Make a Wish

Akko's potion went wrong again. It was of the routinely catastrophic variety; a cloud of sickly purple smoke burst forth from her cauldron, a fervent wail from the girl alerted the class to her plight, and Diana felt a sigh fall from her lips. This was the second incident this week—and it was Tuesday.

Diana observed from a distance as Akko's potion burbled over the edge of her cauldron and spilled onto her desk in waves, the thick purple liquid bubbling aggressively as it ate through everything it touched. In a matter of seconds, Akko was leading half the class in a chorus of horrified screams, and as their professor tried to quell the chaos, Diana set to work.

With her wand held ahead of her, she recited the appropriate cleanup and reversal spell. The corrosive purple sludge climbed back up the desk and into the cauldron, pulling away from the eroded wood to reveal desks and notes undamaged. The room went quiet, as if no one could quite register the remedied problem. And then the praise began.

Screams became squeals of delight as Diana pushed a strand of platinum blond hair behind her ear and crossed her arms. The happy applause and fawning of the teacher echoed in her ears, but she was impassive. It was merely routine, and she was waiting, somewhat dreadfully, for it to meet its conclusion. A sidelong glance towards the cleared mess gave Diana a perfect view of Akko, whose face was red with anger as she glared daggers into the blonde. Oh, if looks could kill.

"I didn't need your help!" she declared.

Diana closed her eyes, her face offering no expression. She was merely following the routine. "I wasn't helping you, I was dispelling a potential danger to the class."

"A potential danger?!"

"Do you have a better way to describe a potion that can eat through a stone floor? Perhaps if you spent as much time studying as you do fawning over Shiny Chariot, your ability to make a potion might have actually improved in the past three months."

That had done it. Diana watched as Akko seethed with rage, and she knew she'd hit a raw nerve. Where Shiny Chariot was concerned, Akko was nothing if not unreasonable. But…it was the quickest way to get Lotte and Sucy to intervene, which worked nicely for Diana. The pain a verbal lashing by Akko brought to her chest was unpleasant—the less time it took, the better.

"Leave Shiny Chariot out of this!" Akko shrieked, and as she made to lung at Diana, Lotte held her back and tried to assuage her anger with timid, heartfelt words. Diana, meanwhile, returned to her own potion and her own thoughts. As Hannah and Barbara snickered at what they perceived as an idiotic attachment to Shiny Chariot, Diana found herself following a disobedient thought through a scenario where Lotte had let Akko tackle her. She found herself measuring the price of physical pain to the worth of physical contact with the girl.

She concluded, at least by the time she'd perfected her potion, that hopeful thinking did little more than make her chest wrench with pain. Akko hated her…it'd probably benefit her to feel the same. And yet, she had still spent the rest of the class sneaking glances at her, studying her determined expression for a split second before looking away, and repeating the action a few times so that she could carve the look deep into her memory.

She'd continued this into the next class, and into lunch. She committed to memory each bored, pouty sigh, each bright, enthusiastic smile, even the enraged expression she took on when Amanda teased her about her absolute lack of magical talent. Witnessing this formed a sickening pit in Diana's stomach: Amanda's comments never warranted the absolute hatred Akko had for Diana. Amanda could call Akko an idiot ten times in one hour and not two hours later the girls were joking together as if they'd never fought at all.

But Diana had it different. Diana was top of the class where Akko was the very bottom, naturally talented where Akko struggled, born into legendary witch family where Akko had no relation to witches at all. She was the unanimous favorite, the prodigy. Any interaction she had with Akko came prefaced and threaded with murmurs and stifled giggles, it came with soft scoffs about Akko's ineptitude and praise to the Cavendish name. Diana couldn't recall exactly when she'd first noticed the little winces of sadness flicker across Akko's face when she interacted with her, she simply knew that recognition of it had made every compliment spoil as it hit her ears.

Praise at the Akko's expense felt like poison to her, but they were the sort of things a Cavendish couldn't and wouldn't dare apologize for, especially in Diana's case. Akko was of a much lesser caliber, her common blood made her inferior to Diana in the eyes of most of her teachers and classmates. She was a failure of a witch who might as well have been worlds apart from Diana, so the very idea that they could be friends was a fool's errand…more than friends was a thought akin to a fever dream.

And yet here she was, fruitlessly doodling on a spare scrap of paper in a secluded corner of the library after dark, making sure to catch every detail she could remember while keeping an ear out for Hannah and Barbara. She'd ditched them after dinner to hide here, surrendering herself wholly to her own fatal crush for as long as she could afford. Akko appeared on the scrap of paper again and again, her neat brown bangs and clean cut hair drawn to perfection, her smile brightening the page again and again. She drew a pout, a sigh, a scowl…another grin.

She turned the paper over for more room, and continued again and again…until a soft, wayward snort breached her façade. She'd inadvertently drawn Akko as Shiny Chariot. Diana traced the lines of the drawing with her finger, smiling softly until the thought to keep the drawing crossed her mind, and her lips pressed into a frown. She wanted to. She gripped the paper tight by the edges for a moment, reluctant to let it go.

The full gravity of her emotions seeped in her face for a while, all the sadness and longing she expertly hid day after day exposed and raw in her expression. She bit her lip and let out a deep sigh before rising to her feet and walking out of the alcove she'd hidden herself in. Her façade returned, the once precious piece of scrap paper crumpled up in her hands and discarded in a waste bin as she nodded a farewell to the librarians and left that hall. It would be troublesome if anyone discovered that Diana Cavendish, of all people, had a soft spot for Luna Nova's biggest flunky, Kagari Akko.

And so, Diana fell back into the routine, returning to her quarters, entering her dorm to see Hannah and Barbara again, listening to them tell her about a meeting Ursula wanted to have with her tomorrow, getting into her nightgown and climbing into her top bunk. The routine would continue, but before she fell asleep, Diana caught herself wishing…hoping that something would grant her a way to see Akko alone.

Tomorrow she'd think that she should've been careful what she'd wished for.

oooOOOooo

So…yeah. Let's see where this dumpster fire takes us shall we?

So after I heard that the tv series for Little Witch Academia came out I binged the first five episodes and well. This happened. I apologize in advance as everything I touch will spontaneously combust at some point.

…

Well.

Diakko trash Peeves out until next chapter.