WHO: Baz Snell & Jez Dearborn WHAT: Friendship! Through the ages! WHEN: The ages! Hogwarts to very recently but before werewolves in Tinworth. WHERE: Mostly Hogwarts. WARNINGS: Violence against spiders.
Twelve-year-old Barnaby Snell was craned over a large textbook, though the words in front of him were beginning to blur together. He understood the theory behind the Freezing Charm, it was the practical application of it that was giving him trouble. He glanced around the library, taking note of the other clusters of students huddled over their tables. They could probably cast the Freezing Charm without setting something on fire, or turning something an odd shade of green.
Propping his elbows up on the table, he clasped his hands over his head and buried his face in his book. It did not smell pleasant. After exhaling a very dramatic sigh, he tilted his head up and peered across the table at Jeremy, who was consumed with his own Charms homework.
“How’s it going?” he mumbled, obviously miserable.
Jeremy made a point of finishing the sentence he was writing before looking up, making a face as he did. “You look like you’re going to be sick. If you are, you should do it over at them,” he said, nodding towards a table of Slytherins nearby.
“I’m not going to be sick,” Baz replied, wrinkling his nose at the thought. “I might die, though, and then you’ll have to drag my body around and stuff.” He looked at Jeremy with a very somber expression, his eyebrows elevated slightly as he continued, “And you’ll have to give a great eulogy at my funeral.”
“What if I decide to give a terrible eulogy and don’t drag your body around like a creepy person?” Jeremy countered, setting down his quill and really considering the boy on the other side of the table. “Why are you dying anyway? If it’s because of charms, I don’t think it’s worth it.”
“Then I’ll be terribly, terribly hurt,” Baz replied with a vague smile, touching a hand to his chest. His smile faded a beat later, though, and he slid down in his chair as if he was trying to escape from the table by vanishing into the floor. “Everything usually comes to me naturally, so the fact that I can’t get this Freezing Charm is like, the worst thing in the world.”
“Have you tried actually practicing it? Because rumour has it, that helps.” Jeremy glanced around the library, and then after a moment of deciding there were too many people around, he stood up with his book in hand and gestured to Baz. “Come on, we can go over there and practice.”
Baz trailed after Jeremy with his own textbook in hand and a grim expression on his face. They stopped once they were a suitable distance away from most of the other library patrons, though Baz was keenly aware of Madam Pince looming in the background, ready to snap at any student unfortunate enough to break one of her rules. They would have to be quiet.
“It’s just, well,” he began to explain, sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck. “I mean, you saw it in class. I keep setting things on fire.”
“So stop setting things on fire,” Jeremy replied as if it was the most obvious answer in the world, although he offered a sympathetic smile a moment later. “You’re probably just too in your head about it. So try it out while nobody’s watching and maybe you won’t set anything on fire this time.”
“Maybe,” Baz replied, trying to look as confident as he sounded. He eyed their surroundings for a test subject, his gaze snagging on a small black spider skittering across the table in front of them. He knelt closer, as if he was going to poke it with the top of his wand, then made a circular motion over the spider. “Immobulus,” he said, face falling in dismay as the spider immediately turned bright green.
Raising his book, Jeremy casually tried to hide his amused smile behind it. “I think you have to make your wand movements a little sharper!” He was silently very glad Baz had found the spider to be his test subject rather than having to volunteer himself. He didn’t fancy being green. “Though at least now it doesn’t blend in with its surroundings.”
“You think so?” Baz asked, eyes darting between Jeremy and the bright green spider. He raised his wand once more, testing the movement out with a few quick gestures of his wand. He could do sharper. He could do this charm. He didn’t want to completely embarrass himself in front of Jeremy, after all. He cleared his throat, then recast the charm. Perhaps his wand movement had been too sharp, or maybe he had put the stress on the wrong syllable of the incantation.
Either way, the spider was soon engulfed in a large flame that was on the verge of setting the table ablaze too.
“Shit,” Baz said, eyes widened in panic as he looked helplessly to Jeremy.
“Shit,” Jeremy repeated, his first inclination to laugh fading into his own wide eyed panic once it was clear there was definitely a fire and they definitely needed to do something about it. “Pince is going to killllllllllll us,” he hissed frantically before aiming his wand to try and cast aguamenti to douse the flame. But instead of the slow single stream of water he was trying to produce, his anxiety caused him to send a fire hose’s worth of water absolutely everywhere.
Baz let out a panicked bark of laughter as he held up his textbook to defend his face from a blast of water. The floor was soaked, the table was soaked, and his book was now soaked. Shifting the book to one hand, he continued to hold it up as a shield as he pointed at Jeremy with his wand. “Make it stop or Pince is definitely going to—”
“Going to what, Snell?”
Somehow, without either of them noticing, Pince had materialized behind them. She looked down at them with steely eyes before snapping, “Finite Incantatem,” putting an end to the stream of water.
The three of them stood there in silence for a moment, water dripping from everywhere, before Baz began to launch into an explanation. “I was practicing my Freezing Charm and then I turned a spider green before I set it on fire. Jeremy was trying to help!”
“I was just trying to keep us all from dying a fiery—”
“Out!”
Jeremy opened his mouth to try and argue, that all of this was just an accident, that it wasn’t Baz’s fault that he sucked at freezing charms, that it wasn’t his own fault that he was a little too enthusiastic, but one look at Pince made him close his mouth tightly instead. There was a tiny nod as he reached over and tugged on Baz’s sleeve, giving them both enough time to quickly grab their stuff before fleeing.
Once they were outside the library, Jeremy looked over at the other boy. “Do you think she’s going to ban us from the library for life?” He personally found the thought a little horrifying.
Shifting the strap of his bag to a different shoulder, Baz gave Jeremy a skeptical look. “Us? Banned? Never. We’re too charming and adorable.”
“I’m ready. Are you ready?” Jeremy asked as he adjusted his bag over his shoulder, having double-checked its contents again and satisfied that they had anything they might want or need for their excursion. Surely the forbidden forest wouldn’t actually be as exciting as the word ‘forbidden’ implied, but he wanted to be prepared just in case. There was a whole plan. They’d been over it. Tonight was the night!
It was definitely exciting and not at all scary in any way.
Uncertainty flickered over Baz’s face as he cast a wary glance between Jeremy and his own bag of supplies. Truth be told, he felt wholly unprepared for an excursion in the Forbidden Forest. There were werewolves out there! There were creatures worse than werewolves. But he was reluctant to show any fear in front of Jeremy — he could be just as brave as the other boy, if not braver.
He slung his bag over his shoulder as he gave a careless shrug. “I was born ready, Jez,” he boasted, flashing the other boy his cockiest grin. “Forbidden Forest? More like Snore-Ridden Forest.”
“Hopefully it won’t actually put us to sleep.” Jeremy frowned suddenly. “There might be a couple of plants that can do that actually. Hold on, I want to look something up really quick.” He turned to grab his Herbology book, flipping through the pages. He was absolutely not stalling! He just wanted to be prepared! He didn’t want either of them sleeping themselves to death on the Forbidden Forest floor!
“Oh okay yeah. Here, don’t suddenly decide to pick anything like this and then eat it,” he said after a moment, holding up the book.
Baz leaned forward and tapped the drawing of the the plant in question, then let out a dejected sigh. “That was the first thing I planned on doing, too.”
He cast one last look around their room, partly convinced it might be the last time he ever see Ravenclaw Tower again, before striding over to the door. He was being silly! There was no reason to be scared. “Are you ready or do you want to peruse a few more books?”
Jeremy could think of quite a few books that they probably ought to look at, as various scenarios he hadn’t thought about when coming up with the initial plan came to mind, but he didn’t want Baz thinking he was scared. Because he wasn’t scared! “Obviously I’m ready!” he said, tossing his Herbology book back on his bed with more force than was necessary. “This is going to be great!”
He still thought it was going to be great as they left the tower, and even still as they made their way through the castle. But by the time they stepped out on the grounds, with the night air hitting them in the face with a decided chill, Jeremy was a little more uncertain about the whole thing again. “This is going to be so great.”
“It’ll be the greatest thing we’ve ever done,” Baz declared, though he didn’t sound very convinced of this. He was having a hard time mustering up the courage to explore the forest now that he was face to face with it. The copse of trees directly ahead of them looked particularly ominous, with its gnarled roots and thick canopy of leaves. He would never admit it — certainly not to Jeremy — but the chill wasn’t the only thing making him shiver.
They were approaching the edge of the forest when he came to a sudden halt, his eyes wide as he grabbed Jeremy’s arm. Baz’s voice was pitched a little higher as he asked, “Did you see something? I swear I saw something.”
“No…” Jeremy replied slowly. “But I think I heard something. Did you hear something?” Now that they were faced with the edge of the forest, the trees looked especially sinister. The sounds of the insects were louder, and maybe he hadn’t seen anything but maybe Baz really had! He wouldn’t admit it for anything, but he was suddenly very glad that the other boy was close and that they’d both come to a stop. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to step foot in the forest anymore.
“Maybe it was the same something.”
A constricting thread of dread was beginning to overtake Baz. Maybe it was the same something and maybe this was a bad idea. He couldn’t even remember whose idea it had been originally — if it was his, it clearly was not his finest moment. He sheepishly dropped his hold on Jeremy’s arm as he took an uneasy step backward. “It looked big and dangerous. Did it sound big and dangerous?”
“It did. Very big. Very dangerous. Definitely those two things.” Jeremy stopped himself from asking whether there was a reason they’d decided to do this at night instead of during the day. Even if there was, it seemed like a really big flaw in the plan!
He didn’t take a step back, but he didn’t take a step forward either. “You know, I should’ve brought my copy of Fantastic Beasts with me, so we could identify things. It’s back in the dorm. Do you think we should go back and get it?”
The fact that the book was definitely in his bag was really not the point!
Baz’s response was on the tip of his tongue: yes, yes, absolutely yes. But he didn’t want to sound too eager, so he made a show of glancing back at the forest. In just the few moments that had passed, it somehow managed to become even more menacing. The chill pricked at his skin as an ill-timed gust of wind blew through the curls framing his face. The wind carried the howl of some creature from the forest. It sounded like a werewolf — not that Baz had ever heard a werewolf, but that was beside the point.
That, he thought, was a sign it was time to go.
“I think that’s a good idea,” he said after a moment, reaching forward to grab Jeremy’s arm again.
“By the time we get there, it’ll probably be too late to come back out,” Jeremy added, happy to follow along with Baz back towards the castle and away from the forest. “We can just do it some other time! The forest isn’t going anywhere. Besides I think we should look at the plan again. I don’t think it was nearly as good as it should be.”
With any luck perfecting the plan would take approximately the same amount of time as the rest of their Hogwarts careers.
Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff was the first Quidditch match of the year. Baz never missed a single Quidditch match, but he had woken up bright and early this morning to do vocal exercises. No one could accuse him of not taking his new position as Quidditch commentator very seriously. There was still some time before the match began, however, and he planned on rounding up as many of his friends as possible before it started. Even if they didn’t like Quidditch — and so many of them didn’t — they could at least come support him.
He found Jeremy on a sofa in the Ravenclaw common room, a book splayed across his lap. He sank down onto the sofa beside him, practically buzzing with excitement. “Jez, pal, mate, bosom buddy. Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff today, as you know. You’re in, right?”
Jeremy hadn’t known. Or perhaps he had, but he’d forgotten, which was essentially the same thing. While he could muster up the enthusiasm to attend Quidditch matches when Ravenclaw was involved (there was a degree of fun to the whole thing when your house’s reputation was at stake), it was much harder to pretend to care when it was entirely unrelated to him. It wasn’t that Jeremy hated Quidditch. He just found it far less entertaining than nearly anything else he could think to do.
Baz had always felt very differently on that point. Looking up from his book, he raised an eyebrow at the boy beside him. “Bosom buddy, eh? I wasn’t planning on it.”
“And why is that? Please tell me you don’t want to spend a nice day like this shut up indoors with a book.” Baz draped one arm across Jeremy’s shoulders while his other hand went for Jeremy’s book, tugging it onto his own lap and leisurely flicking through its pages (but he kept one finger propped on the page Jeremy had been reading — he wasn’t completely terrible.)
“Did you know I’m doing commentary for the matches this year?” He gave Jeremy an innocent smile, as if he had not mentioned it thirty times that very morning. “You know you can’t resist hearing my dulcet tones magnified.”
“If that’s the issue, I’m sure we can come up with another reason to magnify your dulcet tones,” Jeremy remarked dryly, reaching to try and take his book back. Spending the day indoors reading it had actually been much of his plan for the day, but he decided not to say so. “And you know, I’ve heard a thing or two about you doing the commentary, but I also heard this crazy rumour that you’d be doing it for all the matches. I figured I’d catch you at the next one.”
Baz’s expression turned slightly petulant as he held the book out of Jeremy’s reach. “But this is the first one,” he said, as if Jeremy was unaware of this fact. “I need moral support from my favorite people.”
“Seriously,” Jeremy said with a frown that bordered just slightly on annoyance at the fact that his book was being held out of reach. He sighed, letting his hands fall back to his lap and looking directly at Baz. “You know you’re going to be great. You’re going to be all enthusiastic and knowledgeable and everyone’s going to be in awe of all your great Quidditch quips or whatever. People will probably moon over your dulcet tones and everything. You’ll love it.”
“I’m glad you have faith in me,” Baz replied with an approving smile. He let the book fall back into Jeremy’s lap with a sigh, then raked a hand through his hair. He held Jeremy’s gaze as he said, “But I want you there. Come on, I’ll owe you one. You know you want a favor from me.”
He punctuated his words with a wink.
Jeremy rolled his eyes in response. “We can come back to that idea in a moment, but if it really matters that much to you I guess I can go. You really want me there?” It seemed a little silly to him, when he doubted that Baz would even notice if he were actually sitting somewhere in the stands, but he supposed he could rally if it mattered. He wasn’t a terrible friend.
A smile shone in Baz’s eyes as he nodded emphatically. “Of course I really want you there!” A slight pause. “I mean, I want everyone there, you know?”
“Sure, of course.” Jeremy considered him for a moment, before glancing back down at his book. When he looked back up, his mind was made up though it hadn’t really been much of a choice. “I’ll go,” he said, pushing some of his hair out of his eyes. “But don’t think I’m not going to cash in on that favor at some point.”
“Fine, but I only do sexual favors on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” Baz teased. His expression was one of genuine excitement — it meant a lot that Jeremy would put up with a sport he was apathetic about for his sake. He relinquished his grip on Jeremy’s shoulder in order to sink further into couch, legs crossed ankle-over-knee as he draped his arm across the back of the sofa. “And I’m only willing to help you with password riddles on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Laughing, Jeremy grabbed a nearby decorative pillow, throwing it at Baz. “I’ll keep you posted. Who knows, maybe there’ll be a run of easy Tuesday and Thursday riddles.”
For a sport that he couldn’t care less about, Jeremy found himself involved in something Quidditch related entirely too often. Only this time he had absolutely no plans of being dragged into anything even nearing the topic. This time he was pointedly not talking about the inferi attack at the Cannons v. Magpies match or the many blurry hours that he’d worked at the hospital in the aftermath. He wasn’t talking about the uptick in Death Eater attacks in general or things like cursed letters that happened over a week ago so he really ought to be over that by now anyway. He wasn’t talking about a lot of things that were currently happening in the world.
Of course, by the time he was shoving a bottle of Baz’s liquor of choice at him and flopping down on a couch that wasn’t his own, Jeremy couldn’t really think of what topics he was talking about, but he supposed they’d have to make do.
“Sup.” It was a spectacular conversation starter.
The question brought a small, strained smile to Baz’s face. The attack at the Cannons match stabbed fresh and the sheer horror of current events hung heavy over every conversation. This was no exception. But liquor and good company made for a nice distraction — Baz quickly poured two glasses of firewhiskey for Jeremy and himself.
“So many things and none of them good.” He opened his mouth to continue, as if he was going to discuss the inferi attack, then quickly changed tack. “I’ve reinstalled Tinder so it’s the beginning of the end for me.”
“At least you’ll have some good stories for that memoir you may or may not ever write. Someone out there’s going to be really interested in hearing Baz Snell’s Adventures with Tinder. That person’s not me, for the record.” Jeremy reached for the glass of firewhiskey, taking a sip. He’d brought it more for Baz’s benefit, but he wasn’t going to turn it down.
“Unless the story is really good,” he amended.
The edge of Baz’s mouth lifted, a smile brought on by memories of his last Tinder adventures. “All of my stories are really good,” he replied, his tone one of mock offense. He raised his glass and said, “To great Tinder misadventures. This is what I’m stuck with since you won’t give into my charms.”
There was a lighthearted roll of the eyes. “You wouldn’t be able to handle me. It’d be a whole thing and then in the end someone would have to flounce in a dramatic fashion and probably end up joining the circus. I mean I guess being an acrobat could be cool, but…” Jeremy trailed off, an easy grin settling in.
The mental image made Baz burst into laughter. “You’re always getting dumped so I think I’d be the one doing the flouncing.” He drummed his fingers against his glass as he let out a contemplative hum. “We’d probably get into a huge fight and you’d make me break up with you. Then I’d become a heartbroken trapeze artist.”
A beat. “But the sex would be great though,” he added with a wink.
“Well that,” Jeremy remarked with a slight tip of his glass, “goes without saying.” He narrowed his eyes slightly, taking a long look at the other man in contemplative silence. “I’m trying to picture you as a heartbroken trapeze artist now, and I think the whole acrobatic flying through the air thing would definitely be a good look for you. If you find you’re in want of a career change.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Baz admitted with another laugh. “Maybe not the trapeze artist part, but a career change. Something that involves less…” He filled in the gap with a vague hand wave. “Less producer interference. Less Rosier.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow in slight surprise (though not so much about the Rosier part). “Have you thought about what you’d do instead or has it not gotten that far?”
Baz’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I don’t know.” He flashed Jeremy his most charming grin as he asked, “Will St Mungo’s have me? It has to be better than working for the WWN.”
“As much as I’d be really into being around you all the time, it’s not exactly fun times at Mungo’s when Death Eaters are—” he stopped himself, letting the topic halt abruptly and linger in the air. He didn’t mean it to, but Jeremy hadn’t meant to talk about it in the first place either. Reaching up, he raked a hand through his hair and felt the sudden weight of exhaustion he was trying to ignore.
“Grey’s Anatomy told me that at the very least I would periodically get laid in the on call rooms but, alas, it lied,” he finished instead.
A brief moment of quiet settled between them as Baz let his reflective gaze rest on the rim of his glass. Part of him wanted to press Jeremy on the aborted topic, to talk about something real and genuine. But skirting around current events was what he did best, so he let a smile creep broadly across his face.
“See, that’s why I need to be hired on,” he laughed, nudging Jeremy’s foot with his own. “I’ll turn St Mungo’s into a den of sin.”
“As long as it’s only the fun sorts of sin. Skip gluttony and stick with lust.” He smirked, though it didn’t last as long as it might’ve, and Jeremy downed the rest of his firewhiskey in one go. “You can always just steal a lime green robe and boost everyone’s morale before we all end up dead anyway.”
“That’s not going to happen,” came Baz’s firm reply, his smile fading a few degrees. “You’re going to be fine. We’re all going to be fine.” But his buoyant optimism suddenly felt like ashes in his mouth and he drained the rest of his drink, savoring the burn of the firewhiskey.
Reaching for the bottle of alcohol, he quickly poured another two glasses before he caught Jeremy’s gaze and held it. His voice held little conviction as he continued, “Things are going to get worse before they get better, but they’ll get better. They always do.”
Jeremy held the gaze for a moment before shrugging and gesturing slightly with the glass in his hand. “That’s optimistic. Or naive. Or optimistically naive? Either way. Does it help? I guess that’s the real question.”
“Not really,” Baz admitted, with a quiet laugh. He took a long sip of the harsh liquor, then added, “I just never know what else to say. I’m not good at this.”
“I don’t think any of us are.” Which, Jeremy supposed, was what it really came down to. If they didn’t have answers or solutions then talking about the things they were Not Talking about always seemed to amount to little more than feeling helpless. Which was a pretty miserable feeling on a good day, let alone when he was already feeling grumpy and tired. “And that’s why we end up talking about Tinder.”
“Well, look—” Baz’s glass met the table with a decisive clink, and his chin dropped as he turned his gaze down to his lap. His hand rose, unconsciously, to scrub the side of his face, through his beard. There was a note of self-consciousness in his voice as he said, “If you ever do want to talk about work or Death Eaters or whatever else, we can do that. I’ll put on my comforting hat. It’s a very dusty hat, I don’t wear it very often.”
Jeremy tapped his fingers against the glass in his hands into the silence, watching the way the liquid rippled. “I’ll try not to make you wear it. I mean, I’m sure it looks great on you but the dust might make you itchy and nobody wants that. But,” he glanced up at Baz though only for a moment before he looked back down at his glass. “Maybe sometime. I appreciate it being on the table. I can pull out my comforting hat too, if you, you know. Whatever. It’s less dusty because sometimes I have to comfort a five year old, but I bet I could age it up for you.”
Baz made a low sound of understanding in his throat before he took another long swig of his drink. “You probably won’t even have to age it up for me,” he said, shooting Jeremy a small smile. His discomfort was melting away as casual warmth bubbled back up to the surface. “I’ve been told I’m a five year old at heart.”
Laughing despite himself, Jeremy looked up properly this time. “Well in that case, I’m definitely your guy.” The weight of things was still there — it wasn’t going anywhere — but he did feel a bit better all the same.