Chapter Text
The wind was blowing when Yoongi’s father took him outside that day, the sun was barely there, as if it was trying to hide from something.
He was six and as much as his mother had tried to dress him in warm clothes, he could feel the coldness try to fight its way into his body, the only source of warmth he had was the hand holding him tightly next to him, whether his father was trying to comfort him or just make sure he wouldn’t run away, Yoongi could not tell.
“As you know, when the wizards in our family come of age, all of us go to Hogwarts”, his father let go of his hand then, moving to kneel in front of him and look into his eyes, “but there’s another thing that we, as a family share through generations.”
Yoongi was confused, what was his father trying to tell him? Was he going to give him something? “Don’t be afraid, okay?” He said before standing up before him and taking off his coat.
“You don’t actually need to remove your clothes, but this one is kind of heavy.”
Yoongi kept his eyes open through the whole process, even if he didn’t understand what he was seeing, his father’s body started to move in weird ways, ways he had never seen before, and seconds later there was a lion where his father once stood. The small child fell into the dirt. He did love animals, but he could understand that some of them were dangerous, and he was sure lions were one of them.
The lion came closer before Yoongi could run away, and he remembered what his father had said, so he tried to approach him without being afraid. The lion’s tail started to swing happily, and a deep purr came from his chest when he caressed him behind his ears, the way he would do with a dog. Yoongi still couldn’t understand why there was a lion in front of him, but he knew that he was not going to hurt him.
Later that day, once the lion was gone and his father was back, he explained to Yoongi that, when trained to be animagus, certain male wizards in his family could turn into lions. Nobody could quite explain why it happened but it was taught through generations and those who went through the training successfully proved it to be right: they could all turn into lions.
And so, Yoongi’s training started.
His father was right in most of what he had said years ago.
Yoongi did become a wizard, his letter of invitation to Hogwarts did arrive when it was supposed to, and once he got in the school and sat under the hat he had come to fear rather than anticipate, it exclaimed “Gryffindor!” immediately, followed by claps and cheers for the people who belonged to his, now, house.
But when he walked towards them, Yoongi couldn’t help but feel it was all wrong.
Gryffindor was supposed to be a house for the brave, for courageous and determined people who took life by its horns and didn’t run away from it. Yoongi was none of those things, he had been expecting to be sorted into Ravenclaw, he didn’t consider himself the smartest person to be but his personality aligned more with them. He had even considered Hufflepuff when he laid awake at night, fearing this day might come, the day when a hat decided if he was worthy of the expectations his family had put on him.
But he was even more afraid of this outcome, what if the hat decided his blood was stronger? What if the hat saw him as only his family name, which had belonged to Gryffindor for years? What if it completely ignored Yoongi as a person and who he was, rather than who he was supposed to be? What if, once he was already in Gryffindor, he couldn’t leave up to it and the blame fell solely on him?
He tried to keep his letter to his family as objective as he could, hiding any sort of relief or disappointment that a child wizard might have after being selected into a house. But his parents didn’t do him the same favor, couldn’t hide their happiness and congratulated him on following the family’s path.
Yoongi wanted to cry. He was so scared of letting his family down on this, if he failed what else did he have? This was everything he was brought up to be. Since the day his father had turned into a lion in front of him and way before that, when one of his uncles gifted him a Gryffindor scarf on one of his birthdays. He was scared, and that itself proved he was not meant to be a Gryffindor.
It seemed like the rejection he felt towards his house manifested in the hallways of Hogwarts, he couldn’t find his way towards the Gryffindor common room, he was trying to find a prefect who could help him when he came across a ghost.
He blinked. “Who are you?”
Ghosts in Hogwarts were common knowledge, they were easier to find than the Gryffindor tower, it seemed.
“Who am I?”, the ghost answered calmly, appearing to actually contemplate her answer, “It is a good question, child, but a wrong one all the same, you should be asking what I am.”
“What are you?” Yoongi responded then.
“I’m tall when I’m young and short when I’m old.” The ghost's eyes seemed to sparkle with curiosity. “What am I?”
Yoongi looked around, was this a joke? Why was a ghost making riddles? The candle light was tame behind her, making her glow subtly. His brain seemed to click then, he was in the wrong tower, and this was one of the great ghosts of the houses. And she was…
“A candle.” He answered, and the ghost smiled, a door opened next to her and Yoongi walked towards it, he would find a prefect there, for sure.
The female ghost spoke behind him again, “I am Helena Ravenclaw,” she said, and from their interaction and her proud serene tone of voice, Yoongi had already guessed, “who are you?”
Having the question directed at him took him by surprise, he thought about it, I’m a first year student who was supposed to be in this house, he wanted to say, but at the end of the day, he was Min Yoongi, so he said just that, his name was something he was sure of.
“Which house are you from, Min Yoongi?”, she asked, her voice letting him know she knew something he didn’t.
“Gryffindor.”
Second year found Yoongi in a similar position, Ravenclaw’s common room felt a little bit more like home than Gryffindor’s, but he still didn’t feel like he belonged in Hogwarts.
“Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?” Yoongi heard Helena ask someone, that was an easy question, but the answer never came.
The boy in front of her started to mumble as if he was thinking out loud, his hands were moving and his legs were shaking, Yoongi could almost hear the way his brain was working, steam would come out of his ears shortly, he was sure of it.
“A circle has no beginning, neither does a cycle.” Deciding he would rather help him than watch him faint in the middle of the hallway, Yoongi answered the riddle for him, the door would open either way and they could come in faster.
The boy in front of him was left gaping like a fish, he seemed to be processing the answer and it eventually made sense to him, he smiled then, dimples showing for the first time and Yoongi couldn’t help but smile back.
“You will have to get used to it, it’s the only way you can get into the tower.” The second-year said, guiding the other up the stairs.
“Are you a second year?” He asked with the curiosity of a Ravenclaw. “I’m sorry, I should’ve introduced myself first, how rude of me, I’m Namjoon, it’s my first year here.”
Yoongi could tell, but he took his hand nonetheless. “I’m Min Yoongi, a second year indeed.”
Namjoon’s eyes widened at that, he knew his way around wizard family trees, it seemed. He was rightfully selected into his house, Yoongi couldn’t help but feel a little jealous.
“Are you from the Min family?” He asked like he couldn’t help himself. “The pure blooded wizard family from Gryffindor?”
Yoongi sighed, he would probably ask what he was doing in the Ravenclaw building later, he needed to come up with something. “Well, the family hasn’t been pure blooded for a while, love happens and it doesn’t care about family origins, my grandmother was actually a muggle,” Namjoon gasped at that, taking the new knowledge in, “and I don’t think we are actually from Gryffindor’s family… but most of us get sorted into his house, yes.”
The question lingered in the air, Namjoon held his tongue longer than Yoongi thought him capable of, but he asked at the end. “Were you?”
“Yes, I’m from Gryffindor.” Yoongi said, keeping the emotion out of his voice, he didn’t give Namjoon a chance to ask him what he was doing there, “I just come here to do my homework because things in my common room are a little bit louder. And Helena seems to like me enough to not complain or refuse to let me in.”
“Helena?” The younger asked.
“Your house ghost, the one that made the riddle.” Yoongi explained.
Namjoon made a sound of understanding, and that kind of settled the beginning of their relationships (or at least the first years of it), with Namjoon asking questions and expecting Yoongi to have the answer to all of them. Sometimes he did, and sometimes Namjoon had to ask someone else, but he still held Yoongi as the smartest person he knew, “You are smarter than any Ravenclaw I know, hyung.”
It should’ve felt good, it was one of the nicest compliment a Ravenclaw could give, even if Namjoon didn’t know much Ravenclaws, but Yoongi was still carrying the burden of being sorted into the wrong house, and the comment didn’t help with that, made it worse in fact.
His friend knew about it, and he quickly tried to correct his mistake. “And the bravest person I know.”
“Now you’re lying.” Yoongi said bitterly.
“But you are! None of the ghosts ever scare you, you even befriended Helena! And she enjoys scaring a lot of the students,” Yoongi’s attempt to interrupt him in order to defend his ghost friend went unnoticed, “that time we got lost near the lake and the grindylows tried to drown me, you quickly repelled them and got us out of there! If you hadn’t acted so bravely I would’ve died there, I’m sure of it.” Namjoon turned pale at the memory.
Yoongi wasn’t convinced, he was a good swimmer, even if Namjoon had been caught, he could get him back, and there was only one grindylow to begin with, one of them wouldn’t be enough to drown them.
“Not to mention how last week you joined Gryffindor's fifth year students fighting the boggarts.” Namjoon quickly added when he saw Yoongi’s lack of agreement.
Yoongi didn’t need to be reminded of that, he could recall the event perfectly, could feel the way of his wand on his hand and the Riddikulus spell on the tip of his tongue.
“A lion, Yoongi! A big one at that, who doesn’t get scared with a lion?” Namjoon asked. “I saw a professor scream, I swear! And all of the fifth years were paralyzed with fear.”
He could almost laugh at that, Yoongi was sure they were not paralyzed with fear but rather with shock. He was a third year student now, and a Gryffindor at that, how could the thing he feared the most be a lion? The sigil of his own house.
But Yoongi didn’t fear the lion, he knew it wouldn’t hurt him. He smiled sadly when he saw him, raised his wand and screamed “Riddikulus!” as loud as he could. The lion tried to roar then, but it turned into a small meow, before he became a kitten in front of Yoongi, he picked him up easily, before taking him to the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.
“Maybe it wasn’t mine, Joon-ah.” Yoongi said, turning his head back to his book, and Namjoon dropped the theme. He was becoming more emotionally smart lately, growing up faster than him, Yoongi thought with envy, becoming the person he was supposed to be.
“Jung Hoseok.” A voice behind him called.
The Hufflepuff quidditch captain was pulling at his robe, behind him. “You're trying to spy on our team to gain some points with yours, huh?”
“Hyung!” Hoseok quickly defended himself, “I would never and you know it, even if I did, the captain doesn’t like me so he wouldn’t even listen to anything I have to say.”
Seokjin’s laugh never failed to make him smile, but it couldn’t get rid of the sadness in him, not completely. “C’mon, Seok-ah,” Jin said trying to make him feel better, “I’ve already told you he’s already on his last years, you just need to wait a little longer and then he’ll be gone, Youngho will probably be captain after him and he sees your potential, I know it.”
He was right about that, Youngho had even told him all they needed to figure out was which position would Hoseok play in, but they knew he belonged in the team.
And yet that made it all worse.
Knowing that the rest of the team saw his abilities and decided that they were good enough to consider letting him play made it so much worse. Because it meant that it wasn’t his fault, Hoseok wasn't entitled to a spot in the team, he deserved it, and the only reason he didn’t have it yet was Alvin, their current quidditch captain and a pure blooded wizard.
Hoseok had learned the hard way that there were certain stereotypes around the Slytherin household, and one of them was the founder’s desire to instruct on magic only those born in families of wizards. It was an old way of thinking, and a stupid one, not even the other three founders of Hogwarts had been on Salazar Slytherin’s side on that, but there were still some students who seemed to share the thought.
It was a few of them, yes, but Hoseok had come to realize that bad people usually found themselves in positions of power and there was nothing he could do about it.
“I won’t have a muggle born playing in my team,” Alvin had said when Hoseok showed up to the quidditch team trials in his very first year. “I don’t care how good you think you are flying, you’ve only been doing it for what? Less than a year? Everybody here knew how to fly before we even came to Hogwarts, we are more experienced than you.”
Hoseok supposed he was right about that, they had more experience than him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at flying. And he could improve! If they could only give him the chance to gain experience by letting him practice with them.
But not even the words of his teammates could convince Alvin to let Hoseok join, it was said that his family had connections on the quidditch professional scene, and if any of them wanted to continue playing after graduating, they better not make an enemy out of him.
And Hoseok was about to give up, maybe Hogwarts wasn’t for him. He had thought that since his very first day there, when people in his house gave him weird looks and everyone talked about things he couldn’t understand.
But when the first year students were instructed to go to the yards for their first flying lesson and Hoseok got on the broomstick, he could feel the anticipation in his bones. His feet left the ground shortly and it was magical, flying felt like dancing and he started to feel like he could belong here.
Maybe he was born to fly.
The professor screamed at him a little, Hoseok was so enchanted with flying that he ignored her instructions and gave a couple of rounds instead of just coming down. “Is it your first time flying?” She had asked, making him feel a little self conscious since the attention was now completely on him. He nodded.
“I understand your excitement, child,” the professor said softly, her eyes letting him know that she really understood. “My first time on a broom was the same, I went around flying on this very same yard until I eventually fell down.”
Laughter came from Hoseok’s classmates, but the professor didn’t appear to be joking, and she kept looking at him. “The reason why you are only to go up and down is for us to be sure you can control the broomstick and you don’t fall from a higher height, do you understand?”
But I didn’t fall, Hoseok wanted to say. But he nodded in agreement.
When the class ended and everyone picked up their brooms, the professor approached him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
“You know, students who come from non-wizard families can receive extra flying training if they desire, since they weren’t born with a flying broom at hand.”
Hoseok looked at her with a big smile, and after she told him when he could come again, he started walking back to the castle. “Jung,” she stopped him again before he could reach the doors, “if you told me you were taught how to fly before you could walk, I would believe you.”
He was born for this, he decided, wizard or not.
The first time Hoseok saw a quidditch game, it was a match between his house and Gryffindor’s. He was a second year and he was excited since it was Alvin’s last year as a captain.
The game went on longer than usual, but his house pulled through, the Slytherin crowd screamed in victory, Hoseok between them.
“I definitely could’ve made that point.” Taehyung said next to him, making Jimin laugh. “Why are you laughing? You know it’s true.”
Hoseok couldn’t help but join them, their excitement was contagious. They were Slytherin’s first years and this was their first time seeing a match as well. They had become friends, sort of, more like they had decided to follow Hoseok everywhere since he had helped them in the Slytherin tower.
“Do you think the password is in parseltongue?” Jimin was saying when Hoseok found them.
Taehyung made his best impression of a snake, but the door didn’t move.
“Has nobody taught you the password?” Hoseok asked when he reached them, when he was a first year his prefect had led him and some others to the door and told them how to open the door.
There is a password to get in, don’t let the other houses know about it, he said looking directly at Hoseok, it’s…
“Pure-blood.”
The door opened for them, and Hoseok smiled at their surprise. There was a time when the password bothered him, he felt like it was a mockery directed at him, but he didn’t care anymore.
“That’s fucking lame.” Taehyung had said, followed by Jimin's nod, and with a laugh, Hoseok decided he liked them.
They followed him around ever since, “You’re so cool, hyung!”, they said often, every time he helped them with their homework or taught them the correct way to say a spell.
Hoseok tried not to feel too good about it, but it was hopeless, what he had been gaining in confidence was multiplied and where there were doubts about whether he deserved a place in Hogwarts or not, now there was conviction, he may have not been born in a family of wizards, but he was born one, and he would be the best at it.
“Who is that?”, asked Jimin now, standing up so he could get a better view, the question was directed at Hoseok but he didn’t have an answer.
There was a pale and short boy walking down the stairs, he seemed in a hurry to leave. His skin shined under the sun and his feline looking eyes scanned his surroundings as if he was trying to avoid something, someone. He was pretty, Hoseok thought.
His face changed when he saw Alvin approaching him, “Yoongi! Did you receive my invitation to the game? That last goal was for you, you know.”
Yoongi looked uncomfortable, he didn’t respond, but Alvin took his lack of an answer as an affirmation and laughed, “Yes, yes, I know you probably wanted your team to win, but I’m sure you can feel happy for me, right?”
It didn’t look like Yoongi agreed.
Was he a Gryffindor? He had to be if he wanted them to win. Hoseok was surprised, he would’ve never guessed that, Yoongi’s eyes seemed smart, his attitude was as cautious as a Ravenclaw. He shook his head. Hoseok should be the last person to keep the stereotypes related to houses.
“But anyways,” Alvin continued. “I wanted you to be here for this occasion, since I have an invitation to make.”
His voice seemed to rise at the last words, commanding the attention of everyone around them, Yoongi looked like he was about to be sick.
“Our great families have been in our houses for generations,” he started, and Hoseok felt the need to shield the smaller boy when he saw him shake. “As you know, the Yule ball will be happening this year. Let us stand proud and together as one of the last pure blooded wizards of this school and be my partner.”
Alvin spoke of his proposal as if it was an honor for Yoongi, and the only acceptable choice for both of them. For a minute, Yoongi stood quiet and Hoseok realized he was holding his breath. He didn’t want him to say yes, he realized, not to Alvin.
The boy squared his shoulders then, and even though he was shorter than Alvin, the aura that he commanded seemed bigger than him. His face was firm, his eyes sharp and his chin was raised a little, as if he was looking down on the older.
“I’m honored,” Yoongi said, but he didn’t sound like he was, his voice was loud and deep, and not at all what Hoseok was expecting. “But I will have to decline, I have no desire to attend the Yule ball, and even if I did…”
Yoongi allowed his words to linger in the air and he smiled, right in front of Alvin’s red face (and right through Hoseok’s now enamored heart).
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t go with you. I’d say I don’t care about the origins of your birth and whether you’re pure blooded or not, but it seems to me that I’m quite fond of muggle borns.”
He left without giving Alvin a chance to answer, bold in all of his Gryffindor glory, and Hoseok fell in love.