[fic] grey magic [9/?]
Title: Grey Magic
Rating: T/PG
Summary: As a Slytherin Arizona Robbins knows that her crush on a Gryffindor has every chance of causing problems. But with the Triwizard Tournament again at Hogwarts and mysterious things seeming to seek out Alex Karev, her best friend, the Romeo and Juliet thing she has going with Callie Torres is the least of her issues.
{Grey's Hogwarts AU} The gang's all here, somewhere, but the focus is going to be Callie/Arizona.
Alex had never wanted to not be at Hogwarts more than he did currently. With everything strange that had happened since the year started centering squarely on him and Arizona the school wasn't as secure as it usually felt. Hell, he even missed being at the Robbins for the winter break. But they weren't leaving Hogwarts this year, the Yule Ball pressing the prefects into attendance.
What had happened to Arizona's bed, whatever it meant or whoever had done it, remained a mystery, leaving them under even more scrutiny and suspicion. Nothing felt right this year. They'd always had problems with Gryffindor, Mark Sloan in particular, since first year. If he was right though, about Durmstrang, then this wasn't something internal but someone from outside Hogwarts, coming for him, for them. Mark was a known quantity, and a relatively harmless one, if frustrating. Whatever this was felt different.
“You're in a great mood today,” Arizona noted as she joined him at their house table. He only grunted, poking food around his plate. She rolled her eyes at him. “Seriously? You're still being like this? Nothing really happened, Alex! Nobody got hurt.”
“Only because you were busy screwing Torres,” he shot back, though he did her the favor of keeping his voice down.
Arizona's jaw clenched but she bit back her instinct to lash out. “I told you nothing happened with -”
“Well, whether or not you got laid is not really the point, either,” he snapped, leaning forward on his arms and letting his fork fall to the plate between his elbows. “You know what we're dealing with here but you're not focused or you don't care, either way your head's not in the game lately.”
“We actually don't know what we're up against, Alex!” Arizona objected shortly, losing her patience for a moment. “We don't know if it's Mark being an ass, or if this is something else. Maybe the Durmstrangs are involved, maybe not. We don't know anything, though!”
“You're not denying you're distracted,” countered Alex. Arizona could only bite her lip. “Your dad's still around. Did you know that?” One hand shoved the day's paper across the table to her. “That means my dad is probably here somewhere.”
Arizona's throat went dry. She blinked, trying to conjure words to reassure him. There were none. “He can't be inside the castle, Alex.” It was the only thing she was sure of and it came out as a murmur. He scoffed, picking up his fork to poke at the eggs on his plate. “Someone would know! You would know if he were here, Alex!” He glanced but from his plate, ever so very slightly more hopeful looking. “And if he were, then I have your back. You know that. Yeah?” His eyes narrowed but he nodded. “Okay, good. We'll figure this out, Alex.” Arizona perked up swiftly. “Maybe Callie can help us!” Alex's brown eyes rolled but he hid a smirk behind a sip from his glass. “No, seriously!” Arizona said with a laugh, smiling her own relief. “At least to rule out Sloan.” Head cocking, Alex considered, taking another sip. “If she knows what's going on it's another pair of eyes watching our backs,” Arizona reasoned.
Callie Torres wasn't as bad as the rest of her house, he knew that. She'd been good to Arizona so far and that wasn't meaningless. Still, the only person he really trusted was Arizona herself. “She'll be watching your ass, at least,” he conceded, his eyes flicking over her shoulder toward the Gryffindor table behind her.
“She wants to help!” said Arizona cheerfully, happily relieved.
“Who wants to help with what?” Callie asked, dropping onto the bench next to Arizona and pulling her plate up.
Blue eyes blinked, Arizona turning to scan the Hall for inevitable reactions to a Gryffindor cavalierly taking a seat at the Slytherin table. There were none, but Mark Sloan was noticeably absent from the far table. “What are you doing?”
Callie's eyebrow rose, glancing across the table at Alex, who shrugged, looking bemused. “Eating lunch with you?” she said slowly. “What's wrong with that? You are my girlfriend, you know?” So what if it wasn't something they had done before? They were together and anyone who mattered knew already. Anyone who had something to say about it didn't matter as far as she was concerned.
“Callie, you shouldn't -”
“You were saying something about helping?” Callie cut her off, expanding her question to include Alex. “What's up?”
“Arizona thinks you might be willing to help us figure out what the hell is going on around this place,” Alex explained briefly, shrugging when Arizona gaped at him. “It was your idea to let her into the gang, remember?” he reminded her.
Callie sat up straighter, her elbows on the table. “Hey, if it means finding out who set your bed on fire, then I'm in,” she declared, looking between the two Slytherins. “What do we do? Where do we start?”
Arizona met Alex's gaze for a momentary silent conversation before she sighed in acquiescence and dropped a hand to rub Callie's knee. “Okay, I guess we need to know if someone from...” she hesitated, “inside Hogwarts might have had something to do with it.”
“You mean Mark,” Callie clarified knowingly.
“Anybody, really,” Arizona said at the same time Alex said, “He hates us.” Their eyes met again for a wordless argument.
“He hates us a lot,” Alex repeated pointedly, the winner for now. “And he's not exactly keeping it quiet this year, you know?”
Callie scoffed, her eyes narrowing. “Yeah, subtlety is not his strong point.” If Mark had had something to do with what had happened to Arizona's room remained to be determined, but she knew he'd given her girlfriend more than one fat lip since the school year had started. She'd broken Arizona's nose herself once, but she was fairly sure she'd been forgiven for the incident. Mark made it his hobby to terrorize Arizona and Alex. “I'm all over it.” She bumped her elbow against Arizona's and leaned over. “Hey, so you're not mad about that time I broke your nose, are you?”
Arizona blinked, laughing abruptly. “No?” Callie grinned, relieved. “But you're much cuter than Sloan.”
A pointed cough from across the table distracted them before the flirty talk could go further. “I'm a bit more concerned if he's the one who got in your room,” he reminded them. Broad shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Though I wouldn't mind messing up his face,” he admitted willingly.
Callie laughed behind a hand but Arizona's expression was serious, focused. “Whatever we think of his looks, he's not exactly a pushover in a fight.”
“I can handle that asshole,” said Alex dismissively.
She was intent, though, not letting herself be distracted again by jokes. “We need to be careful. All of us.” Arizona looked between the pair of them slowly. “If you're going to help we all need to watch each others backs.” She and Alex were used to this, more or less, but Callie was in Gryffidor, played Quidditch, and was friends with Meredith Grey. She had no idea what it was to be an outsider, not really.
Alex gestured between them with his fork. “I don't know that I need to know when you two - you know -”
“What?” interrupted Callie, eyes blinking wide. “Wait, what?” she repeated when the two friends looked at each other, Arizona biting her lip. “Are you - nothing happened - we didn't - did you?” One hand covered her face. “Oh God.”
“No, Callie, no, Alex, shut up,” Arizona cut in swiftly. “We're not telling you -”
“And I don't want you to!” Alex denied, too loudly. Both of the girls glared across the tabletop. “All I mean to say is we can't have the two of you disappearing again like the other night. That's all.” His face pulled. “I don't need to know anything else about whatever you're getting up to -” Arizona coughed loudly and he trailed off.
“We'll be careful, Alex,” she said pointedly. “As much as we can no one goes anywhere alone, okay?”
“Great, so if I'm not trailing along with the two of you I'm stuck in the dorm then?” Alex questioned, grouchy at the prospect.
“We'll figure it out, Alex,” said Arizona, as unexcited by the idea as he was. “We just need to be careful.”
“You don't have to worry about me,” chimed in Callie with a shrug of her shoulders. “I'm not the one anyone's after. But I've got your backs.” She met Alex's gaze. “Both of you. Whatever you need, you can count on me.”
Silence fell across their private section of the table, the Hall only scarcely populated in the middle of a Sunday morning. Alex broke it after an extended moment. “If you think I'm going to put my hand in for a 'go team' you're going to be sorely disappointed.”
Callie smirked, her eyes finding Arizona. As long as she was on the team, that was what mattered to her. She cared for Arizona Robbins entirely too much to stand by while these things kept happening to her. Arizona nodded silently, winking sidelong at her. “Where should we start?” Callie asked, pleased by the return of Arizona's hand to her leg.
Their plan wasn't exactly elegant but it would get the job done. Alex didn't love that it depended solely on Callie. Arizona didn't love that there was no way she could help with it, that her girlfriend would be the one suspicion would fall on if it went poorly. Callie was confident, though. Moreover, she was sure that it would be easy.
She just had to get him drunk. Mark Sloan could hold his tongue only as well as he held his liquor.
It was nearly easily said as done, the next night after Quidditch practice she'd only had to pull a flask out of her pocket as they walked back to the castle from the locker room and he'd obliged her for a sip. He did provide his own bottle after they reached their common room, sprawling across one of the couches and passing the whiskey around willingly. Mark had no reason to be stingy and he wasn't. Callie took just enough to keep him from noticing that she wasn't more than tipsy, more than one drink behind anyone in the group.
He was talkative once the bottle had come around the group three or four times. Leading him to talk about Arizona and Alex wasn't even hard. He gossiped worse than most of the girls in the school. “I know you're into her, Torres, but you can't be surprised what happened. All those snakes are into something bad and this thing is just the start of what's going to happen if they're here.”
“So what? We should chase them all out of school?” Callie asked, letting the liquor barely touch her lips before she was passing it along.
“For a start,” he said with a barking laugh. “Maybe there's a few that aren't as bad as the rest, but that's not saying much. They're all Death Eaters or working for them.”
Impatient, Callie's eyes rolled. “And what in the world do the Death Eaters need here? The war's over.”
“Hey, what if we don't ruin the buzz with politics?” Owen suggested gruffly.
They both ignored him, Mark sitting up and leaning forward. “The war's over until they start it again. And we're just sitting around with our thumbs up our asses waiting for it to happen.”
“Are you, though? Just sitting around? Or are you getting stuff done?” Callie challenged him. He wasn't this stupid and she knew it, but she was tired of listening to his unfounded opinions. He didn't know Arizona, or Alex, or any Slytherin. He just couldn't accept that things had changed, were changing in their world. Instead he just repeated the same things that had divided the magical world during the last war, without even a Dark Lord to fear.
Mark laughed again. “Are you thinking I did something to your little girlfriend's bed? Believe me, if it had been me I wouldn't have botched it. Anyway, aren't you the one who would know? Or did she have someone else in there that night?”
Callie ground her teeth and snatched the bottle as it passed, fighting the urge to slap him. Her drink wasn't simulated this time. She knew there was no real basis to his teasing. She'd been with Arizona that whole night, sleeping beside her the whole time. There was no one else and she knew it. It was the cold panic that froze her guts at the thought of what might have happened if Arizona hadn't been with her that night that made her tip the bottle up for several swallows.
“You know this thing can't last, right?” Mark said, his eyes hazy and unfocused as he tugged the bottle from her hands. “You're too good for her.”
“You don't know shit about her.”
“I know you, Torres,” he responded, blinking too much as he struggled to keep her in focus. “She betrayed her whole family. It's just a matter of time before she betrays the school and you too.” Callie was motionless, holding her breath lest she explode. Mark didn't notice. “Better you dump her and soon. And, I'm just saying, whenever you get over this phase, I'll be around.” He patted her knee unsteadily before slumping back into the couch cushions.
Glaring, Callie got to her feet, a bit shaky herself. “I'm out.” The others had done their best to tune them out and Owen gave her a questioning look at her announcement. “I'm good, I just have an early class tomorrow.” They all did, and she hoped viciously that Mark would be suffering the worst headache throughout.
Her last pull on the whiskey had tipped her over to the buzzed part of the spectrum and Callie kept a prudent hand on the wall as she climbed the stairs to her room. The other beds were still empty and she slumped gratefully onto the mattress of her bed.
Stupid Mark and his stupid... mouth. If not for him she could be enjoying her tipsiness. The plan had been a success at least. She was reasonably sure that he'd been telling the truth. If he'd been the one to sneak into the Slytherin dorm then he wouldn't be keeping quiet. He more than likely didn't have any further clue than she did about who had done it, which was less encouraging.
She should sleep. Drink some water and crawl into bed. That wasn't what she wanted to do, however. At this moment she mostly wanted to talk to Arizona, see her if she could. It was late though, and she had no idea where in the castle Arizona might be.
Her wand was in her hand before she realized what she was doing, one eye closing as she aimed, and then the wad of old homework on her bedside table was on fire. A pinch of Floo powder turned the flames from red to the harmless blue-green and Callie muttered “Slytherin house” as she thrust her face in.
It took a moment to acclimate to her vantage point in the Slytherin common room fireplace but the room appeared to be empty.
“Arizona? Alex? Anybody?” It was late, the younger students long asleep. It appeared the rest of Slytherin house was also in bed, or at least heading that way. She saw more than one pair of socked feet pass the fireplace. Instead of leaning back into her own room and going to sleep Callie just hummed to herself, waiting.
Softly padding bare feet approached and Arizona dropped into view, one hand pushing loose blonde curls out of her face. “Hey, what are you doing?” she asked, bleary eyed. “Is everything okay?” Callie was still humming, a smile on her face. “Callie!”
“Huh? Oh, hey! You're here!”
“Yeah, someone told me my girlfriend's head was in the fireplace,” said Arizona, leaning forward and twisting to send a satisfying crack through her back. “I hope you didn't set a fire in your room. Are you alright?”
“I'm drunk-ish,” Callie told her matter-of-factly. “Not on fire.”
Arizona's smile was crooked. “I can see that. A good night or a bad one?”
“Good, then bad.” Her expression fell into a less than full tempered scowl before she was smiling again. “It's good now though.”
Arizona laughed. “Well, I'm glad to hear that. What was the bad part?” she asked, endeavoring to be patient. Drunk Callie was cute, undeniably, but she'd been woken up for this and was hopeful she could be back in bed before the sheets grew cold again.
“Mark sucks,” said Callie plaintively, as if it wasn't something Arizona already knew.
“What did he do now?”
Callie's face incongruously brightened again. “Oh! He didn't burn your bed!”
“Oh, good. But what did he do?” Arizona repeated herself, head dropping tiredly into one hand.
“You look sleepy.”
“I was asleep,” Arizona reminded her, less patiently.
“Oops. I can let you go back to bed.”
“Are you going to tell me what Mark did?” Arizona interjected. “Do I need to kick his ass?”
Callie blinked, hair falling in her face as she shook her head. “I don't think so. He was just talking. Stupid stuff, really.”
“Are you going to tell me what he said, then?” Arizona's patience was nearly at its end. She could probably just hex Mark on the assumption that he'd done something worth it, without waiting to hear whatever he'd said to Callie.
“That you were going to betray the school, and me,” Callie said, nearly on top of Arizona's question. “He's a dumbass, though,” she stated, watching her girlfriend's face fall and feeling less hazy than she had since she'd climbed the stairs to her room. “Arizona, I don't believe it. I shouldn't have said anything.” She was sober, serious. “Look at me.”
Arizona hadn't realized that her eyes had dropped, unfocused stare landing on the red checked pattern of her pajama pants. Callie was looking straight at her as she lifted her head, earnest but silent. Arizona took a deep breath, holding it for a beat and letting it go. “Like I haven't heard that before,” she said, trying to play it off with a lightness she didn't feel.
“Come to the Yule Ball with me,” said Callie quietly, the earnestness coming through her tone. “Seriously.”
“You're drunk,” Arizona reminded her with a laugh.
“No, I'm not. Not anymore,” Callie insisted. “Come with me.”
Arizona sighed again. “I have nothing to prove, Callie.” At least, she had no desire to parade herself around the Ball to make a point to Mark Sloan or anyone else.
“That's not why.”
“Why then?” asked Arizona wearily. She almost wished she'd stayed in bed and let Callie pass out in her own on the other side of the castle.
“Because you're beautiful.” Blue eyes blinked. “And you're fun, you're funny. I bet you can dance too, right? I don't really know how but I'd like to learn.” Callie swallowed, not blinking herself. “Anytime I'm with you I have so much fun. I just like being around you, Arizona. I know you have to go to the Ball as a prefect, but I want to go with you. As a date. You and me, on a date, at the Yule Ball.” She smiled hopefully. “Please say yes.”
There was really nothing else Arizona could say. “Yes. Of course.” The corner of her mouth quirked up. “I still think you're drunk.”
Callie's smile went softer. “Well, if you're right maybe I'll forget about this whole thing and you'll be off the hook.”
Arizona was surprised to realize that she hoped Callie wouldn't forget about it. It was wearying to weigh every thing she did every day. One night with her girlfriend, dresses and dancing, a few drinks, she wanted it. “I'll remind you,” she promised. Callie's smile made her wonder why she'd hesitated at all. A muffled yawn made Arizona smile and she leaned back against the base of the couch. “You should get some sleep.”
Callie's dissent was smothered by another yawn and she laughed. “You too. Sorry I woke you up.”
“I'm not,” said Arizona softly. “Sleep well. I'll see you in the morning.” Callie covered her mouth, nodding. Arizona waited until the fire had died back down before she got back to her feet, making her way back to her bed slowly. The sheets had cooled in her absence but she settled in with a smile that she couldn't quite keep in check, falling asleep trying to picture what Callie might wear to the Yule Ball.