The winter holidays had slipped away faster than Gabriel would have liked, and before he knew it, the train back to Hogwarts was already rumbling with life. He sat in one of the compartments, Neville Longbottom squeezed in beside him, rifling nervously through his satchel for the fourth time while Trevor the toad quivered miserably in his grip.
"Didn't forget anything, did I?" Neville muttered to himself. "No, no, robes, wand, books… oh - Trevor, don't you dare-" He tightened his hold as the toad tried to wriggle free.
Gabriel chuckled, resting his chin against the cool glass of the window. Outside, families swarmed the platform, hugging, calling out, shuffling luggage. He watched absentmindedly until a familiar bushy head of hair caught his eye. Hermione, dragging a trolley loaded with books and trunks, was flanked by her parents.
The Grangers were unmistakably Muggle. Her mother was tall and slim, with tidy brown curls a shade lighter than Hermione's, dressed in a neat wool coat buttoned to the throat. Her father, broader, with kind eyes behind square-rimmed spectacles, wore a practical tweed jacket and scarf, already dusted with snow. They both looked every bit the picture of ordinary suburban respectability - utterly out of place amidst the chaos of owls, trunks, and enchanted steam, though the wonder in their eyes was unmistakable.
Gabriel smiled - then froze.
Because just beyond them, stepping out of the sea of bodies with deliberate grace, was Eloá.
His mother.
And she was striding directly toward Hermione's parents.
"Oh no," Gabriel muttered, eyes widening. "This is going to be a trainwreck."
"What!?" Neville yelped, nearly dropping Trevor in panic.
Gabriel turned quickly. "Sorry, sorry- not the train, Neville. I didn't mean-" He was already laughing, though he tried and failed to smother it with his hand.
Neville, still pale, pressed his face to the window, searching for smoke or flames. "Are you sure!?"
That only made Gabriel laugh harder.
A moment later the door slid open and Hermione stepped inside, brushing snowflakes off her coat. She frowned immediately at the sight of them. "You're making such a racket you can be heard three compartments down. People are trying to settle in."
Gabriel tried to compose himself, though a grin still lingered.
"What's so funny, then?" she asked, suspicious.
He leaned back, smirk tugging at his lips. "Oh, nothing much. Just that there's about to be a trainwreck."
Neville let out another strangled scream. "You said there wasn't going to be!"
That did it - Gabriel doubled over in laughter again.
Hermione rolled her eyes, marched over, and smacked him firmly on the shoulder. "Stop scaring him!"
Gabriel only wheezed harder, wiping a tear from his eye. For all the chaos, for all the strangeness, the sound of their bickering filled him with warmth. There was nothing like home, he thought - but Merlin, it was good to be back at Hogwarts.
-~=~-
By the end of the second week of February, Winter finally seemed to be loosening its grip on the castle grounds, though the grass still crunched faintly underfoot and patches of frost clung stubbornly to the edges of the courtyard. Breath still fogged in the air, but the sunlight was warm enough that a few brave students had spilled outside to enjoy it.
Gabriel, Neville, and Hermione stood a little apart, their wands drawn, a collection of smooth, grey spheres laying on the ground around them - transfigured stones.
"So that's the game. You cast Levioso on the ball and then throw it at someone with a Flipendo. If you hit, that's one point for you - if the person manages to throw it back at you and it hits? Two points for them."
Neither of the other two seemed very enthused by the idea. Gabriel snorted.
"It'll be fun," He insisted, holding one of the balls and throwing them up, catching it as it fell back into his hand with a meaty 'thwack'.
Neville still looked uncertain. "You're sure - absolutely sure - it won't hurt?"
Gabriel grinned. "Neville, I spongified them myself. They're softer than pudding. Here-" He threw it right at the other boy's chest, though it hit the shoulder instead because of his flinch. It bounced off him with a dull 'paft' and fell harmlessly to the ground. "See?"
Neville relaxed by degrees, but Hermione still looked skeptical, hugging her book to her chest like a shield. Her gaze slid longingly to its cover.
Gabriel considered how to convince her to play. Maybe a logical argument about how it would be great practice - both of their reflexes and their spell-casting skills? But then he realized who, exactly, he was trying to convince.
So instead he tilted his chin, one eyebrow raised, lips curling into a teasing smirk. "What's the matter, Mione? Afraid to lose? Don't worry, I'll go easy on you."
Her eye twitched. Ah, there it was. Reliable as sunrise.
She set the book down with exaggerated care, then raised her wand like a duelist. "You'll regret that."
The first volley came from Hermione, her Levioso crisp and precise. The enchanted sphere whirled up into the air, then she snapped her wand, sending it Gabriel's way with a neat Flipendo - the Knockback Jinx sparking from her wand-tip in a crackling bolt of pale blue light before it struck the sphere.
It shot at Gabriel faster than he'd expected, and he barely twisted aside, laughing breathlessly as the ball streaked past his shoulder.
"Too slow," Hermione sniffed.
Neville hesitated before trying the same, his spell stuttering a bit, but the ball drifted toward Gabriel anyway. Gabriel deflected it with a lazy flick of his wand, sending it rolling back - straight into Neville's stomach with a whump.
Neville wheezed, but when he realized it hadn't hurt at all, he laughed, red-faced.
Round after round, they traded blows. Hermione's aim was ruthless, her "lion's mane" hair frizzing more wildly with each sharp motion, while Neville grew bolder the longer they played, his short legs surprisingly quick to dodge. Gabriel held his own easily enough, but more often than not, he turned his dodges into overdramatic pratfalls, just to make Neville laugh.
Finally, when Neville sent one wobbling sphere his way, Gabriel deliberately pretended not to see it, and instead let it bounce square off his face with a loud smack. He stumbled backward, clutching at his cheek. "Oh! Oh no! I'm slain!"
Neville's eyes went round, and then he burst into giggles, glowing with pride. Hermione raised her brows, giving Gabriel a knowing look, but didn't call him out on it. Gabriel only winked back, pleased.
At some point, one of Gabriel's overzealous launches went wild, the sphere arcing past Neville's dodge and soaring out of bounds. It smacked into a cluster of Hufflepuffs strolling across the courtyard.
Gabriel winced, jogging a few steps after it. "Sorry! Sorry, that wasn't-"
But the girl it had bounced off, Susan Bones, only laughed, scooping up the soft, enchanted sphere in both hands. "Don't worry," she said with a flash of teeth, eyes narrowing at him in challenge, though he noticed how it quickly flitted from his hand up to his eyes. "I'll get my payback."
Before Gabriel could protest, she lobbed the ball back into their circle with a practiced flick. Hannah Abbott and Leanne Sullivan exchanged quick grins, and in seconds the two of them - and Wayne Hopkins, who looked like he wasn't sure how this happened but wasn't about to be left out - had drifted over, wands already half-raised.
Susan joined the game with an easy confidence, planting herself besides Hermione, right across from Gabriel like a declaration of intent.
Hannah, meanwhile, settled next to Neville at the edge of the rough circle. "Hello, Neville. Do you mind if we join?" she asked softly.
Neville blinked, color blooming hot across his cheeks. "Uh- uh- y-yeah! Yes! I mean, n-no, I don't mind, I mean- hello!" He finally squeaked out.
Hermione pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile. Gabriel arched his brows, biting down a laugh of his own as Neville nearly dropped his wand fumbling to ready it.
Susan wasted no time proving herself a menace - her aim was sharp, and her spells carried a kind of gleeful aggression. The very first ball she sent out caught Gabriel in the hip with a thunk.
"Point for me," she crowed.
Gabriel narrowed his eyes, rubbing the spot theatrically. "Alright, Bones. It's war."
The next exchange became a free-for-all. Wayne Hopkins tried to levitate two spheres at once, only to get flustered and send both shooting straight into the ground with a muffled plop. Leanne Sullivan took advantage, zapping one into the air and smacking Gabriel in the shoulder before he could dodge.
Hermione, who had at first treated the Hufflepuff reinforcements with wary suspicion, was soon grinning in spite of herself, her practiced precision earning her three clean hits in a row.
"Unfair," Gabriel gasped after barely sidestepping her fourth. "You've got a whole bloody firing squad backing you up."
"Maybe you should've thought of that before taunting me," she shot back.
Meanwhile, Hannah sent a sphere gently floating Neville's way, her Flipendo so careful it nudged more than blasted. Neville, in a moment of sheer panic, whipped his wand and sent it rebounding - not at her, but straight into Susan, who yelped when it bounced off her nose.
Neville's face turned crimson, but Susan only laughed, brandishing her wand at him in mock-threat.
The courtyard rang with laughter, spells, and the occasional cry of triumph or dismay as the ragtag team of Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs and sole Ravenclaw turned the makeshift game into something closer to a full-blown match.
Of course, for something improvised on the spot, it's just to be expected that some flaws in design would end up appearing. First - they lost track of points almost immediately - Hermione tried keeping count in her head but gave up after the addition of four new players messed up with whatever mental tally she had created.
The second flaw was that, well... The Knockback Jinx was a spell with a 'Bolt-Type' of manifestation. This meant that each cast sent a thin bolt of crackling blue energy sizzling through the air, a slow, jagged stroke of light that looked like magical lightning and would affect whatever it hit. Most of the time, it struck the enchanted spheres without issue.
Most of the time.
This time, however, Neville - who at the best of times had uncertain aim, and was now as nervous as only a pre-pubescent boy near their crush could be - aimed a little too far to the right. The spell missed the ball entirely and zipped onward, striking not a tree or the ground like it had in previous times when someone made such a mistake - but instead a figure striding along the edge of the courtyard.
The bolt met against black robes, and the person inside them barely had time to turn and react to what was going on before the spell took effect and sent them flipping and flying through the air and into some neatly trimmed bushes nearby.
For a moment, Gabriel prayed to any god who would listen that there was another member of the Hogwarts faculty who he hadn't met yet - another pasty white, greasy haired, bat looking weirdo who looked very much like Professor Snape - but who was, in fact, a supremely kind being, doted of infinite patience and a profound fondness for the sillyness of children.
One glance at the face covered in loose leaves glaring at them with bloody murder in its eyes was enough to suppress any hope he may have had. That mathematically perfect angle of hooked nose couldn't possibly belong to anyone else.
'Ohhhhhh, porra.'