Author's Note: Fixed a big technical slip-up in the last chapter; the first scene should now be a bit less rough around the edges at the beginning. Maybe only writing bits and pieces of scenes at a time (and rarely in order) isn't always the best idea. Thanks for continuing to read, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

Chapter Four: Settling Down

The shopping trip to Diagon Alley hadn't been that exciting, all things considered, save for a few standouts.

At first he'd been worried about how money worked in this world, but either the coins they used to pay for everything in Belzerg passed for the currency used here or they'd somehow converted themselves during the dimension-jump, Kazuma didn't really care which. It meant he and the others had enough money to get through this year either way, and if they needed funds in a hurry, he could probably solve that without much trouble.

Getting their wands represented one of the most interesting things checked off their list. The first wand Kazuma tried had been the one that chose him (whatever that meant), but both Darkness and Megumin had needed a few minutes to find theirs and Aqua took almost half an hour. Kazuma liked this development: while it could have just been a fluke, that likely meant his incredible luck remained intact.

The only other stop of note was the very end of their trip, in which they looked for potential pets. Given how useful owls seemed here, Kazuma dipped into his funds to buy a medium-sized brown one he'd figure out a name for later. Meanwhile, Darkness surprised everyone by buying a toad. Kazuma had a sinking suspicion why but Darkness refused to give anyone a straight answer when asked, so he just dropped the subject and hoped her fantasies didn't ensnare anyone else. Aqua and Megumin surprised everyone just as much by taking nothing at all, although if Aqua's luck transferred alongside his, that was probably a good thing.

Everything else felt surprisingly mundane, though, especially with McGonagall keeping Aqua on a tight leash. They bought all the school supplies they needed (quills and ink, textbooks, a cauldron to brew potions in, and all that jazz), the clothes they'd be wearing for the time being (at least in theory, if nothing else Kazuma was keeping the tracksuit he had on), and a few other odds and ends. While it took a lot longer than he would have liked, at the same time, this seemed like a one-time affair, so at least it meant he'd gotten it out of the way.

By the time he returned to Hogwarts, true darkness had fallen. From there, he was separated from his friends, each one of them going with a different professor. His escort was Professor Flitwick, a jovial man who barely came up to Kazuma's elbow. Kazuma had to thank him for helping him find the common room at least ten times, because the path needed to get there was so convoluted and labyrinthine that he would have gotten lost in a dozen different places before he ever found where he needed to go.

After far, far too long and about four flights of stairs too many, the two of them finally reached what looked like the door to the Ravenclaw common room. Instead of opening the door, Flitwick used the knocker, which looked like a bird of some kind (a raven, perhaps?). Did the door lock from the inside or something?

What followed made his heart catch in his chest. "How do you counter a Lethifold?"

The voice came from neither of them, so whatever asked that question clearly valued its privacy, or just didn't exist in the first place. It clearly was a common occurrence, though, because Flitwick answered the question without hesitation. "Casting a Patronus."

"Excellent," the voice replied, after which the door swung open. Hopefully that remained the question for a while: Kazuma had better things to do with his life than memorize inane trivia just to reach his room.

The common room seemed fairly standard: armchairs clustered around several tables, a number of bookshelves stuffed with books on seemingly-relevant subject matter for their courses, spare ink pots and quills placed on top of a shelf, a handful of notices on what looked like a bulletin board. Beneath them was a soft carpet that absorbed every step they took, meaning they strode to a table in silence.

Once they reached their supposed destination, things changed again. "I'll be back shortly," Flitwick said. "I need to get some papers regarding your classes. Please stay in the common room if you could help it, though, that makes it easier for me to find you."

Then, before Kazuma could say another word, he was gone, and Kazuma was left to find a means of keeping himself entertained until Flitwick returned.

The common room was mostly empty except for the other first-year students he'd been Sorted into Ravenclaw with. The only other person who looked like they might be his age (or at least, the age he displayed at the moment) was a girl with long, tangled blond hair who sat bent over her book, her nose pointing straight at the ground as she read.

Kazuma didn't know if anything he did was going to get her attention, but he might as well try. "Hello. What are you reading?"

"I'm figuring out what we need to learn this year," the girl said, sounding as if she'd just woken up despite the late hour.

"You know, I probably should do that too," Kazuma said, pulling up a seat next to the girl and pulling out some of his new books from the bag he'd been provided for them. Some of them he skipped for now, since he wanted something neither too simple nor too complicated nor having nothing to do with actual magic. Eventually, though, he pulled out a book labeled The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4, popped it open, and began to read, looking for anything that might be interesting to try casting.

The girl's eyes met his when he turned the page for the first time, diverting his attention once more. "You're new, right?"

"Yep," Kazuma said, nodding as he did so. "I got a late start, if you know what I mean."

"Don't worry," Luna replied. "I already know more than enough about you."

Well, that wasn't awkward at all. Maybe this girl was some kind of secret genius he didn't know about yet, but if that had come from an adult Kazuma would have started running.

Then again, if she was one of the former, nothing hurt about having another person of equal intelligence to bounce things off of, and if she wasn't, nothing said she couldn't still be nice to be close with. "You want to be friends?"

"Of course, thank you," the girl said. "Making friends is hard around here. I'm Luna Lovegood, what's your name?"

"Kazuma Satou," Kazuma said.

Well, that was easy. He already had a friend and he'd only been here for a few minutes. Things were finally starting to look up.

"I heard you're not from around here," Luna said. "Have you seen any crumple-horned snorkacks where you're from? I've always wanted to see one."

Okay, never mind. Maybe he'd just bitten off more than he could chew.

Even though it was presumably the middle of summer, Aqua's room was in the dungeons, and already she was freezing. Hopefully the rooms were warmer than the hallways or they at least had a shitload of thick blankets on the beds, because otherwise she'd either have to bundle up like she was hunting for snow sprites every day or learn how to manipulate fire, which by all accounts didn't work well with water.

She'd already had a discussion with the supposed Head of Slytherin, a taller man with a face Aqua could only describe as sharp and chin-length black hair that hadn't seen cleaning products for years, about her living and school arrangements. She'd be living in the sixth-year dorm room because of her age, but she'd be taking fourth-year classes so she had a chance to prepare for a series of exams referred to as O.W.L.s, with a few fallback options existing if she found herself unable to keep up. Chances were, though, she wouldn't need any of those: she was ready to show this world what a goddess was capable of!

Aqua found her room easily enough since every dorm was conveniently labeled with its residents' year and gender. Upon entering the one for sixth-year girls, she felt a bit underwhelmed. Apart from the beds, which weren't much different from what she was used to sleeping on, there just wasn't much there besides a handful of dresser drawers topped with simple lamps, plus a heavily-muscled girl with chin-length brown hair sitting on her bed.

With nothing else to do (and four empty beds providing the material she needed), she asked the obvious question. "Is it just us in here?"

"For now," the girl said, her voice sounding unnaturally gruff. "Every bed here's full, but everyone else is in the common room at the moment."

"Thanks," Aqua said. "I'm Aqua. Who are you?"

"Eris," the girl said. "Eris Macnair."

The words came out of Aqua's mouth before she even registered them. "Do you pad your chest?"

Eris' reaction to that question was immediate and intense. Anything even resembling good cheer fell right off her face, followed by her whipping out her wand from the pocket of her robes and pointing it at Aqua. "Engorgio!"

What followed was an incredibly uncomfortable sensation. Aqua's chest started inflating like it was being pumped full of water, prompting her to scream and run from the room. Two hallways later and she'd run straight into another girl: shorter than Eris, with dark skin and some of the longest hair Aqua had ever seen.

Upon colliding with Aqua, she bounced off, getting knocked a solid six feet back. Aqua just landed on her butt, robes flying open to reveal her breasts, each of which had suddenly swollen to the size of watermelons and were still growing.

Once both parties had stood back up, the girl she'd run into didn't even bother asking what happened, instead simply drawing her wand and pointing it at Aqua once more. "Finite Incantatem."

At the very least, that made the growing stop, although Aqua still looked and felt ridiculous. "Thanks for the help, but do you know how to get… this back to normal?"

"I'll get you a prefect, they'll show you to the hospital wing," Aqua's savior replied. "By the way, who did this to you?"

"Eris," Aqua replied. "Eris Macnair."

"Yeah, I'd stay in that girl's good graces if I were you," came the response. "She's not too bad when she's in a good mood, but when she's not that bitch is vindictive as all get-out. And don't bother going to Snape about her, if it's between Slytherins and he didn't see it, he doesn't care."

Well, that was reassuring. "Thanks for the tip."

"Don't mention it," the girl said. Then she turned on her heel and marched down the hall, disappearing around a corner before Aqua could even get her name. Instead, she sat against the wall of the hallway, trying vainly to cover the ridiculous lumps of flesh that currently made up her chest.

The only way this could have been worse was if the Eris from home saw her. She'd have made cracks about this until the end of fucking time.

Ginny kept eyeing Darkness as Fred and George gave her the tour of Gryffindor Tower, feeling more out of place by the second. She'd never considered herself unattractive by any means, but being around Darkness just made her feel outright ugly on multiple levels. At the very least, she and Darkness had a large enough age variance that they most likely wouldn't be in the same dating pool.

Fred and George were keeping her talking, trying to see what she knew. The conversation stayed relatively banal for a while to the point where Ginny almost tuned out, but then George asked her what made her excited about learning magic, and Darkness' response made Ginny freeze up.

"I mean, there's so many things you can do with magic," Darkness said. "Think about what you can do to yourself with magic! There's so many possibilities!"

Unfortunately, Ginny knew that was an excellent segue into the pitch Fred and George had probably been waiting to spring on her for a while, Fred taking the lead now before anything else came up. "Say, Darkness, we're testing some consumable magical items out. Most of them are various forms of pranks to pull on others. Would you mind trying a few in the near future?"

Darkness smiled at them. "Of course."

"Just as a heads up, some of them might be a teensy bit painful," George said.

"That sounds lovely," Darkness said, her voice suddenly coming out far heavier than before. Even Fred and George lost their grins for a second, so it surprised no one that Ginny looked a bit disturbed by how she responded. In what universe did that make any kind of sense?

Never mind that now. She had plenty of time to learn what made Darkness tick. She'd probably get a better feel for her once classes started, and then she might understand.

Megumin had settled in just fine. Hufflepuff rooms were pretty nice.

She already knew the names of all five of her roommates: from left to right sat Lulu, Riley, Janice, Nicole, and Olivia. Janice and Olivia were sisters but didn't seem like it at all, while Lulu, Riley, and Nicole were already close friends. Riley had several posters of rock bands hanging above her bed, Nicole somehow had a poster where the person inside was moving, and Olivia had a painter's easel with a half-finished piece of artwork sitting by her bed. None of them seemed to have any dangerous or hateful quirks, and despite a handful of little arguments breaking out over petty nonsense, all of them meshed together without much difficulty.

Currently, they were discussing the new things they'd be learning now that they were third years. All of them began bringing up what their favorite topic may be, bouncing seamlessly from person to person.

"Probably divination," Olivia said.

"Runes for sure," Lulu added.

"Blowing stuff up!" Megumin concluded.

That killed any attempts to follow her up and earned her five girls awkwardly staring at her.

"What? Who doesn't have fun blowing stuff up?"

Everyone except Riley and Megumin swiftly vacated the room, probably going to meet some of their friends in the common room or something.

Riley decided to try again. "You know there's a lot of other things to magic besides just blowing stuff up, right?"

Megumin knew better. "Explosions are awesome! They're the first thing I want to master now that I'm here."

Riley let out a forced-sounding chuckle. "Okay then."

Megumin simply nodded. Once she learned how to blow stuff up, she could rest easy. Until then, everything possible would be dedicated to that pursuit.

As Kazuma paged through his books, if nothing else it seemed that Aqua had been proven right on one account. So far, a lot of the spells he needed to learn looked simple enough: specific words, specific wand motions, and keeping focused so the spell didn't backfire or pick up some unsavory side effects. Luna occasionally had some commentary for him, although whether it was actually about the book in front of him was never guaranteed: on one memorable occasion, she started talking to him about what she knew regarding crumple-horned snorkacks, something Kazuma decided to look up as soon as possible. He didn't know what the heck that was, which meant it could do anything, good or bad. Might as well know for certain.

The first page that caught his eye demonstrated how to cast Accio, which when spoken before an object, summoned anything that followed that word fitting its criteria, provided it was within a certain range. All the benefits of Steal, with absolutely none of the drawbacks? If there existed a better spell to try first, Kazuma couldn't think of one. "Hey, Luna, would you mind moving one of my books to the chair over there? I want to try something."

Luna complied, setting the book on a chair as Kazuma drew his wand. He flicked it in the best imitation of the diagram he could muster and shouted, "Accio book!"

Nothing happened. The book didn't even move.

A few more attempts yielded the same result, and before he could do any more, Professor Flitwick returned with the papers he'd gone to retrieve, thus ending any attempts at practicing magic for the moment.

"As you are new here, you need to settle your weekly schedule," Flitwick said. "There are seven compulsory classes and five electives. You may pick anywhere between two and all five electives, which can be taken in any combination; I've made sure none of them conflict with any others. Just put a checkmark next to the electives you wish to take, and then tomorrow morning I'll present you with your schedule for the year."

He slid a piece of paper in front of Kazuma which had the names of each elective listed on it, as he'd expected. Next to each came a brief description of what he could expect to learn in each course, as well as who was teaching it.

Of the five decisions in front of him, three were made right away. Muggle Studies became an instant no because in a shocking twist, he had a basic understanding of how regular humans lived; he didn't need any reinforcement there. Ancient Runes also got turned down: given that Aqua could teach him English by cramming it into his brain here, nothing said she couldn't do that for any other language. Maybe it had an increased risk of going poof or something with every language taught, but he'd rather not waste his time there.

Arithmancy looked quite useful, if a bit difficult: breaking down magic into numbers seemed like an excellent means of learning how to manipulate it to his will. He'd never been a numbers guy, but if the math got too difficult for him chances are someone else his age knew it already. He could swallow some pride and ask for tutoring, or better yet, snag the notes of some upperclassman while they weren't looking. Thus, that class became his first yes.

That left two classes, of which he could pick one or both. Care of Magical Creatures sounded like a course that was more Aqua's speed, and caring for his owl already seemed like a lot to manage all at once, adding more to that plate felt a bit risky. Meanwhile, divination sounded like it could be incredibly useful, but given how the description heavily implied any true success in the subject relied entirely on a skill he might not have, it could also be a colossal waste of his time to even try.

With both classes at a deadlock, he decided to get some outside help. "Luna, what electives are you taking?"

Luna answered right away. "Care of Magical Creatures, Divination…"

"Well, that settles that," Kazuma said to himself, signing himself up for both classes. If both of them happened to suck, then hopefully he could drop one before things got too terrible.

Handing Flitwick the paper, he rose from his seat and packed all his books, wanting to go to bed so he could wake up bright and early, which gave him a chance of finding the Great Hall before breakfast ended. Luna seemed to have the same idea, because she packed up as well, heading toward wherever her room was.

Well, he still had to find where he was going to sleep. Hopefully that at least required fewer stairs than getting here.

Everything of importance started tomorrow, and this time he didn't have Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness around to wreak havoc. The time had come for everything to finally go as planned.

Yeah, this chapter ran longer than intended. Again. Maybe I need to stop underestimating how much needs to be crammed into a scene.

Just as a big heads-up, while I remember a handful of spells and their purposes from the book's canon, for their finer details and for more obscure spells I'm cross-referencing various wikis to get the information I need. If you see any spells or charms being used incorrectly in spite of this (or I somehow use a spell that doesn't exist in canon), feel free to tell me!

Also, I'm headcanoning Eris as the unnamed sixth-year girl who was restraining Ginny as part of the Inquisitorial Squad. I'm not sure if Macnair had a child mentioned in canon, but I'm considering it plausible.

That's all I have to say. Thanks for everyone who reviewed, favorited, followed, or even read this story, and I hope to see you again next chapter!