Aurora Sinclair didn't just walk to the center of the room—she *swept* there like a particularly organized comet with excellent people skills and a color-coded day planner. The effect was immediate: conversations died mid-sentence, cookies paused halfway to mouths, and everyone somehow simultaneously tried to look both attentive and casual.
Peter Parker failed spectacularly at both, crumbs tumbling down his shirt in what could only be described as a cookie avalanche.
"Welcome, everyone," Aurora said, her voice doing that thing where it sounded warm and commanding at the same time, like a hug with a firm handshake attached. "Thank you all for joining us today. Before we dive into the formal stuff—and yes, there will be formal stuff, I have *seventeen* clipboards—"
"Seventeen seems excessive," Felicia murmured.
"Seventeen seems *perfect*," Gwen corrected.
"—I want to acknowledge something important," Aurora continued, clearly having heard both comments. "Social situations involving strangers and expectations are inherently stressful."
"THANK YOU," Harry said with such fervent relief that several people jumped. "Sorry. That was loud. I just—yes. Thank you for saying that."
His jaw unclenched approximately three millimeters, which was progress.
"Understatement of the *century*," Peter stage-whispered, somehow still managing to eat another cookie despite having just spoken. It was a talent. A deeply weird talent, but a talent nonetheless.
Aurora's smile suggested she'd heard both comments and was filing them away in her mental database under "Students Who Need Extra Emotional Support" and also possibly "Students Who Are Delightful Disasters."
"To help ease that stress," she said, "we're starting with informal introductions. No pressure, no performances, just eight candidates and one very important observer—"
Every eye in the room swiveled toward Harry like he'd suddenly grown a second head. A famous second head. A second head that had defeated a Dark Lord as a baby and was now apparently expected to judge eight candidates while also being a socially awkward nine-year-old.
Harry tried to make his face do something friendly and approachable.
His face did not cooperate.
His face decided to do something that looked like a combination of constipation and panic.
"—getting to know each other as *humans*," Aurora finished smoothly, "rather than names on applications or legends in history books."
"Oh good," Harry said, his voice cracking like he was going through puberty three years early. "Just... casual human interaction. My specialty. Which everyone knows. Because I'm so good at it. Famously good. The best at human interaction."
"Dude," Peter whispered with the kind of sympathy usually reserved for watching someone fail at parallel parking for twenty minutes, "you're *dying*."
"I'm aware," Harry whispered back.
"It's *painful* to watch."
"*I'm aware.*"
"Should we stage an intervention?" Ned asked quietly.
"I think we're past interventions," Peter replied. "We're in hospice care territory now."
MJ leaned forward, her red hair catching the afternoon light in a way that was definitely strategic because MJ did nothing accidentally. She fixed Harry with an assessing look that was somehow both intimidating and supportive.
"You know what helps?" she said. "Pretending everyone else is more nervous than you."
"What if they're not?" Harry asked, his voice small.
"They are," Gwen interjected with the absolute certainty of someone who had *statistics* to back up her claim. She pushed her glasses up with one finger in a gesture that somehow conveyed both intelligence and compassion. "Statistically speaking, social anxiety is incredibly common, and this is an objectively high-pressure situation. Everyone here is nervous. Some people are just better at hiding it, which is honestly just a different kind of problem because then they're nervous *and* exhausted from hiding it."
"I'm terrible at hiding it," Jean Grey volunteered from her chair by the window, clutching her teacup like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to this dimension. "Just so everyone knows. My nervous is *very* visible. Like, aggressively visible. I'm basically a walking anxiety advertisement."
"Same!" Miles Morales added from across the room, his leg bouncing so fast it was creating a localized earthquake. "My dad says I have two speeds: way too enthusiastic or visibly panicking. There's no middle ground. I'm either at an eleven or a negative three. No sevens. Sevens are for people with emotional regulation."
"That's a *mood*," Peter said with such feeling that he accidentally inhaled cookie crumbs and had to spend ten seconds coughing while Ned patted his back.
"Are you okay?" Jean asked, concerned.
"He does this," MJ said. "It's fine. He once choked on air. Just *air*. He's a medical mystery."
"I have an overactive gag reflex!" Peter protested once he could breathe again.
"That's what she said," Felicia murmured.
"FELICIA," Peter yelped, his face turning approximately the color of a fire truck.
"I'm not even sorry," Felicia said, examining her nails.
"Let's begin," Aurora announced with the kind of firm redirection that suggested she was used to managing chaos and actually kind of enjoyed it. She gestured toward Jean with the gentle encouragement usually reserved for coaxing extremely nervous cats out of trees. "Jean, would you like to start?"
Jean stood up with the careful precision of someone who'd been taught excellent posture by someone who cared deeply about posture—probably her mother, possibly a stern ballet teacher, definitely someone with opinions about spinal alignment. But she was currently too terrified to remember any of that training, so she mostly just looked like she was trying not to vibrate out of her own skin.
She was maybe nine or ten, with red hair that cascaded past her shoulders in waves that probably looked effortless but definitely required significant maintenance, and green eyes that were somehow both soft and incredibly intense—like she was seeing more than everyone else but trying very hard not to let anyone know she was seeing more than everyone else.
She was wearing a blue dress and white cardigan that screamed "my parent/guardian helped me pick this out because it's important but also I need to be comfortable or I'll have a breakdown," which Harry deeply respected.
"Hi," she said, her voice quiet but surprisingly clear, with an accent that was definitely New York but not New York City—upstate somewhere, maybe Westchester? "I'm Jean Grey. I'm from Westchester County, I'm nine years old, and I'm..."
She paused, clearly doing that mental calculation everyone does where you're trying to figure out how much honesty is appropriate for a first introduction versus how much makes you sound like you need professional help.
"...really excited about potentially attending Hogwarts but also *kind of terrified*," she continued, apparently choosing honesty, "because I don't know anything about British schools or British people or whether they'll think I'm weird or whether their food is as bad as everyone says or whether I'll understand their accents or—" She stopped herself. "Sorry. That was a lot. I'm nervous."
"We noticed," Pietro said, not unkindly.
"The noticing is fine," Jean said quickly. "I'd rather people notice and acknowledge it than notice and pretend they don't notice while definitely noticing."
"That sentence hurt my brain," Miles said.
"Mine too," Jean admitted. "But it's accurate."
The silence that followed lasted approximately 1.5 seconds before Peter launched himself into the conversation like he was a golden retriever jumping into a lake to save someone who wasn't actually drowning but might appreciate the company anyway.
"Okay so for what it's worth," Peter said, gesturing enthusiastically with a cookie that was rapidly disintegrating in his hand, sending crumbs *everywhere*, "British people *definitely* think Americans are weird, but like, in a mostly friendly way? They think our portion sizes are *absolutely insane*—which, fair, have you *seen* American restaurant portions? They're like designed for giants—and they think our accents are hilarious, but they're usually pretty nice about it? Like, affectionately judgmental? Like how you'd judge a puppy for trying to eat a shoe? You're like 'that's ridiculous' but also 'that's kind of adorable'?"
"That's oddly specific," Wanda Maximoff observed from her chair, her dark eyes sharp and assessing in a way that suggested she was cataloguing everything for future reference.
"I've been living there for *months*," Peter explained, now gesturing with both hands despite still holding a cookie in one of them. The cookie was losing structural integrity at an alarming rate. "I've conducted *extensive* field research. I have *notes*. Color-coded notes. With diagrams. And footnotes. The footnotes have footnotes."
"He actually has notes," Ned confirmed with the weary pride of someone who'd witnessed the creation of said notes. "So many notes. An unreasonable amount of notes. I think the notes might be sentient at this point."
"The diagrams really help clarify the complex social dynamics of British teenagers interacting with American exchange students," Peter said defensively, pieces of cookie now falling like snow. "There are *layers* to the cultural interaction! Subtleties! Nuances that require *visual representation*!"
"You made a *chart*," MJ said, her deadpan delivery so perfect it was almost weaponized, "about whether British people like Americans."
"It's a *very good chart*!" Peter protested.
"It has a legend," Ned added.
"All good charts have legends!" Peter said.
"It has a *color-coded legend*," Ned clarified.
"That's just good data visualization!" Peter insisted.
"I would actually love to see this chart," Miles interjected eagerly, his leg bouncing so fast it was probably burning calories. "Like, genuinely. That sounds fascinating. Is it a bar graph? A pie chart? A Venn diagram? Please tell me it's a Venn diagram."
"It's—" Peter started.
"It's several different types of charts," Ned interrupted, "because Peter has no chill and cannot commit to a single data visualization method."
"THANK YOU, MILES," Peter said, ignoring Ned entirely. "You're my new favorite person. You get it. You understand the importance of comprehensive data analysis."
"I really do," Miles said seriously. "Data is beautiful."
"DATA IS BEAUTIFUL," Peter agreed with perhaps too much enthusiasm.
"Oh god, there's two of them now," MJ muttered.
"This is getting out of hand," Gwen agreed. "Now there are two of them."
Jean was smiling now—not a big smile, but a real one, the kind that reached her eyes and made her whole face soften. The kind that suggested she was relaxing approximately three percent, which in high-stress situations was basically the same as a full massage and a nap.
"Also," MJ added, her voice gentler than her usual deadpan but still maintaining that edge of dry observation, "everyone at Hogwarts is weird in their own way. It's *literally* a school for people who have magic, which is *inherently weird*. Like, we're learning to turn animals into water goblets and communicate with ghosts and brew potions that make you tell the truth or fall in love or grow back bones. That's *objectively bizarre*. Like, if you described Hogwarts to a normal person, they'd think you were having a psychotic break. You'll fit right in."
"The ghosts are actually really nice," Gwen offered, her systematic brain clearly trying to provide useful, concrete information. "Well, most of them. Sir Cadogan is a bit much, but he means well. He's just... enthusiastic. Aggressively enthusiastic."
"Who's Sir Cadogan?" Jean asked, looking simultaneously curious and deeply concerned.
"An extremely enthusiastic portrait of a knight," Felicia explained, her voice carrying that particular tone of someone who'd been personally victimized by Sir Cadogan's enthusiasm, "who challenges people to duels and changes the password to Gryffindor Tower seventeen times a week because he thinks it's 'good security protocol' when actually it's just chaos. He's like if a golden retriever and a medieval warrior had a baby who was also a painting and also possibly clinically insane."
"That's..." Jean paused. "That's *very* specific imagery."
"You'll understand when you meet him," Peter assured her with the confidence of someone who'd been challenged to single combat by a painting at least six times. "If you get sorted into Gryffindor, he'll try to challenge you to single combat within your first week. Just say yes and then immediately run away. It's tradition."
"That can't *possibly* be tradition," Gwen said.
"It's *my* tradition," Peter clarified. "I'm starting it. I'm a tradition pioneer. A tradition entrepreneur."
"Those aren't real things," MJ said.
"They are now!" Peter declared.
"That's not how traditions work," Gwen protested.
"Sure it is!" Peter said. "All traditions start with one person doing something weird and then other people copying them because they think it's funny or meaningful or they're just too polite to say no."
"That's... actually not wrong," Ned admitted.
"I KNOW, RIGHT?" Peter said triumphantly.
Jean laughed—small and surprised and delighted, like she hadn't expected to laugh but couldn't help it. She sat back down looking marginally less like she was planning to bolt through the nearest window and more like she might actually survive this social interaction.
Progress.
"Excellent," Aurora said warmly, her eyes crinkling with approval at the immediate emotional support network that was forming. The kind of approval that suggested she'd planned for exactly this kind of supportive chaos. "Next, we have—"
"We're going together," Wanda announced, standing up with her brother in one smooth motion that was clearly practiced but not in a creepy synchronized way. More like they'd spent so much time as a unit that moving together was just automatic, like breathing or blinking or immediately defending each other from perceived threats.
She had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that was practical rather than stylish—the kind of ponytail that said "I have more important things to worry about than hair"—brown eyes that were currently scanning the room like she was cataloguing threats, exits, and potential allies, and the kind of defensive posture that suggested she'd spent a lot of time protecting both herself and Pietro from things she shouldn't have had to protect them from.
"Of course," Aurora said smoothly, like she'd expected this. "Wanda and Pietro, please."
Pietro stood next to his sister, and the resemblance was immediately obvious—not just the physical features but the way they held themselves, the way they seemed to occupy space as a team, like two parts of a whole. He was slightly taller, his hair a bit lighter and messier, but his eyes had the same sharp intelligence, tempered with something that might have been carefully cultivated optimism or might have been the world's most elaborate defensive mechanism.
"I'm Wanda Maximoff," Wanda said, her voice carrying an accent that was definitely there but also definitely complicated—Eastern European base, maybe Roma, but smoothed over with American English in a way that suggested she'd learned both languages young and they'd gotten tangled together in her brain and mouth. "I'm nine years old, I'm from—"
She paused, exchanged a look with Pietro that contained an entire conversation.
*Should we tell them?*
*We're telling them.*
*They're going to make it weird.*
*They might not make it weird.*
*They're definitely going to make it weird.*
*We should still tell them.*
*Fine.*
"—we're from New York," she continued, her chin lifting slightly in a gesture of defiance that was probably unconscious, "but we've moved around a lot. We're in the foster system."
She said it like a challenge. Like she was daring anyone to make it a thing, to offer pity or judgment or any of the other reactions she'd probably gotten a thousand times before.
Harry felt something in his chest twist uncomfortably—sharp and sudden, like a hand squeezing his heart. He knew that look. He *knew* that look. That "say something pitying and I'll punch you" look. That "I'm telling you this because it's relevant but if you make it weird I will make your life difficult" look. He'd worn that look himself when he'd first learned about his parents, about his relatives, about how he'd spent six years living with people who resented his existence and treated him like an unwanted obligation.
"I'm Pietro," her brother added, his accent matching hers but somehow managing to sound more upbeat despite delivering identical information. It was like he'd decided that if life was going to be complicated, he might as well face it with enthusiasm. "Also nine, also fostered, also technically from New York but really from a lot of places because the foster system is basically a tour of America but without any of the fun parts and with a lot more paperwork. We just found out about magic this year, which has been..."
He gestured vaguely with both hands, like he was physically trying to convey the concept of "overwhelming" through interpretive dance.
"A *lot*?" he continued. "But good. Mostly good. Sometimes I feel like my brain is going to explode from information overload, but in a fun way. Like a firework. A brain firework. That's probably not a good metaphor."
"It's not a *bad* metaphor," Miles offered supportively.
"It's not a *great* metaphor," Pietro admitted.
"The foster system thing," Wanda continued, apparently deciding that if she was going to explain, she was going to *fully explain* and get it over with all at once, "means we don't know much about our biological family's magical background. We know our mother was Romani and probably a witch—the magical kind, not the Halloween kind—but that's basically it. So we're kind of starting from scratch with all of this magic stuff. No family grimoires, no ancestral knowledge, no weird great-aunt who can teach us secret spells. Just us and MACUSA pamphlets."
"That must be difficult," Gwen said thoughtfully, her systematic brain clearly engaging with all the logistical and emotional complications that presented. "Not having family context for your magical heritage, I mean. Are you receiving additional support from MACUSA to help you understand your magical background? Because that seems like something they should be providing if they're not already."
"Some," Pietro replied, looking genuinely grateful for the practical question instead of awkward sympathy or invasive curiosity or pity or any of the other reactions they probably usually got. "They've been teaching us basic magical theory and history, but it's *different*, you know? Like, it's not the same as growing up in a magical family where you just... absorb information through osmosis because your parents are casting spells to do the dishes and your grandmother is brewing potions for Sunday dinner and magic is just *normal*."
"We *absolutely* know," Peter said with immediate and enthusiastic solidarity, leaning forward so far he nearly fell out of his chair. Ned grabbed his shirt to keep him from face-planting into the coffee table. "None of us grew up in magical families! Well, Harry did technically, but he didn't *grow up* with them, so it's different. But the rest of us? We all learned about magic the same way you did—through MACUSA programs and theoretical study and basically being thrown into the deep end and told to figure out how to swim while reading instruction manuals underwater in the dark while also someone was throwing rocks at us."
"That's a very complicated metaphor," MJ observed.
"My metaphors are evolving," Peter said proudly.
"They're *devolving*," MJ corrected.
"Agree to disagree," Peter said.
"Really?" Wanda asked, her defensive posture relaxing by approximately five degrees, which was apparently significant. "None of you had magical parents?"
"My aunt is *aggressively* non-magical," Peter confirmed with feeling. "Like, *militantly* non-magical. She uses the microwave for *everything* because she doesn't trust the stove. The stove is apparently a death trap but the microwave is perfectly safe despite the radiation. The idea of her casting spells is literally impossible to imagine. I once tried to picture it and my brain just showed me static."
"My parents are librarians," Ned added. "Very nice, very supportive, very confused about why their son suddenly needed books about transfiguration and potion-making instead of his usual diet of science fiction and comic books. They're trying their best but they're very concerned that I've joined a cult."
"My dad's a cop," Gwen contributed. "He still doesn't totally understand what I'm doing—I think he thinks it's like a really intensive private school with a weird curriculum—but he's very proud of me anyway. He tells everyone I'm going to 'a prestigious international academy,' which is technically correct but makes it sound like I'm training to be a spy instead of learning to turn teacups into tortoises."
"My parents are dead," Harry said quietly, speaking for the first time since the introductions began, his voice careful and measured in that way that suggested he'd practiced saying this, "but they were magical. I just... didn't grow up with them. I lived with my non-magical aunt and uncle who didn't tell me about magic until I was six, and even then they weren't happy about it. So I kind of understand the 'starting from scratch' thing, even though my situation was different from yours. Like, adjacent to your situation. Situation-adjacent."
The room went very quiet.
Not awkward quiet—more like everyone simultaneously recalibrating quiet. Processing quiet. "Oh, that explains some things" quiet.
Wanda and Pietro both turned to look at him properly for the first time, and Harry watched the recognition hit in stages:
Stage One: "Harry" → just a name
Stage Two: "Harry Potter" → wait, *that* Harry Potter?
Stage Three: "the actual Harry Potter" → oh shit
Stage Four: "OH" → processing
Stage Five: Their faces settling into something thoughtful and curious and maybe a little sympathetic but in a way that didn't feel pitying
But—and this was the important part—their expressions didn't shift into that starstruck, uncomfortable awe thing that Harry had been dreading. That thing where people looked at him like he was a museum exhibit or a celebrity or something other than just a person. Instead, they looked... thoughtful. Curious. Maybe a little sympathetic in a way that felt genuine rather than performative.
"You're Harry Potter," Pietro said—not a question, just a statement of fact delivered in the same casual tone he might have used to say "you're wearing a blue shirt" or "that's a nice chair." "The exchange program information mentioned you'd be starting Hogwarts the same year as whoever gets selected from this group."
"Yeah," Harry confirmed, trying very hard to sound casual despite his heart doing that thing where it tried to escape through his ribcage via the nearest exit. "That's me. Boy Who Lived and all that. Though mostly I just live in Queens and study theoretical magic while my friends are at actual magic school, so the 'legend' part feels kind of overstated. Like, *wildly* overstated. I'm very un-legendary in person."
He was aiming for self-deprecating and casual.
He probably landed somewhere around "awkward and defensive with a side of apologetic."
Social skills: still not his strong suit. Probably never would be. He was making peace with that.
"That must be frustrating," Wanda observed, and the empathy in her voice was unexpected and kind of devastating in its sincerity. Like she actually *got* it. "Being connected to all this magical history and magical people but not actually being able to *do* magic yet or go to the school where everyone expects you to be. Like, everyone probably has all these expectations about who you should be and what you should be able to do, and you're just... a person who can't actually do the thing yet."
"It's..." Harry paused, considering how honest to be. His brain was screaming *abort, deflect, make a joke, change the subject, do literally anything except have a genuine emotion in front of strangers* but his mouth apparently had other plans. His mouth had apparently decided that honesty was the best policy. His mouth was apparently a traitor. "Yeah. It's frustrating sometimes. A lot of times. But it also gives me time to prepare, which is good because I'm *really* good at overthinking things and I need that preparation time to feel ready. Or at least less catastrophically unprepared. I'm shooting for 'only moderately unprepared' as my goal."
"Overthinking is underrated," Wanda said with a slight smile—the first smile Harry had seen from her, and it transformed her whole face, softening the defensive edges. "Pietro says I overthink everything, but I think thinking things through carefully is actually smart. Being prepared is smart. Not just charging into things is smart."
"It's both," Pietro said with obvious fondness, bumping his shoulder against hers in a gesture that was clearly automatic. "You're very smart *and* you overthink everything. These things can both be true. They're not mutually exclusive. You can be smart and overthink things. In fact, smart people probably overthink things *more* because they can see more possible outcomes."
"You're supposed to support me unconditionally," Wanda said, but there was no heat in it—just sibling affection wrapped in mock offense. A ritual they'd probably performed a thousand times.
"I support you by being honest," Pietro replied, grinning that particular grin that suggested he was enjoying himself. "That's the *best* kind of support. Dishonest support is just enabling. Enabling is bad. I'm preventing enabling. You should thank me."
"I'm not thanking you," Wanda said.
"You should," Pietro insisted.
"I'm definitely not," Wanda said.
"You're stubborn," Pietro observed.
"I'm *thorough*," Wanda corrected.
"That's extremely debatable," Pietro said.
"Then let's debate it," Wanda challenged.
"Okay," Pietro said. "Go ahead. I'm listening. Defend your position."
"I'm *planning* my argument," Wanda said.
"You're stalling," Pietro said.
"I'm being *thorough*," Wanda repeated, her smile widening.
"You already used that one," Pietro pointed out.
"It's still accurate," Wanda insisted.
"Agree to disagree," Pietro said.
"No," Wanda said. "Disagree to disagree."
"That's not a thing," Pietro said.
"It is now," Wanda declared. "I'm making it a thing."
"You can't just make things things," Pietro protested.
"Watch me," Wanda said.
Harry felt something in his chest unclench—not completely, but significantly. Like someone had loosened a vice that had been slowly crushing his ribcage for the past fifteen minutes. Wanda and Pietro had acknowledged who he was—acknowledged the elephant in the room, the Boy Who Lived thing, the legend thing, the weight of expectation thing—and then just... moved past it. No invasive questions, no uncomfortable reverence, no treating him like a museum exhibit or asking him to recount his trauma. Just recognition and then immediately back to sibling banter.
It was possibly the best reaction he could have hoped for.
It was *definitely* the best reaction he'd gotten so far from anyone outside his immediate friend group.
Small victories.
"Thank you, Wanda and Pietro," Aurora said warmly, her eyes crinkling with genuine amusement at the twins' rapid-fire exchange. "That was lovely. Last introduction for this first group—Miles, would you like to share?"
A boy who'd been sitting near Jean practically *launched* himself out of his chair like he'd been spring-loaded, like he'd been *waiting* for this moment, like he'd been physically restraining himself from introducing himself earlier and was now finally free.
He was around Harry's age, with dark skin, close-cropped black hair, and warm brown eyes that were currently darting around the room like he was simultaneously trying to:
1. Memorize everyone's faces
2. Calculate optimal escape routes (just in case)
3. Make friendly eye contact with all eight people at once
4. Assess the structural integrity of the furniture
5. Possibly solve a complex math problem
His leg was bouncing fast enough to register on seismographs. Possibly fast enough to generate electricity. Maybe they should hook him up to the power grid.
"Hi!" he said, his voice carrying a Brooklyn accent thick enough to cut with a knife, which immediately made Harry feel more at home because Brooklyn accents were the sound of home and safety and bodega cats. "I'm Miles Morales. I'm nine, I'm from Brooklyn—well, I *live* in Brooklyn now but I was born in Manhattan and I've lived all over New York because my dad's a cop and we moved around a bit for his work but mostly we've been in Brooklyn for the past few years, which is good because Brooklyn is the best borough and I will fight anyone who says otherwise."
He took a breath—his first breath since starting to talk, apparently, which was concerning from a respiratory health standpoint—and his words started coming faster, tumbling over each other with increasing enthusiasm like they'd been dammed up and were now flooding out.
"I'm really excited about magic," Miles continued, his hands joining the conversation now, gesturing wildly enough that he nearly knocked over a lamp. "Like, *genuinely incredibly excited*. Like, more excited than I've ever been about anything, and I get excited about a lot of things, so that's saying something. I found out about it six months ago when I accidentally made my science project levitate during the school science fair—"
"Wait, you made it levitate *during* the fair?" Peter interrupted, eyes wide. "Like, in front of people?"
"In front of *everyone*," Miles confirmed. "Judges, students, parents, my science teacher who already thought I was weird because I asked too many questions about quantum mechanics. My project just started *floating*. Like, full-on floating. Three feet in the air. Spinning slowly. Making a humming sound."
"Oh no," Gwen said.
"OH YES," Miles said. "It was both *amazing* and really concerning because I thought I'd broken physics and was going to be arrested by science police for crimes against the laws of nature."
Several people laughed—Ned's laugh was particularly loud and delighted, the kind of laugh that was pure joy—and Miles visibly relaxed, his shoulders dropping from somewhere near his ears to somewhere closer to their anatomically correct position.
"Wait, science police?" Jean asked.
"I was nine and panicking!" Miles defended. "In my panic brain, science police made total sense! Like, if you break the law, regular police arrest you, so if you break the laws of *physics*, science police arrest you! It's logical!"
"It's not logical," Pietro said, but he was grinning.
"It's *panic* logical," Miles clarified. "That's different."
"Anyway," Miles continued, still gesturing wildly, "MACUSA explained that it was magic and not physics violations, which was a *huge* relief because I was genuinely worried about science jail. Like, genuinely worried. I had *concerns*. Many concerns. I was envisioning a jail cell full of people who'd accidentally violated conservation of energy and we'd all be there together, discussing our crimes against thermodynamics."
"That's very specific," Wanda observed.
"My anxiety is *very* creative," Miles said. "It comes up with elaborate scenarios. It's very thorough. It should get an award for thoroughness."
"Your anxiety and Wanda's overthinking should start a club," Pietro suggested.
"They absolutely should," Miles agreed enthusiastically. "We could call it the 'Excessive Mental Processing Club.' EMPC for short."
"I would join that club," Harry said before he could stop himself.
"Same," Jean added quietly.
"This club is growing rapidly," MJ observed.
"Anyway," Miles said again, clearly trying to get back on track but also clearly enjoying the tangent, "I've been studying everything I can about magical theory since then because I'm really interested in how magic and science interact and whether they're actually the same thing but we just don't understand the underlying principles yet, or whether they're fundamentally different systems that just *look* similar because humans are really good at pattern recognition even when the patterns aren't actually there, which is a known cognitive bias that we should account for in our analysis."
"Oh my *god*," Peter said, his eyes lighting up like someone had just told him Christmas was happening twice this year and also he'd won the lottery. "You're going to fit right in at Ravenclaw. That's *exactly* the kind of question we spend hours debating in the common room instead of doing our actual homework. Just last week, we had a three-hour argument about whether transfiguration violates conservation of mass or just temporarily redistributes mass across dimensional boundaries that we can't currently measure with Muggle instruments."
"Three hours?" Miles asked eagerly.
"THREE HOURS," Peter confirmed. "And we didn't even reach a conclusion! We just agreed to disagree and then argued about whether 'agreeing to disagree' was philosophically valid or just intellectual cowardice!"
"What did you decide?" Miles asked.
"We disagreed about that too!" Peter said happily.
"There's a house specifically for people who like asking complicated theoretical questions instead of sleeping?" Miles asked hopefully, his leg bouncing even faster, possibly achieving supersonic speeds.
"There's a house where everyone asks complicated theoretical questions instead of sleeping *or* eating *or* maintaining normal human social relationships," Felicia corrected, examining her nails like she was bored but clearly invested in the conversation. She was good at that—looking bored while actually paying attention. It was a skill. "It's wonderful and exhausting in equal measure. Like being trapped in a library during an earthquake but everyone's having the time of their lives and also possibly discovering the fundamental nature of reality."
"That sounds *perfect*," Miles said with genuine, unironic enthusiasm.
"It really does," Harry agreed quietly.
Miles turned to look at him, and Harry suddenly felt very seen. Not in a bad way—in a "oh, this person might actually understand me" way.
Which was terrifying.
But also exciting.
"Do you think magic is just really advanced physics that we haven't figured out how to quantify yet?" Harry asked before his brain could stop his mouth, before his anxiety could talk him out of it. "Or do you think it's something fundamentally different that operates according to entirely separate natural laws that don't intersect with normal physics at all?"
Miles's face lit up like Harry had just asked him his favorite question in the entire universe—possibly in *multiple* universes, possibly across all possible dimensions, possibly including ones that didn't technically exist yet.
"OKAY SO," Miles said, practically vibrating with excitement—not metaphorically vibrating, *actually* vibrating, like he was powered by enthusiasm and could no longer control his physical form—"I've been thinking about this a *lot*, and I have a theory. Actually, I have like seventeen theories, but I have one main theory that ties all the other theories together into a kind of meta-theory—"
"Oh no," Aurora said, her voice filled with amused exasperation that suggested she'd seen this coming from a mile away and had prepared herself emotionally but it was still somehow worse than expected. "We're going to lose them both to theoretical physics discussions if we're not careful. Miles, hold that thought. Harry, I promise you'll have time to debate the fundamental nature of reality later. For now, let's continue with introductions so everyone can meet each other before you all disappear into magical philosophy rabbit holes and never return to the surface world."
"But the rabbit holes are the *best* part," Miles protested, his entire body expressing offense at this interruption—his hands, his face, his posture, even his hair somehow looked offended.
"They absolutely are," Harry agreed fervently, with more passion than he'd expressed about anything so far today. "The rabbit holes are where all the interesting stuff happens. The surface is boring. The rabbit holes have *answers*. Or at least better questions."
"The rabbit holes have *more* questions," Gwen corrected. "Not better questions. Just more questions. It's questions all the way down. Turtles and questions."
"I understood that reference," Peter said, pointing at Gwen.
"It's not a reference, it's a philosophical concept," Gwen said.
"It's both," MJ said. "Things can be both. We've established this."
"And yet we're going to table them for now," Aurora said firmly but warmly, like a parent confiscating video games before homework was done but doing it with love and also the promise that the video games would be returned later. "Trust me, you'll have *plenty* of time for theoretical debates once everyone's been introduced. We have a whole afternoon scheduled. I have *literally* blocked out time on my seventeen clipboards for 'Extended Discussion Period' which I know will devolve into chaos but I'm allowing it anyway because I believe in controlled chaos."
"You *scheduled* time for theoretical debates?" Miles asked, looking at Aurora like she'd just revealed herself to be an actual angel who'd descended from heaven specifically to facilitate nerdy conversations about physics and magic.
"I scheduled time for 'informal discussion,'" Aurora clarified, her smile suggesting she knew exactly what she'd done, "but I'm fully aware that with this group, 'informal discussion' will inevitably devolve into debates about whether magic violates thermodynamics within approximately four minutes. I've made peace with this. I've planned for this. I have contingency plans."
"It *has* to violate thermodynamics," Peter interjected, unable to help himself, like a moth drawn to a flame or a Peter drawn to a theoretical physics debate. "There's no way conservation of energy holds up when you're literally creating fire out of thin air with a stick and a Latin word. That's not how energy works! Energy can't just *appear*!"
"Unless you're not creating it out of thin air," Gwen countered immediately, her systematic brain engaging with the problem like a lock clicking into place. "Unless you're drawing energy from somewhere else—another dimension, perhaps, or from the ambient magical field that presumably exists if magic is real, or from some kind of universal energy pool that we don't have the instruments to measure yet—"
"Or maybe thermodynamics is just wrong," Felicia suggested lazily.
"THERMODYNAMICS ISN'T WRONG," Peter and Gwen said simultaneously, with identical horror.
"How do you know?" Felicia asked, examining her nails. "Have you personally tested thermodynamics in every possible situation?"
"That's not how science works!" Gwen protested.
"Maybe it should be," Felicia said with a shrug.
"We're doing it again," MJ observed flatly, her voice cutting through the chaos like a knife through butter. "We're falling into the rabbit hole. The rabbit hole Aurora specifically told us not to fall into. We lasted approximately ninety seconds."
"The rabbit hole is *very compelling*," Ned said reasonably.
"The rabbit hole is *irresistible*," Miles agreed.
"The rabbit hole might be sentient," Peter added. "And calling to us. Like a siren. A physics siren."
"That's not a thing," Gwen said.
"It is now," Peter declared. "I'm making it a thing. Like traditions, but with sirens."
"I'm so glad I'm meeting you all," Jean said quietly, and when Harry looked over, she was smiling—a real, genuine smile that made her look less terrified and more like an actual nine-year-old who was excited about making friends and possibly also excited about falling into theoretical physics rabbit holes with said friends.
Miles sat back down with visible reluctance, clearly already mentally preparing his seventeen theories about the intersection of magic and science, possibly organizing them into subcategories, definitely planning elaborate visual aids.
Harry felt a surge of optimism he hadn't expected—like someone had opened a window in a stuffy room and fresh air was flooding in.
These candidates—Jean with her quiet intensity and visible nervousness but also that underlying steel, Wanda and Pietro with their complicated family history and fierce sibling loyalty and defensive walls that were slowly lowering, Miles with his Brooklyn accent and barely contained enthusiasm for theoretical questions and the kind of analytical brain that Harry recognized in himself—they all seemed *real*.
Like actual people rather than idealized versions of what magical students should be.
Like people who might actually understand what it was like to feel like you were on the outside of something looking in, trying to figure out where you fit.
Like people who might actually understand that sometimes you needed to talk about whether magic violated thermodynamics at two in the morning because that was better than thinking about all the other stuff you couldn't control.
Like maybe, just maybe, meeting them wouldn't be the social disaster Harry had been dreading for the past three days.
Like maybe some of them might actually become friends.
Real friends.
The kind of friends who'd debate theoretical physics with you and also help you figure out how to be a person.
Small victories, Harry thought. He'd take them.
Actually, scratch that—these weren't small victories. These were medium-sized victories. Possibly even large victories.
He was taking them. All of them. He was collecting victories like they were Pokémon cards.
But first, apparently, he had to get through the rest of the introductions without getting sidetracked into debates about whether magic violated thermodynamics or just *appeared* to violate thermodynamics because humans hadn't yet developed adequate measurement tools for magical energy transfer or possibly because thermodynamics itself was an incomplete model of reality that needed to be revised to account for magical phenomena.
That last thought made him realize he and Miles were probably going to have very long, very complicated, very nerdy conversations about physics and magic and the intersection thereof and possibly also about whether consciousness played a role in magical phenomena and whether intent affected magical outcomes and whether—
He was doing it again.
He was falling into the rabbit hole.
The rabbit hole was very compelling.
He made a mental note to talk to Miles about all of this later. Extensively. With diagrams. Possibly with props.
He was surprisingly—enthusiastically—*thrilled* about that.
"Alright," Aurora said, clapping her hands once to regain everyone's attention, the sound cutting through the ambient chaos like a gavel. "Now that we've met Jean, Wanda, Pietro, and Miles—and established that at least three of you are going to spend the entire afternoon debating theoretical physics if I don't maintain strict control over this gathering—let's continue with our remaining introductions."
"Wait," Peter interrupted, raising his hand like he was in class and had just thought of something *very important*. "Can we just acknowledge that this group already has way better energy than I was expecting? Like, I was preparing myself for awkward silence and uncomfortable small talk and people staring at Harry like he was a zoo exhibit, but everyone's actually *interesting*. And *nice*. And willing to debate thermodynamics. This is like, objectively a great group."
"That's because Aurora's good at her job," MJ said, her tone suggesting this was an obvious fact that shouldn't need to be stated but she was stating it anyway.
"I like to think I curate my exchange program candidates carefully," Aurora said with a modest smile that was actually not modest at all—it was the smile of someone who was *very* proud of her selection process and had every right to be. "I look for specific qualities: intellectual curiosity, emotional intelligence, resilience, the ability to work well with others, and a certain *je ne sais quoi* that suggests they'll thrive in a challenging international academic environment."
"You look for nerds," Felicia translated.
"I look for *exceptional* nerds," Aurora corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there though?" Felicia asked.
"Yes," Aurora said firmly. "And you're proof of that."
"I don't know whether to be offended or flattered," Felicia said.
"Both," Aurora suggested. "It's possible to feel both."
"You should be proud," Gwen said seriously, pushing her glasses up with one finger. "This is an excellent group. I've been mentally assessing everyone's responses and interpersonal dynamics, and the compatibility metrics are very high."
"You're mentally assessing compatibility metrics?" Pietro asked.
"I assess everything," Gwen said matter-of-factly. "It's how my brain works. I can't turn it off."
"Same," Wanda said.
"SAME," Miles agreed enthusiastically.
"We really should start that club," Harry muttered.
"The Excessive Mental Processing Club?" Jean asked.
"EMPC," Miles confirmed. "We have an acronym. That makes it official."
"We haven't even finished introductions," Felicia pointed out, her voice lazy but amused. "You can't start a club before introductions are finished. That's just rude."
"Doesn't matter," Peter said confidently, gesturing with both hands in a way that sent a few more cookie crumbs flying. "I can already tell this is going to be great. This whole thing. This group. This exchange program. All of it. It's going to be *great*."
"You're very optimistic," Wanda observed, her tone somewhere between skeptical and curious.
"It's one of my defining characteristics," Peter said proudly. "Optimism and terrible luck. But mostly optimism! The optimism helps balance out the terrible luck."
"Does it though?" MJ asked.
"Sometimes!" Peter said. "Like thirty percent of the time. Maybe twenty-five percent. Okay, twenty percent, but that's still something!"
"That's actually terrible odds," Gwen said.
"I'm working with what I have!" Peter protested.
Harry hoped Peter was right about the group being great.
Based on the last ten minutes—based on Jean's nervous honesty and Wanda and Pietro's fierce loyalty and Miles's enthusiastic nerdiness and everyone's willingness to just *talk* to each other like actual people—he was starting to think Peter might actually be right.
Which was, in itself, kind of terrifying, because Harry had learned through painful experience that hope was dangerous and disappointment was inevitable and getting attached to things meant setting yourself up for loss.
But also... kind of exciting?
Really exciting, actually.
Because maybe—just *maybe*—this wouldn't be a disaster.
Maybe he'd make friends with some of these candidates.
Maybe he'd have people to debate theoretical physics with at two in the morning when he couldn't sleep.
Maybe he'd have people who understood what it was like to be on the outside looking in.
Maybe he'd have people who didn't treat him like a legend or a celebrity or a tragic orphan or anything except just... Harry.
Small victories.
Medium victories.
Large victories.
He was taking all of them.
Every single one.
"Okay," Aurora said, her voice warm and encouraging as she gestured toward the remaining candidates. "We still have four more introductions to get through, and while I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm for theoretical physics debates and the formation of mental health support clubs, let's try to maintain *some* semblance of structure. Our next candidate is—"
But Harry was only half-listening now, because he was too busy mentally cataloguing everyone he'd met so far, trying to figure out who might become friends, who might understand him, who might be willing to debate the fundamental nature of reality at ungodly hours.
And for the first time in a long time, he felt something that might have been excitement.
Or hope.
Or possibly just indigestion from stress-eating too many cookies while Peter wasn't looking.
But he was choosing to interpret it as hope.
Small victories.
He was definitely taking them.
---
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