Daesung didn’t like her, and this left Seungri far more confused than he needed to be just before a big test in Transfiguration.

“Tell me again…?” Seungri prompts, his back against the wall of the abandoned classroom that he usually hid under the desks of. Daesung lets out a deep sigh and knocks his head back against the wall as his fingers play with his bag.

“It’s everything, Ri, absolutely everything.” Daesung lets out another sigh and they fall back into silence.

They were currently skipping third period on Tuesday, and if Youngbae found out they would both probably be in trouble, especially Seungri. However, Seungri had been unable to ignore his helplessly unhappy friend when he caught him sneaking away in the opposite direction of his next class. Seungri had followed Daesung all the way up to the classroom and had only hesitated for an instant before pushing the door open and following him inside.

Daesung wasn’t even surprised, though for his part he had made a weak attempt at convincing Seungri to go back to class; it obviously didn’t work. Seungri was far too worried about the normally ever-smiling boy to really care about doing as he was told, so he had stayed, hoping to get some type of insight into Daesung’s troubles. It had only taken Daesung three minutes to break down and tell Seungri; three rather excruciatingly nerve-wracking minutes for Seungri who wasn’t used to being the one doing the comforting.

The problem had been rather simple, and had been almost exactly what, or who, Seungri had thought that it would be; Jessie, a fourth year Gryffindor girl who Seunghyun had started spending quite a bit of time with. Seunghyun had started hanging out with her at some point near the end of February and the closer it got to the end of March, the closer the two seemed to get. She had started sitting with them whenever they ate at the Gryffindor table, and Seunghyun seemed to only have eyes for her; he barely talked to any of them when she was around and he was cutting down on random time that he spent with them.

Seunghyun had yet to back out of his Saturday afternoon walks with Seungri, and as far as Seungri knew, he hadn’t cut out any of his regularly scheduled time with either Youngbae or Jiyong; though he had stopped showing up to Jiyong’s Thursday afternoon Quidditch sessions. Seungri had imagined that these were the only changes to Seunghyun’s behavior, as there was no way in anybody’s mind that Seunghyun would ever stop hanging out with Daesung…but apparently he had.

“The first time that he didn’t show up on the stairs I understood; I almost hadn’t shown up myself…” Daesung says, dragging Seungri back to the present.

“Wait, it’s happened more than once?” He asks, his voice going squeaky at the end, causing him to blush before he waves his hand in front of his face in a vain attempt at erasing his embarrassment.

Daesung smiles, albeit a little sadly, “It’s alright, Ri. But, yeah. Every time, actually.” Seungri just stares at him, his mouth open wide in shock.

“You can’t be serious! Seunghyun would never miss hanging out with you, never!” Seungri says, trying to come to Seunghyun’s defense even though he knows deep down that it isn’t necessary.

“Yeah…yeah that’s what I thought…” Daesung says, and Seungri instantly feels awful.

“Ahh, Dae! Maybe he’s busy…?”

“Only when he normally spends time with me?” Daesung responds immediately, a dry laugh immediately following and Seungri thinks it’s the worst sound in the world. “No, if anything, he’s avoiding me and spending more time with, with Jessie…” He looks so sad as he speaks that Seungri is really uncertain what he should do, so he scoots closer and lays his head on Daesung’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” He says softly, and he can feel Daesung chuckle…or cry, he can’t be sure because he can’t see Daesung’s face, but he doesn’t say anything and they sit there for a good majority of the rest of the day.

They went down to dinner together, which was almost unheard of as Seungri was almost always the last one to dinner and Daesung was usually there well before him. Tonight was at the Gryffindor table, and Seungri wonders briefly as he heads in the direction of the table and the brightly waving Jiyong, if that was why Daesung had broken down that afternoon. They sit down and Daesung sits as far away from Seunghyun as is possible, a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes plastered on his face.

Jessie leans down from next to Seunghyun and smiles at Daesung, “Hey! Where were you during Transfiguration today? Professor was worried.” Seungri winces slightly and casts a covert glance at Youngbae, who was looking at Daesung with interest, before glancing at the other two who wore almost identical expressions of surprise.

Daesung smiles politely and to Seungri it looks more like a grimace, “I wasn’t feeling very well, I’ll go see her later to apologize.” He says quickly and quietly, turning his eyes away from that end of the table and back to his food.

“That’s not like you, Dae. Did you go to the Hospital Wing? I’ll take you there now…?” Youngbae says, worry written across his face. Daesung just shakes his head, giving the older boy a slight smile.

“No, it’s alright.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look very good.” Seunghyun says, and Seungri is surprised by how deep his friend’s voice is, and how much caring the words seem to hold despite Seunghyun’s recent lack of attention to Daesung.

“I’m fine.” Daesung says, not looking up from his plate. Seungri sees Daesung tense and clench his hand into a fist around his fork, and decides to divert the attention away from his friend, the only way that he knows how.

“Are you two dating or what?” Seungri says, pointing at Jessie and Seunghyun. The question comes out of the blue, as with most of Seungri’s rather blunt and ridiculous questions, but this one hit a mark in everyone listening. Daesung kicks Seungri lightly under the table, which he ignores, and Youngbae and Jiyong turn bright and questioning eyes on Seunghyun and the girl next to him.

“No,” she says at the exact same time as Seunghyun says, “What’s it to you?”

“Well,” Seungri says, choosing to ignore Jessie’s answer in a fit of insight into Daesung’s problem that he would probably congratulate himself on later. “You spend so much time with each other that you don’t spend time with us anymore, so I was just wondering.”

Seunghyun stares at him for a second, but Seungri notices his eyes dart over to take in Daesung’s ducked head quickly before returning to Seungri. “What, I like her. Can I not hang out with other people?” He said it nonchalantly, as if he were daring them all to contradict him, or he was trying to convince himself that it was OK. Seungri flinches outwardly at the callous and impersonal way that Seunghyun answers, but still manages to catch Seunghyun darting a look at Daesung.

Daesung decides right then and there that the feeling that was eating away at him was jealousy. He also decides that there is really nothing that he can do about it because now that Seunghyun feels challenged, he’s probably going to try and hang out with Jessie more in a ridiculous attempt at proving his point. He takes in a shaky breath and turns his face up to look at Seungri.

“Ah, Ri. It’s hard to section out your time between a large number of people. If you’re feeling left out I have free time every night before curfew. You can come walk around with me.” He stops himself from glancing over at Seunghyun, and he almost feels bad for being so petty, especially since he knows that Jiyong and Youngbae will now realize that something is wrong if they hadn’t already; but he couldn’t stop himself from saying it and it was too late now.

Daesung isn’t certain how Seungri answers, or even if he does, because he almost immediately turned his thoughts inward and ran on auto-pilot for the rest of the meal. He had never been so happy to leave his friends and make it to the Slytherin Common Room in his entire time at Hogwarts as he was that night.

***

It had been three weeks and slowly but surely Jessie was being phased out of their lives. It started out slowly, with her not sitting next to Seunghyun at every meal and slowly dwindled to them maybe waving to each other during meal times by the end of the third week. On the second week, Seunghyun showed up at the alcove, albeit a little late as he normally met them at the stairs. He and Daesung were only politely speaking by the end of the third week, which also happened to be the beginning of the second week of April. All in all, everything seemed to slowly be getting back to normal.

That is until one otherwise perfectly normal Monday morning. Youngbae and Jiyong were rather….touchy that morning, and no one really knew why. Seunghyun said that he had seen them in the Library the day before, studying like normal and nothing had seemed amiss. But no matter the reason, the two normally chipper boys sat across from each other with blank looks on their faces at the Ravenclaw table, while everyone else sat at the Hufflepuff table. It was clear that they weren’t speaking and you could almost see the anger radiating off of them, though no one could come up with a reason for that anger.

The day did not get any better. In their first class, Transfiguration, Youngbae couldn’t get the spell right; his chair refused to turn into a dog. Jiyong tried to give him a tip, but it came out more biting than he had probably intended, and the dark glare sent his way only served to make him more upset than he had been that morning and consequently he felt unable to defend himself.

By their third class, Herbology, Jiyong refused to look at Youngbae, and Youngbae refused to stand near Jiyong. This was a bit of a problem as they were supposed to be partners and no one wanted to partner with Jiyong because he was rather awful at the class. You could almost taste the tension between them by dinner, and by the end of the week it had escalated to the point where they would say minor nasty things about each other. The things that they said were nothing very bad, they were just snide little remarks, but they still left their three friends wide-eyed and dumbfounded.

The fight ended in what big Seunghyun decided to call ‘the Wrestling Match of Epic Anger Management Problems”, it was a long name and probably needed some work, but it really fit what happened. They had been dragged down to the Quidditch pitch by Daesung and little Seunghyun that Saturday morning, and were basically just standing around and trying to make light conversation to hopefully ease the tension. No one saw how it started, and Jiyong and Youngbae couldn’t remember, but whatever was said or done led to Jiyong tackling Youngbae to the ground a few meters away from the rest of the group.

After about five minutes (during which time no one tried to intervene), the two boys started laughing. Covered in blood, grass, cuts and bruises, they lay stretched out on the ground, laughing hard. This was the only fight that wasn’t over the answer to a question that they had ever had.

***

"Where the hell did you learn that?" Jiyong says, his lip curling up into a particularly nasty sneer. In truth, he was only kind of annoyed. He had been studying for what seemed like years and then in comes little Seunghyun, of all people, talking like he was born doing it.

“Youngbae” Seungri says, confusion written all over his face as he stands opposite Jiyong with his hands gripping the back of the chair in front of him.

“Oh! Of course you learned it from Youngbae. Because he knows everything.” Jiyong didn’t mean it; he just couldn’t stop himself from saying it, or feeling bitter.

“Well, I mean, he was just studying…Why don’t I just…?” Seungri could practically feel the explosion about to happen. So instead of sticking around and pissing Jiyong off more, he decided to book it out of Jiyong’s line of vision and head over to the other side of the library to get Youngbae.

“Yeah, run away” Jiyong mutters darkly to himself as he turns another page in his Ancient Runes textbook.

“What’s up Ji?” Youngbae says, startling Jiyong out of his misery-induced muttering. Youngbae had somehow managed to slip into the chair across from him without him noticing, so instead of answering, he kicks him in the shins. “Ow! That was uncalled for.” Youngbae says, reaching down to rub at his shin while a small smile starts to form on his face.

“Oh no, don’t you smile. It ruins the point of me hurting you, which was to cause you pain” Jiyong crosses his arms over his chest and looks away while speaking.

“Oh honestly, you don’t want me in pain. Are you studying Ancient Runes? It’s wicked hard right now, isn’t it?” Youngbae leans forward and pulls Jiyong’s textbook toward him to see.

“Don’t lie, you think it’s easy.” Jiyong was starting to relax; he couldn’t stay mad for long, especially since he was really just frustrated with the work. It also helped that Youngbae had this odd calming effect on him.

Youngbae smiles, “Naw, man! Come on, come sit with me and Daesung out in the back, it’s quieter there and we can work together. Besides, that Prefect you were talking about is sitting over there also…”

Jiyong was up and packed before Youngbae had even finished his sentence.

***

“The O.W.Ls were the worst invention, ever.” Seunghyun says, his forehead pressed into Daesung’s shoulder as they sit by the Lake.

Daesung lets out a laugh and pats Seunghyun on the back, “I’m sure there are probably worse things.”

“Yeah TOP, I mean, at least Madam Periwinkle had Gertrude the Wise’s portrait covered so that she would stop hitting on you in the waiting room.” Jiyong says as he flicks small pebbles at a sleeping Seungri.

Seunghyun barely suppresses a shudder at the memory that Jiyong’s words evoked. “Oh Godric, don’t remind me.” Daesung his head to the side, his interest piqued.

“What portrait?” He asks and Jiyong laughs a little evilly.

“You know the side room that you waited in before being Sorted?” Youngbae asks, and Daesung nods eagerly. “Well, a little while ago the Caretaker moved an older portrait into the room at the insistence of the painting itself.” Youngbae pauses and Jiyong picks up where he left off.

“The painting is of a woman named Gertrude who was some acclaimed alchemist who died before she was able to marry her ever-so-handsome fiancé.” Daesung nods, ignoring Seunghyun who had wrapped his arms around Daesung’s middle and hidden his head behind the younger boy’s back.

“Let me guess, he looked just like Seunghyun?” Daesung asks, but Youngbae shakes his head.

“No, actually,” and Jiyong starts laughing, “her fiancé had blonde hair and was all thin and little; kind of like Jiyong, actually.” Jiyong pouts at that and hits Youngbae in the arm before taking over the story once again.

“Anyway, she likes Seunghyun because he was being all suave and told her that he dress was pretty about a month ago; and ever since then she’s been telling anyone who will listen that it was her intuition that made her demand the move to the room she is now in, and her intuition ‘had never proved her wrong before’.” Jiyong says, tapping his finger against his temple in a poor impersonation of the portrait.

“It’s funny because she forgets that it was her ‘intuition’ that got her killed and immortalized in a frame at Hogwarts in the first place.” Seunghyun mutters darkly from behind Daesung, causing them all to laugh.

“When do our O.W.L results come out?” Jiyong asks, leaning back on his hands and stretching his legs out as he looks over at Youngbae.

“Ahh, I dunno,” Youngbae replies, searching through his bag for his journal, “I think it’s in the middle of the Summer.”

“Oh good, hopefully we’ll be at your place. You’re mom makes the best celebratory cakes.” Seunghyun says, clapping his hands together excitedly at the thought.

“I always knew you only liked me for the food my mother makes.” Youngbae says, and Seunghyun sticks out his tongue.

“No, that’s why I like your mother; I like you because that’s the only way I can get to your house.” Youngbae throws his book at Seunghyun who ducks out of the way while laughing.

“We should head back up to drop our stuff back in our dorms before dinner.” Daesung says, looking down at his watch.

Jiyong nods and then jerks his head toward the sleeping Seungri. “What should we do about him?” he asks, and Seunghyun smirks.

“I think I have an idea.” He says, pulling his wand out of his bag and pointing it at the younger boy, “Aguamenti!” he mutters, and a stream of water pours from the tip of his wand, landing directly on top of Seungri.

“Argh!” Seungri splutters, flailing his arms and legs as he tries to sit up and get away from the water that was hitting him. Everyone is laughing except the poor, sopping wet Seungri.

“Have a nice nap?” Jiyong asks, pulling his backpack up onto his shoulders as he stands up. Seungri glowers at him, making Jiyong laugh harder. “Come on, let’s head up.” He says, nudging Youngbae lightly with his toe. Youngbae stands up obediently and with a quick wave, trots off after Jiyong.

“Come on Seungri, let’s get you back to the Castle so that you can dry off before dinner.” Daesung says. He was smiling brightly, but not laughing, which made Seungri feel just a little bit better.

“Yeah, Ri, come on, gotta get dry…” Seunghyun says brightly, walking ahead of them, a little bounce in his step. Seungri pouts at him from behind and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Ahh Ri, don’t worry about it, he’s just making fun.” Daesung says, patting the younger boy lightly on the shoulder. Seungri lets out a softs sigh and his shoulders slump.

“I know, but they always pick on me.” Daesung shakes his head.

“Don’t look at it like that, it will only make you feel worse.” Daesung punches him lightly in the shoulder, “We all love you or we wouldn’t want to hang around you. Now come on, I’m hungry.” Seungri smiles slightly at Daesung and follows his friends’ lead, hurrying up to the Castle.