E) None of the above.

More extreme and messier than “All of the above” because you thought you had it, then you question everything. You’re at that point where you “can’t even,” so you just don’t. You settle for nothing. But of course, life doesn’t want to give you that either.

I.O.I’s Doyeon x Yoojung, featuring Somi & Sohye and OCs

Yoojung wakes up to a high, white stoned ceiling and the smell of medicinal herbs. As her vision clears, she turns her head to find Doyeon sleeping on the bed next to hers. Leaping out of her own bed to check on the girl, her head starts spinning and her knees buckle. Two pairs of arms reach out to catch her before she face-plants on the ground.

“Hold your Thestrals, she’s fine,” says a familiar voice.

The two people hoist her back up onto the bed. They keep their hands up in case she tips over the edge. When her head stops throbbing, she looks up at her company. Sohye is sitting next to her on the bed, soothingly rubbing circles on her back. Somi is standing in front of them with Jinyoung on her shoulder hooting softly.

“For the sake of Dumbledore’s pantaloons! We can’t leave you two kids alone for five seconds without you getting blasted into a wall,” Somi sighs dramatically, hands on her hips.

Sohye clicks her tongue disapprovingly and glares at her.

“Kidding! Come on, this place could use some laughter…”

Sohye ignores her and turns to Yoojung. “She means we’re really glad you’re awake and we were worried sick about you two. Halfway through dinner, Jinyoung came flying into the Great Hall and started pecking Somi until she followed him outside.”

The taller girl not-so-subtly twitches her neck. Yoojung can see small holes in her robes at her shoulder and red spots along her ear. She looks up at Somi with wide eyes, but her friend just waves away the silent apology with a smile.

“Madam Pomfrey mended your skull when you were passed out. How are you feeling?” Sohye asks, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Yoojung nods her head to indicate she’s fine, but it just makes her dizzy again. Somi moves to keep her from falling forward while Jinyoung flies off and grabs the back of Yoojung’s collar with his talons. Sohye helps set her back into a lying position before calling for assistance.

“Miss Choi, your skull was fractured pretty badly, but nothing I can’t patch up,” the matron says, scuttling over at the commotion. “Best to keep still and rest up for the night. Now, drink this.” Yoojung downs a blue, bitter potion with a grimace.

“And here the fruits of your labor, quite literally, though also unfortunate…” Madam Pomfrey takes a bottle of purple liquid from the nightstand and pours out a cup. Yoojung obediently drinks the Boom Berry juice she squeezed hours ago.

“Is Doyeon going to be okay?” Somi asks for them all.

“Well, she’s falling in and out of unconsciousness now. Two Stunning spells from students won’t cause damage, but they were surprisingly strong. Must have been good duelists you two got into a scuffle with. I tried to perform the counter-spell, but it didn’t do much. The effects of spells vary a bit depending on where you get hit. She seems to have gotten the brunt of it at her head and chest, the most vital areas. But there’s no reason to fret,” the matron says in response to their worried expressions. “In a few days, she’ll be up and about.”

After assuring them of Doyeon’s safety, she tells Somi and Sohye to get back to their dormitories before they get into trouble and for Yoojung to rest. The two girls say their goodbyes and promise to come back when the sun has risen.

Come morning, Madam Pomfrey gives Yoojung one last dose of a potion and Boom Berry juice with breakfast before discharging her. Yoojung wants to stay with Doyeon, but the matron urges her to go to class.

For the next three days, she, Somi, and Sohye visit the hospital wing during every meal. Doyeon doesn’t seem to have moved an inch. Somi pokes her cheek and comments that the girl doesn’t even drool as per usual. Sohye drags her back by the collar and forces her to sit down. They figure it would be awfully rude to start bickering there, but Yoojung half-hopes they will so the noise would wake Doyeon up. As much as Doyeon tried to tame them, Yoojung knew she always got a kick out of their shenanigans. At the five-minute warning, the three stand up and wish the unconscious girl a good night.

Friday during lunch, three girls head into the hospital wing with some pies and sweets tucked into a pouch. That morning, they found Doyeon lying on her stomach. Thrilled to see she had turned over in her sleep and was no longer completely unconscious, they thought she would be awake by lunch and brought some of her favorites to celebrate. Upon entering however, they see Madam Pomfrey replacing the sheets of an empty bed.

“Is Doyeon awake? Did she go to the bathroom?” They ask.

“Oh, hello dears. She’s awake, and perfectly healthy. She’s able to attend her classes now, but if she’s not feeling well at any time, I recommended she stay in her dormitory. I’ve notified Professor Sprout already,” she replies.

They thank her and exit the room. They hear students slowly filing into the corridors, signaling the end of lunch. Yoojung frowns up at her friends.

“Cheer up, we should be happy she’s walking around. We’ll find her later. I have a break now, so I’ll drop this off in our room. You two go to class,” says Sohye.

She takes the pouch of food from Yoojung and walks down towards the kitchens. Somi turns the shorter girl around and ushers her up the moving staircases.

~|~|~|~

Doyeon stirs awake from the sunlight glaring in from the window. Madam Pomfrey checks her over and gives her three potions to stabilize her muscles. The matron tells her she’s free to go, but to rest or come back to the hospital wing if she feels any aftereffects.

The corridors are quiet since lessons are still going on. She doesn’t feel like going to class, she’s going to fall asleep anyway. Professor Binns’ voice is just so monotonous. Instead, she heads to the basement and crawls through the entrance to the common room. Two flowers on either side of the door to the girls’ dormitories greet her with a song.

She heaves a big sigh and plops down on her patch-quilt sheets. Healing potions do wonders for the body, but it siphons back into mental exhaustion. Despite her desire to break apart from the world and sleep, her mind keeps running.

“Tha’s what ya get, noble Gryffindor wannabe…”

“If Pipsqueak here had half as much brainless bravery as ya…”

“How did the ratty ol’ hat screw up wit’ ya two?”

“I know where I belong. Should know yer place too. Hufflepuff an’ a Mudblood, ain’t it hilarious that yer doubly useless,” the sixth-year growls under his breath.

Doyeon feels his breathe right next to her ear as he says this, then something sharply pats her cheek. She can’t open her eyes to glare at him. She can’t move her arms to punch him back. She feels as useless as he says, because she also feels Yoojung squirming under her paralyzed waist and legs. The stinging pain in her cheek disappears and the orange sunlight glows through her eyelids. Then she hears a masculine grunt in front of her and a staccato crack from behind. Yoojung. She wills her body to move, but it feels heavier as the seconds go by.

“Hey Runt… good… luck… dra… ag… ing…”

Doyeon puts in the last of her energy to ask if Yoojung is okay, but she falls into darkness without voicing her thoughts.

Doyeon shifts in her bed, nearly falling off the edge when someone unlocks the door. The noise of it slamming shut reverberates off the walls louder than usual. It emphasizes the emptiness of the room. She thinks it’s just her housemate coming back for a forgotten book. She almost shrieks in surprise when the hangings on her four-poster are swept aside.

“Huh, she’s not here…” Sohye scratches her head in confusion.

Doyeon stares back up at her friend, hands clamped over , holding her breath.

“Maybe she went out for some air. She’s been in one place for days, that would drive anyone mad.” Sohye leaves a knotted cloth pouch on the nightstand and walks out of the room.

Doyeon lets out a shaky breath and sits up. Looking down at her hand, she sees the patch-quilt design, her pinky displaying the floor’s earthy shade of brown. The Disillusionment Charm was Yoojung’s favorite spell to cast. It’s the first one she taught Doyeon to use once they were on the Hogwarts Express their first year. She couldn’t properly cast it until three months into term though, and even then it lasted about a minute before fading.

Yoojung. How does she handle not speaking her mind? Doyeon feels like there isn’t enough time in a day to say what she wants. Too many thoughts make her want to implode. Too many emotions shuts her down. Whether she holds it in or complains all night, she doesn’t feel any lighter. Yet day in and day out, Yoojung just takes it all and returns it with a smile. Doyeon doesn’t know how she does it. How does she stand everyone saying something about her and not counter with a single word of defense? Doyeon wishes she could be like Yoojung instead. The problem is, she doesn’t know where to start picking what’s different about herself. She came to Hogwarts hoping people would stop telling her what she is or isn’t. But now she needs it.

The air is too stuffy. The quilts are too hot. The room is so silent that it’s deafening. Off in her own little place, Doyeon didn’t notice how late it’s gotten. The windows are nearly pitch black, save for the stars. They’re so far away though. She’s small, insignificant, isolated in the scope of the world. She better escape Hufflepuff Basement if she doesn’t want to infect her housemates with her loneliness. She recasts the charm and sneaks out of the common room behind a group of girls going off to dinner.

~|~|~|~

Yoojung and Somi meet up with Sohye before Potions. She says Doyeon isn’t in the dormitories and Yoojung makes a motion with her fist.

“Why would I punch her sheets? There wasn’t even a lump under them. She wasn’t sleeping, I thought she was just walking around after being stuck in the hospital wing. She didn’t come to any other lessons.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Somi scoffs. “An excuse to cut class? I’ll take it.”

Sohye side-eyes her, grumbling about Somi’s already poor attendance despite living in the castle. Turning towards Yoojung, she shrinks back slightly at the girl’s scowl.

“I’m sure she has her reasons for not showing up. It’s not like she’s avoiding us,” Sohye says tentatively.

Yoojung just sighs and rests her forehead on the stone dungeon walls. Professor Slughorn unlocks the classroom and they all file in. Somi and Sohye sit Yoojung in between them without asking. She doesn’t move anyway.

The lesson passes without any mishaps from the three, much to the professor’s relief. Yoojung makes sure Somi doesn’t handle the boiling and takes away anything reactive from Sohye. When they almost add two handfuls of dried Nettles to the potion, Yoojung catches the plants with a random colander lying around. She forces herself between her friends and the cauldron, dropping in two handfuls of chopped Star Grass instead. Somi subtly stuffs the Nettles back into a bag and resumes measuring out the Infusion of Wormwood. Without a glance in Somi’s direction, Yoojung takes the small cup out of her hand, pours the liquid back into the bottle, and hands Sohye the cup with a flask of Horklump juice. When the two start making obscene gestures at each other behind Yoojung’s back, the shorter girl raises the ladle threateningly.

“Ah!” A scream resonates from the back of the room. Yoojung stares unblinkingly at her friends, who slowly turn their heads to see what’s happening. A bright orange liquid bubbles out of the cauldron on the back table, almost splashing onto the girl again.

“Now, now. You must remain calm. It only gets worse the more you stress,” Professor Slughorn stammers, trying to pacify the student.

She only shrieks in response. Two new pulsating pimples erupt on her nose.

Professor Slughorn frantically turns towards the girl’s partner. “Mr. Venian, please Miss Wheeler to the hospital wing. Tell Madam Pomfrey she has a mild case of blistering from contact with an immature Cooling Concoction.”

One of the lumps pops and oozes out pus as she wails in the corner.

“Uh, perhaps more than a mild case,” he whispers to the boy.

Still in shock, the boy nods and hastily ushers the girl out of the room.

Eyes wide, Somi and Sohye look back at Yoojung, who is still holding the dripping ladle in the air. The two back away from the cauldron and start grinding beans in a mortar with their heads down. Yoojung smirks in victory and steadily stirs in a clockwise motion.

“Since when were you so talented at Potions?” Somi wonders.

“She has Doyeon for a partner, and that girl is brilliant at brewing. Of course Yoojung would’ve picked up something.” Yoojung nods at Sohye’s words. “Can’t say the same about us,” she mutters.

“Tch, what are you insinuating?” Somi says defensively.

“We’re both hopelessly inept at Potions.”

Instead of being offended, Somi admits it’s true. At least she’s not alone. “One more year, then we can drop this,” she shrugs.

“Not soon enough,” Sohye sighs.

Sohye scoops the powdered beans into the cauldron, turning the liquid a shining blue. She and Somi start packing up their ingredients and cleaning the table. Yoojung stoppers a sample of their potion and brings it to the front of the room.

“Ah, Miss Choi. May I?” Yoojung hands over the phial to Professor Slughorn.

“Beautiful shade of blue, good consistency,” he says, turning it on its side.

He holds up a piece of parchment with writing behind the phial. The words blur together. “Just translucent enough to let the light through but nothing is visible from the other side. Excellent work,” he compliments.

He bends down to Yoojung’s height and lowers his voice. “Thank Merlin for your assistance, today. I know Miss Jeon and Miss Kim have great hearts, but dear me, the frequency of accidents has skyrocketed with every year they’re in this class. I’ve been stress-eating my crystalized pineapples since their last incident.” Yoojung chuckles at this, and offers an apologetic look on her friends’ behalf.

He straightens up and returns to normal speaking volume. “By the way, how is your partner? I heard about Doyeon in the staff room, the poor girl. She’s absent, so I do hope she’s resting up.”

Yoojung nods in assurance, masking her own concern. Professor Slughorn doesn’t notice and thanks her for the potion, letting her group leave early.

Yoojung returns to her table and helps pack up the rest of the kits. Vanishing the rest of their potion, she hands the clean cauldron to Sohye. Outside the classroom, they agree to drop off their supplies and meet in the Great Hall for an early dinner. The Hufflepuff girl heads towards the basement while Somi and Yoojung begin their trek up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower.

“She’s still not back, yet,” Sohye says, settling down at the Gryffindor table. “I don’t think anyone’s been in our room since I last checked it.”

“Should we look for her? It’s… odd,” Somi asks softly.

Surprisingly, Yoojung shakes her head calmly and reaches for some mashed potatoes. She offers the bowl to Somi, who takes it with a confused expression. Somi and Sohye share a look and decide to ignore it. Perhaps the girl figured something out before dinner. Yoojung knows Doyeon better than anyone. If she thinks it isn’t something to be worried about, that must be the case.

Nobody kicks Sohye out of her seat, so she doesn’t bother moving and eats with her friends. They chat about their essay on important trials of the Wizengamot and the upcoming Charms practical. Somi begs Yoojung to help them in a sickly saccharine voice. Yoojung just shoves a dinner roll into and Sohye guffaws at her expression. She soon finds her own mouth stuffed with a corn cob, her front teeth lodged tightly between the kernels. Nearly Headless Nick scares them out of their wits, lamenting over his lack of a solid digestive system next to Sohye.

After filling up on desserts, Somi shuffles out of the Great Hall with Sohye nagging her about eating until she’s full, and not until she’s bursting at the seams. They expect Yoojung to break up their bickering, but the girl is nowhere to be found.

“How does she move so quickly on a full stomach?” Somi groans.

“Not everyone shovels food down their throat like somebody,” Sohye rolls her eyes.

“They haven’t made my favorite stew the past two months. I’m not about to waste the opportunity,” Somi argues as if she’s just proven magic exists.

“Well, thankfully there’s a lack of lifts at Hogwarts! Good night!” Sohye blows a raspberry and skips down to the basement.

It takes Somi a minute to understand why on earth that would be relevant. She whines at the revelation. Crowds of students around her stare in concern. She ignores them and begins waddling up the marble staircase, holding her food baby while cursing the castle’s outdated architecture.

~|~|~|~

“Know yer place.”

“Just be a damn Slytherin.”

“Places that would better suit her.”

“Don’t really need you.”

“Yer doubly useless.”

“Not worth it.”

“A nobody like you.”

There are too many voices. The echoes are painful to listen to. They scrape against her eardrum like nails on a chalkboard and she can’t shake them out of her head. Doyeon shifts her body uncomfortably, turning to extend her legs across the whole length of the balcony. She leans back against the brick wall and closes her eyes, trying to recollect some semblance of peace.

“Isn’t it cute when you hug, and your head just fits right under his?”

She didn’t expect to hear that. Right on cue, she conjures up a scene of two girls gossiping in a humid locker room. One girl is blushing from thinking about her crush. The other catches her own words and tentatively looks over at a lanky, conspicuously tall student by the wall of lockers. Doyeon’s eyes accidentally meet with the girl’s before turning away to look at a magnetic mirror in her locker. She notices her reflection is cut off the top, so she readjusts the mirror to suit her height. Oddly, the mirror starts to fog up.

She forcefully pulls herself out of years of memories. Her breaths come out short and rapid. She feels like she ran a marathon dragging a boulder.

Doyeon clicks her tongue in annoyance. “What good would it do to think about it?” She says to no one. Her words do nothing to promote confidence in herself. The answer deflates her mood more. “That’s just it. It does nothing,” she whispers bitterly.

A bookshelf in the corner scrapes against the floor, leaving deep trails in the layer of dust. Someone crawls out of the two-foot high hole in the wall and shoves the furniture back into place. They stop in the middle of the desks, observing the dark figure on the balcony.

“Thought I’d catch up on Astronomy. You know, since I missed class,” Doyeon lies without care and continues to stare at the sky.

The person looks down at the star charts sprawled over three desks, untouched since they’ve been pulled out. The brass telescope is still tucked away in its case. Black robes and a tie were thrown messily over an open bag on a nearby chair. The intruder walks the perimeter of the classroom. Doyeon swings her legs over the the balcony, making room for one more. They sit down next to her and let their legs hang freely over the open ledge.

Silence passes over them. It’s not awkward, but the air feels heavy and somber. Doyeon opens to break the ice when a small caramel toffee is gently pushed between her lips. The familiar taste sends her whirling into another memory, one without sound or a sharp quality picture, but with strikingly clear emotional delivery. She realizes she’s smiling. It’s natural and genuine, it’s easy to do.

Doyeon’s smile drops when she turns her head to address her company. Yoojung’s creased forehead makes her look like she’s aged twenty years. Doyeon feels guilty and tries to smooth them out. When it proves futile, Yoojung pulls her hand away, but doesn’t let go. Hands clasped, she rests them in her lap.

“This better not be from the original bag,” Doyeon says lightly, chewing the caramel.

She feels a squeeze on her hand. Yoojung’s expression hasn’t changed. Doyeon avoids her eyes and turns toward the open sky. The shorter girl tightens her grip a bit. With her free hand, she taps Doyeon’s knee. As if conditioned, Doyeon splays out the workings of her mind.

“Ever wonder what a star feels like?” Doyeon breathes. Without waiting for a response, she says, “We can see them all from here. They look close, a distance comparable to Sohye’s tolerance for Somi’s BS.”

Yoojung doesn’t laugh. Doyeon decides to drop her smile, which has become obligatory the longer she spoke. She feels the last bit of strain and soreness leave her cheeks.

“On the outside looking in, they seem normal. There’s nothing visibly wrong with them. And there’s so many of them, we never talk about just one. Nobody has time to dwell on the specifics. It’s usually groups of them, constellations. If it is just one star… Well, they’re extraordinary.” Yoojung listens attentively to Doyeon’s serious voice.

“But what if we went to each one? Some of them are light-years apart. That’s pretty darn far. It’s pretty darn lonely. They shine so brightly, but we’d never be able to tell them in time, before they burn out or before we pass.”

Yoojung turns her head and sees Doyeon’s eyes aren’t flitting across the scenery like usual. They’re unfocused, though her head is still tilted up. That’s when Yoojung knows Doyeon is lost in her own world. She lets the girl talk her way back out.

“If we can see all of their lights, then they can see each other too. Maybe they compare themselves. One star shines brilliantly, another lives longer, yet another is larger, and another is a fantastic color. You also have stars that are duller, burn out quicker, are smaller, are just the average white-glowing variety. But they’re still stars no matter what, right?”

Yoojung nods fervently even though she knows Doyeon won’t notice.

“What kind of star are they? Can we say they’re a good or bad star? Star standards.” Doyeon snorts at the ridiculousness of her words. “I wonder if they can kick each other out from being ‘real’ stars. Like they could have their own reject stars.”

She knocks on the balcony floor like a gavel in a courtroom. “‘You’re not star-quality, go shine somewhere else,’” she demands in a deep, authoritative, pompous voice while pointing at the air.

There’s no sound from Yoojung. Doyeon doesn’t check for a physical response. Instead, she closes her eyes and breathes in deeply. The cool air feels like it’s spreading through her veins, chilling every inch of her flesh. It doesn’t make her shiver though. It’s like a pressing force, paralyzing her from the tips of her fingers and toes and snaking its way up.

Suddenly, she feels dizzy. Her head grows heavy with thoughts piling on top of each other. At the same time, they’re trying to evaporate out of her skull, and it feels weightless and pressurized, like a balloon struggling to escape its tethering. Then, something pokes a hole in her mind. Everything flushes out. She sees black and the ground under her disappears. A landscape appears without warning, blindingly white and bare, the ground very solid and seemingly pushing up against her weight. It keeps her from falling, but she can’t jump now either. Her feet are as heavy as cinderblocks.

She blinks. Her surroundings morph into focus. There’s a line that goes on for miles. In an instant, the flat ground under her bends awkwardly, shifting her weight distribution. She turns her feet sideways like a tightrope walker. She falters and crouches down to keep her balance, her hands groping for any substance to hang onto. Looking down in alarm, she sees steep slanting slopes on either side, as if she’s standing on the edge of a triangular prism. She doesn’t believe her eyes. This place was supposed to be locked away for good. She didn’t want to be back here. But something’s different about it.

A distant buzzing noise grows in volume. All of the sound is trapped in her ears so she’s forced to listen to it. A clear, nasally male voice rises above the rest of the chatter. The triggered sensation of paralysis makes her skin jump. Her head jerks up at the sound of footsteps approaching. Black shoes, black flowing robes, a name tag, a tie, a golden canine tooth nestled in a derisive smirk. The Slytherin boy’s mouth syncs with his echoing voice, the same conversation put on repeat. Doyeon is frozen in place. The boy springs forward, knocking her off her feet and onto her back. Winded, she feels the line cut deep into the flesh between her shoulder blades. She flaps her arms out, her palms creating friction with the steep sloping ground on either side of the line. The boy grasps the line with one hand and swings himself off the edge to hang. His feet plant themselves flat against the slope on Doyeon’s right. With his free hand, he paws at Doyeon to yank her down by the foot.

“No, don’t! I can’t!” She cries, attempting to escape without slipping.

His fingers stop just inches away. An unfamiliar voice booms across the landscape.

“You are strong and brave.” It’s concise and said with finality.

With a strange sense of warmth flowing from her ears to her foot, she kicks the Slytherin square in the chest. Doyeon finds the boy disintegrating before her eyes. His body falls backward, no longer supported by his arms, as each particle falls away. The ashes drop into the pit below, but the smoke lingers in the air. It looks ominously alive. Doyeon struggles to right herself. She manages to get back on her feet and turns around, running away from the dark mass following her.

She collides with someone and falls forward on top of them. Her hands press hard against the white slanted surfaces to keep herself from falling over or crushing the person beneath her. Checking who she could have possibly tripped over in this barren synthetic wasteland, she sees the disgusted screwed up face of Heather. Doyeon screams internally. Her sweating hands slip half an inch against the floor, so she doesn’t dare try to get up. The girl’s high-pitched nagging cuts through the air. Unlike the Slytherin boy, moves completely out of sync, only forming words after her voice has spoken. It’s creepily continuous. Visually, audibly, she’s always saying something and every comment physically pricks and prods at Doyeon. Her hands slip more with the increasing pain in her sides. When her elbows start to give way, Heather shoots out a hand to grab a fistful of Doyeon’s hair. The other hand bunches up the collar of Doyeon’s robes. Seething, Heather spits out insults of Doyeon’s dirty, lying, cheating, despicable personality.

“You don’t belong in my world,” Heather hisses, emphasizing every syllable.

There’s no way out of this, Doyeon thinks hopelessly.

“You are cunning and calculative.” There it was again. The voice was louder.

Heather growls up at Doyeon and rolls over. Doyeon instinctually closes her eyes, bracing herself to be dragged down the slope. But the voice instills in her the need to try. Thinking fast, she blindly reaches out for the edge where the line is painted and puts her own weight into the roll. She swings sideways, hanging vertically by one arm, stomach against the slope. The extra force of her rolling has completely pushed Heather off. Doyeon feels the hold on her hair and robes disappear painlessly. Opening her eyes, she sees Heather drift through her like a ghost and burn up into embers. The sooty particles tumble down into the pit.

Breathing harshly, Doyeon pulls herself up and balances on the edge separating the slopes. She sees level ground up ahead and carefully makes her way along the line. Suddenly, someone crawls up the slope on her left, fingers scraping across the leftover residue of Heather’s existence. Doyeon shrieks out of fright. They lift themselves up onto the ledge in front of her.

Nick stares at her with a bored, judging demeanor. Doyeon flinches when he reaches into his pocket, thinking he’s going for his wand. Doyeon doesn’t feel hers anywhere in her sleeves. He pulls out a black pouch. The coins inside jangle as they roll over each other. The metallic clinks lingering in the air seem to whisper a single word. Worth. Nick loosens the drawstring and overturns the pouch, letting the coins pour out into the empty space. They clatter all the way down, repeating the same word in their wake. From behind his back, he conjures a tar-black bubbling potion. The longer he holds it, the thinner the flask becomes.

“This is your fault,” he says plainly.

“How?!” She shouts desperately. “I didn’t—”

“You weren’t what I needed. Seemingly intelligent, but lacking the reputation. What on earth do you expect me to judge you on, if not that?” This Nick doesn’t pause to think. He sounds collected, well-organized in thought, superior.

Doyeon tries to speak despite the lump caught in . “Houses are just—”

“Titles? That’s not what everyone else says. So who would listen to you? Someone like you. Just. Isn’t. Worth it,” he taunts and aims the flask at her head.

Doyeon bites back her retort in order to dodge it. The potion corrodes the rest of the cork and glass in mid-air, releasing itself from its confines. Just inches from her eyes, the liquid blobs come to a halt.

“You are sensible and capable.” The voice sounds closer, clearer. Doyeon feels someone shaking her shoulders but nobody is next to her.

The blobs suddenly become high definition. Doyeon can see all the individual components and lists them off by sight in her head. When she does, the liquid separates itself accordingly. Doyeon knows she shouldn’t touch anything, this was something highly corrosive just seconds ago. But the voice whispers to her, telling her to move forward. It says to fix it, “I know you can.”

Doyeon reaches out and pinches the edge of a yellow liquid pooling out on the side. The rest of the puddle follows where Doyeon pulls it. It floats through the air like a thin film and disappears. She cups her hand and sweeps away half of a black solid substance, brushing it off like dirt. It disappears too. She keeps editing without thinking, and the voice keeps praising her. When she no longer hears it, she scoops everything together and it swirls back into one giant mass, now an inviting soft pink.

She steps back, not knowing what to do next. This seems to be the trigger. The splashes of potion suspended in the air spontaneously reverse direction. It sears Nick’s bare skin and robes on contact. Everything sizzles into disgusting dried bits that flit down after Heather’s ashes.

She can’t handle this any longer. This bare white landscape contrasting with the grueling gory stains of human presence. Even for wizards, this is too unrealistic, yet she’s witness to it all. It’s too much to take in. Doyeon expects to be hyperventilating by now, but her lungs feel compressed and solidified. She can’t panic even if she wants to.

“We don’t need you,” a voice says from behind, dripping with pity.

Doyeon turns around to see Kelsi standing farther away, perfectly poised on the line. The Captain tosses the Quaffle into the air and retracts her hands behind her back. Doyeon instantly moves to catch it, but her ankle rolls and she tumbles down a slope. Gripping onto the line like she’s hanging off a cliff, she swings a leg up to straddle it and pulls herself up. She sees the Quaffle falling down into the pit. It dissolves into smoke as it nears the bottom.

Among the chaos that is this illusion, Doyeon feels like she’s failed herself. The rule is engrained in her. Chasers. Quaffles. You don’t have one without the other. One of them is gone forever. So what does that make her?

“You are dedicated and faithful,” the omnipotent voice says. It’s huskier than before.

Doyeon returns her attention to movement in front of her. Kelsi looks apologetic. She lobs a Beater’s club over the opposite side. She sits on the edge and pushes herself to slide down after it. With a flash of blue light, the tail of Kelsi’s yellow Quidditch robes disappear. Taking advantage of the lack of a hostile obstacle, Doyeon stands up to run.

She only takes two steps forward when a woman in business-casual clothing blocks her path. By now she’s gotten the gist of why these certain people are popping up out of nowhere, even if she doesn’t understand why they’re appearing at all.

“You don’t want me here,” Doyeon blurts angrily, referring to her old school the counselor works at.

“On the contrary, I think this is exactly where you belong.” The woman’s voice is uncharacteristically cold and raspy. Her head tilts slightly towards Doyeon’s right, where the other three students wasted away.

“A place…” She snickers, “for the deviants, the unwanted, and the undefined.” The counselor advances towards Doyeon.

“No. No! You’re wrong! I-I don’t belong there!” Doyeon chokes out, backing away.

A force emanating form the dark pit seems to be pulling her in closer and closer. Her body leans to the side involuntarily. She tries to keep her feet planted on the line. She tries to tilt towards the spotless, inviting white slope on the opposite side. She doesn’t feel like she deserves to be there, not in the least. But she’s scared and desperate. It’s not a solid enough reason for the counselor though.

“Tsk tsk. You sound just like a child. Shouting at me won’t give you answers. You aren’t even sure of your place. How is anyone else supposed to be?” The lady scoffs with a lecturing tone. “When the world can’t categorize you, when the world can’t applaud your great successes, it disposes of you here, where unsatisfactory outliers can be forgotten.”

“Doyeon…”

“I don’t know—” Her foot slips as if something cut under her. “No! No, I know! I belong there! I want to go there!” She claws at the air as if swimming, trying to propel herself closer to the other side. If she’s going to fall, she at least wants to fall there.

“But wanting something isn’t enough. You have to make it happen. The world has to acknowledge your worth.”

The weight of the words are crushing Doyeon on either side. Her limbs grow heavy and she starts suffocating from her sobs. She looks longingly at the glowing basin in front of her. Then, she gives up. Closing her eyes, she relaxes her muscles. But she doesn’t fall backward. Something pushes her forward. Talons lightly graze the back of her head, warm feathers brushing against her hair. As she floats down the slope of light, she spots the shadow of an owl soaring above her, its majestic wings spread wide.

~|~|~|~

“Doyeon!”

Doyeon’s eyes fly open, her ears ringing. She’s no longer floating. She’s lying flat on her back, sore and sweating against the cold stone brick floor. It’s a foreign feeling. It’s as if the ground shot up to meet her in the air as she crash-landed. Looking around, the place isn’t blindingly white. The room is dark save for only one recently lit torch in a wall bracket, its flickering flames casting shadows along the walls. Beyond the balcony, the moon is full and unobscured by clouds. The stars twinkle disarmingly, as if welcoming her back to the world.

“Who are you?” The calm, husky all-knowing voice says.

Doyeon’s eyes shift as far as she can move her head. Someone is looming over her body, shaded from the firelight. They help her into a sitting position, a comforting hand rubbing circles on her back. When the moonlight hits their face, Doyeon recognizes Yoojung’s concerned expression.

“Who are you?” Doyeon clearly sees Yoojung’s lips moving. The sound seems to vibrate from directly into Doyeon’s ears.

“You… You spoke…” Doyeon whispers, still gasping for oxygen.

“I’ve been speaking this whole time,” Yoojung says.

Evidently, it’s taken all of the girl’s strength and composure to do so. She’s shaking like a leaf. Her lip is quivering. In retrospect, Doyeon notices the airiness of Yoojung’s voice. It holds a tone of certainty, but its years of disuse is obvious. The only thing that’s stable are her piercing eyes trained on Doyeon.

“Now, answer me,” Yoojung demands. “Who are you?”

What’s your name? she thinks. “I’m Doyeon,” and I don’t have amnesia, she’s about to say.

“I know that, do you? You are Doyeon.” Yoojung obviously means something different.

“What?”

“Tell me who Doyeon is, what she’s like, what she does, what she thinks.”

Doyeon’s mind pulls a blank. But she’s sitting on the solid very-real floor of the deserted Astronomy Tower, pulled far away from the balcony drop-off with her best friend next to her. She feels safe. So she shares the one truth she’s held inside all this time.

“I can’t,” Doyeon says slowly. “I don’t know who Doyeon is. I’ve… I’ve got no identity.”

Doyeon exhales deeply and feels all of her worries flow out. She feels light, empty, just on a plane of existence. It’s oddly relaxing. And it’s definitely a step up from what she felt before. Yoojung seems especially proud at this declaration.

“What better way to talk with you for the first time, then,” she smiles.

Doyeon feels the hand on her back stop shivering. Yoojung’s expression softens, like she’s getting used to her own voice, pleased with its timbre. She settles on the floor next to Doyeon with an arm wrapped around the girl’s waist to make sure she doesn’t collapse again. Yoojung clears , seemingly excited to do that for once.

“Doyeon is the kind of girl who acts like nothing’s wrong. She’s trusting, and helpful. So trusting and helpful that she braved the dangers of public vegetation to retrieve a toy, and let a strange girl drip brown liquids onto her bleeding arms.” Doyeon laughs at the memories streaming in. Yoojung is glad this is off to a good start.

“She’s pretty attentive to her friends, especially when they’d rather hide in the Forbidden Forest than be where they are.”

It sounds vague, but Doyeon has learned to converse with Yoojung in every possible way. Now that her friend is actually speaking, it’s just that much easier to understand her. Doyeon allows herself to reminisce, much more calmly now. She remembers the first week the professors introduced wand-work in classes. The school had been abuzz with gossip of a kid who could do nonverbal magic upon initial spell casting. It wasn’t until Doyeon got to Transfiguration that she learned Yoojung was the center of attention, though the girl looked like she was about to blast a hole in the floor and hop in.

The first task had been simple enough, changing between needles and matchsticks. It took a lot of kids a few tries. When Doyeon successfully transfigured hers, she wriggled in her seat, happy at having personally performed a spell. She was still in her magic-is-so-awesomely-amazing phase. Turning to tell Yoojung, she realized everyone around them was staring at the girl. There were five perfectly parallel needles on her desk and she hadn’t made a sound. A girl sitting in front of Doyeon rapped on Yoojung’s desk, pressuring her to prove she could cast nonverbally. Under the intense stares, Yoojung submitted. Five silver needles turned back into plain wooden inch-long sticks, one after another. The class erupted.

Some students bent over in their seats, balancing on two chair legs, and invaded Yoojung’s personal space. Initially proud of her friend, Doyeon quickly grew annoyed. Yoojung was visibly uncomfortable and literally had nowhere to run. She couldn’t so much as turn around without someone else poking their nose into her breathing space. Doyeon squeezed herself between two students and knelt down to Yoojung’s eye level.

“Cool, you changed them so quickly! Isn’t magic great, everyone? I mean, that’s what we’re all doing, right?” Doyeon stared pointedly at the nosy people crowding the area.

“An excellent question, Miss Kim,” came a stern voice from the side of the classroom. Everyone looked right to see Professor McGonagall eyeing each one of them with a raised eyebrow. “How are you all progressing with the task? Perhaps if you spent a little less time ogling at your classmates, and a bit more time practicing on your own, you would have something to show by now,” she said when nobody answered.

There’s a moment of silence before the students scrambled to their seats, whipping out their wands and attempting to transfigure their matchsticks by any means necessary. Nobody bothered Yoojung directly about her spell casting after that.

The entire scene flashes before Doyeon’s eyes in all of three seconds. The nostalgia warms her up like chocolate. Then she hears Yoojung’s voice drop, a bit more serious.

“Sometimes that gets her into trouble, though,” Yoojung says guiltily. “Trouble that wasn’t meant for her.”

Doyeon thinks of the time she spent in the hospital wing. Then she thinks of the days Yoojung visited her, immediately after her own stay during the first night. Doyeon’s fists ball up, her knuckles turning white.

“It’s not like it was your fault,” Doyeon grits through her teeth.

“It happened because I was there—“

“It happened because they were there,” she almost shouts.

She immediately regrets speaking when she sees Yoojung’s shocked expression. But then relief floods her at the smile on the girl’s face.

“And imagine what would’ve happened if Doyeon wasn’t there,” Yoojung continues.

“We were knocked out cold because I couldn’t stand up to them,” Doyeon says dully.

“We were knocked out together because you did stand up to them,” Yoojung corrects. “I know you know how terrified I was by myself. I was cowering against a wall and couldn’t even ask you for help when you were standing in front of me. Then you held up your wand not to one, but all three of them. Bravery doesn’t mean dueling for your life. It doesn’t mean fighting fire with fire. What is it Muggles say? You “took a bullet” for me. The courage required for sacrifice one-ups that for self-defense in my book.”

Doyeon is half enraptured by Yoojung’s newfound voice, half amazed at how deeply she thought about that day. Doyeon is extremely thankful for Yoojung’s words, they’re precious. But Yoojung notices this just as easily as Doyeon can read her. The taller girl is thankful, yes, but still unconvinced.

“Tell me more about Doyeon.” She feels less pompous asking about herself in third person. Yoojung started it anyway.

“Well, she’s a talented witch, really smart, even for a teenager. She’s gotten me out of some tight spots in class. I don’t have nearly as many botched-up essays to my name as I should for not being able to do something. She always made sure I at least scraped up an Acceptable.” Yoojung faces the balcony, eyes curving when she grins.

A large dark ball of fluff drifts through the opening towards Doyeon. She flinches before realizing it isn’t a catapulted flask of acid. It must have floated up from the gardens below. A Furry Flat Trap probably caught some mice and spit up a fur pellet. Yoojung and she haven’t been to the greenhouses recently to burp them. Yoojung gently pats Doyeon’s hip, making sure she knows she’s safe here. Doyeon clears , pretending it didn’t affect her.

“According to him, my— Doyeon’s background credentials weren’t sound enough to reject him properly,” she mutters.

“So one kid is extremely superficial. Skills like Doyeon’s aren’t meant to be tossed aside and buried just because people like him won’t appreciate them. Use them properly. They’re made to shine, just like…” Yoojung’s eyes shift to the starry night sky. Doyeon looks a bit more persuaded.

“Some people are just… surprised, when aptitude comes from somewhere they’re not looking. The unexpected confuses them. It throws everything out of whack.” Yoojung leans into Doyeon’s side. She cups her hand next to and whispers loudly, “I just think they’re not looking hard enough.”

Yoojung’s voice has grown raspy from so much talking at once. Doyeon kindly transfigures her telescope into a glass. Yoojung pulls out her wand, says the incantation aloud, and the glass immediately fills with clear, chilled water. She sets it down next to her and continues her train of thought.

“Now, Doyeon really gets a bad rep when those two things are put together. Somehow it was decided that taking risks for others and being intelligent meant you were doing the two for the wrong reasons. Somehow it meant she was being selfish and used her skills irresponsibly,” Yoojung says with mixed confusion and thoughtfulness, as if breaking down a multi-part problem.

Doyeon remembers heading down to the Great Hall for lunch with her friends after Transfiguration about two weeks before the winter holidays. Standing in front of Gryffindor’s hourglass was a girl from Ravenclaw, looking disdainfully at the rubies before heading inside to her table.

“You can’t possibly say that was the right thing to do,” Doyeon says incredulously. As much as she wants Yoojung to make her feel better, it can’t be done with blatant lies.

Yoojung laughs, thinking the same thing. “No, you really shouldn’t have done that. I’m a big girl, I’ll even take a detention from McGonagall if I can’t keep up. That’s what practicing and studying are for. Not everything comes easy.”

“But…?”

“But if you think it was wrong, why did you do it?”

“It’s you. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t want you to have extra homework or a marred record just because you can’t cast one spell. You were having a bad day, anyway,” Doyeon answers immediately.

“If you think so, then what’s bothering you?”

“I— I don’t know.” Doyeon stops short. “I guess it’s like she said. If I was going to act like that anytime you needed help, maybe I should’ve been put—”

“You’re pretty dense if you think Slytherins are the only ones who slide by the rules every now and then. Or if you think being a Slytherin is all about raising hell. Cunning doesn’t equate to evil, contrary to popular belief. I thought you knew that.” Yoojung bumps their shoulders. Doyeon feels a bit offended since it’s Yoojung saying this, but she waits for clarification.

“Think of it like this. The rules don’t apply when it comes to your friends. I said you’re attentive, you’re also protective. You don’t hesitate to jump in for them. But you’re not reckless about it either. Be honest with me, you knew you could cast the spell properly and that you wouldn’t be caught, even if you realized it after transfiguring the hedgehog for me.”

Yoojung waits expectantly, already knowing the answer. Doyeon opens to refute it for the sake of arguing back, but clamps it shut instead. She reluctantly agrees and Yoojung looks smug as ever. Doyeon feels the need to say something that validates her thoughts.

“Alright, let’s say you’re right about everything. So I’ve got my foot in one house, my arm in another, head peeking in a third.”

“You’re already sorted into the fourth,” Yoojung adds.

“Doesn’t feel like it anymore. I’m—“

“Bitter? Salty? Take your pick.” Yoojung feels like she might have touched a nerve, but Doyeon’s annoyed grimace smooths out soon enough.

“I know you weren’t expecting to get a position on the team at all when you tried out. You don’t even play.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. Once I got out there, I felt this sense of purpose. I wanted to play, just once. I wanted to know what it felt like to be part of the team, to be known, to be on the inside,” Doyeon sighs, confused at her own words.

Yoojung takes the liberty of ironing out Doyeon’s thoughts for her. “You could’ve, had you taken the Beater position.”

Yoojung is trying to lead her somewhere and it’s a tad annoying. Because good heavens, Yoojung shouldn’t be straightforward when Doyeon is struggling to think clearly. No, of course not. But it is Yoojung, so she deals with it.

“Why didn’t you want to be a Beater? It’s something you’re good at, like with Potions and Transfiguration. And the Captain recognized it in an instant, praised you for it.”

“It’s not that I didn’t want it per se. But I signed up to be a Chaser, that’s what I set my sights on, even if it was only for a week. It’s… It’s not often I get to make a choice. So when I finally could, when I finally wanted to do something purely for myself, I went for it. I stuck with it,” Doyeon trails off.

“Exactly,” Yoojung grins. “Kind of like when a strange, potential stalker told you to go to a school to learn magic just because he could recite your post,” she says. Doyeon smiles knowingly.

“Being faithful doesn’t only refer to other people. It means yourself too. It’s up to you to settle for something you didn’t want, or to keep trying for something more. Would you be satisfied with accepting the Captain’s offer?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Doyeon says. “I mean, I felt pretty crumby—”

“Salty,” Yoojung coughs. Doyeon shoves her lightly.

“I didn’t like not making the official team, but maybe you’re right. I didn’t want to settle for something else either. Not when I could help it.”

Yoojung claps her hands like she's dusting them off after a full day’s work. “Well, there you go. That’s it. That’s you.”

Doyeon realizes something. They haven’t been using her name for a while. They aren’t talking about Doyeon now, they’re talking about her. Doyeon and her are starting to be one and the same. Maybe Yoojung is onto something.

“Me?” She thinks aloud.

“Yup, you. All of it. Everything in between. All the defined lines, all the grey areas. That’s you.”

“That’s… messy.” Doyeon scrunches up her face.

“But that’s the point!” Yoojung exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. “People are messy. You’re any combination of those things.”

“People don’t seem to like that,” Doyeon says skeptically.

“Do people have to?” Yoojung isn’t being mean, she wants Doyeon to seriously consider this.

“Well, no. But it would be nice?” By the look on Yoojung’s face, Doyeon has to dig a bit deeper than that. “No, no they don’t have to like it. They don’t have to like me,” she says definitively.

“So what’s your new problem?”

“That they don’t like me and they care enough to let me know!” She grunts, kicking the wall. She ends up pushing herself backwards into a desk. Rubbing the back of her head, she says, “If they’re not going to like who I am, I just wish they wouldn’t notice me. I don’t need to be extraordinary in this or excel at that. I don’t need to be put on a pedestal. I just want to be normal. People in the crowd don’t get picked on, they’re part of the crowd. It’s the ones sticking out at odd angles that get noticed for just being there, for just being in general.”

“I finally get it,” Yoojung laughs.

“What?” Doyeon huffs. Here she is ranting her heart out just like Yoojung wanted, and she’s off in her own world? Rude. Doyeon would never be mad at her, but rude. She sighs, “What do you get?”

“I’ll admit, there’s always some basis in stereotypes, they weren’t just made up on the spot.”

“So nothing you said applies?” Doyeon interrupts.

“Shh, let me finish. You’ve got a bit of everything, kind of like that woman from the North American school,” Yoojung says, rubbing her chin.

“The one Somi was going on about? She got to choose her house.”

“Why didn’t you choose?”

“It doesn’t work like that here?” Doyeon says confused. “The Sorting Hat put me in Hufflepuff as soon as it touched my head.”

“You could’ve told it where you wanted to go. I told you about the houses before we left London. Most other students, even Muggleborns, have expectations of which house they’d prefer,” Yoojung pushes.

“Since when did I have that authority? You wait to be told where to go and hope you’ll fit right in! That’s the system!” Doyeon says exasperatedly.

Yoojung raises her eyebrow at Doyeon, and then it finally clicks.

“I’ve been waiting. And waiting, and waiting. So the hat did what I wanted it to and—“ She stops breathing. She can’t say it out loud, not with her own mouth. It’s too embarrassing to admit.

“You wanted to be accepted?” Yoojung suggests helpfully.

There it is. Doyeon doesn’t speak. Her pulse is so strong, she can hear it at the base of her ears. The tension is so thick, you could cut it with a Severing Charm. She feels like jumping off the balcony and hiding in a Werewolf den in the Forest. It feels so weak to acknowledge something so trivial. People are starving in the world, people are at war. People are being killed off for a dark wizard’s benefit and enjoyment. And here she is with her teenage drama, wanting to be accepted.

“Stop thinking,” Yoojung whispers. She clasps Doyeon’s hands tightly in her own.

“Listen to me,” she says, turning so they’re facing each other. “You’re important to me, to Somi and Sohye, to your parents, to my parents, to my owl. We love you just the way you are. What you see as lackluster flaws, what you think puts you on the fringe of normality, we see as your greatest strengths. We love that you’re different. I don’t want to be friends with just anyone. I want to be friends with you, Doyeon.”

Doyeon stares down at her lap, straining her ears to catch every word. Yoojung tugs on her arms. She just nods her head, motioning to Yoojung that she’s listening.

“You think it shouldn’t be a problem. You think it’s stupid. But it’s affecting you, and that’s not stupid at all. You’re going to hear me say this explicitly.”

Doyeon waits for her to continue, but Yoojung’s voice ends at that. Thinking the girl might have a latent concussion from her fractured skull, she looks up in alarm. Yoojung is perfectly calm and conscious. As soon as they lock eyes, Doyeon can’t pull away. Yoojung emphasizes each word to make sure it gets through Doyeon’s head.

“I accept you. I accept who you are, what you do, how you think and I will never go back on my word. I will always be here for you.”

They stare at each other for what seems like an eternity. Yoojung doesn’t want to be the first to break eye contact. She doesn’t want to give Doyeon any reason to think she’s lying or being insincere. She wants Doyeon to internalize it, to brand these words inside her head so she can put them on replay. And if they fade away, Yoojung will say it again and again. Doyeon needs to know. She needs to believe it.

Doyeon doesn’t know when she started crying. Yoojung lightly wipes the tears off of Doyeon’s cheek with her thumb. With the hand that’s still connected, Doyeon roughly pulls Yoojung in for a hug before bawling into her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she hiccups.

Yoojung feels at ease talking to Doyeon, but there’s nothing else to say. So she just tightens her hold instead. Doyeon revels in the security. They spend the rest of the night in the Astronomy Tower staring up at the peaceful, twinkling stars.