Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

[[ gifs are from @busanie's BTS x HP series. she gave me permission to use them! ]]

It was dark.

Really dark. The sole source of light in the vaulted hallway was in front of him, bobbing in rhythm with each of his steps. It barely illuminated the space around them, but the owner of the light seemed to know where they were going, the confident and steady click of his boots against the stone beneath them unwavering. The paintings on the wall jeered at the weak source of light disrupting their slumber, but he paid them no heed—they were just filthy ghosts after all, and ghosts complained about everything. Growing impatient, he tapped on the shoulder of the older boy in front of him.

“Mmm?” the older responded, not even wasting a breath on the younger.

“Yoongi-hyung, are we almost there?” he asked, voice hushed to avoid drawing attention. “I swear we’ve been walking in circles.”

“Took you long enough to notice,” the older sneered loudly, completely disregarding that it was in fact past curfew and getting caught being out past curfew in the first week might not be a good idea. Jungkook winced at the thought; getting lectured again by Professor Parkinson about scuttling about after curfew like filthy vermin was not on his bucket list for the first week of classes. He didn’t even want to think about what lame-ass punishment the witch would come up with because bloody hell they’re not scrubbing the Potions stockroom clean again—and most likely just him because Merlin-forbid Yoongi do an ounce of work. No, he is not going to get caught after curfew, he decided.

“Keep it down, hyung! We’re going to get caught!” he admonished, his voice still squeaky and quiet.

“Yes, we probably are,” Yoongi nonchalantly replied, dramatically pulling his robe up around the front of his torso with one hand while the other held his wand-turned-lightstick. Volume control was not in Yoongi’s vocabulary, but luckily his voice was low and melancholy without trying.

“Hyung! I wasn’t planning on spending my first week back doing your bloody chores!” he repeated. Whisper-yelling wasn’t quite intimidating coming from him, not that actual yelling would faze Yoongi either.

“Then help me find the Room of Requirement instead of whining like a sniffling brat, Jungkook,” Yoongi hissed.

First-year Jungkook would have been really hurt by his hyung’s bluntness. Second-year Jungkook might have cried a little because he thought he was friends with Yoongi. But fourth-year Jungkook knew better—if Yoongi was actually upset with him, he would have used a silencing charm to forcibly shut him up or ditched him right then and there. Merlin knows how many times Yoongi has used Silencio on him. No, Yoongi was just annoyed at his whining, but he had good reason to be upset: how are they going to find the Room of Requirement if they keep walking around in circles?

“Let’s just go back up, Yoongi. You clearly don’t know what you’re doing or where you’re going, we’ve been at this for an hour, and I think it’s starting to get even darker…” Jungkook reasoned, hoping to sway his stubborn hyung.

Instead, Yoongi stopped, pivoted around to face Jungkook head-on while bringing the tip of his wand close to Jungkook’s cheek. The light from the wand was nearly blinding, but he could make out the older’s pale features, his defined cheekbones shimmering and his lips pursed into small smirk. Fuck, he was up to something. “That’s the fourth time you’ve mentioned how dark it is tonight, Kook,” Yoongi whispered, his words barely audible. “Are you, perhaps, afraid of the dark?”

With a flick of his wrist, Yoongi extinguished the light. It was pitch black, abyssal darkness flooding in from everywhere around him. After a moment, he heard Yoongi’s robe woosh in front of him, following by the loud clicking sound of the older’s boots getting quieter and quieter as he pressed onward until it completely disappeared. He was all alone in the halls after curfew without his wand. You won’t need it, Yoongi scoffed. I’ll have mine. Well, great, now he was alone. In the dark.

He heard a faint sound from behind: clicking boots getting louder and then stopping. “H-hyung?” he whispered.

“Lumos.”

His wand illuminated instantly, and standing in front of him was Yoongi in the exact same position that the seventh-year had left him in two minutes ago, a familiar knowing little smirk plastered on his face.

“So scared of the dark that you forgot I know the incantation to fabricate sounds,” Yoongi teased, his blasé arrogance indicating that he was satisfied in messing with the younger for a while. “Tsk, tsk.”

The older doubled-back, continuing their stroll through the dark corridors and inviting the younger to follow. Jungkook obliged, keeping close to the light of Yoongi’s wand. “Jungkook, since you obviously know nothing about the Room of Requirement, allow me to educate you.”

“The Room of Requirement is a very secret, very special room believed to be on the seventh floor. The room is special in that it manifests itself in a form that is most useful to the person seeking to use it. It’s adaptable. My friend told me about it at the end of last year when he found it to get rid of one of his… well, let’s just say it was something that a curious first-year Gryffindor shouldn’t be stumbling upon. While looking for a spot to rid himself of such a belonging, he happened to walk through a certain corridor on this very floor and find the entrance to the Room of Requirement.

“Unlike any old room, the entrance to the Room of Requirement does not simply make itself available to any bratty bystander like yourself. No, the Room of Requirement only shows itself to those in need of something—or so I’m told. I know that it’s on this floor and I know that it’s in this corridor, but clearly it has not appeared yet. We’re walking around until a prefect, or better yet, a professor, finds us and the room makes its appearance to us.”

Jungkook sighed. “Why do you even want to find this room? You trying to get rid of a body?” he proffered, knowing that Yoongi wouldn’t dare bring him along for such an expedition unless his intentions were harmless. Jungkook was far too annoying for something as important as that.

Besides, he would probably be the body that Yoongi-hyung would be trying to get rid of.

Yoongi shrugged. “I want somewhere to practice my magic in peace. Our common room is constantly overrun by those daft third-years, and everywhere else inside or outside the castle that incessant sixth-year Hufflepuff finds me like he’s running a perpetual Accio charm.”

“Hoseok? I thought you liked Hoseok?”

Yoongi paused. “He has his … redeeming qualities,” he mused.

“That’s not what you were sayi—“

“—Shhh, someone’s coming,” Yoongi interjected with a flick of his wand, snuffing the light out of the corridor. “Sonus minima,” he whispered, grabbing Jungkook by the arm and tugging him forward down the next corridor.

“Hyung, they’re gonna hear your boots even if you tell me to shut up,” he hissed, unpleasantly realizing that Yoongi has a really strong grip and he doesn’t waste time when he needs to hustle.

The seventh-year sighed loudly before mumbling something back to him: “Do you even pay attention in Defense Against the Dark Arts? Sonus minima is a fourth-year spell.”

“I’ve been a fourth year for one week, hyung. One. Week.” He huffed in annoyance.

“Oh.” The older looked over his shoulder at him. “Right,” he continued sheepishly, “so Sonus minimia mutes sounds in our area so that other can’t hear us.”

“Useful,” Jungkook muttered.

“Only if we’re not seen,” Yoongi added. “The door should be right around here, do you see anything?” The older boy was phrenetically looking around, searching for anything that might look like an entrance.

“I see nothing, hyung,” Jungkook groaned.

“Lumos maxima” came a stern voice from down the corridor. Jungkook and Yoongi turned to face the new person, watching as the young wizard pointed his wand at the candles along the hallway, igniting each with a flick of his wand. Once the corridor was sufficiently bright, he turned toward the two Slytherins in the middle of the hallway, striding toward both of them without hesitation. Jungkook could make out the yellow prefect pin on the boy’s brown-tinged robes, the yellow undersides of the robe also clearly denoting that he was in fact one of the Hufflepuff prefects. The boy came to an abrupt stop in front of the two of them, sizing up both of them with his piercing brown eyes before softening up a bit, a small little smile spreading across his lips.

Fuck, he was pretty. His soft blonde hair was effortlessly fluffy and perfectly tousled, bangs resting lightly on his forehead. His sharp jawline contrasted with his pale cherub-looking cheeks. After identifying the two of them, the previously sharp and foreboding pair of eyes that was sizing them up morphed into two wide orbs, warm and inviting. He was a full head shorter than him, about the same height as Yoongi, but he was just so… ethereal.

“Min Yoongi,” the prefect said, his voice neither surprised nor intimidated.

“Park Jimin. I didn’t realize you had become a prefect.”

“You know Professor Longbottom, always making the oddest decisions,” Jimin said with a giggle, not an ounce of annoyance in his voice. “What are you doing out and about after curfew?”

His eyes fell to the younger boy. “And I see you brought a friend with you… Jeon Jungkook, I presume?”

Jungkook felt like he was being analyzed, those sweet eyes betraying what was actually going on inside Jimin’s head. There was something he hated about the prefect, something that irked him as wrong. Why did he seem mysterious? It wasn’t normal for a Hufflepuff to be so nice to a duo of Slytherins, and it certainly wasn’t normal for a Hufflepuff to be so composed and saccharine under pressure. Hufflepuffs were usually so simple, so one-dimensional, but something was off about Jimin. Why did he seem different?

“Just out for a late-night stroll. Couldn’t sleep. Him too.”

“On the seventh floor? In the dark? After curfew?” Jimin’s quips were spot-on—he knew something was up.

“Yup.”

“Mmhmm, I see,” the prefect replied. “Well, considering how wide poor Jungkook’s eyes are, I’m assuming that this is completely your doing, Yoongi, so I’ll only be deducting five points from Slytherin. I suggest that you two make your way back to the Slytherin common room before five becomes ten.” Jimin smiled sweetly, like absolutely nothing had happened.

“Of course. Will Professor Parkinson be hearing about this?” Yoongi asked, eyes darting toward Jungkook.

“Mmm,” the prefect mused, bringing his free hand to his chin as if in thought. “Well, since Jungkook here would probably be the one doing your punishment, I guess I’ll forget to tell her in the morning.”

Yoongi smirked. “Good night, Park Jimin. Lumos” Grabbing the younger by the arm, Yoongi escorted him toward the stairs leading to the Slytherin commons. Behind them, he could sense Jimin snuffing out the lights, heading back to his scheduled rounds.

Ever since he was a first-year, Yoongi had taken a liking to him.

Jungkook hadn’t even noticed the older when he was sorted into Slytherin. He was so overwhelmed by the spectacle of being sorted—all the older students fawning over the smug little first-year and the students in his year instantly trying to talk to him and his pedigree—that he hardly could have picked the dark and brooding gray-haired fourth-year out of the crowd, who apparently had been following him like a shadow. By the time Yoongi approached him in the commons one day, the fourth-year already knew more about his mannerisms than Jungkook knew about himself. His favorite foods, the seat he always chose in the Great Hall, the way he bit on his lip and scratched his neck when he was nervous—Yoongi had picked up on it all.

Lo and behold, Yoongi was actually not dark or brooding. Reserved and independent was more accurate. Without a word of explanation, the older suddenly started inviting (read: bringing) him along on little expeditions during the day, showing him unusual and restricted places in the castle, teaching him spells that were far above his grade level, and educating him about the important people at Hogwarts, students and faculty alike.

Never in their three-and-counting years of friendship had Yoongi ever mentioned Park Jimin.

Yoongi wasn’t the type to talk much. He hardly knew half the other students in Slytherin, let alone in other houses. The lone person he could name in Ravenclaw, a bookish student named Namjoon who was a year below him, was one of his few close friends, and even then his interactions with Namjoon were sparse and erratic. In Hufflepuff, he of course knew Hoseok, but Yoongi had never mentioned a prefect named Jimin. Jungkook would have remembered that face if Yoongi had ever introduced them to each other.

The silence on their way back to the commons was unusual. The only other time he and Yoongi had been caught—by the headmistress, no less—Yoongi wouldn’t stop scheming and strategizing the whole way back about how to do better next time, what went wrong, and so on. When they entered the commons, they found that it was dead quiet, the rest of the Slytherins had slinked off to bed upstairs. Still, nothing from the older, even in the safety and solitude of their empty common room.

The older boy slung his robe off his shoulder, folding it over his arm and then over the leather couch in front of the fireplace. The gray-haired seventh-year loosened his green striped necktie, allowing it to limply feed into the sweater vest he wore over his white button-up shirt. Plopping down onto the plush seat, he rested his head back onto the couch, Jungkook taking the seat opposite of him, eagerly waiting to hear what wisdom his hyung had about their glorious adventure to nothingness and getting caught.

Nothing came.

Yoongi sat in silence, as if inviting the question from him. Yoongi knew that it was on the tip of his tongue, and he wanted the younger to spit it out, to fully appreciate that, yes, he was curious.

“Park Jimin …” he started, voice trailing off into the room.

“Hmm?” The older feigned disinterest, adjusting his necktie once more.

“How do you know him?” He gazed at Yoongi expectantly, the response he had been waiting for forthcoming.

“It doesn’t matter, Kook.”

Doesn’t… matter? Nothing Yoongi does is without a goal, nothing he does ‘doesn’t matter.’ Jungkook leaned forward, clasping his hands together as if he were begging for the actual answer while staring at his hyung’s dark eyes. “Come on, Yoongi. You drag me all the way to the seventh floor for Merlin-knows-how-long, we get caught, and you still can’t even tell me about this prefect you know?”

“Nope.”

“Hyung!” he whined.

“I will tell you that the two of you are a lot more alike than either of you may think right now,” Yoongi rattled off, teasing Jungkook with what he was about to say. “I mean, clearly he has a better smile, handles social interaction more aptly, is like seven centimeters shorter than you, and knows how not to be as much of a brat as you are, but deep-down you guys are really similar.”

“Hyung – I – how would you even know that? He’s a bloody Hufflepuff, and Hufflepuffs are practically polar opposites of Slytherins!” he retorted, personally offended that anyone would compare him to someone as detestable as a Hufflepuff prefect.

Yoongi just smirked in response. “Kook, do you really think you’re a model Slytherin? Any fourth-year Slytherin would have taunted and jeered at a shorty fifth-year Hufflepuff prefect like Park Jimin. Meanwhile, you let him—you fucking let him—get away with commenting about how big your eyes were, about how scared you looked. You might as well have been a first-year Ravenclaw, afraid of any and all authority figures.”

“What – I… And like you were any better!? A seventh-year Slytherin just agreeing with a prefect like that? What kind of Slytherin are you?”

“A Slytherin who knows how to pick his battles. You do know that ‘cunning wit’ is one of our attributes, right?”

He grumbled under his breath. Why does Yoongi have a bloody answer for everything?

“I’ve never seen you so interested in a Hufflepuff before…” Yoongi continued, his baited words sinking into Jungkook’s with the cunning wit he just advertised. Jungkook wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t going to let Yoongi get away with teasing him like that.

“Oh please, I’m interested in him because you seem to know him.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

It was times like now that made Jungkook both hate and love his hyung. On one hand, Yoongi knew everything. His sharp mind and quick wit rivaled, no, surpassed that of the average Ravenclaw. No matter the question, Yoongi had a logical answer; no matter the problem, he had a reasonable solution. Yoongi was smart, innately smart—he never paid attention in class. He didn’t need to. He found his answers by reading and experimenting and listening when it mattered. Yoongi was a master at analyzing a situation on the fly and choosing the best course of action, cold and calculating all the time. Jungkook trusted Yoongi’s gut more than he trusted his own. On the other hand, Yoongi was so analytical that he knew exactly how to tease the younger; he anticipated the younger’s reaction before the first word even fell off of his measured tongue. Jungkook was never ahead of Yoongi, and it was infuriating. There was a clear hierarchy in their relationship: Jungkook was the mentee and Yoongi was the mentor. Nothing had changed in four years, and his impotence in the face of someone as naturally brilliant as Yoongi was weighing on him.

The older shifted in his seat, finally switching his attention to the second curiosity of the night. “We’re going to need a new plan to get into the Room of Requirement…” Yoongi mused, segueing to a less heated topic.

“I am not doing that again,” he protested, not even letting Yoongi consider making him his guinea pig again.

“Oh please, the actual definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result,” the gray-haired boy said, leaning forward toward the fireplace and resting his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. “How can we get the Room of Requirement to reveal itself to us…”

Jungkook rolled his eyes. “Have you tried just walking up to it and asking for a room to practice your spells?”

Yoongi opened his mouth, about to say something before catching himself.

“I mean, if you really think you can trick a magical room that’s smart enough to know what you need when you need it, then you’re actually insane,” he continued. “Have you tried, I don’t know, being honest?”

“You know, that’s actually not totally stupid…”

“You’re welcome, hyung.”

The older threw his head back against the cushion behind him and clicked his tongue in response. “You really are a shitty Slytherin, suggesting honesty as a voluntary means to an end,” Yoongi mumbled. “I suppose that’s why I like you.”

Jungkook might have forgotten about the Hufflepuff prefect if he hadn’t started popping up all of the time.

The first time he wrote off as a coincidence. You know those times when you run into someone the day after you meet them? He figured this was just one of those times, just with the added awkwardness of “hey, I kinda busted you last night but let’s just play it off cool and not make it weird?” Like Yoongi had so acutely pointed out the night before, Jimin was actually much less socially awkward, all smiles and formalities. Meanwhile, Jungkook could barely string two sentences together, keeping his replies terse and stiff like he didn’t like Jimin prying into his life.

That wasn’t a lie. He didn’t like it when Jimin asked about his classes (“they’re going fine, thank you very much”), he didn’t like it when the older pretended that they knew each other better than they actually did (“don’t you have some friends that you’re forgetting about?”) and he certainly didn’t like it that this kept on happening over and over again.

Case in point:

Wednesday afternoons were entirely solitary for Jungkook. He used this time to study without any distractions from needy younger Slytherins or a bellicose, authority-flouting Yoongi. Every week, he’d make the trek out of the castle grounds, careful to slip out while Yoongi was in class and while the other Slytherins were busy eating in the Great Hall. It wasn’t a long walk from the castle: only about ten minutes. He had this one rock next to a path leading to the docks where he would sit and study without anyone else around—his only companion was the forest next to the castle grounds. Bioglorias—luminescent butterflies with rainbow-looking wings—liked to come visit him, floating around his books. Two-beaked blue jays flew above him, chirping madly at each other and occasionally squawking at the invading dragonblood crow until the intruder flew off. Every once in a while, a moke scurried up to the rock he sat on, staring at the Slytherin until the black-haired boy noticed it. Almost immediately, the moke would shriek and then shrink to an imperceptibly small size. Once you got used to them, the magical creatures in the forest were nowhere near as disruptive as your, say, pint-sized seventh-year hyung.

“Jungkook!” came a voice cutting through the small clearing. His head jolted up, surprised that anyone would be out here and even more surprised that anyone would recognize him.

Jimin. Jimin, his other pint-sized hyung, found him. Again. How?

The older looked like he was waiting for a response because he frowned when he didn’t get one. Not letting the displeasure last for long, the older cracked an ephemeral smile and bounded up the small hill to where Jungkook was sitting, stopping just a few feet from Jungkook’s makeshift library cubbyhole.

“What are you doing here?” Jungkook asked, shaking off the nagging question of how the fuck did Park Jimin find him yet again?.

“Oh? Professor Longbottom asked me to run down to the marsh near the docks and gather some Snapping Cattails for his class with the second-years. I heard someone flipping pages of a book in the middle of the forest, so naturally I looked and I saw you…” Jimin’s voice trailed off. “Well, actually not naturally because I don’t know anyone who studies here of all places.”

“Are you saying this isn’t a good spot?” he pushed back, growing tired of constantly having to explain his life to Jimin.

The older looked a little frazzled by the question, his eyes flickering with hurt before choking out a response: “N-no, no, not at all! I just—like I said, I didn’t think people studied out here. It seems peaceful, I’m surprised more people don’t!”

Jungkook wasn’t having it, grunting and shoving his head back down to his book.

It took a few seconds of painfully awkward silence before it seemed like Jimin gave up, the older starting to shuffle back toward the path leading to the dock. “Well, um, I think I’m gon—“

“—CAW” came a deafeningly loud screech from the sky. Jimin froze in his spot, his head shooting up to look around for the source of the noise.

“Oh no,” Jungkook mumbled under his breath, hurriedly shutting his book close and starting to fumble with his knapsack. “Jimin-hyung, stay still and put your wand away. Try not to seem intimidating,” he instructed, his voice level and calm even though he had never introduced Pyre to a visitor before.

Jungkook finally found what he was looking for in his bag, pulling it out and looking over at Jimin, who was currently fixed in a morbid state of anxiousness. “Not that you’re ever intimidating,” the Slytherin mumbled, before standing up to greet their visitor.

Jimin was about to protest when a blinding green light darted in front of both of them.

“W-what was that? the older stammered out, stepping backward against one of the trees in the clearing.

“Pyre,” Jungkook replied, ever-so-slightly relishing the fifth-year’s rapidly-deteriorating confidence. “He’s an Augurey, also called an Irish Phoenix.”

“Yo—You’re joking, right?” Jimin asked, nervously running one of his hands through his blonde hair. “You hang out with a death bird, Jungkook?”

“Oh please,” Jungkook snapped. Before he could say any more, Pyre made his entrance, flapping to a stop in the middle of the clearing and causing some of the leaves in the area to flutter up off the forest floor and into the air.

Jungkook looked over at Jimin, who was stuck somewhere between awe-struck curiosity and paralyzing fear. To be fair, Pyre was a little overwhelming at first; the bird was a little over two feet tall from his sharp talons to the crown of his head. His plumage was a brilliant shiny green along his wings, but a more subdued greenish-black along his head and neck. The green contrasted with Pyre’s pitch-black talons and beak, which naturally were very sharp and very deadly if anybody threatened the phoenix.

“Ah, you’re just as pretty as I remember you were last year, Pyre,” Jungkook cooed, approaching the creature very slowly and then tossing a small piece of oxen flank that he had grabbed from his bag to the bird. Squawking in delight, Pyre dove in for the meat, tearing it apart and swallowing chunks of it whole.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jimin hyperventilated. “You’ve been seeing this bird—“

“—Pyre,” Jungkook corrected.

“You’ve been seeing Pyre since last year?”

“Yeah. One day when I came out to study, I found him injured on top of my rock, and I ran back to grab him meat. I didn’t try to mend him with magic because I don’t know phoenix physiology all that well, but I figured I could at least nurse him back to health with food. He comes by every week now,” Jungkook explained. “And, no, he is not a death bird. He only squawks when it’s about to rain, not when someone’s going to die. Hufflepuffs are so dramatic.”

Right on cue, a few raindrops started falling. It was nothing heavy, it didn’t even deserve an umbrella charm this time. Jungkook looked over at Jimin again, and saw that the fear had melted away a little and the older boy was mostly curious, stepping forward a little from the tree.

He sighed. “Do you want to feed him?” Jungkook offered against his better judgment.

“Feed him? Are you kidding?”

“No, I legitimately want to see Pyre try to eat you for a meal.”

Jimin looked startled, freezing in his spot with the mortified look coming back again.

“Here,” Jungkook said, walking around the now-squawking phoenix and handing a small piece of cooked meat to the prefect before he could refuse. “Now just approach him very slowly and toss the meat right in front of his feet, okay?”

Jimin nodded, doing as Jungkook told him after a long bout of hesitation. Stepping closer and closer, Pyre cocked his head in confusion until Jimin tossed the piece of meat several feet in front of Pyre, who immediately lunged for the food.

“Making him work for it, huh?” he commented, rounding the humming bird to stand next to Jimin.

“W-well, it’s not like every day I see a bloody death bird, Jungkook!” Jimin protested, folding his arms across his narrow chest.

Jungkook sighed. “Don’t you have cattails to go gather? Instead of bugging me while I’m studying,” he retorted, moving up to Pyre to let the phoenix nuzzle into his hand.

“Y-yeah, I think I should be going,” Jimin said, watching him interact with Pyre in complete bewilderment. Jimin started to pivot on the soles of his feet when he must have realized that Jungkook wasn’t going to continue their conversation any longer.

“Oh, and Jimin?” The older turned around, still amazed at the phoenix’s fondness for the fourth-year. “Tell anyone about Pyre or where I study on Wednesdays and I’ll make sure he actually is a ‘death bird,’” Jungkook added.

The older boy just nodded meekly before running off toward the trail.

“Hmmph,” Jungkook said to Pyre, the phoenix still pushing into his hand for attention. “Maybe he’ll leave me alone for a while now. What do you think?”

Pyre cawed in response, flapping his wings a little violently.

“Really? You don’t think so?” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I really wish he would…”

The phoenix responded by flapping his wings and pecking softly at Jungkook’s hand.

“Ow!” he exclaimed in pain. “Fine, fine, maybe he’s not so bad,” Jungkook pleaded, rubbing the stinging part of his hand.

With a few more squawks, Pyre took his abrupt leave, circling around the clearing a few times before leaving Jungkook in the steadily increasing rain. Grabbing his wand, he cast his umbrella enchantment, shielding his books from the rain and allowing him to finally study in peace.

It really would have been nice if Jimin had left him alone, that peck kinda hurt.

“No luck with the Room of Requirement?” Jungkook asked, meeting the older on the seventh floor like he had asked.

“No. It seems like you had no luck with something else, too,” Yoongi disinterestedly commented, staring at the brick wall seemingly with the intention of making it move whether it wanted to or not.

“What—h-how did you know?”

“The small scar on your right hand,” Yoongi clarified, grabbing the younger’s hand and showing it to himself.

“Oh,” Jungkook sighed in relief. Thank god Yoongi hadn’t been behind this week. “Uh, I stabbed myself with a quill,” he lied.

“Mmhmm,” Yoongi replied.

“Why did you even make me come here, hyung?” he asked, trying to change the subject. “I’m not helping you with this.”

“I wouldn’t even want your help, your idea didn’t work,” Yoongi dryly retorted. “Anyways, have you seen Hoseok this week?”

“Oh? Did you lose track of your boyfriend?”

Yoongi stopped feeling the wall for a moment to look over his shoulder at the fourth-year, the bags under his eyes showing that the search for the Room of Requirement really hadn’t been successful. Blowing a tuft of black hair out of his face, the older responded: “He’s not my boyfriend, you insolent brat.”

“But you still lost him,” he cheekily added, smirking like an asshole.

Yoongi sighed, stepping back to look at the younger boy head-on with his arms crossed.

“Yes, I may not have seen him a lot this week, but I’m not asking because we’re dating and if you insinuate that one more time I won’t hesitate to lock you in the dungeon, extinguish all the lights, and play with the sounds until you’re crying for your mum, Jungko—“

“Oh, Yoongi-hyung and Jungkook, what a surprise.”

Both boys turned toward the hallway to see a familiar blonde-haired robed person heading their way. Yoongi kept his arms crossed, a smirk instantly taking the place of the scowl that was there before when he was teasing him.

“Snooping around on the seventh floor again?” Jimin smiled sweetly, looking at Yoongi. His saccharine demeanor was not lost on the older.

“We were actually looking for you, since you seem to be here so often,” Yoongi dryly quipped.

“Oh, cute,” Jimin equivocated, his cheshire grin starting to get a little creepy. “The headmistress has requested everyone come to the Great Hall, please get your robes and head down by the top of the hour.”

“Will do,” the seventh-year replied. Jimin nodded at him and then flashed a genuine smile at Jungkook before taking his leave.

When Jimin was completely out-of-sight, Jungkook finally exhaled, releasing the breath that he wasn’t aware he had been holding.

“Why does he hate you, hyung?”

“I told you it doesn’t matter, Jungkook.”

Jungkook huffed in response, starting to walk toward his room in the Slytherin tower.

“Maybe the Room of Requirement will show itself to you when you stop trying to hide things from it. You know, just like you’re hiding stuff from me.”