"Hnnrgh-" Teenage Scott grunted as he held his hands out toward a messily drawn circle that surrounded a pile of salt, sugar, and a single dead plant. "Come- on-" He squeezed his eyes shut. "Please-"

"Scott, darling," his mother called from the cabin. "Come inside for dinner!"

Scott sighed, staring wearily down at the unsuccessful attempt at a resurrection spell. "Okay..."

Dinner was quiet, the only sound being the scraping of forks on their plates until Scott's mother broke the silence.

"So, did you get that spell to work, sweetie?" she asked Scott.

Scott glanced up at his father, who looked away immediately. "I, uh..." He shook his head shamefully. "No, I couldn't do it," he mumbled.

"A failure," Scott's father murmured before shouting, "My son is a failure!" He stood up and took Scott's plate, throwing it hard against the wall. "I will not have a disgrace like you in my house. Get out!"

Scott stared wide-eyed at his father. "But-"

"I'm not repeating myself. Get your things and get out of my house."

Scott nodded and got up from the table to go up to his bedroom, gathering only the most important of his belongings into a satchel before leaving.

---

"Look how awesome this is," Scott practically squealed to Cleo, showing off their wand as the two witches walked to their Curses and Hexes class. "I can actually cast real spells now! I'm so excited!"

Cleo chuckled. "Are you aware that you tend to squeak when you're excited?" she asked, and Scott blushed.

"Well, it's my first real wand," he mumbled.

"You've never had a wand before?" she asked, sounding completely surprised. "I thought you said your parents were powerful witches."

Scott glanced away. "They were," they said. "I'm not, though."

Cleo frowned. "I'm sure you're a great witch, Scott," she said. "But how come they never gave you a wand?"

"I was a late bloomer," the necromantic witch sighed, his eyes growing dark. "My father thought I was a disgrace. Hopeless. Useless. I only casted my first spell after he kicked me out of the house. I tried to go back to show him that I wasn't worthless, but..." They shuddered. "He gave up his own life trying to bring my mother back to life after she was murdered. The spell didn't work, so they're both dead."

"Oh, Scott..."

The dark haired boy took a deep breath and shook their head. "It's fine," he said. "I don't miss them. My father was a bastard and my mother was an ungenuine suck-up to everyone she knew. There's not much to miss, to be honest."

Cleo nodded and kept quiet.

---

"Lauren Zside!" someone screamed from another table at lunch, and Scott looked over to see Pris standing up, covered in sand. "Oooh, you've just done yourself in, sand witch!"

Cleo scoffed. "Water witches are nothing but drama," she grumbled, then stabbed her food with her fork. "Especially Prismarina." She said Pris' name with such disgust and anger that Scott winced.

"I agree," Keres said, wrapping an arm around Scott's waist. "It's best to stay away from water witches, Scoot. They're worse than those awful light witches."

Scott frowned. "Got it," they said, just before catching sight of Jimmy. Oh, for the love of the Underworld... They couldn't help the fluttering in their stomach at the sight of the blonde witch, who was laughing. His nose was scrunched up so adorably as he laughed, and his smile was so genuine. He's so pretty...

"Scoot? Helloooo?" Scott blinked when Keres waved a hand in front of his face. "You alive in there?"

"No," Scott answered. "I'm a zombie, I'm undead."

Cleo spit out her drink, laughing. "Oh- oh my gods, Scott-"

Scott giggled. "Sorry." His gaze flicked back over to where Jimmy was and his chest hurt. Jimmy looked so gorgeous as he joked with his friends, rolling his eyes and laughing and fake pouting. Why does he have to be someone I can't have?

"Hey, are you okay?" Keres' voice startled Scott, and they nearly jumped out of their seat. "Woah-"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm fine," Scott said, waving a hand at their boyfriend. He forced himself to keep his eyes off of Jimmy by staring at their lunch, feeling awkward when nobody said anything. They sighed and dropped their head onto the table, making Cleo and Keres gasp. "Why are Light Magic witches so damn cute?!" he whined.

Keres frowned. "You're not talking about that Jonathan guy, are you?" he grumbled.

Scott looked up at him. "Who?"

"You know, that Light Magic witch?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "His name is Jimmy," they grumbled. "And what does it matter?"

"Maybe because I'm your boyfriend," Keres said, poking Scott's arm repeatedly. "And besides, you don't need a douche like that in your life. Remember what I told you?"

Scott sighed, a part of them wanting to burst into tears. "Yeah, yeah..."

Keres scooted closer to wrap an arm around his boyfriend. "I know it's hard to understand right now because he looks really nice, but trust me. You don't want to have to find out the hard way."

"Yeah..."

Keres pressed a kiss to Scott's temple. "I'm sorry, babe."

---

"And this is a vampiric poppet, which can be used to bind two people..."

Scott yawned as the professor continued. He'd thought that learning about voodoo and curses would be a lot more fun than this. They expected to be putting harmless (but hilarious) curses on their classmates, not listening to a forty-minute lecture about the different kinds of poppets and what they're used for. Yes, it was good information and useful to know, but it was putting the boy to sleep!

They sighed, writing down everything the professor said anyway. There was no point in slacking off just because it was boring. Besides, who knew when he would have to put a curse on someone?

Soon, but not soon enough, class was over and it was Scott's free period. Which also happened to align with Cleo's, Keres', and Eloise's free periods. Which, in other words, was good for him.

"Keres!" Scott called to their boyfriend, earning a soft, gentle smile from Keres as they approached.

"Hey, cutie," Keres said with a wink, to which Scott rolled their eyes at. "How was your voodoo class?"

Scott groaned. "Boring," he said, and Cleo snorted. "But it was informational, at least. I learned a ton about poppets and curses. It's pretty cool, it's just really annoying to have to listen to Professor Mudduke's lectures."

"Oh, Mudduke is the worst," Keres grumbled. "He's always so strict and he's a bloody killjoy."

Cleo laughed. "He wouldn't have been so strict to you if you would've just done the work, Curly-Cue," she teased.

Keres glared at her. "Make one more joke about my hair, Cleo, I swear-"

"Oh, sorry, is that you talking or the monkeys in the jungle up there?" Cleo asked, tilting her head in mock innocence.

Kere's face turned bright red and he pulled his wand out from its holster on his belt, pointing it toward Cleo. But she was suddenly out of sight just before a blue light shot out from the tip, the spell killing a plant on the other side of the room. He let out a grumble in some other language that Scott didn't know before huffing and putting away his wand.

"I hope you weren't planning to actually hurt me over that," Cleo said with a playful grin from behind Keres.

Eloise groaned obnoxiously. "Can you guys stop playing around so we can go do nothing in the courtyard?" she whined.

Cleo huffed a laugh. "Sure."

Scott hadn't been to the courtyard yet, so he was excited. Except it was a lot more colourful than he would've liked it to be. There were flowers of every type and a coloured streamer to represent each magic house on the fountain in the middle of the area.

"Ew," they said without thinking, making Eloise frown.

"I think it's very beautiful," she said defensively.

Scott looked at her. "That's the problem," they deadpanned. He grimaced at the bushes of flowers. "There's so much..." He didn't finish his semtence before shaking his head and nearly gagging. "Is there anywhere else we could hang out? Like. Literally anywhere. Please."

Eloise let out a stubborn hmph. "Nope," she decided. "We are hanging out here because it's pretty and you're going to love being here, you- you emo vampire."

"I'm a zombie, actual-"

"Emo!"

Scott blinked. "Uh... I really woudn't say that I'm-"

"E-mo."

Sighing, they raised their hands in defeat. "Sure. I'm emo."

"Oh!" Eloise clapped her hands together excitedly, changing her demeanour entirely. "I have a new trick I want to show you guys! It's really cool and I think you'll like it..."

Scott's gaze drifted across the courtyard as she spoke, her words boring them. Though they wished they hadn't looked away when he caught sight of Jimmy. Again.

This time, Jimmy was with a class that looked like some kind of subject surrounding nature magic. He was knelt over a sapling and bending light to shine on it so it could grow, his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth as he concentrated. It looked so stupid, but Hades's sake, it was adorable.

"Scoooooooot," Keres drawled, shaking Scott's arm.

Scott looked up at him. "Huh?"

"What are you staring at?" Keres questioned. "You're practically drooling."

Scott's face turned red. "Oh, uh, I was- Um- uh..." His eyes darted around the courtyard, then landed on a little stall that some students sold pastries at. "I was looking at that pastry stall over there," he fibbed with a nervous laugh. "They're looking really delicious right now, you know?"

Keres glanced over at the stall and shrugged. "I might have some spare gold," he offered, and Scott let out a sigh of relief. "Come on, let's go get something." He held out his elbow as if he were a noble escorting his lover somewhere.

Scott giggled and held onto his arm, leaning into him as they walked. Cleo stayed with Eloise to see her new trick.

"Hi, there!" the girl at the stand said cheerfully as the two approached. She wore short, light blue overalls under her black cloak and a dark blue hat. Her cloak had some kind of storm cloud emblem sewn into it. "I'm Shelby. What kind of magical pastry would you like?"

Scott's eyes sparkled at the array of deliciously smelling baked goods. They all looked so good.

"Magic?" Keres asked. "You put magic in these?"

Shelby smiled. "Yep! They're sort of like suspicious stew, except less suspicious and more delicious!"

Keres rolled his eyes at the rhyme. "What do they do?"

"Well, the donuts give you fifteen seconds of regeneration and health," she began, pointing to each item. "These sugar cookies give fifteen seconds of speed. These chocolate chip cookies are made with chorus fruit, so they can teleport you to another spot nearby. Oh, and the croissants give five seconds of levitation. The macarons make you go invisible for thirty seconds. The cupcakes give a jump boost. The eclairs make you glow for about twenty seconds, I think. And the little cheesecake bites give you water breathing!"

"I want all of the macarons," Scott breathed.

Keres snickered. "Babe, I don't have that much gold on me-" He blinked as Scott pulled out their own little wallet and dumped a ton of gold coins onto the table. "Woah."

"Is this enough?" Scott asked.

Shelby blinked at him. "That's definitely enough," she said with an awkward laugh, "but I can only give you three of each pastry. Nobody else will get any if you buy them all."

"Then I'll get three and Keres will get three," Scott decided. He looked behind him to where Cleo and Eloise were. "And they'll each have three, too."

Shelby blinked at him again. "Um... okay?" She laughed and began counting Scott's gold pieces. "This should be enough," she said after counting out twenty-four coins. "I'll bag those up for you."

Scott smiled brightly. "Thank you!"

Keres rolled his eyes playfully. "What trouble are you going to get yourself into?" he teased, and Scott giggled.

"Ohhh, nothing," they said. Shelby handed them the bag and took it, eating one immediately. He seemed to poof out of existence, becoming totally invisible within an instant of swallowing the first bite. "Hold this, I'll be back," they said, shoving the bag of macarons at their boyfriend.

Footsteps was all Keres could go by whilst determining where Scott was before he could hear Cleo having a fit over the "wind" stealing her hat. The invisibility wore off before Scott could get very far, and Cleo caught him soon after.

Scott was shrieking with laughter as Cleo pulled them by their cloak over to Keres.

"I swear, the both of you need leashes," she huffed in mock annoyance.

Keres shrugged. "What can I say? We're Dark Magic witches; we're bound to get into trouble."

---

Yay, new chapter!! I totally didn't forget about this story for an entire month, no way, could not be me. /lh/j

Anyway! I hope you guys enjoyed :D