Once last school year, when they'd been parting ways, Casey told Alvis not to 'lose oxygen' climbing Ravenclaw tower. At the time, Alvis assumed it to be a joke. Now he wondered if wasn't some form of concern on Casey's part. The four flights up to this classroom had nearly killed him.

Huffing and puffing, he stumbled into the empty classroom and collapsed onto a bench beside the window to catch his breath. He leaned against the cool stone sill and cracked the glass pain a few inches to let in a breeze. After a moment, he'd recovered enough to sit up and attempt to straighten Casey's hair. The door was slightly cracked and he could hear people moving outside, but here in the classroom, he was alone. Actually alone which, right now, felt as good as the breeze.

For the third time that day, Alvis tried to put words to the thing he'd lost, and for the third time he came up with nothing. The loss was definite. He felt alone even in a crowded room. It was like he'd been hit with a deafening hex or a blinding curse, except that he could see and hear and feel just fine. It was something else he'd lost, something unnamed but very very real.

That was what bothered him the most about this situation. He could deal with Casey's bad stamina and endless allergies. He could face the awkward rumor aftermath and what it meant for their...whatever relationship they had. But the crushing loneliness hurt. He'd never wanted a hug so badly in his life.

Awkwardly, he tried to give himself one, folding the thin arms tight against the slight torso. It pulled at something heavy around his neck. It was only then that Alvis remembered the amulet Casey had warned him about, the one that protected from an ancient family curse. Curious, Alvis fished the charm out by its chain, examining it without removing it as he had promised. He'd barely gotten in into his hands with the cracked door opened again and his own body entered the room.

Alvis glanced up from the amulet reluctantly, since the sight of his own body from the outside kind of freaked him out. "Hey. You made it. So." He struggled for a place to start. "...This whole thing's pretty weird, huh?"

Casey was cutting it close to the rendezvous with Norling but he had been nearby in the library. The delay had been more from making a detour back to Slytherin while trying to not draw attention to a Ravenclaw knowing the password. That had been to get his invisibility cloak so he could sneak into the Restricted section of the library. He almost needn't have bothered, given the confusion of what must have been Mr. Morgan swapping with another Slytherin girl. That meant...something. A set up for some pithy sarcastic comment but Casey couldn't place half of his own joke.

The whole venture, trying to skim the Library for any information about this swapped body plight, had not been fruitful in the short time allotted. The cloak was folded and stashed away. Casey briefly wondered if storing it not in the lightless box it came with would still cause light to age the demiguise hair. What if twenty years down the line the cloak spent two minutes too soon in the middle of something important.

So Casey had nothing new to contribute as to the status of the swap, save for the unnerved stare at the out of body experience of seeing himself (proper self) across the classroom.

"An abnormality to the greatest degree. Given the powder it must have been potion based but I've found nothing to suggest what potion or if this is tied to advanced transfiguration." Or possibly, the materials relating to this magic were absent from the library. Catching sight of what Norling was doing he added, "put that down and leave it alone."

It was unnerving how he couldn't remember the full reasoning behind the family curse and therefore exactly how the amulet worked. It must be from the transfer of consciousness, his Mind being jumbled going from one body to another.

"I only wanted a look at it." Alvis turned the amulet one way, then the other, admiring the contours of the stone and the metal's functional, not decorative, filigree. "A protection amulet that remains effective even as it's passed down through generations requires impressive craftsmanship. Who made it, do you know?"

He felt a maker's mark etched into the back of the mounting, but didn't turn it over to look just yet. It wasn't like he knew the Marks of any artificers but his own extended family, and knowing Casey's ilk it was probably goblin-made anyway. If they really had no idea he'd make a note of the mark later and ask Gran about it. O.W.L.s were around the corner and he'd be looking for an apprenticeship soon enough. There were many worse lives than that of a whitesmith.

After a moment he let the amulet drop back against his shirt and swung around to face their conversation head-on. Once again he was struck by how different his body looked with Casey at the reigns. It seemed much more commanding now, or perhaps demanding would be a better word. Maybe it was the posture.

"Transfiguration's not likely. It's not like my body turned into yours, we just got displaced a bit. An enchantment seems more likely. So. Are you...feeling all right?"

Three faction argued in Alvis's mind, like ministry sub-committees squabbling over regulations. The first wanted not to care how Casey was doing. Alvis had had a miserable week because of the rumor he'd started and, if we was going to offer any further assistance in anything, he rather wanted an apology first. The second was the part that worried over whether the switch had gotten the headaches going again, which might be even worse because Casey wasn't used to them. And the third was simply terrified. You're not doing to my body what you did to yours, are you? I don't want to be alone forever!

Was every this mixed up today, or was it just him? He hated not knowing.

Damn Norling and his getting off topic! "I don't know who originally made it, it's been in the family a long time." He was being honest on the origins of the amulet if not the whole purpose for it. "Given there is, you know, a curse and everything."

"I'm not myself but I'm fine, thank you for asking," Casey said in rebuff before pausing. Had he heard the question correctly? It appeared to be a more loaded question that what he expected from Norling's tone. The thought entered his mind that Alvis was displeased with him but also terribly worried about something. If he wanted an apology for being stuck in Casey's body for a morning it wasn't like Casey had asked to be transplanted into somebody else's body so a stranger could pilot his.

It might just be the worst elements of his weak build and peaked features backed by Norling's inherent pessimism but Casey couldn't stand seeing 'himself' look so utterly scared as if this was a trick mirror that showed a Casey afraid to get out of bed. "Your body is nice." What the heck was he even saying? "I mean, you don't have any of my allergies or illnesses so I'm able to, I don't know, breathe for once." Why was he saying this? It was way more than what was expected of the question. "I don't want to be sick all the time so I won't...err, unfortunately you're feeling just that today."

That reminder made Casey pull out the other object of his detour, the shockingly long scroll that listed all of his allergies, symptoms, and medical intervention needed for each. "There's a lot you'll have to avoid. There's only one section of Slytherin table that has things I can eat on it."

"Your body is nice."

Alvis raised an eyebrow, which was the most Casey-like expression the body had produced since their switch. Then he stifled a small grin. For someone who took other people's false assumptions about their relationship so badly, Casey had an amusing tendency to make it come off worse than it actually was. That made him feel a bit better. At least he wasn't the only one to blame.

"You ought to go for a run or something, if that's the case. One of us might as well enjoy this." Alvis wasn't miserable in Casey's body, just tired and a bit light-headed. He would have felt better if he'd just been allowed to stay in the library, but with classes on schedule as usual that wasn't likely to happen.

He nodded absently as Casey continued on to the talk of allergies, digging a piece of parchment out of his bag so he could make notes. "Allergies. Right. It might be better to play it safe and stick with water for a while. Unless you're anemic or something...Right then, I'm set. Give me the list." He paused, working out his next words very carefully. "And if you don't mind, I'd like the counter-spell to whatever you used to cut yourself off."

Casey knew it had been a mistake to try and answer all of Norling's question. "Don't go sticking idiotic-Ambrose-Pepper-reasoning like that behind it! You know what I meant." Just like how Casey could sense the meaning behind the smirk. "Blazing hell, what is wrong with you people?" Why did that fifth year girl or anyone in their year liked to plant romance as people's motives when this was not the case.

Having a run didn't interest Casey but given the better health of the body he currently occupied he might try a flight unless Norling's body had some aversion. His tempered was flared just enough that Norling's next question in response to the list of allergies was taken as an unwarranted accusation. "Counter Spell? Cut off? What drivel are you babbling about now?"

"You said it, not me." Alvis said, chuckling at Casey's flustered reaction. "Don't let it bother you so much. Nobody takes it seriously." Unlike certain other rumors.

But it seemed he'd managed to get Casey's temper riled yet again. Alvis winced away from the next snap. "Don't get mad at me, Casey." He was mad, wasn't he? He couldn't even be sure of that... "I'm not like you. I know you don't...but I can't..."

Damn, he was babbling, and worse yet his hands were starting to shake from the nerves. He put down the quill and rubbed them together to steady himself. "Look. I know you don't like people getting close to you. And I know you don't like letting people in. I get that. But I'm not like that. I can't think straight like this, I..." He glanced up and caught Casey's eye. There was a slight moment of disorientation, like looking in a mirror, but he held the gaze and tried. Nothing. A pit opened up in his stomach.

"I can't even tell if you're still mad at me. There's nothing there. There's something I had in my body that I don't have in yours. I don't know what it's called, but I don't know how to deal with people if I don't have it. So please tell me it's just a spell. Tell me I can shut it off and go back to normal."

They say it took a certain kind of madness to be a genius. Casey didn't think that explanation covered all the bases but suddenly Ravenclaw house made much more sense. Norling was either insane or...this possibly had something to do with why he gave off such a strong vibe like a Legilimens, as Casey had come to recognize with his study in Occlumency. But that circumstance was insane even for magic! How could Norling do something he didn't even know what to call it, if he could only do it in his own body? Learning magic tied to the mind was a trained skill and Norling was talking about something has if he had a birth defect.

However, the intellectual query did nothing to distract Casey's temper. Plenty of him was outraged to how Norling was finally fessing up.

"So you admit it! You do peer into people's heads! Have you ever thought somebody may not want to have their minds scrutinized every time they match eyes with you?" Frothing mad could be an apt description for Casey's exclamations save the lack of spit. "I happen to have a healthy sense of privacy. I don't need to let anyone 'in' or as you seem to put it looking past someone's face to see what they're really feeling."

"And damn straight you're not like me! Nobody..." The word became hollow in the empty air. Casey was not in his normal body but there was...something blank. His subconscious was shivering as if from a chill but Casey could not place the source of the unease. As if there was something of his own gone with this body switch as it had happened to Norling.

"There's nobody like me!" Casey eventually completed after an awkward moment. It was a frustrated and not at all boastful claim. "If anyone should be complaining about something being 'cutoff' it should be me but I don't even know what the normal is! So I guess you'll just have to chill without your 'whatever,' enjoy the last three of the strawberry boils on the small of my back!"

Casey had been happy or at least not as miserable this morning when the strawberry pink infection from the worms in Charms class was finally clearing up. That morning now felt like a week ago.

Alvis frowned, looking at Casey as though he'd just accused him of hiding a tail. "Admit what now?" He cocked Casey's head towards its right shoulder like a bird contemplating its own reflection. "Peer into people's...What are you going on about? That's impossible. I'm not a mind-reader."

Despite his attempt at a dismissive laugh, doubt crept into Alvis's thoughts. It made his last words sound less convincing than he'd meant them to. He couldn't read minds. It was impossible. But if -- if! -- he could, then a lot of things made more sense. All those times he'd seen through others' lies. His spot-on Divination readings, chalked up to instinct. Why people tried to hide their feelings.

As Alvis's mind tried to wrap itself around the concept, Casey's temper carried him onward. He ranted on about privacy and his own uniqueness and being...cut off? Alvis's frown deepened. He stared at Casey, letting him rage until the temper burned out, trying to understand. He couldn't make any connection, not like this, but he had memories. Yesterday. Charms detention.

"Casey does not believe that anyone is capable of caring for him. He's shut himself up so tight he's forgotten what it means to be lonely."

His borrowed eyes watered, unused to staying open so long. Alvis set down his quill and rubbed them, leaning over the desk. There was too much to process, too many ridiculous possibilities. And yes, now he was hyper-aware of the slight pain the three boils in question brought when he moved, thank you so much for that Casey. His mind grasped for a coherent thought and instead seized a strong but ill-defined emotion. He went with it anyway.

"If you are cut off," he said slowly, "it's because you do it to yourself. And not with a spell."

He stood up. Anger was not the right word for the emotion he'd grasped. Neither was 'release,' but that felt closer than most. "In case you haven't noticed, I've spent the last six months trying to be your friend. I never wanted your secrets. I don't want to get into your head, if that's the real nature of my 'whatever.' I don't even care if you're not normal. I'm not normal! All I ever wanted was to make a connection, because it seemed like, maybe, we were both just not-normal enough that I could!

"But all this time, all you've done is push me away. You get angry at the drop of a hat. You take Pepper's stupidity out on me. You embarrass me in front of the entire year for the crime of worrying about your mental health. I've got less reputation than some of the ghosts and you still manage to ruin it. And despite all that, I still like you enough that I'm not to go out and eat a bowl of strawberries so you'd spend the rest of the month looking like a bubblegum mascot.

"So the least you could do, after all that, is not get mad at me when you seem to know more about this 'whatever' I have than I do." Alvis took a deep breath, in-and-out, and heaved. Casey's lungs were smaller than he was used to and he was still tired from the climb. "I just want to figure this out. I need your help. Please."

Casey made a dismissive noise, fierce exhalation of air. "Don't try to deny it now, I know it's a lie!" It was now that something odd happened. Casey's fury towards Norling, of the past injustices when his mind had been penetrated by the Ravenclaw who proclaimed to do so unknowingly...all of it channeled behind his eyes and when he shot Norling a death glare...

...he just knew Norling was doubtful of his own pretenses, that he feared what was an apparently new realization. There was nothing he could actually see, rather the notion of a second line of thought operating in the confines of his brain under the dominant persona. Somehow, this was a familiar sensation.

But there was one coherent thought of Norling's he received full knowledge of, mixed in with the Ravenclaw student's perspective of their recent detention.

"Casey does not believe that anyone is capable of caring for him. He's shut himself up so tight he's forgotten what it means to be lonely."

It was what he wrote in drafts each had to make of the other students present at the detention. The statement unnerved Casey. Suddenly he was too far back, like a boy in a costume that looked like Alvis Norling. Like he could see the inside of the mask, how phony Norling's body really was to how Casey considered himself. He almost didn't hear what Norling was really saying and not thinking.

"If you are cut off it's because you do it to yourself. And not with a spell."

Audible, words with form like a stream of liquid poured into his ears. All of what Norling was saying. As he listened several temperaments were fighting in Casey for dominance, each varied but kin, like his own stupid family. To quantify, over 85-percent of Casey was tempted to inhume Norling in some undetectable fashion...yet there was about 15-percent that was maintaining logic, that while Norling's words were disagreeable to his ego they were sincere postulations.

But first, there were too many things to refute, to turn the tables on Norling. Casey stood as well and the desk managed to not flip over. "Well who said I wanted your friendship! I am not lonely! I don't need anybody, save one--two people. And you're wrong, I've done nothing to cut myself off!" That Casey vehemently believed in. Even with a great absence in his mind, as if half his brain was floating in his pensieve, Casey knew that he cast no inhibiting magic on himself. He knew because, physically, something would be off given his many allergies.

His hand was suddenly gripping his shirt, the one Norling borrowed, by the lapel. It was odd feeling his body breathing from an external source. "If you go out and eat a bowl of strawberries and cream we'll be shipping you off to St. Mungo's with a bundle of hope! Not turning my skin pink for the rest of my life, that brand new allergy for the list I can thank Professor Kesali's worms for and I'm thinking of sending in a formal complaint!"

The hand dropped. "Your abnormality pales in comparison to mine. So I want to stop being you. I don't want to CARE like you do! Because..."

That came down to the lynchpin of Casey O'Doherty's perspective. The founding directive, the core of the ethos, the geas that made expectations of the fourth year Slytherin like how the geas of a house elf could keep Dingy loyal with the right manipulation. It hadn't been distilled in Casey using these specific words but it was the simplest way to describe it. But he couldn't say it looking down at Alvis Norling, because Norling currently looked like Casey himself. It came out in a low murmur.

"...because caring is weakness."

Looking up at his own face, knowing that Casey's mind lurked behind those eyes, there were a lot of arguments Alvis could have made. That he didn't need to be in his own body to know that Casey was lying about his loneliness. That their 'abnormalities' couldn't be that different if neither of them could name what made them strange. That caring was the first step in love, and hadn't he been paying attention in history? Love was among the most powerful magic of all.

But he was tired of arguing. So instead he said, "Don't be stupid," and stepped forward, putting Casey's arms around his body's ribs in a deliberate, platonic hug.

Such a strange thing, this concept of bodies and ownership and being swapped around. Rationally, Alvis was aware that the heart he heard beating was technically his own. Equally rationally, he knew this was liable to set Casey off again, that he might forget who was in who's body and knock him straight in the teeth. But dammit, he couldn't think of anything else. The realization of his 'whatever' was starting to sink in. Alvis was genuinely afraid of what he might be capable of. He needed someone who understood. And like it or not, that 'someone' was probably Casey.

It was in that instant a powerful Immobulus was cast on the whole world so time stopped. That was Casey's perspective for how he could think so many differing things without anything moving.

Alvis was hugging him. But it wasn't just that, it was Casey's body hugging himself! From this external feeling Casey noted just how small he was. The word not restricted to only height, with his original body pressed against the one he currently occupied. Casey had arguably been building more healthy mass over the summer since his hospitalization but he still wasn't substantial. Scrawny was the term. Almost as if there was something missing but what could be missing from his body to make that much of a difference?

Then there was also sentimentality that should not be part of the internal conversation at all. Casey had never been hugged like this yet in some bizarre inverse muscle memory (which didn't make any sense given the swapped bodies) Casey could recognize the touch of a hug if not the gesture, yet still it was not correct because he should have been the smaller entity. This phantom hug had been recent but when?

And then there was too much Alvis Norling in his head. On both interpretations of that phrasing. Casey was burning from the warmth behind it all, all the sappiness to Norling's reasoning. Norling honestly thought Casey was a pitiable lonely kid who just needed a hug, that love would conquer everything and this was the best remedy for the situation. How was this even possible? Norling complained that he was missing the thing that gave him 'connections' yet Casey wasn't spared from having Norling connected to his mind. Casey wanted to stop this feeling, he had to get rid of Alvis and his affections, use Occlumency to...

New inference: It's not Alvis Norling transmitting his thought process through the hug. It's you peering into his mind.

Casey had only studied Occlumency but he realized he was suddenly privy to the ability of Legilimency. The two disciplines were the same coin with different sides, growing stronger in one helped you recognize the other. Casey discovered that he was the one controlling Norling's mind, no brain, the actual physical organ, which sensed so much more than what normal brains were supposed to sense. It had been happening all day, Casey jumping to accurate yet unfounded conclusions.

Still, Norling's thoughts were too overpowering that Casey had to distance himself. He tried a practiced Occlumency barrier and that seemed to stop it. Only the barrier was now a dam rather than a wall, the floodgates to prevent a world of apparent Legilimency users that tossed stuff into Norling's head all the time, as unbelievable as that sounded.

Soon that awkward moment came to an end as time started again. He had to get away from the physical gesture along with the physical one, to give himself time to think and be himself. "Would you STOP THAT!" Casey pushed the arms off his sides. "Just stop it. You really think one hug is going to change everything? Just stop it. Guys don't..."

It was taking an effort to himself contained in Norling's brain, from letting that warmth in again because it was too warm to the point of stuffiness.

"Just explain one thing to me: why do you bleeding care so much if I've made your life so miserable?!"

Even though he’d been shoved away, Alvis came out of the embrace smiling. Beaming, more like, to the point that his cheeks hurt, as though Casey’s face wasn’t used to this sort of enthusiasm. He’d been pushed away, but not immediately, and he’d not been punched or hexed in the process. Casey was flustered and sputtering, so probably still angry but no longer ranting with fury. That was better. Much better.

The smile dimmed but lingered as he contemplated Casey’s question, the warmth it generated supporting him from the inside. Quantifying why he liked someone, why he cared, was difficult, like asking a dog why it cared for its owner. He ‘Hmmm’ed softly, turning the thought over in his head a moment before coming to a conclusion.

“You needed me,” he said finally. “For the runic armor project. You looked at all this stuff I study in my spare time and applied it to something real. Then you listened when I talked about it and used my designs and that was…It felt nice, being useful to someone. Then we got to talking about other things and, well, I like who you are when you’re not being a jerk. You’re clever, you’re driven, and you’re not nearly as bad as you try to make yourself seem. You might have the rest of the year convinced you’re some slimy little toad, but I don’t think that’s true.”

He shrugged, trying and failing to shake off the new nagging doubts that latched onto his back. How much of Casey’s hidden goodness had he gotten from their conversations, and how much of it came from his missing sense? Had he really broken into Casey’s mind, dug into his secrets, betrayed his trust? The thought made his stomach squirm.

“Besides,” he continued quietly, trying to swallow the self-disgust. “As long as I’m useful you’d put up with me. That’s more than I can say for some of the others. They won’t even…some won’t even make eye contact anymore.”

Ye gods, Casey's face when Alvis was doing that, with the lips so wide. His teeth were like horses teeth, one reason Casey didn't smile like that.

I did not need you, Casey wanted to shout, but he gave Norling the time to talk. His ears were reddening. Some of the argument rang true, some did not settle as well. It was a correct assumption that Casey valued Norling's intelligence the most. The Ravenclaw had led Casey to examine Runic magic to be more useful, in the armor and other matters. Casey did not keep friends but he kept allies who were useful.

"I didn't want to be a slimy little toad," Casey denied, as toads were avoided like the plague because he literally got warts from them and that was not hyperbole. "But it's the easiest to...maintain."

Casey scoffed. "I wouldn't miss eye contact. It would..." Show that people were in their place? Deter the need for Occlumency? It was a subtle paradox of Casey's motivations once it was fully examined. He wanted a name for himself, the prestige of his might, but he didn't actually want people looking at him. How odd.

'Maintain.' Alvis's expression faded  bit more, the smile giving way to a hint of thoughtful sadness. What a terrible word to use when talking about one's interaction with others, as though being yourself and feeling what you wanted to feel was some sort of crime.

"I'd miss it," he said, quietly. "I miss it a lot. It's what people do when they want to know you, when they care about you, when they acknowledge your existence. When they don't bother it's like...like you might as well be invisible. Or part of the architecture." And not the sort that got lectured about in Ancient Runes, either.

He pursed his lips -- a more familiar expression for the borrowed face, being dour and thoughtful -- and looked up to deliberately meet Casey's eye. "Tell me about this thing, this 'whatever-I-have.' Please? I mean, how do you know about it if I didn't, why doesn't it seem to work the same way for you? And if this isn't normal, what is?" He shook his heads, trying to organize his thoughts. There were just too many questions, too little to go on, and they were liable to be late to class if they talked too long. "I don't want to go through people's heads, if that's what I'm doing. That's just not right. There has to be something I can do, right?"