A non-standard wand?

Sugar looked up at Ignatio, eyes wide. He had to be hearing things wrong. How could someone as average as him ever qualify for a non-standard wand?

The silence of the classroom just seemed to add to the uncanniness of this encounter, and Sugar felt the gaze of all the students in the classroom on him. He felt he was some poor magical specimen, prepared to be dissected for a class of onlookers.

"Pardon?" he asked, still in shock.

"Oh, we're just going to do a few tests to determine what type of non-standard wand you need, or if you even need one at all." Ignatio continued on, just as jovial and upbeat as he had been before, like he didn't even notice how silent the class got.

"You really think I need one?"

"Of course, you see, if your wand glows any colour other than white, or behaves however else strangely, it means that your own magic is overpowering the wand's ability, and it cannot sustainably handle your magic. And we want all our students to be able to realise their full potential, so we'll definitely have to organise a few tests for you... going to have to slot them around your free periods..."

The rest of Ignatio's words fell on deaf ears, as Sugar's brain was still reeling from the realisation that hey, maybe he wasn't a complete magical disappointment after all. In his head, he was jumping around for joy, but in real life, shock still had him completely rooted to the ground. Finally, after a few more moments of nodding along to whatever Ignatio was saying, Sugar was pretty much left alone again, and slowly, life returned to the classroom, and Knight and co. immediately leaned over to talk.

"Wow, wouldn't have expected that from such an ordinary guy like you," Rosa said, making another jab at him, but her words lacked their usual sharpness.

"I don't know too much about all this stuff, but that's really cool, right?" Knight smiled, bright and supportive as ever.

"Yeah, it is!" Sugar said, the realisation slowly settling in, along with the joy that came with it. He grinned, an unusual expression on his face, but the occasion called for it. A non-standard wand! That meant he was one of those whose magic was too powerful to be held in a simple wand!

It was like nothing could bring him down.

✧༺✦✮✦༻∞　　∞༺✦✮✦༻✧

"Oh, come on! We actually have a detention? This suuuuucks..." Sugar groaned as he paced around the mostly empty classroom. He had pretty much forgotten all about Headmistress Nightblood's decree on the first day that every single one of the first-years would get a detention. What a downer. At least he was in the same detention time slot as Knight, Rosa and Hugo. There was another boy in the slot too: some kid called Luca Delavigne, who, one week into school, still had not shown up. Sugar vaguely recalled some of his other classmates talking about him, saying something about a holiday.

Lucky bastard...

"Ms Nightblood's not the type to go back on her word," Rosa said, completely unbothered, "she means what she says."

"You're saying this like you're not in detention too!" Sugar huffed, "what are we even supposed to do here?" he kicked a crate of old textbooks, hard enough to disturb the dust, but not hard enough to actually damage anything.

"Eh, the teacher who comes will probably give us a task," Rosa shrugged.

"That's strange though..." Knight suddenly piped up.

"What's strange?" Rosa looked at her friend strangely.

"Well, our detention should have started, like five minutes ago, and the teachers here are usually very punctual... do you think something might have happened?"

Sugar scrunched up his nose.

"I don't think so... since they're giving all of us a detention, they might have gotten some things mixed up, and forgot to send a cover teach... I hope they forgot to send a teach."

But as the words left his mouth, Sugar felt himself think more about what Knight was saying. He... might be right, actually. Scarwood was a punctual and thorough institution, and they wouldn't let something like this slip through the cracks...

Almost as if it was on cue, the door opened. But instead of a teacher, in walked in a mildly sunburnt young boy. Despite the red tinge to his skin, it was pretty obvious that he was very good-looking for a teenage boy.

Which immediately made Sugar dislike him.

"Oh hello, you must be the others." he said, pushing his raven-black hair back, though it just flopped back over his face as soon as , "I don't know why I have a detention of all things, though... and just after I got dragged to Hawaii..." with a sigh, he sat down in the chair next to Hugo, causing the nerdy boy to jump.

"Oh, uhm, sorry." he said with a small smile.

"Tch. Just don't bother me, and we'll get along fine." Luca scowled, pulling out a book from his pocket, and started reading.

What a weirdo.

Sugar shook the thought from his head. The kid (presumably Luca) was right. No need to bother him, and he wouldn't be bothering them either. Instead, his attention moved to the window, as Knight pressed himself up against it, squinting at the scene outside.

"What in The First Witch's good name are you doing?"

"Look! There are lanterns outside. No, not lanterns... people walking with lanterns!"

Rosa and Sugar exchanged a confused glance before they too walked up to the window, and looked out at the scene unfolding on the back oval. Groups of teachers and older students moved about the area, as if they were looking for something.

"Huh, what are they doing?" Rosa frowned.

"Th-they look like search parties, I think," Hugo piped up, from where he was squeezed between the three of them.

"Search parties? For who?"

Before the group could make up any theories, the door to the room opened.

"This should be the last group..."

Someone the students recognised as the school secretary poked his head in through the door.

"One, two, three, four, five, ah yes, you're all here. Well, I have some good news for you all: your detention has been cancelled. Oh, and Luca Delavigne?"

"Yes?" Luca said, not looking up from his book.

"Ms Nightblood has already talked to your parents, no need to worry about that now."

"Mmh." the boy grumbled impassively, getting up, "so are we allowed to leave or something?"

"Yes, please head directly to your dorms."

Luca seemed pleased with this turn of events, and he left without so much as a farewell to the others. Yep, definitely a weirdo.

But Sugar had bigger things to worry about right now.

"Cancel detention? Why would they do that?" he asked, turning to Rosa, hoping that maybe her siblings' experience could help them, but the shrug she gave him told him that she was about as lost as he was.

"I-i think we should probably head back," Hugo squeaked out, "this whole situation is giving me bad vibes..."

And Sugar was not inclined to disagree.

When the group climbed up the ladder to their common room, they saw Luca being fussed over by the Bones twins, because of course they knew each other.

"Luca, how was Hawaii? Get to eat coconuts?" Salem said, seeming to be searching up healing charms to treat the boy's sunburn. Sugar had to admit, it was probably the first time he had ever seen the girl use her skills for something non-violent.

"Very hot and unpleasant. The coconuts were okay, though. Next time, I'm gonna tell mom and dad not to bring me, or if they do want to bring someone, take Jayden."

Jayden? As in the second-year, blue-haired Jayden?

"I thought his last name was Emily..." Sugar muttered, but shook his head. Jayden wasn't that uncommon of a name, besides, he and this Luca looked nothing alike. Couldn't be him...

Despite the cordial small talk between Salem and Luca, the rest of the first-years seemed tense, whispering amongst themselves and occasionally sneaking glances out the windows. Something was definitely wrong.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" Rosa said, probably a little louder than she meant to.

"Didn't you hear?" Charlie Crowstrike of all people replied, somehow looking more pale than usual. It appeared that the situation, whatever it was, made for enough cause to put aside his snobbishness and actually talk to her.

"A student has gone missing."

"What!?"

"A third-year, to be exact," Asteria chimed in, fiddling with one of her braids, "it was the last Creature Studies class of the afternoon. They were doing a field study of the creatures in the enchanted forest on the school grounds. All anybody heard was the screaming of their fellow classmate, and when they ran to where the noise came from, all they found was their wand, and a few drops of blood."

┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.☪ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐

𝔸𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣'𝕤 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖

└─── ･ ｡ﾟ★: *.☪ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

Oh dear.... what could have happened? I'm sure it's got nothing to do with the strangely ominous people from last chapter hehehe

Anyways, im really having fun now that things are heating up. Life's gonna get a lot harder for our beloved Knight from now on >:DDDD

~Viva