Chapter Text
It wasn’t until the words started to swim in his vision that Seonghyeon thought to look up from the book he’d been poring over for the better half of the afternoon.
Immediately, the sight of Keonho Ahn greeted him.
His knee-jerk reaction was to flinch.
“Sorry,” Keonho said, not sounding sorry in the least. His relaxed posture betrayed just how long he’d been sitting there.
Seonghyeon blinked, gaping at the apparition before him in barely concealed awe. When was the last time he’d seen Keonho in person? In a strict sense, only this morning at the great hall—his Quidditch uniform a resolute red streak as he led his team across the sea of students in weekend civilian clothing to beat the post-practice breakfast time crunch. This close, though? Not since last school term.
It was the first Saturday of the new term, their last year at Hogwarts together, and the summer they had spent apart seemed to stretch the table between them the longer Seonghyeon stared.
“Ease up on the staring, would you? I can feel my toes turning to goo in my boots by the minute.”
Seonghyeon’s mouth clicked shut. He blinked again, two short ones, one long one, squeezing hard to clear the fatigue of prolonged studying.
“Sorry, I just— How long have you been sitting there?”
“Long enough,” Keonho said. Seonghyeon heard the tapping of his fingers on the wood, inching closer by the sound of it. He opened his eyes just in time to see them land featherlight on the page he’d made a pitstop at. “How long have you been studying?”
“Since after lunch.”
Keonho frowned. “That long? It’s only been a week since term started.”
“It’s NEWTs year.” Seonghyeon’s defensiveness flared, but the hand continued to distract. He watched it span over strings of magical theory he didn’t need to recall in sleep but probably could, and something in him gave. Defused. “And you’re one to talk. Quidditch practice on the first weekend, really?”
That made Keonho laugh, the sound a soft jingle in their otherwise quiet corner of the library. No head snapped up to send them a dirty glare over thick tomes, partly because it really was too early in the term for anyone to turn volatile at the slightest hint of disruption, and partly because no one in their right mind would spend a pleasant afternoon cooped up inside like Seonghyeon. The few that did were kindred souls that extended grace to Keonho only because he was with Seonghyeon.
“We’re winning that Cup one way or another.”
“You wish,” Seonghyeon challenged, a playful lilt to his voice that made the light in Keonho’s eyes sparkle. He retracted his hand, squeezing it into a fist as he did. “Ravenclaw got a new captain. They’re gonna wipe the floor with you guys.”
“Let’s see them try,” Keonho huffed.
Their quiet banter tapered into a comfortable silence. Seonghyeon wondered, half in disbelief, if it had always been this easy. He seemed to remember Keonho in a different light from last term, and all the years before that. Someone close but never close enough.
Now, across from him, Keonho looked nothing short of determined. His gaze settled into Seonghyeon as if he was set on holding nothing back, his closed fist unraveling on the table like an offering—palm up waiting for lightning to strike so he could catch it.
“How was your summer?” he asked, suddenly.
Seonghyeon hummed. “It was nice,” he said. “I played a bunch of video games and gorged myself on Muggle snacks you wouldn’t see within a 10-mile radius of Hogsmeade.”
Keonho smiled. “That does sound nice. I take it you haven’t had any Honeydukes for some time now?”
“My sister blew through the stash I brought home within the first three days, so yeah, no.”
“Then, here.” He reached into the pockets of his zip-up jacket. The crinkling sound his ministrations produced made Seonghyeon’s eyes widen, his heart beating wild with anticipation.
Finally, Keonho’s hands resurfaced with an assortment of confectionery from Honeydukes, ranging from Fizzing Whizzbees to Salt Water Taffy to Jelly Slugs.
“Merlin,” Seonghyeon breathed, snatching a Licorice Wand like a man possessed. “Are these all for me?”
Keonho nodded. Seonghyeon could kiss him right now. He bit through the sweetened Wand instead.
“You’re a godsend.”
“And you’re going to get us kicked out of the library if you keep getting crumbs on that book.” He pushed the book aside as he said it, taking it upon himself to stuff it in Seonghyeon’s open bag on the table. Seonghyeon almost choked. He scooped up his spoils and dumped them in the bag, too, right on top of the book. Keonho paused as their fingers brushed.
“Hurry, hurry,” Seonghyeon tittered. “I don’t want these confiscated.”
Keonho, however, seemed to have turned into a statue. He gazed at their overlapping digits, the smallest of the candy wrappers falling in between the gaps as his hand spasmed almost imperceptibly beneath Seonghyeon’s frenetic touch. Seonghyeon frowned.
“Are you okay?”
Keonho snapped out of it, blinking at Seonghyeon. “Yeah, uh, I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
He shuffled back in position, but this time opted to keep his hands under the table. Seonghyeon did not know where his sudden fixation came from nor did he care to examine it closely, but he imagined those hands balled up again, those hands holding onto nothing but hands, and the urge to reach out and be the one to place something good in them came to him unbidden, and just a beat earlier than the smile his bid for that something good took shape in. It was all he knew to offer. He hoped it conveyed thanks.
He hoped it was something worth grasping.
Keonho grasped it either way.
He returned the smile, and the smile pressed into Seonghyeon's being with a warmth so whole he got an odd sense that Keonho was thanking him too, even when he did nothing to warrant being thanked.
“You could have written to me over the summer, you know. I would have been your wizard snacks dealer via owl post.”
That made Seonghyeon stop short.
The words were meant to be lighthearted, Keonho’s tone devoid of accusation or actual reprimand, but they rang hollow by the time comprehension dawned on Seonghyeon.
Oh, he thought, his smile dimming. “Did you… want me to?”
Keonho did not respond at once, letting the question linger in the air and making the space between them pulse with half remembrance. A memory of Keonho in lambent light slowly unraveled in Seonghyeon’s mind’s eye, jogging towards him along one of the castle’s many walkways as he made his final patrol sweep of the term.
He had, for the most part, been unfazed by the approach. Keonho had seemed to develop a knack for spotting him during his rounds in Sixth Year, keeping him company until they reached the entrance of the Gryffindor common room. There, Seonghyeon would wonder, but never ask, whether he intended to repeat the same incomprehensible dance, yet the lightness in Keonho’s steps each time Seonghyeon watched him disappear behind the painting was answer enough.
He had met Keonho halfway, peering curiously at his winded figure as he stopped right in front of Seonghyeon. And then he’d shoved a piece of paper in his hand. “Here, take it. It’s my address. Write to me, okay?”
It had only been a couple of months since then, but the memory felt clearer in hindsight. Fuller.
“You didn’t have to.” Keonho spoke before a verdict could lodge in the pit of Seonghyeon’s stomach. For lack of anything to gnaw at, it gaped hungrily at the smile Keonho proffered, ever so giving and kind.
Seonghyeon knew he was forgiven before he had the chance to investigate the grounds of his offense.
“Still, I could have written,” he said, biting his lip at the aftertaste of barely absolved guilt. “You gave me your address, after all. Even if it was just common courtesy between friends, I should've— I mean, otherwise you just wasted perfectly good paper on me.”
“Hm.” Something in Keonho's expression shattered, his smile staying intact with perceptible effort. “You’re right. It was precious paper.”
It was a folded piece of paper, to be exact, clearly torn from somewhere—a journal or the last few blank leaves of a used notebook—with the deliberate care of someone who knew exactly what to make of scraps. Even back then, Seonghyeon had thought that it was just the kind of thing for Keonho to do. But that was about as far as he’d turned the whole ordeal over in his mind. Nothing more than a harmless sentimentality unique to Keonho he had somehow been within the radar of.
Now, months later, he had to wonder just how many people Keonho had handed his address out to, how much thought and effort he must have put into wanting to establish or maintain or strengthen his friendships even in the summer before his last year in Hogwarts, if not precisely because it was going to be his last.
How long he must have wandered around the castle to hunt each of the lucky chosen ones down.
Seonghyeon being one of them.
For reasons not quite clear to him.
If he had to be completely honest, the specific configuration of Keonho’s kindness was something Seonghyeon had entirely taken for granted.
Not because he meant to disregard him, but because Keonho was one of the people in Seonghyeon’s life whom he regarded safer from a distance, one of the many beacons he looked at from time to time if only to make sure he was still cruising by on safe waters. Someone fundamentally outside of everything that entailed being part of Seonghyeon’s inner world.
In all the six years they’d been friends, they were never meant to touch base in a way that mattered.
Write to me, okay?
Yet there Keonho was.
The very notion of it, the open undemanding hope with which he’d given that paper and said those words, and how Seonghyeon’s dismissal had come in the form of forgetting, did the exact opposite of lifting his spirits.
Still, he reasoned with himself. Keonho was popular, loved. Quidditch Captain and Hogwarts’ Golden Boy. He would probably balk at being called that, but it was true nonetheless. The only person who held a candle to him was Martin, and Martin had already graduated. Even then, there were fifty or so kids in their class, spread out somewhat evenly among all four Houses, and they were about as tight-knit as a group of kids who grew up together in an era of good interhouse relations could be.
There was for sure no lack of hands that would grapple at the first chance of becoming Keonho’s pen pal. And that was a comfort to Seonghyeon.
Keonho deserved better. Deserved someone who would remember to write to him.
He really hoped someone had written to Keonho.
“It’s fine, though.” Keonho pulled him out of his thoughts. His tone was once again light, teasing even. “I could always just bother you here now that I know you’re planning to spend the entire year obsessively NEWTs-prepping. I’ll be the knight in shining armour that swoops in once you start losing your battles to your books. And hand you candy. Or distract you until you're ready to lock back in.”
Seonghyeon huffed, already faux exasperated at the prospect and, he admitted to no one but himself, already looking forward to it.
“Right,” he said, his heart constricting from heavy to light to heavy once more.
There it was again—that glint of determination in Keonho’s eyes. It pressed into him kindly, familiar and easy. Like all those patrol nights Keonho had insisted on tagging along even when Seonghyeon threatened to take House points from him after one too many “coincidental” run-ins. Like the press of a piece of paper in his hand with an address on it. Like the stash of Honeydukes sweets he now had in his bag.
Clearer. Getting fuller still.
The sky was one big bruise when they stepped out of the library.
Seonghyeon’s hands itched, an impulse to reach out overtaking him for a singular second. If he could, he’d scrape the clouds with his fingertips and press in, hard, just to see the violets turn a shade darker, oranges into browns, the whole sky both canvas and bare skin. But the lights shifted, and the moment passed. Seonghyeon looked away from the windows and continued walking—Keonho in his wake.
“Let me walk you back,” he said.
“It’s fine. I’m heading back to the tower.”
“I know. So?”
Seonghyeon gave him a look. “So it’s a long way away from Gryffindor’s.”
Keonho knew this. He had been at Hogwarts long enough to know this. No matter how everchanging the interior was, with its moving stairs and hidden passages, the Ravenclaw and the Gryffindor dorms have always been on the opposite ends of the castle.
He stared back at Seonghyeon like trekking distance was a matter of not believing it exists, anyway. “I’m walking you back.”
Seonghyeon sighed.
He let Keonho walk him back.
The ensuing silence was inadvertent, a subconscious act on both of their parts to give the dying light of day its proper dues; all the world around them molten and marked with ennui. But Keonho neither had the patience for the liminal nor spoke its language, and before long his voice filled the quiet with chatter that was equal parts mindless and full of meaning. He talked about what transpired at practice that morning, the rowdy and new recruit hopefuls, the nearly missed breakfast.
He was the picture of contentment, waving and nodding at the students they passed who coveted rays of his attention, but otherwise keeping the brightest of its light on Seonghyeon.
Seonghyeon, for his own part and rather predictably, needed no spurring to start talking too. He simply did. Keonho asked about his subjects and schedule for the term, which prompted a rundown that lasted until they reached the foot of the stairs leading up to the Ravenclaw dorms. Just before they were to part ways, Seonghyeon wordlessly dug out a timetable from his bag, casted Geminio with his wand, and handed Keonho the produced duplicate. Keonho’s grin nearly rivaled the setting sun.
“See you at dinner?”
Seonghyeon nodded, waving goodbye.
Going up, it took him no time at all to spiral at having done what he did, just a little. What was he hoping to achieve by giving Keonho a copy of his schedule? What was Keonho hoping to achieve by asking about it?
If he had written to Keonho over the summer—
What would that have achieved?
Somehow, these questions unsettled his mind more than the Ravenclaw password-riddle ever did.
He blinked—the answer to the riddle forgotten just as quickly as he had given it—and watched the door give way to the common room. Warmth greeted him first, and then came noise.
“Seonghyeonie.”
“Hm?” His feet moved of their accord, the landscape of the room an extension of his being at this point. He looked for the person who called him, only to realize that the entire place did: the hearth where the fire cackled, the bookshelves lining the wall, and his friends who filled the spaces in between.
He smiled. “Evening, guys.”
“Where were you?” Jueun asked, her eyes narrowing like Seonghyeon’s absence was a personal affront.
“In the library. Lost track of time.”
“Figures,” Semin chimed, opportunistically perching on the arm of the chair Rora occupied, which earned him a side eye from her over the rim of a softbound book. “Mind you, we have our own library right here.”
“He probably wanted you guys out of his sight. He’s planning to be a Healer, you know. He got no time for playing games.”
“Says the person actively playing wizards chess right now.”
“And actively losing.”
“Fuck you guys.”
The room vibrated with laughter, not so much with the structural integrity of something that was built to fall apart, but rather with the acoustic quality of something that deliberately retained sound. A resonance turned into encapsulated memory turned into load-bearing weight. He loved this place more than anything in the world.
He took it all in, basking in the present moment, the shape of his longing not quite nostalgia but close to it.
The fire cackled. He had to look away. Before the anticipatory grief swallowed him whole.
Last year here.
His eyes swept the sidelines instead, where most of the lower years lounged. He did his Prefect routine scan of the First Years and their state of affairs on the rug—some were deep in their books like Rora, while others had their own ragtags and jokes going. The remaining few were trying to listen in on the Seventh Years’ conversation and failing at being subtle about it. All was well.
“Have you guys seen Louis and Nayeon?” he asked.
Before anyone could answer, Louis appeared from the boys’ dorm side, the newly minted Prefect badge on the left side of his vest less alloy than a daymark which demanded notice.
“That looks great on you, Lou.”
Louis beamed. “Thanks! Nayeon and I are about to head down to get our first patrol assignments. Elisia’s waiting for us at the Entrance Hall.”
Elisia was their new Head Girl, a fellow Ravenclaw Seventh Year who used to be Seonghyeon’s female Prefect counterpart before she got promoted. The Head Boy had gone to Woolin, a Gryffindor, which worked well enough for Seonghyeon. Although he had qualified for the position and had gotten an endorsement from his Head of House, he never did end up vying for it.
A short while later, Nayeon arrived as well.
“Ye-onie, where are you going?” Jueun called, because she had apparently made it her personal mission to know the exact coordinates of everyone she ever cared about. Seonghyeon adored her for it.
Nayeon rolled her eyes playfully. “Just Prefect duties, unnie.” She turned to Louis and Seonghyeon, and then asked the latter, “You’re not coming, oppa?”
Seonghyeon shook his head. It was a Seventh Year privilege, or curse, depending on how strongly you felt about NEWTs. All Prefects in his year could choose to either retire the badge or take on fewer Prefect tasks if they planned to take the exams. Elisia had expressly forbidden him from quitting entirely, citing that she needed his presence to anchor her and to serve as buffer in the off chance Woolin would fail to step up as her new partner, and so Seonghyeon had elected to give up his patrol slots, among other things.
We’re winning that Cup one way or another, Keonho had told him. Well, Seonghyeon was acing NEWTs one way or another.
“How about I give you guys a mini orientation of my own?” he suggested. “I mean, I’m sure Eli has it covered, but after you get your assignments, we’ll go over your timeslots and I’ll give you tips on how to survive late nights walking around empty halls, okay?”
Louis and Nayeon were all smiles, grateful for the offer and saccharine sweet in their promise of returning the favor. Seonghyeon held them to it only half seriously before shooing them off.
When he turned back to his friends, he found them looking at him with varying degrees of amusement, all eyes on the heart he got on his sleeves.
“You are a darling, have I told you that already?” Rora, who had dog-eared and put down her book, commented.
“As a matter of fact you, you have,” Semin quipped, because he was begging to be knockback jinxed off his butt. “Many times.”
“Well, he is,” Rora said. “Unlike you.”
Seonghyeon felt less flustered than starkly laid bare, and impossibly fond. “Stop it, you two.”
“It’s true, though! You’re the most darling boy in all of Hogwarts, Hyeonie.”
“Is he more darling than m—? Okay, fine, Hyeonie’s your favorite, I get it! Don’t give me that look. But, c’mon now, is he better than, say, the Head Boy—Woolin Kim?”
“Yes.”
“Keonho Ahn?”
“Yes.”
“Blimey! Even Juhoon Kim?”
That made Rora falter. “Well, now…”
Seonghyeon took that as his cue to interject, “No one is better than Juhoon.” And that put a rest to it.
After all, truer words have never been spoken.
Debate settled, he found his eyes drifting towards the empty armchair beside Rora’s, the one nearest to the fire, thus deemed the coziest. The upholstery was a faded blue, which chronicled the story of an owl neither magical nor prominent. It was simply an owl. Simply an ordinary owl in an ordinary story in an ordinary chair, which had been situated beside the fire long before any of them came to Hogwarts, but no one present had ever bothered to look closely and trace the whole story.
They left it empty on purpose. Only a week into the new term, and it felt wrong to have someone that wasn’t Juhoon sitting on it. It was his favorite spot.
Because no one had ever bothered. Except Juhoon.
Juhoon, who had the good sense to be born a year earlier than Seonghyeon and was in the year above him. Juhoon, who graduated last term and left him behind (“Left who now? You’ve got a phone and an owl. I’ll text. Or write. Either way you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”—That Juhoon, Seonghyeon’s best friend.)
Juhoon, who would have found his eyes in the din and shaken his head in fond exasperation at his underclassmen’s antics. Juhoon, who would have pretended to be from the outside looking in, even when he was very much part of it, even when he was taking note of every moment like he already dreaded being apart from it. Just as Seonghyeon was doing now.
With a jolt, he remembered the letters waiting for him in his dorm room.
“Bag.” He gestured at the satchel hanging off his shoulder, then vaguely at the stairs leading up to the boys’ dorm, and was met with a spectrum of equally ineligible acknowledgments and responses.
“Don’t take too long, alright? Let’s head down to dinner together,” Jueun called at his retreating back.
“Alright!”
In his dorm, Seonghyeon quickly disposed of his satchel and got out of his sweater, leaving him in a plain black shirt. One of the bunk beds had its drapes drawn but something that looked like wand light bleeding through the fabric. A dormmate. Not Semin because he was downstairs antagonizing Rora, not Isaque because he said he’d be spending the day with his girlfriend. Probably Minjun. He paid him no mind and picked up the stack of parchment paper on his bedside table instead. Two letters for him, and two others by him—unfinished, but the ink had since dried.
The owl post yesterday had come as half a surprise. He knew he’d told Juhoon—forced, really—some time that summer to write to him at Hogwarts at all costs, but he had had zero expectations, or hopes for that matter, of Juhoon actually doing it. The other letter was from his younger sister, which she’d basically cajoled him into allowing. He saw her write the entire thing back home, two days before he was set to leave.
Seonghyeon put his unfinished responses back down and reread Juhoon’s letter first.
August 21, 2026
Dear Seonghyeon,
I hope I never have to do something as pedantic as calling you dear again, but you insisted on letters, even though both of our phones work perfectly fine and the Techno-Hall at Hogwarts has made it so that it’s possible to use such devices without magical interference in that part of the castle. I also hope I never have to say things like “has made it so” and “such devices” after this. I feel old AF. (AF. Now that’s more like it.)
Anyway, Canada is treating me well. But you know this already, because we texted about it yesterday. It’s probably going to take 10 business days for this letter to arrive in Hogwarts, though, so consider this a reiteration of my safety and well-being. I’m sure I’ll still be fine in 10 days’ time. Can’t really say the same for the owl whose service I used to mail this. Seriously. Let’s just text. Call. Facetime. Consider the owls. Save the owls.
Speaking of owls. Martin is hooting in my ear to tell you a bajillion things, but my hand is tired from writing already. Did I ever mention that we should just text? Actually, I should just let him take over at this point
HI SEONGHYEON. It’s me Martin. How are you? Juhoon and I miss you so much. Canada is so much fun but I can never wrap my head around some of its wizarding world’s customs and practices. Ironic because I’m Canadian and magical myself. Did I ever tell you I almost didn’t go to Hogwarts? If I’d grown up here I would have been in Ilvermorny. But I digress. The owls here are so cool. And so are the rest of the animals, both magic and nonmagic. How are you? Juhoon and I are
It’s me again. I told Martin the effort he was putting into writing his paragraph could all be spared for a phone call, and thankfully he agreed, so anticipate his call tonight. Or not. By the time you read this warning it will be 10 days too late.
Is this long enough already? I meant to write less as a form of protest, but I thought about the owl that’s going to deliver this and I felt bad at the prospect of it delivering something that contained a measly five words. So here I am making sure the mileage was actually worth it. I suppose there’s you as well. The rumors are true, I do miss you. But we’ve spent half a decade attached at the hip, surely one summer apart won’t kill either of us.
Wish you could see how beautiful Canada is though. The lakes are majestic and the dugbogs are a legitimate hazard here. Can you imagine? It’s like what you said about how you thought quicksands were going to be a bigger issue in your life and genuinely feared it growing up, except this time it actually is an issue raised to the power of maybe a hundred. Write back (don’t) or text me or call about how your first week went, please. And give the owl extra for a job well done. We’ll be back in London the week after next, and my apprenticeship at the apothecary in Diagon Alley will be starting right after. Again, you know this already. But I suppose it’s good to put it on paper and have something physical and real to look back on. No, this isn’t me coming around epistolary communication, but I know you’d appreciate it. Love you.
LOVE YOU AS WELL HYEONIE—Martin
Do I really have to put “Sincerely yours”?
I guess I am,
Juhoon
P.S. I’ve attached a copy of all the titles of the books I found here about what you asked. Let me know if you want me to bring back any of these, or all. Not via owl though. I’ll bring them in person.
Seonghyeon found the attached list in its envelope and made a mental note to look into the whole thing later. For now, he picked his sister’s letter, which functioned more as a note, really. It was shorter and of infinitely better substance than Juhoon’s, for sure, and much more normal about owls by a stretch.
August 30, 2026
Dear oppa,
Have a safe trip back to Hogwarts. I miss you already. Don’t worry about Mum, okay? I will take care of her. Dad will, too. We will all take care of each other. You take care of youself, too. Eat lots of food and play plenty of your Quidditch. I can’t wait for the Christmas holidays already. I really liked the Chocolate Frogs from Honeydukes, but you promised even funner things from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Bring plenty, please. I promise I’m not going to finish them all in three days this time around. I’ve learned my lesson. Sorry about that again, BTW.
Your sister,
Dahyun
Dad has just reminded me that you won’t be reading this letter until you’re at school, since there’s the delivery time to account for, so I’m back. I guess instead of wishing you a safe trip I should say I hope you had a safe trip. How is your first week going? Write back, okay? Texts and calls are okay but I really like the owls who deliver these mails. They’re sweet.
Love you,
Dahyun
Seonghyeon traced the paper without meaning to, laying Dahyun’s note on top of Juhoon’s letter, letting the fondness swell and manifest into a smile no one was around to tease him for. He was so glad he’d forced Juhoon into writing him one, and that Dahyun had forced him.
He hadn’t really thought too deeply about it then. As most people in the 21st century, he was not a letter person, but he’d asked for it from Juhoon, anyway; an assurance that they wouldn’t drift apart without the pretense and convenience of proximity keeping them tied together. For Dahyun, all she’d wanted was an excuse to use Corinne, his owl, and Seonghyeon had indulged her because of course he had to. But Juhoon was right. It was good to have something physical and real to look back on.
Something to hold in his hand.
Which, for reasons both obvious and mysterious, led him back to Keonho.
Write to me, okay?
Keonho had said that. In a walkway on the second to the last day of their second to the last year here at Hogwarts, he had walked up to Seonghyeon, devoid of expectations and yet somehow with a hope that carried into the next school term and made him look for Seonghyeon in a library and hand him candy and ask without asking, Why didn’t you write?
Why had Seonghyeon not written?
What it would have achieved was—everything, he supposed. No, he knew. It would have achieved a great deal. Or, at the very least, something physical and real to look back on and hold on to.
Why Keonho had wanted it from him was where the clarity ended.
Bang! Semin entered the room in a flurry of his usual chaos, making Seonghyeon jump so hard he let go of his letters, which scattered in the air before making aborted landings on the hardwood floor.
“Oops, sorry about that,” Semin said, frozen by the doorframe. “The girls have tasked me to fetch you for dinner, both of you. You in there, right, Junnie?”
“Yeah, just a sec. Nox!” The wandlight died.
“Great. Come down before Jueunie comes up here herself and drags you two by the ears.”
Seonghyeon snickers. “Jueunie would never.”
“Come down, anyway, before she unleashes Rora on us and makes her do the ear dragging. And we all know that girl wouldn’t hesitate.”
The shiver that ran through Semin was entirely too real and entertaining for Seonghyeon not to guffaw at, and it wasn’t until Minjun drew his drapes back and surfaced with a grimace that the laughter died down. He looked at Semin, who looked proud at having extracted such joy from Seonghyeon even at the expense of being the butt of the joke, and then at Seonghyeon, who was vaguely aware that it wasn’t so nice to laugh at someone in their face, but felt he could get away with it anyway.
Semin liked to pretend otherwise, but he doted on Seonghyeon just as much as the girls do.
“Ready, Hyeonie?”
Attention successfully diverted, Seonghyeon nodded and sidestepped the scattered letters to follow his dear friends to dinner.
A week passed in a blur of routine rearrangements and the patient exercise of re-equipping yourself with academic restraint. Classes formally began Monday, and by Thursday Seonghyeon had had to scrape two failed Veritaserum attempts off the side of his cauldron in his Advanced Potions class twice.
“I thought you’d already mastered Veritaserum last year?” Rora asked, aghast at the state she found him in after his double morning session.
“I thought that, too,” he mumbled miserably. “But apparently my self-taught potioneering is criminally recreational compared to the real shit they get up to at St Mongo’s. It takes a lot to standardize a single brew and have it even come close to something Ministry-approved for distribution.”
“Huh. Guess that’s NEWTs level for you.”
Seonghyeon was already at NEWTs level last year, as all students were after they passed their OWLs in Fifth Year, but that was besides the point. Seventh Year meant double the workload as the year prior, and while he had fancied himself prepared for it, some things still tripped him up.
Like how he had not accounted for the physical toll of having Charms and Transfigurations back to back on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, even if it meant free afternoons. Or how on Mondays and Wednesdays, arguably the worst days of the week, he had double Potions in the morning and Defense Against the Dark Arts in the afternoon. And then there was his double Herbology every Friday, which—okay, he was just complaining about everything at this point.
It was fine, really. These were the same classes he had last term. He’d taken all these subjects in all six years he’d been at Hogwarts, as a matter of fact. Just the usual.
What had actually been unusual was his apprentice work in the school infirmary.
Fridays, 2:30 to 9:30 PM. An hour dinner break. His own station beside Madam Higgs’ office. The only NEWTs level, Healer aspirant whose application Madam Higgs had entertained, let alone accepted.
He had a suspicion he might have been the only applicant, but again, that was besides the point.
The antiseptic smell that pervaded his senses.
The steady ticking of the clock tower just outside the infirmary—the constantness of it.
Everything served to ensure he had an unforgettable first day. It had passed by at a snail pace, but it did pass, and not for the first time since he started taking his Healer aspirations seriously, he wondered if he was biting off more than he can chew.
The morning after dawned bright and early. He had half a mind to rot in his bed all weekend, thoroughly spent after taking inventory of every single healing potion available at Hogwarts under Madam Higgs instructions. But he had promised Louis and Nayeon an orientation, so an orientation he was having.
Louis was waiting for him at their meetup place. No Nayeon in sight.
“Eh? Is it just you?”
A wave and a nod. “Just me for now. Nayeon’s being held at a dirty napkin-point at the moment, but she said she’ll try to make it.”
The napkin was the student body colloquialism for their school newspaper, Hogwarts Herald, lovingly coined as such because it functioned as nothing but dabber for spilled food and drinks at breakfast. Nayeon was a Copy Editor. Martin used to be the Editor-in-Chief, which was exactly why Seonghyeon still pretended it held value beyond its use in the table.
“Hm, that’s fine. Let’s go.”
5 minutes in, and he found himself appeased by the gentle sun. He could feel the tightness on his nape and shoulders loosen as they walked, the breeze tugging on his threadbare long sleeves like balm to a full week of staying cooped up in dim classrooms.
Louis trailed after him less like a lost puppy and more like a newborn duck, until eventually falling into step with him owing to his long legs. They covered the fields first. Louis did not waste time asking where the popular makeout spots were so he could, in his own words, terrorize couples, and Seonghyeon told him to forget it—trust me, it’s not worth the trauma you’re gonna get out of it.
It was how he had found out Juhoon was secretly dating Martin back in Fifth Year—his first year as a Prefect, mind you—and the memory still made him shudder to this day.
“Oh, c’mon,” Louis pushed, face full of mischief.
“Don’t even think about it, the upper year Prefects have it covered.” Seonghyeon frowned. “Well… for the most part, that is. I’m pretty sure half of them make use of those spots on the reg— wait, why am I telling you this? You’re a child.”
“I’m only a year younger than you.”
“Two. You’re in your fifth year.”
“One. The only reason we’re two years apart in year levels is because you’re an early 2009 born and got your letter on time, while I as a late 2010 born had to wait until the next summer after I turned eleven. I know because your girl friends threw you and Juhoon a joint birthday party earlier this year and you almost got in trouble because—”
“Alright, alright,” Seonghyeon said, laughing. “I got your point. You’re a brat, either way.”
Louis harrumphed in protest, which set Seonghyeon off even more. They were so preoccupied bickering that they’d lost sight of the orientation, if they could call this an orientation to begin with.
Not that he had anything new to tell Louis about the stretch of the grounds they were presently in that Louis didn’t already know. The Quidditch Pitch might be the only place at Hogwarts where every student is a hundred percent confident in having memorized from the inside out, Seonghyeon and Louis being no exception.
They were not Quidditch players, not part of the Ravenclaw roster, but they played Quidditch a lot.
Seonghyeon perhaps less so than the younger. He was a Muggleborn, after all, and did not grow up with the sport as most of his peers did.
“Hey,” Louis called with lightbulb-idea enthusiasm. “There’s no way Nayeon’s getting away from the napkin anytime soon, and since you refuse to tell me about the makeout spots that you know anyway, should we call it a day and call up the boys for a round of Qui— oh.”
They stopped.
Noises overhead had arrested both their attention. Seonghyeon had no idea how they could have missed it, but the closer they got to the Pitch and the more it unspooled before their eyes, the louder whatever was taking place there rang in their ears.
“Yeah, oh,” Seonghyeon agreed, squinting at the streaks of brilliant red zigzagging all over the sky. “That’s— Gryffindor. They’re— Are they… practicing?”
“Tryouts, I think,” he heard Louis say beside him, completely immersed in the gameplay already. “Damn, that captain Ahn takes his job very seriously, doesn’t he?”
Seonghyeon tried to follow his line of sight, but he couldn’t see Keonho. Or anything for that matter. It was coming close to high noon, and black spots danced in his vision the more he tried to defy the sun and squint against its light.
“Yeah, well, if he wants to win against our team, he ought to.” He used a hand as a visor—to no avail. “C’mon,” he tugged at Louis’ shirt cuff. “It’s getting way too hot. Let’s get out of here and save Nayeon from the napkin.”
“No, wait.” Louis wrapped a careful hand around his wrist, stopping him. “I think they’re wrapping up. Look, they’re coming down already. Woah— wait, am I seeing things or is that broom not heading straight at us?”
Sure enough, a broom was barreling—straight into them.
“Uh…”
“Seonghyeon!”
“Ah!” Louis turned to him. “It’s heading to you.”
“Should we dodge?”
“Wha— Dodge how? Why? Surely, it’s not gonna crash into you for real, that’s a real Quidditch player in there— oh, it’s Captain Ahn. Keonho. Keonho Ahn, hey.”
Keonho, in all his sweaty and ruffled-hair glory, had landed a few feet from them.
It played out to Seonghyeon as another apparition, much like in the library. Except he had a harder time grasping how things connected from Point A to Point B. One minute he could see nothing but pure searing light. The next minute Keonho was right in front of him.
For some reason, he looked more unreal on his feet than when he was nothing more than protrusions in the sky. More incorporeal the clearer he took shape. A solid, sinewy hand reached out to clasp at Seonghyeon’s other wrist, but it seemed to him like a gap of a couple thousand unrealities would have to be bridged before the touch could register true.
“Seonghyeon,” Keonho called again.
Seonghyeon did not respond. Could not respond. His voice was stuck in his throat.
He could do nothing but track the movement of those hands, those very same hands that wound around itself and hid under the table in the library. It held him firmly by the wrist, and only when the heat started to transfer did he feel it.
Only then did it seem believable.
“Oh, hi,” he breathed, finally.
Keonho lit up. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
A head tilt full of confusion. “Hi…?”
“I— We were just—” Seonghyeon stammered. Rowena help him. Why the hell was he stammering? “Um.”
In a last-ditch attempt to gather his bearings and not look like a total fool in front of the other boy, he looked at Louis, worldlessly asking him to take over, but Louis only stared back wide-eyed. He tightened his grip on Seonghyeon’s other wrist in mild alarm.
“What?” he asked, zero subtle bone in his body.
Seonghyeon groaned. “You’re useless.”
Louis sputtered. “Eh?! You’re the one buffering on the spot for no reason!”
“Ugh.” It wasn’t for no reason, Seonghyeon thought, but whatever. He turned back to Keonho and forced his stare steady. “Okay, take two. Hi.”
Keonho was holding back his laughter with herculean effort, if the twitch in his cheeks were anything to go by. “Hi, Seonghyeon,” he replied, tone nothing short of indulging. “What are you doing here?”
His gaze dropped to their point of contact as he asked, squeezing Seonghyeon’s wrist less to reinforce his grip and more to confirm his hold, and Seonghyeon was so sure he could feel the hammering of his pulse against his palm.
Before he could answer, Keonho’s eyes traveled to his other wrist. Louis’ grip was an exact mirror of his, albeit looser, but that minute difference clearly did not register to Keonho as his eyes narrowed.
“Hey,” he said, addressing Louis in the same breath he became aware of his presence for the first time. “Louis, right?”
Louis blinked innocently. “Hey. Yeah, I’m Louis.”
A stare-off both incomprehensible and fascinating to Seonghyeon took place before an epiphany seemed to dawn on Louis, “Oh, shoot!” and it all but dissolved in five seconds.
He did not just let go Seonghyeon’s wrist, he yanked it away so hard it struck Seonghyeon like a whip to his left thigh. He whined at the sting.
“Sorry!” Louis cried, before he looked at Keonho with frantic eyes. “This isn’t what it looks like!”
Seonghyeon felt his face drop. “This isn’t what what looks like?”
“It! This!” Louis gestured to the space between him, making a show of creating more distance as if trying to appease a territorial dragon. Keonho’s eyebrows flew behind his slightly damp fringe. Seonghyeon willed the ground to swallow him whole. What on Godric’s green earth was going on right now?
“This…?” Keonho prompted.
“Don’t encourage him!” Seonghyeon interjected, his heart kicking into overdrive. “There’s nothing to elaborate, for the love of Merlin. We were just taking a walk.”
“A purely platonic, academic, and for the love of no one walk,” Louis insisted as if his life hinged upon it.
“Ah.”
Seonghyeon went feral with disbelief. “Ah?! What do you mean, ah?! Ignore him, Keonho, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” He turned to Louis with absolute dismay. “And you! Stop talking nonsense and embarrassing me in front of my friends!”
“Ah,” Keonho repeated. “Friends.”
Louis was still looking back and forth between them, still jittering like a cornered animal, but he snorted at the obvious wryness in Keonho’s voice. Seonghyeon, too, had to take a moment to fathom what he was hearing and what he thought he might be hearing.
Keonho, to his credit, seemed to have taken Louis’ random burst of lunacy in stride. His grip was a steady pressure around Seonghyeon’s wrist, all anchor and no possession, and his eyebrows have gone down their regular spots. There was amusement there, and if Seonghyeon looked closely, something that resembled defeat, but no hint of bitterness or retreat. Steadfast.
“Keonho, listen, I—” Seonghyeon started out of his depth, barely knowing how to proceed—only for reprieve to come in the form of Keonho’s teammates calling for him.
All three of them turned to the source of the noise. Keonho shouted back some response, and then turned to Seonghyeon, Louis once again fading in the background.
“Wait for me?”
“Huh? I mean, sure. Yeah, I’ll wait.”
Keonho smiled, his grip on Seonghyeon’s wrist unraveling less as an action and more as an event, as if he was giving back something he’d borrowed. And then he was off.
Silence stretched in his wake, until—“Holy shit.”
Seonghyeon glared at Louis. “What the hell was that all about?”
“Don’t scold me, can’t you see I just went through a near-death experience?”
“You’re unbelievable,” Seonghyeon grumbled. “I don’t even know what you’re on about. It’s just Keonho.”
“Exactly!” Louis pouted, a hand pressed to his chest. “He’s Gryffindor’s Captain and one of the few guys in school with a Vector 20. There’s no way in hell I’m gonna risk being in his bad books.”
Seonghyeon frowned. “You weren’t at the risk of being in his bad books.”
As a matter of fact, Seonghyeon didn’t believe Keonho had a bad book to begin with.
But Louis simply snickered. “If I held your wrist any longer I would’ve had a guaranteed spot in his bad books. At the top of a fresh page in big, bold, red letters. I don’t even know if he knows my full name, but I’d be in there— Wait. You really didn’t notice?”
“Notice what?”
Louis stared at him for a long time. So long that they hear the ever familiar footfall of someone approaching them. Louis gave a friendly wave over Seonghyeon’s shoulder, so unlike his highstrung antics earlier, and made his retreat just as Keonho fell into place beside Seonghyeon.
“I’m gonna go save Nayeon from the napkin.” He gave Seonghyeon a crooked salute. “Thanks for the brief and completely business-driven Prefect orientation, brother! I’ll see you around!”
“Walk faster, you brat! Before I catch up to you.”
And he really did walk faster, scampering off the side of the field like Seonghyeon had jinxed the very ground under his feet with landmines. It made him laugh despite himself.
“He’s certainly an interesting choice for a Ravenclaw Prefect,” Keonho said.
He was out of his Quidditch gear, his Vector 20 tucked safely in his side along with his training bag. His hair was now water-drenched instead of sweat-drenched, some evidence of a fast-drying spell done halfheartedly in the stray strands. He had rushed back to Seonghyeon, that much was clear, but as he matched the Ravenclaw’s leisurely pace and rolled his left shoulder in a show of perfect ease, Seonghyeon let him believe it went unnoticed.
“He sure is,” was Seonghyeon’s lighthearted response. “I don’t know what the Headmaster and our Head of House saw in him. Just earlier he was only interested in the makeout spots so he could give the couples in our campus hell.”
Keonho snorted. “You weren’t like that in Fifth Year.”
“Nope. I was an angel.”
“That, you were.” Keonho’s eyes shone as he inched just a tiny bit closer to Seonghyeon, inconspicuous not because he meant to be subtle about it but because it was a matter of course to him.
And then he decided to move the Vector 20 and the training bag to his other side, opening up the remaining space between them. Seonghyeon dithers for a second before choosing to put faith in the collision: he shoulder-bumped him playfully, and Keonho staggered before pushing back.
Seonghyeon laughed. “I mean, I’d like to think they made the right decision in choosing me as a Prefect. But I don’t know, I don’t really remember much about Fifth Year.”
Keonho hummed. “Ask me if I do.”
“Do you?”
They were nearing the castle now, but not quite safe from the sun under its shadows yet. The pinnacles and projections of their respite were mere suggestions at this hour of the day, but neither wanted shade anyway. For all Seonghyeon cared, heat and embrace were synonymous terms. He was a willing subject to its full light.
“Did you eat breakfast earlier?” Keonho asked instead. At Seonghyeon’s head shake no, he said, “Then let’s have brunch together. Can I sit at the Ravenclaw table?”
“Hm, you can sit anywhere. This isn’t the 1990’s where they’d bite your head off if you so much as suggested the mere idea of Inter-House Relations.”
“And neither is it 2024,” Keonho chimed in, tone light as ever, “when we were in Fifth Year and I barely had the courage to talk to you, let alone sit next to you.”
Seonghyeon's steps faltered. He watched as Keonho ascended the concrete stairs that led to the great hall, posture relaxed, until he noticed Seonghyeon’s absence beside him and he pivoted on his feet.
“Keonho,” Seonghyeon said, looking up at Keonho.
“Yeah?”
“Do you… remember much about Fifth Year?”
Keonho, predictably, took his time answering. There was that steadfastness, but also a newfound unreadable quality to his stable ground. He didn’t so much as shutter as he transformed into something entirely different in Seonghyeon’s eyes. Something that he might have misread this entire time.
Something that had always been there but he was only just seeing now.
“Yeah, I do,” he admitted, and the exhale that followed sounded like the first exhale he took in years. “I remember a lot. Mostly about you… and not just that year.”
Seonghyeon’s breath stuttered.
Oh, Merlin and Rowena.
Seonghyeon. Louis' voice sounded in his ears. You really didn’t notice?