And here it is! If you read Bound X before this, here is the Hogwarts AU I talked about! If you haven't read Bound X, here's the Hogwarts AU this ship needed! (like seriously, how come there hasn't been one yet?) Anyway, lets get on with this! Hope you enjoy! (Why am I using so many exclamation marks?!)

"Watch where you're going!" a man yelled as Magnus run past him.

"Sorry!" the blonde boy called out without turning to look at the man or stopping. He was already late enough as it was, he couldn't afford to stop to apologize, even if he did feel sorry for almost knocking that man over.

Of all the days he had to be late, it had to be this one! One is not simply late for the first day back at school. Especially when your school is in the Scottish Highlands and you need an hours long train ride to get there. Magnus has never been late for the Hogwarts Express. He normally arrives early to find a good compartment.

But normal has changed a lot for Magnus lately. His mother normally wakes him up and drives them to King's Cross, she normally kisses his cheeks before he gets on the train even though Magnus is embarrassed and she normally waves goodbye at him as the train starts moving, telling him to "Be careful, pumpkin!"

That's what happens normally. But it won't happen again.

Stop, don't think about that. You can't think about that.

"Sorry! Excuse me! Coming through!" Magnus said as he elbowed his way through the crowded platform, his backpack bouncing on his back as he run.

Magnus really liked his backpack. It might be old and worn out but it was Doctor Who themed and Magnus had had it for years. His mother had given up a long time ago to get him to get a new one. Now, if Magnus said his backpack was his most valuable possession, it wouldn't be just sentimental talk.

It was quite literally all he had left. Everything he owned was inside that backpack. His wand, his cloak, his trunk with his schoolbooks. You might wonder how all that fitted in a backpack, but Magnus' Charm Professor and his Head of House, Professor Blitzen, moonlighted as a fashion designer. He had made a line of all sorts of bags that could have a car in them and still look and feel half empty. The charm he put on his backpack was the only reason why Magnus had been able to hold onto his belongings on the streets.

Magnus had always been a bit paranoid about the wall leading to platform 9¾. What if he run into the wrong wall? What if it was out of order and Magnus run into a wall? What if it was out of order and only part of him passed through? He couldn't think of anything more humiliating than have his but stick out for a wall.

"Your butt won't stick out of the wall, pumpkin," his mother had said when he told her about his worries when he was a second year.

Magnus scowled at the nickname. Some kids from his old school had heard his mum calling him that and teased him about it. It was a lame pet-name.

"How do you know?" he asked her. "I'm sure people would take hundreds of pictures. I can already see the internet articles: Teen boy's arse sticks out of wall at King's Cross station."

His mother laughed and ruffled his hair. "If that happens then my butt will be stuck as well," she told him.

He used to go through the wall while holding his mum's hand or, when he grew up a bit and thought he was too cool for that, holding onto her clothes. She was always the one who stepped through first, with Magnus following behind her.

But now he rushed forward, not even flinching as he run into and through the wall.

The difference between the Muggle and Wizard platforms never seized to amaze Magnus. A moment ago, he was running through crowds of coffee-fueled, nameless people on their way to work, the air filled with the station racket and a cacophony of voices all speaking at the same time, either on their phones or to other people.

Now he was on a platform smaller than the other's he run through in his haste but just as lively. People in robes were talking to one another, saying goodbye to their children or catching up with some friend. There were trunks with owl cages on them everywhere, and Magnus saw a man trying to catch his daughter's owl that had gotten out of its cage. The air seemed to buzz and glow with magic. It called out to Magnus like it was a part of – which, okay, it was- and gave him this refreshed feeling, like he stepped into the cool ocean after a hot day.

Magnus rushed onto the train with the last few students as the train gave its last warning that it was starting its journey.

The train's doors closed behind Magnus and he took a moment to catch his breath. I made it, I made it. By the time he could breathe normally, the other students that had gotten on the train with him had already left. Magnus started walking down the corridor to find where his friends were until he realized he had no idea in which compartment they were.

Normally, when his mum was still here, she'd wake him up early so they could get to the station without rushing and Magnus would be one of the first kids to arrive so he would find a compartment for him and his friends. No he had no idea where they were.

Guess I'll have to check every compartment until I find them or they find me.

With a sigh, Magnus started walking down the corridor. He knocked on every compartment door before opening it (he had manners, thank you very much) but he didn't find his friends in any of them. There was a group of girls gossiping among themselves in one and a group of boys hunched over their chocolate frog cards in another, but his friends were nowhere to be seen.

He knocked on the last door of the wagon. "Yes?" came the answer from inside and Magnus pulled the door open.

There was a kid about his age in the compartment, with black hair like coals and two toned eyes, one warm brown and the other bright amber. There were no other students in the compartment, which was weird since there's normally at least three in each. The unknown kid sat against the window and looked at Magnus with curiosity, as if the blonde was an unexpected surprise.

"Do you want something?" the kid asked and only then did Magnus realize he had been staring. His heart did a weird little thing, like it just did a loop inside his chest. This kid sure is pretty, he thought before. Wait, what?

"I, um…" he stuttered. Before he realized it, he had blurted out "Can I sit here?"

The kid seemed surprised for a moment before nodding. "Sure. There's no one else here."

Magnus sat down opposite of the stranger, holding his bag on his lap. The other kid ignored him, just staring out the window at the changing landscape. Magnus was fiddling with the straps and zippers of his back, feeling a strange de ja vu, as if he was back at first year. He felt like a nervous eleven-year-old trying to make friends on his first day at Hogwarts.

He stole a glance at the stranger in front of him. Magnus couldn't remember seeing the kid at Hogwarts before. It was weird. Hogwarts didn't get new students. It was literally the only Wizarding school in the country, any child with magic in the UK would go there.

"So, um, I'm Magnus Chase, fourth year," He said, hoping he didn't sound too awkward. "And you are?"

"Alex-" the kid stopped, as if considering something to say, before continuing. "Alex Fierro, fourth year too."

"So you're my age? I don't think I've ever seen you around Hogwarts." Obviously you haven't, you wouldn't have forgotten eyes like that. The nerd in Magnus was awakened and he couldn't help thinking that in a fantasy world, those were the eyes of the Chosen One or of someone with hidden mystical powers or all sorts of other cool things.

"Of course you haven't," Alex said, bringing back Magnus from of his nerdy thoughts. "I've been going to Durmstrang up until now."

"Why did you change school?" Magnus asked. It wasn't unheard of for parents in Britain to send their kids to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons, but it was still extremely rare.

The easy going smile on Alex's face disappeared and Magnus realized he stumbled on a topic he shouldn't ask about. "Family issues," Alex finally said, looking out of the window instead of at Magnus.

There was an uncomfortable silence as the other teenager didn't talk or look at Magnus. In an attempt to keep the conversation going, Magnus resorted to the classic going-to-Hogwarts-for-the-first-time topic.

"So, what house do you think you'll be sorted in?" he asked.

Alex's shoulders relaxed, dropping from their hunched up guarded position. "My parents didn't really like Hogwarts, so I don't know anything about it other than that there's four different houses and each has a different color. How do you get in each house, anyway?" Alex asked. "Do you have to apply or something? Are they split in boys and girls?"

There was a strange tightness in Alex's voice at the 'boys and girls' part, but maybe Magnus had just imagined it.

"Well, you get in each house based on what you're like," Magnus started explaining, doing wide hand gestures. "The red house is Gryffindor and to be in it you have to be brave and courageous. Their symbol is a lion and their common room is in one of the towers. Ravenclaw's common room is also in a tower and their symbol is an eagle. Ravenclaws are clever and creative and their color is blue. Then there's Slytherin, which is the green one and they are ambitious and cunning. Their common room is in the dungeons and their symbol is a snake. Finally, there's Hufflepuffs, who are kind and loyal. They're the yellow house and their mascot is a badger. The common room is next to the kitchens."

"Oh, lucky," Alex said, taking all the information in. "But if it's based on your character, how do they know which house to put you in? Do you take a test?"

Magnus chuckled at that. It seemed weird to him, getting sorted in your house by a test instead of the Sorting Hat.

"No, we don't. A professor calls your name and you sit on a stool as they put the Sorting Hat on your head. It sees into your head and then announces which house you are in."

Alex looked at him like he was crazy. "You get sorted by a talking hat that sees into your head?"

Magnus nodded. "Yeah. Why, how did you get sorted in Durmstrang?"

"There aren't any houses like yours in Durmstrang, just the Boy's Dorms and the Girl's Dorms."

"Oh." Magnus said. He remembered back in second year when the Triwizard Tournament happened. All the Durmstrang students wore the same clothes, but so did the kids in Ilvermorny, where Annabeth goes to school, and they had houses. He had assumed Durmstrang would work in the same way. "That's kinda boring."

"And stupid," Alex added.

"So what house do you think you'd be in now that you know how they're separated?" Magnus asked.

Alex shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe Slytherin? It sounds cool, and I like green."

As the other teen talked, Magnus watched in amazement as Alex's black hair turned green. The color started from the roots and moved towards the ends of Alex's hair like a wave washing over a beach.

"How did you do that?" Magnus asked, almost jumping out of his seat.

Alex raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Do what?"

"Your hair!" Magnus said, pointing at the green locks. "It's green now!"

Alex took a lock of hair and looked at it. "Oh, yeah. It is green." The phrase was said with the kind of nonchalance one would say "Oh, it's raining."

"Your hair is green and that is your reaction?" Magnus asked baffled.

Alex shrugged. "I'm a metamorphmagus. I can change things like my hair and eyes easily."

"That's awesome!" Magnus was basically jumping on his seat now. He looked like a little kid who just saw a cool magic trick. "So can you, like, change your face to look like someone else or grow taller?"

"No, at least not yet. Hair and eye color is easier, but changing my face or my whole body includes changing my body structure, which is more complicated and tiring. I'll need a few years before I can do that."

"That's still so awesome! You could look like anyone you want! You'd be a great spy."

Alex chuckled. "Yeah, it would be useful if I was a spy. I'd be the new James Bond." The teen took a pose, hands clasped together like a gun. "My name is Fierro. Alex Fierro."

Magnus laughed at the over the top impersonation. Alex did a dramatic hair-flip and everything, giving the imaginary camera a sexy glance. (Or it was supposed to be sexy, I guess. It was more like a person squinting to read something because they took off their glasses.) The other teen managed to hold the pose for a few more seconds before falling back on the seat laughing.

"So what house are you in?" Alex asked.

"I'm a Hufflepuff," Magnus said. "I have friends in the other three houses too. I can introduce them to you. You might end up sharing a room with one of them."

A weird look flashed in Alex's eyes at the mention of rooming with someone but it was gone before Magnus could see exactly what it was. "Aren't your friends on the train?" Alex asked. "How come you aren't sitting with them?"

"I was actually searching for them when I knocked on the door-" Magnus said, only to be cut off as said door was pulled open.

"There you are!" Mallory said, red curls flying everywhere like always. "We've been looking for you everywhere!"

"I was looking for you too, but then I met Alex and I got caught up talking," Magnus explained.

"Well, your new friend can come sit with us, if he wants," Mallory said. "We'll make room-"

"She" Alex cut her off.

"Huh?"

"Call me she," Alex explained. "Unless and until I tell you otherwise."

Mallory was taken aback for a moment before nodding. "Okay," she said. "Come on, we're in the next wagon."

They walked to the compartment Magnus' crazy friends were sitting in. Magnus sneaked a glance at Alex as they walked, her hair still bright green. He was surprised, but not as much as he would be before this summer. A horribly big number of the other kids his age he met on the streets this summer didn't identify as the sex they were assigned at birth or thought the whole boy/girl binary wasn't for them. They ended up homeless because their parents didn't accept them. Magnus didn't even know their parents, but he still hated them. Oh, I know what will make it clear I love my child; kicking them out because of who they are! What a brilliant idea!

If Magnus knew where they lived, he would gladly through a dozen dungbombs at their houses. Their houses would stink like shit to match their shity personality.

Mallory opened the door of a compartment without knocking and yelled "I found Beantown!" as she walked in. She plopped down on the seat next to T.J., who was leaning against the window and flipping his wand like he was taking part in the wand-flipping Olympics.

Alex looked at Magnus. She smirking so much Magnus new it wasn't a good sign. "Beantown?"

"My mum's from Boston. We lived there until I was about six," Magnus explained. Then he turned to his friends and said "And I've told you not to call me that!"

"Magnus, mate, how have you been?" Halfborn asked as Magnus walked in, patting him on the back. By now Magnus knew that a 'pat' to Halfborn was a slap to normal people, but he had gotten used to the giant boy's shows of endearment.

Magnus was pretty sure Halfborn was a giant. Or at least half giant. He towered over most students – and even some of the shorter teachers – and he had towered over them since Magnus met him back on his first year. Yet somehow he didn't look lanky at all – then again, being a Beater on your house Quidditch team probably gives you plenty of muscle.

"Good, good," Magnus said, as the sarcastic-shit part of his brain answered Living on the streets because my mum died.

"Guys, this is Alex, I met her while looking for you," Magnus said as he did the introductions. "Alex, the redhead is Mallory Keen, Slytherin. The huge one who just broke my back," Halfborn smiled proudly at that, "is Halfborn Gunderson, Gryffindor. T.J is the one in the army jacket, he's Ravenclaw. And lastly, this is Samira 'Sam' al-Abbas, she's in Slytherin."

"It's nice to meet you," Sam said, offering Alex her hand. Her green hijab was around her neck, letting her dark hair fall on her shoulders. Sam was one of the prettiest girls in their year and one of the most formidable. Magnus may or may not have rooted for her (multiple times) when she'd put some rude jerk in their place.

"Nice to meet you too," Alex said as she took Sam's hand and shook it. "Magnus wasn't lying when he said he had friends in all houses."

"Magnus is friends with everyone," Halfborn said. He was sitting next to Sam, with his legs kicked up so they rested next to T.J's legs. "I think being friendly is a Hufflepuff qualification."

"I'm not friends with everyone!" Magnus protested.

"You're friends with the house elfs," T.J pointed out. T.J was the rock in their group. When everyone else would get too carried away, even Sam, he would keep his cool and get them to pull their shit together. It happened more often than Magnus would like to admit.

Magnus opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. "Okay, point taken."

"So, Alex," Sam started, "What year are you in?"

"I'm in fourth year. You?"

"We're all in fourth year too, except for Halfborn," T.J said. "He's in fifth year."

Alex sent a glance to the large boy. Despite being only a year older than Magnus, he already had stubble on his face, whereas Magnus didn't even have a hair. He fit the stereotypical image of a big and strong Gryffindor pretty much perfectly, what with his arms being as thick as Magnus' thighs and his eagerness to get into a fight. What didn't fit the Gryffindor stereotype was his almost limitless thirst for knowledge. How he hadn't been sorted into Ravenclaw no one knows.

"Is you name really Halfborn?" Alex asked. Magus was surprised the question took this long; everyone always asked about Halfborn's weird nickname.

"Nah, it's a nickname. I was a large baby and my mum said it was like half of me was born and the other curved out of rock or something. The name stuck."

There was a knock on the door and the snack lady came in, pushing a cart filled with chocolates, caramels, chips and all sorts of unhealthy snacks your dentist wouldn't want you eating. T.J. bought a large bag of every-flavor- beans (because he's hardcore), Mallory got a few jelly slugs and liquorish wands, Sam got two cauldron cakes and Halfborn bought pumpkin pastries and a chocolate frog, as did every one. It was a tradition in their group to all get a chocolate frog and see who got the best card.

The only one who didn't buy anything was Alex. Even Magnus bough a chocolate frog, despite the fact he didn't have enough money to waste on sweets, because he didn't want his friends to suspect anything. He knew he couldn't keep the fact he was homeless from them for long, but he really didn't want to tell them on the first day back at school.

"Aren't you hungry, Alex?" Mallory asked. Her liquorish wand was hanging from the corner of her mouth like a limp noodle and bobbed up and down when she talked.

"Nah, I'm not hungry," Alex said, but her eyes kept going back to the food cart, which hadn't left the compartment yet.

"Nonsense," Halfborn said through his mouthful of pumpkin pastries. "You're looking at the snack cart like Magnus looks at falafel."

"Alex," Sam said seriously. She was looking at the other girl straight in the eye and her face was so serious she looked like she was about to give a speech in front of the Ministry. "Do you want to be our friend?"

"I-what?"

"Do you want to be our friend?" Sam repeated.

Hearing it twice didn't help Alex's confusion any. She still looked at them as if they had just grown a second head. Why is she so surprised we want to be friends with her? Magnus wondered. She's really cool.

"You want to be friends?" Alex asked. There was so much confusion in her voice and in her face you would have thought she was a muggleborn that was just told magic is real.

"Yeah, you seem really cool," Halfborn said.

"And if you've had a one-on-one conversation for twenty minutes or more with Magnus, you're already his friend," T.J added. "And if you're friends with one of us, you're friends with all of us."

Mallory nodded. "We're a package deal. Five losers for the price of one."

"So do you want to be friends?" Sam asked once more.

"Uh, okay," Alex finally said awkwardly. She was still taken aback by the question; one moment they were talking about food and the next Sam was asking her to be their friend.

No one had even asked Alex that before.

"Well, if you're our friend and then you take part in our traditions," Mallory said. She left some money on the cart, took a chocolate frog and gave it to Alex. The green haired girl looked down at the sweet in her hands like it was the Queen's crown or something similarly impossible for her to have in her hands.

"I… thank you," Alex said quietly as the snack lady walked out. She looked down at the chocolate frog and smiled to herself.

Magnus raised his chocolate frog in the air. "To our new friend!" he toasted.

"To our new friend!" everyone cheered along, their frogs held high in the air.

Alex was looking at them baffled, like they were maniacs and she was very seriously reconsidering being friends with them (Magnus understood that, he had that thought a lot too.) In the end she smiled and raised her chocolate frog too.

"To my new friends!"

Getting off the Hogwarts Express was chaos. It always was, since the first time Magnus got off the train, a nervous first year trying desperately not to lose sight of the huge man that was the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds, Hunding. Once the train came to a stop, its engine finally ceasing to growl like beast and its door opening, waves of children poured out. The air was filled with a cheerful cacophony of voices and what once felt overwhelming to Magnus was now familiar.

"First year over here! First years over here!"

Hunding was beckoning first years towards him to take them on the boats to Hogwarts. The children were apprehensive to go near him at first, which was understandable. Hunding wasn't exactly what you would describe as a welcoming figure. He was burly and huge, with a wild beard and eyes hidden under his bushy eyebrows. Magnus had somehow stricken up a weird friendship with the man and he'd always joke that Hunding looked like a Viking. (Which was a joke Hunding like quite a bit, since he came to every single Halloween party since as a Viking.)

Magnus and the rest of his friends walked to the carriages that took the students of years two and above to Hogwarts. The carriages looked like normal horse-pulled carriages, the kind you see in old-fashioned movies. The difference was that these didn't have horses pulling them along, they moved on their own. They had seemed so amazing to Magnus when he first saw them; everything magical did. Despite being a halfblood, he had grown up around more of the muggle world than the wizarding world. There wasn't a lot of magic his mum could show him since she was a Squib.

"Why are we going to Hogwarts on carriages and they go in boat?" Alex asked, pointing over at the first year students following Hunding like sheep follow a shepherd.

Mallory shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe to make more of an impression on them. It's quite impressive, seeing Hogwarts from the boats as you arrive."

Magnus would have agreed with her - he had been thinking about that since his second year - but he couldn't look away from the carriages. Or, to be more precise, what was in front of them.

Horses. But no, not exactly. Because normal horses don't look like this. The creatures, whatever they were, looked like inky black skin was pulled taunt over a horse's skeleton. Every single bone was visible, and if they weren't so creepy Magnus would have counted them all. Large, bony wings sprouted from their backs, like the wings of a freakishly large bat. There was something weirdly reptilian about their faces, like they were part dinosaurs, which freaked out Magnus even more (he had had dinosaur nightmares for a week after he first saw Jurassic Park.)

But when one turned and looked at him, Magnus decided that the scarier thing about them was their eyes. They were completely white, no iris whatsoever. Against their pitch black skin, they looked like twin moons looking at you from the night sky. Magnus felt a shiver run through his spine. He felt as if they were staring into his soul, able to see all the things he didn't want to let himself acknowledge.

Like his mum. And how she would never be there to pick him up from Platform 9¾ ever again.

"Magnus?" T.J asked. His hand was on the blonde's shoulder and his voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "You have been staring at nothing for a while now. Is everything alright?"

"Y-yeah. Everything is alright," Magnus said. "Anyway, let's get on a carriage before they leave us behind."

Magnus quickly moved to get in the closer carriage, eager to get away from those creepy horse-bat-dinosaur things. What he didn't see as he rushed into the carriage, however, was Sam glancing between him and where the beasts were with a skeptical look on her face.

It wasn't long before they arrived at Hogwarts. The entrance was filled to the brim with students, children in black and red, green, blue and yellow flooding through the huge main doors. Professor Sif was standing at the side of the entrance hall, calling over the first year students. Her long hair spilled down her back like melted gold and it seemed to shine against the dark fabric of her robes.

"I think that's where I should go," Alex said, pointing over at the blonde woman.

Magnus and his friends walked over to their respective house tables when they entered the dining hall a.k.a. "Feast Hall of the Slain". Yeah, not the most welcoming name for a place where you go to to eat, but Magnus had to say he loved the reactions first years had when they first heard of it. Magnus didn't know why the hall had gotten that nickname to begin with, the information had been lost in the many decades the school was open, but not knowing made it even better (and he wasn't sure he wanted to know).

Professor Sif stood on top the small stage in front of the High Table. A stool stood in the center of the stage with the sorting hat on it. The first years sat in a row in front of the stage, their backs facing the rest of the students. Alex stood out among them; she was at least a head taller than most of them and although her hair was black again, it still had some green in it that hadn't gone away yet.

As Professor Sif called out the first years to be sorted after the Hat was done with its song, talk of the new student spread through the hall in whispered voices. Magnus couldn't blame them for being curious, but at the same he felt so sorry for Alex. It had been nerve-wrecking enough getting sorted normally; he didn't want to imagine what it would have been like with everyone staring at and taking about him.

"Fierro, Alex!" Professor Sif called out in a loud voice. There was a second of silence among the students before the whispering started even more intense than before as Alex stood up and walked to the stool.

"Did she say Fierro?"

"Like the Fierros?"

"I didn't know they had a child."

"I heard that their child went to Durmstrang."

Magnus looked around him confused. Why was everyone talking about Alex's family name?

"Why are everyone talking like that? Who's Fierro?" Magnus asked a girl next to him who was in his Magical Creatures class.

"You don't know who the Fierros are?" she asked in a surprised voice.

"Should I?" Magnus didn't know and didn't really care to know about wizarding politics. Names that were meant to be important just went through one ear and out the other, unless he heard it a bazillion times.

The girl nodded frantically. "Yeah! They're like the richest wizarding family in the UK!"

"And I heard they're mixed with dark magic," a boy piped in.

"Oh, those are just rumors!" the boy's friend said.

"You don't know that! They may be true!"

Magnus turned to look at Alex, who was sitting on the stool with her back straight, looking confidently at the crowd of unknown students in front of her. She looked so composed and sure, but having a reputation like this follow you everywhere must be tiring.

Professor Sif placed the Sorting Hat on Alex's head.

"Hm, let's see where to put the young sir," the Hat mused out loud. It normally said things like these before it started figuring out where to sort each student. Most students, when they replied to it, didn't know whether they should talk out loud or just think very hard.

Alex chose to talk out loud. "Actually," she said calmly, "it's lady today. She and her."

The whispering returned tenfold.

"Oh, excuse me then, young lady," the Hat said. It didn't talk anymore, simply humming as it decided where to put Alex.

For the few moments it took the Hat to make its decision, the whispering among the students was almost unbearable. Students didn't seem to acknowledge it, but while one person whispering didn't make a lot of noise, when a lot of people did it created this buzz that spread through the room like a wave, each person's words adding to it and making it louder.

"Slytherin!" the Hat shouted its choice.

Professor Sif removed the Sorting Hat from Alex's head and the girl stood up and moved to the Slytherin table. Cheers and woops and fists pumping high filled the air as Alex took her seat in the Slytherin table. As Headmaster Odin gave his start-of-the-year speech (which no one listened to), Magnus saw Mallory pat Alex on the back as Sam smiled at her and the three girls laughed at something somebody from Slytherin said.

"And now," Headmaster Odin said, "let's start the feast!"

And that was the first chapter! (again with the exclamation marks?) Updates will be about every ten days, so look out for that. Fell free to leave comments and kudos (PLEASE LEAVE THEM) because that is literally the source of my power.