tw: anxiety attack. Begins after "The girls once again broke into laughter as they walked to class, arm in arm." and ends after "The idea of being alone tipped the scales, and Wolfbane finally started to cry.". The anxiety attack section is separated by lines in the text, as well.

-.-.-

Belladonna walked the vast corridors of Hogwarts, her gray, calf length skirt swishing with every step. She bobbed and weaved on autopilot between fellow students, lost in thought.

Wolfbane had always inspired some sort of 'mother hen instinct' in her. On one hand, she called bullshit, because she was literally fourteen. On the other hand, it made sense because he was her baby brother.

A scowl twisted at her face as she spiraled down a mental rabbit hole. Of course she's gonna feel protective over him, but maybe she needs to back off a little? This back and forth was making her eye sockets throb with the beginning of a migraine.

Belladonna was about to continue down the rabbit hole when she bumped shoulders with someone.

A soft hand steadied her before she could fall. Belladonna looked up to see a pair of familiar honey-brown eyes looking back at her.

"Solana!" Belladonna said with a small, but genuine, smile. "I've missed you so much! How have you been?"

Solana looked at Belladonna with false irritation and said, "And here I thought that because you were writing back to me over the summer meant that you had actually read my letters!" She said with a joking smile.

Belladonna laughed as she said, "No, I just threw darts at a board to decide what I was going to write to you next," rolling her eyes as she spoke.

This statement launched both girls into an uncontrollable peal of laughter. Nobody else in the corridor gave them weird looks, as they were all conversing with their friends, as well, before they had to get to class.

"Where were you last night at the sorting ceremony?" Belladonna asked once they could both form a sentence without breaking back into laughter.

"Oh! I meant to send you an owl! I was feeling a tad under the weather, so I went up to the dormitory and took a nap," Solana said, adjusting her green and silver tie. "What class do you have first?"

Belladonna nodded, finding Solana's statement truthful. The other girl often took the first evening for herself so that she could sleep off the jetlag.

"History of Magic," Belladonna said, glancing at her wristwatch. The other students who had been talking alongside the two girls were starting to dwindle as they headed to class. The girls would have to wrap this up shortly. "You?"

Solana's face lit up. "Same! Walk to class with me?" She said, extending her elbow for Belladonna with a jaunty smile.

Belladonna wrapped her free arm around Solana's, and said in an exaggerated accent, "Oh, why of course," with a bow.

The girls once again broke into laughter as they walked to class, arm in arm.


By the time lunch rolled around, Wolfbane's vision was going nuts. The underlying anxiety he always felt had ramped up, but he had thought that was normal, considering it was the first day. Apparently not.

Inside of his head, the same thirty seconds of a bass-heavy song played on repeat, getting more aggressive each time it started over.

He needed something for his hands to do. Wolfbane drummed his fingers against his desk, but that wasn't enough. He tried doodling on his paper, but that only made the pit in his chest deepen. He could feel his throat constrict, and he didn't know whether it was a scream or sick that was working its way up his esophagus.

Without fully realizing, Wolfbane had brought his left hand up to his mouth and had started biting one of his knuckles. He scrunched and unscrunched his toes in his shoes. Wolfbane's breathing turned into wheezes.

This is Bad. This is Bad. This is Bad. This is Bad.

"Wolfbane?" Aster, who had been sitting beside Wolfbane during class (which had just been dismissed for lunch) said.

Wolfbane knew that class had been dismissed. He could see and feel the other students packing up and leaving the classroom, and he could hear Aster calling his name and shaking his shoulder, but he couldn't respond to any of it. He felt locked in his own body.

A strangled sound left Wolfbane's mouth, around the knuckle he still had in his mouth. It had been chewed raw.

Wolfbane wrapped his right arm around himself and started scratching his left arm through his shirt sleeve.

Aster, who realized what was happening, walked into Wolfbane's sight.

"Hey, buddy, I'm gonna ask you yes or no questions, and I need you to try and answer the best you can, okay?" Aster said softly. They were panicking inside. Aster couldn't just grab Wolfbane's hands, because they didn't know how Wolfbane would react.

Wolfbane, still fighting through the thick fog of anxiety, managed a microscopic nod. He could feel the joint in his finger swelling, and it throbbed in protest. He kept biting.

"Okay, buddy, is it okay if i touch you?" Aster asked, moving Wolfbane's textbooks and such out of the way. They weren't sure if this would be better or worse if the professor were there, but the professor had left after he had dismissed the class. The students had all but ran out of the classroom after the dismissal, so Aster was left alone with a panicking Wolfbane.

Wolfbane managed another microscopic nod. The movement of his head felt right, so Wolfbane kept nodding.

Aster made sure to stay in Wolfbane's line of sight as they moved to gently grab the boy's right wrist. When they had done that, Wolfbane clenched and unclenched his right hand to continue some sort of stimulus. The muscles in Wolfbane's neck were starting to cramp. Aster gently grabbed Wolfbane's left wrist, next, pulling his knuckle out from between his teeth. That would have to be cleaned and bandaged.

Aster gently pulled Wolfbane into an embrace, making sure to bracket Wolfbane's arms under their's so that he couldn't go back to biting and scratching. "Try and breathe, okay? This'll pass soon, but for now just breathe with me, buddy," Aster said, taking slow and even breaths and rubbing Wolfbane's back.

After a few minutes, Wolfbane's breathing started to slow. Aster hugged him tighter and continued to whisper reassurances in the boy's ear.

Wolfbane felt weepy and tired. More than that, though, he felt ashamed. He had been trying to get better at handling this kind of stuff, but here he was: at the tail end of a bad attack, shaking and close to tears with a new soon to be scar.

"Let's go get some lunch, Wolfy," Aster said, running a soft hand through Wolfbane's hair, breaking the gel and making it frizzy.

The thought of food was enough to turn Wolfbane's stomach. He just wanted to lay down and take a nap, but he didn't want to be alone, either.

The idea of being alone tipped the scales, and Wolfbane finally started to cry.


Ryot sat at the Gryffindor table, surrounded by fellow Gryffindors who were eating lunch and loudly talking about one thing or another. Ryot, however, wasn't participating in the usual Gryffindor camradory. Instead, he was trying to sort through some feelings. He literally just met Wolfbane, there was no way that he already had 'romantic' feelings for this guy.

Yeah, Wolfbane was handsome and pretty (a guy can be both, goddamnit). Maybe it was just a physical appreciation? Or maybe just a physical attraction? Could it be both? The internal back and forth made Ryot want to slam his head against the table. Why couldn't feelings just be simple to interpret? It would certainly save Ryot the migraine.

Something, or rather the lack of something, caught Ryot's eye over at the Ravenclaw table. Where was Wolfbane? The little blue-haired kid was there, as was the extravagantly dressed guy who was talking to Wolfbane this morning. Ryot looked over at the Slytherin table, where the pale older girl was sitting, talking to a darker skinned girl. A glance over to the Hufflepuff table confirmed that Atropa was here. If all of Wolfbane's connections were here, then where was Wolfbane?

Ryot was just about ready to get up and ask Atropa about the boy's whereabouts when the door to the Great Hall opened. In walked a Hufflepuff, holding the hand of a shaken and distressed looking Wolfbane.

What the hell was going on?