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Just like that, life as she’d known it came to end.
A scandal that brought down a powerful pureblood family- and she didn’t even know what exactly her father had done. Something horrific enough that no one dared speak of it.
Aurors showed up at their doorstep with a warrant and they invaded every corner, leaving no room for privacy. The Ministry of Magic confiscated various expensive and rare artifacts under the guise of dark magic activity, but she knew their true intentions were more along the lines of slipping trinkets into their pockets when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.
She let it slide since the loss wasn’t significant. As the sole heir to the family inheritance, there was plenty left to her name- though it wouldn’t be hers until marriage, as per tradition.
With her father in Azkaban, she’d have to live with her mother’s new family. A stepbrother who hated her. A mother who didn’t care. A workaholic stepfather.
As she steps into the house, the floorboards creak and she decides she hates the place. It’s a matter of principle, more than anything else. She cannot like the place and the people her mother abandoned her for. If she had a choice, she wouldn’t even be here.
She spends the day unpacking in an attempt to make her room bearable to stay in. By evening she’s temporarily satisfied, and she decides to send a letter to her friend.
Her door slams open, and her younger brother stands in the doorway. He’s shot up in height since she saw him last- which was when they first met at their parents’ wedding.
“Brother,” she says. Her voice lacks emotion and she doesn’t even look up from the parchment she’s writing on. “What can I do for you?”
“You will never be my sister,” he sneers. “I wish you were gone.”
She lets a laugh escape, malicious, finally turning to Jisung. “Mother must have told you that if you wish with your heart on the first star you see it’ll come true. Be careful what you wish for. Magic works in ways you can’t even begin to imagine, brother dearest."
His scowl deepens. Jisung strolls away, door swinging shut after him with an uneccesary force.
“With a family like Donghyuck’s,” Jungwoo says with a shudder. The dramatic effect is dulled by the breadstick that’s stuffed in his mouth. Luckily, he chews and swallows before continuing. “It’s no wonder how they all end up.”
Sungchan gasps, eyes filled with curiosity. “Death Eaters?”
“Worse. They’re the backbone of the wizarding community. You can lock up criminals like Death Eaters,” Jungwoo explains with an eagerness rivaling that which he has for eating. “But good luck trying to turn the system against influential people who run it.”
A fork slams into the table, Jisung’s step sister scowling as she stares at it as though it had personally wronged her.
The system had turned against her father despite his influence and it was a sore spot. She did not take it well that the Lee family had gotten away scot free despite orchestrating the affairs her father had taken the fall for.
Besides that, it was her best friend and his family they were discussing. She had the Slytherin loyalty in her, even if she wasn’t currently on speaking terms with Donghyuck.
Jungwoo, to his credit, goes on with his gossip unperturbed. “No pure soul ever existed in the Lee family that wasn’t crushed by the time they left Hogwarts.” Jungwoo pauses for a moment to shovel and swallow a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “Look what happened to Taemin. Now it’s Taeyong’s turn. Next Mark, then Haechan. Honestly, Mark’s already showing changes. I’m convinced there’s a curse at play. Like the legendary curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post ever since Dumbledore turned Oldy-Moldy-Voldy down, you know?”
“What about Jeno?” Shotaro inquires, while Jisung sideyes his sister. “He’s Donghyuck and Mark’s cousin, isn’t he?”
She rises from her seat and storms off, Yangyang shooting them an apologetic glance before hurrying after her.
“He doesn’t count since he’s a half-blood,” Chenle says. “The Lee family doesn’t recognize him as a legitimate heir.”
“Pureblood supremacists,” a muffled voice grunts. Sicheng doesn’t bother to lift his face off the table it’s squished against. “Scum. That’s what they think of anyone who isn’t as inbred as they are. Not that you’ll ever catch them admitting it in public. Crystal clear rep, after all.”
“Isn’t Jisung’s sister engaged to Jeno? Yet it doesn’t look like they’re friends, let alone lovers.”
“Yeah,” Shotaro agrees with Sungchan. “Why are they together? What do they have to gain?"
“Money,” Jungwoo answers. “It’s all about money.”
Jisung scoffs. He knows his step sister looks down on him for being poor, not pureblood, and not as powerful as her.
"Fortunately for Jeno, his grandfather has a soft spot for him. He treats him like a treasure he found in the trash,” Jungwoo says. “There’s less pressure on Jeno compared to his cousins, while he gets the protection of the Lee family. Jeno won’t inherit anything. Jisung’s step sister is the sole heir to the family inheritance after her father. Jeno may barely make the cut, but he’s still a Lee. The name still means something even if he has hardly any say in the family affairs himself. She gets power, Jeno gets-"
"Stop gossiping and eat up. You’re going to be late to class. I’ll give you two minutes to finish eating before I leave, with or without you.”
Jungwoo rubs his head where Sicheng whacked him, pouting at the other boy, not that it had any effect on him.
“The kids need to know about this stuff, don’t you think? They’ve been out of the loop all this time while they lived among the muggles."
"They’ll learn what they need to with time. Now hurry up,” Sicheng says. “You have forty-five seconds left.”
She’s reading through Renjun’s essay, crossing out and adding lines with her quill, when she realises why it seemed so familiar.
With the note from her secret admirer and Renjun’s assignment side by side, the resemblance was undeniable.
It’d been Renjun all this time?
He said he’d be near the Great Lake if she needed him, so that’s where she decides to go.
She rushes through the corridors, ignoring the stares and scowls people sent her way.
But then someone steals her wand and shoves her into an empty classroom. They spell open the cupboard that stood in the center of the room. She tries to get out but the door is locked, trapping her inside.
She’s horrible. She’s the daughter of a criminal. She’s a villain. She deserves it.
She’d heard the whispers, known they’d eventually attack her, yet she still fell into their trap.
The boggart steps out and she doesn’t want to turn around and face her fears, especially not while defenseless without a wand.
“Hey, look at me, baby.”
No. Not his voice. Without venom, like he still loved her-
“Don’t be shy, love.”
She finds herself face to face with Jaemin. What’s scary is that she wants to believe it’s real, that he’d take her back and they’d be together again. Even after everything he’d done, she still loves him and it terrifies her.
“Riddikulus."
Boggart Jaemin turns into a cardboard cutout, and falls flat on the floor.
She turns around to Jaemin, the real one, holding his wand out, brows furrowed and a question forming on his lips. But then he simply sighs and walks away, leaving the room unlocked behind him.
The package her owl had delivered in the morning lies where she’d tossed it beside her bed.
She opens it and takes out its content.
Regret fills her as soon she realizes what’s dangling from her fingers. Someone thought it would be fun to give her a cursed locket.
She immediately flings the object, unfortunately it’s too late. Her wand clatters to the floor.
She coughs up blood, stumbling to the ground while trying to reach for her wand that she’d accidently dropped in her haste. Her vision is fading in and out, and she feels like she’s being torn from the inside. Blindly searching for her wand, she feels her consciousness drifting away.
She lets her head rest on the cold marble of the floor. The desperation has left her, only the desire to sleep left. Her eyes flutter close and she lies there, waiting for the pain to go away and leave her with peace.
There’s the sound of the door swinging open and hurried footsteps, though she doesn’t have the energy to open her eyes. Someone speaks and she can’t make out the words, but she hears the panic, the concern, and wonders what it would be like to have someone care about her like that.
With that thought, she lets the darkness carry her away.
When she comes to, it’s in a bed at St. Mungo’s. There’s someone hunched over in the seat next to her, and to her surprise, it’s the last person she expected.
"Jisung?”
His head snaps up, and he looks as shocked as she feels.
“I-I-” Jisung stammers as if he was caught red-handed. “I’m sorry, this is all my fault. I didn’t want you to die. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. It wasn’t supposed to go this far. I’m sorry.”
Jisung is on the verge of tears after this confession, and she isn’t sure which part of it she should focus on. He looks young and vulnerable, and this is the first time he’s spoken to her without a threat marring his features.
“So you’re behind the boggart and the pranks too?” She knows the answer but she wants to hear it from him.
“Yeah. I wanted to give you a fright, knock you off your high horse- but I never wanted this. I’ve said things I didn’t mean before,” Jisung admits. “But please believe me this time. I know you hate me. After everything you have every reason to, of course. But I realised I don’t want to lose you, and I want you to know that.”
“I don’t though,” she says after a moment. “I don’t hate you. I thought you were a pest and you proved me right on that, yet I didn’t think of you as the enemy. I didn’t want to like you, but I couldn’t bring myself to hate you.” And it’s true, even after Jisung revealed what he’d done. “You almost killed me though, and that’s not something I can forgive just like that. If you really want to make up for it, then you’re going to have to work hard. I won’t make it easy, be warned.”
“I’m not as competitive as you,” Jisung laughs. “But I don’t hate challenges.”
“Great. Your first task is to go buy Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and pick out the unpleasant ones.”
“You’re not going to make me eat those, are you?”
“Well, I wasn’t. Now that you’ve brought it up, it sounds like a nice idea.”
Jisung groans as he goes to get the jelly beans, hoping that he won’t get booger flavoured beans or worse.
Jisung has heard she hardly ever forgives and never forgets. She’s already plotting to make him pay. Jisung knows this, and he wonders how long they’ll play at being siblings.
For now, he bickers, buys her things and enjoys acting like her younger brother while it lasts.