Ladies, gentlemen, and folks of every gender, the fierrochase finally begins! You know, I wanted this to be slow-burn when it came to their relationship but I think I went a bit overboard (okay, a lot). Well, better late than never, right? (Please don't kill me).

How had it come to this? What had Magnus done to deserve such cruel treatment? Was it that pencil he had found on the floor in third grade he knew belonged to Betty buy didn't return? Was it the spiders he had stepped on? Should he have helped more grandmas cross the street?

Whatever Magnus had done, apparently it was enough for the Universe to believe he deserved this punishment- sitting in Alex's room because she wanted help to get ready for a date.

Magnus had been just as surprised as everyone else when Conall had turned around and asked Alex on a date. He had remembered back to that Quidditch game where the Ravenclaw had asked him for love advice and had realized it had been Alex he was talking about. At that moment, he had felt stupid for not realizing sooner.

Alex had said yes and the two had started dating. Magnus had felt a bit weird about it at first, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Alex now had a boyfriend (who he had advised to ask her out). He had grown so accustomed to her presence in their little group that it felt odd not to have Alex around anymore when they went to Hogsmeade because she was on a date. She had been hesitant at first to ditch their group to go on a date, but they had all assured her it was fine, even Magnus.

"Yeah, go on your date, just don't burn anything down," Magnus had said when she had asked whether they were sure it was okay for her to hang out with Conall in Hogsmeade instead of them.

Alex's hesitance to leave their group at first had quickly melted away until she and Conall were basically joined at the hip – it became unusual to see one of them without the other close by. Conall even started sitting at their table on occasion and Magnus was weirdly reminded of those sickly-sweet couples in teen flicks.

Magnus had said so a few times around the rest of their friends (never around Alex because he didn't want to be rude). Their responses had ranged from agreement to Halfborn and Mallory teasing him that he's jealous.

"What's with the sour face?" Sam had asked one morning in their fifth year when Magnus had walked into the Hall of the Slain for lunch with a grimace and no hunger for food anymore.

"I went to ask Alex if I could borrow her textbook for Magical Creatures but I found her sucking face with Conall," Magnus had answered as he slumped down on his chair. He put some food on his plate even though he didn't feel like eating after that. He ended up just poking at his food with his fork and trying to make little towers out of mashed potatoes.

"Don't you want to eat, Magnus?" Sam had asked worried. She had always been the mum friend in their group.

"He's too jealous to eat now," Halfborn had snickered before Magnus had the chance to say that he wasn't hungry. The tips of his ears burned as he bit back at Halfborn that he wasn't jealous.

"Yeah, mate, whatever you say," was all the Gryffindor had to say.

So here he was now, sitting the wrong way on Alex's desk chair, his hands resting on the back of the swirly chair as Alex threw clothes around. He didn't even get why she was asking him to help. First of all, he wasn't helping as much as just sitting there as Alex put on different outfits and somehow manage to find something wrong in them (what he didn't know- she looked good in everything). Second, she had already been on so many dates with Conall already, should she really be at such a loss as to what to wear? Conall didn't seem to care, he would gawk and compliment Alex even if she wore a sack of potatoes.

Alex was trying on a different set of clothes when a little head poked through the door. A young girl with bronze skin and silky hair in two braids came in, looking at Magnus curiously with her big eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

With a voice that could have easily belonged to a crappy movie zombie, Magnus said, "I'm helping Alex choose what to wear for her date."

The little girl giggled. "Silly, you're terrible with clothes!" As if to emphasize that, she gestured at his loud Doctor Who shirt with both of her little arms.

"Gee, thanks," Magnus said sarcastically. He couldn't get angry at Cheyenne even if he wanted to, she was just too lovable. Cheyenne was the youngest resident of Perthro, a year too young for Hogwarts. Her older sister, Sara, who Magnus knew up until recently as Zach, was a fourth year Hufflepuff student and one of the many students Perthro helped. After speaking with Professor Blitzen and Professor Hearthstone, she had brought her little sister along as well, too afraid to let her stay with their parents.

Cheyenne giggled again. "I'm just teasing you!" She looked around the room for a bit, staring at all the different articles of clothing around. From time to time, she'd pick something up and say to Magnus with a beaming face that this would look great on her sister. She really loved picking Sara's clothes and making her hair and when Sara had sat her down to explain why she didn't like the name Zach anymore because she was a girl, Cheyenne had been confused at first, but quickly exclaimed that if Sara was a girl then she would make sure she's "the prettiest girl in the whole wide world!"

After she got tired of playing around, she walked back to Magnus and sat down near his legs, absentmindedly playing with his laces. Magnus had a pretty good suspicion she would tie them together.

"How come you're not with Sara?" Magnus asked. "I thought you were going out today."

Cheyenne puffed her cheeks in annoyance. "We were, but Sara is too busy making kissy faces with Helen." She crossed her arms with a huff. "Love is stupid."

Magnus couldn't help but giggle. "Yeah, it is."

Magnus wasn't sure what made him say it, maybe it was that he didn't want to stay inside today, even though you had drag him away from Netflix by the ear normally. "Do you want to go out with me since your sister won't take you? You're already dressed up anyway, so I just need to get shoes and we can head out."

A huge smile spread across Cheyenne's face and Magnus felt good just by seeing the little girl so happy. She jumped up fast and span around in her dress. Magnus knew she called it her princess dress even though it was just a sundress with a long pale blue skirt and a top that looked like a rainbow (Alex approved of that).

Cheyenne quickly run out of the room to go tell her sister she was going out and Magnus went to get his shoes. Not that long after, Magnus was standing by the door with an excited Cheyenne holding his hand so she wouldn't get lost. They were about to leave the room when Magnus heard a "Wait!"

He turned around to see Alex running up to him in a pink crop top and shorts. For some reason, Magnus felt like he couldn't look at her much and looked down at Cheyenne. Wow, it must be hot outside, he thought when he noticed a burning at his cheeks.

"I saw you were leaving so I wanted to head out together," Alex explained as they left Perthro's building and stepped outside in the hot summer weather. Perthro was suited in a relatively calm part of London with a lot of families leaving close by. The building Magnus had come to think of as home during summer was old, the kind of place you'd expect a ghost or Sherlock Holmes to live in. It was painted a light yellow and looked small from the outside. You wouldn't expect it'd be able to house so many children but it was much larger on the inside. The building was invisible to Muggles like many of the wizarding building in London.

"You look really pretty," Cheyenne told Alex. "Don't you think so too, Magnus?"

There was that burning to his cheeks again. "Uh, yeah, you look really good."

Alex smiled. "Thanks." They must have passed through a very sunny spot because Magnus felt his cheeks burn more. "Oh, this is where I leave you," Alex said when they reached a corner. She turned left while Magnus and Cheyenne kept going.

Cheyenne let go of his hand when they weren't crossing a street so she could skip from one tile of the sidewalk to the next. Magnus watched her amused as she did her best not to step on any of the cracks.

They soon reached the park. Families were taking a walk together and elderly enjoyed the nice weather. The air was buzzing with children's laughing from the playground and Cheyenne immediately dragged him there. She paid little notice to Magnus telling her to be careful and quickly run for the monkey bars.

For the most part, Magnus sat to the side with the other parents as Cheyenne played, with exception when she dragged him with her so he could go through the little tunnel that led to the slide and get stuck in it. Magnus was happy Alex wasn't around to see that because he'd rather forget that incident happened.

Once Magnus was successfully unstuck for the playground equipment, Cheyenne asked him if he could push her on the swings. Magnus accepted readily. Getting on a swing had been a bit difficult as there were too few swings and too many children. When one finally emptied, Cheyenne all but pounced on it and Magnus feared for the lives of those poor children that might have tried to take the swing away from her.

So he pushed and he pushed and Cheyenne went higher and higher, singing "I believe I can fly!"

It was only hours later, with sunburned cheeks and ice-cream cones in hand that they headed back to Perthro. Cheyenne ate her cookie-and-cream ice-cream with a dedication Magnus wished he had for his homework.

"This was amazing, Magnus!" she said when they were nearing the large yellow house. "I had a great time! To thank you, I decided to offer you my super advice!"

Magnus held back a little laugh at the smug grin on the girl's face but went along with it. "And what would that advice be, oh great one?"

"I will help you win back Alex's heart!" she declared with the biggest smile possible of her little body.

Magnus' ears burned and he spluttered. "Wh-what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you love her, don't you?" she asked like someone was questioning her about something as basic as the earth being round or two plus two equaling four.

Magnus's face burned even hotter and it had nothing to do with the heat. "Wh-what in the world gave you that idea?"

Cheyenne shrugged (a gesture she had probably learned from her sister). "Well, I've always heard that love makes you want to be around the other person all the time and you and Alex are always together and I've heard that you blush a lot around the person you like and you're always red around her. I thought the reason you were so grumpy lately was because someone else was dating Alex."

"I-I-I don't like Alex. N-not like that!" Magnus protested and oh god, why was he stuttering? It's not like he actually likes Alex- he likes her as a friend, but he doesn't have a crush on her, obviously. He was just surprise by what Cheyenne was saying, of course, that's why he was stuttering so much.

Cheyenne pouted. "Are you sure?"

Magnus almost screamed. "Yes!"

The answer didn't seem to satisfy the little girl. "Okay," she said quietly. "Sorry for assuming."

Magnus unlocked the door (they all had a set of keys) and Cheyenne went to find her sister so she could tell her about her time at the park. Magnus didn't even bother going to the kitchen for a glass of water even though he was super thirsty and instead went straight to the room he shared with a couple other boys. He lay in bed and read his new book to distract himself.

The window was open and a gentle breeze was blowing through it but Magnus couldn't focus on the writing on the page. The words danced and moved and every line he read was in through one ear and out the other. He just couldn't stop thinking about what Cheyenne had said.

He didn't have a crush on Alex.

Did he?

/

The rest of summer break was pretty great. They hang out and had fun, even if Magnus was always salty every time Alex had a date. Or at least that's what the other kids at Perthro said.

He wasn't salty.

But now summer was long over and they were back at Hogwarts. This was their sixth year for all of them save for Halfborn, who was in his final year. It was weird to think that next September they would get on the Hogwarts Express and he wouldn't be there.

So here they were, on their first breakfast as sixth years and Alex and Conall were already being gross. Alex had been the first one to get to breakfast and Magnus was praying to whatever got existed out there that she doesn't tell Conall to sit with them. Or maybe that he'll want to catch up with some of his other friends.

But he came into the Hall of the Slain, made a beeline for Alex and bend down to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Morning, beautiful," he said and Magnus wanted to gag. He stabbed another one of his eggs and took a bite as Alex craned her neck back to give Conall a good morning kiss. Ugh.

"You can sit here today," Alex tells him in the voice Magnus has come to recognize as her lovey dovey voice. As in, the voice she has after every single time they kiss. It's not exactly annoying, it's just…. Just.

Alex scouted over and Conall took an extra chair form a nearby table to sit next to her, much closer than was probably necessary. How were they even supposed to cut their food if they were so close? Their elbows would hit every time they tried to move.

And they did. Every time one of them tried to cut a fried egg of reach out for an extra piece of toast their arms would hit. And every single time they would giggle and give each other a little kiss and whAt KIND OF NIGHTMARE WAS MAGNUS SUBJECETED TO?

Why was no one else paying attention to this? Were they all blind? Did they not see how ridiculously lovey dovey Alex and Conall were being? Magnus felt like he would throw up any moment now and no one was paying attention to the cause of his hardship.

The closest thing he got to anyone acknowledging how disgustingly sweet Alex and Conall were being was a sly look from Halfborn. It won him a hit in the shin under the table.

"So did you hear about that big announcement?" Mallory asked. She causally reached out and took a croissant from Halfborn's plate and Halfborn didn't react at all.

Their relationship – because they were together now- was nothing like Alex and Conall's. They acted so casual about it all that you wouldn't even realize they were dating if you didn't know them or if you weren't very observant. They acted just as they did before and still teased each other and joked but they always stood just a bit too close, their hands brushed a little too much when they weren't interlocked and they looked at each other for a moment too long. They had this natural air around them like they had always been this close and it was nothing new.

"What announcement?" Magnus asked.

Mallory rolled her eyes. "Of course you didn't hear. The school is doing an exchange program with some students from Ilvermorny. They should be arriving today, but I don't remember how many they said will come for each year."

It was at that moment that the doors opened dramatically as if on cue. Like this was a movie or something. A group of students walked in, all of them wearing the plain black robes first years wore before they were sorted. But they weren't first years, none of them. The youngest must have been a fourth year.

Professor Sif accompanied the students on the little stage in front of the teacher's table they used for announcements. "Good morning. May I have your attention for a moment?" she said as she stood in the center of the stage, the Ilvermorny students standing behind her.

The murmur in the Hall of the Slain calmed down, if only barely, and Professor Sif continued talking. "As you may have heard, since it's impossible to keep secrets in this school, we will have the honor of having a group of transfer students from Ilvermorny here with us this year. I hope you will treat them well and show them what a great school Hogwarts is." She stepped to the side as Professor Thor brought out the little stool and the Sorting Hat. "Now, let's move on to our new students' Sorting!"

One by one, Professor Sif called out the Ilvermorny students, starting from the youngest. After each one was sorted, they were handed a tie in the colors of their house.

Magnus knew that everyone's eyes were trained on the American kids, and his were too, but on one specific one. A fit girl with tan skin, curly blonde hair in a ponytail and startling grey eyes that was standing with what must be the sixth year students. There was something about her that seemed strangely familiar but Magnus couldn't place it. Maybe she looked like someone he knew?

"Chase, Annabeth!" Professor Sif calls out and the girl steps forward.

Magnus was thankful he wasn't drinking something when she said that name because otherwise he would have choked. Annabeth, did she really say Annabeth? He heard right, didn't he? Annabeth was here. She was at Hogwarts.

Magnus hadn't seen her ever since he was six, maybe seven. He and his mother had moved to England for the US when Magnus was young and Magnus had never gotten the full story. He knew it had something to do with his mother being a Squib and who his father was but nothing more than that.

Annabeth was sorted into Ravenclaw and went to stand by the other students that had been sorted. Magnus couldn't stop staring at her, trying to figure out how his young cousin who made temples out of dominoes had grown into the girl standing in front of him. He could find the similarities, as faint as they were after almost ten years. She had the same hair, the same nose, the same look in her eyes like she knew everything about how the world worked.

And those eyes were looking straight at him.

It took a bit more time for all of them to get placed in a house and once they did, Professor Sif told them that they're free to go and find a seat anywhere in the Hall of the Slain. Annabeth made a beeline for him, a black haired boy wearing the Gryffindor trailing behind her. Her eyes were locked on him like she was a homing missile flying right at her target and Magnus had the sudden urge to hide under the table.

"Magnus?" She asked once she reached their table. "Is your name Magnus Chase?" she asked again and Magnus didn't understand why she looked as if she had just seen a ghost.

"Um, yeah. Hi, Annabeth," he said and did an awkward little hand wave because he's stupid like that.

"Oh my God, Magnus!" She threw herself at him and hugged him. Magnus wasn't sure why she was hugging him or why she was doing it so hard he would probably have bruised ribs afterwards. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged back as naturally as he could but this was a pretty bizarre meeting.

"I thought you were dead, you idiot!" she said when she finally let him go. She held him by the shoulders at arm's length and looked at him as if she had never seen him before- and she might as well have never seen him since the last time they met Magnus still played with lego and slept with a night-light.

"What? Why? Wh-?" Magnus bubbled out. He was so confused and happy at the same time for seeing Annabeth that he didn't know what questions he had to ask.

"They informed us of your mom's death," Annabeth explained. "But they couldn't find you and they assumed you had died at the fire too." She made a half-strangled sob and Magnus was afraid she would start crying in the middle of the Hall of the Slain.

"I've spent two years thinking you were dead! Why didn't you let us know you were alive?" There was something in her voice bordering between 'I want to hug you so much' and 'I will strangle you' and Magnus didn't know how to react.

"I'm sorry," Magnus said because really, what was he supposed to say? He was sorry he made her mourn his death when he was alive but truth is it just didn't cross his mind to contact his relatives. His mum had always acted as if they had none and when she did acknowledge them she told Magnus not to contact them.

"You know, I should be more angry at you right now but I'm just happy you're here." She gives him another hug before she steps away and finally seems to notice the people that had been watching her all this time.

"Hello," she said as if reuniting with your supposedly dead cousin is the typical first meeting. "I'm Annabeth Chase, Magnus' cousin."

"It's nice to meet you," Sam said, always the polite one. She was practically the only one who wasn't gawking at Annabeth. She offered her hand to the blonde girl and she took it. "I'm Samirah al-Abbas, but you can call me Sam."

"I'm T.J." The Ravenclaw boy was quick to introduce himself and offered a smile to Magnus' female counterpart. "I didn't know Magnus had a cousin, but I'm happy to meet you."

"What does T.J stand for?" the black haired boy asked. His hair was a mess (and Magnus thought his hair was hard to deal with) and his eyes were sea-green.

"Thomas Jefferson Jr."

The boy's eyes widened just a bit as if he had just realized something and he grinned. He moved his head from side to side like he was hearing a song and Magnus was pretty sure he heard him sing "So what did I miss?" under his breath.

Of course, the whole table looked at him weirdly and Annabeth quickly explained, but not before rolling her eyes. "One of our friends showed him the soundtrack of Hamilton and he remembered one of the songs. Forgive my boyfriend, he's a dork." She sent the boy – her boyfriend, as it turned out- a glare and he smiled at her sheepishly.

"I'm your dork," he said with a shit-eating smirk.

"Yeah, you are. I make bad choices sometimes."

Magnus and the rest of his friend at the table chuckled at Annabeth's quick response and just how hurt the boy looked.

"You wound me," he said in an overly dramatic voice. He wasn't able to keep up the act for long and he broke into laugher soon. Annabeth smiled at him affectionately before turning back to Magnus.

"Sorry, I forgot to introduce you. This is Percy Jackson," she said, gesturing to the boy.

"It's nice to meet you," he told Magnus with a smile. "I've never meet a dead person before."

Magnus smiled back. "I've never been dead either."

"Why don't you sit with us? I'm Mallory, by the way, and this idiot is my boyfriend Halfborn."

"Halfborn?" The two Americans said together. They seemed as embarrassed about it as Magnus thought it was funny.

"It's a nickname. Long story."

"I'm Conall," the Ravenclaw introduced himself and offered his hand to the new people at their table. His other hand was squeezed between his body and Alex's and their fingers were interlocked. "Nice meeting you."

"I'm Alex," the green haired girl said simply. "So you've heard Hamilton? What's your favorite song?"

Percy's eyes shone at the prospect of talking about something he liked (Magnus could relate). Annabeth sighed in 'here we go again' kind of way.

"Okay, where do I start? I love 'Alexander Hamilton' and 'My shot' and Burr's songs like 'Wait for it' and 'The room where it happens' are amazing and don't get me started on 'Guns and Ships' and…"

For the rest ofbreakfast before they had to leave for class, Magnus and the crew were treated to Percy and Alex fangirling over the musical and bursting into Alex could rap pretty well. What do youknow.

You all knew I had to write Percy and Annabeth in here somehow ;)

And yes, I have to shoehorn my current obsession into whatever I write, I can't help it (Alex was rapping Guns and Ships, btw)

Oh, and since my exams are almost over (I only have another three lessons to give) updates will (hopefully) be faster now! Until next time! *Wait For It plays at top volume*