Rath noticed that Cloud seemed to have forgotten that Seph had broken his leg the day before since Cloud tried to stand up after breakfast but fell over once he put weight on it. Then again, Rath thought as he walked to class with the rest of the "foreign exchange students" in Slytherin, maybe the poor bastard's even more masochistic than I am... When Rath broke out of his train of thought, he noticed that the group of them had stopped in front of what looked like the entrance to a dungeon. Cloud was leaning against the wall and scooting as far as possible away from Luke whom he thought was going to insist that he reset Cloud's leg. Luke, contrary to Cloud's fear, was more interested in who was coming down the corridor to this particular room. They entered the classroom and took seats. The teacher was absent for the time being.

"I can't believe that we have Potions first thing!" Ron exclaimed, rather put off, as he and Harry entered the classroom.

"I can't either, but we're just stuck with it," Harry replied dejectedly as he realized there were other people in the room at that moment.

"Hello," Luke said, smiling.

This is the wild card, Harry thought, the one that Hermione didn't know. I hope that isn't a bad thing. Harry smiled back. "Uh, hey. How do you like Hogwarts so far?"

"It sucks," Rath replied. Luke glared at him. "What? I'm telling the truth. If I'm going to get beat up every day by those two thugs---"

"I thought you weren't normally blue!" Ron said. "Who beat you up?"

"I think it was Cab and Dial?" Rath replied.

"You mean Crabbe and Goyle?"

"That was it. They were being assholes and wouldn't let me go to bed. I would have set them on fire, but that's supposedly against the rules," Rath complained.

Luke rolled his eyes, but Seph cut him off before he could speak. "Look, the idiots who decided to serve stupider people were holding a recruiting session, and none of us were interested. Save him," he motioned to Luke. "But that's because there's a history of his family serving idiots."

"Shut up, Seth. You damn well know that I think that anyone who's stupid enough to serve under someone like Vol---" Luke retorted but he stopped himself. "Sorry. I forgot that everyone here's touchy about saying that name," he apologized to Harry and Ron.

"You don't seem like you belong in Slytherin," Ron told him.

"Huh. Maybe I made a mistake," Luke replied nonchalantly as Malfoy and the Goon Squad came into the room.
Malfoy smirked when he saw Rath's bruised-black-and-blue face. "I take it you won't be doing anything stupid again in the near future?"

Rath pretended to be thinking and then replied in a deadpan voice, "No, but I still have to rid the universe of demons and save that stupid fortune teller from her damn imprisonment, and then I'll have to find some way to keep my moron older brother from getting himself killed before I kill myself." Rath then grinned after he finished for the full freak-out effect.

Malfoy stood in shock. Why did it seem like all of the exchange students were insane? Then he remembered that Squall had called Rath disturbed. "You're stark raving mad," was the only comment Malfoy could utter.

Rath considered the statement before nodding. "Yes, I'll admit that this is true, but did you all really have to stay up the entire freaking night? None of us were able to get any sleep!" He paused. "Well, besides Zack, who sleeps like a log, and Cloud, who some of us have a sneaking suspicion was---"

"I already told you that's not true!" Cloud protested, his face bright red. "Besides! My leg's broken, and there is no way in hell that I'm going to climb stairs out of my own free will." He continued more quietly, "Even if it does mean..."

"Plus it would also mean that he didn't get any sleep last night," Seph murmured quietly enough so only a few heard the comment before Cloud hit him with their potions textbook. By then, most of the students had filed into the room.
Harry, glad that he hadn't heard whatever Seth had muttered and that he didn't know what they were talking about, took his seat next to Ron. Professor Snape would be coming soon. It was odd that Harry and Ron had arrived so early to class today since they were generally late to it.

"The exchange student with the normal name, Luke, is a little weird, don't you think, Harry?" Ron asked quietly as to not draw the attention of the one he was talking about.

Harry grimaced. "Yeah. Hermione's right, though. He looks oddly familiar, but I can't place him."

"Anyway, according to Hermione," Ron added, "most of the others used their real names to her knowledge, but she can't decide whether Luke's lying or not."

"I don't think he's completely lying, for some odd reason. He doesn't seem to be someone who would lie just for the hell of it if the rest used their real names," Harry replied.

"Define 'for the hell of it,'" Rath said loudly.

"Well, for no purpose or... some...thing..." Harry paused. "You could hear the entire conversation, couldn't you?"

"Yeah, but it's not out of the ordinary," Sephiroth said, deciding to write a ongoing commentary in his Potions textbook.

"I mean, Luke has a perfectly good reason not to have included his full name," he continued sarcastically.

"Ha-ha. At least I was quick enough not to have a fake last name picked for me," Luke shot back.

"Fuck off, Skywalker!"

"Oooh. Nice comeback, Sephiroth."

"If Valentine hadn't confiscated Masamune..."

In the meantime, Harry had barely caught anything past "Skywalker." Hermione was obviously loosing her touch if she couldn't recognize...OH, SHIT. We have not only a PSYCHOPATH with a 6-FOOT LONG SWORD in our class this year, but LUKE SKYWALKER. Wait! Why the hell's he in Slytherin! Harry collapsed into nervous laughter.

Luke noticed. "That was brilliant, Seph."

"What!"

"You made Potter start laughing. The nervous/ holy shit and almost into the realm of the insane kind."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Yours."

"I'm confused," Ron said.

"That's a good thing," Rath told him.

"Why?"

"Cause the two guys who are arguing are---"

"That one dude from that one video game that Hermione keeps talking about, and... I still don't get the importance of---"

"Luke? Well, his father's a Dark Lord of the Sith."

"What's that?"

Zack and Rath thought about how to answer the question while Seph tried to kill Luke and Harry was still laughing. Cloud was thinking about making some popcorn.

Luke put up a barrier between him and Seph, then answered Ron's question. "A Dark Lord of the Sith is a person who can kill you with a hand gesture. My father prefers to either asphyxiate people or blow them up. It really depends who it is and what mood he's in. Except a few people he can't seem to kill. Like Neo."

Seph was running against the Force wall and not really getting anywhere. Then they all realized that the entire class was watching. Luke shrugged and took his seat. Rath seemed to be his lab partner.

"You're going to blow the entire lab up, you do know that?" Cloud told them.

Rath nodded. "But it'll be cool when it does happen."

"I'll make sure to bring the ingredients for s'mores that day," Zack decided.

Everyone was watching Seph run against the wall. Malfoy then spoke up. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that entire conversation?"

Luke sighed. "Seth is Sephiroth, I am the son of Darth Vader, and Rath is a pyromaniac who is most likely going to blow the lab up before the year's out."

"Oh. I thought you were talking about something important."

Luke waited.

"What the hell?"

He sighed, and then spoke again. "Nevermind. Seth's just the idiot trying (but failing) to kill me right now. Rath just decided to play with hazardous chemicals, meaning he'll most likely blow the lab up shortly," Luke finished. "Comprende?"

Malfoy was about to dissolve into the same nervous laughter which Harry was in because of the casual way Luke had said that Rath was slightly suicidal, but just decided to ignore Luke since he seemed to be a chronic liar.

"This seems like it's going to be a fun, fun year," Zack decided, way too happily.

"And if nobody minds... I'm now going to erase everyone's memory of this event," Luke mentioned.

Rath stopped trying to search for his textbook which had gone mysteriously missing. "You aren't going to make us forget, are you?"

"No. That's a waste of time and energy. Besides, all I'm really going to do is erase Malfoy, Harry, and Ron's memories. No one else was paying any attention whatsoever."

Seph laughed. "Is Ron really necessary? He didn't seem to get anything at all."

Luke paused, already finished with altering Malfoy's memory. "Well, maybe..."

Without an expression on his face, Rath turned to Ron. "Do you remember anything about the conversation that just took place?"

Ron stared at him. "What?"
"That's good. You have a five-second, selective memory," Rath murmured.

Cloud shrugged. "Ignore them."

"That would probably be for the best..." Luke admitted.

Harry had stopped laughing and now had no clue as to the reason he had been laughing. "What just happened?" he asked Ron.

"Nothing. The exchange students were just being really confusing!" Ron replied as Snape walked into the classroom.
Unfortunately, Neo was singing. "Let's do the time warp again!" He was dancing as well, Snape noticed.

"Five points from Gryffindor. Mr. Anderson, please sit down and be quiet," Snape said as he walked into place behind his desk.

"Geez, Neo. You're such a ditz!" Serena whispered to him.

"Five more points from Gryffindor. No speaking yet, Miss Tsukino," Snape added, causing all of the Gryffindor students to glare at the two exchange students. The entire class became silent. " Well, it's a new year yet again. I'm sure that everyone will try harder to not make as many mistakes as you have in the past." Meaningful looks passed over a few students. "As you know, a new year mean back to work." Snape paused. "Now, today we are making a potion for allergies. It is rather useful when dealing with dragons since the ingredients of the potion are things what they are allergic to. At the twentieth step, stop and call me over so a rather dangerous ingredient of this can be added." He waved his wand, and the instructions appeared on the chalkboard. "Start working. The completed potions shall be turned into me at the end of class."

Everyone then got to work. While the rest of the class was working efficiently, Rath was sneezing like there was no tomorrow. Luke sighed. "Would you please try to stop doing that?"

Rath sneezed. "It's not my fault I'm allergic to this stuff!" he protested as he accidentally knocked a large amount of paprika into the potion. "Shit! Now we have to start over!" he complained before sneezing again.

Luke looked at the board. "Maybe not..."

"Why do you say that?" Rath inquired.

Luke pointed at the chalkboard. "We were supposed to add that."

"So we were." Another sneeze. More ingredients were knocked into the potion.

"And that."

"What did the teacher say this was again?" Rath asked, trying to find a tissue to blow his nose on.

"An allergy-relieving potion," Luke replied, continuing to work on the potion.

"I get first dibs, then," Rath announced and then found a tissue.

Luke was about to call the professor over when Rath threw the then used tissue into the potion. "Please say you didn't just do that," Sephiroth said to Rath from the table next to them. He hadn't been doing anything at the moment since he had decided to just let Zack have free reign during potions class, meaning that Zack was doing all the work. Neither of them trusted Cloud to handle hazardous chemicals after he had just taken some painkillers.

"Huh?" Rath then looked at the potion. "It looks like the correct color... I think... What do you think I did---"

"You just threw that used tissue into the potion. It's not a trash can, you know. And we are being graded on this," Luke replied.

Neo turned around and glared at Luke. "Stop being the voice of reason, damn it!" Neo turned back around, and he and

Serena's potion spontaneously combusted. The resulting smoke and other byproducts caused Rath to sneeze again.

"You know, Rath does have a point," Cloud commented. "It does look like what's described on the board for the final product."

"That's true," Seph conceded. "Maybe it did turn out all right, even though you would owe that to chance..." He turned to Rath "Why the hell are you sneezing, anyway?"

"Allergies," Rath replied before his nose started running. Luke absentmindedly handed him another tissue. "Thanks."
Luke shrugged and walked over to Snape's desk to turn in some of the potion. When he sat back down at his seat, Rath was staring at him. "What?"

"Well, since this is like allergy medicine---" Sneeze. "---do you think it would be---" Another sneeze. "---okay if I took some?"

"Please," Yuna said. She had been sitting behind them the entire time, and they hadn't realized. "You've almost caused me to mess up my potion ten times already."

"Neat!" Rath found a vial and took a shot of the potion. His symptoms cleared up immediately. "That worked well."

"Thank God!" Yuna said as she and Aeris finished up their potion.

Everyone in the classroom was glad when the bell rang, especially Snape. About two thirds of the exchange students had been in the room for only an hour and they already were getting on his nerves. The sneezing redhead in particular. The not-so-bright blonde, Tsukino, and Anderson, the equally intelligent kid with the black hair who was her lab partner, served as a comic relief which was anything but needed. Porcupine boy, Donovan, was one of the three students who had actually been working, but Snape doubted that that would continue. So far, the only serious students seemed to be the blond who had been working with the sneezer (Was his name Walker?) and the brunette who had been working with the girl who had been flirting with the kid with the broken leg.

But what would the other six be like? Snape shuddered at the thought and waited for the next group of students to enter the classroom.