’Cause This Is Our Year (Eli)

[Deleted]

The year had started off better than Ezekiel could have hoped. He had been Sorted into Hufflepuff with Elijah and Wyatt—just as they had been together in Pukwudgie—so their yearlong adventure at Hogwarts was shaping up to be just like “old times” (or a few months before, really). Still, it was nice not to be separated from his closest friends; not everyone from Ilvermorny had been so lucky.

Reality had started to set in that they were back to school and not still in “summer mode” after their first week or so. Zeke hadn’t even gotten around to unpacking everything from his trunk, which was something he kept swearing he’d do, if not for all of the assignments that were keeping him busy.

After his first major essay of the year was written, then he could devote more time to getting organized, he thought. It wouldn’t be too hard to reach the necessary scroll length, he guessed, as long as he used his time before dinner wisely.

The food at Hogwarts might not have been exactly what Zeke was used to having at home, but he thought that it was pretty good. There was enough variety to keep from getting bored, too, though the kitchens were just steps from the Hufflepuff Common Room.

Checking his watch for the time, Zeke realized that he didn’t have as much time as he’d thought—about half an hour before he would need to wrap things up to go eat. “If I come up with one word per minute, I can probably get this paragraph done…” he mused to himself, leaning back a little in his chair as he dipped his quill into some more ink.

Elijah Theron Fleming

[Elijah Theron Fleming]

only dust settles.

THE HUFFLEPUFF COMMON ROOM WAS QUICKLY becoming a sacred space for Eli. He lingered there in the mornings and at night. Always preferring the din of chatter and scribbling to keep him company even when his friends weren't around. Luckily, nine times out of ten, there was at least one to keep his mind occupied.

"AH-" Eli barked, dropping two hard hands on Zeke's shoulders, he let his head swing on his shoulders to hang at his friends side as he said under his breath, "did I scare you?" A wiggle of unruly black eyebrows and Eli dropped in to the wooden chair on Zeke's left. Who seemed engrossed in a very dull piece of parchment.

"Hope that's a love letter," Eli said promisingly, a sneaky smile on his face as he pretended to lean over and peek at his friends work. He knew of course that it would be school work. Zeke was by far the more studious of the two. There was no denying that. Eli leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh, reaching up to make a show of straightening the cap on his head.

"D'you think I'll get points off for wearing competing colours?" Eli asked, his mouth creased at either side as he fiddled with the bill over his eyes. On top of his head sat a very proud red and gold cap, the front emblazoned with a Pukwudgie insignia. He hadn't known it was among his things until he was rifling around. Must have stuck in there from some past year at the bottom of his trunk. Squished and unwanted. And now proudly displayed on a nest of black curly hair. 

@ezekiel

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[Deleted]

Hearing the yelling and feeling the sensation of hands upon his shoulders, Zeke jumped before he could let out the string of expletives that he really wanted to say. Realizing that the person who had interrupted his work was only Eli, however, he was quickly able to relax again.

“Did I scare you?” Eli asked him as he plopped down into the chair beside his own.

“What was that, a rhetorical question?” Zeke laughed. Of course Eli had startled him! The positive side was that it didn’t look as though he’d ruined his paper in the process; he’d managed to jolt his arm away at the end of the line he was writing.

“Hope that's a love letter,” Eli teased him, acting as though he had an interest in what he was writing.

“You wish,” he joked back, swatting Eli away. It would have been more interesting if it were a love letter, though; Zeke had to agree there. “If anything,” he said, “it’s a love letter to the grade I’d like to receive on this essay.” It was their final year of school, even if they weren’t at Ilvermorny. Zeke knew that he needed to keep his grades up if he was going to stand a chance at getting into the MACUSA Auror training program.

“D’you think I’ll get points off for wearing competing colors?” Zeke looked over to see that Eli was fiddling around with the baseball cap on his head.

“Nah, man.” He shook his head sincerely. He didn’t think that anyone would care that he was wearing something from Ilvermorny. “The hat’s cool,” he assured him. “Where’d you find that thing, anyway?”

Elijah Theron Fleming

[Elijah Theron Fleming]

only dust settles.

ELI HAD ONLY WANTED TO CREEP UP ON ZEKE FOR dramatic effect. Asking if he was scared or not didn't matter, he'd had his grand entrance. "Maybe?" He retorted, cheeks already creased in a mischievous smile. He'd come with that very intent. His hat sitting proudly atop a nest of unruly curls. His hair was growing faster than ever this year, he'd already told his friends he thought it was something they put in the water - half joking.

Rocking back in his chair, the front legs pulled up off the ground. Eli used the lip of the desk to keep himself aloft as he leaned as far away from Zeke's parchment as possible. "Lame," He emphasised, though he was always notably impressed by his friends smarts and determination. Maybe a little jealous, too. "Unless it's saucy?" He wiggled his brows, tongue pressed behind his teeth as he snapped back down on to the ground.

And then he was proudly displaying his hat, pulling the bill down over his eyes before situating it back in place. "Found it at the bottom of my trunk!" He declared happily, though it did smell a little musty when he'd put it on. From lying untouched for Merlin-only-knows how long. "Think uh- my mom bought it for me in like second year," He snorted, like it didn't sting to even say 'mom' out loud. "Had to use a Charm to let the strap out in the back." Where, if one looked rather closely, they'd say the edges of the fabric singed. "Nearly set myself on fire doing it, but here we are!" And maybe he was a little proud. 

@ezekiel

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[Deleted]

Zeke had spent years dealing with—and joking right back at—Eli’s good-natured teasing. Although he couldn’t see into the future, Zeke realized that he probably should have predicted that Eli would find him and a way to corrupt him. At least he wasn’t on an incredibly tight schedule; he just wanted to get the assignment done and over with so that he could have free time without having it hanging over his head.

Eli called it “lame” that his essay wasn’t actually a love letter, only to ask if it was saucy. “Saucy”? Zeke had heard academic writing described in plenty of other ways before, but never once had someone called it that.

“This work is tantalizingly academic,” Zeke assured Eli, grinning as he looked at him. “Make no mistake.” He jotted down another sentence or two as the thoughts came to him.

As for that hat, Eli explained that he’d found it at the bottom of his trunk. Zeke couldn’t recall for how long it had been shoved down there, but Eli said that he thought his mom had bought it for him in their second year. He’d had to let out the strap in the back of it, too. “Nearly set myself on fire doing it, but here we are!”

Zeke didn’t think that his friend’s head could have grown that much… Then again, maybe it had. He chuckled, though Eli’s comment about nearly setting himself on fire in the process of trying to adjust the cap was a little startling. “If you didn’t have such a big head,” Zeke teased, “you wouldn’t’ve had to.”

Elijah Theron Fleming

[Elijah Theron Fleming]

only dust settles.

ELI'S SHOULDERS SHUCKED UP AROUND HIS EARS as he snickered. Zeke was funny, he always had been. Without even trying. Which was really saying something. "I'll take your word for it, dude." He said, unconvinced. Academia had always been easy for Zeke, it was like he was made for it. Eli had always noticed that an assignment that took him all week, took Zeke just a few short hours. He admired that in his friend.

Slapping a hand against his chest, Eli donned a look of outrage, mouth falling open for a moment. It soon dissolved in to a smile as he shifted the bill of his hat down his head. "I got a lotta hair, man." He said, a laugh wobbling at the back of his throat. "You're the one with all the Outstanding marks." Eli said, with a quirk of his brows. "If you keep it up your heads gonna look like you're staring into one of those carnival mirrors." Eli nodded his head emphatically.

"That's why-" Eli said, reaching over to gently tug at the corner of Zeke's parchment. "We should stop, and you should tell how you like it here." His face splitting in to a cheek creasing smile, Eli hoped his friend would help distract him. Lately, all he thought about was Ashley and it was driving him crazy. 

@ezekiel

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[Deleted]

Eli didn’t seem too thrilled with his work, Zeke thought, though he always had been more academic than most of his friends. That was what he got for having a mother who was a teacher, he supposed, as well as his having his sights set on a career that few actually managed to achieve. As Zeke continued to write, Eli commented that it was his hair that took up so much of the space inside the cap; the honor of having the larger head was Zeke’s, by virtue of the fact that he was the more intellectual one. (If he kept it up, according to Eli’s claim, his head would look as though it had been distorted by a funhouse mirror.)

In spite of his attempt to maintain a poker face, Zeke couldn’t take Eli’s comment too seriously. He might have had work to do, but he knew how to have fun when the time called for it. And Eli called for it right then and there. “That’s why,” he said as he pulled lightly at the parchment in front of him, “we should stop, and you should tell how you like it here.”

Zeke turned himself away from the paper to focus on his friend. Eli had a point; it was getting closer and closer to dinnertime every minute, and it was much easier to converse with one another in their common room than over the background noise of the Great Hall. “It’s pretty good,” he said. “The work’s a little harder here, I think, but it’s probably good preparation for applying for Auror training.” MACUSA surely wouldn’t disadvantage him for having spent his last year of schooling abroad because of circumstances beyond his control. “Besides the school part of school, I haven’t even unpacked all of my stuff yet or seen probably one fourth of this castle…” That, he’d have to fix.

Elijah Theron Fleming

[Elijah Theron Fleming]

only dust settles.

IT WAS A VAIN ATTEMPT TO DRAW ZEKE AWAY FROM his schoolwork. Just because Eli was bored and he felt like he hadn't spoken to his friend in too long. It was difficult to keep track of everything and everyone. Especially as Eli struggled to keep up with a new curriculum and pass his exams before he finally graduated. But, Zeke seemed to give in willingly as he pushed his work aside and Eli smiled triumphantly.

"Right?" Eli exclaimed, falling back against his seat as he sighed. He definitely agreed that the work was harder. "Well, lucky for me, all I want to do is Magizoolgy." And even luckier still, he was passing his Care of Magical Creatures class with flying colours. It helped when he actually cared. Whereas, Eli knew that Zeke did not suffer from the same struggle. He had goals far beyond Eli's understanding.

Though, Eli did frown when he realised how temporary Zeke seemed to be keeping things. "Really?" He asked, confused. "Don't you think we're gonna graduated here?" Eli hadn't even considered that they could be gone before they ever really settled. He'd gone through the same motions at Hogwarts as he had done at Ilvermorny for the previous six years. He'd also explored as much of the castle as he could bear, overwhelmed by his own curiosity. "I keep looking, but I still don't think I've seen the whole castle either." It was a vast expanse with so many hidden doors and passages. "Don't- don't you like it here?" 

@ezekiel

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!

[Deleted]

Eli counted himself lucky that he only wanted to do Magizoology. Zeke didn't see his friend's aspirations as particularly easy, either, but it wasn't as competitive or as traditionally academically rigorous. It required a different set of skills, he thought—ones that Eli had, Zeke felt, more than he did.

"Really?" Eli questioned him about not having unpacked everything yet. "Don't you think we're gonna graduate here?"

"I mean," Zeke considered, "I figure we probably will. I just haven't unpacked all my crap yet." It would be weird not to graduate from Ilvermorny, but leaving Hogwarts mid-year in their final year to go home would make things even more difficult. They would all make friends with the Hogwarts students, really establish themselves. Up and leaving after that would be hard, he imagined. "Maybe they'll give us a graduation ceremony back home, too," he considered. "I wouldn't mind that."

Eli, too, expressed that he hadn't seen all of the castle, either. "Don't—don't you like it here?" he asked, and Zeke realized that his friend had misunderstood him and, thus, was apparently concerned that he was preparing to turn around and go home.

"No, no, no," Zeke corrected him. "I love it. It's great. Really. I just don't want to get into any bad habits," he laughed. Hence the essay. "I promise I won't be a stick in the mud all year, bro!" This was probably the coolest experience that they would ever get in their lives; of course he had plans to enjoy it, too.

Elijah Theron Fleming

[Elijah Theron Fleming]

only dust settles.

ELI'S FIRST THOUGHT WAS THAT HIS FRIEND WAS relying on the impermanence of their place at Hogwarts. It had unsettled him because Eli rarely thought about it and when he did, he found he didn't actually like the idea. He'd made friends at Hogwarts, ones he didn't want to leave behind any time soon. "Oh," He breathed, sagging with relief as Zeke explained away his doubts. "I guess that makes sense." He shrugged at the thought of a double graduation, more happy if he just managed one, never mind two.

But, Eli was still a little bit concerned that his friend was missing home. Eli supposed he was, but it was easy for him to bypass that feeling when most of the people that were important to him were with him. He often forgot that Hogwarts wasn't home. Rubbing his eyes, Eli laughed shortly. "Okay," He replied, allowing himself to be reassured even if he did miss his partner in crime. "I'll let you off." And then he pushed his friends book back towards him. "Go on then, study or whatever." As if giving him permission as he smirked. "I can be quiet." He zipped his lips and swung back on the hind legs of his chair, gripping the tables edge for support. 

@ezekiel  
maybe we can end this here and do something more present with them? some mischief... 

NEVERLAND at ADOXOGRAPHY 2.0!