"Look, I'm not asking for you to do my Charms work, I'm asking you to help me do it"
"Fine! Now shut it before Professor Ackerman takes points from us" Armin, blond Ravenclaw, whispered to thirteen years old Gryffindor Eren Jaeger.
"Today, class" the teacher started the Defense Against Dark Arts lesson with his normal voice, not even trying to raise it. It was easier for him to keep the students in silence if they had to shut up to listen to him "We will have a practical lesson. First, I'll teach you a very simple spell which you are going to have to use against a boggart. Then you will, obviously, have to deal with the boggart. Any questions?" the students started whispering, slowly raising their voices.
"Now" Levi spoke, silencing the voices "I need you to picture your biggest fear. Something that would leave you weeping like a little child" he scanned the class with his eyes, turning to the closet in the back of the room "and make it something fun, for it's not the spell itself that finishes the boggart, but the laughter produced by the ridiculous thing you would turn it into.
"Repeat after me: Riddikulus"
"Riddikulus" some repeated, other giggled instead.
"I said, repeat"
"Riddikulus" the whole class said as one.
"That's better. Now, this is the wand move"
"What is your biggest fear?" Eren whiepered to Armin who was beside him.
"I don't know, you?"
"No idea. Mikasa, what do think is yours?"
The black haired girl just shrugged. She knew it very well.
And as the class practiced, the teacher made them line up.
The first person's biggest fear was a spider.
The second's, a clown.
And so, one by one the students had a try on the Boggart. Most of them managed to turn it into a ridiculous thing, and when the time came for Armin Arlert to try, the smartest student of the class, everyone went silent.
Slowly, the boggart started to transform into a teenager.
In front of Armin Arlert, Mikasa Ackerman-the whispers started in the second the face was recognizable, spreading like fire.
"Did you really thought we were friends?" Mikasa's words were like ice, cold and sharp.
Crack! It was Eren.
"We had pity, Armin. A boy alone in a train full of kids, how pathetic is that?" it was like Armin was a sculputure of ice, frozen in place with a cold feeling is his chest that spread to his arms, to his legs like his blood was turning into freezing water.
Soon, tears started to roll down his cheeks. It was every insecurity, every one of his secrets throwed on his face.
"Armin!" two voices yelled from behind him, and soon two pairs of hands were holding him.
"You are alone, Armin-"
Crack!
"Armin, it's not true, snap out of it!"
"-Not even your parents wanted you-"
"Enough!" standing up in front of his friend, Eren exxteded his arms as to shield Mikasa and Armin.
The person in front of him- Mikasa- turned into another woman with a Crack!.
"Eren" a sweet voice called, extending her hand to him.
"Mum" the word left his mouth without his consent, but it was too late.
The woman smiled.
"You couldn't save me. You didn't even try, now did you?" she started to walk, her hair as black and her eyes as brown as the last day Eren had seen her.
"No, mom! I tried, I swear! I tried! I wanted to save you!" falling to his knees, he started to sob.
"Eren!" walking to stand in front of Eren, Mikasa blocked him from seeing the Boggart.
With a loud crack!, the woman became a man.
"What a beauty are you, aren't ya? I'm going to sell you for some money, just like I wanted to sell your mommy. Mommy ain't here now" he touched her chin and she started to tremble.
"Enough!" running, Levi took the Boggart atention. Mikasa fell to her knees behind him, and both Armin and Eren hugged her as they cried.
Before it could transform in a red-haired girl, the professor threw the boggart back to the closet.
"Class dismised. You three, to the Hospital Wing. You are excused from the rest of your classes"