Work Text:
sunday november 6th 2010
as far as anyone is concerned, ten has two younger brothers. everyone knows this isn’t true of course- taking the fact that ten is half thai and his ‘brothers’ are fully chinese into consideration. in reality, his ‘brothers’ are his cousins, but ten, sicheng, and renjun are close enough to be brothers. ten and sicheng have been living with their grandmother since just after the second wizarding war in 1998, right after their parents had been sent to askaban. renjun had joined them in 2001 when his parents couldn’t convince the aurors that they were under the imperius curse during the war. they were lying of course, their family was one of the first to show their loyalty to you-know-who after his return to power. for nearly a decade the trio shared the third floor of the dong mansion during holidays but now with both ten and sicheng attending hogwarts, renjun is forced to face the wrath of their grandmother alone.
she used to tell them every time they rebelled that they should be glad thankful that she took them in and didn’t leave them to starve on the streets like dogs. ten supposes that she’s got a point to some extent, she did take them in. but that was only to take the ministry’s attention off of herself. who would think that a frail old woman, alone, caring for 3 young children would be capable of what she did. what she still talks of doing- if those good for nothing ministry workers did something about all the dirty blood plaguing our people. whatever that was supposed to mean. ten would have gladly gone to an orphanage instead of living with that old bat, and he presumed renjun and sicheng felt the same.
the dong mansion was never a home.
at 2:49am on the 6th of november 2010 ten was sleeping soundly in the closest place he could call a home. slytherin 4th years’ dormitory, room B1. there were 5 beds facing the centre of the circular room, curtains drawn tight. along the walls were windows almost like an aquarium’s looking into the depths of the black lake, if you looked close enough and long enough you could have seen the outline of mermaids swimming along casting shadows into the almost silent dormitory. the only noises audible to the human ear were the soft snores of 5 boys in a deep slumber lulled by the ripples of water from around them.
“-en”
ten stirred in his sleep and turned to the other side, ignoring whoever was speaking to him through half opened curtains. he’d finished 37 inches of parchment on the different types of cauldrons for potions the previous night, he deserved his sleep.
“ten wake up- ten i swear to got this is serious. i’m gonna regret this-
aguamenti”
ten got up with a start, face completely soaked with water
“what the fuck that was uncall-“ ten started before he caught sight of who woke him up “joshua? what are you doing here?”
joshua hong was the 5th year prefect for slytherin. ten actually liked him- when he wasn’t covered in water.
“professor bae is in the common room with your brother. she wants to see you apparently. she said it was urgent”
“shit- thanks” said ten before joshua left the dormitory, presumably he had just finished his nightly rounds.
ten was nervous. sure, he’d been called to talk with professor bae before, more often than he’d like to admit, he couldn’t help it through. it was almost never his own fault that he got called in, usually someone was being an asshole, and ten being the nosy person he is, couldn’t help but stick his wand in and hex them. but none of those talks had been at nearly 3am, and none of them included his brother this seriously.
he slipped his robe over his grey pyjamas and hurried down the stairs into the common area in his socks. there, he found sicheng. the third year was wearing his slytherin robe over his pyjamas like ten, but sicheng had enough sense to put on some slippers. his anxiety worsened when he saw the look on the head of slytherin house’s face. he could already tell that he wasn’t in trouble. she didn’t look angry. she looked tired, and like she didn’t know what to say. she had bags under her eyes and her hair was disheveled compared to how it was earlier on in the day. she looked worried. his eyes drifted to sicheng. he was gnawing at his bottom lip as he looked towards ten, for answers probably. he was just as confused as sicheng. ten didn’t fail to notice professor bae’s hand on sicheng’s shoulder. something had happened. something was wrong.
ten could tell. something was wrong.
“profes-“
“follow me” she said quickly before ten could ask any questions, briskly walking out of the common room and into the cold hallways.
the paintings around them ignored them for the most part, only a few questioned why two students were out of bed at this hour. after 5 lefts 7 rights 2 more lefts ans 4 staircases, the boys were led to a golden gargoyle standing guard in front of a spiral staircase. even though they had never been in there, they immediately recognised it as headmaster lee’s office.
“brace yourselves” said professor bae before muttering what ten thought was probably a password.
sicheng grabbed onto his hand as the gargoyle began to move aside, revealing a spiral staircase that seemed to be waiting for them to step on. professor bae gave them a look that could only be described as pity before ushering the two boys onto the staircase. ten gripped sicheng’s hand even closer as they ascended up towards the entrance, unsure of what was to come and why they needed to ‘brace themselves’. after the staircase came to a halt at a large wooden door.
ten waited a bit before knocking. sicheng nodded at him encouragingly as ten lifted his spare hand and took a deep breath. before he could even touch the door, a voice called from the other side
“come in, boys”
ten opened the door to a sight he’d been dreading to see.
renjun. sweet little renjun. he was sat on an armchair big enough to fit hagrid with a patchwork blanket over his lap. he was wearing pyjamas ten had never seen before. probably given to him by the person that brought him to hogwarts. they looked muggle. grandmother would have burned them. ten didn’t fail to notice the gash on his cheek or his tear filled eyes. the tears wouldn’t fall, they weren’t allowed to fall. dongs don’t cry. ten and sicheng rushed to his side, completely ignoring the others in the room. sicheng got there first and held renjun close to him. it didn’t take a genius to guess what had happened
“i’m going to kill her!” seethed ten. even though what he said wasn’t particularly soothing, he hoped that saying it in mandarin would help calm his youngest brother.
“mr li, mr dong” began the headmaster, forcing them to acknowledge that others were in the room. “i am afraid to inform you that your grandmother is in custody of the aurors after a raid at 2 this morning. minseok here found your cousin hiding behind a grandfather clock” he said, gesturing to an auror stood by the door.
“so she’s?” sicheng began to ask
“going to askaban?” one of the aurors finished from where she was sat close to the desk “most likely”
considering that he had just been given the news that his grandmother would become a snack for dementors. ten wasn’t feeling any remorse. he wasn’t sad that he’d never see her again. if anyone asked. he’d say he was glad. not that anyone would ask. it was a ‘touchy subject’ apparently. he was more concerned, for renjun, for sicheng, heck even for himself. where would they go during christmas, during summer. maybe they would stave on the street like dogs. just like she said they would.
apparently, mind reading was something that headmaster lee was talented in. “mr huang will be staying with yixing zhang. i believe he is your last living relative capable of taking care of you” he answered ten’s unvoiced question.
ten had never met yixing. his grandmother had burned his name out of the family tree. whenever ten asked, she always replied with ‘don’t ask questions’. by his placing on the tree, ten knew that he was a cousin, and by overhearing a conversation, he knew that he had graduated from hogwarts a year before ten had started as a first year. ‘good thing yongqin won’t have to see yixing at hogwarts. he might be a pure blood but that boy surrounds with too many mud bloods to be considered clean. a disgrace! and a hufflepuff no less!’ she had said before ten ran to his room to avoid being seen.
renjun began softly speaking to sicheng, to try and get him to understand what happened. “there were people in masks ge- grandmother wore one too i think. all the noise woke me up and i went down to see what was going on- g-ge there was green light everywhere and then one of them spotted me and-“ he took a breath to stop himself from crying. dongs don’t cry. he clutched the blanket in his hands
“it’s okay” whispered sicheng, his voice breaking slightly “you can cry”
“i’m going to kill her” tensaid to nobody in particular as renjun sobbed into sicheng’s shoulder.