Chapter Text
Taehyung looked like a boy of the summer; his tan skin, his bright eyes. The way every color his hair turned into seemed to compliment the way the world bloomed in the summer months. But if someone ever garnered the interest to ask, you would find that he loved winter best of all.
Winter when he was a child in Daegu had meant muggy skies and light snow that turned brown-black quickly enough that none of them were allowed to play with it. Perhaps back then, summer had indeed been his favorite season.
But that had changed when he got his letter; the one his mother had been hoping for since his hair had started changing out of his control. (It wasn’t just hope; it was necessity. It was hard to explain his shifting hair colors to the other people around them- they didn’t like what they didn’t understand. And Taehyung was far too young to be able to control his ability on his own.)
HIs mother told him that he was an anomaly; that it was rare for a child with only one parent of pure wizard blood to get an ability like his. Metamorphmagus, his parents would say- a long word he could only clumsily trip over as a child. He spent his first year in Hogwarts telling everyone he was a morphamouse, only to have the adults smile at him knowingly when he sneezed violently and the strands of hair falling into his eyes suddenly shifted color.
People still didn’t understand, sometimes, when they saw his hair. But it was the magical world and the realm of possibility was suddenly so much bigger and more mysterious; they were young children who knew they were special but nothing about how and so everything was so fascinating to them.
He loved many things about Hogwarts. Taehyung had learnt to love the food; even though he missed Korean dishes from home. He loved the ghosts and the talking paintings and the eccentric objects that became sentient because of magic. He loved the warmth in the Hufflepuff common room and the lovely softness of his robes and house scarf. He loved the winter there- the snow, the warm cocoa, the feeling of icy toes being warmed under soft blankets at the end of a long day.
He loved the friends he had made there- Jimin, who shared his room and quickly became one of the people who knew him best in the world, with his sweet smile and his warm heart and his welcome kindness. The ragtag collection of seniors with ‘strange’ abilities like his that quickly took him under their wing.
Namjoon, the Ravenclaw with his slightly oversized head because of the magically enhanced brain he had had since birth (he was a little sensitive about it, so they knew not to mention it too much.) Seokjin, the Hufflepuff with abnormally flexible limbs that mad him wobble more often than not but still helped him become one of the best athletes Hogwarts had ever seen. Hoseok, who was like the sun but not just because of his personality. The Gryffindor’s skin was always burning hot to touch and attracted more than enough ‘hotness’ puns from the general public. Yoongi with hair like his- the first person ever that Taehyung had met who was like him- Taehyung settled the Slytherin into a special place in his heart.
However just as Taehyung loved all seasons but loved one best, a shy Slytherin boy named Jeongguk may have been the Great Love of His Life. He had entered the Hufflepuff’s life in a tumbling pile of limbs drowned in oversized robes on the train in his second year and he had never left. Taehyung never wanted him to. Thankfully, he might have just been the Great Love of Jeongguk’s Life, too.
Jeongguk wasn’t like them- his ability didn’t give him a weird head or strange hair or odd limbs. Despite that, his ability was one that had been met with most harshly in their school and together, the six of them protected the wide eyed first year with fierceness. He was a Parselmouth and a Slytherin, and the memory of the Battle of Hogwarts was still fresh in the school despite the ten years that had passed since. People saw Jeongguk and thought another Voldemort; seeming to forget that the great hero they lauded had been a Parselmouth, too.
Jeongguk had landed into his train cabin because some mean boys from Ravenclaw had chased him down. He could remember clearly, a doe eyed boy with scabbed elbows saying, “Can I sit here! Okay thanks!” although Taehyung hadn’t responded at all. The boy then presented a huge college of dragon playing cards from his robe pockets and a solid friendship had been born.
Although Taehyung was thankful they had met, he vowed to never let him come in harm’s way again. So he gave Jeongguk the Hufflepuff password (although it wasn’t explicitly allowed) and learnt sneaky little charms to punish anyone who hurt his Jeonggukie. He didn’t feel jealous when the boy started becoming friends with others from his house (not much anyway, he wasn’t proud of the little jealousy he did feel) because he was so happy to see him happy.
His friends, and his Jeongguk, were the ones who held him tethered to the world; especially after his parents died in a car accident (so mundane, so… quick and irreversible) in their third year. It was during the summer vacations when it had happened.
Taehyung could remember- even when he didn’t want to- scrambling for the dog stuffies Namjoon had enchanted for them in the second year and just crying for a few long minutes as Jeongguk begged him to tell him what was wrong. When he had choked out the words- they still made his chest feel raw years later- the younger boy demanded his parents to teleport him to the hospital in the middle of the night and they had rocked together for hours.
The other five of their best friends came all together the next day and basically kept a fourteen year old Taehyung afloat when he felt like he was drowning. Jeongguk had spent nearly that entire summer with him, and every summer after, too.
In the fifth year, Taehyung had really thought- for a few halting weeks- that he was losing Jeongguk. Not to other friends or Quidditch as he had pettily feared at times but to just… distance. They didn’t talk as much- didn’t spent their weekly movie nights together, where Taehyung introduced the other boy to all the muggle world’s greatest hits. When Jeongguk didn’t show up for his dog’s birthday party (yes, you heard that right), Taehyung felt completely bereft; like he had lost his best friend forever.
But then Jeongguk showed up that night with a bight red nose and watering eyes and apologies on his mouth because he had slowly been suffering with a worse and worse case of Wizard’s Cold and he hadn’t wanted any of them to catch it. “But I missed you to much; I’m sorry, hyung it’s selfish,” he sniffled and Taehyung couldn’t help but hug him close and kiss him all over his face even though that may have been the opposite of helpful. He then conjured up an endless box of tissues and warm butterbeer for both of them and everything was settled again.
Jeongguk had kissed Taehyung that night; well, perhaps the older boy had kissed him first. But it was not his fault. What was he supposed to do when the younger boy made a flower out of the tissues and presented it to him oh so proudly- not kiss him? The Slytherin’s cold made him drowsy after a little bit but he woke up healthy and fresh, and certainly made it up the morning, still tasting a little like pumpkin spice cough syrup.
By the time they graduated, Jeongguk was a lot more muscular and just a little taller than him and maybe didn’t need as much protection as he did once. They had been together for nearly two years- though it felt like a lot longer because of their many, many years of friendship.
They had to sit separately at graduation because of their houses but across the tables, Taehyung could see his beautiful boyfriend smiling at him. “Your red is showing again,” Jimin had grinned at him knowingly when Jeongguk’s name was called out and he flushed to match the bright red color his hair took on when he was around his lover. Since they had gotten together, his hair was red more days than not.
When he walked off the stage (sneezing loudly because Hagrid’s beard had made his nose itch when he hugged him), Jeongguk had been there and he swung Taehyung up in a flurry of robes and giggles and falling graduation caps and kissed him right there, with all their disapproving and secretly supportive teachers.
“Love you,” Jeongguk had breathed against his lips, voice fading a little when Taehyung pressed even closer against his warmth. There was no other place he loved more, not even sitting in direct sunlight in the winter, than being at home with his moon.
+
“No, Taehyung, I don’t think a dragon is included in your perks,” Jeongguk said with a mouth full of toothpaste as they brushed their teeth at night. Yes, they very much were that gross couple that even brushed their teeth together (if Jimin was there, he would have been fake gagging and running for the hills) and even though they could charm their brushes to do all the work, Jeongguk thought that the electric brushes Tae had got them were much more magical.
“But-” Taehyung began and then coughed a little when he choked on the toothpaste. Spitting it into the sink, he continued, “I should just become a policeman in the muggle world then. Where are my perks, Gukkie?”
Jeongguk followed ensuite before responding, making sure his boyfriend saw his eyes rolling pronouncedly. “Being an auror is not the same as being a policeman, Tae. Plus, your lazy butt would not be happy about not having a bloom to fly around on all day.” He poked the older boy’s side, smirking, at this.
“Slander!” Taehyung shouted dramatically, “False news! My reputation in society at stake!” He punctuated these pronouncements with waves of his toothbrush to mimic a wand but didn’t protest when Jeongguk lifted him up with two hands under his legs. He just giggled out an unhand me, you savage while allowing the younger (yet stronger, much to his simultaneous chagrin and pleasure) boy carry him to their bed. Tossing the toothbrush that was still in his hand onto the nightstand, Taehyung let both his arms wrap around his lover. Using all his weight, he flipped them over so they were facing each other, side by side.
He kissed Jeongguk, just once and then pulled up their blanket up to the younger boy’s neck just the way he loved. “I still want a dragon,” he whined, pouting in a way that had empirically proven to be an extremely effective weapon.
“Well, we’ll have to move to Romania then,” Jeongguk allowed, “And you’ll just have to accept me when a Longhorn tries to kill me and I shove you in front of me. I promise I love you, I’ve just never been to Disneyland and you told me it was really great.”
Taehyung shoved him, hard, but not hard enough to account for the pained shout and dramatic crumpling that Jeon Jeongguk exhibited in response. “I think I should just go now,” he said sharply, “And take Bogum up on that date he asked me on. He won’t get sniffles in three seconds like you would in the Romanian peaks anyway.”
Bogum, Gryffindor’s golden boy, was an individual that had got on Jeongguk’s nerves ever since they were in the seventh year and the boy had asked his boyfriend on a date. Taehyung still insisted that the Gryffindor hadn’t known but the younger took this with a grain of salt because the two of them were, admittedly, the cheesiest couple in the world. Plus, Bogum had a devious glint in his eyes (no Taehyung, that isn’t just how eyes look, okay?)
“Last I checked Bogum moved to Sri Lanka for research,” Jeongguk said smugly, adding under his breath, “Good riddance.” His lover shoved him for that but giggled adorably, giving himself away. The younger boy watched the elder smile so wide his eyes crinkled up completely and melt back into the pillows with a happy sigh. It made his whole world brighter to see him so happy.
Jeongguk pressed forward, just slightly, so he could tuck his face against his boyfriend’s. “Proud of you, Tae,” he said, a kiss against his neck to prove his point. The Hufflepuff had been questioned far too much when he decided on becoming an auror; it was almost always Gryffindors and Slytherins who made it to those ranks. But he had taken their words and pushed forward, his dream firmly in his mind. And finally after years and years of training, he had made it.
The Slytherin was expected to have bigger, more ambitious dreams than his lover. But he was happy settled in as the assistant professor of quidditch at Hogwarts; he had a home, a steady job, his family was happy and healthy and he had a life with the only boy he had ever loved. Life was good.
Life was always good, Jeongguk thought as his boyfriend pulled him into a still softer kiss, here with this man. But, as Taehyung excitedly chattered about the special ID they had given him and how his superior called him promising and how happy he was, the younger man thought that maybe it had just gotten a little better.
+
Taehyung loved his job; you could see it in the way he spoke about it, the way he would come home and dance off beat with Jeongguk because they had managed to solve a tough case. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; hunting criminals meant being exposed to their crimes, and he was amazed sometimes by the capacity people had for cruelty. There were some cases that left him shaking and paranoid for days to come, asking Jeongguk and his friends to put on protective charms and wards and tracking spells to keep them safe.
His boyfriend always humoured him and let him do whatever made him feel better until started panicking for real. Then Jeongguk would sit him down, make him hot ramen and tell him a story about his mundane little day. About a kid that he suspected was a prodigy, about a kid that had tried riding his broom upside down to make a rocket and had fallen into Hagrid’s pumpkin patch. He would talk when he knew Taehyung wasn’t ready to, until his boyfriend found his words again.
He had a soft heart- soft enough that it wasn’t easy for him to accept those things. It wasn’t easy for Jeongguk either, knowing that all the dangers that the older man feared would harm him? Taehyung was walking straight into. Every time Seokjin came knocking on their door in the middle of the night on an urgent assignment, Jeongguk felt like wrapping his boyfriend up in a soft blanket and holding him close until everyone went away and left him alone. (He appreciated Seokjin a lot; their hyung was so special to them. But in those moments, Jeongguk just wished he would leave them alone.)
Taehyung always told him, I love you, before he left for assignments. Jeongguk always said it back and there was always that suspended fear that not letting the other know could one day be something they would regret for the rest of their lives. That was a thought he tried to avoid- even though it kept him awake for hours- until Taehyung was back home and safe and all was right again.
But they knew the risks, knew that from the day that the head of Taehyung’s Department suggested that he write out a will; that they all had them. Just in case, he had said night when he came home, just to be safe. Jeongguk would never forget the feeling of going to that consultation, of watching the love of his life plan for his own death. It still gave him chills to think about.
Those risks hit them a little over a year after Taehyung became an auror. And they struck, not gently but with a force that left their whole lives shaken.
+
Madame Pomphrey may have been a school’s nurse on her job title but her expertise was famed all over the London magic community. There had been more than one occasion where Jeongguk was in the infirmary checking on one of his students who had had a fall, he would see some alumni or adult wizard occupying one of the corner beds. She was far too soft to turn any wizard away, especially ones who had once been students.
When Jeongguk got an urgent owl that instructed him in shorthand come to infirmary immediately, he immediately scrolled through the list of possible student risks that had come to him in the first year as he quickly apparated outside the ornate door. He pushed it open, fully expecting to see some first year lying on one of the beds. He wasn’t prepared to see anything else. If he had been prepared, perhaps he would have been able to reign himself in somewhat.
Taehyung lay there, deathly pale and deathly silent, hair a painful white that he had never seen before. His lover, always so dynamic and bright, just lay there looking like the personification of nothingness.
No, scratch that. Jeongguk would not have been able to stay calm (or even fake it) in response to that horrible sight, even if he had been forewarned.
His magic sparked inside him, almost violently, and in a breath he found that he had apparated unconsciously to his lover’s bedside. Jeongguk was usually a private person when it came to his emotions but there were tears in his eyes as he watching Taehyung. He just looked so, so dead. He cursed himself for thinking it. When he reached out, sobbing out a soft Tae, his boyfriend was like ice to touch.
“I don’t-” he breathed a wet, choked sound, looking up to finally realise that Seokjin and Yoongi were there too. Their faces looked far too grave to be of any comfort. “What happened? Please- tell me what the fuck happened!”
His voice rang off the infirmary walls and a sole student lying on another bed stared at him in shock. Jeongguk didn’t care. “Hyungs, please.” His voice was pleading, and finally managed to break through whatever trance the older two had fallen into.
“We were tracking down a wizard conjuring some ancient curses. Weather magic tethered in animism traditions.” Jeongguk nodded at Yoongi’s words; he knew this. “We got the wizard but he… put up a fight. He struck Taehyung with a curse I’ve never heard before. The effects left him like this immediately; Madame Pomphrey thinks it’s freezing him from the inside. Says his body is deathly cold.”
“Okay.” Jeongguk said, looking down at Taehyung and trying to steady his breathing, steady his words. Settle his mind. “Okay. So what do we do now? What are we doing to help him?”
He had a hand stoking Taehyung’s skin wherever he could reach it, hoping desperately to get some warmth into him, to bring some life back into this limbs.
“We aren’t sure,” Seokjin admitted, “Madame Pomphrey said she’s trying to raise his temperature through conventional means; it’s not working. We might have to bring in the wizard who did this to reverse it. It’s such an obscure, dark form of magic, we don’t know who to contact.”
Jeongguk looked up at that, outraged. “You want to bring the person who did this back to him?” He shook his head when they didn’t say yes but they didn’t say no either. “There’s no way. We can- we can help him. Find an expert. Find someone. Help him, please.”
He slumped then, all drained, cheek pressed against the infirmary bed so Taehyung was on eye level with him. From this angle, he almost looked peacefully asleep. Jeongguk remembered that morning, when he had woken up to find his boyfriend blowing some kind of conjured air horn in his face because he was late, Jeonggukie get your butt up. The memory made his heart ache and he turned his face into the sheets, muffling another sob.
He sat there while nurses came in, when the various professors came in two give their observations. Most of them patted his back and offered some words of comfort but he scarcely looked at them. He stay focussed on Taehyung’s sleeping face- trying to memorise it, even though he already had years ago, and uttered non committal sounds to what everyone was saying. Jeongguk had stopped letting his hopes rise up a while ago.
The answer came from an unexpected source; Professor Longbottom. “My grandmother told me that my grandad faced something similar,” he had said, “It’s a charm that cools an individual’s core temperature. T-there was no cure, per se. They just waited it out and it wore off in a day, like a f-fever breaking.”
Jeongguk respected the Herbology professor. Hearing him tell them to just wait it out, like Taehyung’s life was dependant on a perhaps and a maybe like he wasn’t his whole life felt like a weight that was too strong to hold.
“Tae,” he whispered when the room was emptied of professors after they all came to a consensus. Jeongguk had long taken over maintaining the warming spells all the others had cast, and was now wiping a warm cloth over Taehyung’s still stone-like face in hopes that a more mundane method would help. “Can you wake up now, baby? I never realised how much I hate this place without you.”
It took nearly 4 more hours before he received a response. Or any response at all.
1 more hour where the pale skinned, white haired boy lay in more of that unnerving silence. The second hour, the scariest one, where he shivered nearly the entire time. Shuddering, chest shaking; Jeongguk shook the whole while too. Even when they had slipped into the third hour and he was still again, Jeongguk was shaking hard enough to warrant Seokjin slipping a hand onto his shoulder and saying some random string of words he couldn’t decipher.
The fourth hour brought the lowest temperature yet. Wizards may have had magic but their bodies were the same as muggles (much to the chagrin of pureblood supremacists) and they too, obeyed the 95 degree temperature limit that all others did. In that last hour, the thermometer Madame Pomphrey had connected to Taehyung started beeping horribly, ringing alarms that made everyone fall into panic and all the medical professionals try and push Jeongguk away till all he could grab onto was his lover’s hand. In his mind, he was praying please, please, please he was never a believer but he could be if it meant that the words fatal temperature could suddenly mean something else.
And then suddenly, like a nightmare, like a chokehold- Taehyung’s fever broke. It was ridiculous; how mundane it was. It took just a few moments for everything to settle down again, just like all those times Jeongguk’s rhinitis left him fever ridden and his lover had nursed him back to health. That one perfect moment when the world stopped being murky and dull, and you could finally breathe again.
Jeongguk saw exactly when that moment struck Taehyung, even though the older boy was asleep. And it filled him with such profound relief that he almost crumpled over. There were other people around them, he knew that but all he could see was his lover’s hair, the white strands slowly rushing into a beautiful, soft red. Jeongguk’s red. His eyes opened just a few seconds later.
Jeongguk may have cried a little. And then he wheezed out, “Hey, marry me?”
Taehyung was still too exhausted to say anything but his hair turned just a little more cherry red and Jeongguk had his answer.