Amber

“I hope you know that I trust you, with my life, and that my skepticism in no way betrays that, but why the are there scissors so close to my face?”

Key only stared at Amber in response, freezing for just a moment as his hand inched closer and closer to Amber’s precious hair. Myrtle, an ever-present nuisance in the girl’s second floor bathroom, only stared from her lofty perch on the top of a toilet stall, observing the impromptu haircut in complete and uncharacteristic silence.

“Seriously,” Amber continued, “why?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Key said lightly, “but it looks like someone tried to perm a dog and burnt off all their hair by mistake.”

“And in what way am I meant to take that?” Amber asked, with little malice. For as much as their banter irritated their friends, both Key and Amber knew it contained very little actual malice. Instead, their constant arguing was like a warm, gentle, irritating yet comforting constant in their lives of ever-escalating ridiculousness.

“In the way that means I secretly love you, now hold still and let me at it.”

Amber’s mouth snapped shut, at a loss for what to say and feeling more than a creeping blush inch across her face. She privately thought that Key was well-aware that the occasional sincerity was more startling and more affecting than any quip he could throw at her, but neither ever said as much.

“What about a short thing?” Key asked.

“Like you?” Amber replied.

“,” Key fired back. “I mean a short haircut. Not boyish, gamine.”

“What in the name of does that mean?”

“Waifish. Tomboy-esque. Androgynous.”

“Talk like a normal person!”

“You know, like a rugby player, but a girl.”

Amber’s flush having sufficiently faded, she rolled her eyes as obviously as she could, and fixed a pointed stare at Key’s own multi-colored, asymmetrical locks. “Says the man who looks like Edward Scissorhands gave him his last haircut.”

“On top of a rainbow!” Key replied happily, before abruptly taking the shears and lopping off one side of Amber’s hair.

“It’s not working.” Both Key and Amber startled and turned to see Myrtle leaning over the edge of her stall and staring at the two of them with vague interest.

“What do you mean it’s not working?” Amber tried to ask calmly, though vague notes of hysteria crept in unintentionally.

“I mean, it’s not working for you. You look like an emotionally traumatized poodle.”

“It’s not even done yet!” Key fired back.

“Well go faster!” Myrtle replied.

“I literally started thirty seconds ago,” Key retorted, turning harshly away from Myrtle and focusing on Amber with an almost scary intensity.

“Rude,” Myrtle deadpanned before floating over their heads and through the wall towards the Great Hall.

“Think she’s going for a snack?” Amber asked.

Key stared at her. “I’m not going to dignify that question with an answer. Besides, you know her one true love is now gone, so what reason does she have to go socialize?”

“Harry Potter?”

“Snape.”

“Gross. Tough mental image to shake.”

“True that. Now hold still.”

Key placed a stabilizing hand on Amber’s shoulder and she, yet again, felt her face heating up. When asked to explain her consistent and uncontrollable blushing whenever Key so much as paid her the slightest bit of attention, Amber would characteristically reply that the redness was due to rage mixed with Gryffindor pride (an explanation which, if she’s honest, she’s a little surprised her friends didn’t see through.

She needs smarter friends.)

But Amber knew better, and had known better for about two years. Something about the pretty, sassy, Slytherin got under her skin and stayed in a major way, and two years later she was no more aware of how to get rid of the annoying feeling that they’d be good together.

So, so annoying.

“…are you even listening?” Key asked, snapping Amber out of her thousandth daydream about marrying Key in a beautiful yet simultaneously hostile wedding ceremony. With doves. And flowers. And lots of steak.

“Steakkkkk,” Amber replied helpfully.

“Did you just have a ? Wait, no don’t tell me. You’re done.”

Amber pivoted and stared into one of the foggy, cracked mirrors and saw, through the bizarre fun-house effect that this particular mirror was displaying, that Key had actually done a good job.

“Of course I did,” Key replied, as Amber realized she was thinking out loud.

“Well, anyway,” Amber said in a panic (how much had she said???) “thanks for that.”

“Don’t mention it,” Key replied, with a slight smile. “Hey, you look about as boyish now as I do girlish. We actually make two gender-appropriate humans now!”

“Unhelpful,” Amber said, a little sadly. For as much as Key was trying to make her laugh, it was far from the way that Amber secretly hoped they would match.

 Jonghyun

“I don’t get Minho at all,” Jonghyun whined as he slowly, methodically removed his Quiddich pads after practice one day.

“What’s to get?” Luna replied, doing the same in a far more aggressive way, chucking her equipment and beater’s bat into her locker before slamming it shut with more force than was strictly necessary. Jonghyun pitied anyone who underestimated Luna; that girl was a tiny ball of rage wrapped in a pleasant, cheerful package.

Well, mostly cheerful, anyway.

“What’s to get? I don’t know, his stupid jock brain doesn’t seem to understand that we would be perfect for each other due to, I don’t know, reasons.”

“Reasons like what?”

“Well, he’s tall, and I also…have height.”

“The height of a pre-pubescent girl. No offense.”

“Offense!” Jonghyun replied indignantly. “That was insulting.”

“At any rate,” Luna continued, as if not hearing Jonghyun at all, “I don’t see what the big fuss is. You like someone, you tell them.”

“Easy for you to say!” Jonghyun whined. “You’ve already done it! And Krystal is great…you know, for someone with a va-jay-jay.”

“High compliments indeed,” Luna said, picking up her bag and staring at Jonghyun. “Are we leaving any time soon?”

Jonghyun gestured to his full keeper uniform, still on his body despite seemingly ages of unlacing, unclipping and unbuckling all of its component parts.

“I don’t know how you manage to waste so much time,” Luna said, smirking before prodding slightly at a hinge in his uniform. Suddenly, as if by magic, the entire uniform fell off.

“How did you do that? I don’t know that spell.”

“What spell?” Luna said, “I just have a talent for removing clothes.”

“Shocking insight into your relationship,” Jonghyun retorted, miffed at suddenly being clad only in underwear, though not entirely bothered. He was well-aware of how he looked shirtless, and few had complained in the past.

(Damn you, Draco Malfoy, for ruining an otherwise perfect statistic.)

“Are we interrupting something?” sing-songed a voice from behind Jonghyun.

“Hi Krystal,” Luna called over Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun pivoted, ready to make a joke about his stunning washboard abs and how they were completely wasted on a pair of lesbians, when he suddenly realized that Krystal was not alone.

“Blasdbfa;soduMinho,” Jonghyun spurted, covering his s and flushing an impressive shade of red.

“Hi, Jonghyun,” Minho replied, as if what Jonghyun had said was, “Hello Minho, how nice to see you. I am totally normal.”

“I mean, uh, Minho! Nice! I mean, nice to see you? What are you doing! Here. I mean, um, here, you are doing…something? You’re not a Hufflepuff. I mean, you know that, but…just…a reminder? Also, can you be here? Is there a height requirement? Can I be here? Also, I am .”

“I think I speak for all of us when I say what. The. ,” Krystal deadpanned, before walking over to her girlfriend and kissing her.

“Kissing is nice!” Jonghyun said, panic obvious and present in his tone. God, someone just euthanize him and get it over with.

“I agree,” Minho said politely, with a trained look of patience as if talking to someone who was very, very dim. “We were just coming to find you after your practice to see if you wanted to eat.”

“You were watching us practice?” Luna asked, smiling at Krystal. “That’s so sweet.”

“ESPIONAGE! SUBTERFUGE! LIES!”

“I assure you,” Minho said, “that is most definitely not the case.”

“Gryffindor spy!” Jonghyun replied weakly.

“I’m afraid not,” Minho said. “But good luck in your match next week. Slytherin will be a tough team to take down.”

“Damn straight,” Krystal said, holding up deuces.

“Hey! Show some girlfriendly support!” Luna teased.

“I have to go,” Jonghyun said suddenly, standing and grabbing his bag.

“Like that?” Minho asked, gesturing to Jonghyun’s still half-clothed body.

“Damn,” Jonghyun said by way of reply, grabbing his robes and making a hasty retreat from the Hufflepuff locker room.

“He’s special,” Luna said.

“Indeed,” Minho replied, eyes lingering on the door through which Jonghyun had disappeared seconds before. “Shall we?”

“We shall,” Krystal said, linking arms with Luna before following Minho out the door.