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More fic.
The cat stood up on its rear legs like a meerkat and leaned in to Lea's fingers as he fussed its folded over ears. It was black and white, with short little legs resulting in an odd, waddling walk. “Kinda cute for a mutant,” Lea commented, moving his fingers to the back of the cat's neck. It seemed perfectly happy to be sat up on its hind legs.
Isa grumbled, “It's evil,” as he dabbed essence of murtlap onto his shredded hands. They didn't have any dittany, and he didn't want to go and ask for any at the infirmary because they would inevitably ask what he'd done to get the injuries.
Lea gave his friend a knowing look. “You're the one who wanted to kidnap it.” He grinned, broadly. Under his hand, the cat began to purr, a slow, soft rumble as it settled down and flipped onto its back, legs splayed in the air and allowing Lea to scratch its belly.
“Ulquiorra had it coming,” Isa replied, with a hint of menace in his voice. The fact was that Ulquiorra, Hufflepuff's Seeker and another one who was just a little too quick with his spells for Isa's liking, not to mention a distinct tendency to quietly suck up to every teacher and especially Hufflepuff's head of House, Professor Aizen, had ensured a Hufflepuff victory over the Gryffindor team. Isa, with a competitive streak that was easily as bad as Ulquiorra's, hadn't taken well to losing. Gryffindor were now at risk of losing any chance at winning the Quidditch cup, depending on the outcome of the next match.
“You know,” Lea said, conversationally, “there's a whole team in Quidditch. It's not just the Seeker.”
For the first time since he'd come in carrying the cat, which had been trying to gnaw his finger off, Isa looked directly at Lea. “I'm aware,” he answered, He looked back down to dab murtlap essence on the back of his scratched left hand before he said anything more. “The rest of the Hufflepuff team, however, aren't teacher's pets like he is, so he's earned it twice.”
Lea laughed, and stopped petting the cat to flop back on Isa's bed, his arms folded behind his own head. “People might think you've got a crush,” he teased.
“They already do,” Isa replied, not lifting his eyes from his hand, but instead examining his handiwork. The sting had gone out of the scratches. He looked at Lea, almost a little pointedly. “On you,” he reminded him. That was something else he'd never quite managed to live down; his boggart, being revealed in front of the whole class to be Lea, but a Lea who had lay collapsed on the floor, eyes pearly white, skin pale, lips blue, chest not rising. He'd endured whispers ever since, other students nudging each other with their elbows as he passed, pointing and sniggering behind hands. The Slytherin response had been the worst. Isa had, for the most part, dealt with it by not dealing with it, but the whispers persisted and didn't seem in any hurry to die down.
His greatest fear was losing his best friend, but nobody else had suffered anything similar. They, at least, had feared mundane things like spiders, and snakes. Isa had been the only one whose sole fear was a little more esoteric.
“You still going on about that?” Lea asked, lifting his head to look at Isa. “Come on. Yours was no way worse than that chick with the fear of bananas.”
“How comforting,” Isa replied, as flatly as he could manage. Silently, Isa thought he'd have preferred the bananas. At least then he'd be roundly mocked, instead of it being whispers, and girls giggling, and some sneering, and worst of all, some of the teachers trying to give him understanding looks and quietly offer their support.
Lea sat up, and reached over to punch Isa in the shoulder, “Get yourself a girlfriend and they'll all shut up, got it memori--” Lea didn't get any further. Isa's wand was pointed at him and a muttered silencio had robbed him of his voice. He gave Isa a distinctly unhappy look, making a big show of pouting.
“You only use that catchphrase because you know it's annoying,” Isa said, his wand still pointed at Lea. The kidnapped cat rather ruined the effect by sitting up and pawing at the tip of Isa's wand as if it was a toy. He pulled his wand away, and then released the spell on Lea, who promptly blew a raspberry at Isa and made a face.
“So what do you plan to do with your hostage?” Lea asked, reaching down to fuss over the cat once more. The cat responded by falling onto its back and waggling its paws at Lea's hand, reaching in to bite at his knuckles in a very gentle, playful manner before arching back and letting Lea tickle its tummy again.
Isa barely gave the cat a glance. “I'm going to send a note.”
*****
Ulquiorra was waiting near the Whomping Willow, hands in his pockets. A pale boy with vivid green eyes and dark hair, he looked more bored than anything, standing straight backed, but with his hands in his pockets. Isa had heard he was halfblood, his mother a muggle, not that it made any difference; he conducted himself like a pureblood to the core.
“Where is Stumpy?” He asked, as Isa approached, not moving an inch.
Isa felt one of his eyebrows head for his hairline. “Stumpy?” He asked, his voice giving away his incredulity. He'd never imagined someone like Ulquiorra to be the kind of person who would call his pet 'Stumpy'.
“Yes,” Ulquiorra replied, taking no apparent heed of Isa's surprise. “Where is he?”
Isa shook his head before he replied, “Don't know what you're talking about.” He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes, and saw Ulquiorra's eyes track the scratch marks on his hand.
“What have you done to him?” Ulquiorra asked, his voice flat, and emotionless. His eyes lingered on the scratches even as Isa put his hand back down by his side.
“Nothing,” Isa replied, with a trace of indignation. “What makes you think I have your cat?”
Ulquiorra watched Isa as if he was a lab specimen. Isa made sure to put his hands safely in his own pockets. Eventually Ulquiorra said, “I know it was you who sent me that note.”
“Is this why you asked to see me?” Isa asked, playing ignorant. Ulquiorra didn't answer. “I don't know anything about your cat,” Isa said, with an air of finality.
Ulquiorra glared after him as Isa turned back around to walk away.
*****
“You know,” Lea said, idly dangling a piece of string for Stumpy to chase, “when they put you in detention for the next eleven billion years, make sure you tell them I had nothing to do with this, got it memorised?”
Isa looked at him, briefly, and then went back to his homework. He'd told Lea what Ulquiorra suspected, and how the intention was to hold the cat until the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw match was over with. Now he was continuing with his Transfiguration homework. He didn't give any verbal response, but Lea seemed not to be expecting one.
“When's the next full moon?” He asked, once he'd bored of playing with the cat and rolled onto his stomach to read Isa's homework over his shoulder. He'd probably copy it off him, later.
“I start taking the potion again in two days,” Isa replied, quietly. He hated it, and made no secret of it, but he still took it because the alternative was far worse.
“Bad luck,” Lea replied. They fell into silence again, the only sound was the scratch of Isa's quill on parchment, and the leafing of paper as he checked references in his textbook. After a few minutes of this, Lea asked, curiously, “Is that why your boggart isn't,” he hesitated as Isa stopped writing but didn't look up and then forged ahead with, “well, you?”
Isa lay, frozen for a few moments, before he answered in a voice that didn't invite further inquiry, “Yes.”
Lea nodded at the answer, and he didn't probe further until the scratch of Isa's quill on paper had resumed. When he did, everything went a little frosty; “So, why is it--?”
“Why is it you?” Isa cut in, his voice chilly and snappish, and he turned to look at Lea with some degree of irritation.
Lea gave him an awkward smile in response before he asked, quietly, “Well, yeah.”
Isa regarded him with hardness in his eyes, his lips pressed together; he looked like the haughty pureblood he tried not to be. He turned away, back to his essay, before he answered, “Because you're the only friend I've ever had,” he answered, quietly. It was an embarrassing thing to admit.
Lea nodded, and then asked, as if he had to make very sure, “So it's not because you've--?”
Once again, he didn't finish as Isa cut across him, “No, Lea, I do not have a crush on you. Attractive as I know you think you are, you are, believe it or not, resistible.” Isa propped himself up on his elbows and looked at Lea steadily. “Who has said what to make you ask?”
Lea sat up properly, smiling just a fraction too brightly and insisting, “No one, nothing, I just wondered.”
Isa regarded Lea coolly, obviously not believing him. After a few moments of it, Lea caved and admitted, “I just heard Apache and the others saying how you being into guys would make sense because you,” he hesitated as Isa's eyebrows rose, and chose his words tentatively, “never seem to be into girls?” When Isa gave no immediate response, Lea spoke in a rush, “Which is cool! If you're not, I mean. It's not like I find it weird, but some other people might not--”
“Lea?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Right.”
Isa returned to his homework, finishing off his paragraph before he spoke again. “I like girls, there are just very few here that I like and have a chance with,” he said, quietly.
Lea seemed to take that in before he asked, “So wait. Who do you like that you don't have a chance with?”
The response wasn't what Lea was expecting. Isa's cheeks flushed and he turned pointedly back to his transfiguration homework under the pretence of reading what he'd done so far. After a moment, he admitted, quietly, “Neliel.”
Lea stared. “That prefect?” He exclaimed, with obvious amusement.
“Yes,” Isa replied, a little defensively.
“Well,” Lea responded, “I can see why!” He held both of his hands out in front of his chest, as if supporting two very large, vaguely spherical weights. Isa punched him in the upper arm, sending it dead.
“She's nice, that's all.”
“She can kick your ass,” Lea pointed out, rubbing the spot on his arm where Isa had punched.
“I know.”
“Is that what you like about her?” Lea asked, a bright grin on his face. He had to admit, Nel was pretty, in the face as well as other areas, and she was funny. You just never wanted to get on the wrong side of her. When one of the fourth year boys had been learning the summoning charm, he'd attempted to summon one of Nel's bras from her dormitory. He hadn't succeeded, mostly because he'd found himself in a full body bind and hanging upside down before he'd finished saying the charm.
Isa didn't respond to the question, which was enough guilt for Lea to yell, “It is! You little freak, Isa!”
Isa responded with another spirited punch to Lea's arm. It only sent Lea off into a fit of laughter. “You're right though,” he said, when he'd started to calm down but was still wearing that huge grin, “she is way out of your league.”
“Thank you,” Isa replied, dripping sarcasm, “for those kind words.”
“Hey, at least you're not crushing on Professor Strange,” Lea said, “because then I'd have to disown you, got it--”
“Langlock,” said Isa, his wand pointed at Lea, leaving Lea incapable of finishing his sentence. As Lea struggled to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, Isa said, quite simply, “I did tell you about that catchphrase.”
*****
The Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw match went badly for Gryffindor. Trudging away from the stadium,Isa and Lea were breaking down the course of events necessary for Gryffindor to still have a chance at the cup. They were long odds.
“If Hufflepuff beat Slytherin, they'll win, and we can still take second,” Lea finished, as if it was the best they could hope for now.
It wasn't good enough for Isa, who walked with his hands in his pockets and a sullen expression on his face. The full moon had been the previous night, and Isa still looked pale and drawn. It didn't help that the full moon at Hogwarts meant Isa spending the night in the infirmary, carefully shielded from view behind curtains and allowed no visitors. Lea knew how much he hated it.
“Isa!” A girl's voice called from behind them, and Lea was the first to turn around in surprise. Isa soon followed, standing up straighter as soon as he saw who it was.
Neliel hurried up to them, but the expression on her face didn't bode entirely well. “I couldn't find you last night,” she started, “we need a word.”
“About what?” Isa asked.
“I know you have Ulquiorra's cat,” she said, and held up her hand to silence any protest before it started. “I know you do, and so does he. But I suggest you give it back quickly because he's going to tell Professor Aizen about it going missing and frame it as an attempt to sabotage the Hufflepuff team,” she looked at Isa and added, pointedly, “which it wasn't, was it?”
“No,” Isa said.
“Good,” Nel replied. “He said he was going to tell Aizen if the cat hasn't showed up before the match, so if he hasn't already told him, he'll be telling him soon. You haven't got long.”
Isa smiled, very faintly, “Thank you,” he said, and turned to walk a little more quickly back up to the school, Lea trailing after him as he gave Nel a wave.
He nudged Isa in the arm with his elbow. “She knows who you are,” he said, sounding slightly impressed.
“Only because she's reported me to Johnson so many times,” Isa replied.
Lea shrugged. “I can't see Johnson caring about a kidnapped cat, you know.”
“No,” Isa admitted, he found it difficult to see their very laid back head of house caring one iota about a kidnapped cat. Even if the guy had been an auror, he almost encouraged minor rulebreaking just so long as no one ever found out about it, and that included himself. He didn't give punishments for breaking the rules so much as getting caught breaking the rules. “But he hates dealing with the other heads of house,” Isa pointed out, “and he won't like Aizen coming and telling him to do as dormitory sweep. Not to mention all the points we'll lose for every bit of contraband he finds if he does one.”
Lea grimaced, remembering the party during their second year after the team had won the cup. Professor Johnson had showed up at two in the morning and threatened to silencio everyone because they were keeping the old folk awake. He'd docked points for their failure to get firewhisky, docked more points for stupidity when someone had brandished a bottle and said that they had, and he'd confiscated the booze, then he'd docked them another round of points for making him have to talk with Professor Lestrange at two in the morning, another lot of points had gone for failing to cast muffliato around the tower, and then he'd taught them all how to cast muffliato and awarded them a point each for learning it. It had been a weird and confusing night, especially since Gryffindor had ended up with more points than they'd started and yet still felt as though they were in trouble. It was hard to know where they stood with their head of house a lot of the time.
“So,” Lea said, once they were back inside the building and heading for the portrait hole; he couldn't help but notice that they were moving just a little faster than a normal walk, “how are you going to get it back to him?”
“I know what I'm going to do,” Isa replied.
Inside, he darted up to their dormitory quickly. He gave Lea little more than a quick wave as he came down, and immediately headed back out of the portrait hole.
Twenty minutes later, Isa returned, having obviously run. He was flushed in the face, and out of breath. “What did you do?” Lea asked him as Isa collapsed into one of the chairs by the fire.
“Put a body bind curse on the cat and left it stood outside the Hufflepuff entrance,” he said, in an undertone. “I had to wait until the coast was clear. Aizen almost caught me though. He ran into me on my way down there and asked if I was lost.”
“What did you tell him?” Lea asked, looking mildly concerned, and also a little jealous that he'd missed out on the fun.
Isa shrugged. “That I was heading for the kitchen. He told me that students aren't allowed in the kitchens and to go back to my common room, so I had to come part way back and then go around another way.”
“But you've done it?”
“Yes,” Isa said, with a nod.
“You wanna be more careful,” a familiar voice, in a painfully familiar accent, intoned from just over their shoulder, “where you go telling your stories.” Isa looked around with obvious dread as Professor Johnson lifted the disillusionment charm on himself. He looked down at Isa, and Lea, through one golden yellow eye, his other covered by a black patch, and his face bearing a deep gouge in the skin of his cheek. “Now I'm gonna have to put you both in detention for the next month,” he said, as if this was more of an inconvenience to him than it would be to them.
“Lea didn't have anything to do with it” Isa said, quickly, jumping to his friend's defence.
Professor Johnson looked at Isa, and then Lea. “He knew about it,” he replied, “that makes him an accessory,” he said, turning back to Isa.
“I'll do double the detentions if you don't give any to Lea,” Isa said, trying hard to get Lea out of them.
“Nothing doing kiddo,” Professor Johnson replied. “I'm not giving one person two months of detentions if I can get them all done in a month over two people.”
“Why not just put everyone in our dorm in detention and get it done in a week?” Lea asked, before he'd really considered what he'd just said.
“Even better idea!” Professor Johnson replied. “I'll see you all tomorrow at eight. You make sure to tell them!”
Isa, and Lea, looked horror stricken as they watched their head of house leave.
The cat stood up on its rear legs like a meerkat and leaned in to Lea's fingers as he fussed its folded over ears. It was black and white, with short little legs resulting in an odd, waddling walk. “Kinda cute for a mutant,” Lea commented, moving his fingers to the back of the cat's neck. It seemed perfectly happy to be sat up on its hind legs.
Isa grumbled, “It's evil,” as he dabbed essence of murtlap onto his shredded hands. They didn't have any dittany, and he didn't want to go and ask for any at the infirmary because they would inevitably ask what he'd done to get the injuries.
Lea gave his friend a knowing look. “You're the one who wanted to kidnap it.” He grinned, broadly. Under his hand, the cat began to purr, a slow, soft rumble as it settled down and flipped onto its back, legs splayed in the air and allowing Lea to scratch its belly.
“Ulquiorra had it coming,” Isa replied, with a hint of menace in his voice. The fact was that Ulquiorra, Hufflepuff's Seeker and another one who was just a little too quick with his spells for Isa's liking, not to mention a distinct tendency to quietly suck up to every teacher and especially Hufflepuff's head of House, Professor Aizen, had ensured a Hufflepuff victory over the Gryffindor team. Isa, with a competitive streak that was easily as bad as Ulquiorra's, hadn't taken well to losing. Gryffindor were now at risk of losing any chance at winning the Quidditch cup, depending on the outcome of the next match.
“You know,” Lea said, conversationally, “there's a whole team in Quidditch. It's not just the Seeker.”
For the first time since he'd come in carrying the cat, which had been trying to gnaw his finger off, Isa looked directly at Lea. “I'm aware,” he answered, He looked back down to dab murtlap essence on the back of his scratched left hand before he said anything more. “The rest of the Hufflepuff team, however, aren't teacher's pets like he is, so he's earned it twice.”
Lea laughed, and stopped petting the cat to flop back on Isa's bed, his arms folded behind his own head. “People might think you've got a crush,” he teased.
“They already do,” Isa replied, not lifting his eyes from his hand, but instead examining his handiwork. The sting had gone out of the scratches. He looked at Lea, almost a little pointedly. “On you,” he reminded him. That was something else he'd never quite managed to live down; his boggart, being revealed in front of the whole class to be Lea, but a Lea who had lay collapsed on the floor, eyes pearly white, skin pale, lips blue, chest not rising. He'd endured whispers ever since, other students nudging each other with their elbows as he passed, pointing and sniggering behind hands. The Slytherin response had been the worst. Isa had, for the most part, dealt with it by not dealing with it, but the whispers persisted and didn't seem in any hurry to die down.
His greatest fear was losing his best friend, but nobody else had suffered anything similar. They, at least, had feared mundane things like spiders, and snakes. Isa had been the only one whose sole fear was a little more esoteric.
“You still going on about that?” Lea asked, lifting his head to look at Isa. “Come on. Yours was no way worse than that chick with the fear of bananas.”
“How comforting,” Isa replied, as flatly as he could manage. Silently, Isa thought he'd have preferred the bananas. At least then he'd be roundly mocked, instead of it being whispers, and girls giggling, and some sneering, and worst of all, some of the teachers trying to give him understanding looks and quietly offer their support.
Lea sat up, and reached over to punch Isa in the shoulder, “Get yourself a girlfriend and they'll all shut up, got it memori--” Lea didn't get any further. Isa's wand was pointed at him and a muttered silencio had robbed him of his voice. He gave Isa a distinctly unhappy look, making a big show of pouting.
“You only use that catchphrase because you know it's annoying,” Isa said, his wand still pointed at Lea. The kidnapped cat rather ruined the effect by sitting up and pawing at the tip of Isa's wand as if it was a toy. He pulled his wand away, and then released the spell on Lea, who promptly blew a raspberry at Isa and made a face.
“So what do you plan to do with your hostage?” Lea asked, reaching down to fuss over the cat once more. The cat responded by falling onto its back and waggling its paws at Lea's hand, reaching in to bite at his knuckles in a very gentle, playful manner before arching back and letting Lea tickle its tummy again.
Isa barely gave the cat a glance. “I'm going to send a note.”
*****
Ulquiorra was waiting near the Whomping Willow, hands in his pockets. A pale boy with vivid green eyes and dark hair, he looked more bored than anything, standing straight backed, but with his hands in his pockets. Isa had heard he was halfblood, his mother a muggle, not that it made any difference; he conducted himself like a pureblood to the core.
“Where is Stumpy?” He asked, as Isa approached, not moving an inch.
Isa felt one of his eyebrows head for his hairline. “Stumpy?” He asked, his voice giving away his incredulity. He'd never imagined someone like Ulquiorra to be the kind of person who would call his pet 'Stumpy'.
“Yes,” Ulquiorra replied, taking no apparent heed of Isa's surprise. “Where is he?”
Isa shook his head before he replied, “Don't know what you're talking about.” He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes, and saw Ulquiorra's eyes track the scratch marks on his hand.
“What have you done to him?” Ulquiorra asked, his voice flat, and emotionless. His eyes lingered on the scratches even as Isa put his hand back down by his side.
“Nothing,” Isa replied, with a trace of indignation. “What makes you think I have your cat?”
Ulquiorra watched Isa as if he was a lab specimen. Isa made sure to put his hands safely in his own pockets. Eventually Ulquiorra said, “I know it was you who sent me that note.”
“Is this why you asked to see me?” Isa asked, playing ignorant. Ulquiorra didn't answer. “I don't know anything about your cat,” Isa said, with an air of finality.
Ulquiorra glared after him as Isa turned back around to walk away.
*****
“You know,” Lea said, idly dangling a piece of string for Stumpy to chase, “when they put you in detention for the next eleven billion years, make sure you tell them I had nothing to do with this, got it memorised?”
Isa looked at him, briefly, and then went back to his homework. He'd told Lea what Ulquiorra suspected, and how the intention was to hold the cat until the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw match was over with. Now he was continuing with his Transfiguration homework. He didn't give any verbal response, but Lea seemed not to be expecting one.
“When's the next full moon?” He asked, once he'd bored of playing with the cat and rolled onto his stomach to read Isa's homework over his shoulder. He'd probably copy it off him, later.
“I start taking the potion again in two days,” Isa replied, quietly. He hated it, and made no secret of it, but he still took it because the alternative was far worse.
“Bad luck,” Lea replied. They fell into silence again, the only sound was the scratch of Isa's quill on parchment, and the leafing of paper as he checked references in his textbook. After a few minutes of this, Lea asked, curiously, “Is that why your boggart isn't,” he hesitated as Isa stopped writing but didn't look up and then forged ahead with, “well, you?”
Isa lay, frozen for a few moments, before he answered in a voice that didn't invite further inquiry, “Yes.”
Lea nodded at the answer, and he didn't probe further until the scratch of Isa's quill on paper had resumed. When he did, everything went a little frosty; “So, why is it--?”
“Why is it you?” Isa cut in, his voice chilly and snappish, and he turned to look at Lea with some degree of irritation.
Lea gave him an awkward smile in response before he asked, quietly, “Well, yeah.”
Isa regarded him with hardness in his eyes, his lips pressed together; he looked like the haughty pureblood he tried not to be. He turned away, back to his essay, before he answered, “Because you're the only friend I've ever had,” he answered, quietly. It was an embarrassing thing to admit.
Lea nodded, and then asked, as if he had to make very sure, “So it's not because you've--?”
Once again, he didn't finish as Isa cut across him, “No, Lea, I do not have a crush on you. Attractive as I know you think you are, you are, believe it or not, resistible.” Isa propped himself up on his elbows and looked at Lea steadily. “Who has said what to make you ask?”
Lea sat up properly, smiling just a fraction too brightly and insisting, “No one, nothing, I just wondered.”
Isa regarded Lea coolly, obviously not believing him. After a few moments of it, Lea caved and admitted, “I just heard Apache and the others saying how you being into guys would make sense because you,” he hesitated as Isa's eyebrows rose, and chose his words tentatively, “never seem to be into girls?” When Isa gave no immediate response, Lea spoke in a rush, “Which is cool! If you're not, I mean. It's not like I find it weird, but some other people might not--”
“Lea?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Right.”
Isa returned to his homework, finishing off his paragraph before he spoke again. “I like girls, there are just very few here that I like and have a chance with,” he said, quietly.
Lea seemed to take that in before he asked, “So wait. Who do you like that you don't have a chance with?”
The response wasn't what Lea was expecting. Isa's cheeks flushed and he turned pointedly back to his transfiguration homework under the pretence of reading what he'd done so far. After a moment, he admitted, quietly, “Neliel.”
Lea stared. “That prefect?” He exclaimed, with obvious amusement.
“Yes,” Isa replied, a little defensively.
“Well,” Lea responded, “I can see why!” He held both of his hands out in front of his chest, as if supporting two very large, vaguely spherical weights. Isa punched him in the upper arm, sending it dead.
“She's nice, that's all.”
“She can kick your ass,” Lea pointed out, rubbing the spot on his arm where Isa had punched.
“I know.”
“Is that what you like about her?” Lea asked, a bright grin on his face. He had to admit, Nel was pretty, in the face as well as other areas, and she was funny. You just never wanted to get on the wrong side of her. When one of the fourth year boys had been learning the summoning charm, he'd attempted to summon one of Nel's bras from her dormitory. He hadn't succeeded, mostly because he'd found himself in a full body bind and hanging upside down before he'd finished saying the charm.
Isa didn't respond to the question, which was enough guilt for Lea to yell, “It is! You little freak, Isa!”
Isa responded with another spirited punch to Lea's arm. It only sent Lea off into a fit of laughter. “You're right though,” he said, when he'd started to calm down but was still wearing that huge grin, “she is way out of your league.”
“Thank you,” Isa replied, dripping sarcasm, “for those kind words.”
“Hey, at least you're not crushing on Professor Strange,” Lea said, “because then I'd have to disown you, got it--”
“Langlock,” said Isa, his wand pointed at Lea, leaving Lea incapable of finishing his sentence. As Lea struggled to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, Isa said, quite simply, “I did tell you about that catchphrase.”
*****
The Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw match went badly for Gryffindor. Trudging away from the stadium,Isa and Lea were breaking down the course of events necessary for Gryffindor to still have a chance at the cup. They were long odds.
“If Hufflepuff beat Slytherin, they'll win, and we can still take second,” Lea finished, as if it was the best they could hope for now.
It wasn't good enough for Isa, who walked with his hands in his pockets and a sullen expression on his face. The full moon had been the previous night, and Isa still looked pale and drawn. It didn't help that the full moon at Hogwarts meant Isa spending the night in the infirmary, carefully shielded from view behind curtains and allowed no visitors. Lea knew how much he hated it.
“Isa!” A girl's voice called from behind them, and Lea was the first to turn around in surprise. Isa soon followed, standing up straighter as soon as he saw who it was.
Neliel hurried up to them, but the expression on her face didn't bode entirely well. “I couldn't find you last night,” she started, “we need a word.”
“About what?” Isa asked.
“I know you have Ulquiorra's cat,” she said, and held up her hand to silence any protest before it started. “I know you do, and so does he. But I suggest you give it back quickly because he's going to tell Professor Aizen about it going missing and frame it as an attempt to sabotage the Hufflepuff team,” she looked at Isa and added, pointedly, “which it wasn't, was it?”
“No,” Isa said.
“Good,” Nel replied. “He said he was going to tell Aizen if the cat hasn't showed up before the match, so if he hasn't already told him, he'll be telling him soon. You haven't got long.”
Isa smiled, very faintly, “Thank you,” he said, and turned to walk a little more quickly back up to the school, Lea trailing after him as he gave Nel a wave.
He nudged Isa in the arm with his elbow. “She knows who you are,” he said, sounding slightly impressed.
“Only because she's reported me to Johnson so many times,” Isa replied.
Lea shrugged. “I can't see Johnson caring about a kidnapped cat, you know.”
“No,” Isa admitted, he found it difficult to see their very laid back head of house caring one iota about a kidnapped cat. Even if the guy had been an auror, he almost encouraged minor rulebreaking just so long as no one ever found out about it, and that included himself. He didn't give punishments for breaking the rules so much as getting caught breaking the rules. “But he hates dealing with the other heads of house,” Isa pointed out, “and he won't like Aizen coming and telling him to do as dormitory sweep. Not to mention all the points we'll lose for every bit of contraband he finds if he does one.”
Lea grimaced, remembering the party during their second year after the team had won the cup. Professor Johnson had showed up at two in the morning and threatened to silencio everyone because they were keeping the old folk awake. He'd docked points for their failure to get firewhisky, docked more points for stupidity when someone had brandished a bottle and said that they had, and he'd confiscated the booze, then he'd docked them another round of points for making him have to talk with Professor Lestrange at two in the morning, another lot of points had gone for failing to cast muffliato around the tower, and then he'd taught them all how to cast muffliato and awarded them a point each for learning it. It had been a weird and confusing night, especially since Gryffindor had ended up with more points than they'd started and yet still felt as though they were in trouble. It was hard to know where they stood with their head of house a lot of the time.
“So,” Lea said, once they were back inside the building and heading for the portrait hole; he couldn't help but notice that they were moving just a little faster than a normal walk, “how are you going to get it back to him?”
“I know what I'm going to do,” Isa replied.
Inside, he darted up to their dormitory quickly. He gave Lea little more than a quick wave as he came down, and immediately headed back out of the portrait hole.
Twenty minutes later, Isa returned, having obviously run. He was flushed in the face, and out of breath. “What did you do?” Lea asked him as Isa collapsed into one of the chairs by the fire.
“Put a body bind curse on the cat and left it stood outside the Hufflepuff entrance,” he said, in an undertone. “I had to wait until the coast was clear. Aizen almost caught me though. He ran into me on my way down there and asked if I was lost.”
“What did you tell him?” Lea asked, looking mildly concerned, and also a little jealous that he'd missed out on the fun.
Isa shrugged. “That I was heading for the kitchen. He told me that students aren't allowed in the kitchens and to go back to my common room, so I had to come part way back and then go around another way.”
“But you've done it?”
“Yes,” Isa said, with a nod.
“You wanna be more careful,” a familiar voice, in a painfully familiar accent, intoned from just over their shoulder, “where you go telling your stories.” Isa looked around with obvious dread as Professor Johnson lifted the disillusionment charm on himself. He looked down at Isa, and Lea, through one golden yellow eye, his other covered by a black patch, and his face bearing a deep gouge in the skin of his cheek. “Now I'm gonna have to put you both in detention for the next month,” he said, as if this was more of an inconvenience to him than it would be to them.
“Lea didn't have anything to do with it” Isa said, quickly, jumping to his friend's defence.
Professor Johnson looked at Isa, and then Lea. “He knew about it,” he replied, “that makes him an accessory,” he said, turning back to Isa.
“I'll do double the detentions if you don't give any to Lea,” Isa said, trying hard to get Lea out of them.
“Nothing doing kiddo,” Professor Johnson replied. “I'm not giving one person two months of detentions if I can get them all done in a month over two people.”
“Why not just put everyone in our dorm in detention and get it done in a week?” Lea asked, before he'd really considered what he'd just said.
“Even better idea!” Professor Johnson replied. “I'll see you all tomorrow at eight. You make sure to tell them!”
Isa, and Lea, looked horror stricken as they watched their head of house leave.