Work Text:
There’s something off with Yoohyeon tonight—she’s an inch too far, maybe, or a touch too fast. Six months of joint night patrols have Handong able to trace the cadence of her footsteps; with even this slight shift Handong’s bothered.
“Hyeon.”
Yoohyeon freezes so abruptly that Handong almost crashes into her. Nothing Yoohyeon about any of this at all.
The fact that Yoohyeon doesn’t even say anything afterwards adds to it. Always quick to her words, but not tonight.
“You okay?”
“Yup!” Yoohyeon nods furiously. Fixes her tie, blue and bronze shimmering even in the low light. She takes a step backward from Handong. Her face is flushed.
Rise in body temperature, abnormal behaviour—
“Hyeon,” Handong says, lowly, stepping toward her. “Did you get hexed?”
Yoohyeon blinks. Is quiet for a few seconds, mouth half-open before she shakes her head and scoffs. “No!”
Handong folds her arms. “You sure look like it.”
“How do you know what being hexed looks like?”
Handong only raises an eyebrow.
“I’m not, okay? I’m more than capable of telling. And removing it,” Yoohyeon says, mouth firm in a line. She turns, and the sound of her cloak rippling reverberates through the empty hall. “Let’s go. We’re already behind schedule.”
Her old Charms notebook from fourth year was hard to find, but she digs it out of her chest eventually. Much to Bora’s chagrin. (I need my beauty sleep!)
Handong flips to a page—there. Confusion Hex - causes flustering, disorientation, makes more vulnerable for stronger curses. But who’d cast one on Yoohyeon? A Defence Against the Dark Arts lecture oversight?
In any case, the hex can be countered by just the standard zapper, so Handong’s sure once Yoohyeon gets it through her stubborn head that even she can lose focus and find herself on the wrong end of a hex, she can get rid of it herself, too.
Except tonight, too, Yoohyeon’s behaving strangely.
Handong lets her be. Yoohyeon seems determined to walk three paces ahead of her, and Handong’s happy to watch from behind. The hairs coming loose from her ponytail, the slight curve of her back. The curl and uncurl of her fists. Handong watches it all.
Their route takes them outside and to the Herbology greenhouse. Handong decides it’s time to dig her heels in and catches Yoohyeon’s wrist.
She drags them inside and doesn’t miss Yoohyeon’s quiet gasp. Handong turns Yoohyeon so they’re facing each other and sets her hands on her shoulders. They’re drowning in moonlight. There’s the quiet sway of the asphodels beside them.
Handong retrieves her wand from her inside coat pocket.
Yoohyeon’s eyes widen and it’s her turn to catch Handong’s wrist. “What are you doing?” she hisses.
“Maybe if you took your other classes as seriously as you did Ancient Runes—”
“I have straight Os—”
“You’d know you’re hexed. Or are you too thick-headed to admit that you’re not immune to them?”
Yoohyeon’s jaw clenches. “I’m not hexed,” she says.
Handong rolls her eyes. “Dilaceranti hexia,” she mumbles.
A crackle, a flash of white light.
Yoohyeon gasps. “Are you—what the fuck?” She grabs onto the open end of Handong’s cloak and lurches forward. “That’s fifty points, at least, are you insane?”
Handong blinks. Yoohyeon, close to her, in front of her—but it’s Yoohyeon. Not the spooked, barely-there girl of the other night.
“Looks like it worked, though,” Handong mumbles.
“It didn’t.” Yoohyeon lets go and steps back. “I don’t—I wasn’t hexed. Just—”
Yoohyeon storms off. Handong’s left in a dim greenhouse, with a racing pulse she didn’t even know had begun.
Maybe Yoohyeon was right. As much as Handong wouldn’t like to admit.
She’s reserved again tonight. Walks ahead of Handong again tonight. Isn’t saying a word again to her tonight. If Handong’s spell worked—which it would have—Yoohyeon wouldn’t be like this.
When they turn the corner they spot two first-years. Hufflepuffs. It’s way past their curfew. They freeze when they spot Handong and Yoohyeon.
Handong steps forward, but she hears Yoohyeon mumble a, “I’ll take care of it.”
Yoohyeon conducts a masterclass. She puts on a smile. Speaks to them kindly. I have to take some points away, but I’ll let you know how to get them back, okay? In the kitchens …
The two kids are awestruck at Yoohyeon, and Handong can’t help but think that she knows how that feels, too.
After speaking to them, Yoohyeon hands them a chocolate frog each. Sends them off with a wink. They scurry away and Yoohyeon straightens back up.
“C’mon, Dong,” she calls, without turning to face her.
Handong chews on her lip. “Okay,” she replies, and the two of them go about their night.
Handong’s afraid this’ll become their norm.
She liked what they were before … whatever it is that happened to Yoohyeon. Conversations some nights, quiet company others. Groaning about professors or giving each other help with a spell that’s been giving them a hard time. Handong knows more about Yuri Blishen’s translation practices than she’d ever expected.
When they pass by the greenhouse again, Handong stops.
She sees Yoohyeon startle and turn around. “What’s wrong?”
Handong wrings her hands. “Come inside with me?”
Yoohyeon scoffs. “So you can de-hex me again?”
“No.” Handong shakes her head. “No.”
Yoohyeon’s expression shifts, then—it isn’t playful anymore. She gives one solemn, solitary nod and says, “Okay.”
Handong leads them both to the exact same spot they were the other night. Yoohyeon stands still in front of her. She’s in braids today, Handong notices. The light twists in her hair.
“Is everything okay?” Handong asks.
Yoohyeon gives her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been acting … weird,” Handong says. “Like, really weird, and I don’t get it. I thought it was a hex, at first—as we both know—but …”
Handong doesn’t know what she’s scouring for on Yoohyeon’s face. Looks for something. Anything.
“But I asked—you know. Siyeon and Gahyeon, they say you’re fine, which means you’ve been only acting strange around me, which makes me think I did something, so. Did I?”
At that, Yoohyeon gets taken aback. Her lashes flutter when she blinks, shocked.
“I’ll fix it, if I can. Or would you like to switch patrols—”
“No! No,” Yoohyeon says, setting a hand on Handong’s. Stepping toward her. “No.”
Handong tilts her head. “What is it, then?”
Yoohyeon’s expressions come clearer to Handong now that they’re closer. A fight, somewhere there. A strickenness.
“Ah, it’s no use,” Yoohyeon eventually says. Her shoulders loosen. “You see right through me.”
Handong waits. Yoohyeon breathes in.
“Yubin was tinkering with her Potions extra credit in our room. Amortentia, of all things.” Yoohyeon laughs, and a flush begins to dust on her cheeks. “It smelled like—parchment, and my mom’s vegetable stew, and—”
Yoohyeon takes Handong’s hand. Twists it so her forearm is up. Then takes two fingers of her other hand and rests it on Handong’s pulse. Handong wonders if she can feel its rush.
“And the inside of your wrist, Dong,” Yoohyeon says.
Handong looks up. Inhales. Yoohyeon has a resigned smile on her face.
“So that’s why,” she says, and drops Handong’s hand. Handong’s arms fall to her sides. Yoohyeon tucks hers behind her back.
“Hyeon,” Handong calls.
“I know.” Yoohyeon scrunches her nose. “Lame, right? I bet your Amortentia scents would be a lot cooler.”
Handong’s heart is in her throat. The dawn begins to greet them outside, the sky in strokes of gold and pink.
“I guess,” Handong replies, pushes through the roaring in her ears. “I think mine will smell like Honeydukes, and fresh linen.”
Handong takes a step closer, still. Yoohyeon’s eyes round.
“And the asphodels that were beside the hard-headed, Ravenclaw girl,” Handong says, “when she told me something I thought I’d never hear.”
The sunlight warms them as it comes through the glass. Handong wishes there was a way to capture how it bathes Yoohyeon’s face. The awe, the delight unfurling.
Handong settles for capturing her lips in hers instead, and it’s a magic all of its own.