p a r a n o i a // r e d d i e ★彡 a losers club hogwarts AU

Chapter Two

The seventh year common room was impressive, Eddie thought. Like, really impressive. It had two floors, with the second one acting as a balcony looking down over the bottom floor. And the fireplaces. Plural! He was always freezing, and the rest of the Losers knew that Eddie would be found curled up beside one, regardless of the season.

They'd managed to be the first people to enter the common room, by some miracle, and therefore got the first choice of seats for the night.
As everyone took in the grandeur of the room, Richie tugged on Eddie's sleeve until the smaller boy looked at him, and then he pointed up to the second floor. Eddie followed to where Richie was pointing with his eyes, and when he noticed he broke into a grin.
Richie had spotted a fireplace in the corner on the second floor, with enough seats for all of them and then some AND it was surrounded by bookshelves- which was heaven for Stan and Mike. It was perfect for them. As it was also right beside the railings looking down onto the lower level, the group would have a vantage point to prepare if any particularly... unsavoury... individuals happened to come in.
Richie returned Eddie's grin and muttered "Race you?" to him. Eddie was not going to let Richie beat him, regardless of Richie's advantage of having such long legs.
Without even giving Richie a response, Eddie broke into a run towards the stairs- laughing as he heard Richie exclaim "No fair! Fucking cheater!" from behind him.
Eddie sped up as he ran up the stairs, knowing Richie could easily close the gap between them, and threw himself onto the couch.
"I won!" Eddie beamed.
Richie frowned, making Eddie feel slightly guilty. At least until Richie threw himself on top of Eddie- who shrieked as if Richie had just snapped a broken arm back into place.

Richie propped himself up on his elbows, still on top of Eddie, and frowned. Eddie was incredibly aware of how red his face was right now, and it was difficult for him to not think about how much he'd love Richie on top of him in other circumstances.
"You cheated," Richie whinged.
"I'm sorryyyyy?" Eddie questioned.
Richie groaned and flopped down onto Eddie, his head on Eddie's shoulder.
Honestly, this was definitely a moment that Eddie wishes would last forever. Yes, he did feel like he was about to hyperventilate, but he wasn't complaining.
Unfortunately, Richie was straight. As far as Eddie and the other losers knew anyway. Richie had never said otherwise; even if, well, everything about him screamed otherwise.

Maybe the moment could have lasted forever, but a creak near the bottom of the stairs seemed to jolt them both back into reality. Richie jumped up off Eddie and sprawled across the couch, wordlessly casting incendio to light the fire as if they'd been casually sitting like this the whole time. Fucking show off, Eddie thought. Only the best of the best wizards could do wordless magic- Eddie had managed it three times in his entire life but Richie was able to cast most spells wordlessly, and regularly did.
Eddie could feel the cogs turning in his brain as he tried to process how close Richie had just been to him.
"Hello? Earth to Eduardo?" Richie said. Eddie looked up at him, instantly focusing on the blush across his cheeks. Before he had a chance to respond, though, Ben was at the top of the stairs giving Eddie a suspicious look. Eddie flipped him off, noticing Stan giving Richie an equally suspicious look. Huh, weird. Eddie made a mental note to look into that later, as he shifted over to allow room for the others.

The common room wasn't empty anymore, as the other seventh years had filed in and spread out across the two floors. This corner had definitely been one of Richie's best ideas, as the bookshelves around them made the corner more secluded and hid them from prying eyes- of which there tended to be many. It could be annoying, Eddie supposed- so many people seemed interested in the losers for a variety of reasons, and a lot of them revolved around Richie. Some of the students still cared about blood purity or were brought up being taught that they were noble for being pureblood and seeing Richie Tozier, from a family of loyal Death Eaters, with halfblood and even muggleborn friends surprised them. A lot more people seemed shocked at Stan, Eddie and Mike being friends with Richie, though- seeing as Stan was head boy and Mike and Eddie were prefects and Richie was, well, Richie.