07 | ENEMIES

ALEXIA SPENT THE REST OF THE SORTING KILLING DAMIEN IN A SERIES OF SUCCESSIVE STARES, but he didn't bother to look at her again, as if nothing had happened, not the threat and not the whole other thing that was bugging her even more, that pull towards him that she had felt and desperately wanted to run away from. She was completely dumbstruck; she was not used to people speaking to her like that, and much less to being left speechless by it. She didn't get the last word. And before him she always did. Alexia had the terrible feeling that's how her life was going to be split from now on: before and after him.

After the Beauxbatons, the Durmstrang Sorting started with the Scandinavian siblings, and apparently their names all started by A: Astrid, Axel and Adrian, the latter being the one who had winked at Noah.

"The AAA triplets," Alexia said, looking at them. "Like the Muggle batteries."

"You know what those are?" Noah asked, brows raised to his hairline.

"I'm a pure-blood, not ignorant," she chuckled, watching the siblings walk together to the front of the room as if they never did anything alone. The girl was placed in Ravenclaw, much to Kendra's happiness, who had the goofiest smile on her face when Alexia looked over at her. Alexia winked at her and gave her a thumbs up, but some people whispered, surprised; everyone was expecting all Durmstrangs to be Slytherins. Axel, the curly-haired boy, filled their expectations by being the first of many Durmstrangs to sit at Alexia's table.

"Welcome to Slytherin!" She exclaimed, determined to get as many people on her side so they wouldn't pass over to Damien's. That's how it was going to be. Her or him. "We're the cunning folks who use any means to achieve our ends, the only thing we care about is ambition and power, we speak to snakes in our free time, and oh, we also inhabit little kids' nightmares."

"Well," Axel said with a sly smirk that confirmed the Hat had chosen right, "seems like the perfect house to me. My childhood dream was to become the bogeyman."

Alexia and Noah laughed, along with some others who were listening, including Roxanne Weasley, who eyed Axel with shy interest. If she took a liking to him, Alexia could already imagine her brother Fred and her cousin James being overprotective and annoying about it.

"I heard you're a Muggle-born," Axel said to Noah and the boy immediately retracted, the veil falling upon his features and turning him inscrutable. His defenses were on; Noah never let his guard down, he just let people think he did.

"Yes," he said, voice neutral and detached, "and I have a 'mudblood and proud' tattoo on a part of my body I'm sure you wouldn't like to see."

Axel chuckled, eyes dancing with amusement. "Just because I'm a Durmstrang doesn't mean I'm closed-minded, mate. All good for me. Just found it curious, that's all. We don't really get to have you around back home. So it's nice to meet one."

Noah's brows knitted together, trying to decide whether he could trust him or not. Especially in the beginning he had had a hard time there, with many Slytherins dismissing him, but Alexia had always used her pure-blood status and family influence to make sure no one messed with him. Not that they tried anymore, after the first few had ended up in the infirmary.

"We're not all evil and dangerous and aiming for global domination, you know," Axel continued, brushing a few golden locks away from his eyes, "I thought out of all houses, you Slytherins would understand."

"We do," Alexia nodded and after a few more seconds Noah followed along.

"But I'm still not showing you the tattoo," he remarked.

"Thank Merlin," Axel chuckled, "oh, it's my brother now. I bet with you he's not going to be put in here."

"Hufflepuff, maybe?" Noah joked, though his stare was tumbling down the tall boy's body as he sat on the chair.

"What the hell is a Hufflepuff?" Axel replied sincerely, making the majority of Slytherins laugh, but then, to everyone's surprise, even his fellow Durmstrangs, that's exactly what the Hat shouted. The room went quiet for a second, before the Hufflepuffs started cheering and whistling loudly. Adrian didn't seem bothered, just casually making his way to the table, like he didn't have a care in the world. "They're the kind ones? If they're the kind ones, the Hat's right. There's no one in the world kinder than my brother. But don't tell him I told you that."

"I will never," Alexia promised with a smile of complicity. Unlike the French boy in front of her, Alexia liked Axel. Their names even sounded alike. Maybe they could be friends. Maybe they could be more than that. He was cute, and when he smiled dimples bloomed on his cheeks.

"A Beauxbatons that's not a Ravenclaw and a Durmstrang that's a Hufflepuff?" Noah commented absentmindedly, eyes glued to the back of Adrian's head when the Sorting ended. "Interesting."

"And now," Adelina said after the Great Hall quieted down, "I'm more than happy to announce that this year's Head Girl and Head Boy are Molly Weasley and Louis Weasley."

"What a surprise," Alexia rolled her eyes, watching the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs cheer for their peers.

"Don't be upset, next year is you," Noah elbowed her playfully and Alexia smiled, her eyes involuntarily crawling to Damien, who was enthusiastically chatting with a girl next to him. Fortunately for her, the feast that appeared in front of their eyes distracted her and exclamations of delight filled the room upon the delicious food and mouthwatering scents.

"I'm not in Hogwarts, I'm in heaven," Axel exclaimed, immediately attacking every plate he could reach. Over the dinner Alexia let herself relax, mostly hearing Axel talk about his siblings and school.

"My family is from Norway," he commented, munching on his roasted potatoes in haste as if they could disappear at any second. Maybe they did that in Durmstrang, as punishment. "You can tell by the good looks."

Noah and Alexia snickered in unison, though none objected.

"Though I can see you have them too over here," Axel continued, smiling at Alexia behind his glass of Pumpkin juice.

"Ten points to Durmstrang," she replied, making a toast with him. When they were finishing their chocolate puddings, the Ghosts decided to pop up, the Bloody Baron languidly floating above the Slytherin table and right through the middle of the food.

"Jesus, mec, what happened to you?" Damien asked, eyeing the blood on his translucent figure with curious eyes. The Bloody Baron snapped his head in his direction, listless eyes piercing right through him.

Damien shivered slightly. Now you know how I feel when you look at me, Alexia thought.

"I killed myself for love, young man," the Baron answered, continuing his apathic walk as Damien's eyes shifted to Alexia.

"See? That's one of the causes worth dying for."

"Really?" Alexia smirked. "I have a feeling you wouldn't know."

Damien's face closed as he glared at her. Her smirk widened and everything else around them disappeared as they battled each other through the eye. Then Alexia heard loud protests coming from the end of the Slytherin table, where some Durmstrangs were visibly upset by the presence of the Baron in their food.

Alexia got up immediately, running up to them with her most threatening face. The guys paid her no attention and continued their protesting at the same time the Baron's rage started shaking his transparent form. Clearly they didn't know how hot tempered Slytherin's ghost was.

"You better stop your bloody whining if you don't want to awaken the Baron's wrath," Alexia said, loud and dangerous enough for them to hear. "Stop acting like babies and suck it up. You're in Slytherin, act like one. And let this be a clear warning: I will not let a bunch of stuck-up Durmstrangs make my house lose points. I don't know how it works there, and I don't care. But here we have rules. And Slytherins always use them to win."

"Listen, girl—"

"No, you listen," Alexia cut off, her voice unyielding and incredibly menacing. This was the voice she had learned to have. That she had been taught how to use by years of listening to it. "You have two choices: help us win points or make sure you don't do anything stupid enough to make us lose them. You might not care about any of this, and that's fine as long as you don't get in the way. But if you do, I will make sure you regret it. So don't even think about doing something remotely stupid or dumb or I will have no other choice but to make you feel stupid and dumb when I jinx every single one of your asses."

Under the dumbfounded eyes of the Durmstrang boys, the Baron nodded.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, miss Nott, thank you very much. I am counting on you to not let this happen again and to keep these little hooligans in line."

"Of course, Baron," Alexia said with a firm nod, turning her back on the boys and returning to her seat. From beside her, Noah nodded in approval and crooned in a voice that sound an awful lot like a drowned kitten.

"Oops, she did it again!'

ϟ ϟ ϟ

The following morning, Alexia and Noah were waiting for Kendra outside the Ravenclaw Tower so they could walk together to the Great Hall.

"Oh, thank Merlin," Noah sighed dramatically when Kendra finally showed up, "if I hear her complain one more second about Damien, I'm going to implode and it's not going to be pretty."

"You already made yourself an enemy? On the first day?" Kendra asked Alexia as they rushed through the halls. It was weird, seeing all those Beauxbatons and Durmstrangs there, especially those who had chosen to wear their Hogwarts robes. But Alexia guessed it was innate to the human being, the need to fit in.

"He's not an enemy, he's not worthy enough to be," Alexia snorted as they passed by chattering portraits and tricky staircases, "he's just a really annoying thorn on my side."

"Aren't you judging him too quickly?" Kendra insisted. Always the diplomatic. Kendra always tried to see the best in people, even when they didn't have any good to begin with. Alexia tried to protect her from that and overcompensate her kindness by always insisting on only seeing the worst. It was easier being let down when you had no expectations in the first place. "I mean, you barely know him, right? And people are like Rubik cubes. You can only solve them when you've seen all of their sides."

"I have no idea what a Rubik cube is," Alexia deadpanned.

"Oh, for a second there I thought you had no idea what a person is," Kendra retorted with that cunning smile that always made Alexia wonder if the Sorting Hat hadn't made a mistake by putting her in Ravenclaw. She would have been a great Slytherin.

"Can we talk about something else?" Alexia asked, pinching her nose in frustration. Damien was giving her headaches and they were not even in the same room yet. "Like, for example, Astrid. Did you talk to her?"

"Not really," Kendra admitted, her eyes moving down to her shoes immediately. "She's already so popular and you know how I am around people, I get all nervous and awkward. Somehow, I always seem to say the wrong thing. At this point I bet she's already friends with every Ravenclaw but me."

"You'll have time," Alexia shot her a reassuring smile. She still remembered the shy girl she had met years ago, how stunned she had been when two Slytherins started talking to her to befriend her and not mock her. "After all, they're going to stay here for the whole freaking year."

"Here we go again," Noah sighed again, this time even more tragically.

"But she's so beautiful and she seems so interesting, you know?" Kendra continued, dark brown eyes glimmering. "It's nice to see Durmstrangs are much more than their reputation. They're quite fascinating."

"I'm starting to get jealous," Alexia declared as a group of Beauxbatons passed by them in their blue attires. Alexia tried not to search for Damien in them, she really did, but as always, her body did the exact opposite of what her mind told it to do. Luckily, he was nowhere to be seen, and Alexia could only hope it would stay that way for the next three hundred and so days.

"Don't be, love, you know you were the one who made me realize I liked girls too," Kendra smiled, stopping to play with one of Alexia's soft locks.

"Yeah, and you were the one who made me realize I definitely only liked boys," Noah added, his devilish, shrewd smirk making some Durmstrang girls stop on their tracks just to watch him. As always, he paid them no mind. It was hard getting Noah to focus on people; rarely did someone obtain his attention for more than one second.

"Interesting," a hoarse voice said from behind them, and the group spun on their heels to be met by the wonderful sight of Adrian Svendsen in his Durmstrang uniform, his lips twisted into a smile of amusement.

"What the bloody hell, were you spying on us?" Noah asked, his voice charged with more anger than the situation required.

"No, I was passing by and heard your voice," Adrian replied, completely undisturbed by the other boy's reaction. If anything, he looked even more amused, as if irking the Slytherin was some kind of secret goal of his. "Your voice is quite nice, has anyone ever told you that?"

A glance of hilarity blossomed between Kendra and Alexia at the same time Noah's face got even more enraged. The total levity in Adrian, from the relaxed way he talked to the casual way his hands shoved into his pockets, seemed to push every single one of Noah's buttons at the same time in a way Alexia hadn't seen before. Usually when someone annoyed him, he'd just scold or ignore them. But Adrian was producing a miracle without even noticing it; claiming all of Noah's attention to himself.

"No, and I would have preferred if it had stayed that way," Noah snapped, turning his back on the Norwegian boy and speeding up to the Great Hall. Kendra shrugged to Adrian as if to apologize for her friend's behavior while Alexia's eyes got dragged to a group of Durmstrang boys who were seemingly being lectured by the Head of Slytherin, Professor Cain.

When they were dismissed, Cain noticed Alexia and approached her with a small smile, though a scowl was still visible on his forehead.

"Hard time with the Durmstrangs, Professor?" Alexia inquired, gesturing with her head towards the loud group walking away.

"Just making sure they don't go around causing trouble just because this isn't their school. But I wanted to talk to you about that, actually. As one of our Prefects and also Captain of the Slytherin team, I trust you to not only welcome them but also... to keep them in line, if needed," Cain said, the devious spark in his eyes and the lopsided smile the perfect definition of Slytherin. "Like you did yesterday, at the feast."

"Of course. As long as I don't have to babysit them, that is," Alexia smiled, and Cain nodded, pleased with the answer, and went away. When Alexia turned around again, her smile fell. Leaning against the wall by the doors of the Great Hall, was none other than Damien, arms crossed over his chest and a wily smirk just for her.

"Isn't it dangerous, having such young, handsome teachers?" He asked, making the most out of his French accent. Alexia bet he did it on purpose. She knew how well it worked on the girls. "Don't you guys fall for them, or something?"

"Oh, please," Alexia rolled her eyes, but her feet moved in his direction anyway. Damien, whether consciously or not, straightened himself a bit when she got closer. "It's just part of a modernization effort the Ministry of Magic tried to do at Hogwarts. You know, minimize the gap between generations, make the students feel more comfortable. But everyone knows their boundaries, if there's anything you're insinuating. Not everyone has a twelve-year old fangirl permanently living inside of them."

Damien shook his head, confused. "I don't know what a fangirl is."

Right. Not everyone could have a Muggle-born as a best friend.

"Consider yourself lucky," Alexia replied dryly, and it was only then her eyes tumbled upon his clothes, the green tie, the silver badge, how good it looked on him. Dammit! "Seriously? You had to go for the Slytherin uniform?"

"Ah, you know what they say, ma jolie," he said, pushing himself off the wall and slightly leaning towards her. He was taller than her by a few inches, and Alexia hated the fact that she was forced to look up to meet his eyes, "if you want to beat your enemy, you have to dress and act like your enemy."

Alexia's fists clenched, her nostrils flared.

If it was war he wanted, it was war he'd get.

Alexia just wasn't sure what type of war they were talking about.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I really like writing their interactions, but also Noah and Adrian's ;)

I hope you liked this chapter, do vote and comment if you did ♥