9th of March, 2021.

There weren't very many things that could sent a mild-mannered ten-year-old careening down the hallway, face red and swollen, hurling himself at another, plumb looking boy. But Finnegan Conner had an unusual knack for being involved in all sorts of implausible things.

Their shoes squeaked on the glistening, freshly moped floor and for the first time in his young life, Oliver wished a teacher would show up unexpectedly. His idle hopes were dashed against the wall, buried under the coat rack they tumbled into and pummeled to death by angry little fists.

"What did you call my mother?" Finnegan fumed. He'd grabbed hold of Oliver's lapels and shook the boy like a carton of Kelloggs. Oliver's brain was not quite so pudgy as his face and he sputtered the closest thing he'd ever come to an apology. "I didn't mean it!" How could one mean something when they didn't even know what it meant? Finnegan's hesitation was swiftly punished; the momentary pause in his beating afforded Oliver a chance to draw up his trunk-like leg and send him flying halfway down the width of the hallway. Before he could jump back up he had all his bones crunched by the full weight of Oliver landing on top of him. Now it was his turn to shield his face from being turned into mush by slow, meaty punches to his jaw, though the sour smell of Oliver's sweaty armpits was more deadly than any punch the boy layed into him. "You're a buttwad and so is your mom!"

Unable to squirm his way out from under the other boy, Finnegan yanked the boy's tie and turned Oliver's next clever insult into a choking squeal. "You're fat! A fat pig!"

They rolled around the empty hallway, kicking, punching and screaming, one never holding the upper hand over the other for long. Neither of them noticing the door at the far end of the hallway that had caught on fire, seemingly all by itself.

It wasn't until the fiery tongues had licked the ceiling and caused cloying, black clouds to hit the smoke detector that the boys stopped fighting, each still holding limply onto a piece of the other while the realistion slowly settled in.

"Why is it on fire?" Oliver stammered dumbly, his voice barely audible over the ringing of the fire alarm.

"As if I know!" Finnegan replied hotly, though he'd asked the very same question in the privacy of his mind. The flames were spreading unnaturally fast, like they had a minds of their own, bent on consuming everything in their way. For the briefest of moments Finnegan thought he could sense the fire's longing to devour one thing in particular.

Oliver.

The plumb boy had long since let go of him and was limping his way toward the only exit, toward the fire. Finnegan's satisfaction at the damage he'd managed to dole out was short-lived.

"It's stuck! The door's stuck!" The panic in Oliver's voice was unmistakable as he tried again and again to kick it open despite the wall of flame and smoke between him and it.

"Get away from the fire you idi-" The rest of his childish cussing was cut short. Smoke scratched the back of his throat and stung at his eyes. Wheezing and coughing he blindly reached for the other boy's lumpy shoulders and pulled him back. "We have to..." he swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the taste of ash and burnt paint, "... stay away..."

Together they raced down the length of the hallway and barged into the small classroom at the end of it. "The windows, quick!" Oliver was the first to crack one of them open. He stuck out his big, sweaty head and called out for help. Under different circumstances Finnegan might've laughed at how pitiful his tormentor sounded now. Instead, dread washed over him the moment he peered out of the window. They were three stories up and there was no way to climb down the smooth, brick wall.

"Keep calling for help, I'm going to find a way out OK?!"

Oliver didn't respond, but didn't stop his woeful cries for help either. Running back the way he'd come, Finnegan turned back into the hallway. There was a chance, just a chance that there was a fire extinguisher on the toilets. There had to be, right? He'd thought he'd seen one on the first floor, had to be...

Shielding his mouth with his sleeve, he made a mad dash for the lavatory and shut the door behind him the moment he made it inside, barely able to see anything through his bleary eyes.

Nothing. Just tiles and mirrors and beat up stalls and dirty sinks.

@Aurelia Notresvace

Three months, yet the time spent felt like an eternity. They should be looking for her by now, but Aurelia doubted they'd find her however advanced the magic they used to track her down. She left no trace, last seen at platform 3/4, just outside the Hogwarts Express which she never got on. Instead, running through the kingscross, boarding a random train that led her to wandering by the end of the day. Lenore Northam found her, lost scared and hungry. Questions she was asked by the kind woman, but only lies the girl answered with. Then again, how much of a truth would it seem if she told a muggle about her contrasting magical life? Leia, she said her name was.

Starry-eyed, she had told Lenore that it wasn't safe to return home, which the 65-year-old believed. While Aurelia did feel slight remorse for exploiting the woman's kind-heartedness, at that point, Aurelia was desperate for her own escape. Lenore took her into her home. The only requirement was that she was to attend school, despite Aurelia's pitiful protests. And for three months, she did. Surprisingly, it was not the first time Aurelia had been to a muggle school, but yet, it was unfamiliar.

The girl by the name of Leia wasn't doing well, both academically and socially that was for sure. While she knew the basic math, addition, subtraction and multiplication, the other concepts were completely foreign to her as were the sciences and other subjects. She wasn't used to having her grades slip through her fingers, from always maintaining her Os and Es, to seeing Ds and Fs and the fortunate Cs on her pages. That being said, the new friends she acquired weren't the best of influences, but Aurelia would not know any better. Yet, their company was incredibly refreshing, to say the least.

When the halls were vacated, Aurelia usually remained about an hour more till Lenore arrived to fetch her. Now she sat in her usual cubicle in the lavatory waiting, held delicately between her fingers was a cigarette wafting with gray smoke. While the halls were usually empty, today, the distant sounds of screaming young boys in a heated scuffle would disrupt her peace. With a roll of her eyes, Aurelia continued, the same little ritual on repeat, pressing the joint to her lips in an inhale and with a smoky exhale.

Then suddenly, the shrill scream of the fire alarm would snap her out of her short blissful moment. "Merlin," She muttered under her breath. Hastily, she'd flip open the toilet lid and toss the cigarette into the bowl. Never once was the fire alarm triggered from her having a smoke in the lavatory, but today was a different case evidently. Aurelia would hear the sounds of very frantic footsteps followed by the squeaking of taps and rushing water into sinks.

"What are you doing in the girl's lavatory?" Aurelia asked with her voice slightly raised over the ongoing fire alarm. There were more important questions to ask, like if there was a fire, but Aurelia was under the impression that her little harmless smoke was the cause of the trigger. "It's just a false alarm," Although Aurelia couldn't be any more wrong.

"Fookin hell!" Finnegan jumped at the sudden voice, knocked into one of the sinks in process and splashed bitterly cold water all over himself. He half expected his mum to stand there, ready to whack him for letting the lid off his big mouth again. Instead his eyes found a teenage girl with smooth brown hair and beguiling eyes who seemed to care more about his, unintentional, intrusion into the girl's lavatory then the wailing fire alarm. He wasn't sure if she regarded him with curiosity or if she was silently judging him. The worlds of ten-year-old boys and teenaged girls didn't cross very often and they usually did not have a lot to say to each other. The last time he had tried to explain Roblox to his best friend's older sister had resulted in such a devastating eyeroll being directed at him that he had yet to recover from it.

"It's not a false alarm! There's a fire, a real fire, I thought there was an extinguisher here but-" He finally tore his wide-eyed gaze away from her when water overflowed the sinks and began pooling at their feet. There was no time to waste, no time for pleasantries or introductions, not even time to let fear take root. Thick, black smoke started to seep under the door like some kind of tar-like sludge and concern began to make way for panic at the sight of their impending doom. The door to the lavatory banged in its hinges as though it had been hit by a stiff, dry gale, and for the first time the roar of flames could be heard over the incessant alarm. The fire was swelling fast, unnaturally, inexplicably fast.

"We've got to get out of here," he added breathlessly, "the whole hallway is on fire."

But how? There were only a few tiny windows; large enough to let in some fresh air but far too small for even him to get through. Going back out through the hallway would be suicide, they'd suffocate or burn to a crisp, possibly both. That left only one option and there was no telling if it would work.

He clambered on to the sink, not caring about having to stand up to his ankles in water, stood on the very tip of his toes and pushed up against the plasterboard tiled ceiling. Dust and sand and other grime rained down on both of them but he pressed on regardless. "Help me push," he said through gritted teeth.

The fifteen-year-old had wanted to reprimand him on his language. What was he? Ten? Eleven? Ugh, Aurelia thought, feet shifting as the frigid water soaked her shoes uncomfortably. The lavatory was small with only three cubicles, and it didn't take a lot of taps to flood it apparently. "What?" Aurelia muttered in disbelief, likely that her head was still slightly fuzzy with nicotine taking a moment slower to register the boy's exclamations. Until the scent hit her all of a sudden, that unmistakable burning and loud cackling behind the lavatory doors, puffing noxious smoke from the gap under.

"What?! How?" Had someone thrown gasoline down the halls and lit it just for laughs? "Were you with anyone else?" Just moments ago was peace and quiet, albeit with the rowdy scuffle of boys and now behind those doors were the roaring protest of flames. As the boy scrambled in a panic, Aurelia would grab her haversack from where she left it in the lavatory, disregarding his desperate plea to assist him in dismantling a window. In an audible sigh, relief would wash over her when she found her wand tucked at the bottom of the bag. Somethings, she just couldn't part with, and today, it would save her.

Underaged magic could be traced which meant that any spell she would soon cast to save her and this boy from this dilemma of getting fried alive would alert authorities to the area. But being found alive, was better than dead as a pile of ash. The smoke was growing thick, stinging her eyes and lungs with every breath she took. The light pressure of the wand's weight on her palm was one she missed quite a bit. Albeit minor compared to the raging fire at hand, there was another problem: the muggle boy. "Obscuro." Easy.

Now armed and ready, she'd barge through the door and into the corridors, she could barely through the heavy screen of dark grey smoke. "Ventus." A spiral of winds howled through the long hallway, revealing the large flames lapping the walls, moving hungrily.

Finnegan hardly registered her questions. Why wasn't she helping? It wasn't until he'd dislodged one of the plaster tiles from the T-bar ceiling that he looked back at her. "Oliver's down there," he panted, "classroom 6A I-" think it's too late, he finished in his head and swallowed down a gulp. It was too late to go back to Oliver; the boy would have to find his own way out, maybe jump through the window or somehow clamber his way down. Someone had to have heard him by now, right? Someone had to have a ladder...

The world went dark the moment he turned to look into the hole he'd made in the ceiling. Suddenly blinded, he lost his footing, cried out, and collapsed onto the floor in a useless heap of flailing limbs. He'd gone blind. Blind! On mad instinct, he reached for his eyes instead of his aching side, felt his face. He could feel his eyelashes brush against the inside of a cloth, but it made no difference to the blackness that filled his vision. "I can't see, I can't see!" he cried out pitifully, hoping against hope that the girl was still there, that she'd help him up.

Her footfalls made a wet, slapping sound before he heard the door swing open. Heat and the acrid scent of smoke rushed into the room, sending him into a wheezing stupor on the floor, unable to see, unable to breathe. "Don't leave me!" he howled in panic, clawing at the floor before his fingers finally found purchase on the door handle of the nearest stall. He hoisted himself up and stumbled forward, teeter-tottering like a drunk, one hand still pressed against his face attempting to pull the blindfold away, the other seeking a solid surface to lean against.

Then he heard her voice, though he could not discern what she said. Another wave of heat washed over him; for a brief moment, he thought pain and death would follow. Instead, he felt the wind. Wind? Wind! The air cleared and he could breathe again! Ash and dust were blasted from his hair as if someone had just opened a very large window.

He had felt his way toward the door but had no notion where the fire was or the girl. "Where are you?! he cried out in desperation.

Poor thing. Through both the cracking fire and shrill of the fire alarm, the boy's anguished wails would earn him a pitiful glance from Aurelia. Familiar she was with the statute of secrecy, she was doing him a huge favour, both saving his life and the endeavour of having to relay through the oblivation. The magical blindfold was usually easily removed with a quick yank as she had seen in duelling, yet it remained tight on the boy's face as he stumbled through the halls. Surely he'd figure it out soon. Which meant Aurelia only had so much time to cast her magic before the muggle boy regained his sight inevitably.

The teenager was not fearless. Especially not when fire was at play. It was one of the things on her list that she avoided at all costs. Once bitten, twice shy. Thrice bitten, forever paranoid. But yet the brunette embarked towards the very danger with such determination. Strangely enough, the red flames across the hall did not spread any further from where it stood, lapping ravenously at a particular door. One that happened to be the entrance of classroom 6A - the very room the young boy claimed his friend, Oliver, was in. This was no ordinary fire.

Aurelia stood a good distance from the flames, her self-preservation and smoke forbidding her from taking a step closer. Muffled, distant screams of sheer despair could be heard from behind the door that the flames were breaking down rapidly. "Glacius," for the third time today, the witch would cast another spell. However, the freezing spell was a poor choice, as the cold air merely condensed and dispersed into a mist just inches away from the blasting heat of the flames. The door and whatever expanse of room there was behind was the only thing between the flames and Oliver. Time was ticking.

A loud sound like ice sizzling and dancing on a hot plate filled the air before he finally pulled the blindfold away, and he discarded it along with the question if how he had gotten blindfolded to brgin with. There was no time to lose.

His eyes were puffy and swollen, his vision bleary not just because of the stinging smoke. A quick swipe with his sleeves was all he had time for before a steamy mist blew down the halkway, dispersing into the air. The boy had no idea what had happened, but he knew it was not good.

It wasn't bravery or a desire for glory that made him do what he did next. It was the anguished screams on the other side of the door that sent him barreling toward the classroom, and slam his little shoulder against the charred woodwork.

Like moses before the red sea, the flames parted at his feet, crawled up and down the ceiling with ravenous hunger but they did not touch him. Oblivious to this blessing, Finnegan used his frame as a battering ram to break open the door.

At last it caved in, and cracked open with a terrible noise. The heat and the deafening sirens still assaulted them while smoke floodes into the classroom. There, near the windows remained a young boy slumped against the wall, his whole body shaking in the most pathetic fashion.

"Oliver!"

The pudgy boy did not respond. It was impossible to tell if he was still awake and breathing; he was little more than a motionless, thoughtless lump of meat, dazed into inaction. Finnegan dropped to his knees beside him. The boy's skin had blistered and his lungs choked on the thick, black smoke through ragged breaths.

Finnegan's heart sank. Somehow this all felt like it was his fault. He had never meant for this to happen, but somehow, he had made it happen. He had urged the boy into the classroom. He had pushed him into a death trap.

"Oliver," he shook the boy. "It's me! We're going to get out of here."

He shot a glance over his shoulder at the outline of the girl amid the smoke. "I need a hand!"

Having held her breath as long as she could, the incantation would force her to expel and naturally, she would have to continue the cycle of breathing, inhaling once more and the smoke with it. The set of lungs within her burned - as if the cigarettes didn't already do enough damage. She heaved a cough an arm instinctively moving to cover her mouth and nose. Extinguo was the next spell on the list, it should have been the first.

The nearing of the boy with eyes now uncovered instigated an initial hesitance to cast. What she didn't expect was for the 10-year-old to run head-first into the blazing danger. "Wait-" she protested as the boy rammed into the door. The fire made way for him, she'd never seen anything like that. But it further proved her suspicions that the fire was not just ordinary, this was the result of magic. Although the boy went through unscathed, Aurelia would not have that privilege. Her wanted hand extended cautiously towards the flames, unlike the boy, it did not make way for her. "Ah-" Upon instinct from the sharp pain, she drew her hand back and her wand clattered to the ground.

"Oliver! It's me! We're going to get out of here. I need a hand!" The flames, fire and smoke was a heavy screen, she could barely see what was happening inside the classroom. "I can't get through!" She cried out a reply as she scrambled for her wand. Now without the barrier of the door, those ravenous flames now advanced dangerously. But not for long as Aurelia retrieved her wand. "Extinguo!" In all her fervour, she cast the spell. Light hits the flames, causing immediate shrinkage of fire. A wave of relief rushing over her.

Not wasting any time, Finnegan had resorted to pulling Oliver up onto his pins. Thank god he was still alive and conscious, even though he seemed close to total collapse. There was that hissing again, followed by what sounded like a rush of icy wind, forcing the hungry flames apart and dissipating the cloying smoke.

Bent over from having Oliver leaning heavily on him, Finnegan limped back the way he came with gritted teeth. No sooner than he'd made it back into the hall - the fire had subsided there - he spun around on his heel. "Why didn't you help?!"

Oliver stared at some infinitesimally small point ahead of him, his face frozen in shock while he muttered inaudible nothings under his breath. Grunting, Finnegan turned to face the exit. As if by magic the fire had retreated, revealing no damage to the walls or anything else it had touched. But Finnegan's mind was too focused on getting out to notice, nor could he make heads or tails out of Oliver's astonished blubbering.

It wasn't until he'd made his way over to the other end of the hall that he looked over his shoulder to see if the girl had been following that he noticed there was no trace left of the fire whatsoever. "A-are you okay?" He asked, his ears raised slightly so he could hear Oliver's response. The boy nodded to his response, somehow that made him feel better.

He pushed through the door and let go of Oliver now that the boy seemed to have regained control over his limbs again. None of this made any sense. It had to be some kind of vivid dream that he was about to wake up from. Where had the fire gone? What about the blindfold? What about all the strange, hissing noises he'd heard?

Gradually, as the fire faded into thin air, the smoke cleared revealing the mousy boy and his rotund friend on the ground. Her brows knitted in concern at the sight, the unconscious boy's skin was red and all swelled up. But what made her lips twist into a scowl was the boy snapping at her for not helping. Of course, he wouldn't know what she had done today... but soon, she was sure he would. But she would rather someone else break the news to him, they both had gone through quite the ordeal today.

Aurelia would join the boy on the ground next to his friend. "Should I heal him? He does not look too good." A thought she had wondered out loud under her breath if only a mutter under her breath. Such a plethora of spells cast today would have already alerted the authorities, they wouldn't take too long to find her. Aurelia could run again, hop onto another train but yet there was something inside her that told her not to. A muggle life just wasn't for her, and she was growing homesick.

Pulling out her wand again, with a palm, she'd cover Oliver's eyes. "Reparifors," Just like that, those minor burns on his skin began to heal up. It would be a phenomenon to the other boy, whom she'd still not gotten the name of. "Do you need some magic too?" She asked, seeing his face had also been bruised by their scuffle.