A/N: And onto 2nd year…
September 1987
Raven is nervous, but she cannot wait. She has her wand (9 ½ inch aspen wand with a unicorn hair core), Mystique (whose latest goal seems to be managing to pounce on Professor X), her supplies and books (dragging Charles out of Flourish and Blotts had been a team effort with Erik), and her uniform. She's been waiting to stand here with her brothers since she waved them off last year (smiling because they hate to see her cry), but now that she is here, she's conscious that she's never actually been in her true form around this many people before.
"Back straight, chin up, let them see who you are," Erik whispers to her encouragingly as they step onto the platform.
Charles squeezes her hand and smiles at her reassuringly as she takes a deep breath and lets the blue ripple out. She gets a few odd stares, but nothing like the screams that she had been expecting (that she had been told).
"See? Everything's fine, and now you must meet everyone!" Charles exclaimed, as they walked into a compartment with a Slytherin boy and Tony.
"Looking good Raven!" Tony grins at her salaciously, "Only a few more years, and we can start dating!"
"Never," Charles and Erik say simultaneously as a red-haired girl walks in and raises an eyebrow.
"So obviously all those letters you sent me over the summer that sang and woke me up every morning, proclaiming me as your one true love were a result of a flight of fancy that has ended its course?" she asks hopefully.
Tony kneels on the ground before the red-headed girl and clutches her hands, "Pepper! I'm devastated that you would think that! You know you have the portkey to my heart—"
"Hi, I'm Pepper Potts, and you must be Raven?" Pepper asks, introducing herself while discreetly slipping her hands out of Tony's grasp and stepping on his foot.
Raven grins as she shakes Pepper's hand, "Yeah, I'm so glad to finally meet you! I've heard so much about you; did you really use Tarantallegra on Tony and make him tango across the Great Hall?"
"That was once after an extremely trying day, but yes," Pepper replies sweetly, sitting down.
"It's how she shows her love for me," Tony said confidently, plopping down next to Pepper, "Isn't it honey?"
"Please never refer to me as that again, or I will try casting a Bat-Bogey Hex on you, and it will be disgusting," Pepper replies calmly, scooting away from Tony.
"How about sweetums? Baby? Darling—?"
"So Raven," the Slytherin boy cuts in before Pepper could draw out her wand, "I'm Darwin. What house do you think you'll be in?"
"If you were in Ravenclaw, it'd be too funny," Tony snickers, "Raven in Ravenclaw where everything is blue."
"Tony," Charles snaps, drawing a chess-set from his bag, "Don't mind him Raven, I would love to have you in Ravenclaw."
"I would look out for you in Slytherin, but that's not where you want to go is it?" Erik asks, leaning against the window as Charles sets up the pieces.
Raven shakes her head, "I don't think I'd fit into Ravenclaw or Slytherin; I think I'm going to end up in Gryffindor."
"Won't the colors clash with your skin though? Joking, joking!" Tony yelps as Charles glares at him and Erik makes the luggage rack rattle menacingly, "You know, that's what the Sorting Hat considered me for for awhile, until I amazed it with my brilliance," Tony commented, trying to steal part of Pepper's Daily Prophet.
"You mean when you annoyed it half to death with your bragging," Pepper retorts, twitching her paper away and kicking him in the shin.
As Tony and Pepper snark at each other and Darwin attempts to distract them by drawing them into a game of Exploding Snap, Charles looks up from the board and grins ruefully at her, "Why don't you go and buy some food? You can meet some new people instead of being stuck in this bedlam."
She nods (because while Charles' and Erik's friends are fun, she does want to meet some people who are her own age and she's hungry) and scampers off to where the trolley witch is calling out her wares. She buys an armful of Chocolate Frogs (it's another one of Charles' many projects, to have a complete collection of the cards), a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans (it was always fun to trick Erik into eating something like snot), and a few dozen Pumpkin Pasties and Cauldron Cakes (her favorite). She's attempting to get back to the compartment with her giant load (the first thing she had to learn when she got to Hogwarts was levitation; it was going to make life so much easier) when she bumps into someone and spills half of the food.
"Sorry, sorry!" the dark haired boy with large glasses apologizes, as he helps her pick up the packets of food.
"It's alright," she replies, gathering the rest of the snacks into her arms, "I'm Raven, what's your name?"
"Hank," the boy stutters, peering at her curiously, "Are you a metamorphagus?"
"No, I just happened to have an unfortunate accident that turned me blue," she deadpans before quickly reassuring Hank when his face falls, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Yes, I'm a metamorphagus."
"That's fascinating," Hank replies, his eyes gone huge behind the glasses, "Can you turn into anyone? Are you limited to only human features? Is there a conservation of mass principle—"
"You sound just like my brother," Raven comments as they walk up to her compartment, "I think you two will get along splendidly."
(She's right; Charles and Hank start babbling at each other about Potions theory to the point that she begins to feel sleepy until Erik thankfully drags Charles' attention back to their chess game. She does get sorted into Gryffindor ("You have courage in you,"), and she loves the loud laughter and compliments, and she gains someone to fangirl over Quidditch with in fellow first year Oliver Wood. Hank gets sorted into Ravenclaw where he and Charles and maybe Tony depending on his mood probably stay up all night nerding out at each other, and they do run into each other since Charles seems to have taken the stuttering boy under his wing, to Erik's distaste. She thinks he's kind of cute.)
October 1987
It's not a very long article, and it's buried between articles on the latest rumors about Fudge's incompetency and paranoia, but Erik has been keeping an eye on the news for six years now, so to him it couldn't have been more obvious had it been printed in giant, blood-red letters.
Rare Book Dealer Janos Quested Disappears With Prized Demonology Text
by M. Caneirus
Janos Quested, owner of Riptide Books in Knockturn Alley, has been missing for four weeks. There is no sign of struggle in the bookstore, but the borrowed text of Paths and Portals has also disappeared with the shopkeeper. Being a rare demonology text with actual summoning rituals, the Ministry has dispatched several Aurors to investigate. Currently, neighbors have informed Auror Dawlish that a tall blonde woman who called herself Snow and a dark-haired man who called himself Schmidt had been paying Quested repeated visits prior to his disappearance. If anyone has any further information, please contact…
It was enough. ("You may call me Herr Dokter, Herr Schmidt, or Mr. Shaw, and this is my lovely assistant, Ms. Frost or Ms. Snow. You're going to be with us for a long time Erik, we must get to know each other.")
It was time. (He's waited six years for his revenge.)
He's already packed a few essential belongings (clothes, his broom, his wand, and a photo of last Christmas in front of the fire) and is gathering the Floo powder to head off to Knockturn Alley (he has a few questions of his own to ask), when the wall swings open and Charles angrily bursts into the Slytherin common room.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, dragging Erik back from the fire.
Erik jerks his arm back, "Don't you have Astronomy tonight? How did you get in here?" he asks furiously (How did Charles know? He had been so careful to drape his plans in muted sheets of silver, and he had been sure to act as normal as possible—).
"I skipped. It's easy to get in here; even if I didn't know the password from your mind I could probably stand there and guess pretentious pureblood phrases until it opened, but that's beside the point," Charles snaps, hands on his hips, "You might think you were acting normal, but you made some very amateur mistakes in our chess game tonight, you barely made any sarcastic comments, and your goodbye seemed…odd and rather final. And I kept seeing something from the Daily Prophet flash through your mind, so I went and got the paper and found the article."
"Then you know why I have to go," Erik said, motioning for him to be quieter.
"I know no such thing!"Charles fumed in a harsh whisper, "All I know is that you're going to a dingy, back-alley sort of place where you're going to get yourself killed—"
"I can handle myself," Erik retorts, jerking his head up at the quietly clicking chandelier-spiders.
"You're running after a madman who has killed every Auror that was sent out after him," Charles shoots back, grabbing his pack of belongings, "Erik, you're powerful, yes, but you're still twelve."
"He killed my parents," Erik says stonily, glaring at Charles.
Charles glares straight back, blue eyes cuttingly intense, "And your parents wouldn't want you throwing your life away on revenge."
You have absolutely no idea what my parents would want, Erik lashes out angrily with Legilimency (knives knives knives), the metal spiders above gaining a sudden eerie stillness.
Charles easily dodges his attack and curls around his mind (waits at the gate), and replies stubbornly, I know that they would not want you dead. Why are you leaving me?
Erik grimaces, pulling a frustrated hand through his hair, "I'm not leaving you," he protests out loud, "It's just—I need to get revenge Charles, why don't you understand that?"
"I know that," Charles replied softly, running a hand down his arm, "And in some ways, I understand that. My father, remember? But going now, god Erik, that would be suicide."
"But I could—"
Charles presses a hand against his mouth and shakes his head, "Let me finish. You're out of control; you're lashing out at me like you haven't done since I met you, the ceiling spiders are growing spikes and melting at the same time and you haven't even noticed, and I can feel your mental defenses developing traps but they're full of holes. Your plan, if it can even be called that, is rash and stupid, and more characteristic of a Gryffindor than a Slytherin. How are you supposed to face Shaw like this? How are you even going to face Frost?"
(He wants to knock Charles' hand away, leap into the fireplace, and disappear in a flash of green fire, but Charles is staring at him, Charles is clutching at his sleeve, Charles is stubbornly waiting at the gate of his mind for permission to go in, and Charles, in the end damn him, knows him and has a point. )
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he finally whispers back (reaching out tentatively from behind the gate in his mind), "Do I just wait and let him ruin more lives?"
Charles grasps his hand tightly (in real life and in his mind), and replies gently, "We cannot do anything about that, if it does happen. All I know is that he nearly completely ruined your life, and I will not stand by to see him succeed. You belong here, with us, with me. Stay until you can truly defeat him, stay until you have learned how, and then I promise I will let you go because then I know that you will come back when you are done."
"You will 'let' me go?" Erik echoes, half-amused and half-irritated by the Charles' word choice.
Charles flushes, "I won't come chasing after you begging you not to go like now anyway," he says wryly, but his expression is still serious, "Promise me you won't go after him until you're ready? I'll even help you train, if you like."
(Charles is unconsciously presumptuous and arrogant at times, but that is what makes him who he is, makes him the only person who he will let into his mind, and the one person who could have talked him out of this plan. He would have been sad to hurt Raven, but she couldn't have changed his mind because she wouldn't have dared to say some of the things Charles did tonight, and he supposes that is the whole point.)
"Fine," he breathes, waving at the dripping spiders to reform and shine, "I'll be holding you to that then."
Charles gives him a wide-eyed look of happiness (sunlight on skin and wind running through his hair) and hugs him tightly, "I promise. I'll even start looking for a classroom for us to practice in right away!"
"Alright. Although, did you honestly just insult Gryffindor? Raven would be so angry," Erik says lightly, running a hand down Charles' back.
"Gryffindors are notoriously rash," Charles sniffs, drawing away slightly to look Erik in the eye, "Raven would understand that."
Erik gives a small smile to Charles (how is it that this boy could always chase away his darker thoughts and plans?) before pushing him towards the door, "You better head back; how you even got here without Filch noticing is a miracle."
"I kept casting rather poor Disillusionment Charms," Charles admitted, tapping his wand against his hand lightly, "I was certain I was going to get caught at any moment. Why don't I just stay here with you tonight?"
Erik raises his eyebrow, gathering up his stuff, "There aren't any extra beds in my dorm."
Charles shrugs, "Then I will just share yours. Let me stay?"
And Erik knows that Charles is really only staying because he wants to be reassured that he won't suddenly up and vanish because Charles is fully capable of casting more Disillusionment Charms (and besides being unconsciously presumptuous and arrogant, Charles is also quite clingy at times), but they have really argued enough for the night (he can't believe they didn't wake anybody up), and Charles' eyes are huge, and he's tired, so he gives in, and Charles curls up against his side with a sleepy, "Good night Erik."
(Marcus Flint doesn't notice since both Charles and Erik wake up long before him. Darwin also doesn't say anything at first, just raising his eyebrow at the sight of both of them crawling out of the same bed, but he had to have told someone because Raven and Tony are arguing about some bet about them later at lunch.
"The terms were when they confessed their undying love to each other Tony! The two of them sleeping in the same bed doesn't count!"
"Are you sure there wasn't something like kissing involved? Because—"
Charles sends a murderous, pounding headache into Tony's mind at this point, and Erik is attempting to stab Raven with her fork without attracting the notice of any of the professors. They never do manage to get all the details of the bet out of either of them that day, and the next day Erik makes it onto the Slytherin Quidditch team as Beater, and so the matter is promptly forgotten.)
December 1987
Hank had been worried that he would be the only one left in Hogwarts over Christmas Break, but thankfully he was wrong. Charles and Raven were also staying ("I'm sure it'll be more cheery here than back home," Charles reassures him as Raven pipes in, "Yes, and there's going to be Wizard Crackers! We never get to play with those at home!"), so he would at least have some friendly faces to look at during the break. Unfortunately, Erik and Alex were also staying.
He absolutely loved talking to Charles (who would actually lend him books, notes, and suggest more experiments he could do), but he was quickly realizing that wherever Charles was, Erik wasn't far behind, and Erik Lehnsherr was scary.
"Erik Lehnsherr…how do I begin to explain Erik Lehnsherr?"
"Erik Lehnsherr is terrifying."
"He has seven giant metal spiders and a knife."
"I hear his wand is insured for 10,000 galleons by the Xaviers."
"I hear he does spell invention…in Germany."
"His favorite book is Frankenstein."
"One time Professor Snape caught him fighting in the halls—"
"—And he told him to carry on!"
"One time he hexed me—it was awesome."
In other words, there were a lot of rumors and speculation about Erik Lehnsherr, and it didn't matter how much Charles laughed off the rumors ("Spell invention in Germany? When would Erik ever have the time? And Erik's favorite book is not Frankenstein."), or Raven reassured him( "Look Hank, I pushed Erik into the lake once, and I make fun of him all the time, and I'm still alive, aren't I?" "But you're like his sister.")Hank was still certain every time Erik gave him a decidedly cool glance that he was going to be murdered in his sleep by the giant metal spiders (that he had been interested in seeing at first because the charmwork and transfiguration involved sounded highly unusual and interesting, but that had been before Charles had taken him into the Slytherin common room to see them where Erik had glared at him and the spiders had begun to make an ominous whirring noise. Raven pointed out later that Erik was never happy about an interrupted chess game, but how was he supposed to have known?).
Alex Summers on the other hand was not scary, but he sure did not make life easier. Hank wasn't sure exactly what he had done to offend the blonde Gryffindor, but every time he met him, Alex would sneer, "Bozo," and shove past him. Raven suggested that he was mad about that time during flying lessons where he had accidentally thrown the Quaffle into Alex's face, but that had been an accident, and he had apologized, and surely that was taking a grudge too far for something that had happened in September?
"Hank, Hank, pull this Wizard Cracker with me?"
On the other hand, Raven was great. She was friendly, smart, and she could change her appearance to whatever she wants (he still wasn't sure why she almost always chose her blue form though. He had tried asking once, but Raven had developed such a stormy expression that he just backed off). He's actually not certain why she likes to hang around him so much, but that's probably less because she's actively seeking him out and more because he's often with Charles, and Raven is Charles' sister.
The cracker explodes with a crack of blue smoke, and Raven eagerly snatches up the meowing cat hats and places one on Hank's head and the other on hers.
"It's so cute!" she laughs, steadying the hat on her head and calls out, "Don't you think it's cute, Charles?"
"Quite," Charles replied, grinning as the mice from his cracker ran around his shoulders, "We should get a picture! Let me go and get the camera—"
"Hehe, wee Charles has to kiss wee Erik!" Peeves cackled, as he suddenly appeared floating above Charles and Erik with a sprig of mistletoe.
Charles gave Peeves a decidedly unimpressed look, "Really, did Tony or Raven put you up to this?" he asked, casting a look at a Raven who was grinning widely but quickly shook her head.
He sighed and pecked Erik on the cheek, "Can I go now?" he asked as Erik turned an alarming shade of red that was making Hank start to reconsider his reputation as the next Bloody Baron (it was the chains that would just appear if he grew really angry, but could anyone that looked like he was about asphyxiate from a kiss on the cheek really be as terrifying as the rumors?).
"What was that? No, no wee Charlie must actually smooch wee Erik on the mouth! Go on, smooch, smooch, kiss, kiss—"
Actually, as Erik pointed his wand at the suits of armor lining the wall and the suits of armor grew progressively spikier and were now holding huge axes, and then all of them went chasing after a squealing Peeves who was holding a white-faced Alex hostage (that part was actually kind of funny) while Charles sighed and patted Erik on the back, Hank stood by his original opinion. Erik Lehnsherr was scary.
March 1988
Despite the fact that technically all the houses had their own individual stands that they were supposed to sit in, Raven had dragged Oliver to come sit at the Ravenclaw stands with him.
"All the Gryffindors want Slytherin to lose," Raven explained, her hair loyally turned green with streaks of silver, "I am alone in my support of Erik's team, so I thought I better sit here with you. But I brought Oliver along so that I can talk about to Quidditch to someone and not have their eyes glaze over. Where's Tony and Hank?"
"Tony suddenly came up with another idea for a robot, and Hank is watching him. My eyes do not glaze over," Charles protested, scanning the field for Erik, "I fully support your love of Quidditch—"
"Yeah but you don't want to talk about it," Raven replied and then started cheering as the players rose into the air, "Yeah, go Erik! Beat those Hufflepuffs!"
"Go Hufflepuff!" Oliver cheered next to her, as Erik batted the Bludger at Logan and Logan batted it straight back, "Beat those Slytherins so Gryffindor can win the Quidditch Cup!"
"Is that supposed to happen?" Charles asked worriedly as Erik and Logan began to hit the bludgers at each other at an increasingly furious pace, "I thought they were supposed to focus on attacking the Chasers and Keepers, and occasionally the Seekers, not each other?"
"That's right," Oliver replied, drawing out omnioculars to get a closer look, "But it looks like they're fighting anyway! This might actually be an exciting match!"
As Erik and Logan continued their frenzied battle across the skies, Charles glanced down at the Astronomy notes he had brought up (he knew he would get bored even if it was Erik playing, and really, finals were coming up soon, so he should start brushing up on his weakest subject). Glancing up to make sure Erik wasn't in any immediate danger (he looked from this angle as though he wanted to bludgeon Logan to death, but this was generally how he looked around Logan. Their personalities just seemed to clash badly every time they met unfortunately), he started to go over the star charts.
(He still usually ended up copying Erik's start charts because it was really hard to concentrate at midnight in the breezy Astronomy Tower. He highly disliked that class, so it had been no trouble that day that he had actually skipped it to find Erik about to run off to Knockturn Alley. It had pained him to promise him that he would not beg Erik to stay when he was ready, to promise that he would actually let Erik go and kill another person, even if that person was a madman, but he knows Erik. He knows that Erik will not rest until he has his revenge, and he knows that the only thing he can do is make sure that Erik will walk away alive from it. They managed to find an abandoned classroom on the fifth floor to practice spells in, and Charles has dragged out all the Defense Against Dark Arts books he can find to find new spells. He's not sure that it's right for him to be helping Erik train when Erik should be running around and playing like any other child, but then again, Erik has never really been a child for as long as Charles has known him—)
"Charles! Charles!" Raven yelled, shaking his shoulder, "Slytherin won! And Erik and the Wolverine haven't managed to kill each other, although not from lack of trying!"
"But it was really exciting!" Oliver bursts in, waving his arms around, "An epic Beater battle! Even if Slytherin won!"
"Oh, that's wonderful!" he beams as Oliver draws away when Erik flies over, grinning as widely (as brilliantly, as happily) as Charles has ever seen him.
"Studying Astronomy instead of watching me play?" Erik teases, gesturing at Charles' notes.
Charles laughs, shuffling his notes back together, "Well if you had been more interesting…"
Erik quirks an eyebrow at him, "I've been assured by several people that future Slytherin-Hufflepuff matches will be highly watched," he commented dryly, ruffling Raven's hair, "Come to the celebrations? I'll make sure no one slips you too much Butterbeer."
"That was once when we were six!" Charles protested as Erik grins and flies off.
"But what about that time after my ninth birthday party?" Raven asked innocently, her gold eyes glittering with mischief, "Or New Years when you were ten? Or last summer—"
"Quiet you," Charles grumbled as they walked toward the Slytherin common room.
(The Slytherins don't pay much attention to either him or Raven, too used to the sight of the two of them popping in and out, which is thankful because at this point he feels decidedly tipsy.
"You're such a lightweight Charles," Raven complains as she hauls him to Ravenclaw Tower, "Who gets drunk off of Butterbeer anyway?"
"He keeps telling me that no one does, and yet he was singing 'You Charmed the Heart Right Out of Me,'" Erik replies wryly from Charles' other side, carefully keeping him upright.
"Charles, you actually listen to Celestina Warbeck?" Raven asks delightedly, "Go on, sing us some more!"
And Charles thinks this is an excellent idea and so he sings all of 'A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love,' and Raven mercilessly teases him the next day, and Erik smirks at him, and he thanks God that neither of them had had a camera that night.)
June 1988
"You can't take all the classes Charles," Erik patiently.
"I don't see why not," Charles complains, filling out the list of extra classes, "Everything looks so interesting!"
"Yes, but there's no room in your schedule for all the classes," Erik points out, finishing his list.
Charles leans over to look at Erik's list, "Why don't you also take all of them with me?" he suggests, tapping the list with his quill, "Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies would be fun!"
"I don't want to feed flobberworms, and I don't need Muggle Studies," Erik replies, rolling up the form.
Charles rolls his eyes, "You don't need Divination either and you're taking it," he mutters, stretching in his chair.
"Could come in handy," Erik says mildly.
(It's a long shot, since he had always heard that either you were born with the Sight or you weren't, but he doesn't want to see the future, he just wants to find out where Shaw is. Charles probably already knows this since while he has grown better at shrouding his thoughts, around Charles things just tended to open up. He will keep his promise, but when he's ready, it will be important to figure out where Shaw actually is.)
Charles sighed as he stood up, "Come help me convince Professor Flitwick to let me take all the classes?" he asks Erik hopefully.
"Why me?" Erik groans as he follows Charles to Flitwick's office.
"You're his favorite student! He was so pleased when you animated all those suits of armor at Christmas!" Charles exclaims.
Erik flushes. That had been embarrassing. He swore he had seen Snape smirking at him and McGonagall giggling after the whole incident, but Charles had been too busy trying to calm him down ("Erik, Peeves is very important to the castle! And if you throw an axe at him, you may hit Alex instead!") and Raven had been laughing too hard to notice, and Hank McCoy had been too terrified to talk to him (that boy got Charles involved with more stupidly dangerous experiments than he had ever managed to before on his own and he had had interrupted far too many of their chess matches).
"I'll try, but I still don't see why you're taking all these classes," he grumbles.
"Because they're all so intriguing!" Charles declared, happily latching onto Erik's arm, "Divination holds so many possibilities, even if most wizards believe it's a fraud, and Arithmancy does as well, and it is seen as more reliable! Study of Ancient Runes is essential for inventing complex spells, Care of Magical Creatures introduces one to actual magical creatures that you'd never see usually, and I'm hoping that they will do something on genetics in Muggle Studies."
"I get the impression that they start with electricity," Erik said as they reached Flitwick's office, "Considering they were reading Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles, which I remember you already reading."
Charles frowned and then perked up again, "Perhaps Professor Burbage could give me extra material then?"
Erik sighed. He was never going to convince Charles to give it up. "Maybe," he grudgingly admits as he opens the door.
(Flitwick is all too happy to give Charles special permission to take all of the extra classes, despite Erik pointing out that Charles simply doesn't have room in his schedule.
"We'll just apply for a Time-Turner then," Flitwick says cheerfully, signing off on Charles' schedule, "With your grades and standing, it should be fine."
Charles is bubbling over with excitement on the entire train ride back, projecting and chattering about all the information he knows about Time-Turners until Raven hits him with a pillow and Erik convinces him to play chess.
Another year has gone by, and even though Erik knows Shaw is out there somewhere, right here, right now he's content to keep his promise and help Charles get books about time travel off of the higher shelves.)
A/N: Slightly darker in tone this time, but hopefully still fluffy?