Chapter Two: Yuuri vs. Children: Orientation on the First Day of School-With a Twist!
Yuuri swore his school trunk got heavier every year. Though, he reminded himself, this would be the last year he had to lug the thing up the staircases leading into the school entrance. Today was the last first day of term. Ever. Yuuri swallowed a sudden lump of anxiety. Next year he'd be out in the real world, playing Seeker for the Toyohashi Tengu or—his heart sank—somewhere else.
"Please don't get ahead of me!" he called to the first years who were supposed to be obediently following behind him, but had started to spread out along the steps. He normally avoided using magic in front of them before they'd even gotten through the front doors, but his trunk was so heavy (and, though he didn't want to admit it, he was horribly out-of-shape), so he decided to just screw it. Yuuri pulled out his wand and silently levitated his trunk behind him. Four of the eight kids in the group immediately stopped to stare at the trunk, the other four kept climbing as though nothing had happened. That meant four No-Majs' kids, then.
"Did you do that?" one of them asked.
"Yes," he said, reaching the top of the steps and trying not to show how winded he'd gotten. He waved his wand and the trunk sped off by itself in the direction of his dormitory. Yuuri turned to face the kids and waited until the last pink-robed boy reached the top of the steps before starting his spiel.
"Welcome to Mahoutokoro! I know they already told you my name but I'll say it again in case you didn't hear, I'm Yuuri Katsuki. I'm in my eleventh and last year and I'm on the Student Council."
"Do you have a girlfriend?" asked a kid with a red streak in his blond hair.
Yuuri blinked, and stared the kid down. He grinned back, showing a missing front tooth.
"I'm not going to answer any questions that don't have to do with the tour. As you can see, this is the front entrance to the school and the door is closed. You can't get in unless you're holding your wand. All your wands are already here. They'll be dispensed to you at the beginning of each school day and then collected by that komainu right there."
Yuuri pointed to the jade statue to the right of the front doors.
"How come you have your wand?" a girl asked.
"Because once you reach your fifth year and become a boarding student, you keep your wand on you at all times," Yuuri explained. "As day students, your wand stays at the school when you're at home."
"Oh."
Yuuri instructed the kids to reach out their wand arm to the komainu in turns. They giggled and shrieked each time its mouth opened to dispense their wand. Once everyone was armed (God, these seven-year-olds holding wands always made him nervous) the doors swung open and they stepped inside the genkan. The kids gaped—they'd probably never been in such a large foyer. All the kids reached down to remove their shoes when Yuuri pointed to the getabako.
"Don't ever forget to take your shoes off when you come inside," Yuuri informed them (one kid looked like he was about to keep walking past the getabako), toeing off his loafers and levitating them into a cubby. "If you walk any further than the genkan wearing shoes your feet will break out in hives and you'll have to go to the school nurse."
The kids stared at him as though they were expecting him to suddenly say "gotcha!" or "just kidding!" Yuuri wished he was. The humiliating memory of the time he'd forgotten to do that while he was in a hurry in his second year burst to the front of his mind.
"Shoes off? Good. Put your wand in the pocket in the front of your robes. You're not going to need it today."
The mixture of disappointment and relief as they stored their wands was written plainly on their faces. Yuuri turned to make sure he wasn't going to run into anyone, then walked backward down the main hallway as he spoke."
"As first years, almost everything you'll be doing is on the ground floor. Your classrooms are the ones closest to the front entrance. The more advanced stuff is closer to the roof, or outside. You know you're getting good when you have to climb six flights of stairs or walk to the other side of the island to get to every class."
That earned him a collective giggle. Yuuri smiled down at them.
"Where is the bathroom?" one of them asked. Yuuri sighed.
After all the kids had used the bathroom, he started over with the tour.
"So the curriculum is standardized through your seventh year. You'll be taking Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, Transfiguration, Charms and Herbology to start with." Yuuri rattled off the list of classes on his fingers.
"When do we learn to fight?" asked the boy with the red streak.
"Uh...do you mean Defensive Magic? You start that in your fifth year."
"Why?" he demanded. "I'm ready to learn now!"
Because nobody wants to be caught in the line of fire when seven-year-olds duel, Yuuri thought to himself.
"We start with the basics here," Yuuri told him patiently. "It's a matter of safety. On the right here is your History of Magic classroom."
The kids peered inside.
"This looks just like No-Maj school!" red-streak boy commented.
"That one does, yeah," Yuuri agreed. "They don't all—just be patient."
Yuuri showed them the rest of their classrooms one by one. The Potions room got the biggest reaction because the day students' potions teacher, Minako Okukawa, kept all the supplies in plain sight on the shelves instead of in a supply closet. Yuuri would've bet that none of these kids had ever seen half the ingredients lining the walls. He had to practically drag them out of the classroom.
"We're almost done with the ground floor. This hallway here leads to the shokudou. Older students eat all their meals here, but you'll just be having lunch while you're day students."
Yuuri led them into the shokudou, which was split into four sections by two intersecting hallways. Each section held a dozen or so small tables. Most of the school was here, waiting for breakfast. Yuuri's stomach rumbled. He knew he'd get a late breakfast along with these kids after the tour, but he saw Phichit, Yuuko and Takeshi sitting together at a table with an empty space where he should've been sitting.
"Why is it split into four?" asked the boy with the red streak in his hair.
"What's your name again?" Yuuri asked him.
"Kenjirou Minami," he answered.
"Well Minami," Yuuri said, "you sit according to your houses. Day students can sit in any section, but once you're assigned a house for fifth year, you sit with them for meals."
"My cousin goes to Hogwarts in Scotland," Minami informed Yuuri. "They have four houses."
"So do we," Yuuri said, "I'll tell you about them later. During meals, your food will fly out on plates through one of the four entrances and onto the tables."
"Where do the teachers eat?" Minami asked. He seemed to have designated himself as the spokesperson for the group. Either that or he was particularly nosy. Or just obnoxious. Or a mixture of all three.
"The teachers have their own quarters and they eat there. Students aren't allowed into that section of the castle," Yuuri told him.
"Why not?" Minami asked. Probably because of kids like you, thought Yuuri.
"Moving on," he said, clapping his hands together, "I'm going to take you out through the courtyard and onto the grounds."
They walked past the Herbology gardens. He showed them the Exploding Snap and Gobstones tables in the courtyard, as well as the appointed studying areas for anyone who felt like getting homework done outside in the fresh air.
"What's that?" Minami asked, pointing to a stone staircase leading up a gently sloping hill toward a thicket of brush and overhanging trees.
"That is the Student Counsel onsen," Yuuri explained, heart speeding up at the sight of his favorite place on the entire island, "It's for Student Council members and Quidditch captains to use to..." ...to hide from you people, he didn't say.
"How do you get on the Student Council?" Minami asked.
"They choose a boy and a girl each year starting in eighth, so there are eight of us altogether."
"Are we going to see the Quidditch pitch?" one of the girls piped up. Finally, someone who wasn't Minami!
Yuuri smiled at her. "Turn to the left," he told her.
The group squinted out at the ocean.
"There!" she squealed. "There are goalposts sticking out of the water!"
"Where are the stands?" Minami asked.
"The stands only appear during games," Yuuri told them. "They're too big—No-Maj's from the nearby islands might see them when they fly over."
"But not the castle?" asked Minami. "The castle has to be bigger than the stands, they—"
"The castle has magical protections to keep No-Maj's from seeing it, but that doesn't extend to the water." Yuuri said. "If it did, No-Maj parents couldn't come watch their kids play."
"You're on a Quidditch team, right?" one of the other kids asked.
"Yeah," said Yuuri, throat tightening. He'd really been hoping to avoid this topic, but..." I'm the Seeker for House Tanuki."
"I know who you are!" said the girl who had brought up Quidditch in the first place. "My sister told me about you! House Tanuki lost the Cup last year because you— "
"Um," Yuuri stuttered, ignoring the tears springing to his eyes. "Let's uh...let's go back inside and I'll show you your Astronomy classroom. That one's upstairs."
Deep breaths, he told himself as he led the group up a staircase and to the Astronomy tower. Just keep steering them off the subject of House Quidditch and there'll be smooth sailing...
Yuuri opened the door to the Astronomy classroom—the one that never failed to impress.
"Wow," Minami breathed.
Because day students needed to study Astronomy too early in the day to look at the real night sky, their Astronomy classroom ceiling was enchanted to look like last night's sky. Walking into this room always felt like stepping into yesterday. Most people loved it, though it made Yuuri uncomfortable because it was like looking back. Thinking about the mistakes of yesterday, of the past week—of all the mistakes he'd ever made, were the thoughts that kept him tossing and turning long into the night.
"So," said Yuuri, herding them out of the room and back onto the staircase, "I'm going to give you a quick overview of the parts of the castle you won't really be using, just in case you get lost and need to find your way back."
"If we get lost, can't we just ask one of the kakejiku where to go?" asked Minami, pointing at the scrolls on the walls. "My cousin said, at Hogwarts— "
"If you get lost, ask another student," Yuuri interrupted him. "Some of the kakejiku will help you, but a lot of them think it's funny to give you wrong directions on purpose." A young girl in heavy makeup batted her eyelashes at him from a nearby kakejiku. Yuuri gave her his best dead-eyed stare—she was the one who'd made him twenty minutes late to History of Magic during his second week at Mahoutokoro. Yuuri wondered if she remembered. She giggled.
Yuuri took them down a couple flights and onto a landing with four staircases leading upwards.
"These are the older students' dormitories," he said, pointing at each them as he named them. "House Tanuki—the raccoon, House Suzaku—that's the bird, House Kirin—the one with the horse head, and House Komainu—the lion guardian."
"My cousin at Hogwarts got sorted into her house by a hat," Minami said to no one in particular. "She's in Gryffindor. Their symbol is a lion."
Yuuri wondered to himself how on earth someone could get sorted by a hat, but decided not to ask Minami to explain further because they would probably be there all day if he did. "Well at Mahoutokoro, we're assigned houses by the teachers. All the day students' teachers get together at the end of the school year and assign the houses. They usually try to keep friends together, as long as you're not too disruptive. Inside each dormitory is a shoin where you can study and hang out together, then sliding doors leading to partitioned futons where we sleep."
Yuuri led his group back down to the shokudou and moved to sit automatically at his normal spot in the nearly empty room. To his displeasure, every single one of the kids decided to crowd around the same table with him. Minami's elbow was firmly wedged beneath his ribs. Yuuri looked across the hall at the House Kirin section—the other eleventh year on the Student Council had the same problem. She gave him a pained smile and Yuuri tried and failed to raise his arm to wave at her.
Breakfast appeared the moment everyone had settled—fried pork with ginger, miso soup, rice and eggs. Yuuri finished his food a lot faster than anyone else and debated momentarily with himself before tapping his place setting with his wand. A second serving of everything soared through the door and landed in front of Yuuri.
"You're having more?" asked one of the girls. "Is that why you're so fat?"
Ouch. Yuuri cringed.
"Don't say that!" Minami cried. "Yuuri is perfect!"
"You, uh, you can tap your wand on the table like I did if you need more food," Yuuri told them, choosing not to respond to either comment.
"Who makes the food?" Minami asked.
"It's just Ishikawa Self-Cooking Appliances," Yuuri said, "We take turns by house going into the kitchens and instructing the utensils what to make. I think House Suzaku did this—they're usually the ones who wanted eggs for breakfast last year."
Minami nodded. "That's what my mom uses too," he said. "But she just makes whatever I ask for."
"They don't do that here," Yuuri told him. "We all eat the same thing. When you're boarding you can ask your parents to send you snacks from home if there's something you really want."
"My parents are No-Maj's," one girl said. "How do they send mail here?"
"We use crows for most deliveries," Yuuri explained. "They come in after dinner and wait for you in the dormitories."
"At Hogwarts," Minami said, "my cousin said owls deliver mail during breakfast. They just drop it into your food."
That sounded so unhygienic, but Yuuri just nodded and took a big bite to refrain from criticizing.
After breakfast, Yuuri carefully extracted himself from the first years and made his way up to the dormitories. Yuuko and Takeshi were lounging together in the shoin, her legs draped over his lap.
"Yuuri!" she called as soon as he'd entered the room, beckoning him over. He sat down next to them.
"How was the grand tour?" she asked.
"Were we ever that small?" Yuuri replied. "I wasn't that annoying, was I?"
"Never!" Yuuko said, shaking her head. "You looked like you were about ready to wet your pants on the first day. I don't think you said a word to anyone but me before the second week. But hey, you finished breakfast, right? I have a surprise for you!"
Yuuko dug into her pocket and what she pulled out twisted Yuuri's guts into knots.
"Got special permission for you to practice with this," she beamed at him, holding out a school Snitch. "No one was supposed to use the pitch today, but I convinced Okukawa that you needed the practice."
"You weren't wrong," Yuuri muttered. He averted his eyes, even as he took the Snitch from Yuuko's outstretched hand.
"Come on, Yuuri," Yuuko said gently, leaning toward him. "No one blames you for last year."
"Even if it was technically your fault," Takeshi added. Yuuko smacked him on the arm.
"You're not helping," she hissed.
"Thanks guys," Yuuri said, glumly. He held up the Snitch. "I guess I'll just...yeah."
He stopped in his dormitory to retrieve his broomstick, attach all his Victor posters to the wall above his bed, and then dragged himself down the stairs, outside the castle and over the grounds to the edge of cliff that overlooked the shore and the pitch out in the ocean.
A deep melancholy settled in his bones as he looked out at the pitch. The sea was calm and shimmering in the mid-morning sun, not like it had been during the Final last year—but Yuuri doubted he'd ever be able to even look at those goalposts again without dread.
He wasn't sure how long he just...stood there. Maybe ten minutes, maybe thirty. Eventually, he decided it wasn't going to get any easier. And what would it look like if someone showed up—him standing there like a moron staring at the empty site of his greatest failure? Pathetic, that's what.
Yuuri threw the Snitch out over the ocean where it took flight and zoomed out of sight. He scanned the sky for No-Maj airplanes one last time before he mounted his broom and kicked off the ground into the air. He felt like he was barely moving—had his Suzume 6 gotten slower? No, no he'd just gotten heavier. Yuuri remembered taking flight for the first time during his fifth year and feeling like his hair was going to be blown clean off his head by the force of the wind. Now it was as if he was moving backwards. As if it couldn't get any worse, the Snitch was nowhere to be seen.
Yuuri did a few laps around the pitch to calm his nerves, ignoring the Snitch and focusing on going as fast as possible. He began to feel the wind in his hair again, which was comforting. His grip on his broomstick was sure and steady, and he moved through the air with ease, even if he was a little slower. He inhaled the smell of the sea deeply and closed his eyes. There was no pressure right now. If he messed up—well, then at least no one was watching. This was what he loved about Quidditch—the feeling of familiarity, the sense of surety when he caught sight of the Snitch and knew that he was the one who would catch it, the final burst of speed as his fingers closed around the cold metal...
Yuuri opened his eyes. The Snitch was hovering in the center of the pitch, feet above the surface of the water. Yuuri didn't hesitate—he dove down. No one is watching, he reminded himself. As he sped toward it, the image of Victor at the World Cup entered his imagination.
I could be Victor, he thought. He caught his reflection in the water. And then he let himself swing downward, thighs clenched tightly around his broomstick, hair grazing the surface of the sea. He reached out and the Snitch slid easily into his hand. The flapping of the wings against his fingers was soothing in a way nothing else had ever been. He stopped, hovering upside-down in midair, and let out a deep sigh.
As he swung himself back upright on his broom, he caught a glimpse of someone on the cliff watching him. He whirled around and sped forward but once he got high enough to see who it was, they'd vanished. Despite the perfect play he'd just executed, Yuuri felt his stomach drop. That was Victor's move—he had no right to just...copy him. It was humiliating, the thought that someone had seen it. They'd probably bring it up at dinner and have the whole school laughing. What if they'd gotten pictures?
"How come you couldn't pull that off last year?" he imagined someone saying. "You know, back when you weren't fat?"
"Seriously, were you not even paying attention during the final match?"
Yuuri wiped his nose with his sleeve and scrubbed his hand over his eyes. He let go of the Snitch and it zipped off again.
Yuuri practiced through lunch—he felt like he'd throw up if he'd tried to eat—and only decided to call it quits when the sun was dangerously close to the horizon. Unfortunately, it took him twenty minutes to catch the Snitch again after he'd decided to wrap it up, and he'd accidentally taken a dunk into the frigid ocean as he grabbed it.
Sputtering and shivering, Yuuri stumbled onto the land as he dismounted and pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes. Despite his small victory towards the beginning of his little all-day practice session, he was more frustrated and disheartened than he'd been when he started. As he trudged down the grounds, he looked up at the sun setting on the overhang of trees that covered the onsen. The onsen! Yuuri could think of nothing he'd like more than to sink into the hot spring and cry it out. He changed direction abruptly and nearly tripped over himself to get up the stone steps.
He set his broomstick to the side, and gave the password to the frog statue guarding the onsen. It slid aside to let him in.
Yuuri was already sliding his wet shirt up his chest when he realized he was not alone. At first, he was certain he was hallucinating. Maybe he should've eaten lunch after all, maybe it was low blood sugar—because what he was seeing was not possible. He blinked several times, but the image did not change.
Victor Nikiforov was ten feet away from him, soaking naked in the onsen.
A/N: pottermore has a small section on Mahoutokoro and I've included as much of that as I could in this story. The rest of the details come from a weekend-long brainstorming session between me and slytherproud (AO3)!