Daniel had a moment to stagger and gape at the room around him, following the chaos of his little display.

Everyone had seen him lose control of the power, and even now papers were fluttering down from the ceiling of the testing chamber. More to the point, everyone had seen his underpants.

It barely even registered that the mess was being cleaned up, he was focused on deciding how to respond to his exposure. By the entrance, Professor Blackburn had out a wand and was guiding all the papers back into stacks, but he had to choose then and there: Try and gaslight the room into thinking they hadn’t just seen what they thought they saw up his skirt, or come clean.

He wasn’t that good of a liar.

When he stood, he found himself looking up into the eyes of one particularly angry Rachel Haligtree. Speaking with slow, punctuated emphasis, she snapped, “What. The hell. Was that?”

“Fine,” he said, dusting himself off, glancing back at the boulder behind him. His testing was over. He’d be in or he wouldn’t be. “You caught me. I’m a guy.”

She blinked. “You’re–excuse me?”

Hesitating, Daniel said, “Well, you saw my…er…”

“I’m not talking about your junk, I’m talking about this!” She waved a hand at the chamber, at the other people. “You disrupted the entire test, and–you’re a guy?”

“Well–” he started.

Fortunately, or perhaps not, Velma Blackburn stepped in, looking down at him through horn-rimmed glasses. “Perhaps a bit more control would have been advisable,” she conceded, “But this young lady didn’t break the rules–our training wards failed, that isn’t her doing.”

Fuming, Rachel said, “Okay, but he just said that he is a man.”

Velma blinked. “He…”

“Yeah,” Rachel confirmed. “He.”

“Well,” Daniel said. “You can run my numbers instantly, right? Did he pass?”

“Danielle,” Velma began. “Er–”

“Daniel,” he corrected.

“Daniel, this is a school for witches. Not warlocks. What are you doing here?” Velma arched an eyebrow at him–perplexed, not upset.

“I needed a little education in control before any warlock school would let me in,” Daniel admitted. It was embarrassing, sure, but who cared? He was in, or he wasn’t; if his stunt had failed, he wouldn’t be able to pull it again somewhere else. “Did. I. Pass?”

“I suppose, but–”

“Great,” Daniel said, smoothing out his dress, already planning to go wipe off the makeup so he’d look his boy-self again. “Awesome. I’ll look forward to studying under you, Professor Blackstone.”

“Ahem,” Velma said, simply. “Perhaps this needs judgment from the Dean.”

“Allow me, ma’am,” Rachel replied.

In an instant, her own wand was out, a colorful rod with a long piece of lace ribbon on one end and gemstones along the other. With a flick, Daniel shot up into the air, hoisted by levitation magic with infinitely more refinement and control than his own.

Only, she hadn’t cast it on him. Rachel’s spell seized the back of his tighty-whities, pulling him in the air with a particularly intense wedgie.

He winced and his legs flailed, kicking to try and push off the floor and release some of the weight. “HEY!”

“I’ve got him,” Rachel said. “Don’t worry about this, you can focus on the testing, ma’am.” With one more flick, she lifted him up some ten feet so that he dangled above everyone’s heads, underwear straining to support the whole weight of his body.

A few of the other testees giggled, more pointed. All eyes had already been on him from the crisis, but now he’d been turned into a spectacle, floating in the air, red faced and angry. With his dress down, nobody could see that he was being held aloft by wedgie power, but they could see his inability to fight back from the spell. Daniel’s face burned, half with embarrassment, half with discomfort as the fabric chafed between his cheeks and compressed his balls into his body. “Put me down!”

"I thought warlocks outclassed us witches in duels," Rachel replied, rolling her eyes. "I didn't know you boys got out of binding spells just by begging."

Screwing up his face with anger and annoyance, Daniel flicked his wand and tried to dispel the magic, but Rachel’s levitation persisted. On his second attempt, the magic recoiled, sparking in his hand–he dropped his wand towards the floor, and Rachel snatched it out of the air.

“Come along,” she said, waving a hand. The levitation began to carry him forward, over the heads of the other applicants, floating right out of the testing hall and down a corridor towards the faculty offices.

Daniel kicked and squirmed, the underwear burning between his legs. “I’ll have you expelled for this!”

“You assume anyone cares what a little boy who plays dress-up thinks,” Rachel replied. “Why did you come here? Just as a joke? To have a laugh at us?”

“Because I wanted to enroll,” he snapped, reaching down to try and lift himself up out of the undies, to relieve some of the weight. Pushing both hands around his dress to get at the waistband, he accomplished his goal, but in doing so his center of balance shifted. He began to rock forward in the air, tipping with nothing to hold onto, until he fell forward and down to the ground–with his underwear still suspended ten feet up.

Naked from the waist down–save for his sneakers–Daniel flushed bright red and pulled his dress down to cover himself.

“Oh, wow,” Rachel commented. “Okay, let’s try–”

With another flick of her wrist, she grabbed him by the ankle, flipped him up, and sent him into the air once again–upside down, his dress flipping up to cover his body and leave him exposed to the air.

“Put me DOWN!” Daniel screamed, trying to push up his dress to cover his exposed dick.

“No,” Rachel said, simply. With another flick, then, she eliminated the dress as well–the fabric simply vanished, disintegrated into nothing.

He was, momentarily, surprised. That sort of destructive evocation took a lot of precision and control. Rachel was scary for a witch.

If he could learn that, he’d be a shoe-in at any warlock school in the world.

Then, the reality of being completely naked in a hallway full of girls his age hit him, and he kicked in the air, spinning to try and face Rachel. His only reprieve from humiliation was that they weren’t still in the grand hall surrounded by the absolute throng of test-taking girls–only a few passing girls saw him in his half-naked state.

Finally managing to kick at the air enough to turn and look at Rachel, he demanded, “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is you, trying to undermine the integrity of Alphabeta with your stupid trick,” Rachel shot back. “You do not belong here. You should not have come here, and unless you promise to turn around and leave as soon as I give your big-boy undies back, I have zero reason to be nice to you.”

Daniel might have stood up for himself more, but it was hard to build self-confidence without anything to make him decent. Rather than continue the argument, he just glared, blushed, and tried to think up a counterspell he could cast without his wand.

Her expression declaring victory, Rachel paraded him down the halls, smirking proudly at his humiliation. In less than a minute, she had him at an important looking set of double doors, which led into an equally important looking office, helmed by–of course–a woman who radiated a sense of paramount authority.

The dean looked like every bit of the scholarly witch–half moon glasses, classic black robes, and a black, pointed hat. She glanced up, raising a single eyebrow at the spectacle marching up to her desk.

“Can I help you?” she asked. On her desk, a nameplate read, ‘Dr. Penelope Madrigal’. “Rachel–put the girl down.”

Rachel dropped him in a heap on the ground. “Ma’am, this boy–”

“Rachel Haligtree,” the dean snapped, shooting a stern look at the prefect. “Leave us. I will handle this.”

Rachel, gaping, still gave deference to this woman’s authority. Scoffing, she turned and walked away, shutting the doors behind her.

The dean looked at him calmly. “What is your name, child?”

“Daniel Aster,” he said, simply, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. He’d lost his purse at some point, and Rachel had gotten every bit of his clothes, leaving him truly naked. In front of the dean’s consummate professional gaze, though, he felt a bit less like the subject of an indignity, and managed to stick out his chin in defiance of Rachel’s humiliations. “I just passed the entrance exams, so I’ll be in your upcoming student body.”

She looked between his legs, then up at him. “And what happened to your clothes, young lady?”

“I–Rachel disintegrated them, the prefect,” Daniel said, uncertainly. “She got up in my face and said I didn’t belong.”

“I see,” Dr. Madrigal sighed, reaching for a feather pen on her desk. Daniel had to do a double take at the object, realizing from its runic inscriptions that it wasn’t a pen at all, but a wand. Conjuring a simple gown, she said, “I’m sorry, Miss Aster. I’ll of course ensure this is dealt with; Alphabeta is an institution that prides itself on accepting all–”

“I’m not a Miss,” Daniel cut in, taking the gown.

“Mrs.?” the dean asked, curiously. “Or do you prefer ‘Ms.’?”

“Mister, if you please.” He dressed himself, glad to have a bit of modesty. “I’m a man.”

Dr. Madrigal blinked a couple times, absorbing that information, recalibrating her appraisal of the situation. “I… see.”

“I went over your rules exhaustively,” Daniel continued, pacing a little as he talked. “Strictly speaking, there’s nothing in the charter that explicitly prohibits male students–the only rules have to do with the entrance exams. Once you’ve passed, you’re enrolled, and that’s all there is to it. I passed. I’m going to be a student. I had to fudge some of my paperwork to get on the exam, but that doesn’t matter once the exam’s over.”

The dean leaned forward, tapping something on her desk. “Rachel Haligtree, please come back to my office.” She eyed Daniel again. “Let’s say you didn’t miss something, that you really can bypass five hundred years of tradition on a loophole–why, exactly, are you here?”

He gave her as confident a smile as he could muster. “Because, I need an education. Who are you to deny me that?”

Her face hardened, but before she could say anything else, Rachel pushed in the door.

“Miss Haligtree, did you destroy this boy’s clothes?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am,” Rachel replied. “And I’d do it again.”

“If what he tells me is correct, he’s a student here,” the dean said. “And you know you aren’t supposed to discipline students, except for those kept under your wing.”

Rachel hesitated, swallowing her anger so hard it looked like she might choke. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Dr. Madrigal leaned forward, using her wand as an actual pen. A document apparated under it as she wrote something out, as though her writing dictated the appearance of forms and not the other way around. “I’m assigning Aster to your wing. He’s shown a propensity for skirting discipline, rules, and order, so I expect you’ll keep a very close eye on him and dispense discipline accordingly.”

Daniel blinked in surprise, glancing back nervously at Rachel.

“Is there a problem, Mister Aster?” the dean asked. “Or did you think you’d get to choose your own wing and get to be team captain in the Voxavin league?”

“No, it’s fine.” Daniel swallowed. “More than fine. Totally fair.”

“Be sure to put in your sizes for your uniform,” the dean added. “We’ve got a dress code here, and running naked through the halls hardly complies.”

“I… yes, ma’am,” Daniel said. “Are we good?”

She glanced at him over her half-moon spectacles, considered for a moment, and nodded. “You’re dismissed. Welcome to Alphabeta University.”