I’m going to fail and she’s going to stop tutoring me.

Seungri couldn’t stop the thoughts from echoing around in his brain as he stared at the Charms textbook in front of him and fought the ridiculous urge to cry. He was a Third Year for Merlin’s sake! He shouldn’t be crying over homework, especially not over Charms homework. He sighs in disgust with himself and lowers his forehead to the book. He wasn’t going to fail, he tells himself as he bangs his head lightly but solidly against the book. He wasn’t going to fail and there was no way that Ette, or Erato as he had started calling her after deciding that ‘Ette’ was a stupid nickname one study session, would let him get away with failing by refusing to continue to tutor him.

In fact, he couldn’t really explain why he was so worried that she would stop. He hated how everyone about her, and he hated that she was so much smarter than him and he hated that he needed her help…but he didn’t hate her at all and he was just the tiniest bit confused about that fact. Seungri sighs again, loudly.

“Oh honestly, Seungri, it’s just Charms.” A voice says from across from him. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly and lifts his head up so that his chin is resting on the book.

“It’s hard.” He responds, not even bothering to wipe the whine out of his voice or face. He watches as Erato crosses her arms over her chest and her head to the side.

“Yes, but it’s not the end of the world.” She says, and Seungri makes a face before sitting up properly.

“It will be if I fail.” He says, and feels just a little bit lighter for having said it. Erato, for her part, didn’t look very impressed. “Erato!” He whines, and she rolls her eyes.

“What are you so afraid of? You’re making this way harder than it needs to be.” She says, “Just relax, you know the material, you will do fine on the exam and you will come back next year to bother me with more questions about things you should have learned first year, and do in fact know the answer to.” She sighs and Seungri looks away from her, just a little embarrassed.

“I’m not stupid.”

“No, no you’re not, you just expect far more from yourself than you can currently handle.” She says, before pausing as someone calls for her from somewhere behind them. She leans forward and fixes him with a direct and serious stare. “Your friends are older than you, Seungri; you can’t beat them at things you haven’t learned yet. They like you for you, not for your brain or your test scores.” She sighs as her name is called again from much closer this time, and Seungri wonders briefly if maybe her friends like her for merely her brain.

He doesn’t get to say goodbye, or even thank you, as she stands up with a pretend huff and a grin on her face and moves back to meet the group calling for her. Seungri sits there for a minute, wondering if maybe he should feel bad for not knowing as much about his tutor as she obviously did about him. He gives up on that train of thought after realizing that she never really offers much when they talk, it’s always him, and decides that he’s sick of studying and feeling stupid for the day. He packs up his books and slings his bag over his shoulder, maybe he’ll go out to the field behind the Quidditch pitch; it’s a Thursday night after all, and maybe Jiyong is still forcing Daesung and Youngbae to practice.

***

“Tell Daesung that he doesn’t have to study anymore today.” Seunghyun says. Daesung lets out a huff of breath through his nose and shakes his head.

“Probably shouldn’t bother him right now TOP, you remember the OWLs.” Youngbae says as he flips idly through his notebook. Jiyong nods in agreement but doesn’t look up from his question book.

Seunghyun sighs loudly and pushes one of Daesung’s notebooks off the table. Daesung looks up with a strangled sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl and locks a glare onto Seunghyun. “Go. Away.” He says, and Seunghyun freezes, confused for a moment before looking across at Youngbae for help.

Youngbae raises his eyebrows and makes a ‘shooing’ gesture with his hand. Seunghyun sighs and packs up his stuff as slowly and obviously as possible. When Daesung doesn’t look up at him he lets out a sigh and shrugs his bag onto his shoulder. “I’ve got to go to Gobstones Club anyway.” He mutters, before turning and walking carefully out of the Library.

Daesung sighs the moment Seunghyun leaves and puts down his quill. Jiyong and Youngbae look up at him, then at each other quickly, but Daesung kept his head down. “What’s up, Dae?” Jiyong asks softly, and Daesung takes in a deep breath before looking up.

“I’m just tired,” He says, his voice dripping with exhaustion. “And Seunghyun is like a small child sometimes…I can’t study and keep him entertained.” Jiyong stops himself from pointing out that Daesung had always managed to do so before; of course now that the two were dating, Seunghyun demanded a lot more time from Daesung than previously.

“Well, I’m sure that once you’re done with a couple of your exams, it won’t be so stressful anymore.” Youngbae says, and Daesung nods before running a hand through his already messy hair.

“It looked difficult while you three were going through it all last year, but I guess it never really sunk in just exactly how awful the studying and prep was.” Daesung responds. The other two nod and they fall back into their companionable silence.

***

It was finally summer and the five boys couldn’t have been happier. Seunghyun was thrilled to have Daesung’s undivided attention, Daesung was thrilled to no longer have OWL studying to do, and the other three were just thrilled to be out of school for break. It was also kind of a sad summer, as it was the summer before the three eldest last year at Hogwarts. Daesung would be a 6^th year, and Seungri would be a 4^th year. Once this year got going, the three eldest would have to start seriously considering what it was that they wanted to do with their lives, and that was most definitely a scary thought.

It also happened to be the topic of the most recent slew of questions in the books that Youngbae had made for them. Seunghyun looked through his question book far more often than he would have anyone believe, and so it was that he could be found on lazy summer evenings, his left hand running through a sleeping Daesung’s hair, as his right hand leafed through the pages of his book. Of course, when Daesung wasn’t there, Seunghyun was able to leaf through the book with his left hand while a quill dangles from his right. The question: What job can you see yourself doing? Was far too difficult for him to answer fully when he got it at the beginning of his 6^th year, but the most recent question (What do you want to do for the rest of your life?) was far easier for him to answer; though he wasn’t certain if it was just because he was a year older, or if the question was just that much easier to consider.

Seunghyun wants to do something with music. It’s hard though, because it’s not exactly something that is encouraged or even really talked about at Hogwarts. Of course, there was a singing club, but Seunghyun was never much for singing, and unlike Jiyong, who sat around and scribbled song lyrics and poetry in his free time, he hadn’t really ever considered writing…so music was something that he enjoyed, but didn’t know how to get into or what he would even do. He likes candy and cake and ice cream, but he was never really much of a cook, so the most he could do really would be to sell it. He didn’t really have a favorite class or subject area, but he did really enjoy Care of Magical Creatures and Defense against the Dark Arts (not that the latter was very useful nowadays.

So really, the only answer that Seunghyun could come up with was that he would need to test out a number of jobs that fell into those criteria. Little Seunghyun told him he was going to be jobless forever.

Youngbae refused to answer any of the questions if there was anybody around, and so it was that he could be found, hiding in his four-poster bed at Hogwarts or up early in the morning during the summer so that he could be alone. Jiyong thought it was funny, but he never tried to invade Youngbae’s privacy during those times. Youngbae was fairly certain that he knew what he wanted to be, and so when asked what job he could see himself doing, he was ready.

Youngbae wanted to be a healer because he wanted to be able to help people and he was good at both herbology and potions so he knew that it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to succeed. He had nursed Seunghyun back to health multiple times over vacations, and he definitely enjoyed being the reason that someone got better.

On the other hand, Youngbae also really loved Quidditch, and he wasn’t half-bad at it. He had a career ahead of him, according to Madam Hooch, but he wasn’t certain he could handle going into a career that had such a high rate of injury. Music was also a possibility for him, so he held onto the dream of becoming a dancer, or singer, because he loved to entertain people almost more than he loved to help them.

Jiyong answers all of his questions loudly and in as public a manner as possible. Everyone is reading or studying or just hanging around and Jiyong can be seen with his question booklet open in front of him. He talks back at the book when rules show up, and he thinks out loud when he feels stuck. Jiyong, like the other two, loves music, but until he can find a way for that to work, he has a completely different idea about what he wants to do.

Jiyong wants to own a store. He wants to sell clothes and books and Quidditch supplies. He wants to keep chocolate frogs in stock along with peppermint humbugs and hell he even wants to sell gobstones. This was his biggest wish, it had been since Professor Longbottom took points from him for having altered his school uniform and sent him to visit Professor Flitwick’s apprentice teacher about clothing alterations and design. It had been on his mind since Youngbae had presented them with their question booklets and Jiyong felt that they were marketable. He would probably allow that he really didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he did know that if he owned the store and worked there, he would definitely have the time necessary for him to be able to write and draw and design clothing and just be creative.

Who knows, maybe he would write books and songs for a living and find a way to convince Youngbae to teach him how to make the question booklets…

***

It was the 4^th week of vacation, and they were all staying at Youngbae’s house. Well, all is a rather misleading term, as big Seunghyun was on a brief vacation with his parents, and Jiyong was sick (and pouty) and so he was at home. This left just Daesung and Seungri to be enjoying themselves at Youngbae’s for the week, or at least until Jiyong was better as it was Jiyong’s turn to host them all next. And so it was that Daesung, Youngbae, and Seungri had decided to go to Diagon Alley to look around and basically just wile away the day as they really had nothing else to do…and Youngbae wanted to buy something for Jiyong so that he would stop complaining through incessant letters.

By noon they were bored with the other shops, and had found a few things that they thought would shut Jiyong up for at least a little while. That all set, their feet carried them to Quality Quidditch Supplies; their ultimate favorite store. Daesung wanted new gloves, so Seungri was helping him look. Unfortunately for Daesung, Seungri's brand of helping is a lot like a small child who doesn't understand the concept of 'help'. Instead of considering the things that Daesung wanted from the gloves, Seungri held up every pair that he found, male or female, and even things that weren't gloves in the hopes of finding something that Daesung would want.

"Thanks for the help, Seungri, but those are socks." Daesung says, before dropping his gaze back down to the Dragon skin gloves he had been looking at.

 "Yes, but you can put them on your hands, so voila! Gloves!" Seungri says excitedly, waving the socks in the air as he speaks.

Youngbae was just wandering the shop; he knew that Daesung would prefer to look on his own, so he was trying to see if anything would catch his eye. He was passing the front counter and heading toward the robes when he saw it; the broomstick of his dreams. He moved toward it, compelled by some unseen force to at least touch it.

It was an older model, one of the Firebolt models from a couple of years ago, and the only word that he could think to use to describe it was beautiful. He was so mesmerized by it, in fact, that he just stood there, staring at it and holding it, for about 10 minutes. It wasn't until Seungri came bounding up behind him shouting excitedly about how Daesung finally  found a pair of gloves, that he snapped out of it enough to pay attention to his surroundings. Daesung came up behind Seungri and noticed the broom in Youngbae's hands.

"What's that? Looks nice," Daesung says nonchalantly, gesturing toward the broom with the gloves he was going to purchase.

"I want it." Were the only words that Youngbae managed to get out. Daesung smiles and moves closer, pushing past Seungri who had become distracted by a display of dirt-repelling Quidditch robes.

“Then get it.” Daesung says, trying to take the broom away from Youngbae so that he can look at it. Youngbae was rather reluctant to let go of it, so Daesung had to settle for Youngbae holding it out to him.

“It’s probably expensive…”Youngbae says, barely concealing the whine that was trying to poke through.

“Well, let’s see then” Daesung moves behind Youngbae and reads the sign, “It’s an older model, so it probably won’t be too bad…” Daesung says trying to placate his friend while he searches for the price.

“I don’t want to knoooow” Youngbae whines, keeping his back to Daesung so that he doesn’t have to see the price for himself.

“Oh it’s not that bad! Look, it’s cheaper than that writing set you were considering buying GD earlier.”

“Really?” Youngbae asks, perking up immediately and swinging around to face the shelves, narrowly missing hitting Seungri with the broom.

“Yep! Looks like you got yourself a new broom!” Daesung says, a large smile crossing his face as he watches Youngbae’s face light up with glee.

After buying it, the shopkeeper let them take a picture of him proudly standing with his new broom in the middle of the shop.

“Alright, we should head to the post office to mail off these things to Jiyong.” Youngbae says as they exit Quality Quidditch Supplies and stand on the side of the cobblestone street.

“I bet there are about 8 letters waiting for us at your house from him.” Seungri says, and the other two laugh.

“Only if he managed to get your owl to carry that many.” Daesung says, and Seungri makes a face.

“If there isn’t at least one letter waiting for us, then something is wrong.” Youngbae says, before gesturing for them to follow him down the street toward the nearest post office.

***

Youngbae would never admit it, but he was kind of terribly jealous of the time that Jiyong spent with Seunghyun. Which isn’t to say that Jiyong really spent all that much time with Seunghyun, in fact, the time that they spent together had been slowly becoming less as they got older and it definitely severely lessened when Daesung and Seunghyun started dating, but they still managed to find time to hang out alone.

Youngbae wouldn’t admit his jealousy for a number of reasons, the most important of which was the fact that he couldn’t fathom why he was jealous to begin with. Seunghyun and Jiyong tended to hide themselves away, rather infrequently, to play around with their Famous Witch/Wizard cards. Both boys had started to collect them almost immediately upon starting at Hogwarts, and their love of them had only grown. They would hide out in an empty classroom and trade cards when they got new ones and re-organize their collections. Youngbae didn’t particularly care about chocolate frog cards, he didn’t even really like to eat chocolate frogs, and he even helped the two out by giving them the cards if he came across them or buying them chocolate frogs so that they could add to their collections. No, as a practice, Youngbae really had no qualms with what they were doing; it was the fact that Jiyong was spending time with Seunghyun and not with him.

It wasn’t as strong a pull of jealousy when Jiyong was with either Seungri or Daesung, and Youngbae wasn’t entirely certain why that was. The feeling of jealousy didn’t go away when Daesung and Seunghyun had started dating and it wasn’t like Youngbae fancied Jiyong or anything, so he couldn’t understand why he felt so on edge and unhappy whenever the two were alone together. He doesn’t even normally think about it except that Seunghyun got back from his family trip and went straight to Jiyong’s while they wouldn’t be leaving Youngbae’s house for another two days.

In the end, Youngbae thought that it was an utterly selfish feeling to be having, which is ultimately the reason why he would never tell anyone about it. He spent loads of time alone with Seunghyun, Daesung, and Seungri, so why should Jiyong not be allowed to do the same?