Stiles comes home after three years of learning to understand magic.

There's a curse mark on the back of Sidney's neck.

Tim refrains from telling Jason that most people are terrified of sharks. It seems a bit pointless. Tim isn't most people, after all.

The thing that made it so easy to hide was that everyone knew what dragons were supposed to be like. John heard people wonder about Sherlock sometimes, sending him slanting, speculative glances, as they questioned his lineage. But John Watson, who was steady, reliable, even-tempered? He slid right under their radar, just another average human being in a world full of them.

“Oh my god, Obito, I don’t care that you keep turning our roommates into mindless zombies devoted to serving your will, but in the name of everything holy, at least stop putting them in thrall when you're singing Taylor Swift songs in the shower.”

Every good guy comes back.

It starts when he’s five, when his mother brings home a bag of fortune cookies and explains what the strips of paper inside them are for.

“Patrick,” Jonny cuts in. He’s breathing too hard. “You’re not supposed to touch me because I hurt people. My touch. It hurts people.” “Well, you didn’t hurt me,” Patrick says, flopping onto the bed.

Turning to a witch to save a loved one's life is one of the riskier gambles a person can take, but it's one that's arguably noble and brave. Falling in love with the witch, though—now that's just foolish.

Geno ends up with red, white and blue hair after the Caps game, so he’s the first person sent to the new cursebreaker when they make it back to Pittsburgh. Sid is in the lounge when Geno comes back out. “I’m know her,” Geno says despondently. “She’s cursebreaker on staff for media at Sochi.”

The Penguins call him in early when it turns out that Evgeni Malkin is coming over from Russia - or maybe ‘fleeing’ is a better word for it. “Metallurg had his passport,” Therrien says over the phone. “And when they had to give it back so he could travel with the team, it’s likely that they took - ah, other precautions.” Magical precautions, he means. They’re practically sanctioned in the Superleague these days, though it’s not like North American hockey has any room to point fingers. Sid grew up a Habs fan; he knows from curses.

Magnitogorsk is a city of iron, and so is Metallurg’s will. They will not be thwarted, they do not let go of what is theirs. So when one of their own, born, bred, and molded, tries to run? To spit in the face of all that they’ve given him? Metallurg does not give up what it owns.

The magic hits him as soon as he opens his car door. Hearth magic and earth magic and hedge magic, and probably more, all swirling in a cacophony that should have been overwhelming. But instead it feels like wading into…home.

The procedure was an unmitigated success. A healthy baby boy, perfectly average in height and weight with a heart that beat steady as a metronome.

The locker room chatter started up almost at once, providing a screen of background noise. Zhenya sat down beside the ghost. “I’m captain. Evgeni Malkin.” “Sidney Crosby,” the ghost said. He didn’t offer his hand, which made Zhenya think he had been dead for a while, long enough to shed the ingrained habits of the living. “I’m, uh. Is it really 2018?”

“So,” the first reporter asks, pushing forward in the scrum, “did you know about Alex Ovechkin?”

Being a star athlete changes you.

“Does it hurt?” Conor asked quietly. And, shit, now he had to look. Scott forced his gaze down and saw them—spurs of bone splitting his knuckles. It wasn’t just swelling from the few punches he’d thrown. That was bone. This was happening.

Bitty knew about the hockey gods, of course. But he didn’t exactly believe in them. Hockey players could be quite superstitious indeed, making their own rituals in routines. Now he’s on a pro team. He’s in the big show. The Schooners have made the playoffs. And playoffs…are a different creature altogether. For even if you don’t really believe in the hockey gods... ...they believe in you.

“Why can’t I just use your witch?” whines Connor, head resting on the kitchen table while Hallsy shuffles through a manila folder labeled “curse shit.” “She just rubbed foxglove on my wrists and told me not to have sex,” says Hallsy. “It was not very helpful, and also did you know that foxglove is poisonous?” “Yeah, if you eat it,” says Connor.

Mitch’s heart is freezing over. It takes him exactly one year, seventeen days, five hours, and thirteen minutes to notice.

On June 26, 2015, Connor McDavid is drafted to the Edmonton Oilers. A few days later, he finds out that his new team is cursed. Things get complicated after that.

Neil is a bound witch on the run, making a choice between fleeing, slavery, and death. To Andrew, he looks like a useful weapon - at first. It turns out that ‘useful’ isn’t all he is.