fic for boku_no_yuuki

[nino-mod.livejournal.com]

For: boku_no_yuuki
From: airairo

Title: Like Magic
Pairing/Focus: Ohno/Nino, Jun/Nino friendship
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Summary: From his first day at Hogwarts, Nino is bothered by one guy in particular who seems to get all of the attention.
Notes: For boku_no_yuuki <3 This is a Harry Potter AU. I’ve never attempted Harry Potter AU in my life so I hope it is palatable!


“That guy?” Nino asks, whispering into Jun’s ear.

Across the long dining hall there is a guy with a round, unassuming face eating a salad, tomatoes first, and looking like anything but what the rumors say.

Jun shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says.

He’s supposedly the most powerful wizard in Ravenclaw this year, which does nothing but make Nino laugh because really? That guy?

“They say that he can deflect any spell,” Jun says, taking a big bite out of his sandwich. He sounds skeptical about it all too, Nino thinks, but it’s funny to think that the guy over there eating tomatoes, who also himself looks a bit like a tomato, can be such a powerful presence.

“Eh,” Aiba says, from the next table over. “I can see it.”

Nino glares because even though they were childhood friends he got sorted into Slytherin while Aiba went to Hufflepuff, so it seems only natural to glare. But Aiba knows he doesn’t mean it and glares back so hard he looks like he might hurt himself.

Nino tosses a breadroll at him, which he catches, expertly.

“It’s the quiet ones, you know?” Aiba says, tearing the roll in two.

Nino looks over at the guy again. He picks at his sandwich a little once he’s finished with his salad. He doesn’t talk to anyone, doesn’t really look like he has any friends.

“I could probably get him,” Nino says.

1.

In retrospect, he should have tried harder the first time.

He comes back to the Slytherin commons room to find Jun lying on his back on a big, cushy sofa, a book resting on his chest and his eyes closed.

“Dammit,” he says, flopping down hard enough next to Jun’s feet to wake him up.

“You didn’t get him,” Jun says without opening his eyes.

Nino sighs.

He thought it would be easy enough to sneak up behind him and use Accio to steal a book out of his hands. What he didn’t realize was that Ohno would just pull another book out of his bag and flip that one open like nothing happened at all.

Nino sighs again, slumping over, and Jun doesn’t move so that Nino can rest against his feet.

2.

When they arrive at Hogwarts the second year, Nino sees Ohno in passing on the train and says “Oh, hey, it’s that guy,” to Aiba but really he knows it’s the guy he’s thought about on more than one occasion over the summer. The guy who is supposedly the best - this year the rumors have ascended to him being the best Ravenclaw in the history of Hogwarts.

Nino kicks his seat with his heel, but not where anyone can see him. It’s just, however, when Jun is rounding the corner.

“They’ll make your mom and dad pay for it,” he says.

“Pay for what?” Nino says, innocently. Jun tosses him a chocolate frog.

“Hey where’s mine!” Aiba says, holding out his hands. It’s only a matter of time before Jun gives in and tosses him one too.

Nino lets it simmer for the better part of the year. Last time he tried to take a book out of Ohno’s hands, but this time he has to think bigger.

He finds him out on the grounds, sitting on a bench and Nino’s not really sure what he’s doing there. He’s not studying. There isn’t anything really particularly interesting for him to be looking at. But there he is, looking out at the horizon as if there’s something to be seen there.

“Evanesco,” Nino says under his breath and the entire bench that Ohno’s sitting on disappears.

He’s expecting more than what actually happens which is Ohno getting into the same position he was in before, this time on a small rock that really can’t be all that comfortable.

Still looking out at the horizon as if there’s something there.

“Dammit,” Nino says under his breath. Then says it again when he gets back to the Slytherin common room and flops down on the sofa. Jun doesn’t move probably because Nino really seems like he needs something to flop against.

3.

At the beginning of his 3rd year, Nino vows to himself not to even bother. Why does he have to prove himself to this guy? It’s just rumors and gossip. It’s not like he’s really that powerful.

But it is a little annoying when that guy walks down the hallway and students scurry away like ants. He doesn’t even acknowledge the students moving out of his way, whispering to the sides of the path left behind him.

Who does this guy think he is?

“So then he was walking down the hall like that. I don’t even think he blinked,” Nino says. “He may not have even been breathing...”

“He’s getting to you,” Jun says, crossing one leg over the other and flipping idly through his History of Magic textbook. Though the material is so boring that even the book itself starts yawning.

“He’s not getting to me,” Nino says.

He’ll get him while he’s sleeping, he thinks. In a dream or or something that will be a nice surprise when he wakes up.

To get into the Ravenclaw common room one has to answer a riddle. Nino comes late at night, armed with his wand and done playing around. This is going to be it, he thinks, as he slips through the corridors up and down and around the staircases. He’s quick, one of his strengths. So why is it taking so long for him to get this guy?

He checks left and right and no one is coming so he approaches the door knocker.

“Give me food, and I will live; give me water, and I will die. What am I?”

Easy, Nino thinks.

“Fire,” he says, and the door opens.

He whispers the incantation and slips out unnoticed.

It’s a spell he’d read about, but never tried before. Oppugno, it can make small animals attack and he aims it at all of the frogs and rats and cats and owls in the room.

The next day though, instead of Ohno showing up for breakfast with tousled hair and a lack of sleep, he’s surrounded by all of the animals. The rats are curled up in his lap, one owl perched on his shoulder and the others in line waiting for their turn. The frogs are hopping at his feet and the cats taking turns nuzzling against his leg.

Jun put his hand out to grab the breadroll that Nino is going to inevitably throw.

4.

There is a guy named Sho. He’s the same age as the rest of them, but a Gryffindor. By all rights, Nino shouldn’t make friends with him. But he’s never really cared about any of that even though he pretends to when it’s convenient.

“He’s friends with that guy,” Nino says.

“That guy?” Jun says. “You can say his name, you know.”

Nino looks right into Jun’s eyes and says it again. “That guy.”

“So what about that guy,” Jun says, deadpan.

“Sho’s friends with him,” Nino says. “They grew up together, I guess.”

“And that’s going to help?”

“It’s going to help me know what it is that gets to him...”

“Why don’t you just go for something unexpected?” Jun says, marking the huge tome he’s reading with a piece of parchment before he closes it. “Something simple like a loud noise or flashing lights.”

“The guy didn’t even mind an entire bench coming out from underneath him, what makes you think he’s going to react to that?”

“It’s about timing probably,” Jun shrugs.

“Got any other ideas?”

“Give him some Veritaserum. Then he’ll have to tell you what gets to him.”

Nino tsks. “Even if I could get my hands on it...where’s the fun in that? No element of surprise.”

“He wouldn’t be able to avoid it though will he? And he wouldn’t know when it’s coming.”

“Hmm,” Nino says. “And he wouldn’t know how it’s coming exactly either...”

“Right,” Jun says, grinning because Nino’s grinning and he can’t help it. “Too bad that stuff is under lock and key.”

“But luckily for me,” Nino says. “I have Sho.”

4.5

“Do you know a guy called Nino?” Sho asks Ohno in the hallway between classes.

Ohno glances over at a couple of Slytherins, but Nino isn’t among them. “Yeah,” Ohno says. But he doesn’t really know him. He knows who he is and he knows that he pops up in Ohno’s life from time to time. But Nino’s never spoken to him before. It’s funny.

“He asked me about you,” Sho says.

“Oh,” Ohno says, nodding.

“He wanted to know if the rumors were true,” Sho says.

“Rumors?”

Sho laughs. “Don’t tell me you don’t know about them.”

Ohno blinks a couple of times.

“They’re saying you’re the most fearsome Ravenclaw in the history of the school.”

“Really?” Ohno says, a very pleased grin spreading across his face.

“Oh come on,” Sho laughs.

Ohno did notice that people were avoiding him, but he thought it was like his mother always said - he’s quiet and sometimes it’s hard for people to know how to talk to someone quiet. But Nino, he thinks, is his friend. He hasn’t talked to him yet, but he’s come around to play more than anyone else.

“He’s nice,” Ohno says.

“Hm?” There was enough of a lapse in conversation that Sho must have forgotten what they were talking about.

“Nino,” Ohno says, smiling a little.

5.

“What if you do it like this,” Jun says, coming to Nino unexpectedly with an old dusty book full of mainly old dusty charms, but he seems to have found something interesting.

He makes room on the sofa so that Jun can get in next to him and the table legs wobble under the weight of the book when Jun slams it down.

“A sneezing charm?” Nino says, a little disappointed.

“That’s just a distraction,” Jun says, then pulling out a map. “They have a Boggart up in the tower.”

Nino nods slowly.

“Take him there and find out what it is that scares him.”

“Ah,” Nino says, nodding. “That’s genius, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jun says, lifting an eyebrow. “I know.”

There is a second part of the plan, which Jun doesn’t tell Nino about. It involves Jun going to find Sho and talking to him directly. Nino’s been doing a kind of dance with him since the previous year, trying to sniff around for information without directly asking for it. But if Nino’s secret weapon is Sho, then Jun’s secret weapon is Aiba. No one can look that guy in the eye and not tell him the truth.

At Jun’s suggestion it starts with the sneezing charm.

“Whisper it while we’re passing him and Sho in the hallway,” Jun tells him. “When he starts sneezing say you’ll take him to the nurse.”

“Why won’t he just go with Sho?”

“Because I’m going somewhere with Sho,” Jun grins.

It goes off without a hitch, but something unexpected happens when Nino and Ohno separate from the other three. He gets nervous.

“You’ve never talked to me before,” Ohno says.

“Sure I have,” Nino mutters.

Ohno shrugs, but Nino notices out of the corner of his eye that, between sneezes, Ohno is smiling. Just a little, just slightly. But it’s there. He probably has a trick up his sleeve too, Nino thinks. Even if he doesn’t believe the rumors completely there has to be a reason why they started. It could be a ruse. This face he puts on that looks tired and uninterested most of the time. What’s hiding under there?

They get to the top of tower before Ohno says anything. “This isn’t the nurse,” he says.

“It’s even better than that,” Nino says. “I want to show you something."

It took some effort to get the keys to the case where the Boggart is held. It’s said that when one looks at a Boggart they can see their greatest fear. Whatever it is, Nino can probably handle it. Snakes, spiders, ghosts. He can use charms or illusions of another kind.

It’s almost exciting when he opens up the case. What is it that makes this guy tick exactly? Maybe nothing will appear at all - the great feared Ravenclaw that has most of the students scattering when he appears. What is it that scares a guy like this?

Nino’s heart drops when he sees it.

“It’s me,” he says out loud.

It’s Nino himself. An image of him walking out slowly, then turning around.

Ohno looks over at him and Nino rushes to close the case again. The Boggart hasn’t gotten far so he slams the doors shut and locks them again looking at Ohno and his unreadable expression.

“It’s...” Ohno starts to say.

But Nino is already flying back down the stairs.

He runs as fast as he can, elbowing a teacher along the way which for sure will get him a penalty. But he can’t care about that right now, he just has to get out. He can’t go to the common room because then he’ll have to talk to Jun and everything has gotten stranger and stranger now in a way that feels too big for Nino to deal with.

Ohno is afraid of him?

6.

“You like him,” Jun says, without looking up from the report he’s in the middle of writing.

“I don’t,” Nino says.

“Alright you don’t,” Jun says, idly summoning some more ink for his quill.

They both know, however, that it’s not true.

Nino has spent the better part of the year avoiding Ohno at every turn. First it was a game, but now he doesn’t know what it is at all. Ohno’s afraid of him.

“I talked to Sho,” Jun says.

Nino sighs, even though he knows, too, that it was part of the plan.

“I surrender,” Nino says.

This time Jun actually does look up.

“White flag and all that,” Nino says. “I give up.”

Because the way his chest feels tense and tight when he thinks about Ohno doesn’t feel funny in a good way anymore at all.

7.

Nino spends the summer furiously looking through textbook after textbook, spell after spell. He doesn’t tell Jun what he’s doing because this time he needs to work alone. When Aiba calls him up, he doesn’t tell him what’s going on either. Even though the way Aiba looks at Nino as if he just knows is a little unsettling.

It’s the last year. This is it, Nino tells himself. This is it. This is it. This is it. He spends the train ride to Hogwarts alone in the corner, hissing at anyone who comes near him because one, it’s fun to scare the first years, but two, he really does actually want to be left alone.

This is it.

It’s halfway through the year when he decides to actually do it. The halls of Hogwarts are so cold he can just faintly see his breath as he winds down the endless hallways.

The door knocker asks “What can you catch but not throw?”

“A cold,” Nino says, without hesitation, passing through the door as if it’s his own common room. As if he owns the place.

A few Ravenclaws are gathered around the tables, but Nino goes right up to Ohno.

“Let’s settle this like men,” he says, drawing out his wand. He doesn’t care how this sounds. Doesn’t care if his opponent feels like there is anything to “settle” or not because as far as Nino’s concerned this guy made Nino like him and that’s just annoying.

Ohno stands up.

Some of the other students scatter from the room and one threatens to get the Prefect and in just moments everything is in a quiet kind of disarray.

“It’s okay,” Ohno says, putting up a hand.

The way everyone heeds to him is also annoying, Nino thinks. Who does this guy think he is anyway?

“Leave us alone,” Ohno says. And they do, quietly slinking out of the room until it’s only the two of them with only the sunlight wafting in through the windows and the sounds of heavy dormitory doors closing.

Here they are. Face to face, toe to toe, Nino with his wand in hand, pulling back, aiming.

He opens his lips to say the incantation but the words come out muddled and muffled because Ohno’s lips are against his and all he can hear now is the sound of his wand rattling and spinning around on the floor and then the silence when it finally stops.

He wants to make an act out of it. Pull away and spit or act like this is outrageous, but this is unequivocably the best thing to ever happen to him which means he’s lost, tenfold this time.

“I like you,” Ohno says once he’s pulled back.

Nino swallows.

“Do you like me?”

“I don’t know,” Nino sulks. “Whatever. Maybe. I guess.”

“I thought you’d stop coming here,” Ohno says, moving his toe against Nino’s. It might be an accident, but Nino likes the way it feels.

---

“He was afraid you wouldn’t like him back,” Jun says, passing the salad across the table.

Nino takes a moment to let that sink in. The words. What they mean.

He looks over at Ohno. He’s eating his salad, tomatoes first. He still looks quite like a tomato himself, but even more tomato-like than the first time Nino saw him all those years ago.

Ohno catches Nino looking at him and smiles and Nino looks away as fast as he can.

---

Nino moves his toe against Ohno’s too, experimenting a little to see how he’ll react.

He doesn’t, really.

But after a beat he says: “Can I kiss you again?”

“Fine,” Nino whispers.

He forgets about his wand that’s been discarded on the floor. He forgets about challenge, about the rumors, about the stupid Boggart.

Nino knows he’s lost. He’s man enough to admit it. He’s lost ten times over. Maybe a hundred times over. Beaten at his own game.

But he can’t help but smile even just a little.

“What?” Ohno asks, pulling back just a tiny bit.

“Nothing,” Nino says, smugly. Then pulls Ohno close again.

He may have lost, but if losing feels like this he doesn’t mind doing it all over again.