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Kai
Kai munched on a piece of toast as he tried to block out the breakfast hubbub in the Great Hall. He could hardly blame his fellow students for being loud, it was Saturday after all! Everyone wants to just spend the weekend being as loud and free as possible, especially when it's the first weekend of school, but that's not Kai. He's always been an overachiever and a rule-follower. For him, it's not a weekend until you've finished all your homework and studied for all your tests. Thankfully, he didn't have any tests yet, though he did have a pile of transfiguration homework, courtesy of Professor Mira, that he desperately wanted to get done and out of the way.
The task was to transform five different objects into butterflies and capture at least one butterfly from each object. Professor Mira said that it was so she can make sure they had all completed the homework, but Kai suspected it was just to create some added difficulty for the task. Butterflies are quick, small, and not exactly wanting to be caught.
Kai glanced at Jacin, who was sitting next to him, and considered asking him if he wanted to help. Kai only had to think about it for about three seconds before realising it was hopeless. Jacin generally didn't like working with people other than Winter, and he'd probably already made plans to study with her anyway.
Kai looked around at the other tables, trying to find someone who could help him out. There was Winter over on the Silver table sitting next to a girl with unbelievably long hair (Kai thought her name was Cress?), but Winter wasn't very good at transfiguration, her mind was way too creative and imaginative for the scientific branch of magic. As for Cress, Kai thought she was fairly good at the subject, but he didn't think she was really big on socialising and he didn't want to fluster her by asking her to work with him on his transfiguration homework out of the blue.
His gaze moved on to the Gold table where he spotted Scarlet turning Roland's coffee into pumpkin juice. The memory of Roland's head stuffed in a pumpkin brought a smile to Kai's lips. Roland was even louder and brasher than most other Golds and was always saying stupid stuff like those comments on Professor Benoit to try and look cool. Kai was definitely not a fan of Roland, but even he had to admit that that stinging jinx was probably overkill. Roland had had to be kept in the hospital wing for the whole day before the swelling finally stopped.
Kai regarded Scarlet for a few moments before foregoing the notion of her helping with his homework. Scarlet hated transfiguration. She was more of a go-to when he was struggling with herbology, and the homework assignment they'd got from that class was easy enough.
He also spotted Iko, but she was generally more interested in gossip than homework and (for some reason Kai had yet to figure out) she always looked nervous when he brought up transfiguration. He knew it wasn't exactly her best subject, but she wasn't bad at it!
Finally, he turned to the Titanium table. His eyes found their way to a head of brown hair, pulled back into its usual messy ponytail. She was wearing gloves, as always. She'd told him once it was because her wand had created a giant fireworks show in the wand shop and some stray sparks had singed her hand and the gloves were just a precaution, though Kai hadn't seen her wand misbehave once since lessons began.
Cinder was dressed in a plain grey T-shirt and torn jeans. Kai could only imagine how well that went down with Iko. She always went ballistic over that red hoodie Scarlet wears, going on about how much it clashes with her red hair. A ratty T-shirt and jeans? Iko would probably scream in horror and faint. The thought made Kai chuckle slightly.
Maybe Cinder could help him out with transfiguration? She was really good at it from what Kai could see. She usually had the spell mastered by the end of the lesson. The points she'd earned Titanium in the first week alone would have been enough to win them the house cup! She was also easy to talk to, never trying to flirt with him like 90% of the girls in their year or pretending to be someone different. She knew who she was and had absolutely no problem with letting others know, a trait that Kai admired greatly. She was also pretty tough, if her slapping Thorne on the first day of school meant anything. It would be nice to get to know her better.
A hand suddenly clamping down hard on his shoulder jolted Kai out of his thoughts.
"Oh, so you are on Earth. I was beginning to wonder."
Kai frowned up at Thorne's smirking face.
"How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to know you enjoy staring at Cinder during breakfast."
"I wasn't staring!"
"Right, you were just looking right at Cinder without blinking. Definitely not staring."
Kai groaned and rubbed his forehead. "I was just wondering if she would mind helping me with my transfiguration homework, that's all."
"She is good at transfiguration, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait 'til later to ask your crush on a study date cus' no way am I letting you spend the whole day of our very first weekend back in the library!"
Kai opened his mouth to say that Cinder was most certainly not his crush and that he wasn't planning on spending the whole day in the library, but a groan from Jacin interrupted him.
"Seriously Thorne, again? You do this every year!"
Thorne shrugged in response.
Kai, finally letting the implications of what Thorne said earlier sink in, groaned as well. "Come on Thorne, I don't want to get detention on the weekend!"
"You guys are no fun."
"Well excuse us for not thinking that the Black Woods are the most fun place on Earth." Jacin drawled with a roll of his eyes.
"It'll be different this time! No Black Woods, just over to the Biting Rocks."
"Oh great, that sounds much better!"
Kai raised his eyes to the heavens as Thorne and Jacin continued to argue and started finishing his breakfast. They would probably still be arguing by lunchtime. Come to think of it, Kai would be surprised if they weren't.
"Jacin?"
The argument paused abruptly at the sound of the new voice. Kai looked up from his plate to see who it was and froze.
It was the kid from herbology, the one who had jinxed Roland. He didn't look like he would be jinxing anyone now, but then again, he hadn't when he'd walked into the greenhouse.
Seemingly oblivious to Kai's fear, the kid continued, "I might be a bit late for that duelling practice you asked about since there's something I need to pick up from potions, is that okay?"
Jacin waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, sure Wolf, don't worry about it."
The kid, Wolf, nodded while Thorne gasped dramatically. "Jacin, you made an extra appointment today? Surely you must have known I would have had something planned!"
Wolf frowned and glanced back and forth between Thorne and Jacin in confusion.
"Are you sure your free for today Jacin?"
"Yes, Thorne's just trying to get me and Kai to kill ourselves."
Kai hid a smile as Thorne feigned outrage that he would ever put Kai or Jacin in danger. He may be one of the most annoying people Kai knew, but he sure was a comedian.
Thorne suddenly perked up. He shot a grin at Wolf and Kai's heart sank. He knew what that look meant.
"If you want to live another day, I suggest that you run." Kai stage whispered to Wolf, who raised an eyebrow back at him.
Thorne strode over to the tall boy and threw an arm around his shoulders, much to his bewilderment.
"Kai, Jacin and I were gonna have some fun today, you know, it being the first weekend of school and all. Why don't you come along? I've been wanting to get to know the guy who landed a torturous stinging jinx on Roland during herbology."
Tugging Thorne's arm off his shoulders, Wolf replied, "I'm good, thank you."
"Sorry man, you can't get out of it now that he's asked." Kai told him apologetically. "Jacin and I have tried to refuse before, and wound up with pillows full of flobberworms, stinksap in our toothpaste-"
"Don't forget the skiving snackbox breakfasts." Jacin put in, "There's a reason the nosebleed nougats come with a warning label Thorne!"
Thorne shrugged in reply and shot his signature grin at Wolf. "Yep, that's generally what happens when they say no! So… you in?"
Wolf groaned. "I guess I have to be if I want to have a peaceful morning tomorrow."
"Atta boy! Everyone, meet at the Biting Rocks in twenty!"
Kai shot Wolf a sympathetic look. He was going to have one terrible morning.
Since Kai, Jacin and Wolf were all in Regolith and lived in the same house tower, they figured they all might as well go together.
"So… you're new, right?" Kai asked Wolf as they made their way through the maze of hallways that was Artemisia. Kai and Jacin both knew pretty good shortcuts, but they weren't overly eager to get to the Biting Rocks and Kai figured it would be a good chance to get to know Wolf a little better. Sure, the guy was scary, but he was stuck with them now, whether he liked it or not, and it just wouldn't do to be walking around with a total stranger.
"Yeah." Came the reply. Looked like Wolf wasn't much of a talker.
"What school did you transfer from?"
"Just a small academy run by some charitable witches and wizards. You wouldn't have heard of it. It wasn't even officially marked as a school by the local ministry."
This ignited a spark of pity in Kai. Sometimes in poorer communities, young witches and wizards couldn't afford to buy any of the equipment needed to attend one of the finer wizarding schools like Artemisia or Hogwarts, and they ended up getting a rudimentary education filled with holes from other witches and wizards.
Kai frowned suddenly as a confusing thought struck him. "If you could afford to attend Artemisia, why did you settle for a smaller school?"
"Because I couldn't afford to attend Artemisia, or any of the other big schools." Wolf replied, "The only reason I'm here now is one of the staff put in a good word for me and even bought all the stuff I needed."
"Let me guess," Jacin said abruptly, "it was Jael."
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
"He's always the guy who brings in the poor wretches who can't afford to buy stacks and stacks of textbooks like the rest of us. He acts all noble about it, but really he only does it so that the kids are in his debt."
"Anyway," Kai said loudly, trying to change the subject, "was one of the wizards who taught you an auror or something? Seeing as you seem to know your way around offensive spells.
Kai couldn't help but notice that Wolf looked a bit relieved as he nodded. "There was always aurors on duty in the village where I used to live. The settlers who decided to first set-up there had picked a pretty cruddy area that was full of dark creatures and all the people living there now are either too poor or too stubborn and proud to leave. We were always finding boggarts in our cupboards, there were hags roaming around and we even got the occasional werewolf attack!"
"Werewolves?" Kai echoed, wide-eyed. "Merlin's Beard, how are you still alive? Those things are vicious!"
"A werewolf once got into the school." Jacin said, frowning at the memory. "Remember that Kai? It infected seventeen students and killed over twenty before the staff were able to kill it. The only reason it got so few was because it was during the Christmas holidays and there were barely a hundred students around. As it was, that thing got about half of them."
Wolf glanced down at the floor. "There were a lot of casualties back home too. Anyone who got infected was cast out from the village after they were discovered. The only upside was that, since werewolves are only werewolves during the full moon, we knew when to expect an attack."
"Is that why you call yourself Wolf?" Kai asked, "Because you have to fight of werewolves at home?"
Wolf's mouth quirked up into a small half-smile at this and he shook his head. "Nah, the kids here just started calling me that because I have "wolf teeth"."
Wolf gritted his teeth to show Kai and Jacin what he meant. Sure enough, the canines appeared to be slightly longer and sharper than what you would normally see, like fangs.
Jacin raised his eyebrows at them. "Huh. Those'll give a pretty nasty bite."
Kai frowned at them curiously. "How'd you get them?"
"One of the aurors on duty thought it would be a good idea to turn the kids into animals during the full moon since werewolves typically ignore them, and I wound up spending the night as a wolf. He wasn't the best at turning animals back into humans though, hence the teeth."
"If you think those teeth are impressive, wait until you see the Biting Rocks!"
Jacin threw back his head and groaned dramatically as Thorne's voice spoke up from behind them. Kai shot him a pleading look.
"C'mon Thorne, can't we just do something that won't land us in the hospital wing?"
"We are Kai!" Thorne replied cheerily, "So you have no cause for complaint! Honestly, you'd think I was making you go collect acromantula venom or something! Don't you guys know that a captain's number-one priority is his crew?"
"Langlock." Jacin growled, pointing his wand at Thorne.
Thorne's cheerful expression became startled as his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Jacin put his wand away and sighed in mock content. "Finally, peace and quiet."
Thorne glared at him and pulled out his own wand, using it to shoot sparks at Jacin's shoes, causing him to yelp in pain and do a funny little dance as they started to smoulder.
Chuckling, Kai waved his own wand, releasing Thorne's tongue. He expected that to be the end of it. Unfortunately, Thorne's pride had just been hurt, badly. And that demanded punishment.
"Levicorpus!" He shouted, thrusting his wand out at Jacin. Immediately, Jacin found himself struggling in the air upside-down. Thorne had just enough time to smirk before a pumpkin materialised around his head. Kai raised an eyebrow at Wolf, who had the grace to look sheepish.
"Liberacorpus!" Jacin grumbled, pointing his wand at himself. He crashed to the ground just as Thorne managed to get Wolf's pumpkin off his head.
Thorne glared at Wolf for a few moments before crying, "Rictusempra!"
A jet of silver light shot out of Thorne's wand heading straight for Wolf. Kai had just enough time to wonder what it would be like to see Wolf laugh when he dodged, his movements surprisingly quick and agile given his size, and the spell hit Kai instead.
It felt like thousands of tiny hands were tickling Kai all over. Falling back, he struggled to breath around the never-ending laughter that was bursting out of him. Tears streamed from his eyes and his stomach started to ache as he continued to laugh more and more.
Wolf approached him, looking slightly wary in the face of Kai's relentless laughter. "Uuh, Kai? Are you Oka-"
The rest of his sentence was lost as Kai pointed his wand at Wolf's legs. Tarantallegra.
Wolf cried out with surprise as his legs suddenly started jerking every which way, almost kicking Kai in the face and catching Thorne in the stomach.
Thorne cursed as he doubled-over and glared at Kai. "Seriously Kai? You couldn't have picked someone with shorter legs?"
Kai couldn't speak. Thorne's tickling charm was still going strong and Wolf's crazed movements looked so strange on the muscular, scarred boy that it was only making him laugh all the harder. This day had turned out fun after all.
A/N: And it's Kai! We learned a fair bit about Wolf's background in this chapter, as well as about Thorne's idea of fun and we also got to witness a jinx fight! Not only that, but we even had some insight as to what Kai feels about Cinder at this stage in the story. Next chappie's gonna be another dude. Who do you think it will be? Please review!
