Chapter Text
Even though I’m trying to stay rational and calm, panic quickly runs through every fibre of my body.
What the hell happened? Who started this fire?
My back is literally pressed against the wall and the smoke is making me cough. I need to get out of here right now, or I’ll die. But how? Your wand, idiot, a little voice whispers in my head. Are you a witch or not?
I aim my wand at the flames and yell: “Aguamenti!” Immediately, a spray of water blasts from the tip of my wand, and I aim it left and right. But it’s not working. Oh my god. A shiver runs down my spine as I realise that this is no ordinary fire.
It’s Fiendfyre.
I am going to die here. If I thought I was panicking before, I am even more so now. The flames have almost reached me, and the heat is becoming unbearable. It can’t end like this. It won’t. If I can’t get out one way, then I have to get out the other. I turn around and aim my wand at the wall.
“Bombarda!” The castle wall is blasted away, a deafening sound tortures my ears, and the blast almost hurls me into the flames. Somehow I manage to keep standing, but my wand is thrown out of my hand, into the Fiendfyre.
“No!” A feeling of helplessness rushes over me, as if someone just chopped off a limb, accompanied by a strange sorrow; losing my wand hurts more than I expected. But no time to be sad about that now. I look out of the gaping hole in the wall and estimate my chances. There is a ledge on the wall a short distance away, and if I hang from it, I can jump to the rooftop of a small tower nearby. It’s a huge risk though, but it’s not like I have any choice. I climb over the edge of the hole I just blasted, and lower myself from it, feet dangling in the air. Then I feel the ledge with my foot, and touch the outer wall to find support for my hands. Focus. You can’t make any mistakes now, I tell myself. Just focus.
I put my full weight on the ledge, and miraculously, it holds. I breathe out to calm down, and slowly lower myself, so I can hang from the ledge I am now standing on and swing towards the rooftop. Above me, the flames have reached the hole and flare into the night sky. That could have been me. I suppress another shiver and further lower my body until I dangle by my hands again. I swing my body to the side to gain some momentum, once, twice, and then I let go, praying that I’ll make it. With a painful thud I smack against the roof of the tower, and I slither down a bit until my hands find grip. I feel like laughing and crying at the same time; I made it.
I get up and peer over the edge to figure out where to go next. Though I’m far from safe, at least I’m away from the fire. A sudden powerful wind blows and makes me lose my balance, causing me to hover dangerously close to the edge of the roof. Then an alarmed shout breaks the silent night.
“Noona!” I turn my head and there he is, standing all the way below me. I can hardly believe it.
“Soobin?” I shout back. I want to say more, but the words don’t get the chance to leave my mouth as the roof underneath suddenly cracks under my weight. I feel myself slip.
“Noona! No!” Soobin’s terrified cry is the last thing I hear as the construction can’t hold me any longer and breaks, making me fall down. Terrified, I close my eyes, only focussing on Soobin’s voice, the fear in it showing the one thing I needed to know: he still cares. Then I hit the cold ground and everything turns black.
I feel the grass tickling my face, but I can’t move my head, which hurts tremendously, just like some other parts of my body. A single drop of rain falls on my face, though it feels oddly warm, almost like a tear. A pair of arms tries to lift me up, inducing a sudden rush of pain so intense that I pass out again.
I only notice that I am lying on a soft, comfortable bed instead of the cold, grassy field when my shoulder is put back in its place with a powerful, yet extremely painful thump that makes my eyes fly open. My sight is so blurry that it makes me nauseous, the bright light worsening my headache, so I close my eyes again, groaning.
“It’s okay, noona,” a voice hushes, sounding vague, like I’m underwater. Something cold is pressed against my lips.
“Drink up, you’ll feel better,” the voice continues reassuringly, distracting me from the pain all over my body. I do as I am told, the aches start easing, my mind comes to rest, and I sink away.
I slip in and out of consciousness, living moments but forgetting them soon after, unsure if I’m dreaming or if things are really happening. Most of it is filled with pain, starting from my head, through my shoulder into my arm, and then all the way down to my leg and ankle. It takes me a few more blurs of consciousness to notice that it hurts just on one side, my right one. I don’t know why. I don’t even know where the pain comes from. Something must have happened, that’s clear.
My dreams are filled with flames and the feeling of falling down, but every time I wake up in panic I’m comforted by a hand holding mine, another one stroking my hair, and a calming voice whispering in my ear, though I can’t really hear what it is saying. Whenever I try opening my eyes, my head protests by bursting out in pain and my stomach gets upset. I have no idea how much time has passed when I wake up and, for the first time in a while, can actually understand what is being said. There are multiple voices here now, and they speak to each other, sounding worried.
“How is she doing, hyung?” the first voice I notice says. It’s a soft, mellow voice, pronouncing the words cutely somehow, reminding me of fluffy things like teddy bears.
“Better, I guess,” the calming voice says. I immediately relax when I hear it, and wonder about its effect on me. It’s my safe haven, my solace.
“Her dreams stopped when she recovered enough to reduce the sedative. But she still hasn’t woken up.” A short sigh. A soothing stroke through my hair. “Not fully, that is.”
“Shouldn’t you get some sleep?” a sharp voice with an edge of authority asks. “You’ve been here all week.”
All week? A week… since when? It feels like I’ve been lying here forever. I’m frustrated that I cannot remember what happened. Only the dreams of blazing fire and endless falling come to my mind. But those are just dreams. Right?
“Yeah, you look terrible, hyung,” a sweet, endearing voice adds to the sharp, wise one.
“I’m fine,” the soothing voice, which I start calling Solace in my head, says firmly, and he squeezes my hand softly, as if he’s reassuring me that he’s not going anywhere.
“So…” Bear (I’ll just give them all a name now) starts off hesitantly. “Have you… uhm, forgiven her, then?”
Forgiven? I rack my brain, trying to think of what I did. The fire… perhaps I started it? But if I did, shouldn’t I be burned? I only feel numb pain as if I’m covered in bruises and broken bones.
“I’m… I don’t know,” Solace sounds indecisive. “I… need to talk to her first, hear her out. But I feel a little torn though, since I can’t find the strength to leave her side, either.”
A long pause. The others stay silent, expectantly.
“Apparently I still care.”
A voice snorts, and my hunch that it was Sharp is confirmed when he mumbles: “Well, we all knew that already.”
The hand holding mine lets go for a few seconds, accompanied by the sound as if someone is slapped, before it continues to soothe me. Sweet giggles and says, taunting: “You had that coming, Taehyun-hyung.”
I suddenly hear the sound of a door opening somewhere in the distance, and I can feel the people around me tense up, as if some electric static suddenly flows through the air. I try to open my eyes, curious about who just came in, but they’re ignoring my command, so I give up and try to focus on my hearing. It takes a lot of effort to keep my attention to the voices though, and I’m starting to get tired again.
“Hello,” a colourful, charismatic voice, smooth like honey, quietly greets us. “Mind if I join?”
An awkward silence hangs in the air, but then Solace agrees: “Not at all, hyung.” And like that, the static tension is gone, a wave of relaxation floods over the room instead, making me even more sleepy. I feel myself slipping away as Honey asks, almost exactly repeating the words of Bear: “How is she doing?”
The same short sigh, the same careful stroke through my hair, and the same words: “Better, I guess.”
Too tired to stay awake any longer, I sink away in a dreamless sleep.
The warmth of sunshine on my face is the first thing I notice when I finally fully come back to consciousness. The bright light hurts my eyes a little bit, so I lift my hand to shield myself from it while I whine: “Too… bright…”
My voice is hoarse from not speaking for a while, but the raspy noises do attract the attention from someone who draws the curtains to leave out the sun.
“Better?” I open my eyes and see Yeonjun and Hueningkai looking at me, concerned. I nod, then grab my head in pain. Nodding is not a good idea.
“Yeah…” I mumble.
“Of course you had to wake up just when I was about to leave. Great timing, noona,” Hueningkai jokes, but even though he’s smiling, the worry has not yet left his eyes.
“Perfect, right?” I joke back, and they both giggle softly, sounding like music to my ears.
I try to sit up straight, but struggle a bit because, apparently, my arm is in a cast. Hueningkai jumps up to help me and asks: “How are you feeling, noona?”
“In pain,” I answer honestly, while I examine my cast. “Is there no spell to heal broken bones?”
Yeonjun giggles softly. “There is, but it’s awfully similar to the one of making bones disappear, and with the head nurse on maternity leave, we thought we better not risk it.”
I notice Hueningkai is looking hesitant, half turned towards the door, but still supporting my arm.
“I would love to stay, noona, but I have a class in fifteen minutes…”
“Go,” I urge him, releasing my arm from his grip. “No need to let your education suffer because of me.” He seems to doubt that, but after a bit more encouragement from me, he waves us goodbye and rushes out of the Hospital Wing. I sigh and close my eyes; memories are starting to come back to me, but I’m having a hard time figuring out whether they are actual memories or just fragments from my dreams.
“What happened?” I ask Yeonjun.
“What do you remember?” he bounces back.
“Fire,” I mumble. “And falling down.”
“Well, that’s part of it.” Yeonjun leans back and crosses his arms. “Let’s see… You’re right about the fire. Some idiot at the Duel Tournament panicked and fired the wrong spell, unleashing a Fiendfyre. He’s suspended now, but that doesn’t change anything about the mess he made.”
Fiendfyre… I remember waking up and being surrounded by flames I couldn’t put out. A shiver runs down my spine as I recall the absolute terror I felt at that moment.
“I was surrounded by the flames,” I whisper. Yeonjun notices my mood change and takes my hand to calm me. It reminds me of the hand that soothed me the past few days, but it’s not the same one. I guess it wasn’t Yeonjun who sat by my side then.
“Of course I couldn’t put them out, and once I realised that, I blasted the wall to escape and –” I gasp as I remember. My wand…
“Are you okay?” I nod slowly, but can't shake the sad feeling.
“I lost my wand to the flames.” Yeonjun eyes widen.
“Oh, I’m so sorry…” I smile faintly. “Well, better my wand than my life.”
“You can say that again.”
I frown, trying to remember what happened next.
“Then… I climbed out, away from the fire, towards a nearby rooftop. I’m not sure if I made it… Maybe that’s where I fell?”
“I can fill in the details there. You made it to the rooftop, but then it collapsed, causing you to fall down.” I remember someone shouting, but something doesn’t add up. The person shouted ‘noona’, but Yeonjun doesn’t call me that since he is older than me. Who was there, then?
“Were you there when I fell?” I ask him.
“No, I wasn’t. Soobin was.” My heart skips a beat. Soobin? In a reflex, I reach for the necklace, and to my surprise it’s there.
I stare at it, confused. I took it off after I managed to hurt the two people I care about most. I couldn’t wear it, couldn’t even look at it without bursting out in tears, so I put it away and haven’t worn it since. But now it’s here. Around my neck. How…?
“He managed to break your fall a little bit, but you were still hurt quite badly. He carried you here and didn’t leave your side for over a week.”
I look at Yeonjun incredulously, but he seems truthful. The person holding my hand, the soothing voice, my solace… I thought I dreamed it, but it was Soobin after all. My hearts starts beating fast and I feel butterflies in my stomach. He wouldn’t have done that if he hated me. Most people probably wouldn’t even have stayed by their friends for a whole week straight. So that must mean...
“Where is he now?” I ask, my voice overflowing with hope. I need to see him, I need to speak with him. Now.
“He left this morning to go and get some sleep, so I guess he’s in the Hufflepuff chambers somew-”
I get up out of bed without letting Yeonjun finish and stumble to the door. My ankle hurts and I almost trip and fall, but my will to find the love of my life is stronger than the pull of gravity.
“Wait! You’re not recovered yet!” Yeonjun’s protests, but I ignore him and continue my struggle towards the door, which suddenly swings open with a loud bang. I hold my breath when I see the person who is, quite opposite to me, catching his breath, panting as if he just ran a marathon.
An awkward silence hangs in the air when our eyes meet, making me forget all about my pain.
“I heard you woke up,” Soobin says, breathless, flinging his hand awkwardly as he’s trying to explain himself.
“I heard you stayed by my side,” I whisper equally breathless.
His eyes soften. “I did.” And then I can’t hold it any longer and throw myself in his arms. He chuckles and hugs me tight, a little painful, but I don’t mind. At all.
“I missed you,” I say, my voice sounding muffled because my face is pressed against his chest.
“I missed you too,” he says, stroking my hair. I feel like I’m about to burst from happiness. Only the pain reminds me that I’m not dreaming. Then I remember I still have to make up to him, and I pull myself from his hug. Tears start welling up in my eyes, so I quickly stare at the ground.
“I’m so terribly sorry… about everything,” I say, my voice quivering a little bit from the sudden rush of emotion.
“I know you are.” I look up at him surprised, not expecting his answer. Soobin nods at Yeonjun.
“He had the perfect opportunity to explain everything in detail when I was pinned at your side, aided by the others filling in the details.”
“You’re welcome, baby!” Yeonjun shouts mockingly, but I can see him smiling wide.
My heart is filled with hope again, I’m almost too afraid to ask, but I force the words out: “Do… do you forgive me, then?”
Soobin smiles cheekily, dimples popping out, and says as if he's still in doubt: “Well…”
Then he pulls me in and kisses me softly, sweetly, making my knees weak from happiness.
“Only because I love you.”
~ Epilogue ~
It’s unusually warm on this lovely day in June as I make my way across the grassy field to the lake. I just finished my last exam for this year and the joy one always feels when another academic year has successfully passed makes me want to skip and twirl around. But, of course, that feeling could also be caused by the person who is waiting for me at the lakeside.
My pace increases and my heart longs for his presence; I wonder about the fact that it still does that, even though we have been together for quite a while now. I dodge a strayed Quaffle which is being thrown around by some of my Quidditch teammates, and I am almost run over by some overexcited first-years running around to celebrate the end of the exams, as I suddenly come to a halt when I notice there is more than one person waiting for me. I smile wide, and start walking towards them even faster.
Cheerful greetings float my way on a summery breeze as I arrive at my destination. Taehyun is sitting next to Hueningkai, and they both casually wave at me, but Beomgyu jumps up and hugs me so tight I feel my insides cracking.
“Careful, Beomie,” I warn him, but he just laughs cutely and pats my head.
“You already broke once this year, I won’t let you break twice, don’t worry,” he jokes and he dodges my attempt to slap him by hiding behind a confused Hueningkai.
I sit down next to Soobin, who puts his arm around me, and then I notice the delicious-looking chocolate cake in the middle of the picknick blanket, already neatly cut into same-sized pieces.
“Oooh, I didn’t know there would be cake!” I bend over to steal a piece of chocolate decoration, when a familiar voice remarks cheekily: “Trying to eat everything before I arrive, huh baby? How rude.”
I turn around and see a smirking Yeonjun approach our group, carrying plates and forks looking suspiciously similar to the ones from the kitchen; I wonder if he stole them or asked for them nicely. He sits down in a rush and carefully looks over his shoulder.
“Now let’s start eating quickly before the House-elves find out I took these.”
I smile as his friends laugh, and then I start handing out pieces of the cake, while they converse about which exams were too easy and which they most likely failed. I lean back and rest my head against Soobin’s shoulder, looking at my smiling and cheerful friends with a joyful heart. He kisses my head softly, and I close my eyes to enjoy the brief moment of bliss.
Soobin loves me. My friends are happy.
All is well.