Like a Kneazle

Butterball likes a particular tall individual, and resents a rather short one.

Seolhyun x Hyejeong, featuring AOA’s Jimin and Yuna

Seolhyun drags her feet lazily towards the Great Hall. Fingers gently rub the sleep from her eyes, the buzz of chattering students fills her ears, and—

The feeling of an ice cold shower quite literally washes over her. An intense shiver courses down her spine. She catches a glimpse of a member of the Headless Hunt rounding the corner. Nasty feeling, walking through a ghost. She was certainly awake now.

“You look like a wreck for once,” a girl says a bit too gleefully as Seolhyun joins her for breakfast.

“Good morning to you, too,” she replies. She couldn’t be bothered with the insult at her current state, nor the compliment towards her usual appearance. She reaches over the head of her friend to grab some toast and jam. The girl glares at her, disappointed that she didn’t even need to duck an inch out of Seolhyun’s reach.

“Don’t be so blunt, Jimin,” a second girl says reproachfully. She sits down across from the two, earning a few confused looks from those near the trio.

“I’ll say what I want! I’m the motherf—”

“Good morning, Yuna!” Seolhyun exclaims with dramatic enthusiasm, which obviously takes a lot of energy to conjure up. She (not so lightly) yanks Jimin’s hand down, the fork she was brandishing clattering on the table. Quite a few heads turn in their direction but Yuna smiles apologetically, reassuring them everything was under control. Those who didn’t know her kept staring with a confused expression. The older students nod in understanding and nudged the others. The younger students turned away obediently.

“How is it that you have more control over Hufflepuffs than our own Prefect?” Seolhyun jabs a finger half-heartedly, though undoubtedly with all her strength, to her left.

“Psh, everyone thinks Yuna is some kind of angel! You know, I actually heard some students call her Yunaria. They started a fan club and asked if I wanted to join. It’s so outrageous, Peeves even sprinkled flower petals as she walked through the fifth floor corridor! Not ink bottles, flower petals!”

Seolhyun swipes the fork off the table before Jimin could jab it in the air again. Regardless, Jimin sticks her finger forcefully as close to Yuna’s nose as possible, which in realty isn’t very close. The Fat Friar drifts between them, waving pleasantly at the students. The tip of Jimin’s finger felt frozen. Yuna bursts into giggles as Jimin yanks her hand back and stuffs it in her steaming porridge. She looks up intending to glare at the house ghost, but just smiles sheepishly at her friends.

With a small smirk, Seolhyun turns away from her friend and catches sight of some Ravenclaws looking back at her. They point in the direction of the trio. She kindly nods in response.

“Uh Yuna, I think your housemates want to talk to you,” she relays the message.

Yuna glances over her shoulder and smiles. Turning back to Seolhyun, she says, “Oh, right. I just wanted to ask if you were ok.”

Seolhyun’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I be?” She looks down at her torso as if there was a stab wound she didn’t notice before.

“Well, it’s nothing urgent. It’s just that you didn’t meet with us yesterday out by the lake. We thought you were running late, but nobody knew where you were to ask if you were still coming. We thought you were serving a detention.”

“Bloody likely, Seolhyun the fairy getting scolded by a teacher. Anyways, I was going to ask you about it last night, but you didn’t come back so I went to bed,” Jimin adds.

“I was in the common room by curfew. I didn’t see you there,” Seolhyun says.

“I—” Jimin racks her brain for an excuse. “Fine!” She glares at her lap. “I had a glass of warm milk and fell asleep,” she mutters, just loud enough for the two to hear. Yuna sighs deeply while Seolhyun bursts into laughter. She proceeds to pat her friend on the head and coo as she scratched her chin. Jimin slaps her palm onto Seolhyun’s face, muffling the unladylike cackling, and pushing her far away.

Pulling herself together, she looks at Yuna and says, “Sorry, I forgot we were hanging out. I was looking for Butterball. I promise I’ll remember next time.” She hastily raises her glass of pumpkin juice to her lips. It was a line so rehearsed, she almost believed it herself.

“Again? But this is the fourth time you’ve skipped dinner and spent the night looking for him. Did you even finish your essays for Potions and Transfiguration?” Jimin demands.

Seolhyun nods and lowers her glass slightly. “I stayed up writing them. I’m not too confident, but it’s the best I can do.”

Without speaking, Yuna flicks her wand towards Seolhyun’s bag. Two long parchments roll out, settling on the table in front of her. She briefly scans them, tapping words and underlining phrases with her wand. The black ink shifts about forming coherent sentences. Yuna nods with a satisfied smile, then rolls them up. She hands them back to Seolhyun, who thanks her sheepishly. Yuna was probably the reason Jimin and Seolhyun had any reports accepted by teachers in their years at Hogwarts.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to help look for him?” Yuna offers kindly. She didn’t approve of Seolhyun wandering around the school so late, even if she did make it back to the dormitories by curfew. But she also knew how much she cared about Butterball.

“I say, let the beast be. It’s only Hogwarts. I’m sure nobody is hunting down that oversized dust bunny anyways,” scoffs Jimin.

Butterball was Seolhyun’s pet Kneazle. She adopted him in Diagon Alley just before their second year. During the few days she stayed at the Leaky Cauldron, for her home wasn’t near London, she saw the unkempt fluff-ball paw at the door of the pub every morning and evening. As the bartender lowered a bowl of water and some old meat pie to the floor, he told her the stray just recently started showing up. Seolhyun offered to take the Kneazle with her to Hogwarts. When her friends came to fetch her the next morning to purchase textbooks, Jimin swiftly kicked the animal off of her leg in fright. Butterball made it a point to cover Jimin’s extra robes in fur every week. Occasionally, he left a hefty hairball on her pillow.

“I just want to make sure he’s not getting into trouble. He might snoop around classrooms or dormitories. I would hate to retrieve him from the owlery. I’d never be allowed to send a letter again, and he’d probably be taken away.” Seolhyun frowns slightly in what she hopes is a convincing manner.

Yuna caught the glint in Jimin’s eyes. “Don’t you dare bring Butterball up there. If anything, he’d claw you up before you could touch him.” Jimin exhales audibly in frustration.

“Just promise me next time you’ll tell somebody so we aren’t worried. And if it gets too late, leave him be. He’ll be fine on his own until morning.”

“For Merlin’s sake, he even knows how to get into common room. I’ve seen him,” grumbles Jimin. Yuna nods in agreement, stands up, and waves to her friends as she leaves to join her housemates.

Jimin took the next few minutes to rant about Butterball’s most recent “present,” which may or may not have included organic materials, as Seolhyun forks some eggs absentmindedly. When she tunes back in to Jimin’s voice, the one-sided conversation has switched to the disheveled appearance of the Hufflepuff. Once Jimin was done fussing with her hair and robes, they stand up to head to their first class.

“Oh, I almost forgot my books!” Jimin spins around to reach for the bag on the bench, almost crashing into Seolhyun in the process. As she apologizes and turns back towards the doors, she swears she saw her friend’s eyes flicker across the Great Hall.

~|~|~|~

She wanders aimlessly through the stone corridors of the dungeons. The flickering light of the lamps on the walls makes her silver and emerald tie shine a bit brighter. Just as she turns the corner, a large soft animal weaves between her legs. She bends down to pet his head.

“Hey there, Butterball,” she smiles softly. The Kneazle’s purrs reverberate down the empty passage. “You shouldn’t be wandering around. Your owner doesn’t want you getting into trouble.”

“And if he’s here on my orders?” Someone places their arm around her shoulders from behind.

The girl stands up and turns around, wrapping the newcomer in her arms. “Hey, I missed you.” She nuzzles her nose into her girlfriend’s neck.

“We saw each other two periods ago, Hyejeongie.” The taller girl whines but doesn’t let go. “You know, I think we’re going to have to tell them soon. Or we have to be more creative. Jimin wants to keep a closer eye on Butterball. I honestly think its to plan my baby’s disappearance. That girl takes recon too seriously,” Seolhyun continues.

“I’m fairly advanced in Transfiguration.” Of course Seolhyun knows that. That’s how they met. “Can’t I just—”

“You are not turning my friend into mule.”

“I was under the impression that only Yuna was actually friend material.” Seolhyun glares in mock seriousness. Hyejeong smirks back at her.

“Leave her alone, she’s got enough issues without you using her as a guinea pig.”

“Hey, I am wholeheartedly looking out for Butterball. Honest.” Hyejeong makes an X over her heart with her finger. “I got your six, bruh,” she clicks her tongue and winks at the Kneazle. He purrs in response.

“Should I be concerned that you’re kind of flirting with my pet?” Seolhyun eyes the Slytherin.

“It’s a bromance, not a romance~” It’s a few minutes before their giggles subside.

Seolhyun looks up with curiosity. “So why did you want to see me? And nothing cheesy,” she cuts across before Hyejeong can squeeze in anything.

“Right, that. Well…” Suddenly Hyejeong looks nervous. Seolhyun’s sure her girlfriend had confidence to spare, enough to help Jimin grow another four inches (and maybe then she’d be less butthurt over anything and everything). Instead, she looks like a first year at the Sorting Ceremony.

Hyejeong plays with Seolhyun’s fingers. “Um well, Christmas break is coming up s-soon. And e-everyone will be going home. But I thought maybe it would be n-nice if we… um…” She looks up to see her girlfriend staring back at her, so she drops her gaze again. “M-maybe we can do more than just send l-letters over break.”

Seolhyun’s smiling now, but she wants to hear it. Loud and clear. It seems like Hyejeong needs a little push.

“I could teach you how to Skype, we can try that. It’s more than writing letters, isn’t it?” She teases.

Hyejeong’s head snaps up. “Skype?” she squeaks. Sounds dangerous. And pointy. But then she remembers Seolhyun telling her about compooters and videe-oh’s. “Well I was thinking of something a bit more— a bit more personal.”

“I don’t think I quite understand,” Seolhyun drawls, the corners of pulling up slightly.

Hyejeong gathers the courage to actually maintain eye contact this time. Oh, you so understand. But it does make her chuckle. She squares back her shoulders in what she hopes is a confident, charismatic stance. “Would you like to spend Christmas break with me at my family’s house?” She doesn’t dare breathe in case she misses Seolhyun’s answer.

The other girl looks physically pained, her face scrunching up in a mixture of regret and disappointment. Hyejeong actually feels her heart shrivel up. Is this too fast? Does she not want to meet my parents? Slytherins aren’t all bad. She’s happy to deal with me, and she visits Jimin’s house every summer. The runty lil’ sh—

“I would love to spend the holidays with you and your family.” Seolhyun is beaming at her. Hyejeong only realizes this when Butterball lightly paws at her shoe, impatient for her to reply to his owner.

“Oh,” she sighs in relief. “Oh! Oh, that’s wonderful!” She exclaims, finally hearing Seolhyun’s words play on a loop in her head. She picks up the girl up by the waist and twirls her around. Another round of giggles floats through the corridors as she pecks Seolhyun’s cheek.

“This is going to be great! My parents have been badgering me to get you to come over, no pun intended, although I really hope they don’t embarrass me. If I see a photo album of any sort, I’m locking you in my room until I banish them all into a cupboard—“

Hyejeong’s eyes constantly waver between excitement and anxiety, but that certain twinkle is never extinguished. Seolhyun lets her girlfriend ramble on about all of the things they are going to do and see together. At some point, she’s asked to bring along her compooter to show how one listens to music on YouChube. An “of course, your highness” flits lightly in the air and Hyejeong’s off talking at the speed of a Golden Snitch again.

Seolhyun glances down at Butterball, who seems to be giving her a look that says “I approve of your human.”

A/N: This was the first and only shot I wrote and then never published when I initially had HPau ideas. My intentions were to name shots after a group’s title track but it proved to be more difficult since I couldn’t come up with fitting plots. It also turns out half of this shot disappeared into oblivion, but I’m much happier with my new ending than the initial one. Blessings in disguise, like Transformers! Ok bye~