Chapter Text
Jungkook groaned, rubbing at his eyes, “Really? Do I really have to be here?”
Jin glared at Jungkook, unamused at the boy’s lack of loyalty. “I’m your hyung. Your Gryffindor hyung. Support me.”
The younger shrugged, sleepily leaning against the rough brick wall.
They were in the potions classroom; it was completely quiet (as it tends to be when you break into a classroom at five in the morning) and somewhat eerie as every clink of the glass beakers Seokjin was handling echoed through the room.
Jungkook was still in his red pajamas; his hair was askew and eyes pretty much glued shut.
Seokjin on the other hand was ready for class, hair styled, lips glossed, cloak wrinkle-free. He was a morning person, used to getting up early and used to his routine.
“If you wanted loyalty you should’ve gotten Hoseok hyung.”
“Just because loyalty is a hufflepuff staple does not mean that you are incapable of it, Jungkook,” Seokjin reminded, not unkindly.
A part of Seokjin definitely did feel guilty waking up Jungkook so early, forcing the already busy student to wake up even earlier than he normally did. But it was a small part that was greatly overshadowed by Seokjin’s burning desire to best Namjoon.
As Seokjin swirled the thick, murky liquid around in the glass jar, Jungkook groaned, “Who cares if Namjoon fucked up a truth potion so bad that he accidentally made an improved version of the Amortentia love potion?”
“I do when the Ministry of Magic is considering updating the official recipe. Potions is my thing, okay? I love Namjoon, he’s lovely , but he’s not allowed to be better than me at Potions,” Seokjin said stiffly.
“I mean he beats you in every other class, he might as well beat you here, too,” Jungkook huffed.
Seokjin looked up with an incredulous glare, indignant, “Excuse me?”
The younger Gryffindor yawned, unfazed by Seokjin’s reaction, probably expecting it; instead of answering, Jungkook walked to the front of the class where there was a small chaise tucked into the corner, collapsing into a tired heap on top of it.
“Namjoon is smart, and lovely, and he works so hard, so yes he deserves all the good grades he gets, and so what if he’s constantly working to try and improve himself. He’s not allowed to do that in potions. He’s a genius and we love him, okay, but no,” Seokjin explained in a ramble.
“Can you please just confess to him and get it over with?” Jungkook groaned, words muffled into the dusty fabric of the chaise, “If only to prevent me from waking up at this ungodly hour?”
Seokjin set down a beaker a bit too quickly; a sharp clang echoing through the classroom as the glass cracked against the counter.
The Gryffindor was most definitely not upset. Not at all.
“Namjoon barely tolerates me. You know it took me nearly a year to get him to talk to me.”
“It’s called being shy, hyung, He’s shy.”
“Namjoon’s a lot of things, but shy isn’t one of them.”
Jungkook sat up on the chaise to squint at Seokjin in confusion, dramatically indicating to Seokjin how ridiculous he thought that was. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not,” Seokjin huffed, “Now, shut up, I need to focus.”
Seokjin was fairly sure this would go well. Love potions, were both simple and difficult. Simple enough in ingredients and instructions, it was just the issue of being extremely precise. Half a second too long on the burner could ruin it. A milligram of extra moonstone dust and the love potion turns into a strawberry smoothie.
But Seokjin rarely messed up a potion.
He was, by far, top of his class, and known to be extraordinary.
He’d have called himself a genius at it, but a part of him couldn’t help but feel as if that word was exclusively meant for Namjoon.
The Gryffindor hummed, carefully pulling the beaker off of the burner with metal tongs; he wasn’t using levitation spells just to make sure that nothing offset the delicate balance of the pretty opal-colored potion.
Seokjin had been pondering over love potions for a while. There had always been a little niggling feeling at the back of his head
He’d replaced peppermint with Spearmint. Which obviously made sense as while spearmint did still have the Menthol that Peppermint did, it was also contained an extremely high level of Carvone, which was much sweeter and much warmer. It should- hopefully- cause a warmer, more tender result.
And then he’d switched out Moonstone with Opals. Moonstones were hard, impervious stones, blue-toned and perfect. Opals, on the other hand, tended to contain more water, and spawned in fissures, born in imperfections. Seokjin couldn’t help but feel that Opals would be more realistic, nudging the effects of the potion from obsessive to something more genuine.
This is what Seokjin was known for. For being resourceful and creative, tweaking and fixing recipes.
For knowing what could be better and fixing it.
Nothing was ever perfect, but Seokjin could get potions recipes to be pretty damn close to it.
Warily, Seokjin added the last ingredient, two drops of lavender oil, with an eye dropper, each drop plopping into the beaker, tinting the pearlescent concoction a slightly pinker tone.
There.
And that was it. It was done. After two hours of slaving, Seokjin was sure he had did it.
“I think… I think I’m done. Come here,” Seokjin whispered, too scared of disrupting the potion to raise his voice.
“I don’t want you to be in love with me,” Jungkook whined, but still obediently walked over, “Why can’t you get Tae-hyung or Jimin -hyung to do it.”
Seokjin turned to Jungkook, giving the younger a flawless fake smile, “Your boyfriends volunteered you for the privilege of having me dote on you for twenty four hours, be grateful.”
“So, they’re still mad about the whole chocolate frog thing, huh?”
Seokjin’s smile dropped, nodding seriously, “Yes, yes they are, and you should probably apologize, now, stand here, I’m going to fall in love with the first person I see, if I do this right…”
Jungkook sighed, but walked up until he was about three feet away from Seokjin, slitted, sleepy eyes looking down at the beaker of shiny pink liquid.
“Is it supposed to be pink?” Jungkook frowned.
Seokjin shrugged, “I added spearmint and opal instead of moonstone and peppermint. It’s not a big deal.”
“Cool.”
Seokjin exhaled loudly, looking down at the beaker in his hands. He wasn’t nervous. Of course he wasn’t. Why would be be? He’d done everything correctly. There was no doubt that Seokjin was going to spend the next 24 hours crooning over Jungkook.
And while, undoubtedly, that wasn’t ideal, and Seokjin would much rather be crooning over Namjoon, albeit internally, it was going to be fine.
Seokjin was going to be fine.
And with little more thought, Seokjin lifted the beaker up to his lips and drank it all.
It was sweet, almost like caramel, but it flowed like liquid chocolate, thick and rich. It could have been a sweet sold in candy shops. Had Seokjin not known better, he’d have assumed it was.
There wasn’t much of it, it was gone in four gulps.
And with the empty beaker feeling so very light in his hands, Seokjin lowered the glass, to cautiously look in front of him at Jungkook.
He wasn’t sure how it would feel, if it would be a zap or a rush or a gradual warmth, but Seokjin waited. Staring at Jungkook, looking into his doe eyes and cute nose and chapped lips that really needed chapstick, he really needs to moisturize better—Seokjin blinked, forcing himself to go back to making eye contact with Jungkook, waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and wait, is that flutter in his stomach the effect of the po—oh, nevermind, his stomach just itches—
“Hyung… Did it work?” Jungkook asked, surprisingly gentle. The younger started to reach out and grab Seokjin’s hand, a reassurance that a desperately in-love Seokjin would have craved.
But all Seokjin felt was uncomfortable as Jungkook’s rough Quidditch callouses rubbed harshly against his soft hands.
Nothing.
Seokjin felt normal.
And once he realized this, he felt disappointed.
“I don’t think so,” Seokjin said, giving Jungkook and then himself a once-over, “I think something went wrong.”
“So you don’t want to walk me back to my rooms so that I can sleep for another hour before classes start?” Jungkook asked, partly joking, partly pleading.
Seokjin rolled his eyes, “I’ll walk you back to Jimin and Tae’s. But it’s because I’m a good hyung, not because I’m desperately in love with you.”
Slumping in relief, the younger leaned back against the wall, eyes fluttering closed. “Thanks, You’re the best, hyung.”
“Not in potions, apparently.”
“You’ll figure out what you did wrong,” Jungkook said with a shrug, “There’s not really a deadline on one-upping Namjoon-hyung, anyway.”
Seokjin smiled, but it was a bit pained, disappointment weighing on him heavily as he glanced back at his work desk. His clean, precise work desk where all of his perfect, hand-picked ingredients were.
There was no room for error. Seokjin had followed every single instruction to the T. There wasn’t anything that could have gone wrong.
But something did , has had to have gone wrong, because Seokjin wasn’t swooning over Jungkook.
And for the first time in Seokjin’s life, that was a reason for personal dismay.