Title: your wings already exist, all you have to do is fly
Fandom: Harry Potter/Star Trek AOS
Rating: G
Length: 1.3K
Content notes: Harry Potter Crossover/AU/Setting.
Author notes: This is a prequel/side story to a multi-chapter fic I am writing (which sort of explains why it just ends). Stand alone. Erm... yeah I guess that's it. Oh, counts for my inventor square at genprompt-bingo.
Summary: Today is the day Pavel graduates from Koldovstoretz.



May 2015


Pavel kept telling himself that he wasn't nervous. Even if his palms were sweaty and he was neurotically fiddling with his R.F.A.W.T. sashes draped over his shoulders. No, not nervous at all. Today was supposed to be exciting and hopeful and fulfilling. It was the day he graduated from Koldovstoretz.

Everyone at Koldovstoretz was only required to attend up until their fifth year. Anyone who stayed for the sixth and seventh years wanted to because they could get better occupations or get higher paying jobs off the bat. Most w took the Russian Federation Advanced Wizarding Tests in their seventh year.Pavel had taken them in his fifth, getting top grade in all subjects.

He could have graduated then. However, Direktor Stepanov thought it best if he finished at least one year of advanced learning. The Direktor thought that Pavel was too young to leave school with that much potential. It didn't make any sort of sense to Pavel since over ⅔ of each class left after fifth year.

Instead, he was graduating a year ahead of schedule instead of two. In his last year at Koldovstoretz he'd taken classes for fun instead of needing them. It gave him more time to study and to sharpen his mind.

It was well known that he was considered a 'genius' by all of the professors. That being said, people tended to stay away from him. Pavel hadn't made many friends while at Koldovstoretz. Pretty much just the boys he currently shared a dorm room with. There had been Ruslan… for a while. That was a long time ago.

A lot of the students already had plans after graduation. Unlike the rest of his classmates, he hadn't decided what to do once he stepped foot into the real world. All of his roommates had set their plans. Timur and Maxim were going to travel to America and visit all of America's national parks. Timofei was going to be married soon after graduation and would move in with his girlfriend. Yarloslev was to be an apprentice wandmaker. Melor and Daniil would start working at the Russian Federation Republic of Magic next week.

Pavel didn't want to work for the Republic of Magic. He didn't want to research potion making, or become a curse breaker, or invent spells.

What Pavel really wanted was to get out of Russia. Away from freezing winters and hot summers. Away from the isolation and loneliness. Even in Moscow he felt tiny. He loved Russia. However, he felt a strong need to go and spread his wings.

It was a dream. He didn't have the funds to move out of the country and start up in another. It'd cost thousands and thousands of Rubandrites. Finding a way out of Russia, traveling, buying a flat, food expenses, rent, necessities, proper passports and documentation… The list went on and on. He'd calculated it all in his third year. He could use a portkey, but the problem still remained that he didn't have enough Rubandrites to settle down. There was the possibility that he could transform into his animagus and fly away. Pavel had never flown too far before. He was afraid that he would get exhausted without a place to land.

It was worthless. He simply did not have that kind of money. Pavel did moonlight at the inn at Medved occasionally. He waited on the tables or cleared them off. If the owner wasn't around, Daniil would let him tend bar with him. Pavel had a little money saved up from that. It was nowhere near the cost he'd need to relocate. He preferred not to think about it, but any money his parents had left wouldn't be distributed until he turned eighteen. That was two years away. Two years would be a long time to wish and hope.

Russia it was.

Pavel hadn't secured a place to live either. He'd always stayed at Koldovstoretz during summer hols. The giant castle was empty except a few teachers and the Direktor. He would spend whole days curled up in the library, sucking in any new knowledge. He explore the places he wasn't supposed to go. He loved to transform into his animagus and fly over the landscape.

He hoped that when he left after the ceremony, he would be able to rent a room at the Traktir na New Abrat. If he couldn't… Pavel wasn't sure where he'd end up.

Almost everything was packed in his secondhand trunk. Clothes, his books, Wizarding chess set, old photos of his family. The trunk wasn't even half full.

Polina clucked and flapped her wings from her cage on the other side of the room. Pavel tutted as he stood up from his bed. "Polina, you must stay in your cage until we find a home." He stroked her plumage, and could swear that his owl leaned into his gentle touch.

Polina has been his mother's owl before she died. Pavel was glad that he had inherited her. She was a loyal owl. She might be old, but she was his.

A screech of an owl that certainly was not his caught Pavel's attention. He whipped around to see a large tiger owl with its three feet wingspan gilded into his dorm room through the open window. The owl perched at this foot of Melor's bed frame. The owl hooted again, holding its right leg out; a roll of parchment dangling beneath.

Pavel rolled eyes. No doubt it was another place trying to recruit him. He tossed both owls a treat, and after the tiger owl was finished, he flew off into the sky.

Pavel cut the ribbon and unrolled the the letter. It was like all of the others.

Dear Señor Pavel Chekov,

We have been aware of your lustrous talents for quite some time. Your academic performance is impeccable. The Brazil Ministry of Magic would be honored to extend an offer--"

Pavel didn't bother reading anymore. He tossed it in his trunk, on top of the thick pile of similar letters he had received over the past few months. A ridiculous amount of governments, banks, independent agencies from all over the globe had all sent him letters offering him a position. None of them really interested him. Most were actually written with an autoquill. Not that getting over a hundred job offers didn't boost his ego. It was that all of the offers included that the cost of moving expenses on him. Oh yes, they would cover any travel expenses, but finding a place to live was on him.

A knock at the door broke him from his thoughts. He turned to see Melor's head poking around the corner. "Hey, Pavel. We have to be lined up in fifteen minutes. You ready to go?"


"Well," Pavel thought. "It's now or never."

----------------------------

He looked out into the crowd. Pavel wasn't expecting to see anyone he knew, but it seemed like a reflex to look anyway. On the center aisles were his fellow wizards and witches who were graduating as well. To the left he saw a sea of his classmates' family and friends. To his right sat all of the school's professors.

This day would have been better if his family were here cheering him on.

"Pavel Andreievich Chekov, Top Grade."

Pavel stumbled slightly as he made his way across the stage. He shook hands with Direktor Stepanov, was handed his diploma, and walked off the stage.

That was it. He wasn't a student anymore.

When he reached the bottom stair, he saw a woman that he didn't recognize waiting. She was elderly, with greying hair. She wore wire rimmed that sat low on her nose and she had a traditional pointed hat with matching emerald robes.

"Gospodin Chekov?" Her accent wasn't Russian. It was someone whose first language wasn't Russian, and their native accent came through loud and clear.

Pavel raised an eyebrow, looking at her suspiciously. "Da. And who are you?"

The woman raised her chin, smirking slightly as she looked him in his eyes. "My name is Minerva McGonagall, and I have an interesting proposition for you. Perhaps we can discuss it over tea and biscuits?"