A/N: First of all, HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR! ( ^ - ^)/* 

I'm sorry for the delay updating... But I've been focusing on preparing my projects for a Master's admitance and had 0 time to myself :( However, fear not! I've been working on this story since yesterday and I'm quite near to the end of it (on my own computer, you still had at least 10-12 chapters to go here!). Without further addo, here it is!

Mina had to admit hanging out with Jongin was really fun. Since he was a muggleborn too he understood most of Mina’s references. Not having to explain each joke you tried to make was a relief. It also made things easier. Jongin also liked to tell stories so, when they sat to study together or just talk, he will always have something to tell.

"So wait, are you like a history freak or something?" Mina asked while they were taking advantage of the cold sunny day February had gifted them.

"Well, I guess." The boy answered scratching his right cheek. "I do like it a lot. Stories are fun and I love the fact that stories I would have thought impossible before are quite possible, if not absolutely accurate, now."

"Hmmm… I guess I never stopped to think about it." Mina pursued her lips thinking. "To be honest, I like magic and all that jazz but I guess real stories are my cup of tea."

"That would explain why you want to be a journalist." He smiled.

"I guess it does." Mina giggled. "I’ve always been fascinated by stories so, I guess in a way it’s another way to live them too." She shrugged.

"The fact that your dad is a detective has a lot to do for sure. Maybe you have the “solving mysteries” running through your blood." He joked.

"Ha ha, really funny." She hit his shoulder playfully. "Joke all you want but there are more mysteries out there than you would have thought. You don’t need to go far, to be honest."

"Yeah?" Mina nodded. "Okay. Tell me a mystery here in Hogwarts." He dared her.

"Only if you tell me a mystery story involving Hogwarts first." Mina dared him back with a teasing gleam in her eyes.

"Deal!"

"Okay, let’s hear this magical mystery."

Jongin cleared his throat and looked around, giving a dramatic effect to the situation. Mina giggled when he leaned closer, as if he was going to whisper.

"Have you ever heard about Helga Hufflepuff’s amazing food?" Mina nodded with a duh expression. "Well, it is said that it wasn’t just her knowledge what made her food the best. As you may know, the Four Hogwarts founders had outstanding magical abilities which most people don’t know is that Hufflepuff’s founder had a knack for invention. She enjoyed creating magical artifacts as much as she enjoyed cooking. It got to a point where the founder’s obligations and her hobby took too much time from her cooking so, she decided to create something that would assure her meals always had that homey and delicious flavor: a cauldron. It is said that it was so powerful that anything cooked with it would “give life back”. Most historians think it’s the true Hufflepuff relic instead of the Golden Cup that Harry Potter destroyed during the Second Wizarding War. However, Helga Hufflepuff never took it outside from Hogwarts because she was too afraid of its power. She decided to hide it, maybe. Nobody knows for sure. They say it will be only revealed to those who have a gift to create." Jongin finished his story with a wiggling of his eyebrows and a giggle when he saw Mina’s awe expression.

"Are you telling me that it is still in this castle?" Mina asked dumbfounded.

"Well, that’s what they say."

"Wow… I never knew Helga Hufflepuff was such an extraordinary woman." Mina whistled impressed.

"Yeah, people tend to underestimate Hufflepuffs like that." Jongin .

"You know I don’t mean it like that."  Mina rolled her eyes. Jongin chuckled.

"I know, I wasn’t talking about you." He assured the Slytherin girl. "Okay, your turn. You have to tell me a mystery in Hogwarts. A real one."

"Hmm…" Mina bite her lower lip thinking if she should tell Jongin about the Purtrefs and Leveratag problem. He seemed like a trustworthy person. Maybe the Hufflepuff boy could help her without thinking she was crazy like others did.

"Maybe you could begin with the mystery of Byun Baekhyun sending mental daggers my way." Jongin whispered half amused, half scared.

"What?" Mina blinked coming back from her thoughts. "What did you say?"

"Look over my shoulder." Mina did. "Slyly Mina, slyly!"

"Sorry, sorry! What am I looking at?" She whispered back. The only thing she saw were a couple of students talking, some Slytherins and Ravenclaws. And as Jongin said, Baekhyun was there looking into their direction now. Mina looked at Jongin quickly. "I don’t know why he is looking this way…"

"Sure you don’t." Jongin sighed. "Mina, I’m a very observant person and I think he doesn’t like you talking to me."

"What? No! Baekhyun isn’t like that, he doesn’t care about blood status." Mina dismissed it with a movement of the hand.

"I’m not talking about blood status." Jongin smirked. "More like relationship status." Mina blushed at this.

"I don’t know what you are talking about Jongin—"

"Okay, look." He interrupted her. "If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay. I respect that but I have the right to know why one of the most popular students here is hating on me. Moreover when there is NO chance for this." He pointed between them. That made Mina giggle.

"Well, I hope you are ready for a mystery with a pinch of teenage drama." She sighed.

"I love teenage drama." Jongin smiled. "The gay cliche and all that." He shrugged smiling.

"Okay, here we go."

Mina told him about her longterm crush on Baekhyun. How they had grown closer because of this two Slytherins bullying her. She told Jongin about her suspicions that they were doing something bad on the 7th floor bathroom. About the nicknames, about them becoming close to Yixing to help him with potions, her argument with Yu and her petty jealousy. She told him everything and it felt so good. She felt at least 5 pounds lighter after telling Jongin everything. When she finished, it was the Hufflepuff’s turn to be awed.

"Wow, it sounds like something straight out of a detective’s novel."

"Wait… so, do you believe me or…?"

"Of course I do! I mean, why would you lie about this? And why would you make this up? You had enough problems in your house to cause anymore trouble." Mina sighed at this.

"Yeah, you are right about that."

"However, I think you should talk to your friends. And Baekhyun."  Jongin looked at her sternly. "You need to clarify things and warn your friends."

"Well, I guess… I just… It wouldn’t be too difficult with Yu, but with… him. I don’t know if I’m ready to admit everything."

"Well, I might like boys but I’m still one of them too so, I’m pretty sure him helping you out, keeping your secret from your and his friends plus sending you a Christmas present, means something. We men are quite simple sometimes, Mina." Jongin smiled trying to reassure the Slytherin girl. She sighed.

"I guess I’ll talk with Yu first and then, we’ll see…"

They decided to walk together to the Great Hall since it was almost dinner time. Mina was thankful for Jongin, he was a really nice guy and a great friend. However, she would be lying if she didn’t admit to herself that she missed her best friends.

If they still considered her that.

Roro had spent the day avoiding everyone. She told Xiumin she needed to take the rest of the week off of their tutoring because she had a lot of homework from Charms and the Ravenclaw boy answered with an understanding smile and an offer to help. Offer that she rejected because the only thing she wanted was to crawl on her bed the whole day and cry. She had been fine last night. Well, as fine as you could be when your heart was broken she supposed. She got into her bed quickly after she returned to her room and closed her eyes tightly. She wasn’t able to sleep much but at least she had kept the tears at bay. Skipping breakfast was the coward’s choice, she knew. However, she didn’t feel ready to face the happy couple or anyone for that matter. She felt betrayed and at the same time, she felt stupid. They only had had a moment. Maybe Chanyeol was just being nice because that was his nature. He was a nice person like that and she was stupid to read more into it. She sighed going downstairs to the Kitchen. Her safe Heaven was the only place where she wanted to be since going to her bed would be too suspicious. She had also avoided Yu and Mina. Although the Slytherin girl tried to talk to her because she had something to tell her but Roro wasn’t in the mood to deal with their friend’s feud. She told Mina she needed to use the bathroom and they would talk after dinner. Too bad she wasn’t thinking on assisting dinner.

The kitchen was full of life with all the house elves going around and preparing the meals. Dinner was just a few minutes away and they had to put all the food on the magical tables on time. Roro looked for Isha, who was busy serving some pumpkin juice into large jugs. The small elf smiled at her surprised and Roro pointed to the cupboard that had turned into Isha’s own space. The elf nodded and Roro was grateful not to have to answer questions. For now.

Once the noise died down, Roro guessed they were done preparing the food and Isha would go inside the cupboard in a few minutes. She was midd-smile when Jongdae’s head popped out from behind the door. Roro looked at him surprised. Isha’s small head popped between Dae’s legs with a sad smile and apologetic face.

"I insisted her on telling me where you were." Jongdae explained before Roro could ask anything. "She didn’t want to tell me. She is very loyal."

"What have you done to her?" Roro asked anger building inside at the thought of her brother threatening her friend.

"Nothing!" Her brother put his hands in front of himself in a defensive position. "Come on Roro! You know I wouldn’t hurt her!"

"It’s true Miss Roro! Mister Jongdae did nothing wrong." Isha defended him. "He said he was worried about you so, Isha let him know where you were. I’m sorry Miss Roro but you looked sad, Miss Roro! Isha wanted to help too!" The house elf talked fast and gesticulated a lot. She seemed frightened.

"Hey, it’s okay Isha!" Roro assured her. "I was just surprised… Thank you for worrying Isha." She smiled sweetly to the elf. The small creature showed her a sheepish smile.

"Isha loves Miss Roro, Isha protects her friends!" That made both siblings chuckle. "I’m going to make sure no one bothers you, I’ll wait here!" She pointed to the cupboard’s door smiling.

"Thank you so much Isha." Jongdae caressed Isha’s head smiling. The elf yelped and went outside to guard the door. Roro smiled at the interaction.

"What are you doing here?"She asked Jongdae while her brother sat next to her.

"I’m either here to listen to what’s wrong or to just be here." He sighed. "I know you’ve been avoiding everyone today and… Ruffus Highlens, told me you asked him for some Fever Fudge. Care to explain that?" Jongdae asked with a pointed look.

"I… I…" Roro began sobbing without noticing it. Her eyes stung so much and her chest felt heavy. She didn’t want to keep on pretending everything was okay. It was too tiring. She began crying the same moment Jongdae hugged her worriedly.

"Hey, hey… it’s okay Sis, it’s okay. Come on, tell me what it is… shh, it’s okay." Her brother cradled her trying to soothe her cries. He let her cry for a while and when she calmed down a bit he let her go. Roro sniffed and looked away. "Did someone do something to you? Is it because of Mina?"

"No, no… It’s not, like that…" She sniffed again. "It’s just… I’m stupid." She shrugged sobbing again. "I thought that, I’m just stupid Dae… I feel so stupid and it hurts." She began crying again. "It’s not even his fault, I just thought…Ugh."

"Are we talking about Chanyeol?" Dae asked with a dark expression. Roro brushed her eyes and sniffed nodding. Jongdae's face became even darker. "What. Has. He. Done?"

Roro sighed trying to calm herself down and looked at her brother. Jongdae was fuming. Again. Because of her. She needed to explain to him that it wasn’t Chanyeol’s fault. So, she decided to explain to her brother everything that happened. How she had tried to get over her teenage crush, how Chanyeol tutoring her made that close to impossible, how she felt, the caress incident and what she had heard by mistake. She poured her heart out to Jongdae and he listened without interrupting. Once she finished, Jongdae sighed heavily.

"So, you didn’t hear the whole conversation, did you?" Roro shook her head as an answer. "You should ask him Roro—"

"No! And you can’t either." She demanded her brother with a pleading expression. "Promise me Dae! You can’t say anything to him, this is my fault after all…"

"Roro, listen to me⏤"

"No! You listen to me." Roro interrupted him. "I’m grateful for your help, I love you Dae but please, I need to figure this out on my own. I don’t want you to argue with him again because of me. Or him to be nice to me because he doesn't want to risk your friendship. Please. I will be fine again, soon! I just need to recover and it will be okay."

"Okay but, listen to me. You should talk to him, I’m sure Chanyeol didn’t mean that. I mean, he, ugh, you should talk to him Roro."

"It’s too embarrassing."

"He caressed you." Jongdae said exasperated. His sister could be really hard headed when she wanted. "I mean, you don’t caress people just because!"

"He was avoiding the subject later!" She took a deep breath. "He was and he looked uncomfortable after that… Look Dae, maybe he thought he felt something, I don’t know. Maybe he thought he could get over Victoria like that." Dae tried to interrupt her. "No, listen to me Dae. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt me, okay? Maybe he thought it was impossible for them to be together but when she confessed he, just, I don’t know, maybe he was still in love with her… First loves are hard to overcome."

"How are you so sure he loved her?" Jongdae asked surprised.

"Victoria told me." Roro said with a small voice. "During the Quidditch match she said…" Roro swallowed the lump on . "She said that he had confessed and she rejected him. But now…"

Jongdae sighed.

"Well, I’m not going to argue with him again but please, think about talking to him. You can’t keep on avoiding everyone like this…" He hugged her again. Roro smiled against her brothers robes.

"I’ll think about it…"

"Do you still want those Fever Fudges?" He asked with a teasing gleam in his eyes.

"Just for tomorrow." Roro smiled innocently. Jongdae sighed and took something from his left pocket.

"Just for tomorrow." He kissed her forehead and Roro hugged him tighter.

"Thank you for being my brother, Dae."

"Always Baby Sis, always."

If Yu found something frustrating was wanting to solve a situation and not being able to because you couldn’t find the one you were looking for. On one hand, she wanted to talk to Mina and apologize. She had been unnecessarily mean to her friend and, after all, her suspicion wasn’t unfounded. On the other hand, she wanted to strangle her boyfriend without killing him. She still care about him. She needed to speak to Roro before confronting Yixing though. She needed someone to calm her down in order to not strangle him. However, her friend had been MIA the previous day and she had stayed in bed because of a sudden fever as Jongdae had told them after breakfast. As luck had it, she couldn’t find Mina either.

Since it was 8 o’clock already, she decided to head to the Quad where she was supposed to meet Yixing. If he hadn’t forget about it. Again. Luckily for the Ravenclaw boy, he was sitting over one of the lateral walls of the Quad. He was observing the snow covered grass and admiring the already black sky courtesy of another cold February day. Yu approached him silently.

"BU!" She screamed near the boy’s right ear making him jump and let out a not so manly yelp. Yu began laughing at that.

"What the hell Yu! I almost had a heart attack!" Yixing complained putting a hand over his racing heart.

"I should scare you more often, maybe that way you won’t forget about me." Yu teased with a small bitterness to her voice. Yixing bite his lower lip and looked away.

"I already said I’m sorry…"

"I know." Yu shrugged sitting next to him. "But it’s better to be this passive aggressive way than shout at you, don’t you think?" Yixing sighed.

"I guess…"

"Hey Xing," Yu turned to look at him. "I’ll try to tone it down a bit but you have to never forget a date again." She said in a serious tone.

"It’s not like a forgot them on purpose."

"Excuse me? Here I am trying to be nice and, do you want to start an argument?" She asked offended.

"Why does it have to be one? Can’t we just talk like mature people?" He asked exasperated. "I’m tired all the time, I don’t want to be constantly aware of my words not to upset you."

"Well, if that’s how you feel maybe we shouldn’t hang out anymore." She answered forming a tight line with . "Maybe your new friends are a better company."

"See? This is what I’m talking about!" He got up. "Why does it have to be a competition? I am trying to keep my grades, survive this stupid Championship and not argue with you!"

"Then maybe I should erase myself from your list of obligations."

"You are not an obligation." He hissed. Yu sighed.

"Lately, that’s all I feel like…2 She whispered looking away from the boy’s eyes.

"Look baby, I don’t want to argue about this anymore. I love to spend time with you and I feel like the worst person in the world for forgetting our dates so many times. I don’t have an excuse other than being too invested in preparing myself for the next task. I want to win, Yu."

"For yourself or because those Slytherins won’t consider you their buddy anymore if you lose?" Yu asked skeptic. Yixing sighed again closing his eyes hard.

"For myself, for our school, for my grandparents… I want to win for you."  Yu bite her lower lip. "I want to make everyone proud."

"I’m already proud Xing. Your grandparents are, the school… everyone is already proud just because you were chosen."

"It’s not enough! I just…" Yu got up from the wall too and went closer to him. She grabbed his hand and pressed it tight.

"You don’t need to prove to anyone how good you are or how intelligent you might be. You are a great person Xing. You are kind and loyal to your friends. You worry about the smallest things and you never let anyone think less of themselves. And you are intelligent, God, you are one of the smartest students here! But if you let yourself be drowned by that desire of admiration, then you would be nothing but a lonely big head person. I know why I’m saying this. I already have one person like that in my life. I’m not going to have another one so, please, try to relax."

"That’s easy to say…"

"I know but, if you are stressed talk to me. If you are afraid, talk to me, to your other friends, to our teachers, to your grandparents… Hell Xing, there’s a lot more people besides Purtrefs and Leveratag! Honestly, I don’t trust them, they look at you as if you were some prize or something…"

"They are not that bad, Yu." Yixing sighed for the umpteenth time that evening. "But, I guess you are right… I also feel uneasy around them. However, they do help me a lot with potions so, I’ll try to reduce my time with them and hang out with you and the others a bit more. I do miss you." He smiled embracing the small Ravenclaw. She snuggled her head on his chest letting the warm embrace calm her down. And she smiled a bit.

"Yeah, I missed you too."

Well, one situation solved. Just one more to go.

I have the feeling this is a filler chapter (- . -)! However, I'll probably update chpater 16 tomorrow because it's one of my faves <3 

Not a lot of plot development but we have a good insight on how our protagonists think and view relationships :) I think it's an important part when writing a story too ^^

Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to this story! And the ones who leave feedback, you are stars and make my day :3 

Love,

R.