Chapter 5

The woman Matthew found himself facing was quite a sight to behold. She was pretty, without a doubt, but there was an intimidating aura surrounding her. Her black hair cut short, but laced with golden decorations. Matthew froze a little on the spot when her eyes pierced him, as if still in the after shock of the doorknob.
"Your seats, please."
Matthew nodded quickly, feeling a slight pull on his arm by Yekaterina to scurry towards their seats. Giving a last glance to the teacher, he could've sworn he could the scaly head of a snake hidden within the shadows of her sleeve.
In the back of the classroom, Alfred was already excitedly waving at him. He sighed, sitting down next to his brother.
"I saved you a seat." Alfred smiled widely. "You're so late.'
"Thanks." Matthew said, a little distracted, watching Yekaterina walk elsewhere in the class room, finding her seat next to the girl they had met the day before. Sofia . Matthew thought she was called.

"That concludes all the notices for today." The woman spoke. "Ms. Braginskaya and Mr. Williams, please ask your fellow students later." She tapped the blackboard behind her with her wand. Chalky letters soon twisted and turned into existence.
Badriya Philopator
"You can address me as Mrs. Philopator. I'll be your charms teacher at Hogwarts." She nodded at the class. "Now, everybody, please open your books to the index"

Matthew did as told, looking at the index. He soon noticed his brother hovering closely. "Yes Alfred?"
"My book is wet."
"Your book is wet."
"Well, more drowned."
"You drowned your book."
Alfred nodded.
"Ah." Matthew slowly realized what he was referring to, sighing, shaking his head. Could've asked them to dry the book off once they fished the luggage out of the water, did they even fish the luggage out of the water? They must have a spell for that. "Fine." He moved his book closer to his brother. "But you need to get it fixed once the lesson finishes."

With his brother watching over his shoulder silently, for now, Matthew could finally take a proper look at the index. It seemed like a lot of spells to learn. He smiled, even if all the words looked foreign and the meaning of the spells deluded him he could feel himself getting excited. Actual magic. He would learn actual magic.

"By the end of the year you will be expected to know the spells on this list. A practical exam will be held to test your skills to test your abilities." Her eyes scanned the classroom. "Anybody have questions?"
Nobody did.
Matthew however, couldn't keep his eyes of her sleeve now. By now he was convinced there was a snake within. Was it watching the class as well? Maybe it wasn't in her sleeve anymore at all... Could it be crawling through the class room at the very moment? What if there were more? His eyes flickered to the floor, watching the ground intently then.
When Alfred kicked him under the table then, he had to jump a little, hissing a bit. "What is it?"

Alfred grinned widely. "We have Quidditch tryouts in the second week!"
Matthew opened his mouth. "That's grea-IYAH!" His reply was cut off by a rather undignified yelp as he observed the green reptile on his desk. He felt himself fluster when the gazes in the classroom turned to him, and the snake.
"Mr. Williams and Mr. Jones seem to have found Wadjet." Philopator mused.
'Mr. Jones' was staring intently at the snake, apparently more at ease seeing it appeared to be more focused on Matthew. Mouthing the word 'cool' slowly.
I knew there was a snake. There really was a snake.
"Wadjet and my other pets will keep an eye out on students who find their own conversations more intriguing than Charms."

There is more than one then. Matthew paled a little, muttering a half hearted apology.
"Watch out," she smiled, that snake he was certain he saw before crawling out of her sleeve up her arm now. "They bite."
That's a cobra isn't it? That is a cobra. There's a cobra and a... other snake, and god knows what's more in the class room. How can we start learning spells with poisonous and dangerous reptiles in the classroom?
The snake edged a little forwards, as if teasing him. Matthew quickly snatched back his hand when the beast got dangerously close to his fingers. With that, the snake slithered down his desk again, disappearing between the desks. He shivered, heart beating a little quickly.
"So, if Williams and Jones have finished their conversation, we'll proceed with the lesson."

Disappointingly, the lesson didn't have any practical exercises yet. It reminded him of chemistry lessons, a lot of theory before the action. Well, that did depend on the teacher, and practicals would usually end with Alfred blowing up some thing near to me anyway. … thinking about it, this will likely not be that different. The class was merely a lot of theory about magic, running over what they were supposed to learn that year and with the snakes keeping a close eye on the class there were little other distractions.

Occasionally, one of the girls, or in one the cases, Alfred, would yelp when something slithered past their legs.

It wasn't that Matthew minded terribly, after all, theory regarding magic was interesting to say the least. However, that didn't mean when a paper bounced off his head, he was a little curious. His eyes glanced around the room, especially checking the floors. No snakes on his desk, it seemed safe enough.
Slowly he unfurled the paper, laying it on his book to camouflage it a little. Silently he started reading.

"Alfred!"

Naturally, it was addressed to his brother. He sighed, kicking Alfred under the table, then casting a telling glance at the paper.
For a moment Alfred nearly spoke up in turn, but a swift second kick silenced him.
"Come meet us after class! Take that brother of yours too!

Yong Soo. "
Matthew frowned a little, he was pretty certain the name belonged to the guy Alfred had been hanging out with the day before. But why did he want to meet them afterwards? Why did he want to meet him afterwards.
The paper had little else on it, nothing to indicate what it was about. Unless the idly scribbled games of naughts and crosses were supposed to be some kind of cryptic message.

He gave his brother a questioning look. Alfred smiled, though it was obvious he too, was confused.
Matthew gave a quick glance backwards, looking were Yong Soo was seated, next to a silver haired Slytherin he couldn't recall the name off. Yong Soo merely returned an excited grin, leaving him absolutely none the wiser about what was going on.

When he saw one snake curling down a closet on the back wall, Matthew had no choice but to quickly snap his eyes back forwards again, sighing heavily.

It was a good thing the lesson didn't last much longer, for Matthew's curiosity had only grown since. To his surprise, they weren't the only ones starting to gather around Yong Soo and his silver haired friend. Yekaterina, and most of the others he'd had seen at the sorting the day prior had found his way around him.

Had they all received a note? At the very least he had to commend the two for not getting noticed during the class.

"So what's this about?" Alfred grinned, though there was some clear hesitation in his voice, his eyes visibly flicking a little over Yong Soo's uniform.

Yong Soo smiled, looking around the group he collected, nodding at his friend, then spoke. "It's very simple."

Matthew couldn't help but notice a very slight nervousness in his voice.

{{This still remains my least favourite chapter out of the set, so short too, but oh well. Last of the existing chapters. Sorry this one took so long to upload. Coming week I'll have to work full time on school stuffs but after that I'll start updating again.

As to the question regarding pairings. I do actually have a whole database for planned pairings, plotpoints, characters, their houses, classes and so on. While most pairings are planned already, some might take a while to get to it or experiment with other characters for a bit. So I'd rather not reveal all of them for the sake of spoilers. 3}}