"I want to show you something."

"What?"

"It's a surprise."

He lets Miyuki take his hand to pull him into the darkened hallway. Sawamura finds Hogwarts much more creepier at night. The halls are dead silent, to the point where any tiny noise makes him want to crawl out his skin. The air seems stiller and the ghosts are liable to jump out from nowhere. It's not his idea of a good time. But it's at night that he and Miyuki sneak out of the dorms together, away from everyone's eyes. These moments feel like dates more than anything except Hogsmeade.

"You won't even give me a hint?"

"That wouldn't make it a surprise, would it?"

Sawamura rolls his eyes, but smiles to himself. Miyuki is in a good mood, he can tell. It filled him with more anticipation for what the surprise could be.

Miyuki casts silencing charms on their feet to mute their footsteps. Then they scurry through the school, till they make it outside.

"I've seen the courtyards before, so that can't be it." Sawamura grumbles.

Miyuki flicks his forehead. "Patience is a virtue. Now, do you trust me?"

He squints his eyes. "I'm not sure. That's a suspicious question."

Miyuki snickers quietly. "Take my hands."

Sawamura hesitates, then reaches around to grab his other hand. "You better not turn me into a frog."

"No, this is way better. Close your eyes and whatever you do, don't open them." Miyuki clenches his hands tighter. "You'll regret it."

Sawamura nods. "Okay."

Miyuki counts off. "One, two, three, now!"

He shuts his eyes tight, and it feels like the ground is dropping out from under him. Everything is spinning, like he's on the world's fastest merry-go-round. He hopes to god that this isn't Miyuki's surprise because honestly, it's making him nauseous. He wonders if it would hurt to take one peek—

Then as soon as it starts, it's over. He's on solid ground again, though his legs feel a little wobbly. Sawamura opens his eyes to bright lights and the hustle and bustle of city life. His eyes dart from the billboards to the street performers to the cars zipping through the street.

"Amazing, right?" Miyuki grins. "We're downtown now."

"Did you—did we Apparate?"

"I got my Apparition license yesterday." Miyuki says. "I wanted the first place I Apparated to be here."

He drags Sawamura into a dark alley, where they stop in front of a dead end. "This is a very nice alley," Sawamura comments.

"Shut up." Miyuki responds. He taps his wand against the brick wall and the faint outline of a door appears.

"Whoa," Sawamura breathes. He's been a part of the Wizarding world for six years now and still every bit of magic he sees amazes him all over again.

Miyuki gives him a onceover. "Before we go in, you're going to need to change."

All Sawamura has on is ratty shorts and a plain yellow shirt. He expected to be laying on the

courtyard grass, not going to a club. "This is all I brought."

Miyuki raises his wand. "Aparecium."

His pajamas transform into a loose fitting suit. "Now we're ready to make an entrance." Miyuki said.

Miyuki casts the spell on himself, and they passed through the brick wall together. On the inside was a tiny but swanky club. Most of the other men in the room were in suits, while some of the woman were in flashy dresses while others only wore pants and a nice top. Everyone was united in being drunk off their asses.

"We're not old enough to be in a place like this." Sawamura whispers. Being underaged in a bar should be the least worries, considering he Apparated out of Hogwarts way past curfew, but priorities.

"Who cares how old we are? The bartender isn't going to buy us a birthday gift." With that, Miyuki heads straight for the bar.

The Wizarding World really is a reckless one, Sawamura thinks to himself. Miyuki's right, the bartender doesn't ask to see any I.D. or their ages. He gives Miyuki a beer and snaps at Sawamura to stop staring at him (he can't help it, he's never seen a person that short before). They take their drinks and move to an empty table.

"You should drink something too. It'll loosen you up." Miyuki suggests.

He shakes his head. "No. I'm not old enough to drink yet."

"Jeez, no wonder Muggles are so uptight." Miyuki says, with a swig of his beer.

The singer on the stage draws his attention. She must be a Metamorphmagus, because she changes her mouth into a duck's beak to hit the higher notes.

Sawamura turns back to Miyuki. "You've never told me about this place."

"I haven't been here since I was a fourth year. The upperclassmen dragged all the newest Quidditch members out of bed and Apparated with some of us and snuck the rest of us into the Headmistress's office."

Sawamura gasps. "No way!"

Miyuki nods. "We used her Floo Network. Most of the seniors got drunk as soon as we got there. Kuramochi and I dared Zono to ask out a girl at the bar. She threw her drink his face." Miyuki laughs to himself. "That was one of the best nights of my life."

His insecurities rise up again. He's worried that he's not making this fun enough for Miyuki, it being just the two of them. "Next time, let's invite everyone."

Miyuki slides the side of his foot against Sawamura's. "I'd choose you over them for a good time."

Sawamura presses back. He's about to pull Miyuki up to dance, when the music changes to a low instrumental. A man appears on stage with a flowy cape and a tall, black hat.

"Whoa, that guy look likes a magician." Sawamura says, pointing to the stage.

The man whips off his cape and swishes it around him. The cape transforms into mist, the shape of a rabbit. The rabbit hops through the audience, passing through people's bodies. The other patrons clapped and hooted loudly.

"He is." Miyuki replies. "Sometimes it's nice to see fun magic tricks."

"It takes me back to when my family used to go see magic shows." As a kid, he'd watch the shows with wide eyes and wonder what it'd be like to be sawed in half. He believed magicians were the coolest people in the world. He never dreamed that he'd be one.

"Muggles can do magic?" Miyuki exclaims, loud enough to draw the attention of the people sitting around them.

"Muggles doing magic?" a guy in a raggedy suit chuckles. "Someone call the Ministry!"

The girl sitting with him laughs too. "I hope not. Muggles would use their magic to annoy each other to death."

Sawamura burns with embarrassment. "It's not real magic! It just looks like it."

Some other guy pulls a chair up to their table. "Let's see some magic then, Muggle."

Miyuki half rises out of his seat. "Don't talk to him like that."

Sawamura waves him off. "That's not an insult to me. My dad and grandpa are Muggles, and they're the best people I know." He turns to the guy. "Hand me a Sickle, Miyuki. I'll show you the magic I grew up with."

Miyuki reluctantly hands him the coin. "I like the magic you don't have to pay for," he says under his breath.

Sawamura waves the Sickle in front of the man's face. "Now you see the coin…" He moves the coin behind his head. "...now you don't!"

He shows his empty hands to the whole crowd. "Where's the coin?" the man asks.

He makes like he's pulling something from the guy's ear and slips the Sickle from his sleeve. "It was right here all along."

The crowd oohs and ahhs. "You used magic!" the woman says.

"Look at him. You think he's smart enough to do wordless spells?" Miyuki says.

At Sawamura's glare he says, "I'm sticking up for you!"

"Do another Muggle trick!" someone shouts and the audience cheers in agreement.

Sawamura rolls up his sleeves. "Alright, who wants to see me break off my thumb?"

He isn't sure whether it's because everyone is super drunk, mostly purebloods, or a combination of both, but the crowd loves him. People congregate around his table after Sawamura finishes doing all the quick tricks he knew from memory. In the hustle and bustle, it's all too easy for him and Miyuki to lose track of each other.

"Oh, looks like your boy has been snatched up." The woman, whose name he discovers is Seiko, points out.
He sees Miyuki in the middle of the dance floor with a brunette in a short dress wrapped around him. He doesn't seem to be trying that hard to get away either.

Sawamura looks away abruptly. "Oh."

"I'll order you a drink to throw in his face." Seiko said. "A Fire Whisky will do the trick, trust me."

He shakes his head. "Miyuki's the one that brought me here to celebrate. He should have fun however he wants to."

He must've had a sullen look on his face, because she laughs. "You're too young to be so passive-aggressive."

Sawamura takes a noisy sip of his soda. "I'm not being passive-aggressive!"

The truth is, he's a little upset. He wants to be the one dancing with Miyuki. Instead, he has to watch him dance with some girl who's definitely drunk off her ass. Or not watch, as he's devoted his attention entirely to his drink, the table, anything other than the dance floor.

Because of that, he jumps when someone taps him on the shoulder.

"Are you done talking to your fans?" Miyuki asks. "I was hoping to dance with you at some point tonight."

"Why? You already found someone else to dance with." Sawamura huffs.

"She's the one one grabbed onto me! Seriously, I've got bruises on my arm." Miyuki rubs his arm to prove it. "I was waiting for you to rescue me."

"You looked like you were having fun."

"I was crying for help!"

"You two are giving me a headache." Seiko says from where she's put her head down on the table. She says a spell that quite literally pushes Sawamura up out of his chair and into Miyuki.

"Go! Dance!" she urges.

There's no point arguing after that. Miyuki pulls him onto the dance floor just as a slow song plays.

"I didn't expect you to get jealous," Miyuki grins down at him. "Now you see how I how feel every day."

Sawamura wasn't expecting him to say that. "Huh?"

Miyuki rolls his eyes. "You're popular wherever you go. The girls treat you like a mascot at school. The guys on the team love messing with you. I take you to some bar you've never been to before, and you've got these strangers all over you. No matter where we go, I never really have you to myself."

Sawamura blinks at him. A part of him was hoping that a drunk Miyuki would be touchy feely and embarrassing (because he shouldn't always be the one that gets made fun of), but this was more than he expected.

"Thanks for before," he replies awkwardly. "For defending me."

"You don't have to thank me for that. I wouldn't stand by and let someone basically call you a Mudblood."

Sawamura rests his head on Miyuki's shoulder. He wants to tell Miyuki that even though he had to do that, it made Sawamura happy when he jumped up to protect him. But he couldn't explain why it did, it just did.

So instead, he changes the subject. "You're way more popular than me. The girls talk about you all the time, right in front of me too! Girls that aren't even in our House show up at our games and make posters with your name on it…" he trails off at Miyuki's laughter. "What?"

"You're more possessive than I realized." He continues over Sawamura's protests. "You don't have to worry about that. I've only ever cared about what you thought of me."

Miyuki pauses, and Sawamura's heart speeds up as the tension around them becomes thick. Miyuki pushes him back to look at his face. "Because you're the one I l—"

Sawamura puts both his hands on Miyuki's mouth. "No!"

Miyuki says some muffled words under his hands that sound like "What the hell?"

"You're drunk. You can't say anything important to me while you're drunk!"

It's a good thing Sawamura says that, because the minute he takes off his hands Miyuki turns gray. "Uh oh," Miyuki says.

Miyuki runs into the bathroom, Sawamura trailing after him. Sawamura kneels by his side as he throws up, despite how gross it sounds. Miyuki would do the same for him without even thinking about it.

Sawamura puts his hand on his back. "Me too. I feel the same way."

He hopes that Miyuki will say what he was going say again, when he's not drunk and can remember hearing Sawamura's answer.

("Miyuki? Miyuki, wake up! You can't pass out, you're our ride home!")