Chapter Three

Khun was dreaming of a forest, a real forest untouched by humans, with fairy lights and mushrooms that changed color and trees that whistled and monsters everywhere. He had been smaller, his hand in another's. They had been walking side by side, him speaking about something and the other listening. Flowers blossomed from his hair, around their arms and -

He'd woken up to his god damn cat pouncing on his chest. "Really, Chessy?" he said with a grunt. "C'mon, we'll get the house elves to feed you." His half-kneazle cat was going to get him killed one of these days.

She mrrowed at him and rolled on his stomach to lay with her own stomach bared. He knew a trap when he saw one, however and rolled them both over. She stared at him with her big eyes, pupils huge. He swerved his head to dodge and-

"Ouch," he grunted as claws grazed his ear. "You're supposed to like me, you little shit."

Chestnut, back on her perch, meowed with amusement. Or whatever cats felt. Khun was sort of convinced kneazle blood took out all the feelings of cats and made them worse bastards than usual.

"Fine," he muttered. "Don't eat."

Someone snorted and Khun flicked his wand back into his hand and silently cast a tickling charm. The resulting screech was worth it.

Still, what had that dream been about anyway?

Breakfast was his favorite time to piss off a majority of his classmates, especially this early in the year. Therefore he went to the Gryffindor table where Isu was already sitting. "Budge up, seppuku," he greeted.

Hatz grunted. "Morning to you too, earrings." He moved anyway, of course. Khun did provide a wonderful buffer between him and the next idiot.

Isu beamed at him like he'd won the lottery. Not that Khun understood how someone could be this cheerful at approximately ass'o'clock in the morning, but he was convinced Isu was actually a god in disguise. "You survived the Dark Wizard!" he said gleefully. "Tell me everything!"

Khun took an extra moment to be petty and get a bowl of congee and some toast. He wasn't a heathen. "Well, he's no Tom Riddle, that's for sure."

"He's prettier," drawled the familiar voice of Xia Xia, who was shoveling down a salad at the pace most people breathed. No one even reacted to it anymore. "That is a guy, right?"

"He's a faerie, he doesn't give a shit about human customs like gender," said Anak with the expertise of a proud queen and a chunk of chicken pie speared on her fork.

"Don't stereotype, Anak," said Isu, dodging a kick like he'd been born dealing with gremlin underclassmen. "Or out people without knowing for sure. That's rude. And how do you know he's a fae?"

"I looked outside this morning and saw fairy lights floating around the stupid ship," she replied. "The faeries in the forest hate dealing with us."

"Can't be that Dark then," said Hatz with a scoff. "Faeries hate Dark Magic."

"They hate human magic," Anak corrected, chewing with the most unnecessary, in Khun's opinion, noise possible. "And if he's a changeling they definitely don't give a shit if it's light or dark. Which he probably is. His ears all pointy?"

Khun raised an eyebrow. "Why would I be looking at his ears?"

"Yeah he'd be busy looking at his fac-ow!" Isu whined and pulled back his foot. "Come on, he's pretty, we could all tell."

Bunch of damn gossips, why did he come over here again?

"You asked me what he was like," Khun said with an irritable snort. "I told you. He's pretty normal. Argues with his friends, is polite, that was about it. He did confirm he used the Black March though."

The group paused.

"And?"

"I didn't ask that deep into it." He shrugged. "It's not my business."

Anak let out a huffing snort. There had been a time where she'd tried to convince them that she had used the Green April, but they hadn't seen it in any hand except Yuri Jahad's and Yuri was very tight-lipped about her magical fishing hook or whatever the fuck it was. So no one said anything to prove it. "You're no fun at all."

"There's a reason I'm passing all my classes without studying too hard."

"That's because you eat books," Hatz shot back.

"That was a prank and I haven't forgiven any of you for letting it happen."

They all snorted. Then Anak stiffened and looked up to see -

Brown hair, cat yellow eyes, unfortunately not Jue Viole Grace, dressed in blues and tights and greys and looking right at Anak. "Hello, niece."

Anak grunts. "Piss off, ghost eye."

"You know each other?" Shibisu asked, incredulous. "You're related?!'' The name alone was a bit of a giveaway but if you were a Muggleborn like Shibisu, the Princess of Jahad adoption program probably sounded like a rich people joke. If only it was.

"Her mother's my adoptive sister." Endorsi glanced at Shibisu once, then dismissed him with a single hair flick which, okay rude. Yes, Shibisu looked like nothing special, but his transfiguration and arithmancy scores beat Khun's by a wider margin in their year than Khun liked to admit. Therefore there was no need to be rude to the guy god damn. If she was a Jahad kid no wonder, though. "Isn't she adorable?"

"Adorable as a heart attack maybe," muttered Hatz. Endorsi spared him a glance and he fixed her with his patented squinting glare. Khun enjoyed it being directed at someone else for once. Like him, she seemed to ignore it.

"Exactly." Endorsi looked all the smugger. "Anyway, I just came to see who she was associated with."

Anak's glare only seemed to grow. "And you have, so shove off."

"Goodness you're rude."

"You started it," chimed the soft voice of Viole as he walked by. "You tend to love starting things and not finishing them." He glanced at the table and smiled. "Good morning everyone." He dipped his head at Khun in particular before heading back to the Slytherin table.

Khun ignored the fact that his stomach was doing jumping jacks and nodded back.

Endorsi squawked. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Get back here!"

She made to chase him down the hall and all of them just stared after her.

"Better him than me," Hatz said eventually.

None of them could disagree with that one.

Class schedules dictated his first class was back with Lero-ro, which was a mixed bag. On the one hand, he was shit at cooking but good at Potions. On the other, Lero-ro constantly thought he was up to something.

Thankfully, sixth year and up meant people very rarely had to partner up for class anymore, especially for potions. So he was able to work on his own. And though he skipped class, he would never skip arithmancy or potions. Or Defense Against the Dark Arts. He liked living.

Then again, Evankhell would argue that defending against one art over the others is stupid, but hadn't convinced the government and probably never would.

It was a quiet class, barring Rachel's eyes boring into him at another table.

"What?" he finally asked, knowing Lero-ro was occupied with someone else.

She looked away and he made a face. Isu, next to him, raised an eyebrow. He shrugged. This was just how Rachel was after all. It wasn't his fault if she made a subpar muscle salve.

The bell rang and he put his potion on stasis for later.

"Go over the instructions for the Blood Clotting Potion and speak with Professor Arkraptor about obtaining your ingredients. You will be doing a lot of cross-subject work this year in preparation for your NEWTs!"

"He's not kidding," Isu says with a huff. He'd been working on wolfsbane potion of all things. "We need permits for us this year, it's hell on earth."

"Good thing you don't have any hair to fry off."

"Khun, you wound me."

Khun grinned. "No, but I'm working on it."

Isu opens his mouth to retort - or whine, Khun didn't really mind this as much as he claimed - when there was a scream down the hallway. It was probably someone who opened a broom closet and found people canoodling. Really, it was the first fucking day of class, couldn't he breathe?

Khun was this close to walking away from it when Isu tapped the badge on his chest. He sighed and turned around to go handle it. If it was anything complicated he was dragging them to their Head of House and being done with it, he still had another class before lunch. It was too early for this shit.

Then someone else screamed.

So he had to run and fuck he hated running in these horrible expensive robes.

The crowd of students parted quickly as Khun drew his wand. Isu was a few steps behind him and froze. "Oh no," he muttered. "It's Bruce."

Bruce was a pale-faced Gryffindor fourth year with an unfortunate stubby mustache at seventeen. He had talent in transfiguration, countercurses, and a lot of smart talk. Him and his girlfriend with all of the rings.

He had one hand over his eye, gibbering and trembling while staring at the point of a slender, black wand. The owner of the wand had all of their hair down and their golden eyes were burning, the sharp red and black clothes giving nothing away-

Oh hell. That was Jyu Viole Grace what the fuck was going on?

Behind him, boils and tentacles were popping up on… he thought it was Miseng? Her face was getting covered with them and ugly red rashes. But she didn't cry. Her visible eye was screwed up but she did not shed a single tear.

"Are we having an international incident over here?" Khun asked, looking at Bruce then Viole in turn. The look on the Durmstrang's student's face was chilly, eyes almost catlike. "What happened?"

"We were just having a discussion?" Bruce warbled through the pain in his face. "About that symbol on th' walls over there in Durmstrang ya know? The Dark Lord-"

There was no sound. The wind didn't move. It was just the girl tackling Bruce to the hard ground of the hallway. It was just Viole's wand jabbing into Bruce's ribcage.

It was just pure light pouring from the wand.

Pure light, raw power, heartfelt fury.

Then the sound of footsteps as Hwa Ryun pulled Miseng off with a single hand. She stepped out of reach of Viole though, who looked only if possible, more ferocious.

"There was no discussion," Viole said after a moment. His voice was steady and serene. "You accused Miseng of being a Dark Wizard, a purveyor of curses. You asked for her services in spellbinding for some reason and brought up Grindelwald's symbol carelessly in a crowd of fellow students. There. Was. No. Discussion."

Miseng was staring at Bruce. It was a stare that Khun knew from living in the Khun Estate for too many years, a stare that promised retribution. He tried to think of History of Magic, but Evan's voice was a drone at the best of times. Grindelwald had gone to during his attempts at bringing mages over non-magicals, if he recalled correctly, along with most of the countries in the Axis Powers and many, many attempts at France. Khun's great-great-grandmother (?) had forcibly barred the man's men from her house if he remembered right.

He guessed some people would feel the aftereffects from that even now.

"And how did a curse get involved?" Hwaryun was kneeling in front of her, tapping Miseng with her wand. Well, he'd rather she go to the hospital wing but he wasn't going to say that.

Yet.

"He showed up with his wand out," Bruce spat. "I had to defend myself a'ight?"

Viole's lips thinned. "You had your wand out before then."

Bruce winced. "I was tryin' to get her to show me what to do."

Khun felt his temper fraying. He hated, absolutely hated to do his job and provide discipline. Rules were for the weak. And yet. "I think that's enough. You've incriminated yourself just fine. So the three of us will go and see Professor Yuri." Bruce paled. "And we can hear the rest. Is there someone from Durmstrang we can talk to as well?"

"Jinsung-nim will be up here shortly," Hwa Ryun replied, letting Miseng go.

Viole slowly lowered his wand. The look on his face, an expression of pure determination towards the idea of retribution, only softened as he looked at Khun and Isu. "We can wait for him at your Professor's office."

"Sounds good."

Khun felt like he was walking on a minefield full of monsters.

Any idea of discipline was thrown out the window for a few seconds when Professor Yuri took one look at Viole and spun him around. His stern expression was lost in her chest until he yanked himself out. Miseng laughed at him, but even Khun, who had about as much interest in women as a flobberworm, could find the flushed look on the supposedly scary student's face hilarious.

"You couldn't make it a day," she said, expression amused. "You're costing me money, kid."

Viole flushed a bit deeper, bowing his head. "My apologies, Miss-" He paused at the way her eyebrow went up. "Yuri-noona," he corrected himself. "But I don't appreciate someone attacking one of my fellow students or trying to coerce them into something they're not capable of among other things."

"I'm fine," Miseng piped up, and Jinsung Ha cleared his throat. He tipped a lollipop out of his mouth. His expression was like stone. Maybe that was where Viole had learned it from.

Khun was suddenly very glad to not be at fault here. He'd said the story as he'd heard it and now got to loiter in the back to take them to the hospital wing anyway.

Viole, for the record, didn't seem perturbed, aside from being spun around by a strong woman in heels.

Bruce also had the stupidity to look unafraid but that changed as she turned to him and scowled. "I expected better from you," she said with surprising authority. "Going after a first year -"

"Second," Miseng said in a mild voice that indicated she did this a lot and it was not very funny.

"Second year," Yuri corrects smoothly. "About curses? We're trying to foster international relations, not cause people to never come back here."

"Voldemort did that just fine," he protested and Khun wanted to applaud the point zooming over his head. "And he cursed me! She could have done it instead!"

Jinsung glanced at Viole and said, very clearly. "Nice shot."

Viole gave him a deadpan look. "Thanks. What am I cleaning?"

"The deck."

Viole didn't seem surprised by this. He just shrugged.

"You're punishing him?" Yuri sounded wry. "Fair enough. You're scrubbing the Great Hall with the elves, Bruce, also thirty points from Gryffindor."

The noise Bruce made was hilarious.