Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or Harry Potter, and should this already be obvious?
A/N: This fic grows longer and longer the more I plot it out in my head…oh well. Please enjoy!
July 1986
Raven whooped as she looped through the sky on her Nimbus 1500 and confidently tossed the quaffle at the left-most hoop. Unfortunately, a bludger hits the quaffle, and it veers off, hits the side of the hoop instead, and bounces away.
She pouts and yells, "Erik, let me practice!"
"In a real game a Beater would be aiming the bludgers at you," Erik points out, casually twirling the bat around without lifting a finger.
"Charles!" she complains, calling down to her step-brother who was sitting next to one of the hoops, intently devouring yet another Muggle book on genetics, "Erik is using his magic again! That's cheating!"
"Yes, yes, Erik stop it," Charles says distractedly, turning another page of the book.
Raven sighs, scoops the Quaffle back up, and pelts it at Charles. It hits the hoop right next to his ear, and Charles jerks up and looks around.
"Raven," he scolds lightly, closing his book and squinting up into the sky, "I was just getting to Chargaff's rules!"
"I'm not going to even pretend I know what that means," Raven declared, scooping the quaffle up again, "Come and fly with us! It's such a nice day! You can play Keeper!"
Charles scoffed, opening his book again, "Remember the last time we tried that? I think I still have the bruises."
"True," Raven replied, tapping her chin, "I suppose we don't want to give Erik any more heart attacks. And how are you supposed to play Beater if you won't aim bludgers at the Keeper anyway?" Raven accused Erik, turning her broom around.
Erik shrugged, "Normally Beaters aim at Chasers; it's common sense to go after the person with the ball."
"Actually, my friend," Charles called out, "I believe Beaters are supposed to aim at Keepers too since if they are distracted they can't block the quaffle from going in, and that time Tony played with us as Keeper, you had no problem aiming bludgers at him—"
"Quiet Charles," Erik argued, face flushing, "Tony is annoying, and you fall off the broom every time you try changing directions; I'm not about to send a bludger after you."
"You are so sweet," Raven cackled, darting away from Erik's half-hearted swipe followed by a bludger.
(And they are. Erik may glower and glare all he wants, but one big, blue, wide-eyed look from Charles, and he caves into whatever Charles' latest idea is, be it building the world's largest pillow fort in one of the spare bedrooms, interviewing bemused portraits about their magic, or trying to create a life sized chess set in the courtyard. And Charles is never happier than when he is playing chess against Erik, mouth twitching in a way that Raven has grown to recognize as a sign that Charles is flitting in and out of Erik's mind, and the few times that anyone has ever dared to insult Erik, Charles has made them feel like they're covered in slime for a month. They are practically her brothers, and she knows that they love her as well, Erik tripping sneering people and going out of his way to reassure her about the beauty of her true form, Charles, despite his distaste for using Legilimency offensively, specifically making Cain feel spiders crawling and pinching all over his skin any time he tries to bully her, and it feels like what family should be like.)
"Raven, stop teasing Erik—what's this?"
Two owls had fluttered in with letters clenched in their beaks, and were now pecking lightly at Charles for food as he scrambled up to take the letters. Raven feels Charles' burst of excitementsurprisehappiness (the only interaction she has with him on that level; she doesn't want Charles poking through her mind; it had been terrifying in the kitchen, and despite the three years gone past, she hasn't completely gotten over the horror of someone being inside her head. She knows that Charles is a bit hurt over this, but he promised to stay out of her head, and she thinks that really Erik's mind should be enough for him to pry through), and Charles is waving the letter frantically up at Erik.
"Erik!" he yells, "These are Hogwarts acceptance letters!"
"I didn't realize we had to be accepted," Erik says dryly as he maneuvers his broom down and takes his letter from Charles.
Charles is already tearing the letter open, eyes zooming through the words, "Term begins September 1st …await your owl by no later than July 31st, Erik we must reply right away! …uniform, course books! The Standard Book of Spells! I've read that, we have that in the library! …I've read all of these before! Wand, we finally get one! Cauldron…oh, an owl! That would be nice! Oh, no broomsticks first year, well there's always next year for you…"
"Where are we supposed to buy all this?" Erik asked, interrupting Charles' musing over the letter.
"Diagon Alley," Charles answered absentmindedly, still digesting the letter, "I suppose I'll have to go ask Mother to take us there…"
"Does this mean you're going to be leaving me here? By myself?" Raven cuts in, suddenly feeling her stomach drop.
(If they aren't here, what is she supposed to do? If they aren't here, and Cain is here, and Father won't care, and Sharon is too busy drinking to notice anything, and it will be just like before except worse because now she knows what a family is supposed to be like and if they are gone—)
"Raven? Raven!"
Her head snaps up, and she realizes that somehow she has flown down, she's oscillating between her true form and her blonde form, Erik is looking worriedly at her, and Charles is clutching her by the shoulders. She takes a deep breath and manages to freeze her form back to normal, but she is still shaking.
"Raven, it's only going to be for one year," Charles reassured her carefully, "And Cain won't be here; Kurt said that he'll probably be sending him to that Muggle school Smeltings, remember? And we'll definitely visit on the holidays and also the weekends as much as possible. We can floo in from Hogwarts, the connection is still there in the parlor—"
"But what if Cain doesn't go to Smeltings? What if Father decides to keep him here? What if—"
"I won't let that happen," Charles said, his voice suddenly grown hard and his blue eyes turned to ice, "I promise you."
(And this is why, she has learned over the years that even if Erik looks more dangerous and really could kill someone with all the metal he floats around effortlessly, Charles is probably actually the scarier one when truly angered. He looks and acts like a pushover all the time, laughing off Raven turning his hair pink, only being mildly annoyed when Erik makes his metal bedstead shake him out of bed in the mornings, but this is the boy whose magic manifested itself as Legilimency first. He can erase memories, make you do whatever he wants, make you believe whatever he wants, and even though Raven knows he won't , because Charles has a strange code of honor that she thinks he developed from reading The Once and Future King too many times, it's still terrifying that he could.)
"Alright," she says finally, and Charles smiles at her and draws her in for a hug.
"Absolutely not."
Inside his head, Charles grinds his teeth, but outwardly he still projects the calm, polite face of a pureblood heir (although, it was kind of pointless; the Xaviers had always been seen as blood traitors, and he knew the only reason the other pureblood families put up with them was because of their wealth).
"I'm sorry, sir?" he politely asks.
Kurt snorts, "There is absolutely no way I am letting your mother take you with your little Mudblood pet out to Diagon Alley. Forget it, you can order the supplies from here, and they can deliver it."
Charles tamps down his instinctive fury (he had thought that pairing the feeling of slime with every occurrence of the word "Mudblood" would produce a proper Pavlovian response, but perhaps he hadn't done it enough times), and replies calmly, "With all due respect sir, while everything else can most likely be ordered, at the very least we will have to go to Ollivander's for our wands."
Kurt nods slowly, "That's true. Well, then you can go with your mother, but your pet stays here."
"Excuse me, sir?" Charles chokes out (he is beginning to feel a vein pulse in his temple), "A wand is an essential tool for a wizard, and without one Erik—"
"You don't honestly believe that I would let you take your Mudblood pet to school with you, did you?" Kurt asked incredulously, "I believe that the rules are owls, cats, toads, and rats, not Mudbloods."
"Erik is not a pet," Charles spat out, "He is a human being just like the rest of us, and he is a wizard, which means he is required to go to school—"
"We'll say he's homeschooled," Kurt replied dismissively, looking through the letters on his desk, "And when he grows up, perhaps he can be a servant. He does have one or two useful abilities. And he can make sure Cain doesn't sneak off the grounds."
"Excuse me?" Charles asks angrily, fists clenched at his side, "I thought you said you were sending Cain to Smeltings."
Kurt shrugged, "I changed my mind; I think we should keep all the freaks in one place, to keep up appearances. Raven will stay here as well, until she learns to permanently stay one way. Either ways, your Mudblood pet stays here, like a good dog—"
And with a snarl, Charles looks Kurt straight in the eye, and jumps into his mind. He swims easily past the thoughts of (there are no barriers or weapons; this is not the mind of an Occlumens), and screams in his fury, You are going to let Erik go to Hogwarts, you are going to send Cain to Smeltings and make him stay there for the holidays, you are going to let Raven be whoever she wants to be, and you are never going to harm any of us again, do you understand me?
Kurt feebly nods, and Charles withdraws from his mind.
It's only when he sees Kurt smile and nod happily at him that he realizes what he has done.
Erik is a little worried.
Charles went to go talk to Kurt (by himself because Erik could not be trusted to not attempt to stab the man every time he opened his mouth) around noon, and now it was dinner time, but neither he nor Raven had seen even a hair of the other boy. Raven had reported that Kurt had told her that Charles had left earlier and that Kurt had been freakishly nice to her, even remarking that her hair was a lovely color ("No really, it was like, 'Your hair is a lovely color today Raven, like the color of fall leaves.' Isn't that creepy?")
An even more ominous sign was that he hadn't felt Charles' presence in his mind for the past hours either. (He thinks it's a weakness that he's grown so used to Charles walking in and out of his mind when he had once sworn to never give anyone that chance again, but somehow, he can't bring himself to close that gate.)It's a sign of how worried he is that he finally blindly calls out with his (extremely weak and unfocused) Legilimency, Charles? Charles?
He senses a feeling of someone standing nervously at the edge of his mind before turning and hiding away, but it is enough of a feeling to propel him to the tallest tower of the mansion (why was Charles there? The only thing the tower was used for was Astronomy, and Charles was terrible at the few star charts he had tried).
He finds Charles curled up miserably in a ball in the far corner of the tower. When Charles lifts up his face, and he sees the paleness of his skin, the slight stain of vomit at the side of his mouth, he feels all the telescopes arranged around the tower suddenly melt and reform into hissing chains (this way was much more permanent, he had found), and he is about to turn and head back downstairs (to find that bastard and kill him for whatever he had done to Charles), when Charles grabbed his hand and ran frantically into his mind.
No, don't Erik! He didn't do anything! It was me, I—I did something terrible, and I think—I think I'm dangerous, and you have to go, you can't stay here with me, I'm not safe—
Erik frowns and draws his hands down Charles' arms, "What happened? What do you mean, 'you're not safe'?"
Charles bites down on his (already bloodied) lip and withdraws slowly from his mind and tries to turn back to the wall, but Erik forces him to stay.
"I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong," he said steadily, trying to make Charles look him in the eye.
"Kurt was—he was saying bad things about you," Charles began blankly, staring at his hands, "He said that he wasn't going to let you go to Hogwarts, wasn't even going to let you get a wand, he said you were going to stay here, and that Cain was going to stay here too, and that Raven was never going to leave until she mode-locked, and he kept calling you things, and I was so angry, so I reached out and I—and I—" he broke off, looking at Erik desperately.
"And you changed his mind," Erik said slowly, piecing the clues together, "And that's why he was so nice to Raven when she saw him. What did you tell him?"
Charles curls up even further, knuckles white as he clutches his own arm, "I told him that he was going to let you go to Hogwarts, send Cain to Smeltings, let Raven be whatever she wants to be, and that he wasn't going to harm any of us anymore," he says dully.
Erik stares at Charles for several tense minutes (It is scary, that Charles could completely change someone like that. And yes it's terrifying to know exactly what he's capable of, yes the possibilities are horrifying to dwell on, yes Charles has enough magic to turn into a monster, but he won't. He can't, because first of all, Charles is Charles, and secondly, he'd never let him), and Charles is drawing away and radiating miseryhorrordespair, but then Erik firmly tugs him back and draws him into a hug, "You did what had to be done," he tells Charles adamantly.
Charles shakes his head, "Don't you get it? Don't you see? I forced him to do all that! I used compulsion on him! That's tantamount to using the Imperius Curse, and that's an Unforgivable Spell, and I should go to Azkaban for this—"
"For what?" Erik replied harshly, "For forcing an abusive father to change his ways? For stopping him from ruining people's lives? They should be giving you a medal."
"But what if I get that angry again?" Charles wailed, trying to get out of Erik's grasp, "What if I get angry at Raven? What if I got angry at you? What stops me from doing this again and becoming something like—like Frost?"
Erik's grip tightens, and this time he does manage to force Charles to look him in the eye, You will never become that, he projects angrily as he swings open the gates of his mind, Don't even think like that.
Why do you think that? Why do you believe that? Charles despondently asks, standing by the gate, making no move to go in.
He doesn't know how to put it in words, so he sends flurries of memories through the gate (It's his birthday, and Charles has gotten him a new chess set that they promptly begin playing with/Charles' hair is pink because of Raven, and he can't help snickering as Charles turns it green while trying to figure out how to turn it back/They're playing Quidditch, and Charles is falling off of his broom and he stops breathing/Charles is bored out of his mind at another pureblood party and is being mildly disapproving as he, Raven, and Tony Stark rig the ballroom with nearly invisible chains/Charles is frowning, and Lucius Malfoy is now wearing the horrified expression of someone who feels slime dripping down their back and clumped in their hair/Charles is looking confused as the suit they had set up as the knight of their life-sized chess board blows up/Charles is earnestly asking the portraits about what magic they could use when they were alive and if they could describe it in detail/Charles is clinging to his arm and begging him to read to him again—).
Charles examines each memory with the care of a shopkeeper with a glass figurine before saying, You think that I'm too good of a person to turn into a monster, but doesn't today disprove that? Isn't it possible that one day, I could be completely out of control?
Today just proves that if you are really angry, you will fight to protect someone, Erik responds furiously, And all of us could one day be completely out of control. It's always going to be a possibility.
Charles asks wonderingly, Why aren't you scared of me?
(And perhaps he should be, and after all he had been when he had first met him, terrified out of his mind about someone getting in again, but that had been before. Charles' gentle, happy touch is nothing like to the ice cold, brilliant knives Frost had used to scour his mind with, and it had taken a leap of faith and desperation to let him in, but now he cannot bring himself to be scared of the boy has looked in his mind and found something there to care for.)
He fills his mind with the sense of exasperated fondness (warm salt water splashing against skin) and replies simply, I know you. I know why you did that today, and if you ever do it again, I expect I will know why too. I know that you will always have a reason, and that that reason will at least be justifiable, and I'm not leaving you here alone with your guilt. I am here, and you are not alone.
"Besides, I can't be scared of someone who can't even change directions on a broom without falling over," he says out loud, stroking Charles' hair.
Charles gives a muffled snort and says in a small voice, "You might be getting better at this whole comforting thing."
Erik smiles, and hugs Charles closer, stroking his back until his breath evens out.
(Raven finds them later like that, fast asleep, Charles head tucked into Erik's shoulder, and Erik's chin on top of Charles' head, hands intertwined. She giggles, takes a picture, and the next day she's dangling it in front of them, and then zooming away on a broom, with Erik in embarrassed hot pursuit.)
Mother had been too drunk ("Whatsit? Diagon Alley? What?"), Charles still felt sick every time he looked at Kurt (Erik kept sending him reassuring thoughts that felt like sun-warmed metal, and although Raven had been somewhat disturbed when they had told her, she had told him that if she could, she probably would have done that to Kurt herself a long time ago), and it would have brought up too many questions had they asked the Starks if they could come along, so they had decided to go to Diagon Alley themselves, with some money taken from the Xavier safe in the house, and Raven disguised as an adult.
There had been a few issues with this plan, the first being that Erik did not want Charles to pay for his school supplies.
"But it's really no problem—"
"No."
"But the school supplies are quite expensive—"
"No."
"I could—"
"No."
Erik had his pride, and he had his own small cache of money made from delivering papers in the Muggle town nearby, so Charles chalked this up as a lost cause.
The second issue was that Raven didn't act much like an adult.
"Ooh, ice cream! Let's go get some Charles!" Raven pleaded, tugging on his sleeve despite the fact that she towered over him in high heels.
"Later, we need to get the rest of our supplies Raven," he said patiently, turning their little group toward Madam Malkin's.
In Ollivander's Wand Shop, Erik smashes windows, blows a hole in the roof, and sets several tables on fire ("Definitely not unicorn hair then."), before finally settling on a 14 inch blackthorn wand with silver coiled around the handle and a core of dragon heartstring ("Ah perfect! A bit on the inflexible side, and that was the dragon that nearly bit my head off!"). Charles only knocks over several shelves and breaks a vase before having a warm feeling toward a 11inch willow wand with a core of a phoenix feather ("Quite flexible, and that phoenix was the most polite I have ever met.") Raven eyes the wands longingly before Charles quickly pays and ushers them out of the shop.
In Magical Menagerie, Erik picks out a stern eagle owl with curved black markings over its eyes ("I think I'll call him Magneto"), Charles takes a liking to a friendly tawny owl that nips teasingly at his ear ("I think Hoot is a lovely name for you—" "You're lame Charles, he totally should be called Professor X."), and Charles caves to Raven's pleas and huge puppy eyes (she had discreetly morphed into the form of a tiny girl with gigantically large golden eyes) and ends up buying her the light blue half-cat half-kneazle that purrs happily in her arms ("Her name is Mystique!").
They end up eating ice cream at Florean's, and Raven asks through a mouth full of Neapolitan ice cream, "Which house do you guys think you're going to be in?"
Charles ponders the question, carefully eating his pistachio ice cream, "Most of the Xaviers have been in Ravenclaw," he explains, "Curiosity and all that. But we've had a few in every house really, so I think I could go in any."
"You're going to end up in Ravenclaw," Erik snorted, biting into his ice cream sandwich, "I don't know which I'll be in; all I know is that it can't be Slytherin."
"I don't know about that," Charles said contemplatively, "For all that Slytherin says it values supposed blood purity, there is no way that all of Slytherin house is pureblood; there simply aren't enough of them. Besides, shrewd, cunning, and resourceful sounds a lot like you Erik."
"But didn't You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters all come from Slytherin?" Raven asked, wide-eyed.
"That doesn't mean that Slytherin is a bad house," Charles said carefully, watching Erik's sudden stillness, "You-Know-Who probably just found it easier to recruit in his own house, which is why there are so many Slytherin Death Eaters. Every house has its share of rotten apples."
"Perhaps," Erik said neutrally, finishing off his snack.
(Charles knew Shaw had never attended Hogwarts; he had gone to Durmstrang, and Charles had to talk Erik out of going there for investigative purposes, pointing out that Durmstrang didn't even take Muggle-borns, and yes he agreed, that it was a stupid, out-dated rule, no he couldn't somehow forge the papers to get in, and Erik was still coming to Hogwarts with him.)
"I think I want to be in Gryffindor; I heard they have the best Quidditch team," Raven decides, slurping up the rest of the melted ice cream.
Charles smiles and says, "Well whichever house we're in, we must keep seeing each other."
"Of course," Erik agrees, eyes warm.
September 1986
"Charles! And Erik! Man, is it good to see you two!" the dark haired boy with sunglasses on yelled as he slammed open the door of the compartment.
Erik pinched the bridge of his nose. Tony Stark was loud, brash, and had an ego the size of Mars. He was also one of Charles', and by extension Erik's, oldest friend(although it was more like partners in crime since the only times they generally met was during long, boring pureblood parties). This didn't mean Erik didn't find him irritating at times.
"It's good to see you Tony!" Charles exclaimed beaming up at him from his curled up position with a book, propped against Erik, "How have you been?"
"Great! Especially with all of the hotties I've seen on the train," Tony replied, flopping down on the opposite seat and waggling his eyebrows, "There was this babe—"
"Excuse me, but can I sit here? The other compartments seem to be full," a red-haired girl poked her head in and asked politely.
"Like this one!" Tony exclaimed dramatically, waving the girl in, "Sit! Sit! What's your name?"
The girl sat down next to Tony and calmly introduced herself, "My name is Virginia Potts, but most people call me Pepper."
Tony nodded seriously, "Pepper; it suits you. Pepper, if you were a Dementor, I'd become a criminal just to get your kiss."
Charles put down his book to goggle at Tony, Pepper looked torn between laughing or leaving, and Erik broke the ensuing silence by incredulously saying, "Do you even listen to the drivel that comes pouring out of your mouth?"
Tony dramatically clutched his chest, "I'm hurt, Erik, really, I'm hurt."
"Please don't mind him," Charles said, offering a placating grin at Pepper, "He's harmless, really."
"Unless you let him near mechanical things," Erik mutters.
"The nice one there is Charles Xavier, heir of the Xavier family. The deadbeat is Erik Lehnsherr, a ward of the Xavier family" Tony says waving at the two of them, "And I am Tony Stark, heir of the Stark family."
Pepper's eyebrows shot up, "You're part of the Stark family? The one that owns companies in the Muggle world as well?"
"Please don't inflate his ego anymore," Charles begged as Tony preened, "Yes, he's the last scion of the Stark family, and yes, we know it's all doomed."
"Hey!" Tony protested, shoving his sunglasses down, "I built a robot this summer that can lift things mechanically and levitate them. What did you guys do? Did you ever finish that chess set?"
"It kind of blew up on us," Erik replied dryly.
"We thought we'd try to see how it worked with wands, but we ran out of time. Mostly I read, and Erik and Raven played Quidditch," Charles said absentmindedly, turning the page.
"Oh Raven," Tony whistled obnoxiously, "Now there's a hottie, and in a few years—"
"You are never dating my sister Tony," Charles said sweetly while Erik forced Tony's sunglasses to poke him in the eye.
Tony pouts as Pepper clears her throat, "So, Charles is the nice one, Erik is scary, and Tony is a womanizer. Is there anything else I should know?"
"Yes," Tony said, grabbing Pepper's hands emphatically, "My love for you burns like a dying phoenix."
Pepper smiles tightly, "That means that it will go out soon, thank god."
There are too many things he wants to research right now (the boats, how did they move on their own? How did the enchantment on the ceiling work? Was the Sorting Hat actually sentient, or was it just a charmed hat? Did it just sit around and come up with songs all year?), but when Erik gets called up to the Sorting Hat, he quickly slips into Erik's mind (just to see what's going on, he doesn't actually go in through the gate).
Hm, interesting. Very interesting, the Sorting Hat muses, you have bravery, resourcefulness, cunning, and a protective instinct for a few. You would make an excellent Slytherin, if you do not mind some hard times ahead.
Charles feels Erik's fingers clench around the seat of the stool and contemptuously say to the Hat, I will never be afraid of that.
"Good, then SLYTHERIN!" the Sorting Hat booms.
Very few of the Slytherins clap (the pureblood families all know about the Muggleborn boy the Xaviers took in, more signs of their blood traitor status), many of them are openly gaping at him, but Erik holds his head high (defianceanger, I am better than all of you) as he walks and sits down at the table.
An Armando Munoz is next sorted into Slytherin (there is more applause; he is presumably at least half-blood), and after a few more names, so is Pepper Potts (most likely also a half-blood). Tony is the next one to sit on the bench with a big grin, and after a few minutes, the Sorting Hat opens its mouth and yells, "RAVENCLAW," in a slightly aggrieved tone.
He is the last to sit on the bench, and the Sorting Hat begins to murmur in his mind, Ah, an Xavier! Most of you go to Ravenclaw, and I see that you are as curious as the rest of your family. That would be the best place for you, but you would do well in Hufflepuff too.
Charles shakes his head, I think I would like Ravenclaw, he tells the hat politely, I want to research things, and I have a friend there.
"Alright, RAVENCLAW!"
As he sits down next to Tony (who grins and whispers, "The Hat said I was brave and smart, and I said of course I'm brave and smart, I'm Tony Stark, and I started listing all the stuff I've done, and it got kind of annoyed at me in the end, don't know why.") he catches Erik's eye in the midst of the crowd, and knocks on the gate to his mind, projecting, We are always going to be together, no matter what.
Erik easily lets him in and replies, Of course we are.
A/N: Finally got to Hogwarts! After 10,000 words! (I am so sad). Hopefully it'll be going faster now. Blackthorn symbolizes a hard path that ends in sweetness, willow symbolizes psychic abilities, 14 represents spiritual duality, and 11 represents enlightenment.