives me more of a chance with your little princess."
Draco opened his mouth to comment before clicking his teeth shut. Roxas watched him out of the corner of his eye. 'Oh, now I get it. Two best friends with a crush on their roommates 'sister'. Shitty luck for them. Well, for Blaise, anyway; Nammy seemed pretty content with Draco the other day.'
"Try anything with my sister and I'll beat the shit out of you," he responded nonchalantly.
He reached down to his robes and slipped them off, revealing his red shirt and khakis. When the shirt had been discarded and thrown in the general direction of his trunk, he slipped off the necklace that contained Axel's orb, hanging it on his bedpost.
"Okay, enough talking. I'm so tired, I'm about to pass out. It's bedtime for Roxas." He rolled over and hugged his pillow, burying his face and falling quickly to sleep. 'Damn,' he thought airily, 'this has already been a pain in the ass and I haven't even started classes yet.'
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Axel shrugged as McGonagall listed out the extra classes that would be available for him. "I guess you can't just shove me with Nammy or Kiddo, huh? Well… I guess Care of Magical Creatures sounds pretty cool. I wanted to get a pet before I came here, but Roxas hates cats…. Yeah, sign me up for that, please."
"As you wish, Mr. Axion. I will hand out your schedule in the morning. Until then, you may go to Gryffindor Tower and get associated with your peers. You will find a picture of a woman in a pink dress. Tell her the password, 'turbulent', and she will let you in. From there, I'm sure you can find your room. You'll have five roommates, so I suggest you be pleasant."
"Yes'm." Axel stood up and inclined his head respectfully, recognizing the dismissal for what it was. He headed up to the Gryffindor Tower, ignoring the stares that he received from other students along the way. He was used to being gaped at with his wild appearance anyway.
"Um… hey, you!" he called out to the red-headed girl that Roxas had introduced him to earlier. She was standing in the hallway talking to a group of students that looked to be about her own age. "Jessie or something, wasn't it?"
"Ginny. And you're Axel! I'm glad that you got sorted into Gryffindor. I kinda wish that Roxas was here, too. That would be neat. Anyway, what did you need?"
"I need someone to tell me how to get into Gryffindor Tower. Prof. McGonagall said 'painting of a chick in a dress' and I'm sure there are about seventy of them in this hallway alone."
Ginny nodded with a smile. "At least. What you're really looking for it the portrait of the Fat Lady. I'll show you where it is. Come on. Sorry, Colin, Luna. I need to help him; he's Roxas's boy, you know?" The two smiled and Ginny took the black-gloved hand in hers, leading him with gentle tugs. "They're Roxas's friends, too. Luna has been raving about the necklace she made for him, with this little red ball in it."
Axel grinned. "Awesome! I was hoping that he hadn't just shoved it somewhere. It was the very first thing I ever gave him. Actually," he laughed, "it was also the first time I hit on him. Kind of a 'you can have this until I can keep you warm'."
Ginny giggled lightly. "Oh I see. That's cute. Hey, Axel, what happened to Roxas's hair? I had to bite my lip so I wouldn't say anything when he first walked in."
"Jeez… this ghost or something spilled black paint aaaaaaaaaaallll over him. Professor Puppy tried to clean him off but left his hair black!"
"Professor Puppy? What?" Ginny laughed, slowing to loop her arm through Axel's. "You mean Remus Lupin, right? He's such a fun teacher. I was only in second year when he taught here before and he was the best teacher we've ever had. Not to mention that he's a friend of my parents'. I can't wait to see what he brings to class this year! Oh! Here's the portrait!"
Axel looked up and saw that Ginny had not been kidding about the 'Fat Lady'. "Yo!" he greeted. "Hi. … M'Axel. Uh… password, password. Shit… OH! Duh! Turbulent!"
"Yes, well done," the Fat Lady commented blandly. She swung open and revealed a giant whole in the wall that Ginny lead him through.
Axel looked around the red and gold colored common room with a slight bit of distaste. "Wow, talk about abusing your color scheme." He looked around and saw Harry sitting with his two best friends by the fire, talking with arms flailing.
"Hey, Harry!" Axel chirped, slinging an arm around his neck and flopping down in the be-glassed boy's lap. "You must be Ron and Hermione, then. Hi… I'm Axel. Just Axel. Nice to meet ya." He extended his hand to the other red-headed boy, who, he remembered, had been the one to drag him away after he blew up the store.
"Same," Ron replied, shaking Axel's gloved hand. "Must be hard, huh? Transferring into a new school where everyone knows everyone and no one knows you."
The Nobody shrugged. "I guess. I can tell you this; it would be a lot worse without Roxie and Naminè. I'm worried about them. I kinda look out for them, I guess. Always have. Hell, Sora would kick my ass again if I let anything happen to either of them."
Hermione blinked and closed the book in her lap. "So you've known them for a really long time, then? That's great, that you all got invited to Hogwarts together."
"Yeah, great," Axel replied with a light-hearted eye roll. "I'll make sure to have the Radiant Garden Crew send Mickey a fruit basket. Speaking of the Radiant Garden Crew, I wonder how they're doing with Sora back on Destiny Island…." The red-headed Nobody faded out, musing to himself.
Harry and his friends exchanged a look over the figure still flopped down in his lap. 'Who the hell is this freak?' Ron mouthed, eyebrows drawn tight. Harry just shrugged. Well, at least the year wouldn't be boring.