Chapter Text
part one
The first time they meet, it’s in detention.
Jiyong knows he should probably try to fix his sleeping habits before they get worse, but somehow inspiration always seems to strike him at around midnight: an idea for the next Hogwarts music club concert, a way to weave a spell into a song that had been eluding him, a new hex from Teddy-hyung that he had to write down. The cost of it, of course, is that the professor finally cracks it when he runs into Potions an hour late.
So here he is, trying to clean the grime off some of the castle’s mustiest windows with soap, water and a surly fellow detentionee. “Choi Seunghyun, Hufflepuff,” he introduces himself as in a deep voice, and then he doesn’t say much after that. Jiyong is initially impressed by the other boy’s heavy brows, but after several failed attempts at making conversation he decides that the dirt embedded in the windowsill is being more enthusiastic about his attention.
It’s maybe fifteen minutes before Seunghyun opens his mouth again. “What are you humming? It sounds familiar.”
Jiyong blinks; he hadn’t realised he’d been singing under his breath. “Uh, it’s—it’s Muggle music, actually—”
Seunghyun raises an eyebrow. “I’m a Muggle-born, actually. Sing it properly, I want to hear.”
Jiyong feels a little put on the spot, but he takes a deep breath and complies. At the chorus Seunghyun surprises him by joining in with perfect harmony.
“Hey, you’re not half bad,” Jiyong says, astonished. “Why aren’t you in the music club?”
“There’s a music club here?”
Jiyong stares at him open-mouthed. “Of course there’s a—where have you been the past two years?”
Seunghyun ducks his head in what Jiyong takes to be embarrassment, and he softens. “Well, I’m the captain, and I say you should join, the choir’s been needing a new bass for ages—I think our current one has an actual frog in his throat, no joke—”
“Mmm, I’ll think about it,” Seunghyun chuckles, dimples forming and seemingly at odds with his eyebrows. Jiyong feels a sudden warmth in his toes.
“Why’re you here, anyway? You don’t look like a bad kid. Were you serenading Mrs Norris, or something?”
“No, I overslept and was late to Potions. For like the sixth time. What about you?”
“Got caught napping in Astronomy class. Thought the darkness would be a good cover, but it turned out the teacher had night vision. Useless asset, if you ask me.”
Jiyong snorts, and is about to reply before Filch’s sneering voice cuts in from behind them with “I do hope all that talking means you’ve cleaned to my satisfaction, boys,” at which they both resume hastily. Filch breathes down their necks from then until the window is spotless, so it isn’t until they’re trudging back into the castle that Jiyong speaks again. “We practise every Tuesday evening at seven-thirty. Just—come if you can, alright?”
“Yes sir, of course sir.”
Jiyong narrows his eyes, but he decides to let it pass. “Music room’s on the fifth floor. Don’t forget.”
The following Tuesday’s rehearsal comes and goes with no sign of Seunghyun. Youngbae asks him where “this amazing bass singer” is, and Jiyong’s got no answer. He tells himself later that he shouldn’t have been expecting anything from that sort of reaction anyway.
***
The second time they meet, Jiyong nearly loses his life.
It’s his first Care of Magical Creatures class. They’re looking at Kneazles, and the teacher wants them to form pairs to groom and observe them. Jiyong’s one of two Ravenclaws in his year taking it, but Seungho is in the hospital wing with owl flu, so he’s surrounded by a bunch of mostly unfamiliar Hufflepuff students. Everyone starts to partner up as Jiyong looks around rather disconsolately, wishing Seungho or Youngbae were there.
“Hey, choir boy,” says a deep voice behind him, and Jiyong turns to see a smirking Seunghyun.
“Hey!” Jiyong responds. “You never showed up to practice.” He tries not to sound too accusatory.
“Yeah, about that…” Seunghyun raises a hand to the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I couldn’t find the music room.”
Jiyong feels like smacking him. “You could’ve just asked someone to show you where it was.”
“Well, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to join anyway. Don’t know if it’s really my thing.”
“How do you know that? You didn’t even know there was one before I told you.”
Seunghyun doesn’t reply, just looks into middle distance as if there’s something very interesting over Jiyong’s left shoulder. The atmosphere is getting awkward, and Jiyong considers and dismisses several things he might say before he settles with, “Look, do you want to be partners for this, then?” which at least returns the grin to Seunghyun’s face.
Ten minutes later, however, Jiyong is half regretting his decision. The Kneazle they are meant to be looking after seems to have a particular aversion to Seunghyun, and is prone to lashing out with its claws whenever he comes near. Seunghyun’s hands are soon covered with shallow scratches, and Jiyong looks as though he’s dragged his robes through a thornbush.
“Maybe you should stand behind me, I think it likes me better,” Jiyong says. “Who’s a good boy? There’s a good boy,” he coos at the feline, which is the size of a small lion.
“I thought this one’s a girl?” Seunghyun says grumpily as he steps away on exaggerated tiptoe. It’s a bad move: Seunghyun stumbles over a hump in the grass, and treads heavily on the Kneazle’s bushy tail, making it rear up with a yowl and make a dash for the trees.
“Hey—wait! Come back here!” Jiyong sprints madly after the Kneazle as it scurries away. He can vaguely hear Seunghyun shouting something behind him. The beast is nimbler than he’d given it credit for, forcing Jiyong to leap over roots and boulders in hot pursuit. He rounds a large oak in time to see it skid to an abrupt stop, before it turns around and runs back to him. “Good girl—oof!”
Jiyong sits up, cursing inwardly; the Kneazle had bowled him over in its return flight. Stupid cat, he thinks, shaking his head, when he hears a distinct rustling noise from ahead of him. Jiyong looks up, and has just enough time to realise that he chased the Kneazle into the Forbidden Forest, before he sees a dark shape materialise before him and his brain freezes over.
Somehow the creature goes from being a yard away to fucking looming over him, and Jiyong sees fangs and dark matted fur before he shuts his eyes, paralysed with terror. There’s no flashing of life events, just damp breath against his face and neck and will it be painful oh fuck I’m going to die I’m going to die—
There’s a shout and a loud crack from somewhere towards his left, and miraculously he feels the breath and weight lift off him. The sound of padding steps fades away into silence. Jiyong cracks open an eyelid, and there’s no monster, just Seunghyun, looking down at him with wide eyes.
“Holy mother of Merlin’s balls,” gasps Jiyong, his heart still racing. “What did you do? Where did it go?”
“Uh, I don’t even know what spell I used—I was going for ‘stupefy’, but all it did was send a good lot of smoke through those trees. The thing ran away into the smoke though, so it worked. What was it anyway?”
“Don’t know, I was too busy preparing for imminent death. You got a better look at it than me. Was it a werewolf or something?”
Seunghyun pales. “Maybe it was, I dunno. I’m not too good at identifying beasts, could’ve been a Yeti for all I know. We’d better get back in case it returns.”
Jiyong’s not sure he can move, but Seunghyun reaches a hand out to him, and somehow he grabs it and pulls himself up on shaky legs.
“You okay? It didn’t hurt you?”
“I don’t think so.” Jiyong brushes himself off. “Come on, let’s go.”
They hurry back through the forest, Seunghyun helping Jiyong along on his still unsteady feet. In a few minutes they reach the edge of the trees (we didn’t actually go in that far, Jiyong realises) and are back in the bright sunlight and their rowdy classmates, who are still absorbed in looking after their Kneazles. No one seems to have noticed their absence.
The normal scene is jarring after what just happened, and Jiyong feels as though he Portkeyed briefly to another dimension. He glances at Seunghyun and can tell that he’s feeling it, too. They return to their own Kneazle—now very docile—and neither of them speak until the teacher calls out, beaming, “Okay team, it’s time to start finishing up! I hope you’ve all learnt at least one new thing today, even if it’s just a new appreciation for these wonderful creatures.”
“Yeah, I learnt that I’m a dog person, because they tend to not lead you into mortal danger,” Seunghyun mutters under his breath.
Jiyong looks at him, and maybe it’s the after-effects of shock, but he starts giggling hysterically.
“Hey, stop that. Or the Professor will actually notice we exist,” Seunghyun whispers, and Jiyong laughs harder, his body folded over and trembling with suppressed mirth.
“I can’t believe no one even noticed us running into the Forbidden Forest,” he says, wiping his eyes.
“Maybe they were having their own little adventures in other parts of the Forest.”
“Yeah, and we just missed them, because they ran the other way from us—”
“—that’s why that monster left you alone, it smelled all the other runaway Kneazles and got confused—”
“—yeah that’s right, because as if a failed Stunning Spell would actually draw it off, like what the hell.”
“Hey, I saved your life with that spell. If I hadn’t been there—”
“—it wouldn’t have run off in the first place, and I wouldn’t have had a near-death experience.”
Seunghyun’s face falls slightly, and Jiyong smothers a fresh wave of laughter. “Hey, cheer up. You’re still my hero.”
This is how they become friends. It’s only confirmed the next Tuesday, when (after having personally escorted him to the music room) Jiyong finally hears that rumbling tone blend into the tapestry of lighter voices, rounding out the swell of harmony. He gives Seunghyun a subtle thumbs up when their eyes meet, and is rewarded with a pair of waggling eyebrows, causing him to fight to maintain a straight face for the rest of the rehearsal.
***
When he’s not in class, Jiyong is more often than not in the music room, tinkering around on the piano as he scribbles lyrics, or fixes up orchestral arrangements. He’s in the middle of a harmonising rut one day when Seunghyun pops his head in the door.
“Hey, Daesung’s got a load of Fizzing Whizzbees in his room if you want to—wait, what happened to your hair?”
Jiyong blinks. “This? Oh, I was getting bored of the previous one.” He tugs a brightly orange-coloured strand in front of his eyes and stares at it critically. “Now that I look at it though, it’s not really what I was after—” and he frowns hard for a few seconds, as though he’s trying to remember something important, before letting go of the strand—now white-blond. Seunghyun stares at him, then blurts out, “You—how did you—are you a Metamorphmagus?”
“Yeah,” says Jiyong, flipping up the piano lid to check his reflection in the mirrored underside, “but that’s about the extent of what I can do. My grandmother, she could transform her nose, mouth, even her ears. I can only really change my hair around.”
“That’s still pretty cool,” says Seunghyun. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to change your face, would you? It’s fine as it is.”
“Thanks,” Jiyong says, grinning to hide the funny curling sensation in his stomach. His gaze falls back onto the papers in front of him, and he puffs out a sigh. “Not going well?” Seunghyun asks, leaning on the piano.
“It’s going fine. Well, I’m kind of stuck right now, but—it’s fine.”
“If you want any help… I don’t know if I can do much. But I can try.”
Jiyong’s about to shoot him down, but then he sees the slightly hesitant look on Seunghyun’s face, and something inside him loosens. He pauses, then before he can take it back, “Take a look at it and tell me what you think,” and he moves sideways on the stool to make room for the other boy. Jiyong gathers up the sheaf of parchment covered with spidery notation and sets it on the piano, gives it a flick with his wand, and the strains of an orchestra burst forth from the keys. The sound’s getting tinny, Jiyong notes; the piano’s going to need maintenance at some point.
Seunghyun listens intently, his head cocked in concentration, and when the last chord fades out he suggests transposing a few bars of the coda up an octave. They work back and forth for a while, until Jiyong actually feels partway satisfied (and secretly rather impressed). He’s a little stunned to realise that they’ve been going for more than an hour, and turns to tell Seunghyun so, only to find him perusing something scrawled on the back of one of the manuscript sheets.
“Did you write this?” he asks, looking up. “Are these lyrics?”
“Uh, yes and yes. I was just fooling around a bit, got inspired by this Muggle song I heard at a friend’s place—”
“Can you sing it now? I want to hear it.”
Feeling a little self-conscious, Jiyong raps out the first few lines of what he’s written with as much attitude as he can muster. When he looks up, Seunghyun’s intense eyes are trained on him. The air between them is silent for a few seconds, before Jiyong looks away and mumbles, “I know it sounds sort of weird, but I only heard it that one time and it’s really hard to find any wizard music that sounds similar—”
Seunghyun suddenly jumps up, eyes alight. “I’ve got to show you something. Don’t move.”
He rushes out of the room, leaving Jiyong sitting puzzled until he returns with a small rectangular device in his hand.
“What’s that?”
“It’s an iPod—it’s like, a Muggle machine for listening to music on the go. My parents gave it to me for my birthday last year,” Seunghyun says as he unwinds long white strings from the knot they’re tangled in. Jiyong sees buds at the ends and guesses them to be earphones. “I don’t think the wizarding world’s got portable music players as such—or if they do I don’t know about them—so I put all my music on here, and just tinker with it magically to suit my tastes.” He stuffs a bud into Jiyong’s ear. “I’ve been listening to this one non-stop for the past week.”
Seunghyun presses a button on the device. Record-scratch, thumping beats, and then Nas is chanting the world is yours, the world is yours into Jiyong’s ear. Jiyong sits up and absorbs it for a few moments, the words coursing through him, the beats make me fallin’ asleep, I’m fallin’ but never fallin’ six feet deep, before he looks up and sees the same elation he’s feeling reflected in Seunghyun’s eyes.
By the time the next track starts up, Jiyong is brimming with ideas, and he can’t hold it in any longer. Seunghyun listens to him ramble for a few moments before he interrupts. “So this is what I reckon. I reckon you should make this longer, make it into a complete song.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. And when you’ve finished it, I reckon you should perform it at the concert.”
Jiyong fidgets with the sleeve of his robes to hide his excitement. “Do you think people would like it, though? Most of them wouldn’t have heard this kind of—rap?—music before.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who really cares what people like.”
“I do care a little bit,” Jiyong says. He tries and fails to keep a grin off his face. “That’s why you’re going to be performing it with me. If I go down in flames, then you do too.”
“Is that right?” Seunghyun smiles widely, not bothering to hide his amusement. “What if I can’t keep up with you?”
“You don’t have to. You just have to balance me out. You’ll be fine at that.”
“Okay, maestro,” says Seunghyun, giving him a mock salute. “It’s a deal.”
***
Jiyong finishes the song. He and Seunghyun perform it at the Halloween concert, Youngbae and the rest of the music club rocking out in the front row of the cheering crowd. For the next couple of weeks they’re the talk of the school. “Dude, that was ah-ma-zing. Knocked my socks off.” “Never heard anything like it, but I love it.” “Did you really write and compose it? Sweet Merlin, you’re a genius.” “Wouldn’t be surprised if the Weird Sisters’ agent comes knocking at your door.”
It’s wonderful, and Jiyong rides the high of appreciation—no, he floats on it. That is, until someone starts circulating a year old recording of an up-and-coming wizard musician with similar rapid-fire beats. Then the insidious rumours begin: Dude, I heard he copied the song. Wow, they sounded so similar. It can’t be a coincidence. Isn’t this, like, illegal? Scamming off someone—that kind of thing should get you expelled.
Jiyong’s loved Hogwarts since he first raised his face to the starry, arching ceiling of the Great Hall. He’s always felt comfortable and accepted here—popular, even. But for the first time in his life, he feels like an outcast. Whispers and covert glances follow him down corridors, people steer away from him as though he’s a gargoyle with giant blood, and one morning Jiyong wakes and decides he can’t take it anymore.
He doesn’t notice the time passing as he lies in his four-poster, formulating in his head a plan for running away, so it’s a surprise when footsteps approach his bed and the curtains are unceremoniously ripped open. Jiyong blinks up, and scowls when he sees Seunghyun looking down at him. “You weren’t at Care of Magical Creatures,” Seunghyun says.
Jiyong rolls over to face away, hoping that will get rid of the other boy, but there’s a dip in the bed, and he knows Seunghyun isn’t going to leave him alone this time. “How did you get in?” Jiyong gripes. “You’re not allowed here. This is the Ravenclaw dormitory.”
“There’s no specific rule against visiting other houses’ dorms, as far as I know—well maybe there is, but whatever. And I got the password off Seungho. Youngbae would’ve crashed with me, but since you’ve been studiously avoiding him every time he tries to talk to you, he thought I should try alone first.” He pauses. “You’ve been studiously avoiding me, too, but that wasn’t going to stop me.”
“I haven’t been avoiding anyone,” says Jiyong crossly. “It’s other people who avoid me.”
“You know, you sound like that Slytherin kid Seungri right now. How did you describe him that one time? Let’s see: whiny and self-absorbed, I believe those were your exact words.”
Jiyong shuts his eyes. “If you came to make me feel better, you’re doing a pretty shitty job of it.”
There’s a beat of silence before Seunghyun speaks again. “Look, Jiyong, this is all just a stupid rumour that the school is going to forget in a few weeks when the next stupid rumour comes along, that’s just how people operate, whether they’re magic or not.” Jiyong feels a hand touch his shoulder. “I know it sucks balls when you feel like the world’s against you, but you should remember that Hogwarts isn’t the world, and it’s not necessarily the truth. The ones who matter are the ones on your side, always.”
Both his tone and his hand are warm, and Jiyong unwillingly opens his eyes to Seunghyun’s sympathetic expression. Part of him wants to keep on snarking, but even he can recognise how bratty that would be. He settles for a gruff “Thanks,” instead.
“Don’t mention it. Now, are you going to keep lying here thinking of ways to run away, or are you going to get up and start taking part in life again?”
Jiyong’s eyes widen. Seunghyun starts chuckling that stupid throaty laugh of his, the one that comes out when he thinks he’s scored a point of some kind.
“Screw you,” mutters Jiyong. He heaves a sigh. “I guess I should stop wallowing and try fight back, or something.”
“That’s the spirit,” says Seunghyun, clapping him on the shoulder. “Show them who’s boss.”
“Or perhaps I should just lie low, let it all blow over first.”
“That’s—also the spirit. It’s wise to stay out of conflict.”
“What is this, hyung? Make up your bloody mind,” Jiyong says, grinning. The stiffness in his cheeks coupled with the flash of relief in Seunghyun’s eyes tell him just how long it’s been since he last smiled.
“At least do something about your hair. Long, black and greasy went out of vogue ages ago.” Seunghyun gives a lopsided smirk. “Or there’s this thing called a bath, you might have heard of it.”
“Wanker,” says Jiyong, hitting him with a pillow, but he’s laughing now, and Seunghyun’s laughing too, eyes and dimples bright, and it feels good, it feels on the way to normal. You can do this, he thinks. You’re strong enough to do this. The world is yours.