do you feel like a young god? // (Zarry AU)

ch 2; we'll stumble through heaven.

Say what you want about Louis but he was never unkind. Seeing Zayn practically grow up in front of his eyes has made him somewhat protective. Okay, a lot protective. He has seen the first year Zayn who would sacrifice a kidney not to speak up in class to fifth year Zayn who is in line to be made prefect of the house.

It still surprises him that someone would help Zayn. Did people fear him? Yes. Do girls send chocolates with love potion laced with them? Far more times than Louis can count. But there were few who would protect him. Perhaps, it was Louis' guilty conscience which didn't let him sleep last night because why wasn't he there when his best friend got attacked.

He still remembers when they were in the Malik Manor, celebrating Christmas in their first year. Yaseer couldn't be more delighted that his only son was going to carry the legacy of being sorted into Slytherin but it was Tricia who was worried for her son enough to ask Louis to look out for him, sometimes. As he grew up, his allegiance always laid with Zayn. He'd often have these rare conversations with Tricia who could express her fears only before Louis because Yaseer wanted his son to be the greatest wizard there is, in Dark Arts. Tricia just wanted to raise a son who knew the difference between being a wizard in Dark Arts and actually letting the Dark Arts take over the wizard.

"Dreaming of your date with Eleanor, you git?" Louis is pulled out his reverie by a familiar voice.

"If you weren't my best friend, I'd have hexed you by now," Louis laughs as Zayn takes a seat next to him in Potions.

The tip of Zayn's tongue presses behind his teeth when he flashes Louis a smile, already feeling so much better.

"Speaking of being hexed, I ran a little intel about that night's affairs," Louis murmurs, paging through the Potions book as they're instructed to open up page 10 and brew up 'Draught of the Living Dead.'

Suddenly, there's a cough which seems to interrupt them from further conversation. Louis' head snaps and he glances at Niall Horan, "just the fumes from the cauldron," he weakly supplies to an inquisitorial looking Louis, who slowly nods and returns to the conversation with Zayn.

"You find who attacked me?" Zayn asks, keeping his voice considerably low as he works on the ingredients to go in his potion.

"No, of course not. I found out who helped you," Louis says which earns him an eye roll from Zayn. Another fit of cough coming from beside them, Horan. Louis raises his brows in confusion.

"The fumes," Niall feigns laughter mixed with a slightly mortified look.

Zayn either doesn't care or doesn't mind. Probably the first one.

"I don't know why you're making such a big deal of this than finding out who attacked me, in the first place," Zayn says indignantly.

"Because, because of them my best friend didn't freeze to death outside, thank you very much," Louis huffs. And to be honest, yeah, he's got a fair point. Zayn was pretty fucked up that night. If it hadn't been for some stranger/s helping him, he'd probably be in the infirmary for days now. Maybe even let off from the Quidditch season coming up.

Zayn was grateful, don't get him wrong. He had spent a considerable amount of time looking at the almost healed wounds the next morning of the incident. The person who cast the spells definitely knew what they were doing. It was almost as if Zayn was never ambushed. But he couldn't get himself to care enough to look for the person if they aren't coming to check up on him themselves.

But he remembers talking to Aiden about it the other night.

"You didn't see them?" Aiden says, now crouched in front of Zayn, tying his shoe laces. They're in the Quidditch Changing Room, getting geared up for a practice match between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Zayn rests his elbows on his knees, drawing closer to keep the volume of the conversation to a bare minimum and shakes his head.