"Class dismissed," the teacher said. "Craig, hold on, I want to talk to you."

The rest of the class filed out, most ignoring Craig. Craig was grateful; even after three months of school, he was still not keen on becoming a "social creature".

As soon as the other students were gone, Craig approached the teacher's desk. "What is it, Mr. Polanski?" he asked.

Mr. Polanski regarded him as though he didn't know quite how to put what was on his mind. "Craig, I've heard that you don't have many friends," he said.

Craig said nothing. He was confused. What did Mr. Polanski, his Charms teacher, have to do with his lack of a social life?

Seeing that he wasn't going to get a rise out of Craig with just that, Polanski continued. "I'm just a bit concerned, Craig," he said. "You've been at school for three months, and you don't appear to have made any friends. That's not…normal."

"Well, Mr. Polanski, I'm not normal," Craig said, sincerely.

"I…know," Polanski replied, haltingly. He was obviously thrown by that. "It's just that…well, here you can have a normal life…if you want it."

The words sounded pitiful even to Craig, whose experience with uncomfortable social situations was comparable to a dried out slug.

"I like my life," Craig said, but at the same time, he wondered if he was telling the truth.

"Well, that's good," Polanski said. Seeing that his inspirational talk had done no good, and was only serving to make him seem more and more like a fool, he quickly ushered Craig out of the room.

Craig walked down the hall of the AWA's primary academic level. It was on this level that he spent most of his time; here, and in his private room. He understood that most of the students had to room with other students; however, due to his…special circumstances…he was given his own room. He was grateful for this.

"Hey, you!" he heard a voice from behind him say. Craig turned.

"What?" he asked.

"Did Polanski give you any trouble? He can be really over sentimental sometimes…" the boy, who was now caught up to Craig, said.

"Um…no, he didn't give me any trouble…" Craig said, stumbling a bit over his words. Memories of his attempts at socializing with the boy in the shop came bubbling up, as did a number of irate dead people. He quashed both.

"Oh…okay," the other boy said, and went to leave, looking a bit dejected.

"Wait!" Craig said.

The other boy stopped and looked at him, and Craig was now confronted with the fact that he had no idea what to say.

"Uh…um…" he said, his brain racing to find something to say.

"Yes?"

"You want to get something to eat?" Craig asked, the words spewing quickly from his mouth. Craig wryly thought of how being brought up by Whistler still shown through.

"Okay," the boy said. "My name is Hiram. What's yours?"

"I'm Craig," said Craig.

"Pleased to meet you!" Hiram said.

They began walking. "So…are you Muggle born, or were your parents wizards?" Hiram asked.

"I never knew my parents," Craig said. "They died when I was very young."

"Oh!" Hiram said, looking a bit crestfallen. "I'm sorry! I didn't know…"

Craig gave him a curious look. "Well, of course you didn't know," he said. "Why else would you have asked?"

Now it was Hiram's turn to give Craig a funny look. "Are you serious?" he asked.

Craig's mind turned back to the shop. "Uh…yes?" he said, in a small voice. He was relieved when Hiram's laugh was friendly.

"You're a strange guy," he said.

Craig halted briefly as they turned the corner. He shook his head. "You don't know the half of it," he said.

The AWA cafeteria (called the AWACS, AWA Cafeteria/Sanctuary by anyone who knew enough about muggle aircraft to find the acronym funny) was a grossly out of place, normal seeming room in an otherwise bizarre set of buildings. Though Craig had no actual experience with school cafeterias, he quickly learned from Hiram that this one looked and seemed no different from those he had attended before coming to the AWA.

"I'm muggle born, but I suppose that's obvious," Hiram said. To Craig, it wasn't, but he didn't say anything, not wanting to compromise his new friendship. "I went to school in New York for five years before I got my letter for the AWA."

"That's interesting," said Craig, and to him, it was; he was eager to learn about this "normal life" that Mr. Polanski had spoken of.

Hiram gave Craig another odd look. "You find the weirdest things interesting," he said. "I mean, that's about as average as you can get. What's so interesting about it?"

"The fact that it's average is what is interesting to me," Craig said. "I have no experience with average."

Hiram didn't know what to make of that. "Uh…okay," he said. "Well, this is hardly the place to be learning about "average"."

"Why is that?" Craig asked, his childlike sincerity shining through.

"Well, it's a magic school," Hiram said, as though that explained it. When Craig continued to seem lost, he continued. "This is one of the strangest places in this hemisphere. If you don't know much about normal…you should fit right in."

Craig had his doubts about that.

That night, as Craig headed back to his private dorm room, Hiram met him on the stairs. "Hey, weirdo," Hiram said.

Craig cast Hiram an apprehensive look. "Hello," he said, quickly, and looked down, focusing on the stairs. The voice of a dead mother welled up, but Craig pushed it back.

"Damn, kid, you need to relax a little," Hiram said. "You know, stop being so uptight. I was only kidding."

"Oh," Craig said. "Yes, kidding. I know kidding. I don't do it often though."

"Well, you should try it," Hiram said, "Good way to relieve stress. And speaking of relieving stress…" Hiram cast a wary glance around to see if they were being listened to. "Some of the older kids are going into Wolf Point tonight to hit the clubs…wanna tag along?"

"Isn't that against the rules?" Craig asked, his eyes widening.

"Well, yeah," Hiram said. "My older brother Lorcan's going along too, he'd be happy to help us get out."

"Um…okay," Craig said, and he followed Hiram back down the stairs…