Classrooms differ depending on the teacher, from an open floor with no tables like in duelling classes to musty, incense-smelling beanbags clustered together like in divination, or even massive auditoriums for year-wide classes like history.

Advanced Transfiguration and Transmutation is Nicholas’ favourite class because he’s so good at it and the teacher praises him so much. The extension class is less fun because he doesn’t have Rafael or Stavros in it. The tables in the advanced classroom are set up in long rows that drop down in steps with an aisle staircase on either side.

InCore also has the advanced class this year with Familiar Nurture track students, so that means lots of Famure with their cute animals running around – that Nicholas can snatch.

The teacher is droning on about something that Nicholas learned from tutors when he was nine so instead of listening he’s wiggling his fingers at a passing hamster who’s jiggling down the row of tables, nosing at people’s books, getting one-fingered pets.

There’s already a giant rat on Nicholas’ lap, a flying squirrel in his pocket, and soon the hamster gets close enough for Nicholas to snatch her up and transfigure a piece of paper into a little nest on his desk for her.

Stavros reaches over Rafael to pet the little hamster’s head. Nicholas kind of wants to pet Stavros too because Rafael combed out Stavros’ curls this morning in boredom while Nicholas was in the shower and now Stavros has a giant blond afro, which is very cute and very soft.

As revenge for the afro, Rafael now has his short brown hair in tiny, squat pigtails in random places over his head, also very cute. Rafael stays away from the hamster because familiars can sense he’s a werewolf and get twitchy.

Familiars are summoned creatures, normally small mammals but occasionally a fish, and some insects - there’s a high mage who has an eastern dragon even. Familiar Nurture students summon the animals around a month into their first year and channel their magic through the familiar to cast higher, more powerful magic.

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Familiars can understand simple concepts and can have their own feelings separate from their mages, so if they aren’t taken care of then they can rebel and refuse to do any magic. One or two people over history have been killed by their familiars for mistreating them badly enough the magic between familiar and caster snaps entirely.

Nicholas and his friends have made a name for themselves stealing familiars, at one point luring all the familiars in the Famure dorms to RitCast overnight and then casting grooming charms so fur got everywhere. RitCast students are still finding fur on their couches.

It was for a good cause because a RitCast girlfriend of Adam’s dumped him for being ‘too hairy’ and they were thirteen and dumb (dumber) back then so this was peak revenge.

Having a reputation for snatching cute pets means not only do the familiars now know them enough that they can snuggle all the adorable animals that are close by, but also Stavros (and Adam, before) can use wildshape at any time and still hang out with them without getting any suspicious glances because everyone thinks they’ve just been stolen.

Nicholas loved carrying around Adam in raccoon form on a hip, or with Hearth under his jumper. Unfortunately, sheep are too big to be normal for a familiar, and Rito would also be very memorable with his breed being so blatantly different from normal sheep.

“Do you have another?” Stavros whispers, leaning back to look around Rafael and then spotting Nicholas’ bulging pocket. “Give me one.”

“You want this?” Nicholas whispers back, picking up the giant rat from his lap. “I don’t know what it is, I think it’s a giant rat.”

The giant rat is upset.

“It’s a chinchilla,” Rafael points out as they pass the familiar in front of him.

“If it didn’t want to be called a rat, why does it look like one?” Stavros scoffs and stands the chinchilla upright on the table, hands under its armpits and coos at it.

Nicholas pokes Rafael’s thigh now that he’s looking. "Hey, have you gotten fatter?"

"Rude," Rafael complains.

"You’re all bones and I like you pudgy, that was a compliment."

"Didn't sound like one."

"Fine, let me reiterate." Nicholas rolls his eyes. "Golly, Raffy, it sure is swell that your triple-c thiccc thighs are getting enough chub to match your dump truck of an ass."

Stavros throws back his head with the force of the laughter that explodes out of him.

A Famure finally realises her chinchilla is gone from the floor under her chair and quickly stands, hurrying around to get it back. The one with the flying fox still hasn’t noticed. The hamster’s mage already knows where his familiar is so doesn’t mind but does shoot Nicholas a few shy glances.