OP: a silver (and green) lining

[xiuhunation]

Title: a silver (and green) lining
For: everyone
Pairing(s): Wendy/Seulgi, Taehyung/Sooyoung, hinted!Jongin/Taemin, hinted!Jimin/Jungkook
Rating: pg
Length: 47000~
Summary: Sehun is a Slytherin senior with a lot of problems. The new Muggle Studies substitute teacher who just happens to be his first love is only one of them.
Warnings: mild bullying, violence, minor age gap
Author's note: I wanted to write so much more but I didn’t have enough time. Thanks to everyone who supported me through this, you’re the best crew a writer could ever wish for.




Or perhaps in Slytherin,
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.





i. sehun

September 1st

Sehun waltzes outside the train with the grace of a stone gargoyle, his eyes throwing darts at everyone who dares to cross his path. His head is still pounding with the familiar rhythm of Fall Out Boys and Nightwish songs, with just a dash of Avenged Sevenfold, when he slips his faithful iPod in the hidden pocket of the wizard robe he changed into a few minute before. He’s still groggy from the three hours nap he’s taken in the train, mind hazy and thoughts slowly swirling inside his head, but he’s still coherent enough to hide the electronic device, not wanting anyone to see it. That would irremediably ruin his Slytherin Muggle-Hater Pureblood reputation. It’s not like the iPod is working, anyway. It started lagging as soon as the train crossed Hogwarts’ borders. It’s a pity, because now Sehun has only his own, unsure voice to hum dark songs and fill the silence of the long nights in the dungeons.

A few short kids, First Years - wearing their robes proudly like only freshmen would, their necks bare of any color, at least until the Sorting - trot between his legs and he smacks his lips at them. They stop, frozen by his cold stare of disapproval, eyes immediately caught by the shiny Prefect batch and even more by the shinier Oh household ring at his middle finger. An ancient, arrogant family. Very powerful. They must come from wizard households to be able to recognize his family crest.

Just as they tremble under his gaze - maybe they think Sehun will devour them like tiny appetizers before the banquet - Wendy crashes into him from behind. Unseen, her hand comes to rest comfortably at the small of Sehun’s back, a little gesture of friendship that no one else will ever notice. Her familiar weight draped on his back is enough to distract him from the new students and they can finally breathe again.

“What are you even doing still here? We’re going to be late if you don’t move your puny ass.” She turns to smile at the kids with her Head Girl face. “Are you First Years? Then you must go to the boats, follow Mr. Shin there.”

Her Head Girl batch seems to comfort them, but Sehun’s hungover face is still scary, so they gladly take her suggestion. Sehun swears he can keep them whispering his name in awe and maybe a little fear as they disappear down the clearing and towards the shore, where the boats are waiting for them. He quickly hexes his and Wendy’s chests to follow them with a Locomotor and they start to float in the air, heavy and uncoordinated.

Before he can greet her, Wendy links their arms together and starts dragging him towards the carriages. “So, how did my favorite housemate’s summer go?”

Her voice is too loud for Sehun’s delicate ears – he doesn’t deal well with noise when he’s still this grumpy from a sudden awakening, but that’s how Wendy is. She doesn’t slow down to Sehun’s pace, just pulls him until he’s following hers. That’s why, instead of complaining, he stops to kiss her cheek. Sehun has known Wendy long enough to learn the little tricks that will make her smile soften and her eyes brighten, turning her voice to warm honey just for Sehun's ears. It works every time.

“My summer sucked,” he says to answer her question. “My parents made me go to places and know people. Yesterday I got drunk with Zitao and Jongin. My head hurts.”

He pronounces the words as he’s pushing them out with great effort, one by one, his voice still rough from sleep.

“Sounds like you had a great time,” she answers with a short laugh, and Sehun doesn’t bother with a reply, opening the door of a carriage instead. They crash inside and Sehun slams the door right in Ren’s hopeful face before he can get in with them. “You must do something about him. His little crush on you is starting to become painful to watch.”

Wendy laughs and pats her knees, and Sehun lets his head fall in her lap. Her hands are cold, but not in an unpleasant way. She soothes the headache that’s been tormenting him since when he said his goodbyes to his two best friends. This year, his last year at Hogwarts, they won’t be there with him.

“Maybe you should do something about him, Sehunnie. After all, the only reason why Ren and everyone else thinks I’m interested in boys is because I dated you for two years.”

Sehun snorts and closes his eyes, letting Wendy’s hands lull him into a peaceful slumber.

Sometimes he wish he could’ve dated Wendy, who’s perfect and strong and talented and now also the best Head Girl Slytherin has ever seen in decades. The truth was that they were both scared, of so many things, what with their parents breathing on their neck and the whole school gossiping about their close friendship. Deciding to go out together officially didn’t change the nature of their friendship made of silent fleeting touches and secrets whispered in the night, of Firewhiskey shared around the blue and green fires of the Slytherin Common Room. Zitao and Jongin, and a few years ago also Baekhyun and even Kris sometimes, joined them.

They went their separate ways during the winter of their sixth year, Wendy’s choice. But Sehun doesn’t miss being her boyfriend when he can have her as a friend, her frozen fingertips drawing stars on his temple and her long hair tickling his nose.


☆

The Sorting is boring, as usual. They have a few more brats sitting at their table and watching him and Wendy like they’re seeing ghosts. “Not ghosts, superstars!” says Wendy, when he shares the thought with her. “We’re the superstars this year, Sehunnie!” Last year for them and first year for the new students. An end and a beginning. “Whatever, I just want them to stop staring at me like that.”

They don't stop, not until the Bloody Baron makes his appearance, scaring the blood out of them. Yerim, happy to be in her second year and not a freshman anymore, laughs when one little girl with tiny pigtails, who sits straight like a princess and has lovely table manners, almost faints as the old ghost passes through her to float near Sehun and greet him.

They make polite conversation, at least until Krystal, Ravenclaw seventh year, Prefect, leaves her table to come and greet Wendy, to congratulate her on the promotion to Head Girl. Krystal also nods towards Sehun, and he waves back. He likes her, she’s one of the few students in his year who deserves his respect, though he can’t really call her a friend like Wendy does.

“Something happened?” he asks out of boredom when Krystal leaves with a final smile and an elegant swish of brown locks. Wendy shakes his head. “Krystal’s sister is taking a maternity leave. Looks like we’ll be short of a Muggle Studies professor.”

He snorts. “I feel extremely sorry for half the male population of Hogwarts,” he comments, referring to all those students who chose Muggle Studies just to ogle over pretty Professor Jessica.

Wendy lightly clinks her glass against his, chuckling. “And I’ll join you in your mourning. I only wish we had something better than pumpkin juice to drink.”

They finish their dinner in silence and then Sehun slips away to reach the dungeons while his friend begins to shout indications to the overexcited freshmen with the help of the other Prefects. Sehun is technically a Prefect too, but he firmly believes that five people will be able to deal with a handful of First Years, even without his help.

Sehun’s room is dark and empty, just like Wendy’s. They are the only two Slytherin students in their year, and maybe that’s why he feels a tiny sting of loneliness. All their older friends graduated while they’re still stuck at Hogwarts. Zitao and Jongin at least used to camp in his room when they were bored, always managing to transform the intimidating bed in a fort of emerald pillows. There’s no one now, and Sehun is too proud to go to the other rooms and hang with some of the lowerclassmen.

“You look quite depressed.” Wendy leans on the doorframe and stares. There’s a bottle of Ogden's Old in her right hand, and she Levitates it towards Sehun as she crosses the room in three steps with her long, long legs before she lets herself fall on the bed . She bounces a little when she lands.

“Because my life is quite depressing. Drinking whiskey with my former girlfriend because I don’t have any other friends here in school. My mom didn’t send me at all those parties to develop such poor social skills.”

“My mom raised me to be a perfect housewife, and the other day she complained that my grades are too high and that no man will ever want a smart girl, so I should stop putting an effort in school.”

“You win,” he says, and pours some whiskey in a flute, offering it to her.

They drink in silence.

“It was different with them here,” he mutters, between a sip and another.

“Only because you’re lame and a loser. So gloomy. They were a living and walking party.”

Being a Slytherin is all about being choked by expectations and prejudices. Even the atmosphere is suffocating and claustrophobic. It’s not because they’re underground, no, Hufflepuff students don’t have windows either, but at least they don’t live in the dungeons, where everything is so cold, humid and dark.

Sehun’s seventh year will be utterly miserable, but the worst is awaiting him after the school ends, when he’ll officially become a pawn in the hands of his parents, a mere political commodity. It’s his role as the only heir of the glorious Oh family.

It’s probably the alcohol that speaks for him, hazing his mind and his common sense like a too warm hug. His numb tongue moves against the roof of his mouth as he takes one of Wendy’s hands in his own, finding it fresh and comforting, an anchor in the sea of his helplessness.

“Wendy,” he says, and it sounds like a prayer, like when he was afraid of the dark and he called his mom to be comforted at night. She never came, but Wendy would’ve come, Wendy will make, one day, a beautiful mother. “Wendy, do you want to marry me when the school ends?”

Only when little, pretty fingers come to rest on his cheek, following the line of his jaw, that he realizes how much of a mistake it was. She sighs and he wants to run away.

“Two years ago I would’ve said yes, Sehun. Because that would be the most convenient thing, for us both. We only love each other like brothers, but we could learn to live together and be happy, we could produce an heir and make our families proud.” She looks like a woman now, not like Sehun’s pretty Wendy who waved at him the first day of school seven years ago, after the Sorting, when they found out they were the only ones. We’ll have to stick together, she had said, and she’s always been there for Sehun when he needed her the most.

“But I can’t, Sehunnie. Talking with my mother this summer about the choice of my future husband, how pure his blood will have to be, that was the last straw for me. This year is going to be the year. I’m going to do it. Talk to her, become her friend…”

Her, Kang Seulgi. Sehun knows what Wendy’s parents - her whole family - would say if they just knew what kind of person Seulgi is.

“Becoming friend with a Muggle-born,” he chooses his words carefully, but Wendy’s eyes sharpen at the word, “is really worth the life you’re living now?”

“Oh, please Oh Sehun. Now don’t tell me you really believe all that racist bullshit crap the kids in our house go around spluttering like idiots, don’t you? Do you know why I had to let Sooyoung sleep in my room for years? Because the other girls locked her out of theirs. Because her blood is not pure. She’s lucky she’s a Prefect now and she doesn’t have to deal with all that bullshit anymore.”

He doesn’t answer. Kids are kids. They get out of their homes for the first time, their heads clogged with all the things their parents have said and they slam against the wall of reality, again and again. At home, they’re taught that they’re the best, la crème de la crème, that everyone should bow at their passage. But Hogwarts is not about the purity of blood. It has never been, ever since the first time Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin argued about it and the latter chose to leave the school leaving his house orphan of his guidance. Maybe, if he had stayed, things would’ve been easier. But he didn’t, and Slytherin students were left alone to deal with the rest of the world, to learn that everything they were taught to be true had no value between these walls. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don’t, but it always makes them stronger. Sooyoung’s first years were a living hell, but she learned how to defend herself and gained the respect of the rest of the House. The fact that she chose to let her friends call her Sooyoung and not Joy – the name her witch mother has chosen for her when she was born – is proof enough of how much their little girl has grown. Now she’s strong enough not to be ashamed of her origins, and the rest of the House respects it too.

“I’m not telling you I believe it, but your parents do. They will never accept someone like your Seulgi, you know it better than me.”

Wendy sighs, a strand of runaway hair falling on her forehead in a tired surrender. “I never took you for that type of person, Sehun. You usually stay out of these ideological wars. I’ve never even heard you call someone Mudblood before, and that must be a record for a Slytherin.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me, you filthy Mudblood.”

The whiskey suddenly tastes sour on Sehun’s tongue. She’s never heard it, but he’s done it, only once. It’ll probably be the most shameful memory of his school years.

“You don’t even know if she’ll want to talk with you,” he changes the topic, before Wendy can notice the shadow of regret in his eyes. “Kang Seulgi, I mean. I’m going to remind you that we are Slytherin, thus evil. She’d probably pour holy water on herself if you only if you even only tried to greet her on the hallways.”

“That only means I’ll have to be very persuasive.”

“Oh, that is something you’re very good at,” he says, but the words come out slurred and slow. She takes the bottle out of his hands, but it’s already empty.

“Sehun, you drank everything, you ass!”

He snickers, pulling on her hair. “Aren’t you thanking me? I spared you a pretty heavy hangover tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I’m not going to kick your ass until you get up tomorrow. You drag your sorry self to class by yourself, that will teach you to share, next time.”

He’s already dozing off when he feels her lips on his temple, a delicate kiss.

“Sehunnie, I don’t know who broke your heart so badly that you can’t even dream to fall in love again. But remember, if you let your parents rule your life now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your days.”

She’s gone in a moment, and Sehun rolls down on his stomach and tries to sleep.

He looks at the hand hanging in front of his face, waiting to be taken. Then his father leaves the Headmaster’s office and Sehun’s heart misses a beat. He can’t let his father down, he can’t.

“Don’t you dare talk to me, you filthy Mudblood.”





September 2nd

The following morning, Sehun wakes up feeling like someone just dragged him to hell and back just in time for breakfast. He’s retching in the bathroom for the third time when Sooyoung arrives with coffee, courtesy of Wendy. She just leaves the cup on the sink - she’s not brave enough to talk to him before he’s shot some caffeine in his system. He sees the back of her cape disappearing behind the door as she leaves, but at least the hot nectar of life is on his desk.

He practically gulps his coffee on his way to Potions and still manages to be late for class, but professor Kangin doesn’t even bother with him. He’s a Slytherin, after all.

However, he does stop him before he can sit with Wendy.

“Just a moment, Mr. Oh. I am afraid you’ll be forced to switch seats and pair with Mr. Yoo for the rest of this class. We’re doing team works and the Headmaster encouraged me to promote the union and harmony between the Houses.” From the tone he used he could’ve as well been talking about disgusting leeches and the new tax on brooms.

Sehun doesn’t like Youngjae. They have never really talked in the six years they’ve both been Hogwarts students, except for the customary Gryffindor-Slytherin skirmishes in the hallways when there weren’t any professors in sight. Sehun’s fondest memory of the boy is Baekhyun Levitating him on one of the chandeliers of the fourth floor three years ago, a sweet revenge for when Youngjae had tripped Baekhyun’s young brother, Taehyung, in the Great Hall, in front of everyone else. They only found Youngjae the morning later, still up there. His wand was lying on the floor and he had no way to get down the chandelier without risking to break a few bones in the process. Needless to say, he had never tried to mess with Baekhyun, or Taehyung, from that day onwards.

In Sehun’s humble opinion, Youngjae could’ve been a Slytherin. He’s mean enough to belong in the dungeons with the other snakes. Unfortunately, he’s also just a tiny bit dumb, and dumb calls dumb so he obviously ended up in Gryffindor. That and, being Half-blood, his life in Slytherin wouldn’t have been too pleasant. Not everyone is as strong as Sooyoung, after all.

What matters is that, after six years, Youngjae is still an ass, a dumbass, thinks Sehun, as he moves his bag in the seat near his new desk buddy. He steals a look at Wendy, who’s beaming in joy at the girl next to her, and he understands why when he sees who her partner is. He waves at Wendy and she answers cutely, before turning back to talk to Seulgi.

Youngjae has already spread his materials on the desk, and he warmly welcomes Sehun. “Oh, look, the Prince of Slytherin deigned us of his mighty presence. Such honor, should we all bow to His Majesty?”

Sehun doesn’t waste his breath to answer. Instead, he opens the book and flip to the page of the potion they’re trying to make today. The ingredients are written on the blackboard, but he double-checks anyway, just to make sure.

“It’s useless to pretend that you’re paying attention. We all know that professor Kim will make you pass anyway, Oh. Or it’s just an excuse to force yourself out of a conversation with a lowly commoner like me? Because that’s what you Slytherins usually do.”

What Youngjae is doing, Sehun thinks, is completely understandable. Now that between the older students of the school there are only two Slytherins, the power balance has shifted and they’re in a clear inferiority. He’s in clear inferiority, because Wendy is Head Girl and no one in their clear state of mind would ever mess with her. She’s also friendly and smiling and easy going, while Sehun is a dark, quiet little thing whose family owns half of the country.

It’s the first time he finds himself involved personally in this kind of petty fights. In the past, his Slytherin seniors used to handle these things for him, but now that he’s in last year it seems he can’t escape the responsibility to defend Slytherin’s honor anymore.

He blinks stupidly at Youngjae. “Do you want to fail this class?”

He only realizes it was probably the wrong answer when he sees Jongdae's eyes darken and almost hears his teeth violently clashing behind closed, thin lips. He closes his mouth, regretting the decision of getting up for Advanced Potions this morning.

Sehun doesn't really know how to talk with someone who's not in the same House as him. It would’ve probably been different if he had bothered to make friends outside his House, of course, but he never felt the need to meet and talk to new people. His little knit group in Slytherin was more than enough for him, but as time passed and his friends graduated he never felt the need to make new ones, doing what his mother calls cultivating your social life. Maybe, if he did, now he wouldn’t be alone to deal with this unnecessary hostility. It’s not like he hates Youngjae, even if he does think that the kid is probably dumber than Godric Gryffindor himself. Sehun simply wants to be left alone.

Professor Kim - Kangin, as the Slytherin students have learnt to call the Head Professor of their House - brings the order back in the class, and Sehun and Youngjae start working, at the same potion but not together. They are methodical and they try to stay of each other’s personal space. Their potion is not as good as it could’ve been if Sehun had been working alone, but it’s still good enough to get them a good grade. Its with relief that they hear the professor announce they’re dismissed.

Sehun takes his bag and tries to reach Wendy, to ask her if she wants to get lunch with him or if she’s already made plans with her new friend. He’s abruptly stopped by a forceful shove at the center of his back. He turns, only to see his former Potions partner staring at him maliciously. It’s supposed to look threatening, but Sehun surpasses the other boy with his whole head, it’s like staring at a midget from a titan’s point of view.

“Don’t you think you’re better than us just because your parents can use money to wipe their ass.”

Sehun’s never thought it, but if Youngjae is happy to think it… It could’ve ended there, but then Youngjae has to open his big, idiotic mouth, one time too many. “You Slytherin are the trash of Hogwarts, you’ve always been, and it’s time you realize it.”

“Trash?” he chuckles. “You’re accusing me to be trash?”

It's like Youngjae has just throw a coin in the air and everyone is watching it as it flips mid-air, waiting to see where how it will land. And Sehun may hold absolutely no interest in winning this fight, but there’s something, a sense of belonging that he feels towards his house. Years spent joggling around Baekhyun-hyung and Kris-hyung, well respected seniors that would’ve never let some Gryffindor punk talk about their House, their glorious Slytherin House, in such a degrading way. Years spent reading dusty books while Jongin and Zitao fought his battles for him. Years spent teaching Taehyung and Sooyoung, sometimes even Jimin, how to protect themselves from surprise attacks in the alleys, for when the hostility between Slytherin and Gryffindor boils so much it can’t be subdued by rules anymore and it explodes in impromptu duels in the gardens near the like. Slytherin may be the den of the snakes, but Sehun is one of them and he won’t stay quiet while stupid Yoo Youngjae dirties the legacy of Salazar.

Wendy flashes him a desperate glare and he can feel her mouthing no, no, no at him, Seulgi’s arm still linked to hers, both of them watching the scene unfolding in front of their eyes. The whole class is watching closely. But it’s too late, and Sehun can’t take it back now that he’s already saying it.

“Look back into your own House, Youngjae, and ask yourself what trash really is. Someone like you shouldn’t even dream to talk to someone like me.”

The class stills, almost as if a Silencing Charm has been casted over the students. It’s the first time they actually see Oh Sehun reacting to something said against him, breaking the spell of the mysterious, tenebrous ice prince he’s built in the last six years. It’s the first time and no one knows what to say.

Sehun wants to bite his lips, wants to blush, because this isn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to ask Youngjae why is he picking on Slytherin when he and Wendy have done nothing against him. Why is it always their fault for everything? Why can’t they be friends with everyone else? But the coin has long stopped flipping, only to land on the wrong side. At the corner of his eyes, he sees Seulgi leaving Wendy’s arm, reaching her other Gryffindor friends behind Youngjae until the entire class is on one side and Sehun and Wendy on the other.

Kangin chooses that moment to come back. “Why are you all still here? You should clear out before the Third Years begin.” His piercing eyes scan the situation. “I hope no one is fighting, because I wouldn’t allow a fight on my class. I must beg all of you to leave this place if you want to behave like kids, and not like the adults you should be.”

Sehun nods and retrieves his bag. Wendy is trembling, imperceptibly, and Youngjae looks more surprised than angry. Murmuring a quick apology, he leaves before anyone else. Maybe if he goes back to his room and starts to sleep, he’ll wake up tomorrow and today will have been just a dream.

He crashes against someone just outside the room and they both stagger and gasp in surprise.

Keeping his head low, hair swept messily over his eyes, he apologizes and tries to leave the room because he’s going to cry and he can’t do it here. No one ever has to see him crying.

A hand grabs his wrist and pulls, spinning him backwards to stop his great escape, but the thing that really halts him is the voice. He thought he had forgotten that voice, after all this time, but his brain had just stored it away for a moment like these.

“You haven’t changed, Oh Sehun.”

Oh, the memories, they come flooding his heart like a calamity. That day, too, he was going to cry.

“Do you need some help, kid?”

Minseok, pretty, so pretty, Head Boy badge on his vest, offers him a hand. His eyes are big and shiny and trustworthy, his smile is kind. He doesn’t even know who Sehun is, even if Sehun has done nothing but stare longingly at him the whole past year, since when Minseok helped him get rid of Peeves at last Halloween party. He doesn’t know, but he still looks like he could comfort Sehun and teach him that there’s another way outside the cage that his parents have built for him.

Sehun stares at the hand hanging in front of his face, waiting to be taken. Then his father leaves the Headmaster’s office and Sehun’s heart misses a beat. He can’t let his father down, he can’t. He can’t be seen talking with Kim Minseok, because the older boy is a Muggle-born and Sehun is a Pure-blood and his father would kill him. He still bears the signs of the last beating on his body.

He raises his head, as proudly as a lost kid can, and he hopes this will be enough to make his father proud of him.

“Don’t you dare talk to me, you filthy Mudblood.”

Minseok looks down at him and doesn’t answer. Minseok looks down at him and pities him, because Sehun looks like a frightened kid on the verge of tears.

“Next time we meet, I hope you’ll be free to be a different person.”

He wonders if the sky is pale and clear, just like three years ago, one of those few rare days when dawn is pink and poetic, and not grey and faded out like it usually is around Hogwarts.

Oh Sehun’s dream picks the thread from where it had been left last time, suddenly and quietly, at the beginning of his seventh year, and no one, not even Sehun himself, sees it coming.

Kim Minseok looks down at him, and there’s not a Head Boy badge on his vest, but his eyes are just as big and pretty, his face just as kind even if he’s not smiling, but frowning, and Sehun feels hot and cold and breathless all at once. Minseok still looks like he did in the past and Sehun still wants to be comforted by him. But, like in the past, he knows he’s not definitely allowed to.


☆

“Don’t talk to me.”

Wendy doesn’t leave, but she does move her books on the other side of their favorite table with such vehemence that she cuts herself with the edge of a page and almost knocks an entire vial of ink over her Arithmancy notes. Sehun doesn’t say anything, he just helps her picking up her stuff, parchments and quilts and a stack of Ice Mice. She forcefully stares at her book as he flops down next to her. They have a History of Magic quiz next week and he doesn’t want to fall behind with his studies, so he flips a book open and starts to read.

He can feel Wendy flashing silent anger and cold stares at him, but he doesn’t say anything. She said not to talk to her, after all.

“Well, aren’t going to say anything?”

“But you said…”

“You could start with an apology, for example. Something simple like, sorry Wendy if I fucking turned our entire year against us. Sorry if I ruined your only chance to score something with your crush. Sorry if I was a total ass.”

“Sorry Wendy.”

She knock with the tip of her quilt on the edge of the desk. Madam Pince turns towards them like a sparrow ready to pounce on eventual disturbers. She only stops when she realizes it’s Wendy and flashes her a warm smile. The girl nods back and when the tone of her voice is so much lower, almost a whisper. “Sorry Wendy? Is that all you’ve got?”

He speaks over her, hoping to interrupt the tirade. “I got a punishment,” he says, and she snaps her eyes open in surprise. “Looks like the new substitute teacher in Muggle Studies was around the corner and he heard what I said. I got three weeks of social services and I’ll have to attend Muggle Studies class to learn from my mistakes. That’s it.”

That’s not simply it. There’s so much more, but Sehun wouldn’t know how to explain it to Wendy. He can still feel the implacable weight of Kim Minseok’s eyes on his face. Of all the places in the world, he would’ve never thought that he’d meet his first crush again in Hogwarts, where everything has begun.

Wendy snaps her eyes open in surprise. “Wait, from the beginning again, please? You’re taking Muggle Studies? With the new professor? And what about Youngjae? Isn’t he going to get detention?”

“Too long, just pay attention the first time! Yes and yes. About Yoo, I just think he’s going to get separate detention because we- Oh.”

A delicate cough interrupts him and he turns to see Kang Seulgi staring at them and fidgeting.

“Oh, well, I think I should go. See you later Wendy.”

“Wait, you haven’t told me anything about the new professor! Sehun!”

She tries to stop him but he’s already standing and bowing slightly to the Gryffindor girl, “Kang.”

He runs away before the poor girl can properly answer and he forgets his book behind in his hasty retreat. His stomach growls loudly, but he doesn’t want to set foot in the Great Hall for today. Some of his Housemates, people with whom he’s never talked before outside his occasional Prefect duties, have already begun approaching him with pats on his back and enthusiastic cheers because he finally put the Gryffindors back where they belong. He doesn’t want to cause another commotion.

In the end, he finds himself sitting on the cornice of one of the boys’ bathroom near the Astronomy Tower, a smoke in his hands and wind in his hair. It’s getting too long, he muses, as he tries to move the fringe out of his eyes and his long fingers get caught in the mess.

Wendy is a wonderful friend, but she’s not to be trusted with scissors. That was Tao’s duty as second best friend.

He wonders how Taozi is doing. He’d text his friend with the phone that he and Jongin bought this summer, when they Apparated themselves in New York, on the other side of the world, in a street full of Muggles. He remembers the struggle to find a Gringott US branch to change their Galleons into American dollars, and Zitao coming to rescue them with the flying motorbike that they weren’t even supposed to ride but they had ridden anyway, all the three of them. He’d text them, but Hogwarts is isolated by a power field and his phone can only buzz in relief when he turns it off.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

He almost falls down the edge window from the startle. Kim Minseok stares at him from the door, a sullen expression on his face. He’s wearing a robe this time and if it wasn’t for the lack of House colors he could easily pass for a student. But he’s not. He’s here as a teacher.

“Sitting on the edge of windows is dangerous. If something happens to you, the school will be held responsible. And you’re also smoking, which is prohibited in the school boundaries.”

Sehun shrugs, but climbs down the window and into the toilets waiting room. “It’s just a smoke,” he says, and the mirror in front of him gives back the image of a pale face with lifeless, cold eyes. Oh, now he gets where all that cold prince thing they say about him comes from.

“Twenty points from Slytherin. And I’ll have to speak with the Headmaster about revoking your Prefect status.”

“Do it,” he says, simply. His bag lies abandoned on one of the sinks and a sweet pumpkin pastry rolls out of it as he grabs the strap. “If that’s all, Professor, I’ll be seeing you in class.”

“Aren’t you supposed to protest?” asks Minseok, bewildered. Sehun turns towards him and they’re close, very close. He realizes, with a pang of surprise, that he’s towering over Minseok, making him flustered. He takes a step backwards to give the teacher space to breathe and think.

“Am I really supposed to care?” he asks. “I didn’t volunteer for this position and the night patrol is kind of a…” pain in the ass, “hassle. Please inform the Headmaster of your wish to strip me of my batch.”

He ignores Minseok’s calls of “Oh Sehun, come back here!” and leaves for the dungeons wondering what else the teacher would’ve wished to tell him, and if it was really a coincidence that, in the whole school, he had stepped in the exact toilet that Sehun had chosen as his nest.


☆

Sehun ignores Wendy and everyone else for the entire day, only showing his face in the Common Room when it’s time to go to sleep. He finds his best friend sleeping on one of the velvet couches in front of the fireplace, her long, dark hair all splayed out on the emerald fabric. Sooyoung is playing wizard’s chess with Taehyung next to her, but her head perks up when she sees Sehun.

“Ssssh,” he mouths, putting a finger to his mouth to silence her. “I’m going to sleep. You should go too. Tell her I was too tired to talk, okay?”

She nods, unsure. “She was very worried,” she hazards, but Sehun pats her head and ruffles her hair affectionately. Sooyoung has been running around Wendy like a puppy for four years now, and she always used to be so afraid of Sehun, because she’s Half-blood and Sehun’s family has quite the reputation. The Ohs believe in the purity of blood before anything else, Sehun knows, but at the same time he can’t understand how someone could not like Sooyoung. Sweet, smart Sooyoung, who’s now speaking to him and smiling at him through her ruffled bangs, like an echo of the beautiful woman she’ll become in a few years.

“I’ll talk to her, tomorrow. I promise.”

Her face lights up at his words. “Please do, she misses you. Can I… Can I ask you a question? Did you really say it? That Half-bloods are trash?”

She’s asking, but there’s not an ounce of belief in her eyes. Sehun has never treated her differently in the last four years, even if he was grumpy and uninterested in her most of the time.

“I didn’t exactly say that, but I guess it was implied in my words.”

“But why? I mean…”

“Not everyone is perfect, Joy.” He uses her other name, the name that her mom, a witch, has chosen for her, instead of the name that her Muggle father has given her. “We get angry, we make mistakes. I’m very sorry. Just because I was angry at Yoo Youngjae I ended up hurting a lot of other people.”

“He called us trash first,” exclaims Taehyung. He hasn’t raised his eyes from the poor rests of his Bishop lying on the chessboard since the whole exchange has begun, but he was listening. He watches Joy, a serious expression in his usually mischievous eyes. “He said Slytherin is trash. Sehun was just defending us, all of us. I’m sure he didn’t mean anything else.”

Sehun sends a grateful glance at Taehyung for explaining. He likes the kid. They’re friends – not in the way he and Baekhyun were friends, nor in the same way Taehyung, Sooyoung and Jimin are friends – but Sehun likes him. When Baekhyun graduated, he made Sehun promise he would keep an eye on his little brother, but sometimes Sehun has the faint suspicion his friend asked the same thing to Taehyung. Keep an eye on Sehun, make sure he is alright. That sounds an awful lot like Baekhyun in his head, and it’s nice to know that, even if he’s alone, he’ll never really be alone. He has Wendy, he has Taehyung, he has Sooyoung with him. He has the rest of the House. Slytherins take care of their own, even when they’re as strange and unfriendly as Sehun is.

He’s already on top of the stairs when Sooyoung calls to him again, her voice clear and thin over the constant angry sounds of the lake shaken by the wind outside the wall of the castle.

“Sehun, why are you like this only with us? Everyone thinks you’re arrogant and cold, and now half the school thinks you hate Muggle-borns too… But you’re not like that, you apologize and you’re kind and you always take care of your friends. Why are you always playing the part of the heartless guy?”

He doesn’t honestly know what to answer, but Wendy’s light trashing on the couch spares him the trouble. He’s in his bed before she can be fully awake, and he seals his worries inside his room with him with a hefty Colloportus.

Kim Minseok’s accusing eyes haunt his mind even as he falls asleep.



September 3rd

He wakes up earlier the next morning, running away from a night of light, restless sleep. After efficiently avoiding both Wendy and her little messenger Sooyoung, Sehun finds himself skipping breakfast and crashing in the Muggle Studies classroom with the only comfort of a giant sized coffee extorted from a rowdy house-elf. The room is still empty and a cup of coffee alone is not enough to tame the grumpy beast that growls inside of Sehun's chest whenever he wakes up before noon. His physician calls it low blood pressure, but he still has to convince Sehun’s friends that he's not a vampire, always awake at night but ready to drop dead at the first rays of sun.

He closes his eyes only for a few seconds, but when he opens them again the first bell is ringing, meaning that at least twenty minutes have passed. The classroom is still empty, except for the teacher, who’s sitting on the desk and staring straight at Sehun while he sucks his pumpkin juice from the strap like a little kid.

“Good morning,” he's greeted softly.

“Good morning,” he answers, despite the knot constricting his throat.

His hand goes to the coffee, but the cup is cold and the liquid inside even colder and unsatisfying.

He's already resigning himself to thirty minutes of awkward, heavy silence when Minseok speaks again, and Sehun snorts because he should've expected the other boy to try and do some small talk even with a lost case like Sehun.

“You're here early.”

He only nods because that’s not even a real question.

“Did you eat your breakfast?”

Shake.

“Did you only drank that coffee?”

Nod.

“You should eat more.”

Condescending nod.

“You're skin and bones.”

Quirk of eyebrows.

“And your tie is crooked. Put more attention in the way you dress.”

He's ready for another patronizing nod, but Minseok crosses the room and begins to fix Sehun's tie himself. His fingers fumble a little, but they're cold. Sehun has always liked people with cold hands. He usually finds them soothing. Now he only feels dizzy.

“You should pay attention too,” he croaks, and his voice is too squeaky and his mouth too dry. He moisten his lips, feeling Minseok's eyes on his tongue as it darts outside. “A leather jacket is not the most suitable choice of clothes for a teacher. Some students may find it... distracting.”

Minseok's eyes narrow at the verbal jab and he abruptly steps away from Sehun, just as the door opens to reveal a sleepy Jung Ilhoon and Krystal's best friend from Ravenclaw, Choi Jinri. The two send curious glances to the new teacher, and shamelessly gape at Sehun's presence.

Being the last year, only a couple of students attend Muggle Studies. As they wait for them, Minseok questions Jinri and Ilhoon about what they did with Professor Jessica the previous years. Finally, a lanky Hufflepuff named Hoseok, who plays for the Quidditch team of his house and two girls, Gryffindor, Gong Minzy and Bae Suzy, join the rest of the class.

One Ravenclaw, one Hufflepuff, three Gryffindors and Oh Sehun, the fidgeting target of all their confused gazes. Zitao would laugh himself to death if he were to know.

Minseok is a good teacher, despite his initial nervousness and the leather jacket. It’s his first day and he’s only four years older than them, but he’s calm and collected. He doesn’t rush through explanations and he’s always up for a good laugh. His voice is too low, he doesn’t sound accustomed to talking for so long. He looks at Sehun, sometimes, as if to make sure he’s not having trouble with the subject.

The main point of today’s class is internet connection and, through Minseok’s specific request, they’ve gained the privilege of a functioning LAN. Minseok is giving instructions on how to make a Google search on some old computers.

Sehun has hacked into the system, downloaded a software to boost the speed of his browser and updated his personal blog by the time Minseok decides to pay him a visit. “Is everything alright, Mr. Oh?” he asks. The hair at the base of Sehun’s nape shake with goose bumps. Minseok is so close to his ear. So close that Sehun forgets to close the open tabs.

“You’re better than I thought. Did your parents make you take some extra classes?”

He snorts. Sehun’s parents hate the Muggle world. They’d choke on their own blood before letting their only son play with a laptop, or own a cellphone. He simply shrugs and Minseok lets the topic fall, not without another penetrant glance.

Ilhoon claps his hands excitedly when Minseok leaves the room. “Damn, he’s hot. Well, Professor Jessica was hotter, but he’s not that bad. And it wasn’t even boring! I liked that Booble thing.”

Suzy sighs. “Yah, Ilhoonie, why do you always have to put boobs every-fucking-where?”

“Maybe it’s because you’re not showing him yours,” Minzy winks, and even Hoseok cracks a laugh.

They look like a knit group. They must have become one, after three years of bonding over Muggle thingy gadgets.

Jinri turns towards Sehun as the others debate whether they should go to the library to study together and wait until Madam Pince throws them out or skip directly towards the little beach near the lake, where they’ll never get anything done. She looks unsure, because Jinri is terribly polite and kind even towards Slytherin assholes, but at the same time Hoseok is Youngjae’s friend and Ilhoon, Suzy and Minzy are in his same House, Gryffindor. And Sehun has said some rash words just yesterday.

“Sehun, do you want to…”

“Don’t worry,” he cuts her short. “I’m fine.”

“Oh.”

Her face is a bit disappointed, but it also betrays the relief that he didn’t accept. Sehun is a pariah in the school right now, and even if she offered out of kindness that doesn’t mean she wants to be associated with him.

“Leave the prince alone, Jinri-yah,” comments Hoseok before leaving the classroom. “What is he even doing here?”

“You should be going,” insists Sehun, “they’re going to leave you behind.”

She scampers away with one last, fleeting glance at him.


☆

Sehun seeks solace from the gossipers of the school, the angry seeking-revenge Gryffindors and from his dear friend Wendy in the bathroom of the Astronomy Tower, once again. It’s not like he has a soft spot for the Astronomy Tower, really, but no one goes there during the day and the bathroom is always a safe haven. Also, the view is really good. If he squints a bit, he can also see the rest of his Muggle Studies class having a picnic near the freshmen’s dock.

Of course he doesn’t want to be there. Sehun likes the bathroom. It’s clean and there aren’t any people, which makes it the most suited habitat for him.

“Aguamenti.”

A jet of water falls right on Sehun’s cigarette.

“What the… That wasn’t necessary.”

“You’re here again.” Minseok steps inside the bathroom. “Do you live here, Oh Sehun? Don’t you have your own dorms if you’re so keen on avoiding the Great Hall?”

Shrug. Snort.

“It’s not like you can force me out of the bathroom. I’m not doing anything illegal,” he pauses, as Minseok looks pointedly at the wet smoke on his hands, “at the moment.”

“I thought you guys were going to go to the lake.”

“They clearly didn’t want to include me.”

“Oh.”

There’s really nothing else to say.




September 5th

Avoiding Wendy is only effective for three days and a half. When he comes back from eating dinner inside Greenhouse Eight, Sehun follows Sooyoung's amused laugh until he finds a whole flock of curious young boys peeking inside his room. Taehyung sends him an apologetic look, mouthing a quick, “Even if I had tried, I couldn’t have stopped her,” before he steps aside to make Sehun see what’s left of his door.

His room is open. The heavy bronze door, completely unchanged, lies innocently on the wall. Sehun remembers closing it with magic, this morning when he got out. But his spell was, apparently,
completely useless against the brute force of a furious Head Girl.

She’s drinking red wine from a crystal flute, her long legs crossed on the bed and wrapped in lacy thighs and hair falling in soft waves over her shoulders. She gestures for him to come in, and he only stops to send furious glares to the boys still standing in the corridor in the hope to see a glimpse of her legs.

“I wasn’t expecting guests,” he starts, as he Levitates the door back where it belongs.

To a total stranger, she’d seem lovely and composed, but as soon as Sehun gets close enough the flute, with all the red wine inside, flies at his head. Typical.

He ducks. She starts to shout. Sehun hates to see Wendy angry, especially if it’s his own fault – and it is his own fault. He’s been avoiding her since their last conversation in the library and she is, apparently, quite upset. He wishes he could Disapparate away, but it’s impossible inside the school.

Then she starts to cry.

It’ll be a long night.


☆

“Why are you crying, silly?” he asks her later, when her throat is too dry and swollen for her to be able to scream any more like a vicious harpy. Her eyes are all swollen and red too, her nose is blotched, her hair a mess.

A morbid thought hits Sehun, the heavy awareness that Wendy is her best friend as much as he’s her best friend too. Sure, she has friends in the other Houses, but it’s different. They only see her nice side. The calm, collected smiles and her good grades and the Head Girl badge. No one has seen her this distressed, not even the other Slytherin students. Not even Sooyoung, Sehun bets. Wendy allows herself to lower her guard only with him and Sehun has neglected her so much in the last few days.

“I thought you were avoiding me because you thought I was angry for the thing with Yoo Youngjae during Potions last week,” she sobs against his neck. He pats her head awkwardly, wondering if there’s a safe way to make her stop, to salvage this situation. He’s never been good at dealing with emotions, not even his own, let alone Wendy’s.

“I wasn’t avoiding you,” he assures her, but she pinches his side viciously in retaliation. “Ok, maybe I was. It wasn’t only that. Something else happened.”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve said something to Youngjae before you got that carried away. It was my job as a Head Girl…”

“I shouldn’t have reacted that way either case, so it’s my fault entirely. I’m afraid I ruined your chances with Kang Seulgi, though, and for that you can have my most sincere apologies, my lady.” He kisses her hand, showing that all those galateo lessons his mother forced him to attend weren’t entirely wasted on him. She sniffles and lies her head down in his lap, just like he did a few days ago.

“Wait, what about the other thing? You said it wasn’t only about me, there was something else.”

He thinks about head Boy Kim Minseok and the crush he’s had on him for all his fourth year. He thinks about Professor Kim and he wishes he could say that crush was over when Minseok graduated, three years ago. “That, Wendy, is a secret.”

She doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but Sehun pats the pillow next to him, forcing her to lie down. “For now,” she argues.

“For now.”






ii. zitao

September 8th

“So, rumors are that you’ve been forced to attend Muggle Studies because the new substitute teacher found you badmouthing poor baby Muggle-borns. Rumors also are that your father smiled, actually smiled, when they told him, can you believe it? Finally his son has started putting Muggle-borns back where they belong, in the dirt. Next time you see him, he’ll probably take you to hunt the Muggles trekking on the moors near your Oh Manor.”

Zitao is as obnoxious as ever, and maybe even more bulky. There’s a bad gush on his eyebrow and a burn on his left side that goes from the tip of his fingers to the edge of his jaw. He looks pretty hot like this, not that Sehun is ever telling him.

“Where’s Jongin?” he asks, hoping to distract obnoxious best friend #1 by asking about obnoxious best friend #2. He receives a shrug. Zitao’s Curse Breaker training must be hard, but Jongin’s parents want him to become the next Minister of Magic or something equally powerful and he’s not allowed any breaks. “He’s stopped answering my owls and I haven’t seen him since the last time we all met up together. Why, do you miss him?” His voice gets all high and falsetto, seeping a saccharine sweetness, “Did our baby Sehunnie miss his big brothers?”

“Shut up,” he says, lamely.

Zitao’s pat on his back almost sends him flying.

“Why are you even wearing a leather jacket, you jackass?” he asks, and Zitao spins on himself like a peacock, showing the precious, expensive dragon leather jacket. It makes Sehun think of Minseok, and it also reminds him the true reason why he called Zitao asking to meet him at Hogsmeade during the first trip of the year.

“Do you like it? It’s a special preview from Key’s new store in Diagon Alley. It pays to be friend with a celebrity,” he smirks.

“Fantastic. There’s something I have to tell you. It’s important,” he pleads, before Zitao can drag him at Zonko’s. He takes a drag of his cigarette, tasting tobacco and dark mint on the roof of his mouth, blowing out the smoke in one single puff. “The new Muggle Studies teacher, the one who gave me detention in form of classes, you know? He’s Kim Minseok.”

“Kim Minseok? The Kim Minseok?” Zitao’s eyes widen comically. “The one you crushed on like, a gazillion years ago? Mr. Perfect Head Boy Kim Minseok? That Kim Minseok?”

“Keep your voice down!” he snaps. “Yes, that Kim Minseok. Are you happy? Does the thought of my sufferings make you happier?”

Zitao’s starts laughing and one of his immense hands falls on Sehun’s shoulder and almost sends him flying. Sehun starts coughing immediately, choking on the cigarette, but Zitao doesn’t move a finger to help him. “Immensely.” He says in between hiccups and loud barks that make his stomach hurt after a while, as he struggles to take his breath. “Oh god, isn’t this a big cosmic joke?”

Sehun doesn’t find it that funny, but he must admits it really feels like a big cosmic joke.


☆

The first time Sehun realized he was in love with Kim Minseok, he was a kid in his fourth year at Hogwarts. It was easy, a flick of a wand, Minseok chasing Peeves away after the poltergeist had tried to make Sehun tumble down the stairs. Sehun had just felt warmth, everywhere, spreading from his chest to his limbs with the increasingly fast beats of his confused heart. Minseok was Head Boy, he had been Prefect the previous years, and Sehun had already seen him around. But he had never really seen him. Like every teenage crush, it exploded quickly and brightly like a volcano, burning everything around him, Sehun included. Because it took him only a few days to muster the courage to ask Kris about Minseok, and to consequentially find out that Minseok was, unfortunately, a Muggle-born. So close, but at the same time barely out of Sehun’s reach.

When the first waves of anger, and self-loathing and, last but not least, burning desire dissipated, Sehun’s first love didn’t die. Its ashes lingered around, poisoning Sehun’s every breathe, taking the taste out of his meals. There was something masochistic and extremely cathartic in loving a Muggle-born, someone that his father greatly despised and wanted gone from the school, gone from the society, gone from the surface of the earth. It was a secret that could be cherished and murmured in the solitude of Sehun’s single room and the vastness of his giant bed, something meant only for him. Like the bruises left by his father when he didn’t behave, when he wasn’t as enthusiastic as his cousins when talking about Muggle Restrictions Laws and noblesse privileges. Minseok was for Sehun just another secret, but sweeter and prettier. At fifteen years, he was old enough to know that the short Head Boy who made his blood rush to his face and his head spin just by leaning down the counter of the library to pass Sehun a book, wasn’t something meant for him.

Nice things were never meant for Sehun. Like chocolate, or videogames, or blue jeans and phones, all the things that he and Jongin dreamed about in their room, talking about freedom in hushed whispers while Zitao chased Howlers around. Sehun was painfully aware that Kim Minseok, with his clean lineaments and his good boy face, would’ve never been an option for him.

His father wouldn’t have forgiven a friendship between them, let alone a… Sehun couldn’t even say the word relationship in his mind at that time, so caught in the novelty of the perfection of his first love, oh the sensations, such new and strong and fresh and beautiful sensations, that the possibility of them taking a real form didn’t even flash into his mind.

But then the incident, when he called Minseok a Mudblood in front of the Headmaster and his whole family. The shame. If his love had first been an eruption, after that moment Sehun buried his feelings in the deepest recess of his chest, concealing the embers inside his heart like a cold, sleeping mountain.

He remembers grey days, meeting Minseok in the hallways and feeling afraid to catch his eyes, even if Minseok never acknowledged what had happened that day in front of Sehun.

He remembers the warmth and the weight of Zitao and Jongin’s hands on his shoulder. It wasn’t only them. Everyone in their close group of friends had realized something was off with Sehun. Baekhyun had laughed about it and offered him chocolate, real Muggle chocolate that the boy ordered at Hogsmeade through Muggle mail post service, like a thief in the night, from a famous Italian patisserie. Kris had shrugged in his stupid Kris-way, like he couldn’t even believe he was hanging out with such losers and said that Sehun needed to grow some balls and just confess so that he could be turned down because that was the only way to get over it. And then, scrunching his big, Slytherin nose, so similar to the one of Salazar Slytherin’s bust, “But a Gryffindor, Sehunnie, really? Even a Hufflepuff would’ve been better at this point.” Old rivalries never die, and his Quidditch team had just been crashed by Lu Han’s.

Zitao and Jongin were the ones who held his hand through the different stages of heartbreak, until it became something normal. Like all first love delusions are, Sehun’s heartbreak was a catastrophe, the end of the world, an undeletable stain on his soul. It didn’t go away with their help, but they managed to make it better, turning Sehun’s bleeding wound into a scar, a reminder that itches now and then.

Now, in the present, Zitao laughs and Sehun finds in himself the strength to smile, because this is what he needs. This is only natural. Zitao teasing him, the light slur on his tone because he starts to laugh anticipating Sehun’s reaction even before he’s finished talking. It’s only been a week, but he’s missed his best friends so much. There are voids in his life that Wendy can’t fill. He needs Zitao and Jongin’s camaraderie and crude jokes to feel complete.

Like three years ago, Zitao laughs of his feelings and that, somehow, makes things okay.

Only it doesn’t, because Zitao is going to leave in a few minutes and Sehun is going to see Minseok again tomorrow, and he doesn’t know if he can do this without some sort of backup.

Zitao walks him to the school gates, as the sunset dyes the entire Forbidden Forest red, like freshly spilled blood.

“Actually, I have a favor to ask from you too.”

Zitao usually doesn’t ask. He does whatever he wants and other people have to pick up the pieces he leaves behind in his loud vehemence. Other people, not Sehun. Sehun hates picking up things from the ground, what if it’s dirty?

“Earth calls Sehun, don’t space out on me! So, is it alright? I’ll be leaving her at your place. Slytherin dorms are a much safer place for my little princess than my own home. My mom mistook her for a rat the other day and she nearly had the Manor demolished trying to catch her. I have training, I can’t stay home to protect her from the wrath of my progenitors.”

“Her who?” asks a dumbfounded Sehun, to which Zitao answers with the proudest smile.

“But my baby princess obviously, my little Candy.”


☆

Wendy comes back from Hogsmeade with cheeks reddened by the wind and glowing eyes, so happy Sehun doesn’t even need to wonder who she was with. She finds Sehun nestled on the couch of the Common Room with a small dog with ribbons on its fur sitting on his knees. Sehun absently picks at the tiny pink nose and the corners of his mouth tug upwards when Candy squeals in disdain.

“Look at this baby, long time no see princess.”

Candy recognizes her voice and whimpers, asking for snuggles. “I can’t believe Zitao let you have his precious dog. I thought he loved her more than he loved his own face.” She slumps against Sehun and tickles Candy’s belly, receiving a sneeze of delight. “He must be really worried for you.”

“He just asked me to keep her because his mother doesn’t like her.”

“Sure. If that’s what helps you sleep at night. You’re not going to tell me why you’re so depressed that even your best friend thought it was time for an emergency intervention?”

“Nope,” he says, and raises Candy until the little dog is in front of his face, just in time to receive a lick on his nose.

Strange as it is, having Candy by his side is helpful for Sehun. It’s just like having a tiny bit of Tao living with him again. Strangely affectionate, prissy, spoiled and cuddly, just like its own master.

He lets the poodle climb on his collarbones. “Let’s get along well, Candy.”




September 15th

Candy whines when Sehun leaves her home alone all the time. It’s surprising, considering that Zitao always left her alone in his and Jongin’s room back in the time and she never dared to complain. But that’s because she loves Zitao more than anyone else. Or maybe it was the golden dog basket with lacy sheets and the countless toys Zitao left her with, who knows.

When her nagging gets too difficult to ignore and she starts to piss on Sehun’s dragon leather shoes, he decides to bring the poodle with him. Candy is very tiny and there’s more than enough space in his bag. Sometimes it’s Sooyoung and Wendy who take care of the dog, especially when Sehun has Transfiguration classes. Candy doesn’t like being turned into a rhino or something equally ungraceful. Sometimes she stays with Taehyung in the garden, chasing flies and getting close enough to the shore of the lake that her little paws get all wet, and she leaves wet imprints on Taehyung’s uniform when she crawls all over him to lick his face. Sometimes Jimin brings her to the Quidditch field and she waits obediently on the bleachers, watching Slytherin players draw complicated arabesques in the air with their brooms as they try new strategies, until they finish and fight among them for the privilege to pet her. (Little Yerim always wins.) Most of the time though, Candy’s little head can be seen peeking out from the darkness of Sehun’s messenger bag, where she sleeps and plays with Sehun’s History of Magic notes.

“Is that a dog? Oh my god, so cute!” squeals Suzy, and everyone turns to stare at Sehun. Minseok stops in the middle of an explanation on the usefulness of USB drivers to steal dubious glances at the grumpy poodle that’s trying to climb out of Sehun’s messenger bag.

“Mr. Oh, can I ask you why did you bring a dog with you to class?”

Exasperation and a hint of disbelief, Sehun is so proud. So, even perfect Kim Minseok can lose his patience with him. Interesting.

“Candy doesn’t like to be alone for too long. She cries. And she misses his daddy.” He blushes. “Not me! She’s not my pet. She’s Zitao’s dog and he left her to me…”

“Ah, Huang Zitao,” something sparks in Minseok’s eyes. “I should’ve known… All the ribbons.”

“I can’t leave her in our Common Room because people tend to pet her head since she’s so cute and fluffy, but she doesn’t like when too many strangers do it. When she gets too sad and bored I bring her with me. There aren’t any rules against it, I think.”

“I suppose not… But at least leave her free to walk around. Being in a bag is not healthy for such a young lady.”

Candy yelps a little when Sehun puts her on the ground and starts to jump everywhere, sneezing and sniffing and tripping on her own tiny legs excitedly. Minseok does his best to ignore the tiny dog that keeps trying to climb on his legs for the entire hour, probably regretting the moment he let the little devil free. He gives up on the lesson twenty minutes before the end of the hour.

“Make sure to review your notes because in our next class I’ll try to make you all use a Nintendo DS, okay? Let’s call it a day. Oh Sehun, a word with me.”

“She’s so cute,” cries Suzy. “Can I keep her until you’ve finished with Professor Kim?”

Sehun nods dumbly. “Uh, sure.”

They all coo over Candy as he walks to the desk.

“I’ve seen the results of your last test and honestly I don’t know if you’ve found a clever way to cheat or if you’re really good at this subject.”

Nod.

“I’m accusing you of cheating, Sehun. Aren’t you going to do something about it?”

Scratch in the head.

He doesn’t know what Minseok wants him to say, but he can’t admit he’s interested in Muggle stuff. What if his father finds out? From what Zitao has told him, the old man has been sending angry owls to the Headmaster asking for his son’s punishment to be removed because it’s scandalous that they’re letting a Oh take muggle Studies without his consent, but as far as he knows, his punishment is still underway.

“What should I do with you, Sehun?”

Minseok sighs, defeated, and Sehun feels a pang in his heart because the last thing he wants is to be a problem for Minseok. And it’s not fair, that Minseok is calling him with his name, like they’re friends, like he knows things about him and he personally cares for him.

“Excuse me,” he asks, feeling sorry to tear Candy out of a crowd of adoring fans. The silly dog always complain when Sehun leaves her inside Slytherin Common Room, but now she’s surely enjoying the attention. “Are we going to go, Candy?” The dog wails pitifully.

“Can’t we keep her for a little while more?” asks Minzy, joking, as she teases Candy’s ears. Luna and Suzy flap in awe.

“Better not, guys, Oh Sehun wouldn’t probably want his friend’s lovely pet to be tainted by our commoners’ hands.”

Hoseok’s words freeze the general happiness of the moment like a cold shower down everyone’s backs. It’s like, suddenly, they’re all aware of an elephant in the room, one of those things you can’t help but keep noticing forever once you’ve seen it for the first time.

He doesn’t even answer. He’s had enough of this little feud. Youngjae and his friends can have fun like this, which says a lot about their mental age, but he doesn’t have to take their bait.

He takes Candy from Suzy’s hands and leaves.




September 21th

Today is cloudy. There’s a storm looming over the Forbidden Forest and threatening the castle. The Great Hall is probably adorned in fog and darkness that not even the countless candles can dissipate. Sehun would like to see the show. He loves when the enchanted vault looks like it’s going to break right over their heads and pour the cloud burst on the student. It’s suggestive.

He brings the cigarette to his mouth, feeling the coarseness in his lungs as he inhales and exhales slowly. Smoking is an urge settled deep down in his gut, like an itch he can’t help but scratch and scratch, as damaging and useless it is. Like mixing Firewhisky and Berry Ocky Rot at five in the morning because he can’t sleep. Like trying to meet his father’s impossible standards.

“You’re here again.”

Minseok finds him sitting on the cornice of the window again, one leg swinging over the edge and his face turned towards the incoming rain. Sehun is thankful for his appearance because not even the hunger could have prevented him from falling asleep here, lulled only by the howling of the wind.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He nods, as uncertain and faint as it is. It’s enough for Minseok.

“Why do you always come here during lunch?”

“Oh, I was going to eat in the Great Hall with everyone else, after all. But there’s this friend of mine who has a friend who has a friend who doesn’t like me. And my friend is really fond of her friend, and I don’t want them to fight because of me.”

Minseok seems to be at a loss of words.

“It’s very considerate,” he answers after a little while, “but you also have to consider your own health. You’re too thin, skipping meals won’t help you and I’m sure that, despite your noble intentions, your friend Wendy would agree with me.”

Minseok’s hair is down on his face. It gives him a messy air, makes him look a bit younger. It’s a stark contrast to the days he spent in Hogwarts as a student, when he always seemed to be perfect and unreachable. Now he’s even more distant than before, being a teacher and all, but to Sehun he’s never been closer. Especially if he does this, hunches close until his lashes are tickling Sehun’s collarbone and looks up to him.

“You should eat, Sehunnie. You should always eat. And you should never sit on the edge of the window when you’re sleepy, because you could fall.”

The hand that tugs him down until both of his feet are on the floor, is cold, like the other time. Maybe Minseok has naturally cool hands. Sehun files this seemingly unimportant detail at the back of his mind, in the sanctuary he has built for Minseok and the strange feelings he can’t seem to block.

Minseok’s fingers are still closed over his wrist, they realize, because they hold Sehun down when he tries to raise his hand and comb his wind-knotted hair. It makes the both of them blush, the unexpected closeness. Minseok takes one or two precautionary steps backwards, but it’s too late. He could run to the other side of the world and Sehun would still be able to see his flushed face and unsure eyes. He doesn’t know the reason, but it’s nice not to be the only flustered one.





iii. wendy

September 22th

The staircases like to change. That’s a rule that every student in Hogwarts knows, but always forgets. Sehun only wants to go back to the dorms before Candy chews on his Slytherin scarf, but just as he is one second from laying his feet on the ground, the staircase laughs – he hears the snicker of delight coming right from the stone – and he has to hold the balustrade as the stairs slide upwards, high and higher until he’s in front of the Great Hall, the exact place he wanted to avoid.

Minseok has been more insistent lately, telling him to go and eat with the other students. Sehun won’t, partly because he doesn’t want to see the other students more than he already has to see them during every class, and partly because he secretly likes the attention the Muggle Studies professor gives him when he skips lunch.

He’s trying to find his way back into the dungeons when he hears Wendy’s voice, accompanied by another which he recognizes as Kang Seulgi’s.

“Can’t you just stay?” the Gryffindor girl ask, a disappointed shade in her usually bright voice.

“No, I told you. He hasn’t come to lunch, nor dinner, for weeks now. I’m going to find him and drag him to the Slytherin table, be it the last thing I do.”

There’s a pause.

“Maybe it’s better if you don’t. You’ve seen the way he is. I don’t even know why you would be friends with him. I mean, he’s an overall awful person. I can’t believe he really said those things in Youngjae’s face and-”

“Well, it’s not like your Youngjae is a saint.”

Oh, no. Sehun wants to facepalm, but in the empty corridor, the slap would be painfully loud. He only cringes inwardly because he can recognize the piqued tone. It’s Wendy’s trademark excuse-me-what-bullshit-did-you-say tone. She’s getting pissed off.

“Oh, come on. Are you trying to defend Oh? He’s an asshole.”

“He’s my best friend.” Wendy’s voice is peremptory. “What he said wasn’t nice, but he was angry because your Housemate was provoking him.”

“So now it’s our fault, right? Why you Slytherins always have to make everything an insult?”

“You’re making it into an insult, and into a House war. Why is it right that if a Gryffindor says that all Slytherins are trash is alright, but when a Slytherin says something, anything, he’s the evil one?”

Their voices are rising and rising, spiraling through the staircases, repeated in hushed whispers and distorted by the curiosity of the paintings. By tomorrow the entire world will know of this fight.

“Maybe because you Slytherins are evil,” screams Seulgi, clearly out of it.

Angry footsteps. Sehun sees Wendy running downstairs and her face is wet. He doesn’t follow her. Years of friendship with a girl, and with this girl in particular, taught him to wait until she has at least washed her face. No girl wants to be seen at her weakest state, backstabbed and betrayed.

He lets her go and steps down from the shadows in front of Seulgi. She’s crying, too. Why are they both crying? Girls are so stupid, sometimes. He clears his throat to make his presence known and she raises her desperate face towards him.

Seulgi has a pretty round face and her smile could ignite world peace, but now she’s all ugly and there’s snot going down her nose. If all girls are this ugly when they cry he’s not surprised that Wendy doesn’t want to be seen in such degrading conditions by living and dead souls.

Her eyes widen and then narrow dangerously as she recognizes Sehun, but he doesn’t let that stop him. “You will apologize to her,” he says, talking slowly to be heard even over the sound of her harsh breathing. “I don’t care if you don’t like me or if you don’t like my House in general, but you didn’t have any right to say those things to Wendy.”

“But she…”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know any of us. How many times did you talk with a Slytherin in the last seven years? How many Slytherin friends do you have?” She doesn’t answer. She probably can’t. She’s from Gryffindor, where they think that Slytherins can’t be befriended and must be avoided at every cost. “That’s right. As far as I know, you only know Wendy and she’s amazing. You better apologize tomorrow, Kang.”

“Or else? Will you avenge her?”

“Or else you’ll lose her friendship, which is worse than anything I could ever do.”




September 22th

“So, I’ve heard that you’ve been playing peacemaker in your free time.”

Oh, damn paintings and their chitchatting gossip net.

“Someone had to do that. Girls are so stupid,” he sighs, turning towards the door to stare at Kim Minseok, all dressed in dark, a stark contrast against the tiles of the toilet floor.

“Boys can be stupid too,” comments Minseok, and maybe he wants it to sound generic and uninterested, but something, a flicker in his eyes, tells Sehun otherwise. He feels strangely accused.

“Oh, do tell me,” he pretends to beg, throwing the cigarette butt on the floor and Vanishing it.

“Like, I know this boy who never eats his lunch with the other students, but holes himself up in the toilet and stares at the horizon looking like he’s thinking too much.”

Snort.

“Even now that his friend has solved all her problems he still won’t eat with her and that’s making her worried, to the point that she came to my office and begged me to talk with him since he won’t fucking listen.”

The curse is unexpected, totally out of character. Totally sexy.

There’s an image of Minseok that Sehun carefully built day after day in his mind, nourishing it during the time when they were apart. It’s the fruit of the emotional work of so many years, but it takes so little for Minseok to shatter it in a second.

“Wendy came to talk with you?”

“Wendy talked with a lot of people, including the Headmaster and your friend Zitao. She’s not the only one who’s worried. The entire Slytherin House is worried for you, according to professor Kangin. You’re lucky, you have a lot of people who care about your wellbeing.”

“Do you care too?” he asks. He doesn’t care if it’s completely disrespectful and bratty to talk to a professor like this, because Sehun has never been good with social boundaries or with feelings.
“I do, Sehun.”




October 17th

Suzy raises his hand first, in the incredible silence that reigns over the classroom, only broken by the sound of occasional special combo blows and the game jingle. Super Smash Bros. Sehun has played this game countless times with Jongin, Taemin, Wonshik and Zitao, but he would’ve never imagined to do it at Hogwarts, during a Muggle Studies class and against Jung Ilhoon of all people.

“I don’t think this is fair, Professor Kim,” exclaims Suzy, her voice immediately followed by the mumbled approval of the rest of the class.

“Well, this is unexpected.” Sehun can’t see Minseok’s face, but he hears the note of disbelief in his voice. He doesn’t let that distract him, of course. He still hasn’t beaten Ilhoon. But he’s a few heartbeats from it, he swears, just a little while. Three, two, one…

The Gryffindor throws his controller to the ground and swears loudly, covering his mouth with a sweaty hand when he remembers that the professor is still in the classroom with them, looking as baffled as everyone else does.

“This is not fair at all, I want a rematch!”

Sehun beams, actually beams. This must be the first time he smiles in front of them because they all look even more stunned. “Whenever you want, Jung.”

“Kids, come on, it was just a game.” Minseok tries to calm them down, but Sehun’s smug smile is just too smug for Ilhoon, who keeps asking loudly for a rematch even when the bell rings, signaling the end of the period.

“Ok, before you go I want to make an announcement. This class will be postponed next week for the Apparation test for the sixth year students. And it will be postponed the following week too because of the Quidditch game, but I’m sure you all knew it already.” Hoseok and Ilhoon nod excitedly. Slytherin versus Gryffindor, first game of the year, the day of Halloween.

“Also, since I’m sure you won’t want to have midterms exams on the fine topic of washing machines, I’ve prepared something a little more challenging for the next classes and for the midterms exam.” He waits until the enthusiastic cheers of the classroom die down before he continues. “I’m still in the middle of getting permission from the headmaster, but I’d like to organize a little trip to London, to allow you to see with your own eyes and act in a Muggle environment. I’m going to assign all of you a partner now. You will have some tasks to complete together in London to pass the exam.”

Sehun’s heart drops. He doesn’t want a partner and no one in this classroom wants to be his partner.
He makes begging eyes at Minseok who ignores him, and then his only choice is to curse in his head at stupid substitute teachers with innovative teaching ideas. The lesson had already been perfect like this, with him crushing everyone else at Mario Kart and Smash Bros.

“You and your partner will also have to meet in your free time to work on a presentation about a theme of your choice for the end of the semester. You will also have to talk about your experience in London in class. Is it alright?”

While the rest of the class whispers excitedly, Sehun only feels dread. These kids are all Pure-blood – they wouldn’t need to take this class if they were Half-blood – hence they know nothing about Muggle stuff. Releasing them in Muggle London is…

“Sehun, you’re with Ilhoon. You two showed me not only a natural talent in the fine art of Mario Kart, but also a great chemistry.” Sehun feels Ilhoon pretending to choke next to him. Or maybe he’s really choking, who knows? Sehun can hope. “I’m expecting a good presentation from the two of you, is it alright?”

He nods, even as he feels Ilhoon’s head falling on the desk.

“Please stop,” he says, without even thinking, “you’re only making it worse.”

Ilhoon chokes for real, this time. The fact that Sehun talked to him, after they saw him smile and win a Smash Bros competition must have been too much for his poor brain to process. Nevertheless, Sehun finds himself flushing a deep red and wishing he hadn’t said anything at all. He was so caught up in the nice and relaxed atmosphere of the classroom that he talked on instincts, as if he was with friends, without considering that the other people in the classroom probably preferred to meet the Giant Squid than to hear his lame jokes.

“Making what worse exactly?” Ilhoon splutters.
“He’s probably talking about your concussion, the one you got when you smashed your head against the desk for the happiness” Minseok suggests, as he leaves the room. “Look, he’s already worried for you. I was right, you guys are the best match possible. See you in two weeks.”

He waves cheerfully.

“That man is the devil.” He covers his mouth when he realizes that he actually said it aloud. Again.

“He indeed is,” agrees Suzy, and Minzy nods. Ilhoon looks too traumatized by the possibility of sharing the same opinion as Sehun, and Hoseok snorts.

“Say, Sehun, would you like to come with us this afternoon? We wanted to ask the Headmaster a special permission order books from a Muggle library, you know, for the research. I highly doubt that our library has the kind of books we need.”

He doesn’t know what to answer, the question having caught him unprepared. He’s almost going to say yes, because this is too sudden and he’s strangely tempted to accept, when a melodious voice stops him.

“Sorry Jinri, this kid must come to lunch with me today. Say goodbye, Sehunnie!”

“W-what are you even doing here?” he asks, and Seulgi merely shrugs. “And what’s with the Sehunnie?”

“Oh, Wendy calls you like that all the time. It’s nice, don’t you think?”

“I thought you hated me…” he begins, and she smiles at him. She has a pretty smile, trustworthy, and it’s easy to see why Wendy likes her so much.

“Oh, no, actually your words made me realize how stupid I was. I guess I never realized I was acting exactly like a Slytherin, like some Slytherins, do.”

“Which Slytherins? Bring me concrete examples,” he challenges her with a snort and she pouts, puffing her cheeks and grimacing, as if it’s difficult to express her next though. “Ok, just like I thought a Slytherin would behave. Are you happier, now?”

“It’s not much but it’s an improvement.”

She ignores him this time and goes on with her little speech. “But you really helped me, so thank you. I really hope we can be friends, from now on.” It surprises Sehun, the way she can say it, so easily. He takes her hand and shakes it, almost on autopilot, when she extends it towards him. “I still think you owe Youngjae an apology, though, Sehunnie.”

Sehunnie? No, this is a nightmare. “Please, drop the Sehunnie.”

“Ok, Sehunnie.”

“You still hate me a lot, don’t you?”

Her smile is still pretty, but too shiny and perfect and obnoxious and Sehun wishes he had gone with the rest of the Muggle Studies class, not knowing how to deal with the sudden skinship when she throws an arm around him and drags him to the library, where Wendy is waiting for them. She’s too close and too soon, but she’s so warm. Wendy’s smile, when she sees his comically terrified expression at being held hostage by a tiny Gryffindor girl, is even warmer.





iv. minseok

October 22th

Rain, rain everywhere, suffocating and heavy, drowning the dungeons in humidity and cold. The castle is swimming in a sea of fog, the world outside of the windows just a scale of greys, everything fading to shadows carpeted in white. Halloween is behind the corner and autumn has taken the castle hostage, trapping it in its misty, wet hold.

The view from the window of the Astronomy tower toilet is foreign and alien, like a lunar landscape. If he sits on the edge, giving his back to the room, and watches outside, it’s almost like being immersed in a dream.

“I thought we were over this, Oh Sehun.”

Sehun’s blazer and the green and silver tie are neatly folded over the sink and he’s only wearing the shirt of his uniform. The sleeves are rolled and the fabric is drenched in rain, just like his pants. Like this, he can feel Minseok’s breath against his back when the other boy gets near, the contrast between his cold skin and the warm puff of air eliciting a shiver along his spine. Everything tingles.

“It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“You can’t see anything, it’s too misty.”

Sehun’s lips tug upwards, but only the sky can see his smile.

“That’s why it’s pretty.”

Two strong arms grab his hip and he’s forcefully pulled inside. His bony ass crashes against the floor as he releases a loud yelp.

“Why would you do that?” he whines, letting himself sag back against the cold tiles. For a moment, he think of how unhygienic lying on a toilet floor is, but his bottom hurts too much for him to get up. He also feels very sleepy.

“Are you stupid? Why were you sitting on the cornice of the window, almost on the drainpipe, on a rainy day? What if you were to slip and fall and die?”

“That’s unlikely-”

“What if you caught something? You weren’t even wearing the blazer!”

“What if I wanted you to worry for me?” he asks, and Minseok falls silent.

“Is that why you still come here even if you have solved any issues with your friend Wendy and her friend Seulgi? Is it that funny to make me run here in a rush to check if you’re still alive?”

Sehun tries to get up, fails, falls down, moans. Opening a single eye, he sees Minseok, hand on his hips, hovering over him. There’s only the slightest hint of a blush on his cheeks as he leans down to check if Sehun has a fever.

Like Sehun was expecting, his hands are cool, even against his damp skin.

“You always have cool hands,” the words slip past his lips and Minseok’s actions falter. He leans his palm on Sehun’s forehead, moving the damp bangs away, and curses under his breath. “It’s because you’re burning, brat. Come on, we’re going to my office. Put your blazer on, come on, come on!”

Minseok pulls him into a sitting position, and then deft hands are pushing the blazer down his head. Sehun lets him do all the work. He doesn’t feel feverish, but pervaded by a strange lucidity. Even if Minseok touches him with a hint of stiffness, Sehun’s brain can’t help but come up with other scenarios, like Minseok using those same cool, little hands to undress him, touching his hips and the soft, vulnerable skin of his stomach.

He gets up, but his knees are like jelly. Minseok is so short, Sehun could lean his chin on the teacher’s head. When he talks, Sehun can feel the vibrations against his own throat too. He fights the instinct to hide his face in Minseok’s neck. That would be so inappropriate, just like Minseok’s hands sneaking up to rest on his forehead again.

“You’re getting warmer. Your face is all red.”

He nods, not trusting his voice right now. All the blood in his body is either going to his face or to his dick, and with his uniform pants all wet and plastered to his front it’s only a matter of time before Minseok realizes how uncomfortable he is getting down there.

When Minseok turns to retrieve his tie, Sehun frantically pulls the blazer down so that it covers his crotch, but to no avail. He tries to think of ugly things, like he and Wendy trying to have drunken sex when they were fifteen, Zitao and Jongin trying to have drunken sex right next to them, Yoo Youngjae in a dragon leather jacket…

“Come on, Sehun, lean on me.”

“No, thanks, I can walk on my own.”

Minseok wraps an arm around his hips and tugs him down until Sehun’s weight is partially leant on his side. The walk to Minseok’s office is not long and Sehun complains all the time while he tries to walk on his own, but Minseok keeps an iron hold on him.

He tries the card of desperation. “I can go to the Infirmary, there’s no need to…”

“Don’t worry, you only need to drink something warm and rest in front of the fire.”

Sehun would beg to differ, mostly because Minseok’s closeness is intoxicating, constantly teasing his mind and his body, but he’s also curious to see Minseok’s office. He doesn’t know if other students have seen it, but he wants to pretend he’s the first one allowed inside. He wants to be special. That’s why he lets Minseok show him around anyway, until they reach a small wooden door.

Sehun’s first impression of Minseok’s lair of darkness is that it looks quite… normal.

“Can you keep this stuff here?” he asks, taking in the shiny coffee maker, the notebook lying on the soft carpet, open on a news site and the full HD giant television blinking from the opposite wall of the room. “Isn’t there some kind of force field in Hogwarts that makes electronic gimmick go crazy?”

“Force field? Are you sure you haven’t watched too many sci-fi movies, Sehunnie?”

The pet name is the same that Wendy, and now Seulgi too, use, but when it comes out of Minseok’s lips it sounds... different. Velvety and deep, intimate like a caress on naked skin. Sehun closes his eyes and counts to three in his head, hoping that Minseok isn’t doing this on purpose.

“Only one,” he answers finally, “Star Wars, but I’ve read a lot of sci-fi books. Don’t think you can fool me,” he warns.

There’s a playful spark in Minseok’s eyes. “I am a teacher, I can do whatever I want. We know secret spells that allow us privileges that you students can’t even imagine.” He snickers at Sehun’s confused face. “Or maybe I just asked the Headmaster to bend the force field. Bet you’re jealous now.”

“No, I’m just going to steal your iPod charger next time I need to listen to music.”

“I don’t have one, I only listen to my old baby,” he says, pointing to an ancient looking stereo.

Sehun looks around again, squinting to examine even the tiniest details. “It doesn’t even look like the castle anymore,” he murmurs. “Can you still use magic here?”

Flames appear in the fireplace at Minseok’s snap of fingers and the teacher pushes Sehun down on the couch, then proceeds to make some tea for himself. “For you I’d say hot cocoa.”
“I’m not a kid,” he answers, and hides anticipation behind a grumpy pout because, really, he loves hot cocoa.


☆

“So, tell me Sehunnie. Why a Slytherin kid coming from a conservative Slytherin family would be comfortably talking about Star Wars and beating the blood out of his peers at Mario Kart?” The couch dips and gives up under Minseok’s weight as the boy settles next to Sehun and hugs his knees while leaning his chin on them. He stares at Sehun and his eyes are big, so so big, and the fire is dancing in them.

Sehun gulps and wonders if his hands are still cold, even after holding the teacup for so long. “Are you asking me as a teacher? Because I really don’t think you have the right.”

Minseok taps his cheeks, suddenly pensive. “Sehunnie, does this looks like my office?”

No, it doesn’t. There aren’t parchment piles of homework waiting to be checked or books that aren’t cheesy young adult novels that Sehun would never read but that Minseok apparently adores. Everywhere around the room, Minseok’s personal effects are scattered carelessly in a colorful organized mess. His infamous dragon leather jacket hangs from handle of a tiny door.

He shakes his head.

“Are these your personal rooms?” he asks, a bit unsure, because why would Minseok drag him to his rooms?

“Yes, they are. I don’t usually bring students here, Sehun,” he says, then blushes, “oh, fuck, it came out in a strange way, right? I mean, I didn’t bring you here to make you some indecent proposal, but…” He loses himself in the thread of his speech, tripping over words and blushing horribly, and Sehun is tempted to take his gesticulating hand and trap it in between his fingers to keep it still.

“I mean, I’m not asking as a teacher. I’m only three years older than you and I’m worried about you beyond… my duties and responsibilities.”

Sehun’s heart is beating so hard he swears it’s going to break his ribs and fly away because his body can’t physically contain all this excitement and happiness and relief.

“Okay,” he says, almost to himself. “Okay.”

Before Minseok can panic again, he starts to talk.

“Jongin met these kids, one summer. He was with his parents in London for a meeting with the head of the Improper Use of Magic Office, because he had charmed a Muggle and he was in trouble, so they went there to…” He feels his cheeks heat up in shame, but Minseok tells him to go on, “to make sure that there were no consequences of any sort. You know Kim Jongin’s parents, right? They’re both in the Wizengamot. They do this kind of stuff all the time. They were very angry, but he was angrier, so he decided to run away from home. And he met these kids, Muggles. And they were cool. So when he went home because he missed his House Elf he told me about them and after a few days we came back to London together, me and Jongin, and sometimes even Zitao, when he wasn’t feeling too lazy. And that's how we became friends of a couple of Muggles.”

“Just like this?” asks Minseok, bewildered. “What did your parents say?”

“Oh, they didn’t know. I just told them that I was going at Jongin’s or at Zitao’s house, and since they’re both Slytherin, pure-blood and criminally wealthy, it was more than enough. Of course, no one would expect that three rich, bored Pure-blood kids would take the Knight Bus all alone and go to London to meet a street dancer and a wannabe rapper. My mom would have a fit if she only knew I was on the Knight Bus,” he snickers. “Too many peasants breathing my same air. As for my father, he can't ever find out or he’d probably disown me.” He lowers his eyes, feeling suddenly depressed.

Minseok pats his neck, a fresh touch near his scalp.

“I must admit, Oh Sehun, you’re one of the most surprising Slytherins I’ve ever met.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” he dares to ask. Minseok smiles and ruffles his hair. The gesture was intended to be a brotherly one, but Sehun almost purrs when the cool fingers start to comb his hair. Even if he tries to contain it, a small moan slips past his lips.

When he looks for Minseok’s gaze, to see if the other boy has heard him, he finds dark eyes, like ebony almonds, watching him intently. There’s a strange intensity in his gaze, heavy and sultry, he can feel the weight of it on his face, his lips tingle from the sheer intensity of it.

Minseok always pays attention to Sehun, like three years ago in front of the Headmaster’s office, when he had been the only one, out of so many students who walked past him, to see the telltale signs of an impending crisis. He had seen Sehun’s lips tremble in fear, because his father was near, his fist balled up a little too tightly, the nails almost cutting pale skin. He had seen his eyes lost and desperate.

Even now, when Minseok watches Sehun, it’s never impersonal and fleeting, like a teacher’s eyes must be. Minseok looks at Sehun like he really wants to see him, like he always wants to see him, like sometimes Sehun is the only one he sees. Minseok is the one who always comes to look for Sehun, after all.

And Sehun should be used to be always the target of his teacher’s worried stares, the reason Minseok bites his lips and shakes his head and sighs so pitifully. But this, this is different. This is magnetic and dangerous, way past the boundaries of teacher and student. This is Minseok leaning down, slowly, like a predator, and he’s giving Sehun all the time he needs to move and run away, but Sehun is frozen on the spot, unable to move because Minseok’s eyes are keeping him chained. If magic were to disappear, Sehun is sure that the only spell that would survive is the one that Minseok’s eyes have casted on him, making him weak and helpless.

Now, if only Minseok would tilt his head, just a little bit, lean down, just a little more, they would… They would…

“A good thing, obviously.”

Minseok’s hushed voice washes against the shore of Sehun’s disclosed lips. He winks and the spell is broken, all the suffocating tension in the room melting down like snow at the first sun of spring, painstakingly slowly.

Minseok’s eyes are careful and his expression a bit regretful. Sehun is fully hit by the awareness that he was going to kiss him, Minseok was going to kiss him.

Swirls of heat explode in his cheek and he splutters, trying to say something, even if his brain is not providing him with anything useful to say right now.

“Maybe it’s better if you go now, Sehun.”

He barely greets Minseok and thanks him for the chocolate, his mouth moving in autopilot. His brain stuck, replaying the same two frames of Minseok inching closer, and that tinge of a kiss, so barely there that he still doubts it’s almost happened.

When Minseok’s door closes behind his back he leans against it and sighs, wondering, in his garbled and euphoric mind, if Kim Minseok is doing the same on the other side.




October 23th

Morning finds Sehun restless and helpless, tangled in messy sheet, still feeling Minseok's breath fanning on his upper lip from yesterday’s meeting. The fever is gone, but all the sweat he has shed during the night has grown cold, gluing the fabric of the nightshirt he's wearing to his skin, making him shiver and cough pitifully like a sick kitten. He feels miserable and weak. Nevertheless, he's never felt more ecstatic.

He rubs his eyes tiredly while a kaleidoscope of memories from the previous day, refracted and reflected by his traitorous mind, assaults him. Minseok makes everything too vivid, too quick and light, so different from the heaviness, from the thick greyness of Sehun's normal everyday life, that like this, the morning after, is so easy to think that it was just a dream. But Sehun can still smell the faint aroma of chocolate in his sweater, the chocolate Minseok has made especially for him in his room.

It wasn't a dream. And he needs to talk with Kim Minseok.

His legs move on autopilot, dragging him through the soft yawns of sleepy paintings, in the empty corridors of an early Saturday morning.

Minseok opens the door with hair sticking out in every possible direction and the imprint of the pillow on his face.

“Sorry, were you sleeping?”

His eyes widen, taking in Sehun’s nightclothes and puffy eyes. “Are you alright Sehun? What happened? Why are you wandering around in such a thin shirt?”

He steps back to let Sehun in, a hand immediately going for his forehead. He’s warm, but not feverish.

“I didn’t sleep well and I’m still a little sick. You don’t look like you’ve slept well either,” comments Sehun, and his heart stubbornly wants to believe Minseok didn’t sleep because he was thinking about Sehun, just like Sehun himself didn’t sleep because he was thinking about Minseok.

Minseok seems to sense those thoughts too because his face darkens.

“Sehunnie,” he begins, “you can’t stay here.”

His eyes linger on Sehun’s disheveled appearance, his messy hair, the collar of his shirt haphazardly open on his throat and collarbones, revealing white, tantalizing skin.

Sehun blinks. Once, twice. He doesn’t understand.

Minseok slowly pushes him away. His fingers are unsure, touching him like he’s made of glass, cold and slightly trembling. Minseok bites his bottom lip.

“You should go back to your own dorm. Now.”

“But I…”

“Oh Sehun! Did you already forgot who I am? I’m a professor in this school… You can’t simply. You! You can’t appear on my doorstep like this, half naked and… Just get out, please. We’ll deal with this another day…”

“But-”

“Get out!”

The door slams on his face. Somehow, this feels worse than having the whole Gryffindor House against him, worse than not being invited to the Muggle Studies class picnics and worse than not really having friends at school. It feels oddly like… betrayal.

He doesn’t know what has happened, what has made Minseok change his mind – how could he do that? After leading Sehun on, after letting him think that what was happening was fine, after caring for him and looking for him and…

A sound of footsteps coming his way startles him and Sehun quickly puts himself together, recomposing the usual bored, blank expression on his face.

“Look guys, a little snake got lost. What are you doing here, all alone?”

Just his luck. He turns to face the whole Gryffindor Quidditch team, led by Youngjae. They’re not too far from their tower. Obviously, the location of the dorms are supposed to be secret, but after seven years holed up in the same place information are bound to spread.

They’re probably going to the morning practice. He spots Hoseok, standing tall and proud next to Youngjae. He's not wearing Quidditch clothes, just his Hufflepuff uniform. His face is blank.

“Are you here to pick a fight, Oh? Are you challenging us in front of our home?”

Sehun quickly analyzes the situation. Things aren’t looking good for him. There’s seven of them, he doesn’t even have his wand, and his head is still spinning. He doesn’t have a chance.

“The entire world doesn’t revolve around you Gryffindors,” he answers simply.

It’s a bad move, he knows it. There aren’t any other students around – and even if there were other students, they probably wouldn’t care if Sehun got punched in the guts. And Sehun is going to get punched in the guts, very soon, if he doesn’t stop provoking Youngjae and his minions. He can read it in the nervous flicker of Hoseok’s eyes. Hoseok most certainly doesn’t like Sehun, but they’ve talked a few times in class, and Sehun hopes he’ll have enough common sense to stop his teammates from doing something extremely stupid that will make Sehun’s father ask for their expulsion.

“No, you’re right, the entire world revolves around you Slytherins. Is that true, Oh? Maybe it’s time someone teaches you that you don’t own everything.”

“Maybe it’s time you put your head out of your ass and stop thinking you matter so much. Because, believe me, Yoo Youngjae, in the great scheme of my life you and the rest of your Quidditch team are almost invisible. You see a Slytherin enemy challenging you, I see five minutes of my life that will never come back. Now, are you done being children or do you want to keep threatening me just because I happened to meet you on my way to my dorms?”

Sehun doesn’t know where those words came from. He’s not an expert at this thing – it’s, maybe, the second time in his life that he shows so much bravado, and always in front of Youngjae. He’s afraid that they’ll see right through the calm façade of boredom and contempt they’ll spot the blinding fear in his eyes, control slipping from his fingers like weightless sand. He feels his heart beating wildly in his chest, wonders how the other boys haven’t picked up on that loud drumming. But they don’t. They keep looking at him, surprised by his reaction.

His legs are unsteady but he forced his step to be firm and heavy. He leaves them there, stupefied. Maybe they were too surprised by the sudden outburst, but they leave him go and he thanks his poker face for not betraying him.

As he disappears behind the corner, he feels one of the younger students complaining. “Why haven’t we beaten him?”

Surprisingly, it’s Hoseok who answers. “He was really doing nothing wrong.”

“But he’s a Slytherin, and an asshole.”

Even more surprisingly, Youngjae closes the argument. “Come on, he’s gone and we’re late for practice.”






v. kris(&wendy)

October 24th

There’s no Muggle Studies class next week. Sehun is grateful for it, because the few times he’s bumped into Minseok in the alleys have been awkward enough. For him, not for Minseok, who is very good at pretending nothing has happened between them. It faintly reminds Sehun of his fourth year, after he had called Minseok a Mudblood. There’s the same neutral expression in Minseok’s eyes, the same kind politeness. Ironically, Minseok as a teacher, with his dragon leather jacket and his cup of hot cocoa and his stubborn way of caring about Sehun, had been closer to Sehun than Minseok as a Head Boy had been, at least before their almost-kiss.

Sometimes, Sehun wonders if it had really almost happened or if it was only a game of his tired mind. That, at least, would explain why Minseok has ended their pseudo-friendship. Maybe he had seen that Sehun was becoming too emotionally involved… Maybe this is his way of gently letting Sehun down… Maybe…

“It sucks, you know?” He turns towards Wendy, who’s hovering at the door of his bedroom, unsure whether to enter or not. “Come in,” he invites her. “What sucks, exactly?”

“When your best friend acts all heartbroken and moody and you don’t understand why. And it’s the second time it happens, and just like the other time, I bet Tao and Jongin know who your crush is… Hell, Kris knows it too, but he didn’t want to tell me, not even when I threatened him.”

She pouts, letting herself fall on Sehun’s supine form, crushing him. She’s light, but her anger is heavy on Sehun’s stomach, taking his breath away. His words, when he’s regained enough breath to talk, are a little choked. “I suppose you won’t go away until I tell you who he is.”

“You suppose well.”

He originally didn’t want to tell Wendy. Not because he doesn’t trust her, but because he knows she will worry about him. She has already so many problems – with her mom, with Seulgi, with Sooyoung, with Sehun himself and his unhealthy habit to skip meals…

“I want to ask Seulgi out,” she says, suddenly, as she rolls away from his stomach and onto the bed.

“This is hardly news, Wendy.” She doesn’t leave him the time to say anything else. “In a week, the night of the game. Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. I don’t care who wins, but I’ll ask her out. This Christmas, I’ll tell my family.”

Sehun’s heart falls. “Wendy, you can’t! You know my family, they won’t let me talk to you ever again if you do that…”

He faintly realizes he’s panicking when dark dots starts to swarm in front of his eyes, but Wendy catches him with her cold hands. She keeps him pinned to reality, smoothing the hard lines of his face, until he’s breathing normally again.

“Sehun, they’re not here. Not my family, nor yours. They can’t tell you what to do for the rest of your life.”

“They’ll disown you,” he whispers.

“Let them. I’m not the brightest witch of our year for nothing. I’ve already talked with Professor Kangin and there’s a scholarship in Germany that would allow me to keep studying and living on my own.”

Wendy can pull it off - she really isn’t the brightest witch of their year for nothing – but Sehun feels a sense of emptiness gnawing at the corner of his conscience. Everyone is finding an escape route –Baekhyun, Kris, Wendy, even Zitao managed to leave his family behind – everyone but him. In the end, he’ll be the only one left in the cage his Pureblood parents have built especially for him. Oh Sehun, only heir of the powerful Oh family.

In the silence of his room, gently lulled by the rhythmic swash of the lake, lapping at the old stones, Sehun turns towards Wendy.

“I’m in love with the Muggle Studies professor.”

He feels, more than hear, her sharp intake of breath.

“Care to say it again?”

“I’m in love with Kim Minseok. I think I have been for… a while.”

He doesn’t want to meet her eyes. Now, more than ever, he wishes he had told her two years ago, when he told Zitao and Jongin, Kris and Baekhyun.

“It was him all the time, right? Since fourth year.” She doesn’t wait for his answer. “Why didn’t you tell me back then? Everyone knew. And I knew they knew, but I couldn’t ask them. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I had just asked you to go out with me.” He bites the words and the words bite him, leaving a sting in his mouth. “It wasn’t easy for me, Wendy. It’s never easy for me.”

“Maybe it’s because you like to complicate things, so that you have the right to brood and sulk over it and suffer in silence all alone. Why the hell did you ask me out if you liked someone else?”

“Because he was a Mudblood!” This word doesn’t simply bite. There are pointy, sharp words that can tear Sehun apart and there are poisonous, virulent words that settle in his stomach and rot there, etching themselves in his gut, festering and feasting on his soul. The word Mudblood, in Sehun’s mind, always sounds like his father is saying it – like his father has always pronounced it, spitting out the syllables like disgusting, unwanted bites. Sehun shakes his head, trying to chase the memories away. “Because he was a Muggle-born and you know my father, you know how much he hates them. I was fourteen years old, he just had to smile at me once, and I was a goner, I dreamed of him at night and when I woke up I could only think of what would’ve happened if Father had found out. What should I have done, Wendy? You were my easy escape route.”

She doesn’t say anything and Sehun still hasn’t mustered the courage to look at her, but he has to go on, to let out the words or be choked by them.

“I know you never wanted to be anyone’s escape route, but things weren’t easy then as they are now. You weren’t so brave, either. I know you’re trying hard to take control of your life now, but back then you have used me as much as I have used you and we both knew this.”

She sighs. “I would have never accepted, had I known you liked someone else.”

“That’s why I never told you.”

“I mean, I suspected something, you guys were being all secretive and you were the gloomiest little thing in the castle despite being engaged with the hottest girl who has ever worn green and silver. But still.”

“I’m sorry if I lied to you. And I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you anything when I saw Minseok again. I was very confused.”

Wendy pulls herself up, probably to look at him, but Sehun closes his eyes, unable to meet her judgement. He only feels her hands, cold and fresh against his own warm face. She cups his cheeks in her dainty fingers, a feather-like hint of nails on his temple, and she squeezes. He scrunches his eyes.

“You’re so dumb, Sehunnie. So so dumb.”


☆

“He’s probably pissing scared, Sehunnie, and I can easily see why.”

Kris’ head lolls between the green flames, nodding knowingly from the marble frame of Wendy’s fireplace. Head Girl privileges means she has a single room and a way to contact her family immediately, unlike the other students. She doesn’t mind sharing with Sehun though, especially when he has important things to discuss with more experienced people.

“Well, could you please tell me too? Because I don’t get it.”

Kris smirks lazily. “Only if you feed me one of those custard cream pastries.”

Sehun had forgotten how bitchy Kris can become when he’s hungry. He sends a poisonous glare to Wendy, who’s staring at the exchange with faintly amused eyes. After Sehun told her everything there was to know about him, Minseok and their twisted relationship, Wendy called an emergency meeting with Kris.

“Tell me again, why did we have to call him?”

“Because he’s my to-go expert when I have problems with Seulgi.”

“I thought,” he bites back, “that you and Seulgi were not intimate enough to warrant a consultation with Hogwarts’ resident dating expert.”

“Not yet,” answers Kris, “but if she follows my advices they’ll be soon. Now, my pastry, young man.”

Biting back a few nasty words, he leans forward and stuffs an entire sweet inside Kris’ open mouth.

“Jeez, are they even feeding you out there?” he complains, looking at the speed Kris is munching on the pastry. The older boy swallows and only his pride keeps him from asking for more. “There’s more than enough food here, but it all sucks. How did you and those other two rascals survived in New York for two weeks two years ago?”

Sehun snorts, thinking of Zitao’s excited face as they ran like kids in front of Wall Street, and Jongin’s silly puppy noises as he tried to convince them to visit the Statue of Liberty. Fifteen years old and travelling with an illegal Portkey Kris himself had charmed for them. It had been amazing.

“It’s not that bad, you know? After a while your stomach stops churning every time you try to feed it a hot-dog.”

Kris grimaces and curses softly. He probably can’t wait to come back home from his internship in the States.

“Now keep your promise. Tell me why Minseok has so unceremoniously dumped me when we weren’t even dating in the first place.”

Kris clicks his tongue. His head is coming out of a fucking fireplace, for Salazar’s sake, but he still manages to look fucking smug and condescending to Sehun. But, among Sehun’s friends, he’s also the one who’s got more familiarity with love and relationships. He was a well renowned heartbreaker when he was still in Hogwarts. Sehun doesn’t really trust his so-called experience, but he’s still worth a try.

“He’s a teacher. And he’s a goody two shoes. Come on, he’s a Gryffindor, although a smart one. He should’ve probably been in Ravenclaw, he’s way too smart to be a Gryffindor.”

“And what being a Gryffindor has to do with treating me like that?”

Kris chuckles like a navigated man talking to a kid. “It means, you naïve child, that he follows all the rules. And a relationship between a student and a teacher clearly goes against the rules.”

“So do you think he likes me?”

The older boy looks at him, long and contemplative. “I don’t know kid, do you think he likes you? Bringing you to his rooms, adjusting your tie, always looking for you when you skip lunch… I don’t know what the hell someone like Kim Minseok could see in you, but yes, I think he really has a soft spot for your pretty ass, Sehunnie.”

“But last time…”

“Last time,” intervenes Wendy, “from what you told me, you crashed at his place at dawn looking like you had just been mauled by a sex assaulter-”

“It was just a little bit of fever!”

“Oh, yes, I can totally imagine it… Loose night clothes, red face, shining eyes… You’re lucky no one saw you entering his rooms while looking like that, do you have any idea of the damage you could’ve done to his reputation?”

Sehun feels his heart fall, suddenly as heavy as lead.

“Oh no,” he murmurs. “I messed up. Oh, fuck. I really messed up this time.”

Kris chuckles. “You may have put his boundaries to a severe test, but that’s not an overly bad thing. Look, from what you told me, he’s clearly attracted to you. The reason escapes my comprehension, because Kim Minseok looks totally out of your league to me, but he likes you. However, you can’t expect him to embrace these feelings wholeheartedly. He’s still your teacher, Sehun.”

“Then he shouldn’t have led me on!”

“Ok, but you’re not helping your cause by behaving like a clingy child.”

Sehun lets himself fall on the bed, between sheets that smell faintly like Wendy’s hair conditioner.

“Are you still there? Oh Sehun! Give me another pastry.”

He moans in distress and ignores Kris’ calls, at least until the boy throws a handful of charcoal at him. “Don’t you dare ignore me, you kid!”

“Be careful, Wendy will kill us both if you ruin her room because you’re a troll…”

“That’s what you deserve for ignoring your elders. And don’t worry for me, Wendy can’t kill me while I’m in the US, so I’m totally safe.”

From the way she’s scoffing, Sehun highly doubts that would be the case. Wendy is kind, pretty, smart and popular, totally unlike the common stereotypes about Slytherin – something that the other students often choose to ignore, or treat like a fatal disease she can do nothing about. But under the reliable, popular Head Girl, Sehun knows there’s a girl who knows how to always get what she wants. Unlike Sehun, Wendy is a real Slytherin. If Kris really ruined her sheets, she’d find him and make him regret it, for sure.

He pushes another sweet in Kris’ mouth, sighing. “So, oh great dating advices provider, what should I do?”

“It depends,” Kris answers, between a bite and another. “The most rational thing would be to give up on him. It’s the best choice for both of you. He wouldn’t have to worry anymore about losing his job and you wouldn’t have to worry about your father finding out and disowning you.”

Sehun doesn’t answer, just breaths slowly as he considers this option, his eyes urging Kris to go on.

“That would be the right thing to do. But you’re a Slytherin Sehun, when have we ever done the right thing?”

Except Sehun is not really a Slytherin. Wendy is a Slytherin, with her carefully orchestrated kindness and the sweet smiles she generously dispenses to make people like her. Sooyoung is a Slytherin, the little girl who had to learn how to survive in a House full of hostile people, who used to sleep with her wand in her hand because she didn’t trust her roommates, the little girl who’s become the person to go to when someone in Slytherin has a problem. Taehyung, with all his secrets, is a Slytherin too. And Tao, with his ambition; Jongin, with the quiet arrogance shown to everyone in school except his friends; Kris, who lied to every girl in Hogwarts and broke so many hearts... They were Slytherin too. But Sehun…To be honest, he’s always been a pushover. The most Slytherin thing in him is his pedigree, and nothing else. The Sorting Hat had told him, a long time ago, which House would’ve been most suited for him, but Sehun couldn’t allow himself to ruin his father’s plans.

And after seven years in his House he doesn’t regret his choice, even if he’s a Slytherin who’s not a Slytherin. But now, in the soft light of magic candles idly levitating in Wendy’s room and corrupting the air with the faint scent of vanilla, Minseok’s eyes flash in his mind. They’re good eyes, kind eyes. He wants those eyes on him all the time, squinting to catch the light in his hair, while his mouth follow suit, arching in a secret smile. He wants so much that for the first time in seven years he feels daring, like a true Slytherin should be. He wants to test those limit, to push and push until Minseok’s boundaries break, exploiting all of Minseok’s weaknesses like a real Slytherin would do.

“How can I have him back?”

Kris smirks at him around a slice of buttered bread, clearly proud of Sehun’s choice. Wendy claps excitedly at the back of the room mouthing a I knew he would’ve said it!

“How did you get him in the first place, Sehunnie?”

He doesn’t know. “I didn’t. I never did anything.” It was all Minseok, talking to him, looking for him, being there for him, caring.

“Of course you didn’t have to do anything, he’s a Gryffindor!” He releases the word with a derisive snort. “Those people think with their hearts, not with their brains. They couldn’t keep their feelings under control to save their lives. And once they fall, they fall hard.”

Sehun has felt it, the lingering tension between them, but he wouldn’t go as far as saying that Minseok has fallen for him. That would be delusional.

“So what should I do?” he whines.

“What we Slytherin do best. Use his weakness to your advantage. He was the one who told you to get lost. So do it! If you keep pursuing him, he’ll only have more reasons to push you away, but if you’re the one who walks away willingly, he’ll only feel like reaching out to you.”

He blinks. “Wow, that’s actually pretty clever. I’m surprised.”

Kris beams. “I did spend the best part of my seven years learning how to seduce someone in the shortest time and with minimal effort.”

“If you want to be remembered as a giant, walking dick it’s your problem. Just hope that your plan will work.”

“It will. You just stop looking at him with stars in your eyes, make it clear that he’ll only be a teacher for you from now on. Play hard to get. There’s nothing better than a little challenge to light the fire in a Gryffindor heart. Give him a little more time to boil in his own frustration, and when he comes for you make sure to catch him and hold tight.”




October 26th

When he knocks at Minseok’s door, Sehun is not really expecting him to be inside. A little part of him, the stubborn, scared child locked in the crevices of his soul, the one who worries at his bottom lips and turns his head on the other side instead of trying to change things, wants to believe that Minseok is not in his room. Maybe he’s in class, maybe he’s meeting with other professors or talking with the Headmaster or he’s out for a walk or…

Except the door does open, interrupting Sehun’s anxious musings, and Minseok’s tired face emerges from the stripe of darkness.

He doesn’t simply look sick, he looks like shit. Dark bags under his eyes, the hint of stubble on his usually perfectly shaved chin, the tiniest hint of drool at the corner of his mouth and a web of creases marks on his cheek, all signs that show that Sehun’s knocking just forced him to get out of the bed to come and open the door. His face looks devastatingly adult like this, so different from the cheerful, baby-faced image he tries to sell to his students.

Sehun gloms, going through his conversation with Kris in his head, over and over again. Play hard to get, be cold, make it clear that you’re not interested in him. It’s so difficult, not only because Kim Minseok has been his first, childish love and Sehun has never really gotten over him, but because this Minseok is unguarded now, raw, he doesn’t have the kind of self-control he usually shows around Sehun. There are no filters when he’s like this, still warm from sleep, his mind confused, his eyes surprised. Sehun is afraid of his sincerity.

“Sehun, we’ve already been through this.”

Sehun simply ignores him and steps inside the room, using his imposing height to force his way inside. He sits down on the couch, the same couch where he was almost kissed a few days ago. He looks at Minseok expectantly, waiting for the teacher to do his move, to see how he’ll react to Sehun cornering him in his own home.

Minseok sighs, hands clenching and unclenching nervously. It’s a good thing, because it means that Sehun’s presence affects him enough to make him forcefully want to remove the student from his sight. This is what Sehun wants from him, a sign of weakness, of helplessness. Right now, Minseok could break his heart, or accidentally show him an opening, something Sehun can exploit to get to his heart.

“Sehun,” he begins, his eyes flicking back and forth on his surroundings, stubbornly avoiding Sehun’s serious gaze. “I’m a teacher and you’re my student, you know that right?”

“I know,” he answers, glad for the blankness of his voice, glad that he’s able to hide his inner turmoil under it.

Minseok bites his lips, almost taken aback by his collected reply. “Then you surely understand. What happened in this room…”

Sehun doesn’t let him finish, he cuts him off with strong, sharp words. “What happened in this room? I don’t know. Nothing happened. Nothing,” he repeats coldly. “You offered me hot cocoa. We chatted a little. Nothing strange. You’re not that much older than me, you shouldn’t feel guilty just because you offered me hot cocoa.”

Now Minseok is clearly taken aback, staring at Sehun with a mixture of confusion and disbelief carved in his face. “It’s still wrong. I’m your teacher and you shouldn’t visit my private rooms.”

He says it slowly, measuring the words one after another, and Sehun simply watches him, drinking in all the little details, analyzing them, forcing his heart not to beat too loudly, his face not to twist in unwanted emotion – he’s got this, he has to resist, to be strong, don’t show him any insecurities or he’ll feed on them and he’ll get the upper hand, whispers Kris’ voice in his head.

Sehun simply watches Minseok, thinking about how much of a joke this whole situation really is, to him at least. Years ago, he would never have hoped to talk to him like this. But now he can see it clearly. The little tremor in his hands, his eyes flickering nervously to escape a staring contest, the way he tastes the words slowly before letting them out, afraid of exposing himself too much. His presence affects Minseok, makes him feel uneasy, unable to control himself. Kris was right. Minseok might be caught in this mess just as much as Sehun is, if not even more.

“Then,” he answers, “you shouldn’t have brought me here yesterday. But it’s alright, I understand your position. I’ll leave.”

That’s it, the last stab. It makes Minseok bite his bottom lip so hard it bleeds, but Sehun doesn’t stay long enough to see it. He gets up and darts towards the door, waiting, hoping for Minseok to stops him. Minseok does.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the bathroom of the Astronomy Tower.” He feigns disinterest, and now Minseok would really do anything to make him stay a moment more. He can’t explain Sehun’s behavior, the sudden coldness, and he’s craving for a chance to talk to him just for a few minutes more, hoping to solve the riddle behind Sehun’s words and actions.

“Why do you always keep going back there?”

He shrugs. “I like the view. No annoying people. No Gryffindors. No teachers,” he adds, in a last flare of cockiness.

“You should go to the Great Hall and eat something, it’s not healthy for you to be continuously skipping meals and you’re already so th-”

“Sorry if I interrupt, but it’s not really your business. You may be my teacher, but that doesn’t give you the right to be obnoxious about what I do in my free time and in my private life.”

“I meddle because I care…”

He stutters, and Sehun fits himself in that single moment of hesitation. “You shouldn’t. You’re only a teacher, Professor Kim, and I’m only one of your students. You made it perfectly clear today, and every other day too.”

“Sehunnie…”

“Excuse me, Professor Kim. I shouldn’t even be here, my bad. Good afternoon.” He doesn’t need to hear what Minseok has to say. It would be a mistake. Staying would just give Minseok more time to realize that Sehun is even more scared and confused than he is, that the cold, collected demeanor he showed was nothing more than an act, a carefully orchestrated bluff. There’s no reason to risk blowing everything up when he has done so well until now.

He quickly bows and he walks away, under Minseok’s stupefied eyes, shying away from the hand that the teacher has feebly extended towards him in an abortion of attempt to stop him from leaving.





vi. seulgi

October 30th

Ignoring Minseok is easy when the teacher stops looking for Sehun altogether. No matter how many meals Sehun skips, despite Wendy’s, Sooyoung’s and sometimes even Taehyung’s and Jimin’s worried stares, no matter how many times he hides in the bathroom of the Astronomy Tower, the Muggle Studies teacher doesn’t barge in his solitude anymore.

Seulgi does, sometimes together with Wendy, sometimes alone, bringing food wrapped in white and red checkered handkerchiefs.

Sehun swallows a big, fat lump of saliva every time the door swings open and it’s not a short, handsome, dragon leather-clad Muggle Studies teacher entering the room with rapid, angry strides, but a Gryffindor girl and sometimes a Slytherin girl.

“Why do you come here?” he asks Kang Seulgi, one of the rare times she’s come alone. She looks at her own nails while she thinks about the answer, pretending to be focused on a little imperfection on the nail art.. She wears the colors of her House, red and gold, in magic nail polish that shifts according to the light. It’s for the game, tomorrow morning, Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. She’ll cheer for her own team.

“Because Wendy can’t,” she answers in the end, matter-of-factly, forcing a spoonful of soup inside his mouth when he opens it to reply. “And because she cares, even if she doesn’t want to tell me why you’ve decided to hole up in a toilet like a dramatic teenager in a MTV reality show.”

“That’s rude. I’m way more dramatic than them,” he answers. Seulgi has hanged with him long enough not to be surprised anymore at his bizarre knowledge of Muggle trivia and she simply slaps his shoulder, hard.

“Ouch! Why did you do that?”

“Because Wendy always hits you when you’re being too dramatic.”

“Yes,” he complains, rubbing his shoulder – she hit him harder than she probably meant to. “Wendy does it because she likes me!”

“Maybe I’m starting to like you too,” she says, with a wicked smile, just to make him scoff. “Just kidding, Sehunnie, there’s no need to make that disgusted face. You’re too much of a child for me. God, I can’t believe there was a time when I used to think you were hot, you’re so bratty.”

Sehun scrunches his nose, wants to tell her that she’s the bratty one, but something else catches his attention. “You thought I was hot?” he mutters. When, how, why.

She shifts on the edge of the window, laying the half-empty plate on the edge of the window.

“Well, it’s not like we’re lacking charming men, in Gryffindor,” and Sehun has to restrain himself from saying that it may be true, but they’re all dumb, “but you’re somewhat different. Good grades, extremely rich, Slytherin, a cold and dangerous heartbreaker.”

“Me? A heartbreaker?” He can’t really hide the disbelief. Seulgi clicks his tongue. “Yes, I know. Not that I know you it all sounds like complete, utter bullshit. But maybe that’s the problem, Sehun. No one knows you. You’re a very private person.”

It’s true, he can’t deny it. He’s never made an effort to get people to actually know him, the real him. More than he never wanted to, he never needed to.

“And you were Son Wendy’s boyfriend, and she’s so perfect and everyone in the school simply thought you had to be amazing to be able to stay with her.”

“We weren’t,” he confesses, slowly, almost afraid to make a mistake. It has just hit him, how close he and Seulgi have become, for him allowing her to bring him lunch and talk like this… It feels just so intimate, like they’re really friends. And Sehun doesn’t keep secrets from his friends, not from the few friends he has. “Together, I mean. We were never together.”

He doesn’t know where Wendy and Seulgi are, but he knows that Wendy likes Seulgi, has liked her since their first day on the Express. Like all the snakes, Wendy has learnt how to change her skin, to adapt herself to her environment in order to survive and to be successful, but under the hard scales, under the cold façade, Wendy really is a romantic at heart. Sehun can’t really blame her, he’s still in the middle of a crusade to get his first crush to notice him and fall in love with him, after all.

He waits for his words to sink in Seulgi’s mind, watches her eyes widen and her lips part. “What do you mean you weren’t together?”

“It was… convenient. Listen, I never liked girls. And from what I know, Wendy never liked boys.”

Seulgi’s eyes shine, her hands come to her mouth to cover the expression of absolute surprise, confusion and… hope? Maybe, the light that flickers in her eyes is really hope.

He doesn’t add anything else and Seulgi doesn’t ask, either, but he can’t shake her curious eyes away for the rest of the lunch.

She turns towards him before she leaves, brushing crumbles away from her skirt. “Ilhoon says you’re his partners for the Muggle Studies group project.” He nods. He had almost forgotten about the project. “Give him a chance, he’s a good boy. He wants to talk to you, but he’s too damn scared you’ll turn him into a frog.”

“Wendy could probably do that, but Transfiguration has never been my best subject.”

“I know. You’re only good at Potions, like a true Slytherin.” There’s something challenging in her eyes, a sparkle that dares him to defy her words, show her he’s different, but another walking cliché but a real person, Oh Sehun. But maybe it’s too soon for that, and he’s already disclosed too much of himself to this girl today. “See you later, Oh Sehun,” she says, with a final wave, before the darkness of the stairs swallows her.

He doesn’t move, keep staring at the barely lit staircase where Seulgi has just disappeared.

“I’m even better at Muggle Studies,” he says, out loud, only when he’s sure she can’t hear him anymore. She’d think he’s just joking. It really sounds like a big cosmic joke. Oh Sehun, the best of his Muggle Studies class, in love with his Muggleborn Muggle Studies professor. What an unfunny joke.





vii. sehun

October 31th

Quidditch games are not Sehun’s thing. They never were his thing, but they were Kris’ thing, and Zitao and Jongin’s thing, so he always went to see them, together with Wendy and Baekhyun. He called it emotional support and Zitao and Jongin called it having a personal cheerleader, but Sehun didn’t really mind getting up early if it was for them.

Now that they’re not at Hogwarts anymore, though, he virtually has no reason to go and see the game. He doesn’t know why he finds himself on the bleachers, sharing a box of Pumpkin Pasties with Taehyung, Wendy and Sooyoung.

Slytherin is not a big House – not as big as it used to be a few years ago – and all the students know each other. Jimin is shouting directions to everyone in the team. It’s the most experienced player on the team, but it’s his first time as a captain and he looks a bit pale. When he looks in their direction, Taehyung and Sooyoung start waving a big banner with his name on it, and his face color changes from ghostly white to bright shame red.

Little Yerim – their new Seeker, a tiny, smiley second year who blushes a lot and bows every time Sehun looks in her direction – stops in front of the bleachers, right in front of Sehun and Wendy, gracefully floating on her broom. “The whole team is really happy to have our Head Girl and Prefects here,” she says, not without a little stutter. It’s her first official game and she’s clearly nervous, her smile a little tight at the corners of her mouth. She looks at Sehun with something like longing until Wendy elbows him in the ribs with a warning glare. “Say something, Sehunnie.”

“Oh, right, right… There’s no need to be so tense. I’m sure you’ll play a good game, Yeri.” She beams at the nickname, her whole face lightening up while her posture loosens.

“I’ll try my best, Prefect Oh!”

It’s impossible not to be infected by her blinding smile, and when she sees Sehun smiling back at her, she beams even more, her eyes disappearing while her teeth flash white. When she flies away, back to the rest of the team, Wendy starts laughing and elbows Sehun again.

“I knew you would’ve been useful! I just knew!”

“What did just happen?” he asks.

“Nothing, just you lifting the mood of our Seeker and probably of the rest of the team.”

“How did I do that?” he asks, disbelieved.

Taehyung sighs. “Because everyone likes you. Ok, it’s clear that Yerim has an ominous crush on you, but the rest of the team respects you as well. You and Wendy are our senior students, the only ones we have. The whole House looks up to you, always. They’re probably feeling very honored that you came to see them play even though everyone knows you don’t exactly like Quidditch games.”

“Jimin asked us if you two were coming three hundred times yesterday night,” reveals Sooyoung between giggles. She waves the banner - GO PARK JIMIN!, silver words shining on a green field - once more, just for the sake of seeing the ears of Slytherin team’s captain go aflame.

Sehun is not used having people relying on him for something, but the way Yerim smiled at him, full of pride and joy because one of the senior students acknowledged her existence, was not totally unpleasant.

“I’m not sure the House should look up to me anyway.”

“I think it’s too late for that, Sehunnie,” comments Wendy. “And like Taehyung said, unfortunately, there’s only you and me this year. They’ll have to live with what they have. But you handled it well, you know, I’m sure no one was expecting you to show up today. But you did, and that’s enough for them.”

“But I…”

“Shhh, it’s starting!”

Park Jimin, captain of the Slytherin team, and Yoo Youngjae, captain of the Gryffindor team, shake hands. Then the game starts.


☆

“Everyone will be there!”

With there, Wendy means at the shores of the lake, where the entire Slytherin House will be having their victory party. It doesn't happen everyday to beat Gryffindors in the first official match of the season, and the team is especially happy.

“Come on Sehunnie, think of how happy Yerim will be to see you there.”

“Oh no, malicious woman, you already fooled me once today. I went to see the game, that's the most socializing I can do in twenty-four hours. Try again tomorrow if you want to drag me to a midnight party.”

Wendy shakes her head, but doesn't insist. She knows better than to push Sehun to go out of his comfort zone two times in a row.

“It's a pity, though, because I'll need all the help I can get to deal with our students tonight.”

The party is not exactly legal - there will be second year students who shouldn't be out of their bed after curfew - but Professor Kangin just winked at them and signed a written permission. He' a very liberal professor, the Head of their House, a little biased towards his Slytherin students according to the rest of the school, but in Slytherin they don't mind the obvious preference their Head House accords them. If it wasn't for him, no one would ever stand up for the them.

“Professor Kangin is going to cover for us in case the other professors complain about this party, so we must not betray his trust behaving like stupid kids. That means, Ren, no alcohol. Yerim is only a second year and all her friends will be there too. Do you want our team to be disqualified from the competition?”

The other students sulk and complain, but the joy of the victory is too sweet and they finally let go. Sehun hopes no unwanted bottles of Firewhiskey will make their appearance at the party, or they'll all be in trouble.

“Are you sure you don't need my help?” he asks, feeling a little guilty that he's leaving Wendy alone to deal with their rowdy Housemates.

“No, don't worry. I officially announced I'll hex anyone dares to sneak alcoholic drinks to the party and they're all terribly afraid of me. Besides, I wouldn't want to force you to go a victory celebration and ruin everyone's mood because you hate this kind of things and because you haven't stopped moping yet because your secret love doesn't even watch at you in the alleys.”

“Who's Sehun's secret lover?”

They turn around to see Sooyoung, pretty as a flower, standing at the door and waiting for permission to enter. She pretends to tap her finger against an imaginary door, “Knock knock, am I interrupting something?”

“Just me teasing Sehun about his dirty little secrets.”

“But I want to know Sehun's secret too!”

She pouts, entering the room. Sehun whistles when he sees her dress while Wendy covers the amusement on her face with her hand.

“Sooyoung, aren't you forgetting something at home? Like, your skirt?”

Both girls laugh at his question, while Sooyoung does a coquettish catwalk in Sehun's room wrapped in a scandalous mini skirt.

“Don't be a prude, Sehunnie! Our little Sooyoungie has beautiful legs, let her show them. I'm sure her date won't be able to resist her charm tonight.”

“Date, what date? Are you dating someone?” he asks, suddenly interested. “I want to know who he is. Do I need to scare him? Do I need to give him the talk?”

“I'm not telling you anything,” she answers, smiling cheekily at him. “You won't tell me who your crush is and I won't tell you who my date is.”

“I'll ask Taehyung then. He's your best friend, isn't he?”

Both girls stop laughing and Sooyoung blushes.

“Wait a moment... Taehyung, really? Really, Sooyoung?”

“It's just a date, we're testing the waters... Nothing serious, really.” She cocks her head to the side, rubbing her hands to hide her embarrassment. She looks hopeful and happy.

“If he doesn't treat you like a princess tell me and I'll throw him in the lake at the first occasion.”


☆

It’s late. Most of the students are already back from the party. Sehun has heard them coming back between stifled yawns and excited chatting. He’s busy reading one of his favorite comics - a limited edition of Spiderman he and Jongin bought in Muggle London a few years ago - when Jimin barges into his room, panting harshly and looking paler than Sehun has ever seen him.

He leans against the door, trying to regain his breath and talk at the same time. “At the lake, a fight...” He pants, swallowing the knot on his throat caused by the quick run. Sehun is up on his feet before he can start talking again. “Some people from other Houses went to the party and they said something about Sooyoung... and Taehyung reacted...”

It takes a few heartbeats for Sehun to process Sooyoung’s name, and when he hears Taehyung's too he's already running, dragging the unfortunate boy with him despite his short breath.

“What happened?”

“Wait,” begs Jimin between harsh pants, “I can't run anymore...”

“Are they still fighting?” insists Sehun, crossing the Common Room with long strides. A few first years send him confused glances, but he gestures them to stay inside and keep quiet. It's really late, three in the morning maybe, and they should all be to bed. “What's Wendy doing? What happened?”

“A group of other students wasn't too happy about our victory and they came to the party, I think to provoke us. There were Gryffindors, but boys from other Houses too. Yoo Youngaje, his Hufflepuff friend Jung Hoseok, mostly older students from the Quidditch teams, but there were some younger kids too. They said stuff, we talked back and things got a little heated, but nothing else happened.”

There's no need to ask what kind of stuff was said, Sehun knows it all too well. The usual crap about Slytherins cheating, being racist bastards, rich smug fuckers and overall terrible human beings. Sehun knows the story. Nasty words to make up for the anger for a lost game, killing the joy of the winners to forget about their disappointment as losers.

“Was someone drunk?”

“Everyone from Slytherin was sober - I swear Sehun, there was only Butterbeer at the party. But the other guys were kinda wasted.”

“Where was Wendy?”

She would've never left the students alone, not even for a few minutes. Unless…

I want to ask Seulgi out. The night of the game. Slytherin vs. Gryffindor. I don’t care who wins, but I’ll ask her out.

“She was walking the underclassmen home. We didn't stay long after that. The mood was kinda ruined and it was also getting late. Head Girl Son took the younger kids back to the dorms and told us to tidy up and come back. It was just me, Ren, Taehyung and Sooyoung left.” Two prefects, the captain of the Quidditch team and Byun Taehyung. “She trusted us to be alright.”

“Then what happened?”

Jimin shakes his head. “I don't know. We were coming back to the castle and Taehyung and Sooyoung were trailing behind. They were talking, and you know…” He blushes. Sehun nods. It was a date. Holding hands and giggling and stealing kisses in the darkness.

“We were just letting them have their space. But suddenly we heard shouting, and when we went there were students from other Houses too and hexes were flying everywhere. Sooyoung was furious.” He stops, takes a deep breath, trying to give a sense to his memories. “And Taehyung was bleeding so Ren said he would stop the fight and... I didn't know where Head Girl was, so I came to find you. They're still in the forest, and it's far enough from the castle that no one probably heard the screams.”

Sehun feels something like acid flowing in his veins. He promised Baekhyun he would take care of his little brother. He had told Sooyoung he would've thrown every boy who didn't treat her like a princess in the lake. He walks faster, still dragging Jimin.

“I'll go to find them, you have to come back and call the teachers. Call Professor Kangin, wake him up and tell him to come, ok? I don't even care...”

Jimin opens his eyes wide, staring at Sehun like's suddenly gone crazy. It's one of those unsaid rules that circulate among the students, something that no one will ever tell you not to do, but you know anyway. Never call the teachers during a fight, no matter what happens. It's not as if it's a rare occurrence to find students breaking the rules, be it secret duels in the middle of the night, sneaking out to play in the dark woods, or meeting with your lover near the Herbology greenhouses. It's always happened and it's not going to stop only because someone, sooner or later, gets caught. The students have become smarter during the years, finding out secret passages and ways to corrupt the paintings to keep their mouths shut.

But there’s a limit. Jimin knows very well that if he involves a teacher the punishment won't be light and everyone involved will receive it. Fighting within the school grounds, entering the Forbidden Forest, breaking curfew... “Me and Ren are in the Quidditch team, they won't ever allow us to play agai-”

“Jimin,” insists Sehun, and his voice may not sound like Wendy's, clear and strong, full of authority - he never really needed to sound imposing in the two years he's been a Prefect - but Jimin stops and listens. Sehun has never really cared about this kid, but this kid knows him and respects him, so he looks at Sehun with big, scared eyes and trusts him. “What is more important? The Quidditch Cup or your friends? You said Taehyung was bleeding, what if he needs immediate help? There are hostile creatures in the Forbidden Forest, what if their little argument attracted unwanted attention? We can't deal with this alone. I don't care if we all end up with detention until the rest of the year, we need to call a teacher!”

He waits for the words to settle in Jimin's head, looks at his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallows. His expression softens and he grabs the boy's shoulder, desperately trying to convey calmness and authority, even if he feels his blood racing from the urgency to get there and see what is happening. But he needs Jimin to call Professor Kangin. “If they're still fighting, I'm not sure I'll be able to stop them all by myself, do you understand? And you told me Taehyung - Taehyung, your best friend, Jimin - is hurt.”

“Yes,” confirms the boy, “he was bleeding a lot and I think he was unconscious but I'm not sure...”

“Then you know what you have to do. Even if you get detention, even if we all get detention, the team will understand. Taking care of our own comes before the game, right?”

If only the other students could hear him now... Sehun knows what other people think of Slytherins. They'd do anything to achieve their goals. Cold, manipulative, sly snakes... But Slytherins is more than that. They take care of their own, before anything else. They'd do anything to protect the people they love, and that's what finally convinces a shaken Jimin to nod, a newfound determination shining in his eyes. Sehun smiles at him but it's a tight, nervous smile. They have lost too much time.

Professor Kangin's room are in the dungeons, and that's the direction of Jimin's hurried steps, while Sehun takes the fastest route for the Great Hall, running in the darkness with only the help of a Lumos that wakes up all the paintings, making them grumble in disdain when he passes them.

The Great Hall looks scary at night, all empty except for the millions of star dotting its ceiling, but Sehun doesn't passes through the big door, choosing to dash towards the entrance of the school instead, the massive wooden doors that lead to the garden. They are sealed with a spell at night, but there's always a little emergency door carved in the tall surface of the main portal, only visible to Prefects, Head Students and the teachers.

A spell will warn the Headmaster that someone has crossed it, but Sehun is far too worried to care about that.

He wonders how it got to this. How things could degenerate so much that students ended up attacking other students. He tries to remember if it was a common occurrence in his previous year, if Zitao or Baekhyun ever came back after a good brawl wearing the signs of spell, blood and sweat staining their uniforms, but he doesn't remember. He never cared enough to ask them how these things work, and he never thought he would find himself in this peculiar predicament, meditating on customs and traditions of high school fights.

They were drunk, he thinks, and nervous. Someone said one word too much... He grits his teeth and keeps running, past the garden and its stone kiosks, past the greenhouses and the Whomping Willow, past the sign that points towards the Quidditch field. He raises his wand as soon as the first line of trees of the Forbidden Forest appears, but the light that pours out of his wand becomes faint and tiny, almost invisible. It will allow Sehun to see where he's going, but it's still small enough to hopefully not alarm the dangers of the forest.

Sehun is not a stupid. No matter how many legends he heard during his freshman year about these woods - stories of challenges that always showed a brave Gryffindor getting out of this food holding a fairy that would grant him good luck while the Slytherin rival ran away in fear - he knows that there is a reason if the forest has been forbidden. No one in their right state of mind would ever set foot in these woods, inhabited by Centaurs, Hippogriffs, werewolves, someone even say sly Wyverns. There are Unicorns, of course, and fairies, but the first would hardly get close to the students while the latters are more likely to try to bait them towards danger, rather than bringing good luck.

He's been walking for a few minutes, when he spots it. The light of a Lumos Maxima, cutting through the branches. Unlike his spell, this one is strong and powerful, painfully foreign in the stagnant dark of the forest. Sehun runs towards the source, almost slamming against a tiny Gryffindor kid that plays as a Beater in his House's Quidditch team. His faces loses all color as soon as he sees Sehun, descending upon him with the coldest face he can muster.

He's not alone. Sehun recognizes their faces, even if he never bothered to learn their names. He quickly Disarms them, turning towards the one he's most familiar with, Gryffindor's Keeper, Choi Junhong.

“Where's the rest of you?” he asks. He can't see Youngjae, nor Hoseok, nor any of the other seniors. “And where are the Slytherin students?”

Junhong gasps, a loud crack resounding in the air before he can answer.

“Where are they?” insists Sehun.

“I don't know. I swear, we were just playing, we didn't want to hurt anyone.”

Sehun doesn't bother him with an answer. he's too angry for that.

“We got attacked,” explains one of the Chasers in the Ravenclaw team. “Spiders. The other seniors told us to run towards the castle.”

“Spiders?” repeats Sehun. He mouths the word, remembering something Wendy said after a meeting with the Headmaster at the beginning of the year. The spiders are becoming a real threat. Even the Centaurs are beginning to complain about them...

He's so distressed he doesn't even realize he's still pointing his wand towards the other students, until one of them squeals. “Go back to the castle,” he barks, watching them scamper away in the night.

Another ominous crack tear the silence of the night to pieces, but Sehun focuses on his Four-Point Spell and follows that blue light that will lead him to his friends. He's starting to hear things, in the dark. Rustling, hisses and crackles of dried leaves, something is moving up between the branches.

Suddenly, a noise startles him. It's stronger than before, less subtle. The blue and silver trail left by the Four-Point Spell becomes thicker, stronger, shining towards the source of the noise. They're running, Sehun realizes, and just as he thinks that a voice shouts a Stupefy Spell at his left and something dark gets hurled in the darkness.

He recognizes the voice. Sooyoung.

“Do you see some other of those creatures?” asks someone else in a deep voice. Sehun hasn't talked to him many times, but he's heard enough of him talking in class with someone else not to recognize Hoseok's deep tone. His voice, usually cheerful and curling comically high around the words of a silly joke or funny story, is now tight and shaky.

He steps out of the bushes, only to have four wands pointed at his face.

“Wait, it's Prefect Oh!”

There are five people in the clearing. They're all pale as ghosts, their faces dirty and their clothes torn. Sooyoung is shaking slightly. Choi “Ren” Minki is standing next to her. They're not really friends, but Sehun knows him thanks to the few night patrols they shared together as Prefects. He’s lost his Prefect badge and his cape and his beautiful face that makes girls swoon in the alley is bruised, but he’s calm and focused. He's the one who recognized Sehun immediately.

Sehun exchanges a few glances with Hoseok, who sighs, lowering his wand - “Oh man, we thought you were another of those spiders!” - only to choke on his breath when he sees the last two boys. Youngjae's face is guilty when he meets Sehun's eyes, but Sehun is not looking at him. Sehun is looking at Taehyung, who's lying, unconscious, on Youngjae's shoulder.

“What happened to him?” he asks, feeling cold all over. His voice comes out blank, empty. He needs to keep his emotions under control because they're apparently under attack in a hostile territory, he can't just punch Youngjae and ask for an explanation.

“He's alright, I think it's just a concussion,” tries to mediate Hoseok, but it doesn't ease the block of ice Sehun feels in his stomach, dragging him down. He had promised Baekhyun to take care of his brother, hadn't he?

“You think... And since when you're an expert?”

“Prefect Oh!” calls Ren. “Can't we talk about this later, please?”

Sehun's eyes reluctantly leave Taehyung's side to look at Sooyoung. She's clearly under shock. There are leaves in her disheveled hair and her eyes turn around frantically every time she hears a noise coming from the darkness of the forest. The other boys are tense, but more lucid.

“Ok, let's move.”

His Four-Point Spell is still active, but the destination has changed. Now the luminescent trail points towards the end of the forest. If they can get out of the woods, they'll be safe.

“Why didn't we think of that?” murmurs Hoseok, and in another situation Sehun would kindly tell him it's because they're Gryffindors, masters in the art of getting themselves in trouble and totally unable to solve them on their own. But they're still in the forest, still under attack, and even if he's still resolving to punch them as soon as they're not in immediate danger, they stayed behind to help Taehyung. They're not enemies, not right now.

“Come on,” he simply says, before turning towards Youngjae. “Do you need help carrying Taehyung?”

The boy thinks about it. He's the Captain of his team, but he's not very bulky and he's clearly tired from running with all that additional weight. In the end, he refuses.

“No, I'm still faster than you. Besides, I'd feel safer knowing you're free to use your wand and keep those things away.”

Sehun is not as strong as Wendy, or Sooyoung, but the former is at the castle, unaware of everything that's happening, while the latter is too shaken to be reliable in this situation. She's purposefully avoiding to look at Taehyung. Sehun is afraid that if she does, she may collapse for good. Her wand trembles every time her eyes flashes in the direction of the boy lying like a stringless puppet on Youngjae's shoulders.

Sehun nods. “Ok, follow the Spell. We're not far, less than ten minutes of walk.”

They don't walk. They run, not looking back. They're almost at the clearing, only a few meters away from the end of the forest, when the spiders finally attack. Not tiny spiders like those surging over the leaves below. Spiders the size of carthorses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic. It's the first time Sehun sees Acromantulas outside the miniatures painted in his school book. He finds them terrifying and huge, the sound of their pincers clicking horribly in the night.

By the time he's blinked enough to wake up from the stupor and fear induced paralysis, Sooyoung has already Stupefied three creatures, Ren other two, while Hoseok is fumbling with his wand to keep a Shield Charm up in the air.

“Just a few meters,” he shouts, taking Sooyoung's wrist and dragging her away. Youngjae is at the end of the path, ready to bolt in the open field that separate the forest from the gates of the school. Taehyung's head lolls heavily on his shoulder.

An Acromantula blocks them, cutting their escape, while others reach the group from behind. They surround them, lowering themselves from the trees slowly, almost lazy with the certainty that they've caught their prey.

Sehun feels desperation climbing up his chest to squeeze his lungs. “Just a few meters,” he repeats, but the path is blocked and they have nowhere to run and…

And then Minseok arrives.


☆

It's not a dramatic rescue. Minseok doesn't defeat the entire Acromantulas colony of the Forbidden Forest all by himself. He just uses a Full-Body Bind Curse on the one blocking their only escape route, blinding the rest with a Lumos Maxima that leaves Sehun's eyes pulsing in pain even if he had shut them as soon as he heard the spell leaving Minseok's lips.

They all tumble out of the forest and in the soft grass, not stopping until they're at the gates of the school, panting harshly, sweating, still alive. Sehun finally lets go of Sooyoung's wrist, only to see the girl fall on the ground like a ragdoll.

“Did you leave anyone behind?” asks Minseok, the coldness in his voice melting on Sehun's skin like the first snowflake before a blizzard. His throat closes around nothing, too dry after the run. His chest heaves up and down heavily. It's not like he knows the answer anyway.

Ren replies for all of them. “There were some lowerclassmen with us but we sent them to the castle when the Acromantulas first attacked us. They ran away while we distracted the creatures but I don't know what happened to them.”

“They left the forest.” Sehun's voice is scratchy and thin, but they hear him anyway.

Minseok's eyes bore holes in his own. They force him to lower his head and hide against his messy, wet fringe. “I met them on my way here and I sent them away. Choi Junhong, right? And that Ravenclaw kid, and a few others.”

“All the other Slytherin students came back to the dorms with Head Girl Son,” adds Ren. “No one else was left behind.”

“Why are we losing our time making conversation while Taehyung is still like that?” Sooyoung's voice, high and sharp as an arrow, silences every other sound. Youngjae lowers the boy on the ground and Minseok reaches him in fast, angry strides.

They all hold their breaths as the teacher carefully checks the boys. “He's breathing, but why is he not waking up? What happened here?”

His words are met by silence.

“Can someone answer me? Sehun?”

If anyone thinks it’s strange that a teacher is calling a student by his name, no formalities, no barriers between them, just a raw, exasperated need to know what happened, they don’t show it. Or maybe they do, but Sehun doesn’t notice it.

With Minseok's attention focused on him, he feels so small. He doesn't know what happened, but with the way Hoseok and Youngjae are looking at each other, so frightened and comically guilty, with the way Ren is biting his lips from the effort of keeping quiet and not exposing them... It's not difficult to guess. Sooyoung simply walks next to Taehyung, kneeling next to him. She holds his hand and cleans the dirt from his face carefully. It's almost as if she doesn't hear what's happening in front of her.

The silence stretches and no one speaks.

Sehun takes a deep breath.

“We must bring him to the Infirmary.”


☆

The corridor is dark and cold. Ren stands next to the door, trying to eavesdrop what Madame Lee, the school's nurse, and Minseok, are saying. They didn't even let them enter - Minseok simply told them to wait for him outside while Madame Lee, still wearing her nightgown, checked Taehyun's condition. Sooyoung sits on the floor, hiding her face against Jimin's shoulder and refusing to let her tears fall.

Jimin was waiting for them at the entrance of the school. He exchanged a long glance with Sehun, with the older boy quietly thanking him for calling Minseok. All the other students involved in the fight must already be in their beds, except Hoseok and Youngjae. They're leaning against the window, more nervous than Sehun has ever seen them.

The silence stretches, coiling in the darkness of the wide corridor. It's not absolute, but tainted by faraway echoes - paintings sleepily chatting, stairs changing their course, old, rusty armors scratching their necks. But in front of the Infirmary, it's almost like the little group of students is wrapped in a bubble of tension.

“Why did you call the teacher?” asks Youngjae, in the end. “We'll probably be expelled, all of us, do you know that?”

“Better expelled than dead,” comments Ren. Jimin doesn't even bother to answer. Like Sooyoung, he purposefully refuses to look at the Gryffindor.

“You know how things work. We do not call the teachers. We'll all get in trouble now, and for what? We didn't want to hurt anyone. It was a prank, ok? We just wanted to scare you a little bit, it wasn't ser-”

“Shut up.” Sooyoung looks up. Her eyes are still a bit unfocused, but the shock is leaving place to cold, implacable anger. “Shut up. Why are you still here? To admire the consequences of your behavior? You got what you wanted. You taught a filthy Slytherin his place. You put us in the dirt, where we belong? Aren't you happy? Can we worry about Taehyung in peace without having to see you gloat about what you did?”

“I didn't-”

“I don't want you here!” she screams, and Youngjae takes a step backwards, far from her, scared by her reaction. The paintings start to mumble and grumble, curious like the old gossips they are. Jimin tries to stop her but the dam is already broken. “You did this! You and your friends! You-”

“Sooyoungie,” says Sehun, and she finally stops. He pets her hair, pushing her gently in Jimin's arms again. He remembers how Jimin, at that time just a snotty, Pure-blood brat, had reacted when Taehyung and Sooyoung first became friends. He remembers Wendy kicking his ass for bullying her, but more than everything he remembers the way Taehyung confronted him and forced him to apologize to her. How Taehyung made him understand.

“Take care of her for me, can you?” he asks. Jimin quickly nods and his arms tighten around her, almost to protect the girl from Youngjae and Hoseok's mere presence. Sehun turns towards the two of them.

“You,” he says, looking only at Youngjae and taking pride in the way his voice doesn't waver, stays clear and firm, “come with me.”

They look at each other quickly, before Youngjae nods. The Gryffindor follows him out of the Infirmary, through the dark corridor. The castle is still asleep, but always alive. In the darkness, they can hear creaking and rustling, the breathing of a giant in the middle of a long dream, slow and rhythmical. Sehun leads them in one of the empty classrooms, not too far from the Infirmary but far enough that Sooyoung doesn't hear anything. She's already too worn out for tonight.

“Why did you call the teacher?” he asks again, his face hard and angry under the light of the few candles Sehun has lit. “Now we're all in trouble.”

“No, you're in trouble. We had permission to be at the lake tonight, while you didn't. And unless you tell Professor Kim who hexed Taehyung, you and your friend will be the only found culprits, so you were breaking curfew and bullying another student.”

“I told you, it was an accident!” Youngjae's voice is more frantic now, a note of despair finally breaking the patina of bravado and arrogance. It's finally sinking in, dripping slowly like thick poison, what really happened. “If you hadn't called the teacher-”

“Youngjae,” Sehun’s voice snaps like a violin string, so sharp in the cold night, “if the teacher hadn't come, things could've been much worse. Do you still refuse to see what almost happened tonight?”

There’s no answer, but Sehun is far from done. “Tell me, Youngjae, how does it feel to be the bad guy?” The boy blink, frozen. “You're popular, you're brave, you're the Captain of your Quidditch team, you tutor those three third year students in Charms and Transfiguration, right? And all the lowerclassmen think of you as a model, someone to imitate. You're one of the good guys,” he continues, just for the sake of seeing Youngjae twitch weakly. “Except you aren't. You're a bully. Taehyung is a good kid. You can ask your friend Hoseok. He's in the Wizard’s Chess Club with him, after all. Everyone likes him in that club, Hoseok can confirm it. And what about Sooy- What about Joy?” He hastily change the name of the girl, not wanting to give something this private and personal that Sooyoung only shares with her closest friend, to Youngjae. Yoo Youngjae doesn’t deserve to know the curve of Sooyoung’s smile or the twitching of her eyes when she’s concentrated or the way she sways and trips when she’s a little drunk. Such a bright young woman, and he doesn’t deserve any of her. “You made her cry. Has she ever offended you? Has Taehyung ever hurt you?”

The words leaves Sehun's mouth in a rush, pushing one against the others, anxious to get out and vanish in a puff of white against the cold night breeze. It’s cold, even inside the castle. It feels like not even the school’s spells are working to keep the bite of ice out of Sehun’s voice tonight.

This is the longest conversation Sehun has had with Youngjae. Sehun has never been good at serious conversations, nor he is good at pointing out the flaws in other people when he's usually too intent on counting his own. But Youngjae has crossed the wrong line and if even his friends are too coward to tell him to stop, Sehun will. Especially because his friends got hurt this time. And he's not sure he'll be able to forgive Youngjae for this.

So he goes on, throwing his words like salt on the open wound of Youngjae's honor, tearing him apart and feeling more Slytherin than he's ever felt in the six years he's spent in his House. “Good guys don't go around hexing people just because they happen to belong to a certain House. You know who does that? Ah, that's right, Slytherins. Because we are evil and cruel and we think we own the world. Is this the reason why you've threatened them? Is this the reason why you almost killed a boy you didn't even know?”

“It wasn't me!” explodes finally Youngjae, cornered, exasperated, wounded. “I would've never been so stupid, it was just a joke.”

Sehun knows it wasn't him. Youngjae is an asshole and an idiot, but he knows how to use his wand. He wouldn't accidentally let out a curse like that. He and his friends tease, leer, they jostle and push and show their fists in group like a pack of haughty, pretentious dogs, but they would never do something that incriminating. Their attacks are more subtle, secret - words whispered in the hallways and at the back of crowded classrooms, legs extended at the last moment to let you trip, hands that shove and push and are quick to disappear under the cape of the uniform every time a teacher is in sight.

“It was one of the younger kids, wasn't it? Probably a Gryffindor, since you're so keen on taking the blame on yourself just to protect him.” Youngjae doesn't answer, but his jaw is tense and his lips curled in a grimace. Sehun sighs. “Go on, be the culprit if you like it. You may not have pronounced the spell, but this is your doing. Those kids were following you, hanging from your lips, drinking your every word.”

Sehun thinks about the expression of utter joy and pride painted on the faces of the Slytherin Quidditch players only a few hours ago, right before the game. He thinks about how important it is for those kid to have a pillar of support, to be able to rely on the older students, how much they look up to their seniors. He never thought that one day he would've become a source of inspiration for someone else, but now he is, together with Wendy. And he knows what his Slytherin underclassmen have learnt from him. To mind their own business and mostly ignore the insults thrown at them, to look in front of themselves without showing their weaknesses, to be cold outside Slytherin and warm inside, to help their friends and risk their life for them.

At least, that's what Sehun hopes he's conveyed them. But what did Youngjae's underclassmen learn from him? To be brave and stubborn to a fault maybe? To always give their best and believe in themselves? Sehun doesn't know the Youngjae who shines inside his red and golden tower just as much as Youngjae as never seen Sehun inside his green and silver dungeons.

“You taught them to pick on Slytherin the same way I was taught to pick on Gryffindor back when I was a freshman here in Hogwarts. With time, I grew out of it, but apparently you didn't, so congratulations. This is really your doing, but I hope you think about what kind of lesson you're giving the real culprit if you just decide to protect him instead of letting him face the consequences of his actions. Who knows, maybe he could actually learn something from his punishment... Something like not hexing people so easily.”

The light of the moon shining through the window projects on Youngjae's face a chiaroscuro of shame, bright contrast making his face look comically torn. Sehun is sure his words have hit the boy deep down. Behind his armor of prejudices and useless bravado, Youngjae is a good person. He's a Gryffindor, being good people is what they are most proud of, after all. And he stayed behind, for Taehyung, to keep the spiders away from him, Sooyoung and Ren. Sehun doesn't know if it was only the Gryffindors' natural penchant for dangerous, heroic deeds or if he actually felt responsible for what had happened. But Youngjae and Hoseok have stayed and they have fought for a couple Slytherin kids. There's still hope.

“The choice is yours. But do me a favor, Yoo Youngjae, don't say it was just a joke. This is where stupid jokes have gotten us.” He waves his hands in the direction of the Infirmary and walks away, leaving Youngjae alone with his thoughts.


☆

Minseok is waiting for Sehun outside the door of the Infirmary. He looks tiny against it. He looks tiny in his teacher cape too. Worn out, frazzled at the edges, burnt by the flares of too many spells. His hands, when they settle around Sehun's wrists, are scorching hot.

“Where's Yoo Youngjae?”

“In the empty Arithmancy classroom. Reflecting upon his actions.”

“You shouldn't have left with him. I told you to wait for me there, didn't I?” It was meant to sound stern, but it came out exhausted, like Minseok wasn't ready to deal with this kind of situations. Sehun understands. Minseok has been a teacher for less than two months, he wasn't ready for this. But he came and he saved them and Sehun is grateful.

“Thank you,” he says, instead of answering the question. It takes Minseok by surprise.

“No, thank you. Park Jimin said you sent him back to call a teacher. You were lucky. I was taking a stroll around the castle when he found me.”

Sehun nods. They were really lucky. When Sehun left him, Jimin was heading towards the dungeon, towards Professor Kangin's office. If he hadn't met Minseok first, maybe no one would've come to save all of them in time. “Thank you for saving us,” he repeats, and Minseok is taken aback again.

He looks at Sehun with a scorching, painful intensity, trying to lure him into his dark eyes to drown him there. Sehun holds his stare, not knowing what Minseok wants from him. He just waits, until Minseok finally drops his gaze with a long breath. Whatever he was looking for, he didn't find it.

“Just when I thought I had you all figured out,” he mumbles. “You haven't answered my question. Why did you ignore my order and leave the waiting room with Yoo?”

“I needed to talk to him. You were a student, not too long ago. You know how it works. You can imagine what happened.”

A flash in Minseok's eyes. He can imagine it very well, but he won't admit it. Not now that he's on the other side. “No, I can't. Why don't you tell me? What happened tonight, Sehun?”

It's a confession that he wants, but Sehun is not going to give it to him. How could he? He wasn't even there. “I only arrived there after the incident. Everything I say wouldn't be more than a supposition.” Yes, that's right. Let Youngjae decide what version of the truth will be the most appropriated. Sehun gave him that choice, after all.

Minseok bites his lips, clearly unhappy with Sehun's reply, but the boy doesn't leave him time to inquire further. “How is Taehyung?”

“He has a minor concussion, but Soonkyu is more worried by the effects of the curse thrown at him. Whoever did it,” and his eyes narrow as he says it, scanning Sehun's face for some hints on the name of the culprit, “ was really inexperienced. They probably misspelled the words. That means there could be side effects we know nothing about.”

“Will he wake up soon?”

“We hope he wakes up tomorrow. If he doesn't, I'm afraid he'll be moved to St. Mungo's Hospital.” He pauses, the possibility unwelcome. “But he'll wake up.”

Are you really sure or are you just trying to convince yourself?

“What about Joy?”

“Madame Lee gave her something to sleep. She'll stay in the Infirmary for tonight. Park Jimin too. And Choi, the other Prefect, he insisted to stay too.” Half of Slytherin's sixth year will stay with Taehyung, and Sehun doesn't doubt that tomorrow the other half will join them. Everyone in Slytherin inevitably likes Taehyung, in the same way they had liked his brother Baekhyun before him, and their brother Baekbom before them. They have the same puppy smiles and cutely charming manners. They smile a lot. They make everyone else smile a lot.

“I have to contact Byun Taehyung's parents and inform them of his condition as soon as possible.”

That startles Sehun, pulling him out of his reverie. “That would be... problematic. You probably don't know, but informing Taehyung's father is not the best choice. Taehyung is currently living with his brother...”

“But the rules of the school clearly state that in case of accidents the parents...”

“It's something personal,” insists Sehun, seeing Sooyoung snap out of her blank state to focus on him and on the strangely familiar way he's addressing their professor. “Taehyung wouldn't want his parents to be informed. Please,” he lowers his voice, ignores Sooyoung's inquiring eyes and the mute question they hold. He focuses on Minseok and prays that his words can reach him. Minseok is still not too convinced, but Sehun doesn't give up. “I'll personally inform his brother. The fireplace in Wendy's room is linked with the Floo Network, I'll be able to contact Baekhyun faster than any owl would.”

Their eyes meet. Minseok's gaze is unreadable and Sehun could never guess what's happening inside his head.

The teacher sighs. “Alright, I'm trusting you on this. Please contact his closest relative and inform him that Taehyung was involved in an accident.” He sighs, too tired, too worn out. Minseok is a dreamer, one of those teachers who want to make a difference in the same, naive way he had tried to help everyone back when he was Head Boy. But maybe he's too young, maybe he wasn't ready for a world in which students attack each other, almost kill each other, for something stupid like the colors on a tie and a lost Quidditch game.

“We'll talk about this again tomorrow. Meet me in my office after breakfast. That's all, Oh Sehun.”

He leaves immediately, to find Youngjae before he goes to talk with the Headmaster. Sehun only stops to check on Sooyoung and Jimin. She's already sleeping. Jimin and Ren quietly sit on the spare bed. They won't sleep until Taehyung wakes up. Sehun knows it very well because he won't sleep either.

He'd stay with them, stealing anxious looks at the curtain that covers Taehyung's bed from their eyes for the whole night, until Taehyung wakes up and asks with a weak and strangely amused voice what the hell is everyone doing in the Infirmary with him. But someone must warn Baekhyun and Sehun feels responsible enough to know it must be him. He was the one who made a promise to Baekhyun about Taehyung's safety. He's also the one who must face the consequences of his actions.





viii. baekhyun

November 1st

“So, how did Taehyung's brother take the news?”

Sehun answers with a noncommittal noise. In his pathetic attempt to avoid the question he starts looking at Minseok's office. It's his real office this time, not his personal apartments, and it looks bare and sad. Minseok clearly doesn't spend a lot of time here.

“According to the furious letter he wrote us, he is quite angry. That doesn’t surprise me.”

A noncommittal noise, again, is Sehun's answer.

Minseok is probably thinking about Baekhyun, one of the most cunning, manipulative snakes the Slytherin House has ever raised among its silver and green walls. Brilliant, restless, impudent. He talked too much and fought even more, viciously, when someone tried to talk back. He laughed and mocked and made everyone feel like they would never be enough to spar with him. Loud, cruel and not quite used to forgiveness, Baekhyun had quite a reputation during his Hogwarts years.

Kris was the lonely king with too many girlfriends, Jongin was the reckless hooligan with enough money to cover the proofs of his foolishness, Zitao was the spoiled kid who could buy the entire school if only he asked with enough grace and Sehun was the cold, bored prince. But Baekhyun was the emperor no one in Hogwarts really wanted to mess up with, the one who came from a family who was rumored to still practice Dark Arts, a family who had close links with criminals and murderers.

Byun Baekhyun always gets what he wants, is what they whispered at midnight, when someone felt like scaring the freshmen. Byun Baekhyun is dangerous.

Baekhyun reveled in the attention, in the hiss of whispers that followed him like an unmistakable signature as he crossed the corridors. “Let them murmur,” he would say every time Zitao came to him with juicy gossips about Baekhyun's last jinx.

“Are you sure?” Jongin would ask, “Rumor is that you jinxed Park Chanyeol because he dared to watch you yesterday at dinner. He woke up tonight feeling like he was dying and we could hear him from the Gryffindor table this morning, swearing on his right hand that he heard your evil laughter before he fell down the bed and threw up.”

Baekhyun would've laughed for real then, long and outright amused. “Maybe Chanyeollie should've laid down on the pudding yesterday at dinner, don't you think so? But I'm quite flattered that he thinks about me even in the middle of such a severe indigestion. I'll let him know that the feeling is mutual.”

Zitao would pout, Kris would sigh, Jongin would ask if he really can't do anything about those punks who trash talk his dear Baekhyun and Sehun would yawn and go back to napping on the breakfast table, next to the scrambled eggs. Baekhyun would simply scroll his shoulder and say, “Let them talk. What can they do to me anyway?”

He didn't mind the words, but he wouldn't forgive physical violence against him or his friend and family, like Yoo Youngjae had learnt at his own expenses.

Sehun knows what Minseok is thinking right now. But if the rest of Hogwarts only knew a violent, despotic emperor, his fellow Housemates only remembered Baekhyun's loud, silly laugh every time Park Chanyeol tried to trip him in the hallways and failed miserably. “That Gryffindor seriously has a crush on me,” he would say. They remembered his pretty hands, the way his hair would bounce as he jumped down the stairs of the boys' dorms because he was late to class and the way he always made sure no one of them was hurt when he could, and that everyone who hurt them was punished when he couldn't keep them safe. Slytherin knew Baekhyun's wit and his love for Italian Muggle sweets and Italian Muggle opera, and the way his eyes shone when he found a way to break the rules and do things his own way. We break the old rules to make new ones, was his motto.

Baekhyun was manipulative, overdramatic and smarter than everyone else. He tutored Wendy during her first year and he was the one who taught her how to be the best of her classes, always. Baekhyun didn't have any power, he never became Head Boy or Quidditch Captain and he refused to be Prefect because he was too lazy for the night strolls, but there was no one more respected than him in Slytherin.

Sehun respected him too. Like a friend and like the brother he never had.

A few hours ago, in front of the green fire of Wendy's fireplace, Oh Sehun nervously swallowed a lump of acid and fear. He didn't fear Baekhyun's revenge - he will never have to fear Baekhyun's reaction that way because Baekhyun is vicious with his enemies and forgiving to a fault with his friends - but his disappointment, and even more his sadness. Baekhyun cares about Taehyung in a way that Sehun, only and lonely child of two only and lonely children, will never understand.

If Sehun closes his eyes, here in Minseok's office, he can still taste that mix of failure and self-repulsion on the roof of his mouth and at the back of his throat.

When Sehun told him the news, Baekhyun didn't - as Minseok probably expected him to - shout or have a nervous fit or threaten someone. There was always time to do that later. Baekhyun listened, in silence, his eyes focused only on Sehun. He asked a few questions - whether Taehyung was alright, what happened, why did it happen. Who did it. Then he closed the communication, disappearing in a spiral of angry flames. He didn't spare a word for Sehun.

Sehun waited there for hours, sitting on the edge of Wendy's empty bed, as a cold that not even the magic fire could mitigate slowly penetrated deep in his bones.

Wendy came back, disheveled, exhausted and smiley, and Sehun didn't have to ask to know that Seulgi had said yes. She collapsed on the bed and he didn't have the heart to tell her that, a few floors above their heads, Taehyung was still unconscious, Sooyoung was sleeping the sleep of a spell and Jimin and Ren were waiting, watching over them.

“Go to bed,” he simply said, leading her to the bed.

“And what about you?” she asked, between yawns.

“I'm waiting for a call from Baekhyun, don't worry.”

And she didn't. She fell asleep. Now, with dawn barely visible through the cape of clouds carelessly draped over the castle, Sehun knows that it's only a matter of time before Wendy wakes up and someone tells her. News travel fast in Hogwarts. They crawl on the walls and fall from the painted mouth of a portrait to the translucent ears of a ghost, and the story changes its shape every time is told anew by someone else. Sehun has no doubt that at breakfast everyone will talk about the epic fight of the Forbidden Forest, where the Gryffindor hero Yoo Youngjae defeated alone an army of evil Slytherins. He hopes Youngjae enjoys this last moment of popularity because Baekhyun will probably have him expelled.

“Do you want to tell me what happened, Sehun?” Minseok's voice is a tired as his face is, strained in the faint light of dawn.

“Is Taehyung awake?” he asks, instead of answering. Minseok frowns but answers anyway. “Yes, he is. He's with his brother at the moment.”

“Is he alright?”

He already knows he's alright. He ordered one of Slytherin's House Elves to inform him if Taehyung woke up, but he needs to hear it from Minseok's lips. He need that kind of reassurance to keep breathing normally.

“Taehyung or his brother? Because Byun Taehyung is perfectly fine, but Byun Baekhyun was seconds away from having a nervous fit. The Headmaster says Baekhyun is going to press charges and that he wants the culprit out of the school before the end of the week. And that brings us back to the original question.” He intertwines his fingers and drops his chin on his joined hands. “Do you want to tell me what happened, Sehun?”

“I've already told you yesterday night, I think.”

Minseok sighs, running his finger through his hair. “I can't do my job if you don't help me, Sehun. Why did those students target you and your friends?”

This time Sehun feels it, a little bubble of irritation, growing inside his stomach and ready to expand, slowly but surely. “Are you really asking myself why? Isn't it obvious?”

“It's not obvious to me,” retorts Minseok.

“You were a student less than four years ago, do you want to tell me you don't remember?”

Gryffindor against Slytherin. Scratch that, everyone against Slytherin. Sehun has spent almost seven years in this school and nothing has ever changed.

Minseok frowns. “This has nothing to do with me. A student could've lost his life and no one wants to tell me the reason. Not a simple student, one of your friends, Sehun. We need to know what happened, we need a reason or-”

“Or you'll be forced to acknowledge that a Gryffindor student, one of your precious Gryffindor friends, attacked a Slytherin student simply for the sake of doing it. Because that's what happened.”

“No, it can't be true.”

But it is. Minseok shakes his head, stubbornly. Now Sehun can't see it, the cage, red and golden. Gryffindor. Graduated or not, Minseok is still part of his old House.

“I know Youngjae and he's a good boy. He would never hurt someone like that.”

“Then ask him, not me. Ask Taehyung now that he's awake, whether he did something to deserve a wand pointed to his head.” Taehyung, who doesn't know how to fight but is so good at Wizard's Chess.

“I'm asking you.”

“I'm answering!” His voice rises and falls in a broken murmur, “But you're not listening. What's the point of asking the truth if you won't believe me?”

What’s the point of being a teacher who can’t treat all his students in the same way? What’s the point of graduating if by doing that you can’t also scroll the colors of your House away, if Sehun will forever be Slytherin’s prince and doomed to fight with every Gryffindor he meets in his life?
Minseok has no answers to Sehun’s question and for a moment Sehun wants to hurt him, say something even worse, something that will make Minseok feel the same shame Yoo Youngjae felt yesterday.

But the teacher looks as lost as Sehun is. Minseok is only twenty one years old, barely graduated. They took him out of the university and threw him back in the same classrooms where he lived a few years before, with the same boys and girls who were his juniors. He's still a Gryffindor, blind to the truth, firm believer of the moral righteousness of his House.

He's still one of them.

“I thought you were different,” Sehun says, in a broken sob. I thought you were kind and wise, I thought you looked at me, four years ago, and saw the real Sehun, the kid who was so scared of his own father that he had to call you Mudblood just to get his approval. But I never looked at you and saw a Gryffindor, I never saw a Mudblood. I just saw a boy with the nicest smile and pretty eyes who saved me from Pebbles and didn’t treat me any different just because I was a Slytherin.

That boy was a lie, now Sehun knows, the dream of a fourteen years old kid who wanted so desperately to love and to be loved to fall for the first kind hand extended in his direction.

There’s another Kim Minseok now in his heart, a boy who likes to teach and follows Sehun to the Astronomy Tower bathroom just to make sure he eats and doesn’t smoke on the school ground. A boy who wears a dragon leather jacket, drinks pumpkin juice at breakfast and likes to read young adult sci-fi books. A boy who steals long glances at Sehun when he thinks Sehun can’t see him and quickly averts his eyes before he’s caught staring. The same boy who looks flustered when Sehun gets too close but he’s the first to get close, almost as if he can’t get enough of Sehun - that’s what Sehun likes to think, anyway.

Before he realized, Oh Sehun fell out of love with Head Boy Kim Minseok just to fall in love with Minseok, simply Minseok. But Sehun is seventeen years old, young - more like childish, and proud, so proud - and his heart can’t contain more than one emotion at a time. So he pushes the memories of Minseok’s dark eyes away, deep inside his heart - like he always done, that’s why he’s so good at doing this - and feeds on the anger, on the compelling, scalding sense of injustice blazing in his chest, a cold fire that turns his face into a mask of stone and contempt.

Kim Minseok realizes, with a cruel, painful clarity, the moment he stops being someone Sehun trusts and respects. He tries to stop Sehun from standing up and leaving, but Sehun doesn't want to listen.

He's still one of them and he doesn't trust me. I can't trust him either.


☆

Baekhyun is joking with Sooyoung when Sehun arrives at the Infirmary, tucking a runaway strand of hair behind her ear and being unnecessarily flirtatious just to make her blush and laugh. He's come alone, no mother, no father and no brother in tow, and Sehun knows it couldn't have been any other way, not since he and Taehyung left the family house to never come back, according to Baekhyun.

When Sehun arrives, Jimin is the first to notice. He gets up to greet him, together with Ren. Sooyoung smiles, but it's Baekhyun's reaction that Sehun fears. Baekhyun smiles too and Sehun replies weakly.

“How is he?” he asks, sitting next to Ren on the bench.

“He's fine. They're running the last check-up before he can meet these rascals.”

When finally Madam Lee gives them permission to see Taehyung, Sehun doesn't follow the other sixth-years inside the soundproofed room. Baekhyun doesn't go either.

“I already saw him. Besides, I need to talk to Sehunnie here,” he says with a wink, when Jimin sends them an unsure glance. “Just go and cheer him up, he's been in a sour mood since when he woke up this morning. He needs his best friend.”

Sehun starts rehearsing an apology in his mind, but Baekhyun doesn't wait for him to talk.

“You don't have to apologize, you know. Taehyung is not your responsibility.”

“I still should've been with him.”

“He was with his date, how strange would've been for him to have you tagging along? Be realistic, Sehunnie.”

Baekhyun ruffles his hair and Sehun shakes his head, annoyed. “I'm trying to apologize here!”

“Taehyung is fine.” There's a sort of finality in Baekhyun's words. An entire set of wrong turns and scary possibilities, what-ifs in which things didn't go so well and maybe now they would be mourning a friend and a brother. But Baekhyun has never been the type to linger on possibilities. There is only one reality and Taehyung is fine. “You don't need to apologize, it was not your fault Sehun.”

“But it was. Yesterday night Jimin came to look for me, because he relies on me. He expected me to do something. But I've always relied on someone else and I didn't know what to do...”

“There is no instruction book for life, Sehun. There is no right or wrong behavior for a situation like that. But what you did yesterday night probably saved a few lives.” Baekhyun pauses. He ruffles Sehun's hair again, and this time Sehun lets him. “Thank you for looking out for him. You're growing up, Sehunnie.”

“Are you really not angry?”

“Oh, I am. I really want to file a lawsuit against the school for what happened, but should I have to remind you that both me and my brother have been disowned? Oh, well, Taehyung has been disowned. My accounts have only been frozen until I come back home, but you know too well why I can't do it.”

Sehun nods.

“But I'm not that angry. It happened to everyone of us, at least once in our life, to get involved in a stupid fight among different Houses. House pride, Quidditch and girls are the most common reason for a brawl in Hogwarts and all three were involved yesterday night.”

“He could've been seriously hurt.”

“Sure enough, and that's why the people who hurt him will be in serious trouble after I'll be done with them.”

“The thing that hurts me the most is that none of thing would've happened if Taehyung had been Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw instead of Slytherin. Doesn't it bother you? We can't drop our guard for a single night... It was just a party, for Salazar's sake!” The people in our House are really good people. Me? I’m just your regular spoiled Slytherin heir. But they deserve better. “We’re always the outcasts, the traitors, the cheaters, the targets, and I’m tired of people judging me my whole life. I’m sick of this stupid rule that states that we are the bad guys!”

Baekhyun’s smile is light, almost patronizing, but there’s an edge to his eyes. Something glistens dangerously under the calm surface.

“Who are you fighting for, Sehunnie? Are you angry for your House, for your friends or simply for yourself?”

He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know. His life used to be so simple, flat and plain, grey like the misty hills around the castle. Why is everything so difficult now?

“You know, Sehunnie, I’ve always wanted to be in Slytherin, because Slytherin means you have the power to change things. Breaking the old rules to make new ones, that's what we do.”

Baekhyun knows it better than anyone else. Slytherin from a family of Slytherins, he left his family immediately after he graduated. He just took his brother Taehyung and disappeared, hired a lawyer to deal with the legal consequences of his actions. It was a scandal – the two younger sons of one of the wealthiest and most influential Pureblood families running away from home, the news filled the first pages of every magic newspaper for the whole summer – but only Baekhyun’s closest friends know why he did it. Sehun has seen the ugly scars on Taehyung’s back, signs from both hexes and belts, signs that Baekhyun’s father put there after he found out that his third son was not his son, but a bastard, the son of a Muggle librarian. A Half-Blood. A shame on the Byun lineage. Baekhyun spared his father the trouble of throwing Taehyung out and simply walked away with him.

Baekhyun, who was the bravest out of them, who laughed at the Sorting Hat suggestion to go to Gryffindor and chose Slytherin instead. “That's what we can do. That's what you have to do now. It doesn't matter if there's a rule that states that Slytherin shouldn't be trusted. There's also a rule that says that Hufflepuffs are weak and Ravenclaws are stuck up. This whole castle is built from dust and prejudices, unspoken rules that have dictated our life since forever. In this world, rules are everything. But it doesn't have to be like this. You have the power to change things, if you want. But only if you want, Sehunnie.”

“But I don't know what to-” he stops mid-sentence and thinks of Seulgi bringing him lunch and Jung Ilhoon whining because Sehun beat him at Mario Kart. He thinks of Jung Hoseok and Yoo Youngaje staying behind to help Taehyung, even if they were just solving the mess their carelessness had created. He thinks of him and Youngjae, talking in the darkness of the Arithmancy class, and it felt like it was the first time they were having a real conversation in seven years - they have talked before, but never like this, never like equals. He thinks that even the better people can fall prey of misconceptions, people like Seulgi, like Minseok, even people like himself. Sehun has lived in a world made of darkness and prejudices for most of his life, but now he's different and maybe he's the one who can make that difference for someone else. Maybe he knows what to do. He can be that change.

Baekhyun smiles to someone behind Sehun, standing at the door.

“See? I told you, my juniors are so much better than yours. My Sehunnie is so smart, he doesn’t even need my life lessons anymore.”

Sehun turns to face Park Chanyeol, Baekhyun's rival during Hogwarts years. The boy ignores Sehun but rolls his eyes at the ceiling at Baekhyun's words. “Yes, Your Supreme Wisdom. I've talked to Youngjae and I know the name of the culprit. The real culprit. He's a Third Year Gryffindor.”

“Will he confess?”

Chanyeol nods. “Actually, it was really difficult to get a confession out of him. He kept saying he didn't do anything back and that it was the Slytherin who attacked him. But Minseok really insisted, he didn't let him go until he got the truth out of him.”

Sehun freezes but it's Baekhyun who asks, “Minseok?”

“Yes, Kim Minseok, do you remember him? He was two years our senior. He was hired as substitute teacher for Professor Jung after she got married and he really helped me and Youngjae to make that kid confess.”

Sehun barely hears the rest of the conversation, Chanyeol talking about the kid facing his punishment - “Expulsion!” singsongs Baekhyun gleefully - “... which will not be expulsion,” continues Chanyeol, with a glare.

“Oh, it will definitely be expulsion, Park, I'll make sure of it.”

They keep bickering and they barely notice Sehun, who slides back on the bench and wonders if his words actually managed to reach Minseok. He knows he wasn't only because of him, but he hopes that, if Yoo Youngjae and Minseok have convinced the real culprit to come out and admit his faults, it was also because of him. It won't change everything, but it's a start, nevertheless.

“And anyway where are those two slackers?”

Chanyeol's voice booms through the Infirmary, interrupting Sehun's thoughts and getting him a glare from Madam Lee Soonkyu, the school nurse.

As if summoned by the question, other two people enter the room.

“Look who's talking... We should've let you come alone with Byun, Park.”

Sehun blinks, twice, to be sure he's not hallucinating.

“Oh, Sehunnie, since you're here I'll introduce you to the rest of my team. You already know Park Chanyeol - how could you forget? seeing that he not-so-secretly pined for me for seven years.” He quickly avoids getting stabbed between the ribs by Chanyeol's wands.

“Stop doing that Chanyeol! It's very dangerous, what if you hit him with a spell?”

Baekhyun points to the boy who's just talked. “That one is Kim Jongdae and the bored short thing near the door is Do Kyungsoo.”

Sehun remembers about them. Kim Jongdae was a Ravenclaw with terrible grades who used to sell Love Potions in exchange for homework and Hufflepuff Do Kyungsoo was Head Boy in Baekhyun's year. Sehun weakly greets them.

“They're your team?” he asks, to Baekhyun.

“We're still trainers, but if we survive this year together we'll become real Aurors, next year.”

Baekhyun smiles brightly but Do Kyungsoo is practicing his most murderous face, Park Chanyeol looks resigned to his sad destiny and Kim Jongdae is outright amused. Sehun wonders who the hell decided that putting a Slytherin, a Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw together in the same team could be a good idea. There should be a rule against this, because those four together just means trouble.

But then Baekhyun winks and Sehun remembers his motto. We break the old rules to make the new one. Baekhyun is shaping his own future, fighting his own battles. It's time Sehun starts doing the same.





ix. slytherin&gryffindor

November 15th

The wind howls in the Forbidden Forest, stripping the trees of their dresses made of mist and dried leaves and leaving only dark, gnarled wood behind. But in the safety of the dungeons, protected by cold stone and surrounded by the water of the lake, Oh Sehun can't hear the cries of the winds.

The dungeons are cold, even the fire is cold - blue and green flames, burning bright but not hot - but with Taehyung back the Common Room has never felt warmer. Wendy leans over to pinch Sehun, hard and vicious. Tomorrow, a purple dark bruise will blossom on his white skin. He sighs and scoots over to make space for her in the overcrowded coach and he almost pushes Yerim out. He ends up with Yerim on his lap, the rest of the House snickering and whistling, but she blushes and smiles and politely thanks Sehun before she goes back to watch Taehyung's and Jimin's game of Wizard's Chess. They're both in the Wizard's Chess Club and they're pretty good. Sooyoung is cheering for Jimin just to spite Taehyung while Ren whispers strategy advices to Taehyung's ear. The rest of the House is scattered across the Common Room, studying, chatting, or watching the game. It feels really warm.

Taehyung's right arm is in a cast and he winces every now and then. They still can't use magic to heal him. “A side effect of the failed curse,” assured Madam Lee, “that will disappear in a few weeks.” Now, every time Taehyung leaves the dungeons, a tiny shadow follows him everywhere, carrying his books and cutting his Potion ingredients for him. His name is Jeon Jungkook and he's the Fourth Year Gryffindor who hexed Taehyung that night in the forest. Sooyoung and Jimin hate him but, surprisingly, Taehyung has taken a liking to the kid.

“He's not a bad person. He feels guilty for what happened, you know? And they told him that when a Slytherin draws his wand you have to be faster than him or he'll Avada Kedavra you without regrets.”

Sooyoung grumbles something on the lines of kids who know curses at such a young age can't be trusted and Jimin simply crosses his arms and never lets Jungkook out of his sight when he's with Taehyung. When they ask him, Sehun simply sighs and reminds them that Taehyung has no survival skills. “You better give up. If Taehyung is stupid enough to take a boy who almost killed him under his wing there's nothing we can do. He's beyond salvation.”

He doesn't remind them that a long time ago, when Taehyung became friend with Half-blood, Slytherin reject Park Joy Sooyoung, Jimin reacted in the same exact way, and now he worships the ground she walks on. He doesn't tell them that Taehyung chooses his friends very well and maybe there's a reason he trusts this scrawny, quiet boy who plays Seeker for Gryffindor's team and is willing to learn how to play Wizard's Chess from Taehyung.

To be honest, Jungkook is not so bad. Whenever Sehun is around, he's usually too terrified to bother him and Sehun prefers the nervous silence he keeps with him to his awkward, pathetic attempts to make friends with Jimin and Sooyoung.

The game ends with Jimin's victory and Taehyung throws the rests of his fallen pieces at Ren for his bad advices. Sooyoung and Jimin highfive, Yerim laughs and Wendy complains she can't read her book like this, but she's trying so hard to keep the corners of her mouth from curling upwards in a laugh. Sehun feels warm.

He likes these Slytherin nights, spent all together in the Common Room. He feels protected in the snakes' den, wrapped in the cocoon of laughs of his Housemates in the belly of the castle. He doesn't have to think of all the problems that await him outside the dungeons. Teachers have begun to pester the students about things like career orientation and the necessity of doing well for their N.E.W.T. exams. Wendy is still thinking of going to Germany with a scholarship, together with Seulgi, and Sehun... Sehun usually shrugs and avoids the question but the truth is he has a very detailed idea of what he would like to do, but his parents would never let him so there's no point in thinking about it.

Minseok would probably know what to say and Sehun wants nothing more than to talk to him, again, but Minseok doesn't want to talk. Not anymore
Since the Halloween incidents, Minseok has gone back to pretending that his and Sehun's friendship has never happened - that the almost kiss has never happened. They meet every week for the Muggle Studies class, but the teacher has never made an effort to talk to him and Sehun, after stupidly hoping that Minseok would make the first move, hasn't found the courage to do it himself. Not yet.



November 25th

Sehun wakes up at dawn, the memory of a dream - the dream of a memory - still swirling in his sleepy eyes. He dreamed of that day Minseok almost kissed him. In the dream, Minseok was wearing the dragon leather jacket and his hair was dark and messy, falling over his eyes in a way that made Sehun's heart flutter.

There are no classes today, so he just lets himself lie down in bed, reveling in the warmth accumulated under the covers, his eyes closed as he relives the almost-kiss moment countless times, wondering what could've happened if he had just leant down and met Minseok midway. His heart beats so fast it almost hurts in his chest. He touches it, slowly, feeling it throb under his fingers, tumtumtumtum...

A knock on his door shatters the atmosphere of peace he's managed to create. He ignores it, grumbling angrily when the knocking persists.

“What the hell do you want?” he growls, hoping it's not Wendy. Wendy would kick his ass for weeks if he dared answer like that to her. It can’t be her – she was supposed to take part in the Head Students meeting with the rest of the Student Council. But if it’s not her, coming to drag him back to the world of the living and make sure he doesn’t waste his entire Saturday, Sehun doesn’t know who could be. His morning caprices are legendary and all the underclassmen are scared of waking him up without a good reason. Freshmen don't even dare to walk near his room at the wee hours of the morning.

A nervous face appears in the crack between the door and the wall. Sehun recognizes Taehyung, his features twisted in a hesitant expression. Oh, it makes sense that they would send a sixth year, and one of the few people in his entire House whom Sehun likes, to knock at his door.

“Prefect Oh, there are two Gryffindors at the door. They're asking about you.”

Gryffindors? He has nothing to say to Gryffindors and he clearly doubts that they have something interesting to tell him. And why is Taehyung calling him Prefect Oh? “Send them away. What time is it? Isn't it rude to bother someone at dawn?”

“It is midday, Prefect Oh,” says Taehyung, immediately stepping back in front of the venomous glare that Sehun sends to him. “They're bothering the gargoyle at the main door and everyone who comes inside to let them in. The girl says she's a friend of Wendy, but we can't open the door without permission. And the boy says he needs to talk with you.”

“Who is the boy?” he rasps, feeling his throat screech and protest. He's reluctant to admit it, but he's a little curious. The girl is probably Seulgi, come to talk with Wendy. But he's really at a loss about who the boy might be.

“Jung Ilhoon.”

Ah, Ilhoon. The Muggle Studies project. Sehun’s numb brain slowly collects the dots until the boy takes a deep breath and gets up, his entire body weakened by the sickness and the usual low blood pressure.

His head spins and he winces. “Fetch me a House Elf, I need some coffee,” he hisses, and Taehyung nods and disappears.

The glorious House of Slytherin was built under the lake, where it’s always humid and cold. They can hear the song of the water, travelling through the stone and dripping in the long, narrow corridors of the dungeon, but they can also feel the humidity, like a monster with thousand hands ready to sneak under light shirts to grip limbs in a cold, tight hold. Sehun especially regrets having been chosen to be part of this House when he's sick and he clearly feels his limbs aching and shivering, his bones creak and his muscles scream. Wrapping a nightgown around his body, he crosses the few corridors that brings him to the Common Room and the giant door that leads outside the dorms.

Slytherin’s Common Room is dark, only lit by little candles and the blue-green flames dancing inside the fireplace. The heavy velvet tapestries in green and silver hanging from the walls make the room feel even more claustrophobic. But it’s not the furniture that worries Sehun.

There’s a knot of younger students hovering near the door, loudly debating whether they should come out and tell the Gryffindor students on the other side of the stone portal to go away. They turn towards Sehun and watch with wide eyes as he cuts his way through them, probably surprised to see him already up and walking around on a festive day with no mandatory classes. Luckily, being a seventh year student and a prefect still gives him some kind of power over them, so he glares at them until they teem away. Then, sighing, he opens the door to find Seulgi and a dejected Jung Ilhoon arguing with the gargoyle.

“Look, I told you I’m friend with Son Wendy, didn’t I? Oh, Sehunnie, you’re here.”

He flinches at her loud voice. “Keep it down, please. Why are you here?”

“Oh, Ilhoonie here needed to talk with you for your Muggle Studies project, but he was too shy to come on his own so I just came along with him, to protect him from the big bad Slytherins!”

Color creeps on Ilhoon's face at her words, and even though Seulgi, like too many students in her House, is too loud, bratty and also a bit of a busybody, a girl who can make Jung Ilhoon blush is a girl who has Sehun's respect.

“He could’ve simply asked me during lunch, in the Great Hall,” he answers, hiding a snicker.

“If only you still went there to eat lunch,” she counterattacks, “but we haven’t seen you among us poor peasants since the last time I bothered to fetch you from your Muggle Studies class and dragged you there, more than a week ago. Desperate times call for desperate measures, Oh Sehun.”

This time it’s his turn to blush, and he turns towards the door to hide it, muttering slowly. “Why would I want to eat my lunch there? Too many Gryffindors. And Hufflepuffs. Loud people. Terrible for my migraines. I hate peasants,” he bites back. He can hear Ilhoon’s outraged huff and Seulgi’s annoyed snort. Suits them. He’s Slytherin’s prince and these two fools woke him up early on a Saturday morning to talk about something as vulgar as a Muggle Studies project. He shivers. There are too many drafts in the corridor and he still feels a bit sick.

“Come on,” he says, patting the gargoyle’s arm with an exasperated sigh. “Get inside. It’s not that much warmer but at least there are magic fires in the Common Room.”

“Are you inviting us? Inside? After you just insulted us?” Ilhoon protests vehemently, but he’s as curious as Seulgi and they sneak inside cautiously, almost as if they’re expecting this to be a trap, an invitation into enemy territory that hides an ambush attack.

Sehun ignores the indignant whispers of his House mates at the sight of two Gryffindors crossing the holy doors of Slytherin. It must be the first time in decades. He leads them in front of the fire, glaring at everyone, almost challenging the other student in the room to say something. No one dares.

Sooyoung’s favorite blanket, enchanted by Sehun himself four years ago so that no one can steal it from her – back then, it happened way too many times - lies abandoned on the sofa. The spell recognizes his maker and Sehun wraps the warm fabric around himself. It smells like long nights spent studying in front of the magic fire, it smells like Sooyoung and laughs and her kind smile. He sniffs a little and gestures for the two Gryffindors to sit on the elegant armchairs.

“Where is Wendy?” asks Seulgi.

“The Headmaster called a meeting,” he simply answers. “I don’t know when she will be back.”

“It was nice of you, to let us in. It’s really cold in the dungeons,” she says, politely.

He snorts. “I would’ve gladly left you there all morning, but I needed to talk with Jung and I was freezing my ass off out there.”

“Oh, thank you, Your Graciousness, for admitting two peasants like us inside the glorious House of Slytherin. Do you want us to bow to your magnificence?”

Seulgi elbows Ilhoon, telling him to shut up and then looks at Sehun apologetically. “You should forgive him. It’s not his fault he doesn’t know what politeness is.”

“Yeah, my only fault was agreeing to come here to get treated like this.”

And really, Sehun could tell them to get out of his dorms and leave him alone. He could. Ilhoon is already on the verge of leaving by himself and the other Slytherins are not happy with this Gryffindor invasion either. He’s sick and tired and cranky, his coffee hasn’t arrived yet and he really has no desire to deal with the secular rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin now. And yet, something stops him.

Things have started to change after Halloween, for all of them. Sehun loathes to admit it, but even if Ilhoon is an ass he came to Slytherin, to the snakes' den, just to talk to Sehun. He made an effort to be here now. And Sehun doesn’t need him, he doesn’t need his friendship or his company or his trust, but it's not often that someone outside his own House tries so hard for him and he can’t simply let it go to waste. He wants these person to stay, to look past the rumors and the cold façade of Slytherin’s prince and see him, Oh Sehun, a really lonely boy with a dumb sense of humor that no one can understand anymore now that most of his dumb friends all left. He needs new dumb friends. And he can’t have new dumb friends if everyone in the castle wants to Stupefy him against a wall.

“Listen,” he says, snuffling a little and wrapping the blanket tighter around himself, “you came to talk to me, I am talking with you. But why are you making such a big deal out of everything? I just let you enter Slytherin dorms. You invite Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in your tower every two days, am I right?”

“Yes, but…”

He intercepts Seulgi's smile. “You're absolutely right Sehun. Be the better person, Ilhoonie, and stop trying to pick a fight.”

“But, Seulgi! It’s not my fault, you saw it! He started it…” Ilhoon’s tirade is cut short as Candy trots inside the room and jumps in his lap. She’s probably recognized him as one of the boys who cuddle her during the Muggle Studies class. Ilhoon pets her head and the little dog squeals in happiness. Sehun scoffs.

“Look at that little traitor.” His words are interrupted by a fit of cough. “Come on, people, who do I have to kill to get my coffee? Where’s my House Elf?”

A few seconds later a little creature with big ears and big eyes comes and deposits a cup of coffee in front of Sehun, together with a trail of sweet pastries for his friends.

“At last,” he comments, finally letting the paradisiac smell of black coffee fill his nostrils.

Ilhoon shakes his head. “I can’t believe it, you’re really a spoiled prince. How does it work, do you snap your fingers and someone arrives with everything you need?”

“Basically. I don’t see you refraining yourself from eating, though. So you’re as guilty as me.” He watches, with malicious satisfaction, as Ilhoon chokes on his pastry. Seulgi snickers. The world is so much better after a sip of coffee. “Besides, you have house elves in Gryffindor too. It’s not my fault if you’re too dumb to ask them to bring you things.”

“You’re unbelievable,” the Gryffindor concludes, but the words lack the usual bite.


☆

When Ilhoon leaves, after making Sehun promise that they’ll see each other tomorrow in the library, Seulgi stays. She flips her long, dark hair to the side and sends a sultry glance to the young Slytherin students who’re crowding the staircase that leaves to the dorm in the faint hope to catch a glimpse of her. She may be Gryffindor and they don't really trust her, but she’s very beautiful, a Gryffindor queen.

“You put quite a show before, with Ilhoon,” she comments, turning towards Sehun and crossing her legs.

“He’s a brat.”

“You’re the biggest brat. I can’t believe there was a time when I used to consider you a heartless, cold bastard. You’re like the biggest baby this school has ever seen. You only survive because Wendy babysits you all the time.”

“And you formed this opinion in, what, three days that you’ve known me?”

She kicks him.

“Aish, this woman. She dares to kick me. What shall we do to this horrible woman, Candy?”

“And what should we do with this terrible man, then?”

They both turn towards the stone portal, where Wendy has just appeared with a wave to the gargoyle. She enters the room like a queen, shedding her cape on the armchair, next to Seulgi’s, and then letting herself fall on the couch next to Sehun. She even steals a corner of his blanket – well, technically it’s Sooyoung’s blanket, but still.

“Well, well, well. What have we here? Today is the day of surprises. Gryffindors coming to visit Slytherin, Slytherins letting them in and, the biggest surprise of them all, Oh Sehun waking up before lunch on a Saturday morning. I’m impressed.”

He snorts and calls the House Elf for another cup of coffee.

“Finally you’re here, Wendy. Take this woman away from me, please, I’ve had enough of Godric Gryffindor’s spawn for the rest of the week.”

Seulgi’s eyes sparkle as she leans towards Wendy, speaking in a confidential tone. “What should I answer to such atrocious words?” Wendy’s eyes are as equally shining when she replies. “You should laugh of his empty offences, I think. It’s the only way to beat him, since he only say these things to annoy you. He doesn’t really mean them.”

“You shouldn’t reveal my secrets so easily, Wendy.”

She answers with a wink, before standing up with a single, fluid movement and pulling on Seulgi’s arm. “Come on Seulgi, let’s leave this man to his daily brooding. I’ll show you my room. See you later, Sehunnie!”

“See you later, Sehunnie,” echoes Seulgi, as the two girls disappear, taking Candy with them.

Sehun stares into the fireplace for a few minutes, feeling a strange warm feeling in his chest. It’s a fuzzy little thing, similar to what he felt when Jongin and Zitao were still in Hogwarts, when Baekhyun and Kris and all his friends were there. It may be happiness.

Suddenly, he’s struck by the impelling need to see Minseok and share this with him, show him that things may be changing for him. It’s such a little step, but for Sehun, whose life is a continuous replay of the same action, even talking with Ilhoon and Seulgi is the greatest change.

But Minseok and Sehun are still not talking. Minseok is still pretending he doesn't see Sehun in class, or in the hallways, and Sehun doesn't go to the Great Hall anymore because he knows he'd end up staring at the teacher like a fool in love. Sometimes he feels angry at Minseok, sometimes he wants Minseok to notice him. Most of the time, he just feels hopeless.



December 3rd

The first snow finds Hogwarts unprepared, and before anyone can realize a thin layer of white has already turned the Forbidden Forest into a cotton candy field. Sehun hopes all the Acromantula spiders in the woods freeze and die.

In the bathroom of the Astronomy Tower, sitting on the edge of his beloved window, Sehun watches the world fade to white, disappearing under a veil of white. The snow eats space and sounds, leaving behind only the rhythmic sound of water dripping down the third sink, punctuated by sporadic gushes of wind against the glass of the window. Sehun is grateful for those little, tiny sounds, filling the silence and keeping Minseok from hearing how Sehun's heart is beating like a mad drum inside his chest. Minseok, who has shown up, unexpected and unannounced, after ignoring Sehun for more than a month.

When Sehun arrives, his lighter already out and a cigarette between thin lips, Minseok is already there, leaning on the tiled wall. There is no hesitation, no awkwardness. His back is straight, his hands are not shaking. He doesn't look like someone who came to apologize, he looks like someone who came to conquer. He's so tiny compared to Sehun, but his presence fills the room, pushing Sehun to the corners, suffocating him.

Sehun gulps, swallows the words he wants to say. He wants to be sour and biting, to ask Minseok whether he's finally decided to talk to him again. He wants to raise his eyes and meet Minseok's, to be defiant and prissy and hurtful. He feels stupid and stubborn and hurt, because Minseok has ignored him in the corridors, because Minseok has not looked for him until now. He's afraid, that Minseok has only come here to finally say goodbye to him, to put him back where he belongs, because Sehun is a student and Minseok is a teacher, and it's as simple as that.

But Minseok, with his thin wrists and cold hands and tender smiles, Minseok has this thing, this horrible, terrifying thing. He had it when he was a Prefect, dragged it with himself through his promotion to Head Boy, clung tight to it when he was appointed substitute professor. When he faces Sehun, Minseok makes an effort - more than one effort to be honest, Minseok makes a lot of efforts - to put himself on Sehun's same level. It doesn't matter how far they are or if society builds a wall between them - boundaries made of age and old words carved in the school's rules book, that forbids relationships between students and teaching staff - Minseok breaks through the wall so easily. He steps down the ladder, takes Sehun’s hands in his own, tilts Sehun's head upwards with the feather light caress of his fingers until they're staring at each other, the perfect height for a kiss.

“Sehun, won't you look at me?”

Sehun's fingers shake around the lighter, they shake around the cigarette the same way his throat shake around the smoke as he inhales and exhales, eyes still fixed on some unreachable point outside the window, somewhere between the Forbidden Forest and the rapidly disappearing hills that surround the castle. Green fades to blue and blue fades to white, mingling with the snow in the same way the pale blue of the tiled walls blends with the coils of smoke coming out of Sehun's mouth. It's easier to watch outside, avoiding Minseok's eyes, trying to stay away from this confrontation as long as Sehun can. The snow has fallen like a veil on Hogwarts, light and impalpable and cold, but Minseok's eyes are hot and heavy, burning Sehun's skin as he takes in another handful of smoke.

He's quite expecting the teacher to scold him, like a teacher would, but there's the thing, Minseok's thing, and Sehun had forgotten how unpredictable and dangerous Minseok could be. Like a Gryffindor - when he takes a decision he commits to it, no hesitation, no spaces left for Sehun to run - Minseok closes on him, his fingers tightening on Sehun's own fingers. Their touch is cold and burns. He takes the cigarette out of Sehun's weak ones and brings it to his own mouth. Sehun's eyes can't help but follow the gesture, falling on the soft contours on Minseok's mouth, lips red and slightly chapped, disclosed like petals to take the smoke in.

Minseok takes a deep breath, sucking smoke in his lungs and blowing him out just a few breaths shy of Sehun's face. Sehun stares, fascinated, the shape Minseok's lips take when he's pushing the smoke out in lazy spirals, the light tilt of his head, muscles in his throat moving underneath the skin. And then, as if attracted by a magnet, his eyes get caught in the Minseok's ones, tripping on their trap, and he stays there, paralyzed, like a deer in headlights.

Minseok's eyes are like dark wells. Sehun can see his inner turmoil reflexed in them, a perfect replica of the storm inside his head, but Minseok's eyes are calm. Gryffindor. No hesitation, when they've taken a decision.

Minseok doesn't hesitate. He puts the cigarette back where it belonged, in Sehun's fingers, but the boy is too numb to hold it. The cigarette falls on the tiled round without making a sound and he doesn't even realize. Because Minseok smiles, look at Sehun's messy fringe almost like he wants to sweep it out of his face, and kisses him.

It's not the kiss of his dreams. It's not sexy or deep or long - Sehun can remember better kisses shared with Wendy in the solitude of her room. But right now he doesn't care about technique and setting and fire burning low in his gut because this is Minseok and he's kissing Sehun, lightly, at the corner of his mouth, a feather-like touch of lips on lips, and Minseok's hands may be cold but his mouth is not. It warms Sehun from the inside.

In that single moment, everything Kris and Wendy have told him, carefully orchestrated plans crafted in Wendy's room through Floo calls, vanishes, Disapparated away without spells or wands. Minseok's lips taste like smoke and surprise, and Sehun wants to close his eyes and enjoy the kiss but it doesn't last long enough and he's still blinking like a Stupefied kid when Minseok moves away and stares at him smugly.

“Do I have your attention now?”

Because Minseok has this thing, this horrible dangerous thing, when he closes every distance between him and Sehun, destroys every barrier, pushes through every boundary. He steps down his ladder, takes Sehun's hands in his own, tilts Sehun's head upwards with the feather light caress of his fingers until they're staring at each other. The perfect height for a kiss.


☆

Sehun gasps, blinks, closes it mouth and open it again. He doesn't know what to say and Minseok is too close, it's short circuiting his brain and making him splutter like a fish.

“I shouldn't have done that,” says Minseok, and it's not fair, it's really not fair, the way his fingers linger on Sehun's skin. Cold fingers, like the cold, sparkling air after the first snow of the air. “I shouldn't have really done that.”

Why, Sehun wants to ask, but Minseok takes a step backwards, breaths deeply to calm himself, hands falling on his sides, purposefully kept away from Sehun's face.

“Why?” he finally asks, his voice unsteady, lost, with just a dash of anger. He's still too surprised to process that Minseok is being an ass again, kissing him and then saying he regrets it. He’s still too surprised to hide behind his usual mask of coldness.

“Because I'm a teacher and you're a student and I shouldn't treat you like this. Not yet.”

“What do you mean not yet?” asks Sehun, but Minseok ignores him.

“I shouldn't have done that, but I really wanted to do that, you know? I've been wanting to do that since that night in my room, maybe earlier. You have no idea how cute you looked that day, sitting on my couch and sipping the hot cocoa I had made for you and talking about your adventures in Muggle London. And you looked cute the following morning, when you came to my room wearing your nightgown and your face was all sleepy and puffy, but usually you look hot to me. I wanted to kiss you every time I met you in the hallways or I saw you in class.”

“But you couldn't,” concludes Sehun for him, angrily, “because you're a teacher and I'm just a student.”

“You are so much more than a student for me, Oh Sehun. And I'm not only a teacher. I'm a man and I like you.”

“Why didn't you kiss me before then, if you really liked me?”

“Because I've made so many mistakes since I came to Hogwarts. I didn't want you to be just another mistake I made in Hogwarts, just another way for me to forget about my duties. You're so much more than that, Sehun.” He sighs. “I wanted to wait until after you graduated before I officially asked you out.”

It's like living in one of those silly snow globes. Someone turned it upside down to make the snow fall and now Sehun's life has been turned upside down too and he doesn't know if he's living reality or a fantasy. The snow keeps falling and Minseok talks about love. Sehun blinks and hopes the magic doesn't end. He hopes it keeps snowing forever.

“So why did you kiss me now? I’m not a graduated student yet.”

Minseok smiles and touches Sehun's face again, tracing the line of his jaw with tender fingers. “Because I thought you were really beautiful, standing in front of the window, with the snow falling at your back. You really looked like a prince,” an amused light flashes in his eyes. “but you really should quit smoking on the school grounds.”

“Just that? Because I was too handsome and you couldn't contain yourself?”

“That, and because I'm leaving in less than a month.”




December 14th

“And that's why I think we should prepare a goodbye party.”

Sehun stares at Jinri, not knowing what to answer. Her eyes are so big, shiny and hopeful. She looks like the character of those Asian comics Taemin once lent to Jongin. She blinks and her long lashes curl. She must be using that new magic mascara that Wendy and Sooyoung use too, the one that is rumored to make your lashes grow every day. Around them, the other students of the Muggle Studies class are pretending to be really busy with their bag straps, but Sehun knows they're hungrily spying on his and Jinri's exchange.

“I think...” he begins, not really knowing what she expects him to say, “it's a very nice idea. Professor Kim will surely appreciate it.”

Jinri's smile blossom in an ecstatic expression and she pats Sehun's shoulder. “I knew you would've liked the idea! Well, then it's settled! You'll be in charge of the gift. Find out what professor Kim likes and we can buy it during our Muggle London's trip next week!”

“Wait- What do you mean... I didn't agree to do anything...”

She doesn't even listen to him. “Girls, we're in charge of food and beverages; Hoseok, decorations; Ilhoon, cleaning up after the party.”

Ilhoon shakes his head. “No no no, my dear, I think it's better if I go with Sehun to Muggle London to buy the gift, obviously. I wouldn't want him to get lost there. His family is really rich, if something happens to him they could press charges on us.”

“You can do both thing, it's not my problem anymore,” she concludes with a brilliant smile. “Now excuse me, Arithmancy class doesn't wait.”

“What the hell did just happen?” asks Sehun to no one when after she storms out of the room to reach her next class. Hoseok shrugs next to him. It's strange to have almost-friendly interactions with him but when he's not glaring at Sehun like he wants him to drop dead he can actually be an ok guy.

“And how do you think to save me from getting lost in Muggle London?” continues Sehun, this time turning to Ilhoon. “Have you ever been to Muggle London?”

“Actually not, why would I go there? It's dangerous, full of Muggles. That's why I should come with you. To protect you!”

“For your information I've been to Muggle London a lot of times!” protests Sehun.

“Perfect, that means we've found a guide for our trip next week!”

They all turn towards Jinri, who walks in the classroom, takes a forgotten roll of parchment from her desk and walks away again with Minzy and Suzy, their heels clicking on the old stone floor.

Hoseok sighs. “I don't really like you Oh, but I'll give you a very important advice now. Never ever say you can do something in front of Choi Jinri or she'll make you do it.”

“Maybe I should say I can grab her boobs then,” jokes Ilhoon.

“Maybe I should say I can throw you out of the window the last time you say something this silly,” Sehun shoots back. Ilhoon's face turns sour at the joke and that's when Sehun realizes. Joking. he can't believe he's joking with Jung Ilhoon at the presence of Jung Hoseok. “Ok, that was strange bordering on creepy. I invited you in my Common Room and now I'm joking with you. I must go before we really start to become friends.”

He walks away just in time to hear Hoseok last, surprised and surprising comment. “Did I actually find that funny?”


☆

Minseok's couch is soft and comfortable and the magic fire burning in the fireplace is warmer than the one in Slytherin's Common Room. That's what Sehun tells Minseok every time the teacher opens the door of his rooms with a questioning glance to Sehun.

This time too, he doesn't even bother asking for permission before he's shooting towards the couch and collapsing on a comfy pillow.

Minseok closes the door and goes back to the table, where he's checking the answers of Fifth Year's Muggle Studies class' tests. After a few minutes, he turns towards Sehun, clearly unhappy about his lack of reactions.

“Why are you so quiet today?”

It makes Sehun laughs inwardly because he's usually a very quiet person. He loves to read comics, to play videogames, to listen to music and to be a little asocial shit most of the times. His friends are well aware of it, and during years of friendship they've learnt how to slowly coax him out of his happy bubble of silence. Except Wendy. Wendy merciless bursts the bubble and runs over Sehun demanding attention, but that's not the point. The point is that Sehun is not really a talkative person, but when he is with Minseok it's like his dam is broken, for the first time in his life.

Maybe it's because Minseok is leaving in a few days and Sehun feels like his time is running out and he still doesn't know anything about Minseok. His favorite color, the subjects he was good at and the ones he outright hated, when he had his first smoke, his first kiss, his first crush. Did he ever sneak out of the school through one of the secret passages to go to Honeydukes and buy some Butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs?

Some questions are silly, but some questions are heavy and he rolls them in his mouth for hours, feeling their weight on his tongue until he has memorized the words and he could recite them in his sleep. It's his personal way to find the courage to ask things like why did Minseok decide to become a teacher. Why does he like Sehun. Why is he leaving.

Sehun has asked the last question in his head so many times that the words must be branded with fire in his mind. He already knows the answer. Minseok has told him, after a kiss that felt like smoke and the first snow of the year.

“When you faced me, the morning after Halloween, I realized I wasn't ready for this job. Not yet. You were telling me the truth, everyone was telling me the truth and I couldn't believe all of you because I couldn't accept that one of the student of my House, one of my friends, had behaved like a little ass and put the safety of another student in danger for something stupid like House rivalry. Your face that day, Sehun, I will never forget it in my life. I became a teacher because I wanted to help students, be a pillar of support to them, and with you I failed. I felt so disappointed with myself.”

“You made Jungkook confess though,” Sehun answered, but Minseok merely shook his head. “It was the least I could do. But that doesn't mean I'm ready. I'm only twenty one, Sehun. I want to go back to university and study more and only come back when I'm really ready to be a good teacher.”

Sehun wanted to protest, he wanted Minseok to stay and to kiss him again - something Minseok won't do anyway, at least until he's still a Hogwarts professor. Even now, after a few days, Minseok's decision leaves him conflicted and confused. He wants to graduate immediately so he can be with Minseok, but at the same time he doesn't want to leave Hogwarts so soon. Things are changing - or maybe he's the one who's changed, for good.

He still wishes Minseok could stay, at least until he graduates, but there's really nothing he can do to change Minseok's mind and deep inside he doesn't even want to. He remembers how it felt when Minseok wouldn't believe him and it was awful. Even if it's only one mistake, a teacher can easily forget it - it will get lost among the countless faces of so many students - but among those students there will be one who won't forget so easily that sense of helplessness and worthlessness.

“Sehun? Are you listening?”

He just hums, turning to hide his face against the pillow. He could easily fall asleep like this. It's been a long day, with Potions, Charms and double Transfiguration and after two hours Sehun still doesn't know how to turn a pig into a desk.

Minseok pinches him, hard, like only Wendy dares to do.

“What was that for?” yelps Sehun, almost kicking Minseok off the couch, but the teacher ruffles his hair again. “Don't fall asleep! I talked with Professor Kangin and you have six rolls of parchment on Amortensia due for tomorrow so get up and do your homework.”

Sehun pouts, even if he knows it won't work with Minseok, and then he reluctantly takes out his Potions notes.

They've fallen into an easy routine, he and Minseok. They're not exactly dating. They don't kiss and they don't hold hands like normal couples do. Not while Kim Minseok is still on Hogwarts' payroll. Not yet. They talk a lot, but they can also spend an entire afternoon just minding their own business - Sehun doing his homework or reading while Minseok prepares for his next class. Most of the time though, Sehun just plays with Minseok's stuff. There are a lot of interesting things in his room, like for example a Macbook Air. A real Macbook. Sehun’s eyes shine as he puts his hands over that treasure.

“Pretty cool, right?” asks the teacher.

“It's just a shiny, expensive toy,” he answers, trying to hide his anticipation. “I bet you can't even use it at its full potential. Can I turn it on?”

Minseok scoffs but says yes anyway. “Just be careful, don’t take any viruses,” he warns, but Sehun just shakes his head and presses the start button. “It’s a Macbook, it can’t take viruses.”

“So it wasn’t a lie, you’re really interested in Muggle stuff.”

“Well, not exactly interested.” Sehun just doesn't want to think what his father would do if he knew the truth.

“It was one of the first reasons I got interested in you,” confesses Minseok as he sits next to Sehun on the couch, not too close but close enough that Sehun can feel his warmth. When he tries to plaster himself on Minseok's side, the teacher scoots towards the end of the couch. Unfortunately for Sehun, Minseok is adamantine on the no skinship until I'm not your teacher anymore rule.

“You liked me because I know how to start a laptop?”

Minseok laughs at the idea. “It sounds silly, right? But it was so strange for me, that a Pure-blood heir like you could be good with Muggle stuff. At the beginning, you were really a mystery to me. A very complicated puzzle that I couldn't solve even if I tried. And I tried so hard, but when I thought I was coming close to the solution I realized you weren't a puzzle to be solved. You were a trap and I was already fucked.”

“Oh, thank you for freaking out and starting to ignore me after that,” he mutters, but secretly he feels very proud of himself. In fifty years he still won't know why Minseok managed to fall in love with a boring person like him, but he doesn't care. Minseok likes him. Minseok likes him. It's so strange and unreal that Sehun doesn't know what to feel. One day his brain will catch up and he'll probably faint. He just hopes Minseok won't be there to witness his complete transformation into a puddle of feels just because his long life crush and first love actually reciprocates his feelings.

“Oh Sehun, I couldn’t ignore you even if I tried.”

“But you were ignoring me!”

“I was dying inside,” proclaims Minseok, his eyes closed, just to mock Sehun.

He pouts and Minseok laughs, ruffling his hair. This is still wrong and Minseok is still his teacher for at least another week. But they really don’t care, because after this week Minseok will leave Hogwarts and even though they'll officially be free to date they won't be able to do it because Minseok will be on the other side of the country.

Minseok hasn't started to pack his stuff yet. He needs to clear everything soon so that Professor Jung can take her old rooms back. Her wedding lasted less than a semester and, according to her sister Krystal, no one in the family really liked him anyway, so Jessica Jung will be returning to Hogwarts after Christmas and Kim Minseok will leave for Scotland - or wherever young teacher apprentices go.

Sehun closes his eyes and lets Minseok's old stereo lulls him to sleep. His Potions paper lies unattended on the floor. He should write other three rolls, at least, but he can always do that later. For now, he lets the slow, hypnotic voice of Patsy Cline fill his mind. It's old Muggle music, a passion that Minseok has inherited from his father and his vinyl collection. Sehun usually prefers metal, or sometimes rock, but Minseok is slowly teaching him the joys of jazz and blues, and sometimes even the same Italian classical music pieces that Baekhyun loved so much.

“It's late, we should go to dinner,” says Minseok after a while, and Sehun realizes he has really fallen asleep on the couch, next to his half-assed Potions paper.

“But I want to stay here,” he whines.

“I want to go to dinner though, so what should I do with you, Sehunnie?”

“Can we stay if I tell you a secret, something no one else knows?”

Minseok looks interested and Sehun makes himself comfortable on the couch again, determined not to leave its softness.

“What kind of secret?” asks Minseok, faintly intrigued.

“Something not even Wendy or Jongin or Tao know.”

Now Minseok looks definitely intrigued. “I will go to dinner anyway, but tell me the secret and not only you can stay here, but I'll also bring you something to eat from the kitchens when I come back, alright?”

Sehun nods enthusiastically. “Ok, it's a very important secret and I never trusted anyone with it. No one but you, ok? Swear on Godric Gryffindor's ugly face.”

“I'll swear on Salazar Slytherin's nosy nose. Tell me the secret, Sehunnie.”

“I'm not... actually a true Slytherin,” he says, after a deep breath.

Minseok frowns. “What do you mean?”

““I was never really meant to be a Slytherin. The Hat wanted to Sort me into Hufflepuff. Oh Sehun the Hufflepuff, can you believe it? My dad would've disowned me on the spot and my mom wouldn't have batted an eyelash to stop him.”

“This is your big secret, Oh Sehun?” Minseok looks... baffled.

“Hey, it's a very important secret. I don't want the other guys to think I'm not a true Slytherin, but... I'm not. I'm a missed Hufflepuff.”

He usually tries not to think about that day, the voice of the Hat echoing in his head, his pitiful plea of “Please, please, please, send me to Slytherin.” The Sorting Hat made him happy, but Sehun still wonders if it was the right choice. Many times, he has felt the difference between himself and his other friends in the way they were so ambitious and smart and powerful, in the way they always have a dream and they're ready to do anything to make it become true. Sehun has never had a dream, until now. But he doesn't know if he's strong enough to make it happen. A true Slytherin would probably be able to do it, but Sehun is a Hufflepuff in a snake’s skin, and what do Hufflepuff have? Patience, loyalty, the ability to be hardworking? He doubts any of these qualities will help him face his father.

“Oh Sehun, you may have chosen that house to make your parents happy, but Slytherin was your home for almost seven years and you have the same right to call it your House as everyone else. Don't ever forget it, ok?”

Minseok gets up, throwing a last fond look at Sehun, and takes his cape. It's almost dinner time. Sehun closes his eyes.

“Minseok? Do you think we can choose our own destiny? I chose Slytherin to make my father happy and I was really happy here, but I don't want my parents to take every other choice away from me.” But Minseok doesn't answer. Only then Sehun realizes Minseok has already left the room to go to the Great Hall. And only then, to the silent and empty room, Sehun dares to say, “Am I really brave enough to go against my father?”

The stereo stops playing, as if shocked by Sehun's suggestion. It's an old stereo that sometimes throws a tantrum or simply stops playing, just to spite Sehun. The boy reluctantly gets up and tries to start the music again, with no avail. Maybe it’s broken. Well, at least he knows what to buy for Minseok's farewell gift.






x. jongin


December 17th

Sehun has been to Muggle London a lot of times mostly with Jongin and Zitao, sometimes with Baekhyun, but never by himself. Today is not different. Ilhoon, next to him, looks like an overexcited kid, completely fascinated by the winter lights shining above their heads. It's the sixth time Sehun has to grab his coat to keep him from jumping on the streets, totally oblivious to the cars shooting back and forth across the busy streets of a metropolis a few days before Christmas.

They came here to collect material for their final paper with a special authorization signed by the principal and Minseok himself. In their hands, a list of tasks they must complete before they can go back to Hogwarts. Crossing the streets, buying fish and chips using Muggle money, asking a Muggle to take a picture of them in front of Buckingham Palace, entering a phone booth. This should be their midterms exam, but looking at some of the tasks - take a bus tour of the city - it feels more like a vacation. Minseok's last gift.

“It's a pity we can't stay until night,” says Ilhoon with a pout, “I would've really liked to do the Jack the Ripper tour. Did you know he was a wizard? I'm really curious about what these Muggles think about him.”

Sehun rolls his eyes. Ilhoon seems to think that the best way to break Sehun's wall of silence is to talk against it until it collapses. So far, the results have been meagre, but Ilhoon counts every word he's managed to tear away from Sehun's reluctant lips as a victory.

“Aren't you tired to be so grumpy all the time? You'll get premature wrinkles!”

“When that happens, I'll change skin like the snake I am.”

“Oh, really? But I thought you Pure-blood assholes preserved your youth by bathing in the blood of virgin Muggle girls.”

“I would hit you but I don't really want to touch you. You're a Gryffindor, you could infect me with dumbness.” However, he does grab Ilhoon's hand again to keep him from running in the middle of the street to chase a firefighter truck. “And be careful, since you're carrying the gift.”

Ilhoon nods, confused. “I know, I know, no running in front of the cars. But I think it's really stupid that they didn't add a safety spell, you know?” Sehun has given up on explaining Ilhoon that Muggles can't use spells. The notion seems to vanish from his mind as quickly as it enters it.

A rapid look at the sky tells him that it's quite late and they should hurry up. The train will leave at 6pm and they're on the wrong side of the city. Of course they could Apparate outside Hogwarts, but it's a long trip and he doesn't trust Ilhoon - who had to take the exams six times because he kept forgetting his legs on the wrong side - to make it to Hogwarts on one piece.

His precautions are useless though, because even if he manages to call a taxi - making Ilhoon squeal in delight because oh my god we're on a Muggle taxi - the roads are packed and when they finally arrive at King's Cross their train has already left.

That's when Ilhoon starts to freak out.

“For Godric's balls, we're lost Oh, we're lost in Muggle London, without a broomstick, without an owl... Without a place to stay for the whole night!”

“Don't worry Jung, we won't sleep on the streets. In the worst case, we can always go to Diagon Alley and book a room at the Leaky Cauldron. But I don't think we'll be forced to do that.”

“And how do you think to go back to Hogwarts?”

“The Knight bus. It's still early for the night service. We have to wait a few hours, but we'll be at Hogwarts before curfew. We just have to warn Professor Kim that we'll be late and for that I need a phone.” He pauses, shuffling his weight from a foot to the other one, a bit unsure. There's only one place that is both close and warm and also furnished with a phone but he's not sure he wants to bring Ilhoon there.

“Ok, let's go,” he says in the end, making way for Ilhoon. “Stick close to me and remember... No wand, no spells, no magic talk, ok?”

“Wait, where are we going?”

“I have a few Muggle friends. They will lend me a phone.”

Ilhoon chokes, for good this time. Sehun doesn't wait for him to start asking questions, he just pulls him forward.

“Wait a moment... Muggle friends? You? Your family is rumored to hunt Muggles and behead them and hang their heads on the walls...”

“Actually we marinade them and they're served pickled at family dinners,” he mutters, and it's not without a certain degree of self-satisfaction that he watches Ilhoon's face become green.

“Aren't you afraid I will reveal your secret? Do I have to swear on my blood that I will keep my mouth shut about this or...”

“No one would believe you. Listen, I'm just asking you to not talk about wizard stuff in front of my friends. They're Muggles. Like, totally unaware of the magic world, ok? Don't scare them, keep your mouth shut and we'll be out of there in five minutes.” He hopes Ilhoon will behave or this is the good time Sehun frees the world from his ill-timed tongue.

Sehun has never been to the tiny flat Wonshik shares with Taemin, but his two friends live near the train station and it only takes a short walk to reach them. Minseok's phone number is easy, almost all 3s and 6s and luckily Sehun has memorized it with ease because he doubts Taemin or Wonshik will have an owl available for Sehun's needs.

He remembers the first time they all met. Him and Jongin, wearing awkward wizard robes. Taemin with the backpack falling haphazardly from his left shoulder, no books inside but his change of clothes for the dance class. Wonshik, perfectly ironed uniform and a big smile on his face. Sehun and Jongin, sometimes Zitao too, were there during Taemin's long hair phase and Wonshik's piercing and blue hair phase. Taemin taught Jongin the secrets of break dance and Jongin thanked him by showing him how to do a perfect grand jetè, but Wonshik was the one who dyed Sehun's hair all the different colors of the rainbow for a lost bet in the summer between his fifth and sixth year in Hogwarts. Zitao and Jongin had laughed for weeks and only Wendy's most powerful spell had turned his hair to its natural color again.

Sehun recognizes the house from the blurry photos Wonshik has sent him, a dirty building with tiny windows and a narrow staircase, the perfect place for poor students. There are some bicycles tied in the courtyard and even an old and dented pizza scooter.

It takes four floors and a lot of stairs, but finally Sehun finds the right door. The lousy oh no, not you again mat shouts Wonshik from a distance of three miles.

With a last, warning glare to Ilhoon, he finally rings the doorbell. There's a moment of silence, then laughs and booming voices. They're probably deciding who will open the door. Steps, the door knob clicks and...

“Sehun?”

...And a perplexed Sehun finds himself facing the equally perplexed face of a Kim Jongin.


☆

Jongin is thinner than Sehun has ever seen him, with deep, dark bags under his eyes and three days’ worth of stubble to decorate his jaw. He's wearing a pizza boy jacket, the same logo of that old scooter back in the courtyard. He has pink hair.

“Well,” hazards Sehun to break the awkward silence, “you don't really look like the next Minister of Magic.”

Jongin tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. “My parents will have to deal with it. Their only son will never climb the ladder at the Ministry. But apparently I have a future in professional dancing, at least according to the rest of the guys.”

“Which guys?” he asks Sehun, and he takes a moment to inner congratulate himself on his lack of hysteria. Kim Jongin is living in a dirty flat near King’s Cross while everyone else thinks he’s a intern at the Ministry.

“My dance crew.” Jongin shrugs. “We have a few gigs during the week, but we still don't make a lot of money. I have to work to pay for the Arts university.”

“Arts university,” hisses Sehun. “You're taking Muggle university! I can't believe you're...” His voice dies in a whisper as he hears Taemin's voice coming from the other room, where he left him with Ilhoon hoping in the common sense of the Gryffindor.

“I am a dance major,” clarifies Jongin, and if Sehun wasn't so distressed by this whole situation he'd probably facepalm.

“So you're actually saying that in the last four months you ran away from home, crashed at your friends' place, found yourself a job and applied to Muggle university?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And when in the four realms of Merlin were you thinking of telling us?”

This time, Jongin's face reddens in shame. “It was really difficult. Zitao was abroad and you were in Hogwarts and I didn't know how to contact you without going to Diagon Alley and using an owl, but I was too afraid that someone would recognize me and tell my parents. If they find me it's over, they'll make sure no one can ever hire me again and they'll find a way to have me thrown out of the school. I can't allow it, Sehun, this is my dream.”

Jongin's parents would do that. They are powerful enough and they have no qualms. Sehun knows they've never seen Jongin as something more than a trophy, their most beautiful possession. They played matchmaker for his three sisters with powerful men with key position in the Ministry, but Jongin was different. A son that will one day become Minister of Magic, they used to say. Sehun knows the sensation. His parents, after all, are the same.

They are quite similar, he and Jongin, and they've been friends since forever. But while Sehun hid his sadness behind a wall of silence that only his friends could break, Jongin's mood were violent and sudden like explosions. The more his parents paid to cover for his atrocious behavior, the more dangerous he became, in the desperate quest of a way to show his frustration, a way powerful enough that not even his parents' money would've been able to cover it. When it didn't work, Jongin started to dance. For a creature capable of creating so much chaos, he was extremely graceful, his strength calculated to look beautiful onstage.

Dance was something his parents never understood, and thus they were never able to destroy. But Sehun knows way too well how easy would be for them to ruin everything now.

“This is why you never answered our owls, right? Me and Zitao were starting to get worried for you.”

Jongin nods meekly. “The owls reached the Ministry but they were redirected to my family house. My parents are doing everything they can to find me, but this is Muggle London. As long as I don't use magic, they have no way to find me.”

Jongin looks so much older. For everyone he may be a hooligan and a punk, but for Sehun he will always be the boy who loves to play with puppies and pirouette on the ball room and falls asleep everywhere and always forgets his wand in the most stupid places. But this Jongin, with badly dyed hair and the signs of hard work carved on his body, may be someone Sehun doesn't really know.

Jongin passes a big hand on his messy hair and looks at Sehun like a beggar. “You have to believe me, Sehun, I tried. I really did. I went to work and I tried my best to be the son my parents wanted, but I couldn't waste my life in that hellhole they called office. I just want to dance.”

“Stop using the puppy eyes, you know they don't work on me!”

But they do, and really well, and Jongin knows. He bats his eyelashes and for a split moment they're seven and six years old again and Jongin is begging Sehun to forgive him for breaking his toy broomstick after he tried to use it as a bat for a Quidditch game with Wendy. Sehun forgave him back then and he will forgive him this time too, he just knows. He wouldn't even be too angry at Jongin, if his friend hadn't kept this from him.

“I would've told you Sehunnie, I swear. During Christmas holidays. As soon as you came back home and Zitao came back from the training camp and your phones started to work again I would've texted you. You must believe me, Sehunnie.”

“Ok, ok!” Sehun sighs and his head collapses on the table. “You're still my best friend, but that dye job is awful and I'm not forgiving you for keeping this from me until you get rid of it.”


☆

Wonshik is still working at some diner on the other side of the city and they won't be able to meet him tonight. It’s a pity, Sehun hasn’t seen him in months, but Taemin manages to make up for his absence with coffee accompanied by some apparently burnt muffins that actually taste like heaven.

“Wonshik baked them this afternoon before leaving for the night shift at the restaurant. I'm not the best cook of the house,” he says with a shrug and an apologetic smile, “but at least I'm better than Jongin. I don’t know where you two secretive bastards grew up but it must have been far away from civilization because he doesn’t even know how the gas stove works.”

“And I have no intention to learn,” mutters Jongin, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

“When will you tell me your secret, guys? I've talked with your friend Ilhoon and he's even stranger than you two put together - and I must say that in the past four year you two have said quite the strangest things. He asked me why the pics in the newspaper weren't moving and if the television is the Muggle version of a crystal ball.” Ilhoon tries to make himself as small as possible while Sehun internally takes a note to strangle him when they're out of here. He had one job.

“Come on, what are you?”

“We belong to a really secret cult,” says Jongin in a conspiratorial tone. Taemin laughs and shakes his head. “One day you will tell me the truth, my friend,” and he goes to do the dishes.

“One day I really will have to and then the Office of Misinformation will have my head,” says Jongin, shaking his head, once Taemin is gone.

“I thought the rules couldn't be applied in cases of love relationships.”

This time Jongin blushes violently, his face assuming the same lovely color of his hair, just a few tones brighter. “Fucking Taemin doesn't count as a love relationship. We're single men with needs and no girlfriend.”

“Taemin is the only girl you'll ever need and Wonshik, the crazy bastard, just wants you to make an honest woman out of him.” Well, Taemin doesn't really look like a woman anymore. Gone are the times when he would call Jongin in tears because someone at school made fun of his girly face and Jongin would fly to London on his broomstick just to punch the bastard in the face. Now Taemin really looks like a man, but Jongin still watches him like he's seeing Lady Morgana coming out of the Lake just to smile at him.

Jongin punches him on the shoulder and it hurts like a Stupefy but Sehun has made him blush and this is a day to be proud of, something to tell his nephews when he’ll be old and wrinkly. Jongin punches him again, this time harder, just to be sure it hurts.


☆

“The Knight bus will be here any moment now.”

Ilhoon and Taemin have become friends enough for Taemin to teach Ilhoon how to do a brofist, Baymax version, and that's how they say goodbye. Sehun just waves. He won't be able to visit them during Christmas holidays - Jongin's parents are still looking for him and it's better not to risk being followed until his friend's new house - but they'll figure something out as soon as he can use his phone again.

Before they leave, Jongin approaches him, almost shyly.

“Thank you for understanding, Sehun. It really means a lot to me.”

“Thank you for doing what you did,” he replies. “You know, I've thought a lot about my future. My parents wants me to enter the Wizengamot and I don't know if it's the right thing for me. Thank you for teaching me that there's another choice.”

“Whatever you choose, remember that in the long run it will be what you do for the rest of your life, so choose wisely Sehunnie, ok?”

Jongin's pats are always too hard and he almost sends Sehun to the floor.

“See you soon guys!” Ilhoon screams, waving like crazy as they leave. Sehun simply mouths a “Goodbye, losers!” and they're back in the streets, and the Knight Bus has almost run over them.

“Are you sure this thing is safe? My mom said not to take the Knight Bus bec-”

They leave with a yank and finally, for Sehun's great joy, Ilhoon ends up with his face on the ground.







xi. sehun&minseok

December 23rd

The Lake shines a thousand lights, candles floating in the air, magic fires that the sharp cold of December cannot extinguish. Jinri knew what she was doing when she left Hoseok in charge of the decorations.

There are so many students. It should've been a party for Minseok, but everyone got invited and the whole school can be found partying on the shores of the Black Lake. Sehun catches a glimpse of Taehyung and Sooyoung, spinning on the dance floor, barefoot. She wears a pale blue dress that twirls around them at every step and she's good enough to make up for Taehyung's still consistent limp. At the buffet table, Jungkook stares at Jimin and sighs, wishing he had the courage to ask him to dance. Even a tipsy Ren has finally managed to separate Seulgi and Wendy to ask the latter a dance. “Only one though,” warns him Seulgi. Left without a companion, she turns around to look for one and Sehun quickly disappears before she can drag him to the dance floor. She would do it on purpose just to see him fumbling awkwardly and mock him. The more Sehun knows her, the more Sehun thinks she should’ve been a Slytherin because she’s the devil.

Hoseok is dancing with Jinri and Youngjae has collapsed on a chair complaining that balls are more tiring than Quidditch practice. Next to him, both Minzy and Suzy laugh of his lack of stamina. But the crowns for the most surprising couple go to Ilhoon and little Yerim. He doesn't seem to care that the whole Slytherin House is ready to kill him if he doesn't behave in the most gentlemanly way. He makes her spin and she laughs like crazy, and he doesn’t even notice the way she steps on his foot sometimes.

“Shall we dance, Sehun?”

He turns towards Minseok, looking amazing in his dragon leather jacket and with styled hair. He looks younger than a teacher and older than a student. He looks free.

“I don't know how to dance and you're still my teacher.”

“I've danced with Suzy and Jinri, why not with you too?”

Sehun doesn't answer. He grabs Minseok's hand and walks with him along the shore. The waves lap against the sand, licking at their feet. It's not cold enough to freeze, but Sehun knows that when the classes will start again in January, half of the Black Lake will be frozen and the Giant Squid will wrap itself against the wall of Slytherin's dorms to benefit of their warmth until spring.

When the lights of the party disappears, they sit on the shore and Minseok summons a magic fire to keep them warm. Its violet light hits his face, giving his features a gentle glow, and Sehun wants to kiss him so badly.

He watches the horizon instead, trying to distinguish Hogsmeade's lights on the other side of the Black Lake.

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow, with the rest of you students. I'll take the Hogwarts Express to King's Cross and I'll go home from there.”

“I will miss you.”

“Don't be cheesy, it's just for three days.”

They've already talked about this. Minseok will go back to university when the new semester begins, but he's planning to spend his Christmas holidays traveling around Europe. Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Austria. Sehun wonders if it's really possible to visit all these places in only two weeks. Soon he will know for sure, because he's going with Minseok. Two weeks, only for the two of them, a new beginning.

“Did you talk with Professor Kim yesterday?”

It takes a moment to Sehun to understand that Minseok is talking about Professor Kangin, his career counsellor.

“Yes, I did.”

“Have you decided what you'll do?”

Sehun nods. “I will study to become a wizard lawyer and I'll try to enter the Wizengamot, just like my parents want,” Minseok's expression is carefully neutral and Sehun feels the need to explain, “but without their help.” He pauses, taking his breath. “I've always felt like everyone around me had a dream and I didn't. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering what kind of life I will live after I graduate. I didn't want to live a cold, empty life. I wanted to do something important, I just didn't know what yet.”

“Did you find it? Your dream?”

“I'm not sure. I'm still looking for it, but maybe I'm on the right track. I want the power to change things. This year, for the first time, I tried to change my life and I realized that to do it I had to change my attitude first. But it will take more than a few months to convince everyone of my change. I'm perfectly aware that people expect me to reach an important position at the Ministry in a few years just because I'm rich and my family is very influential, and I want to show them that I can do it on my own. I want to show them that they're wrong.”

Now Minseok is openly smiling and he's so proud. Sehun hopes he can catch the spark of this smile and lock it under a glass bell, so that he can always look at it again in his memories every time he feels like it's too hard and he can't do it. There will be hard times for him and he knows that once his parents realize that he's not their puppet anymore they will try to make him fail, so that he can go back to them with his tail between his legs, like a kicked puppy. He can't allow that to happen.

“I want to do things my own way. I want to stand on my legs,” he continues, “because I know what my parents' help will cost me. My freedom, my dreams...” You. “Maybe one day they will understand. I will show them, the same way I want to show everyone else, what kind of person I can be.”

He hopes these are not only empty words. He wants them to turn into solid truths.

“It will be hard and difficult. Sometimes, you'll regret not choosing the easy way out.”

“Then be with me and help me make the right choice.”

Minseok scoffs. “Stop saying this cool things and look at the time, brat.”

It's midnight.

“Oh,” he says. It's midnight and Minseok has just lost his job. And suddenly he's so close to Sehun, their breaths mingling, Sehun's hair falling on Minseok's forehead. It would take so little, a slight tilt of their heads, for their lips to meet, finally.

“I'm a free man, so come here and kiss me.”

Sehun closes his eyes and the distance between them.




.





Fyi: this fic also features a lot of non EXO characters from other kpop bands. If you are curious this is the list, in no particular order: Red Velvet’s Wendy, Seulgi, Joy and Yeri; NU’EST’s Ren; f(x)’s Krystal, and former member Sulli; Girls Generation’s Sunny and former member Jessica; BAP’s Youngjae and Zelo; BTOB’s Ilhoon; BTS’ V, Jimin, J-Hope and Jungkook; SHINee’s Taemin (and a mention of Key); VIXX’s Ravi; Super Junior’s Kangin; 2NE1’s Minzy; Miss A’s Suzy and of course, EXO former members Kris and Tao.