OKAY AP TESTS ARE THROUGH AND I HAVE FINISHED BEING AN ASSHOLE AND FINISHED A CHAPTER. ENJOY, PEEP-OLES.
DISCLAIMER: i owe nothing, except my OC's. Anything magical possible belongs to JK Rowling and any cute amazing characters probably belong to DreamWorks Animation
Chapter Thirty Seven: Taking No Shit
"Wait, wait, wait, say that again, slowly, without sounding like you're a chipmunk on crack." Xavier said, waving his hands frantically in front of their faces. Toothless sits at his feet, looking up at him and wishing for all the world to be able to talk to the Metamorphagus so he could explain the situation better than the two boys behind him.
"Okay, fine." Jack huffed, crossing his arms over his chest almost like he was annoyed at himself and at Xavier. "You know Clint, right?" He asked slowly. Xavier nods. "Good. Well, he happened to be the one that saw Toothless and told the whole school." Jack said, considerably slower than the first time he's tried to say anything. Hiccup stood beside him, still a little sleep-ridden, but he looked like he was more than half-awake, so it would be fine. Xavier's jaw dropped in what looked like horror.
"That little bitch." He said lowly, his fists clenching. His features weren't changing yet, which was either the proof that he had gotten good at controlling his emotions under intense emotions, or he didn't really see the significance of this conversation.
"And so, he told us yesterday," Hiccup said, hopping right in. "That if we don't break up, or that if we don't throw all our Quidditch matches, he would tell the Headmaster that I'm the one that smuggled a dragon into the castle."
There was a moment of silence that filled the room entirely. All four of them (including Toothless) just stared at looked at each other, the floor, the window, anything else really, and tried to form more words. Xavier was the first one to be successful.
"Well, I hope the two of you aren't going to break up just because some little bitch threatened to tell North about Toothless." Xavier said, shifting into a more defensive pose and setting his hands on his hips.
"Trust me, we weren't planning on breaking up." Jack said.
"Good, but you two do realize that there's one, super-straightforward solution to this problem, right?" Xavier said, looking at the two of them almost like he thought that they were complete idiots for knowing about the issue longer and not coming up with this solution. Jack and Hiccup stayed silent and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. "We get Toothless of the grounds." He said.
"He wouldn't survive out there. He only has half a tail." Hiccup argued.
"He has nowhere to go. If anyone finds him and figures out what he is, they'll kill him, or ship him off some place where we'll never find him again." Jack refuted.
"We put him in Jack's place. Didn't you say you have a lot of room?" Xavier asked, gesturing to Jack.
"My mom works for the Ministry, dude, do you really think she would help us hide an illegal pet dragon in her house?" He asked him sarcastically, giving him a deadpanned expression, and, well, looking a little pissed, to be honest.
"Then my house." Xavier said, screening the words before they came out of his mouth, because for a second he was about to say 'Hiccup's house' but he realized how fucked up and unrealistic that was seeing that his dad wanted nothing to do with him, so why would he want anything to do with his cat? "I'm sure my uncle and my mom won't mind having a cat around the house."
"That's not the point, Xavier." Hiccup said, making some desperate gesticulations before running his hands through his hair. "You see how Toothless gets when he can't go flying for a while. Animals can die of depression."
"Well, anyone can die from depression…" Xavier reasoned (not too well, but he tried, anyways).
"Can you not hear me?" Hiccup stressed.
"Look, sending Toothless away is out of the option selection, end of story." Jack said, looking at the two of them sternly before glancing down at the cat sitting oddly calm and still looking up at Xavier. "It wouldn't be like he would leave any of us here alone, anyways." Jack said. "Or that's what he thinks anyways." He adds, shrugging.
"Fine, fine, so we leave Toothless here. Clint tells the Headmaster about Toothless and then what? Do you really think North'll believe him?" Xavier asked.
"Well, considering the fact that he believed him the first time, I would say yes." Hiccup said, giving him a frank look. "I wouldn't put it past North to jeopardize the safety of Hogwarts students, anyways, I mean, considering what happened in the past…"
"The past is the past, Hic." Xavier noted.
"Don't call me Hic!"
"We should just-!" Jack said, calming the both of them down. "We should just get dressed and go to breakfast and then we'll-"
"We'll talk about it later, right." Hiccup said, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice the best he could. Jack said the same thing last night, and here they are, the morning after, trying to explain to Xavier the whole situation. Xavier had the right to know about what was going on in the first place. He lived in the same dorm, they were best friends, and he also knew about Toothless so it was only in all of their best interests that they all knew the same information so none of them could slip up. Now that he thinks about it, Hiccup resolves to tell Lauren about this whole thing, too.
The three get dressed in silence, pulling and tugging and adjusting their uniforms into place even though they were uncomfortable and stuffy, but oddly familiar, but that wasn't the point right now. Once they all had their shoes tugged on, their rucksacks (and in Hiccup's case, backpack) slung on their shoulders, and their wands in their pockets, they left the dorm with a little goodbye to Toothless. The cat meowed at them, before hopping on Xavier's pillow and falling back asleep, a luxury the three boys didn't have.
"You're not mad at me, are you?" Jack asked, grabbing Hiccup's hand lightly, almost like he was scared he was going to pull away and there would be nothing he could do about it. Instead, the opposite happened; Hiccup gripped his hand back, squeezing it reassuringly as he look up at Jack.
"No, I'm sorry." Hiccup said. "I could never be really mad at you, its just that…. I don't know. I think Clint's got me so messed up and-"
"It's fine, Hiccup." Jack said, the softness of his voice an obvious attempt at calming him down. "We will find a way to work all this stuff out, and it'll be okay, alright?" Hiccup nodded, because it was the only thing he felt comfortable doing before leaning his head on Jack's shoulder.
"You guys are sap-sacks." Xavier muttered, smiling at the two of them like the dork he was. It's not like he was saying anything new, though, because they all knew they were a bit sappy when it came to people they loved (Xavier wasn't an exception because he was the exact same way with Lauren).
They got into the Great Hall, and the first thing that Hiccup noticed was that Clint was staring them down. Hiccup glared at him for a half-second, before realizing that stooping down to his level would do nothing for any of them. So, instead, Hiccup kept a firm grip on Jack's hand and marched them right over to where Lauren, Liliana, Cee and Jay were sitting.
"Do you mind us sitting here, good ladies and kind gentleman?" Jack said grandly, letting go of Hiccup's hand briefly to bow dramatically, and then he grabbed for Hiccup's hand once more.
"Who said I was particularly kind?" Jay asked, looking at him with a little smirk on his face.
"Or even a gentleman, for that matter." Cee jeered, earning her a jab in the ribs from her brother.
"Sure, you can sit." Lauren said, scooting over some and letting Jack and Hiccup sit next to her, leaving Xavier to sit on the other side of Liliana and the twins. "It's not like you really even had to ask." She said, smiling at them.
"Good morning, by the way." Liliana said, smacking her hands on the table a little and looking at all of them.
"Morning." They all sort of muttered back, unsynchronized.
"I've got something to tell you, later." Hiccup whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Lauren.
"Is it that Willy Wonka finally joined together with Honeydukes so they could make the best candies in the world?" Laure said back.
"No, but that would be pretty cool." Hiccup pointed out.
"Why are you guys whispering?" Jay asked, leaning over the table to look at them skeptically. "There's no point of it, you know." He said.
"Well, there's no point if people try to eavesdrop, like someone we know." Hiccup said, leaning forward too and attacking Jay's hair with his fingers as he ruffled it. Jay squawked indignantly and sat back, fixing his hair fastidiously. Jack chuckled at the both of them.
"You were sort of asking for it, Jay." Cee said, looking at her brother like she was trying to say 'you need to re-think your life choices' without actually saying the words. He glared at her for a second before he returned to his scrambled eggs and a piece of toast, defeated.
"The Library after school would be okay, right?" Lauren asked, looking at Hiccup.
"Yeah I think so. Do we have practice?" He asked Liliana.
"Nope. Snakes took our spot again." She reported, before being glared at by Jay. "No offense little dude." She added, shrugging. Jay didn't say anything.
"Then after school." Hiccup said.
"Aw, you're going to leave me and Jack alone?" Xavier asked incredulously. "But I have homework to copy!" He said.
"Suck it up." Jack said, grabbing a Belgium waffle. Hiccup's eyes brightened and took one for himself.
"Rude." Xavier muttered, taking a sip of pumpkin juice.
"Well, if you want to skive off your homework, you can come down with me to Hagrid's." Liliana said. "I was going to ask him a couple questions about the Crumpled Snorkats and the properties of unicorn blood." She said.
"You have Care of Magical Creatures?" Cee asked.
"Yeah. I'm in one of his advanced classes. Why?" Liliana replied.
"No reason. He says most people drop it when they don't need to take it anymore." Jay said, answering for his sister, which was oddly creepy when you thought about it. Liliana nodded grimly, pursing her lips together so she wouldn't say something she didn't want to.
"I'll tag along if it means that I don't need to do my homework!" Xavier said excitedly.
"You need to do your homework!" Lauren said, looking worriedly at the twins, thinking that Xavier was being all sorts of a bad influence on them.
"I'll get it done later! I promise!" He swore.
"He does always do it." Jack said, vouching for him and looking at Lauren sincerely.
"Last minute, but hey, he gets it done." Hiccup commented, shrugging like it was none of his business as he decided that yes, he did want to add some cut strawberries to the top of his plate of syrup and powdered sugar with a side of Belgium waffle. Xavier shot him a sour look and tried to ignore him, but that lasted for about a whole three seconds before he exploded.
"Can we change the subject please?" He asked, looking at everyone concernedly.
"Wow alright, fine, then." Liliana said. "Is it me, or does Pitch seem a bit… less pissed off than usual?" She said, looking over at the teacher's table and eying the grey-faced teacher who usually scared the crap out of any student he came against. Jay coughed, nearly choking on his food and Cee patted him on the back supportively.
"Uh, no, he's just as... terrible as before, why would he… Why would he be acting any different?" Jay stuttered, looking down at the table like he was going to spontaneously gain the power of heat vision and burn a whole through the wood.
"He's actually been a lot less of a jackass to the rest of us." Jack said, leaning back a little and looking at the suddenly-spastic twin, his eyebrow raised in question. "So either something must have happened to make him his own twisted sort of giddy, or he just loves to throw us off with this kind of stuff."
"He could be severely bipolar." Xavier suggested.
"Why are we talking about him again?!" Jay said, sitting up like his spine was replaced with a metal rod and his hands smacking lightly onto the table. He looked at everyone with wide eyes, almost demanding them for an answer.
"Well, someone asked for a subject change and… Pitch happened to be the next on the list." Hiccup said, finally answering the poor kid. Jay nodded, not even saying anything in response before relaxing a little.
"We need to get going anyways." Cee said, tugging on Jay's sleeve as she stood up.
"Oh, crap, right." Liliana said, wincing a bit at the fact that she cursed in from of the twins. "See you guys later, that is, if you're going down to Hagrid's with me!" She said, waving them all goodbye and she left with the twins right at her heels, not intentionally following her, but it just happened that way.
"Hiccup." Jack said, pinching his arm lightly to catch his attention, but his mind was elsewhere. When Hiccup looked at him, he opened his mouth to say something before he followed Jack's gaze… to see Clint walking right towards them. "Heads up." Jack breathed, and Hiccup closed his mouth and nodded. He hooked their ankles together for moral support.
"Good morning everyone." Clint said, a shit-eating grin spread across his face as he spoke, looking at all of them in turn but his eyes lingering on Hiccup for slightly longer. Jack felt the burn of anger deep in his chest, and he was just lucky he was able to suppress it. Xavier… Not so much.
"Fuck off…" Xavier breathed, his nails digging into the wood of the table.
"What?" Clint asked, looking at him almost like he was scandalized.
"X…" Lauren hissed, wondering why in the hell he would be so rude to him.
"You heard me." Xavier said, looking up at him. "I don't think I need to say it again." He practically growled, and this look came across his face that was a cross between anger and intense concentration.
"Sorry, Clint, but we should really get to class." Jack said in a voice that portrayed just how 'sorry' he was, unhooking his ankle from Hiccup's and grabbing his hand as he stood.
"Right. I'll just talk to you later then." He said, nodding at them before walking out of the Great Hall, glaring daggers at the ground and resisting the urge to throw the pair a dirty look over his shoulder as he left. When he was finally out of sight, Lauren gave Xavier a ferocious glare.
"And what the hell was that all about?" She asked hotly, completely confused about what just happened, but she knew that she was out of some kind of loop that the rest of them were in.
"Nothing." Xavier replied. Lauren opened her mouth to refute him, but Hiccup poked her cheek as she stood, catching her off guard and her attention.
"I'll tell you later. It's what I want to talk to you about after school." He informed.
"Oh, okay." Lauren said. "Sorry." She said meekly, looking over at Xavier.
"Not an issue." Xavier said. "Though we really should be getting to class."
"Right, well, see you at lunch!" She said, grabbing her things and walking out. The three boys weren't so far behind her, Hiccup and Jack practically attached at the hip and by their hands as they walked and Xavier on the other side of the table, moving next to Hiccup the second he could.
"He has some goddamn nerve to be walking up to you guys and act like everything's normal." Xavier said lowly.
"He has some nerve to come up to us and say we should lose and break up." Jack said.
"We should stop talking about it." Hiccup said, cutting the both of them off from their rant about how stupid that guy was. They just looked at him bizarrely, wondering why he would stop them. Hiccup sighed, catching their looks, and added, "You never know who's listening in on your conversations at Hogwarts, remember? Rumors spread and fly around everywhere, and it's because people eavesdrop." He said, a matter-of-fact tone in his voice.
"That's true." Xavier said, nodding and looking at the floor before looking back at Hiccup and Jack. "But don't think we're done with this, because I'm pretty sure I'm not." He said, pointing his finger at them.
"Trust me, I'm not over it either." Jack muttered.
"Good… Well, now that we're on the same page, let's actually move fast enough so we can get to class on time so Tooth won't threaten to give us detention again." Hiccup said, squeezing Jack's hand and walking a bit faster, hiking his backpack further on his shoulder. Jack and Xavier struggled to keep up with him.
The potions classroom was filled with billowing smoke, of all colors and smells, along with students that were having panic attacks over it. Instead of the dark, amber-eyed professor ripping them a new one, Pitch actually went around and, grudgingly, helped out the ones that needed it. Sure, it consisted of a lot of yelling, the occasional swearing, and a multitude of insults, but the fact of the matter was that Pitch was helping his students. Most of the times he would have left them floundering until they had to turn it in.
"You know, he is slightly better than before." Hiccup muttered under his breath as he checked his Polyjuice Potion carefully, and sighed in relief when gentle white vapor seeped through the cracked lid of the cauldron. Jack chuckled lowly, hoping that Pitch wasn't around to hear any of this, because, well, he could pop up anywhere.
"Told ya so." Jack crooned in Hiccup's ear, leaning over to get right into his face. The two of them shared a smirk before Hiccup smacked a hand on Jack's face and pushed him out of his, laughing a little as he did so.
"Some shit must have went down." Xavier said, looking up from his purple-smoke-spewing potion and at Hiccup and Jack.
"Would you care to repeat that, Bloodstone?" Someone drawled behind him, causing Xavier to jump, Hiccup to flail around, and Jack to nearly spill everything he had in his hands on the ground.
"Nothing, sir." Xavier said coolly once he recovered from the initial shock of the appearance of the professor. Pitch only looked at him skeptically.
"We were only talking about the ingredients, sir." Hiccup said, coming to the rescue. Pitch turned his attention to the auburn-haired boy and shot him a disbelieving glance. "How the ingredients react to each other, I mean. It's almost exactly like Muggles and how they study chemistry." Hiccup said smoothly, bullshitting every word but not letting that piece of information slip. For a second, Pitch looked unimpressed, but then he looked up to the ceiling in a half eye-roll and sighed.
"Brewing potions I nothing like the mundane practice of Muggle chemistry." Pitch said, almost sounding a little scandalized at the fact that Hiccup would even consider the comparison.
"Yes sir." Hiccup said, nodding and agreeing because he wasn't in the mood to argue with a professor. Jack held his peace, but only barely. He didn't even fully understand the concept of Muggle chemistry, but he wanted to prove Pitch wrong for anything right now, and he didn't care what it was about. Jack calmed down when he figured that unleashing all the anger he's pent up for Clint on Pitch would be worthless.
"Stay focused, all of you." Pitch said, taking a pinch of a powdery substance and sprinkling it into Xavier's cauldron before moving on. With a stir or two from Xavier, the purple smoke altogether disappeared.
"Well, that definitely would have been worse if he wasn't in a good mood." Jack remarked, smirking a little bit at Hiccup and Xavier as Pitch continued to pop up around the room and terrorize, then assist, his students.
"If this has anything to do with the twins, I'm going to laugh." Xavier said, smiling to himself as he did so.
"Why?" Hiccup asked, giving him a 'what the hell are you on about?' type expression. "If something happened to them, then-"
"Nothing, never mind. Forget I said anything." Xavier said, waving it off before turning back to his potion. Hiccup nodded, a little bit confused as to what exactly he was talking about but he decided not to worry about it now. Instead, he followed Xavier's lead and turned to his potion. Jack watched the whole thing, and was just as confused as Hiccup was, but he turned to his potion too. There was a couple moments of painful silence between them that seemed to stretch on forever, until Hiccup spoke up.
"You know, we still need to talk about what we're going to do about-" He was saying in an undertone, looking up at Jack.
"I know, I know, but I really don't think that it's the best-" Jack was saying with a sigh.
"Are you just saying that because it isn't a good time, or do you not want to deal with it?" Hiccup demanded, cutting him off from the middle of his sentence. Jack froze, and his gaze slid onto Hiccup just as he looked away. The smaller boy fiddled and worked with everything in his workspace, looking anywhere but at Jack. His boyfriend looked at him, almost in shock, for a moment before slamming everything he had in his hands onto his workspace and grabbing Hiccup's shoulders, effectively stopping him from obsessing over things that were already finished.
"Hiccup." Jack said, his voice as hard as steel and his blue eyes nearly shining with tears. He looked right into Hiccup's eyes, even though he wouldn't meet his own, not yet, anyways. "I care about you. I care about what happens to you. I care about us. Of course, I want to deal with this, I want a part in solving this whole thing with you, its just that… I don't want you to think that I'm neglecting you." Jack said bluntly at the end, having no other way to say this.
"You're not. I never said you were." Hiccup said immediately, finally looking at him. Jack took that little victory as some sort of progress.
"Good, because I'm not." Jack said.
"But I don't want to put this off any more than we have already. I want to talk to you about it, come up with a plan, do something together that'll get us one step closer to nipping it in the bud." Hiccup said, not wasting any time in saying it like the world was running out of oxygen in three seconds.
"Both of you really need to shut the fuck up." Xavier said, throwing his silence out the window and butting in like this was his conversation in the first place. Jack looked at him, and Hiccup glanced over his should at him (because Jack still had his hands on his shoulders and it made turning a little hard). They both had the same expression on their face. Xavier huffed. "Classes are almost over. We can talk about it then, so there's no need to argue about something that'll get done anyways. Stop stressing!" He said, the irritation or slight anger in his vice clearly evident.
"Okay." Jack said, resigned, as he let go of Hiccup's shoulders at last. They all got back to their Polyjuice potions and didn't say another word.
Potions class flew by after that. Pitch made sure that everyone stowed away their potions properly as they got ready to leave the class, checking the burners to make sure they were all simmering at the right temperature. It was a testament to his good mood, seeing how normally he would have left everyone to their own devices and determined if they'd fail or not by the final product of all their miniscule slip-ups. After he deemed them acceptable, everyone packed up their things and, not long after that, the bell rang, signaling for them to go to their next class.
Trying to get through the door was like trying to get a herd of cattle across the street in time, but it always turned out possible in the end. Hiccup and Jack walked so close together that they could have been mistaken for one person with two heads, their grip on each other's intertwined fingers was painfully tight, as though anything lighter would have set them adrift in an ocean and they'd never see each other again. Xavier trailed behind them, his hands shoved into his cloak's pockets as he weaved through the sardine-packed hallways of Hogwarts.
When they finally reached the Defense classroom, Bunnymund was busy with something in front of the desks. They stopped at the door, a little surprised at first, before walking in and taking their seats, not saying a word about what was there. But that didn't mean they stopped staring. It looked like a trunk of some sort, or something of that size, that had a bedsheet thrown over it. Hiccup blinked, squeezing Jack's hand as he pieced together what it possibly might be, and Jack squeezed his hand back, not sure what the other was thinking but glad he was reaching out to him. Xavier was curious, sure, but he wasn't too big on making assumptions, especially in Defense Against the Dark Arts, so he sat there and watched Bunnymund's ears twitch in anticipation as students filed into the classroom.
When the last chair scraped across the floorboards, Bunny turned around, almost shocked to see that his class was filled at this point in time.
"'Ello, students. Do any of ya wanna guess wha' this is?" He asked, his accent thick with excitement as he looked around, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (literally) as he patted the top of the thing. When he did so, there was a metallic clang underneath his paw.
"Ice cream?"
"Is it your secret stash of Butterbeer?"
"Please tell me it's a Skiving Snackbox…"
"No, no, no! Blimey, I thought I taught ya brumbies better than this!" Bunny said, shaking his head so hard that his ear flopped wildly.
"Boggart." Hiccup said as he looked at his shoes, barely loud enough for the professor to hear him.
"There we go!" Bunny said, taking a hop or two towards Hiccup, but he looked back at the thing in the front of the room and hopped back next to it. He patted it again, the metallic clang sounding again, and he smiled. "I found this lil guy in the Library just yesterday."
"But sir," a girl asked, her hand in the air and making it clear that she wasn't waiting for Bunny to call on her, "we learned about Boggarts during our third year. Why are we going to be studying them again?"
"Good question." Bunny said with a chuckle. "Well, we ain't gonna study this little guy, and if I taught ya everythin' you need to know about these guys already, then each of ya can get a turn to practice again today, won't ya?" The whole classroom erupted into cheers, all except for Hiccup, Jack and Xavier of course. "C'mon, wands out and form a line!" Bunny said.
The desks were moved against the wall with a flick of Bunny's wand, and everyone lined up in front of the thing next to Bunny. He pulled the bedsheet off the thing, and it turned out to be a miniature filing cabinet that could have been stolen from the Library. The three boys took their positions in the back of the line, not wanting anything to do with the Boggart. Hiccup slipped his hand out of Jack's grip, and Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets. Xavier stood slightly behind them, a hand on each of their shoulders.
"A'right! We all know the spell?" Bunny yelled, looking at his students expectantly.
"Riddikulus!" They all chanted, the three in the back a beat or two behind.
"Well done! Well, then, you all know the drill!" He said cheerfully, standing behind the tiny filing cabinet as he threw one of the drawers open.
A black mass flew out, almost looking like a Dementor, before it transformed into a decapitated body and fell to the ground with a wet squelch. A girl screamed, and stuttered out the spell, but she didn't have the heart.
"Next!" Bunny said, gesturing for her to get away from the thing. He was all about fun, but he knew when some things were just too much for some students. Sometimes, Boggarts could just be too much for some at this age... or any age.
Students came and went, most conquering their fears, screaming "Riddikulus!" and turning the Boggart into something absolutely goofy. Some nearly collapsed onto the floor in fear, and that was when Bunny pulled them aside and called "NEXT!" while he talked them out of their fearful state. Soon, too soon, it was Hiccup's turn, and he took his wand out from his cloak's pocket nervously.
The Boggart shriveled up from its form as one of those novelty singing fish on a plaque and swirled for a second before slowly growing into a human. Hiccup's eyes widened as his father stood in front of him, his eyebrows furrowed and his scowl partially hidden by his beard. It wasn't a second later that the figure was bellowing in a perfect imitation of his father's voice.
"YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, I SHOULD HAVE SEEN YOU AS THE DISGRACE THAT YOU ARE THE MOMENT I LAID EYES ON YOU. YOU'RE GOING TO HELL AND YOU KNOW IT, BOY. YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE. YOUR MOTHER WOULD BE ASHAMED TO CALL YOU HER SON-!"
It was as if they both planned it, because, at the same time, Jack and Xavier both surged forward on either side of Hiccup, whose eyes were shining with tears. The figure froze in the middle of its rant, and flickered a bit. Jack smirked, knowing that a Boggart couldn't handle being in front of multiple people at once, because it couldn't use all their fears against them at one time. But that was before the Boggart shrunk down and swirled once more, morphing into a large black mass. As it became more defined, they all realized that the Boggart was now Toothless. It flew through the classroom, before crashing to the ground in front of them, bound by ropes and oozing bright red blood from open wounds.
"NO!" Hiccup screeched, his tears spilling over. He lunged forward, wanting to go to the dragon, but Jack held him back. Xavier stared at the dragon on the ground, his eyes unable to unglue themselves from the scene as he pulled his wand out of his pocket.
"Rid- Riddik- Riddikulus." Xavier said, but the spell did nothing to the image.
"Riddikulus!" Bunnymund said, standing up and pointing his wand at the Boggart. The injured Toothless morphed into a colorful Easter egg with legs, which ran around and hopped back into the cabinet, which Bunnymund closed and covered again with a bedsheet. "Class dismissed. Everyone's free to go. Except… you three." He said, looking at Xavier, Hiccup and Jack who were still standing in shock in the middle of the classroom.
All the students gathered their things and walked out of the classroom, a little shaken up at the fact that they saw a dragon flying in the classroom, and that having it die would be something someone was afraid of, but they left nonetheless.
Hiccup took a deep shuddering breath and removed himself from Jack's arms, mopping his eyes with his sleeves. Xavier sighed and Jack rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the floor. They all faced the professor and waited for what he was going to say.
"What the bloody hell was tha' all about?" Bunny asked later, not a moment after.
"That was a Boggart, sir." Xavier replied smartly.
"Well, no shit it's a Boggart, Bloodstone. I'm talkin' about what the hell happened with the Boggart!" Bunnymund said, putting his hands on his hips and looking at the three of them expectantly. Hiccup looked at his shoes, Jack kept a firm eye on Bunny's boomerangs and Xavier looked out the window. When none of them said anything, Bunny smacked his lips. "I guess I'll have to ask more questions since you three are too daft to get it the first time. Hiccup."
"Yes, sir?" Hiccup replied.
"Was tha' your dad? At first?" Bunny asked.
"Yeah."
"Are you havin' issues with your father? I could tell the Headmaster and we could try and-"
"No! No, it's fine." Hiccup said, stopping the professor from saying anymore. "Well, no, everything's not fine, but its not like I want you and the Headmaster to get involved. That'll probably just make him angry... well, angrier." Hiccup said.
"Fine. But ya better tell me if anythin' goes terribly wrong, you got tha'?" Bunny demanded.
"Yes, professor." Hiccup said, nodding even though everything has gone down to shit and there was no way he could see himself using his professor as a counselor.
"And now. I think ya know what I'm goin' ta ask about next, judging by how tense ya jus' got." Bunnymund said, looking at all three of them again with a slight smirk at the fact that he caught all of them with the same tight-lipped expressions on their faces. "What's up with that dragon?"
"What dragon?" Xavier asked.
"The Boggart."
"It was just a Boggart, Kangaroo." Jack said, trying to brush it off.
"And how did it appear when all three of ya stood in front of it at the same time?" Bunnymund demanded. "Boggarts aren't supposed ta be able ta use their powers in front of multiple people at once."
"Maybe we're all scared of the same dragon?" Jack asked.
"The Boggart wasn't showin' the dragon, it was showin' it getting captured. So my question is why all of ya would be scared of this specific dragon getting caught." Bunnymund said. They all looked at Hiccup and Hiccup looked back at them. They all pressed their lips together and looked back at Bunny. "And you three not talkin' makes me wonder if this has anythin' to do with the dragon spotting a while ba-"
There was a knock on the door and a head poked through.
"Sorry, am I interrupting something?" Lauren asked, smiling a bit until she saw Hiccup, Jack, and Xavier lined up in front of Bunnymund. "Oh my god, yes I am. You know what? I think I'll just come back later-"
"No, take them. They aren't going t tell me anythin', anyways." Bunnymund said. All three of the boys sighed in relief and grabbed their things, barely even saying goodbye to the professor as they hurried out of the classroom.
"Thanks Lauren." Xavier said, giving her a hug. "You saved out asses just right now."
"I did?" Lauren asked. "How?"
"Let's just say we were almost forced to explain about Toothless to Bunny." Jack said, smiling a little bit as he slung an arm over Hiccup's shoulders.
"Ooh, damn, I did save you guys then." Lauren said.
"Yeah, well, I still need to explain to you about-" Hiccup said.
"Yeah! You need to explain that whole thing to me! C'mon let's go!" She said, grabbing ahold of his hand and tugging him out from Jack's grip and leading him off to the Library.
"Bye! See you later then!" Jack yelled as they flounced down the corridor.
"Well, that was scary." Xavier said, looking at Jack.
"Yeah, no kidding. Imagine if Bunny actually knew about Toothless?" Jack said.
"Hiccup would be devastated and Toothless would already be in Romania by now if he knew." Jack said.
"I'm surprised no one's thrown him in Romania by now, by the way you idiots talk about him so freely." Someone said suddenly, scaring the snot out of Xavier and making Jack turn on his heel and look around so fast that he was sure that he should have cracked his neck or at least got a good back stretch or something. "You would think that someone else other than me would actually understand what you're talking about by now." Clint said with a smirk.
"You're lucky I'm not punching you in the fucking face, you asshat!" Xavier exploded, trying his hardest to keep all his features neutral as he stalked forward and grabbed for Clint's collar. Clint looked at him as if he was crazy before yanking his hand off him.
"And why am I the asshat?" Clint asked. Xavier clenched his hand into a fist, his expression hardening into something deadly. Clint only looked back at him like he was something mildly annoying that he could just handle.
"Xavier, enough!" Jack said, smacking a hand onto his shoulder and pulling him away from Clint.
"What are you doing?" Xavier hissed. "I was only going to beat the snot out of that guy."
"He isn't worth it." Jack advised, before looking back at the tanned skinned male. "What do you want?" He asked hotly, keeping himself in between the guy and Xavier (for everyone's safety, to be honest).
"You didn't listen to me." Clint said easily, smirking a little bit as he glanced at Jack. "I said that you and Hiccup had to break up and lose the match, not just one or the other."
"Or how about none at all!" Xavier said, taking a step forward and walking right into Jack's flung-out hand, pushing him back. "Who do you think you are to mess with them like that? What kind of demented, fucked up shit do you want to accomplish out of this, exactly!?"
"I have my reasons. But I wouldn't tell you anyways." Clint said, switching his attention back to Jack. "I will tell the Headmaster about your little dragon friend. And by the sound of it, you've already got Professor Bunnymund suspicious on your own."
"You know what, X is right. Why do you feel the need to make our lives miserable? What will this accomplish, exactly?" Jack asked, basically mimicking what Xavier said before. Clint only looked at him, his eyes saying, 'didn't I just say I wouldn't tell you?' for him. Jack huffed, clenching his hands into fists and figuring out that his fingertips were colder than usual. He sighed. "I just don't think we've done anything to deserve this, after all. And besides, if Ravenclaw has to cheat to win, it isn't really winning, now is it? I thought you could have reasoned that since you're in the House of smart people and all."
"Don't start getting at Houses now, because I'll just point out the tiny little fact that you're taking this surprisingly easy for a House that's supposed to be brave and chivalrous and all that fantastic hero shit!" Clint snapped at him, his light-colored eyes narrowing at the both of them spitefully.
"Well, it looks like we just touched a nerve." Xavier said coolly, folding his arms over his chest and shifting his stance so that it looked like he was posing sassily.
"Watch your backs." Clint said, pointing at the two of them before walking down the hall and disappearing.
"You know, I feel like we should follow him." Xavier said, not even waiting until he was out of hearing range to start talking shit. "You never know when he'll pop out of the shadows and be a stalking prick again."
"We should put a bell on him or something." Jack said, snorting with laughter. Clint turned the corner with something that resembled disgust on his face. Xavier chuckled. "Anyways, are we going to Hagrid's hut or what? Didn't we say we would meet Liliana there?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Xavier said. "Homework?"
"We'll bullshit that later."
"And this is why we're friends." Xavier said, laughing some more as the two of them walked through the grounds of Hogwarts.
Hiccup's POV
"I cannot believe that someone would be doing this shit to you guys… again!" Lauren ranted as she stalked into the Great Hall at dinner. She smacked a book down on the table and sat in between Jay and me, an irritated expression on her face. "Don't be like me, kids," she said, looking at Jay next to her and Cee across from him, "cursing is wrong."
"Right." Cee said, nodding.
"It's not like you said anything terrible or something like that." Jay remarked, brushing her off.
"I know right!?" Xavier said, disregarding the twins' comments and throwing his hands in the air, looking at her like she was the only one that got what he was taking about.
"Uhm, it's not like he's not in the Hall or anything. Just so you know." I said, looking at the both of them blandly. I wanted to facepalm myself, they were so stupid sometimes. Why are they both going to be yelling when he's right across the Hall?! Sure, Jack told me what happened after Lauren dragged me away after class, and Lauren was still fuming after I told her about the whole thing, but there was no reason to yell!
"All the more reason why we need to talk louder, Freckles." Jack said, leaning over the table and smiling at me. "If he knows we're mad at him, then we don't have to pretend later on." He smiled, and I had to smile back and nudge him with my toes under the table because he did have a point… no matter how stupid it might have been.
"What are we talking about?" Cee asked, looking at us like she was waiting for someone to head off into full-scale story-telling mode.
"Nothing, we're just being idiots." I muttered, looking back down at my soup and poking it with my spoon a bit more.
"Well, they are, anyways." Jack said, leaning over to Cee next to him and gesturing to the rest of us. The little red-haired twin giggled lightly.
"You should have seen them at Hagrid's, Lauren." Xavier said almost excitedly, stopping everything and changing the subject to get his say in. "I didn't really think that they were serious when they said that they knew how to shoot a bow and arrow and swordfight and everything, but they were serious! They're deadly!" Jay and Cee practically sprouted underneath the praise.
"You guys did what!?" Lauren and I screeched, looking at the twins incredulously.
"It's not that big of a surprise, you know." Jay said, looking at his from the sandwich he made out of dinner rolls and roast beef slices. "We've been practiced archers and swordsmen for years now."
"But you're kids!" Lauren said.
"And how did you even get Muggle weapons into Hogwarts in the first place?" I asked, wondering aloud what I've been sort of thinking for a while… if what they were saying was true, and by the looks of Jack and Xavier's amused faces, I would say that they were telling the truth.
"Well, that seemed to be a bit trickier than I hoped for it to be, but it all worked itself out in the end." Jay said conversationally, like he weren't talking about something that could pose a real threat to the school or anything. Does North even take these things into account? Does he know that it would be fairly easy to sneak something Muggle-made and highly destructive into the castle?
"What he means to say is that Hagrid confiscated them when we walked on the grounds and he promised to keep them safe for us after we talk them how important they are to us." Cee said, flashing me a smile before glaring at Jay for not making that clear.
"Oh." I said lamely. Okay, so maybe I didn't know what I was really thinking when it came to weapons and little children like themselves, but hey, overreacting is better than underreacting, right? (Don't answer that.)
"Anyways, they were spectacular." Jack said, clearly amused by the happenings of that afternoon. Jay rolled his eyes at the praise, and Cee beamed at it. "I didn't know that someone could be so good at…" He said, before stopping abruptly, giving the twins a cautious glance, almost like he'd stepped over a boundary. I looked at everyone in our group, a tad bit confused, before Jay sighed.
"You might as well say it." He said, setting his fork down and looking at Jack with an annoyed expression. "You know, that you didn't think we could do anything that cool because we were kids."
"We get it all the time." Cee said, shrugging like it was no big deal, but for some reason I knew it bothered them. How I knew that, I didn't know, because it just couldn't possibly be the frankness in their voices or the banal looks they were giving at Jack or even the expectant look in their grass-green eyes.
"Some part of me wonders just what exactly happened at Hagrid's today." Lauren whispered, grabbing my upper arm lightly as she did so, and looking at all the others as if we didn't know them. I patted her shoulder and took her hand off me, because I knew more than anything she wanted to eat. And a couple awkward moments later, we all got back to our food, utensils scraping on our plates and intentionally-loud slurps from our goblets being the only sounds coming from our group in a while.
I was more uncomfortable than I thought I would be. I could feel the obvious tension coming from our section of the table, there was no doubt about that, but I could also feel the unnaturally heavy weight of Clint's stare from across the Hall. It made me lose my appetite almost instantly, but I shoveled food in my mouth anyways, because I knew I would be hungry later if I didn't eat now.
It wasn't long after that until we all decided that it would be good that we went to bed. Cee and Jay protested briefly before Lauren and Xavier convinced them that we would go to bed too, to make it fair, so they grudgingly agreed. And that was how we ended up really going to bed, saying good night to the twins first and then to Lauren as we all headed our separate ways to our common rooms.
Weirdly, it was a pretty silent walk up to the common room. I didn't know what to say to break the silence, and neither did Jack or Xavier, apparently. Jack didn't even hold my hand or anything like he usually did. I was going to move in first and grab his ice-like hand but he shoved his hands in his robes' pocket before I could do anything. I frowned a bit, but kept my confusion to myself. Jack muttered the password as we reached the portrait hole ("Butterbeer brings bubbliness to bumbling baboons").
"Hey guys!" Someone shouted as we made our way through the common room… or tried to, seeing how it was filled with people, for some odd reason. They were all crowded around the memo board, and that made my heart sink. We finally spotted who was shouting for us, and it was only Alex, who had his hand stuck into the air so we could find him.
"'Sup Alex?" Xavier said.
"Practice tomorrow. For sure. I talked to Pitch and he said that he would check the schedules next time the Snakes ask him to sign their permission forms." Alex said, positively beaming.
"A true testament to his good mood." I said, smiling a little. Practice was back in session! And Pitch was the one who agreed to compromise, not us! Jack smiled back at me, and Xavier just rolled his eyes.
"I still don't know why he's in such a good mood." Xavier said, almost sounding mad that the enigma still stumped him. "I'll have to launch an investigation or something."
"What are you guys talking about?" Alex asked, looking at Xavier a little weirdly, obviously creeped out.
"Nothing." Jack said quickly, covering for us. I laughed under my breath a bit, and briefly wondered what was on his mind, because he would have normally been the first to comment on something like this… until he spoke again. "Where's there so many people around the memo board?" He asked, squinting a bit at the top of the gold-and-crimson board, the only part of it we could see since it was swarmed with people.
"Ah, it's nothing." Alex said, waving it off. "It's just another warning about that dragon sighting or whatever. Apparently someone's been telling North that they keep seeing a dragon in the castle… again. I'm surprised he hasn't shipped them off to Saint Mungo's already, am I right?" Alex joked, laughing a little. I leaned over and gave Jack and Xavier a look, and I could tell the both of them were getting more and more pissed off by the second.
"Yeah, right." Jack said. I faked a yawn, stretching my arms over my head and making the sound louder than it should have been.
"We should really, be going to bed." I said through the yawn, smacking my lips after for emphasis.
"Oh, alright then." Alex said, rubbing the back of his neck as if he was worried he did something wrong. "But like I was saying, practice! After class, alright!?"
"Right." The three of us chimed before walking up the stairs and to our room. Jack opened the door first, stepping inside the room. His hand was still on the doorknob when he froze and looked at me.
"We aren't 'breaking up'." He said, a note of finality in his voice. I didn't know what to say, but before I could say anything, Xavier ducked under Jack's arm and slipped inside the room.
"Well, no shit." He was muttering. "Even I knew that and I have nothing to do with this."
"Good, because I didn't want to." I said, ignoring Xavier's comment for the time being and looking straight at Jack as we got inside the room and finally closed the door. I waited for him to do something, anything, and there, he smiled brightly, but I could tell there was some sadness in it. Maybe he was sad that we were in this mess in the first place.
"Please tell me that you guys aren't thinking about throwing the match, either." Xavier said, and when I looked over at him, he was picking Toothless up off his pillow and plopping him down onto the floor. Then he flopped onto his bed and sighed a little under his breath. I looked at Jack, and I was sure we both had the same expression on our faces.
"Alex would be pissed if we lost again."
"He would know we threw the match, too. He's not an idiot."
"But it sounds like Clint keeps complaining to the Headmaster that he keeps seeing a dragon around the castle."
"You think he's really serious about telling him?"
"Ah, to hell with Clint telling North about Toothless!" Xavier exploded. "If anything, Hiccup, you could just convince him to stay in the Forbidden Forest or somewhere!"
"It's illegal, X! It's not like I smuggled in some love potion or anything! The Ministry doesn't even allow dragons to be handled! They have a whole defense against dragons in Romania, and who knows what terrible things they do to them! If North finds out about Toothless, he'll have to tell the Ministry! I'd probably be thrown in Azkaban, because, you know, this whole thing is against the law and I breached Ministry security by creating the spell that makes him a cat, and Toothless would be shipped to Romania where he'll probably die!" I said, huffing after my little monologue and stopping my hands from gesticulating even more than they were.
"Clint knows exactly what he's doing." Jack said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "But he has no proof." He said, giving me a look that I couldn't quite make out. I didn't know if it was sad, mischievous, or optimistic, but it didn't matter because I was protesting in an instant.
"If he tells North, they'll have us searched and-"
"No one would magically search a cat." Jack said logically. "If anything, they'd be worried about the fake tail and saddle you have in your trunk. You could lie your pants off to make them think it's a project or some weird experiment you're trying to figure out, so I don't think that's all that big of an issue."
"The fact is that we're not going to let Clint have his way because he thinks he has power." Xavier said. "It's a psychological thing. If he thinks hes in control, than he think he can do anything he wants. Give him one thing and he'll want the other. Don't give him any reason to expect anything for you guys."
Well, at least that made some sense, but I was still leery about everything. I care about Toothless more than I care about anyone else in the whole entire galaxy… well, no, Jack is high up there too, but that's not the point right now. If we think about this all wrong, it would be the end of my Hogwarts education and the end of Toothless' life. As much as Jack wants to say that he'll take me in at the end of the school year because of my dad, I'm sure that it wouldn't work out if I had to go to a different school, or not go to school at all. Clint knows what he's doing, and what he's doing is breaking me apart.
"Hey." Jack said, putting a hand on my shoulder and turning towards me. His eyes were the brightest blue that I ever saw them, and I could tell he was worried, for me, for us, for everything. "I'm not letting someone else step in between us again." He said, the sincerity in his voice almost overbearing. I could only nod.
"So we're not losing any more matches?" I asked, swallowing thickly.
"Not unless we want Alex to skin the whole team alive." Xavier said, laying back down on his bed with a sigh.
"And we're staying together no matter what." Jack said, giving me the faintest of smiles before pulling me into a hug. I hugged him back almost instantly, burying my face into his shoulder and wishing that I didn't have to come back out for the next couple hundred years. I knew he was right. We couldn't let that guy win. We couldn't just lie down and take all this crap that keeps being thrown at us.
The idea hit me before I knew it, and I let out a little laugh, making Jack pull out of the hug slightly.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"I thought of something stupid." I muttered quickly.
"Well, I'm sure you've thought of plenty of stupid things." Xavier commented from his pillow.
"Then of something crazy." I said. Jack looked at me, his eyebrows raised in confusion, and out of the corner of my eyes I saw Xavier sitting up very slowly on his bed.
"Keep talking." Jack said, smirking. I smiled right back.
so i realize how long and stupid this WHOLE STORY is, so chapters are going to be a lot longer and are probably going to have a couple time skips... probably. we'll see. But yeah, i'm sorry for all of this.
Okay! so! Thank you, everyone who reads this mess, everyone who reviews this mess, and everyone who actually enjoys reading this mess! You guys are awesome! Please Review!
I love you all! I hope you have good luck today and that some good comes your way!
-HB