Quidditch, Romance, and Near Death Experiences (7/25)
Title: Quidditch, Romance, and Near Death Experiences
Author: thanku4urlove
Pairing: Yabu/Takaki, Yamada/Daiki
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: magic!
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, AU (Hogwarts)
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: it's the wave of a wand, and dust blown off the cover of a spellbook. It's learning incantations and kicking off the ground on a broomstick. It's magic. It's a new year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, full of Quidditch, romance, and near death experiences.
A/N: I FORGOT TO POST I'M SO SORRY I'M ACTUALLY THE BIGGEST IDIOT
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
Professor Kimura gestured to the door and as if on cue it opened, Yaotome Hikaru strolling in. Keito could barely believe it, his entire face turning scarlet in surprise, Hikaru smiling a little when he saw him.
“Oh, hey.” He said, giving him a little wave. Kimura looked between them a few times, his eyebrows raised at the redness on Keito’s face.
“Do the two of you know each other?” He asked.
“Only a little.” Hikaru answered, still looking at Keito. Then his eyes found the scene behind him. “What happened in here?”
“Your task for detention today.” Professor Kimura said, gesturing to the mess. “You and Okamoto here are going to clean up. I have some letters to write, but I’m leaving my office door open, so I’ll still be able to hear if anything happens.” The last sentence was aimed strongly in Hikaru’s direction, and after a pseudo innocent smile from the Slytherin himself, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor climbed the stairs to his office.
“So, um… What are you here for? Do you have detention too?” Hikaru asked, turning to face him. Keito was fighting to get his face back to a neutral color, knowing he was failing formidably. He shook his head.
“No, I… I tried to cast the Protego charm--what we’re learning in class--and I didn’t do it right. I knocked three of the shelves over.”
Hikaru chuckled at that, slight disbelief on his face as he walked closer and surveyed the damage.
“You did all of this with Protego?” He asked, sounding impressed, Keito nodding sheepishly. “You do know that’s a defensive charm, right?”
“It wasn’t really the right spell, my wand jerked and these blue sparks came out of it and…” Keito shook his head. “I don’t really know what happened.”
That had Hikaru laughing in earnest, looking at him with an expression Keito couldn’t quite place.
“Let’s get to cleaning this up then. I know exactly what I want to do with this.” Hikaru waved his wand, levitating the rather large Thunderbird skull that was on the floor. The giant artifact ended up hanging in front of the classroom door to scare anyone that walked in, Professor Kimura shouting sternly down at them, Hikaru promising to take full responsibility for any repercussions while Keito laughed. They had to use Reparo on a good amount of the items, but thankfully most of Professor Kimura’s things ended up as good as new once the mending charm had been applied.
“So, why are you in detention?” Keito had to ask. The first time Keito had heard Hikaru’s name, it had also been in relation to him being in detention; Keito was nearly beginning to associate the two words with each other.
“I… Well.” Hikaru paused, looking as though he was searching for the right way to phrase what he was going to say, a sheepish smile on his face. “It wasn’t really me that did anything.”
Keito raised an eyebrow, not sure that he really believed that.
“But, as it turns out…” He laughed, Keito leaning forward a little in anticipation. “If you collaborate with a poltergeist to disguise himself as a boggart, and then pretend that Professor Kimura’s worst fear is Headmaster Kitagawa in a skimpy set of robes, the poltergeist will blame it all on you.”
Keito’s mouth fell open, Hikaru laughing at his expression.
“You did that?” His voice came to him in a disbelieving whisper, and Hikaru shrugged, grinning.
“Class was boring. We’d all had a pretty hard exam the day before, and everyone had just gotten their grades back. I wanted to lighten things up a little.”
Hikaru’s role as a jokester was becoming pretty evident, and it made Keito smile a little. He found himself smiling more often than not, really, as they stacked Professor Kimura’s things back up on the shelves. Disappoint twinged in his chest once they had finished, Hikaru giving the newly arranged shelves a once over.
“So, getting stuck in the staircase, and destroying a classroom. You doing alright?” Hikaru asked. Keito turned pink again--something that was frustratingly easy around Hikaru, he found--and he nodded.
“I have a bit of a hard time learning spells.” He explained with a shrug. He was decent at spells once he knew them, but it was the getting used to them part that was slow. “My friends have been helping me out a bit, but they’re busy on their own. I don’t want to bother them too much.”
“I’m not bad at Defense Against the Dark Arts.” Hikaru said, not making eye contact, looking down at the wand he was twirling between his fingers. “I could tutor you, if you want.”
“Really?” Keito knew his response might have sounded a bit too eager, but when Hikaru smiled back at him, he found he didn’t much care.
“Sure. Professor Kimura will be glad to know I’m doing something more productive with my time.”
“I am!” Came a shout from the office, making both of them laugh a little.
“Um… Yes, thank you. I would like that.” Keito answered, Hikaru’s smile growing on his face. They worked out a day and time to meet up, and after some difficulty--Hikaru’s schedule infinitely busier than his thanks to Quidditch practice--Hikaru finally wrote “Tuesdays, five p.m.” on the corner of his parchment, tearing it off and handing it to Keito.
“Now we just need a place to--” He began, but was quickly cut off.
“You guys can practice in here.” Professor Kimura was standing on the staircase, leaning over a bit with his hands on the railing. He was smiling down at them. “You’re free to go.”
They had to part ways almost immediately after exiting the classroom, Hikaru going one way and Keito himself going the other, stopping in front of the door.
“Well, uh… See you soon, okay? We’ll work out that Protego charm or something.” Hikaru said, a small grin on his face. Keito nodded, clutching the note from Hikaru a little tighter in his hand. With a wave, Hikaru turned and walked away, Keito holding the little scrap of paper up to his chest, letting himself close his eyes. His heart was beating fast, and though he knew it was a little silly, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.
“So what happened?” Inoo asked, all of them turning to Takaki excitedly for the answer. Takaki took a long drink of butterbeer before sighing.
“The press was already there when we arrived, so, y’know, they stared at us the whole time while we got our wands inspected.” Takaki began. “They were all fine--I don’t really know why they wouldn’t be, but I guess checking would be good--and then we each had a one on one interview for the Daily Prophet.” He pulled a face, and Yabu couldn’t help but laugh. Takaki had been pulled out of class on Friday for a press conference with reporters from the Daily Prophet and the rest of the Triwizard champions. Yabu had already heard the whole story of course, but Inoo and Hikaru had been begging to hear what happened, the four of them settling down in The Three Broomsticks to get out of the November chill and talk about it. “Then we just took a few photos. I don’t know when the paper is going to come out.”
“What questions did they ask you?” Hikaru asked. Takaki shrugged.
“Just, you know… How I felt about the other contestants, and the tasks… And if I was nervous for the first one…” He trailed off as he spoke, staring down at the table, and Yabu rubbed his back. The first task was coming up faster than Yabu could believe, now less than a week away, and he knew that if he was anxious about it, Takaki must be terribly anxious too. The event was taking place this upcoming Tuesday, and since nobody knew what it was, none of them could do much more than simply wait until it arrived. That was proving terribly unnerving; Takaki hadn’t realized the proximity of the event until Professor Takizawa had pointed out in Charms that there was only a week until the big day, and since then Takaki hadn’t been sleeping well, sometimes still awake when Yabu came back from his night patrol duties. Takaki had every right to be this nervous, but Yabu knew that being so jittery and sleep deprived was only going to make things worse when the day finally came.
“So?” Chinen asked, all of them jumping in surprise. Yabu hadn’t noticed him walk over. “What do you think about the other contestants?”
“Are you old enough to be here?” Hikaru asked him, his eyebrows furrowed, but Chinen just gave him a look, Inoo laughing while Takaki answered his question.
“The Beauxbaton contestant and I got to talking when Kiriyama was having his interview--he talked to the press first--and I have a cousin that’s going to Beauxbatons. Apparently they know each other, so that was interesting. And then Kiriyama, the guy from Durmstrang… I wish I could be like him.”
“Because he’s so much more handsome?” Hikaru guessed. Takaki glared a bit.
“Because he doesn’t even seem nervous. It’s amazing!” Takaki threw his hands up. “I don’t understand it! I asked him if he was ready for the first task, and he just shrugged and said ‘nah’. Casual as anything. We’re up against something unknown, that’s on possibly the same danger caliber as dragons, and all he had to say was ‘nah’.”
“He’s probably worried on the inside.” Yabu told him, but Takaki didn’t look convinced, taking another drink.
“What do you think the first task is going to be?” Inoo asked. He had an excited light in his eye, but Takaki looked less like he was excited and more like he was going to be sick.
“It was dragons last time, so maybe you have to fight some other creature.” Hikaru pointed out.
“Chimaera?” Chinen proposed helpfully, and Takaki went white.
“No, no.” Yabu said quickly. “They changed the Tournament regulations to make it less dangerous; there can’t be any deadly beasts this time around.”
According to Professor Takizawa--who seemed to know more about the Tournament’s inner workings than he ought to--there had been exhaustive negotiations to get the Tournament up and running again, and that had Yabu feeling that there weren’t going to be any giant and bloodthirsty lion-goat-dragon hybrids let loose anywhere near the contestants. Despite all of his reassurances, Yabu found Takaki late Monday night curled up on one of the common room couches, staring into the fire.
“You know I love you, right?” Takaki said as Yabu came to sit down next to him. “After tomorrow, make sure you send an owl to my parents, and tell them I love them too.”
Yabu chuckled at his melodramatics, and Takaki rested his head on his shoulder.
“You’re not going to die tomorrow, you know that.” He said. “Come on, the worst that could happen is that you come in last.”
“The key word in ‘mortal embarrassment’ is the mortality part, you know.” Takaki said, rather matter of factly. “I’m just not cut out for this kind of thing.”
“Sure you are. You’ve had coming on seven years of magical schooling, and you punched an acromantula in the face for me once. You can take on anything.”
Takaki laughed a little, shaking his head at the memory. Just a few months into Hikaru’s second year at Hogwarts, the curious Slytherin had wanted to see what made the Forbidden Forest so forbidden, begging for Yabu to come with him. Yabu had always been unable to deny any request of Hikaru’s--a lifelong friendship would do that to someone--and Takaki had heard him sneaking out that night, insisting that Yabu was too scrawny to go anywhere in the castle alone. Much to their horror, the thing that made the Forbidden Forest so forbidden was a hoard of eight foot long man-eating spiders, and Yabu still maintained that the three of them barely made it out of the situation with all of the same limbs they went into it with. He was grateful for it though, because it was the event that dragged Takaki into their friend group, and Yabu was able talk to him, instead of just snagging glances at him over their cauldrons in potions. Not that Yabu didn’t still do that anyway.
“I like that you think that.” Takaki told him, finding Yabu’s hand and entwining their fingers, resting them together on his thigh. “I was just trying to act cool in front of you, you know.”
“Well, I already thought you were cool.” Yabu told him, kissing the top of Takaki’s head, getting a contented chuckle in response. “I mean, you were also the wimpy potions partner that didn’t want to touch the frog livers, but you were cool all the same.”
“Oh hush, you didn’t want to touch them either.” Takaki grumbled back, but Yabu could hear the smile in his voice.
“Really though, you need to get some sleep.” Yabu said, straightening up a bit, shifting so Takaki would lift his head. He stood up, standing in front of Takaki and giving a slight tug on his hand, but it didn’t do much. “You should be going to bed.”
“Fine. But kiss me first.” Takaki requested, tugging at Yabu’s hand back, and Yabu laughed a little, letting Takaki pull him into his lap. He smiled into the kiss, letting his arms wind around his boyfriend’s neck, his fingers playing loosely with his hair. Takaki’s touch was so needy that it verged on desperate, and Yabu realized it was comfort that he needed, straddling his hips on the couch and sitting back on his thighs so he could pull Takaki closer to him. Takaki sighed into the contact, his warm hands finding the smooth skin of Yabu’s stomach and sides as he kissed back, slowly easing Yabu’s lips apart, affection on his tongue. When Takaki leaned back to breathe, he had a small, soft smile on his face, and Yabu felt his heart swell, about to lean in for another kiss when Takaki spoke up.
“Okay. Now I’ll go to bed.”
“But--”
“You’re the one that said…” Takaki’s voice was warm with amusement, grinning wider now, and Yabu sighed.
“...I hate that you’re right.” Yabu mumbled, Takaki letting out a coarse laugh, and a few kisses later they were finally on their feet, headed up the staircase and into bed.