I've wanted to write this bit, and the bits which will hopefully come afterwards, ever since I came up with the idea of a Hogwarts AU lol.

Thank you for reading so far, everyone!

It was a clear night, four months into sixth year, and the old-fashioned pocket-watch in Kai's pocket had just announced that the time was two hours past midnight, "So you should be in bed!". The temperature was below freezing when the wind kicked up, but Kai was huddled in the Astronomy Tower and so could escape the worst of the wind. He'd been up here since ten o'clock, and he'd finally got everything he needed for that night. Flexing his numb fingers, he gathered up his many pieces of parchment. Star charts, calendars, scraps with calculations scribbled and crossed out … he could barely fit it all in his schoolbag. His quill fell out, and he overbalanced on the small wooden stool reaching for it. Numb fingers, numb bum, numb everything. Since starting this Astronomy project he had been frantically perfecting the Cushioning Charm when used for seats not for brooms, and was helping Hilary with counter-jinxes in return for the charm she knew which blew hot air at you. She kept calling it a portable hair-dryer and then Julia would laugh. Weird Muggle things, but he really wanted that charm.

His quill kept rolling away from his fingertips. Idiotic thing. It was a bright pink luxurious Fwooper quill that Max had got him for a joke for his birthday last year, and even though he'd checked it over vey carefully and had even "borrowed" a curse detector from home to make sure that it was magic-less, it did keep acting like it was possessed. Losing patience, he took his wand out of his back pocket and Summoned it. He stuffed it into his bag before it could do anything else that was strange.

His feet were clumsy from the cold and the lack of movement, so descending the narrow spiral staircase down the Astronomy Tower – why on earth did the staircase have not have banisters? - took all of his concentration. Or at least, that was how he later justified what happened next.

He heard footsteps on the staircase, and swore under his breath, thinking that it was the caretaker. He rooted frantically in his bag, trying to find the parchment signed by Professor Sinistra which allowed him to be out of bed this late at night.

"Petrificus Totalus!" He heard the incantation, from what sounded like more than one person, and fumbled for his wand, but his balance was too precarious and his fingers were too cold. The spell hit him and he toppled, stiff as a board, down the remaining few steps. All he could do was shut his eyes and pray that he didn't break his nose or fingers.

"Gotcha," a voice whispered above him once he'd come to a stop. Not addressing him directly, but sounding more like they were taking to themselves.

"Told you it would work." Oh. Not talking to themselves, then. The first voice sounded female and the second sounded male, but that was all he could figure out unless they happened to wander into his field of vision.

His mind had gone very cold and very fast in a way that it hadn't had to do for a couple of years now as he processed the situation and tried to figure out how much trouble he was in. What were they after? He couldn't even figure out how old they were to get a better idea of their magical abilities, although given the timbre of the boy's voice he thought he was older than second year. Surely a third-year would never attack a sixth year, even with back-up? Maybe fourth year, then. His brain whirred uselessly, but ground to a horrified halt when he felt hands on his back and legs.

For a long, awful second he thought that he was about to be raped, but then he heard the girl whisper, frustrated, "Where is it?" as she checked one of the many pockets in his robes. If he'd been able to, he would have laughed.

His wand. They were after his wand. Oh dear. Was there anything more ironic?

Had he not taken his wand out of his back pocket to Summon his quill, it would have still been there, virtually in plain sight and easy pickings. But he had, and then he'd haphazardly shoved it into an inside pocket, and as it so happened, he was now lying on it. All the same, he was still in trouble. Wordless magic, he could now do quite a lot of. Wandless magic, he could turn lights on and off. But wordless, wandless magic was utterly beyond him, even with his wand two inches from his paralysed hand.

And then they joined forces and flipped him over. There was a triumphant cry of "There it is!" and his wand was plucked from his pocket.

Part of Kai was so angry that he wanted to scream and curse them with something Dark, but part of him still hadn't stopped laughing at the situation. The wand thief being stolen from. If they wanted to use his wand, or even get a good price for it, they would be sorely disappointed.

Now that he was facing up, he could see a bit more. They were careless about moving into the edges of his vision: maybe they didn't even know that Petrificus Totalis allowed the victim to move their eyes. He couldn't see much, since they were wearing long cloaks with huge concealing hoods. Hoods like that always gave him the creeps. However, over the next twenty seconds, as they held a whispered conversation that he paid little attention to, he did catch sight of their wands.

Just like that, he knew who they were. He didn't ever bring it up around Tyson and the others, because he knew that they got uncomfortable when reminded that he was the most Slytherin Gryffindor student to have been chosen for years and his antics in first and second year were prime examples of that, but he still noticed wands first. Still categorised people by their wands before any of their actual physical attributes. So yes, he now knew these two.

Chestnut and dragon heartstring (seven inches, looked rigid), and ebony with phoenix feather (same). And now that he was in this old frame of mind he desperately wanted to give that ebony wand a flick or two. Just to see. They were fourth-year Slytherins, twins.

Well, he thought to himself. Well. Fourth-years. He could handle fourth-years, once he unfroze. There was a hornbeam wand in his trunk that no-one knew about. He would go and get his wand back.

The pair had started to walk away. He listened to their receding footsteps and strained with all his might against the spell. The Body-Binding spell didn't last all that long, and Kai suspected that if they hadn't cast it together it wouldn't even have lasted this long.

He was free less than three minutes later, although his right hand was for some reason refusing to uncurl from the position it had been frozen in and he hurt all over from his tumble. Fine, whatever. It would wear off.

Time to get to work.

All opinions welcome!

xIlbx