this is now my x-men au icon.

[quigonejinn]

1.

Four months into being an obnoxious know-it-all first year and two weeks into being an obnoxious know-it-all first year giving correct answers in the third-year class he has been promoted to a week ago, Charles gets held down in the boys' bathroom on the fourth floor by four Gryffindors. They take turns trying various jinxes on him.

The next steps are a blur, but later, Charles pieces together what must have happened: Raven had been passing in the hallway with other Hufflepuffs on their way to Herbology. She heard him screaming when they gave up hexes and went to plain violence, and she came tearing into the bathroom wearing the form of the Gryffindor house master. That only put two of them to flight, so she dropped that form and started swinging the heavy, hard-backed Herbology text she had been carrying to class and which she had brought into the bathroom with her just in case.

There is quick movement, some cracking noises, and Charles finds that he is trying to stand on his feet. Raven is breathing hard; winter air is streaming through the fine network of cracks in the bathroom window that radiate behind the head of one of the Gryffindors, who is out cold. Charles follows the streak of blood from the cover of Raven's Herbology text to the fourteen year old on the floor. He is gripping his face with both hands and howling around the blood pumping from between his fingers.

Hufflepuffs are crowded, yelling, around the door, excited but also scared by the noise. Charles staggers against the wall, still bent double, and picks his wand up and points it at the howling Gryffindor. Raven has probably smashed his nose, and Charles is going to think in a moment about how she learned to fight like this and how it can't all come from the Quidditch pitch, but he doesn't have time for that right now. The howling is going to bring someone; soon, one of the Hufflepuffs is going to get brave enough to look around the corner. He takes a deep breath.

"Obliviate," he says.

The Gryffindor stops screaming mid-noise for a moment, then starts again, with an entirely new, bewildered note in his voice; with a snarl and a shake of her head, Raven wrestles herself back into human form.

They dock Hufflepuff twenty-five points, but dock Gryffindor a hundred and twenty-five and put the memory loss down to head injury.

The secret in this universe is not that Raven can change: instead, it is what she looks like when she hasn't done any changing at all.


2.

Charles brings Erik back to Hogwarts by promising that in the libraries at Hogwarts, one of the greatest magical resources in the world, Erik will find what he needs to -- Charles doesn't use the word "kill" or "murder" or even the euphemism "bring to justice." What does Erik care about justice? Charles uses the word "fight", but knows it isn't quite applicable, because Erik intends to kill Shaw or Schmidt or whatever his name happens to be. There is also a very hands-on element of the word that doesn't quite fit for a man who stays up late at night, reading, researching, conducting magical experiments in his work room. On the other hand, there are moments where Erik looks off for a moment between a bite of toast or idle, lunch-time talking at the faculty room. Erik turns his face from the conversation, fixes his eyes upon something far and innocuous in the distance, and Charles can feel, like a prickle on the back of the neck, the physical intensity of how much Erik wants to kill Shaw with Muggle means.

With his students, Erik is unflappable, largely friendly and slightly amused when they approach him, though not particularly warm. He rewards preparation, nerve, and coolness under pressure. He takes his fourth-years -- young enough to admit to being scared, old enough to do it -- in small groups on weekend camping trips to the Forbidden Forest and will help with carrying the equipment and setting up tents and cooking dinner, but leaves the rest of it to them. What is a defensible position? Will they have access to water? What proximity wards should be set, and how far out, and who will make sure that they are maintained?

"Half of defense is knowing where the battle will be and planning accordingly," he tells them, then leans back against a log with a book.

After they have crawled into their tents to sleep except for the ones taking first watch, Erik is still stretched out by the fire, reading. When Raven is sitting on a log next to him in the morning, happily polishing off the last of her breakfast, Erik looks up from the book to their open mouths.

"Good morning. I don't think your wards were quite set correctly last night," he says to the students. The book is in his lap.

Raven smiles around a very large mouthful of sausage, toast, butter, and marmalade. She swallows. "Erik, are there any more sausages?"

"I'm afraid that's the last of them." Erik lets himself smile a little. "How much did you eat?"

"Eight sausages, ten strips of bacon, a dozen eggs, and two tins of beans," she says. At the sad look on the brown-haired boy's face, she adds, "I did leave you some marmalade. Though no bread. I ate all the bread."

Erik looks over, more than somewhat amused at just how much she is enjoying this.

"You're Professor Xavier's sister," one of the students finally blurts out. "You work down at the Three Broomsticks. You just changed your hair to the same color as Angus's."

"I'm a pretty good Metamorphagus," she says and reaches over for the aforementioned marmalade, pops the lid off and wipes her finger around the rim. "Even better Beater, but that's neither here or there. After all, it's hungry work being a centaur for six hours straight. Even a half-grown one. I feel all hollow inside."

She pops the marmalade-coated finger into her mouth, and the prospect of the four hour hike back to Hogwarts with no breakfast is starting to really sink into the students.

Charles arrives a few minutes later with the two exhausted, cold, hungry, and only slightly-recovered from the terror of having been led on a merry chase for four solid hours by Raven. The remaining students had, in fact, entirely forgotten about the fact that their watch hadn't returned, and Erik talks to them about this in detail while Charles starts unloading the makings his sleeves and robe pockets, including a dining table with chairs and silver service for eight, kippers, hot chocolate for the students, coffee for the grown-ups, and the Wizarding Wireless for everybody to listen to the Chudley and Falmouth game of the morning. Raven fries the sausages and directs the set-up of the table and the slicing of the tomatoes to go with breakfast, because she fully intends to eat again.

When it is ready, they sit down for Sunday morning breakfast under the pine trees. Charles takes a deep breath, opens his eyes, lets go of Raven's hand, and looks to the other end of the table and catches Erik's eye. Erik smiles, then goes back to talking to Angus on his right about the proper wand angle for deflecting incoming hexes. The book Erik had been reading is left on the log. A bird calls in the trees. The air is sweet with the smell of pine trees and forest and cooking, and Charles sets to his breakfast with knife in one hand and fork in the other and deep, deep contentment in his heart.

In the years before the first coming of the Death Eaters, in the years before Erik kills Sebastian Shaw and Raven comes into her destiny, this is what Defense Against Dark Arts means at Hogwarts.







This is the direct result of spending most of the afternoon talking to ferricent about the 'verse, and with possibly_thrice suggesting Raven and Charles as Tri-Wizard champions.

The second snippet began life as me blathering to th_esaurus about what Erik would be liek as the DADA teacher, and the bit about Raven turning into a centaur is totally ferricent.

Comments

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

dang it, forgot my password, but wanted to keysmash over this line anyway:

The secret in this universe is not that Raven can change: instead, it is what she looks like when she hasn't done any changing at all.

I love how that's inescapably true, regardless of the universe you find Raven in.

And holy god Raven's metabolism and Charles packing in the proper wizard fashion (and jesus Charles is basically Dumbledore in this verse. Of course. Of course.)

And that last line. That last line. Christ.

[possibly_thrice]

Huge secret: Raven rescuing Charles from being beaten up is actually my favorite thing. That, and Charles being his usual offhandedly brainwiping self. This is all excellent, mind.