A week after Jiyong’s confession, he was sitting in the kitchen with a mug of tea cradled in his hands despite the heat. Seungri had gone back to his parent’s house for a few weeks, and everyone else was working. He lets a smile cross his face as he thinks about his job at the bookstore. He was nothing more than a simple clerk, and he barely worked anymore on top of that; but he loved it in some ways.

He loved being around the books and the creativity. He was a huge fan of creativity, and he wasn’t sure what he would do with his life without it. He hides his smile behind his mug as he thinks more thoroughly about his life and job. He knew that he was going to have to find a better job. He also knew that he would probably hate it.

Jiyong, however, had a secret that he’d been keeping from his friends for no other reason than he just really wasn’t ready to admit it yet: he wrote articles for a number of different magazines. Every couple of weeks he would get large envelopes of requests and praise from the editors of the magazines he had started submitting stories to, and he was in love with success. He’s not sure what it is that is holding him back from telling everyone, but…

He chews on his lower lip as he sets the mug down. He really didn’t want to let the others down with his choices for the future…he didn’t want to let Youngbae down. They expected him to do great things, but all he really did was whine and write.

He’s just about to reprimand himself for letting his thoughts get this gloomy on such an otherwise good day, when the door opens. He looks up quickly and is met by the sight of a rather out of breath Youngbae.

“Oh! Ji, I expected you to be in the room.” He says, and Jiyong feels a little bit of uncertainty creep into his stomach. It had been a little awkward to share the bed with Youngbae for the past week, especially as they hadn’t talked about the confession.

He holds his mug up to buy some time before answering. “Yes, well, tea beckoned.” He says, before raising and eyebrow and gesturing toward Youngbae. “What are you doing back so early?”

Youngbae blushes slightly, but moves forward to stand by the breakfast bar. “I was ahead, Healer Moises asked me to take the rest of the day off so that she could decide where to place me come Monday.” He responds with a slight smile. It takes Jiyong only a couple of seconds to realize what this means.

“Oh!” He says, his mouth a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. “That’s so great! You’re going to be a real Healer now!” He says, and he really is excited for Youngbae, but he knows that his voice doesn’t convey it quite right because of the way Youngbae’s smile tones down just a bit. He doesn’t let Youngbae say anything else though, because he now feels bad for not being properly congratulatory, so he leans forward and pulls the man into a tight hug.

Youngbae allows his smile to grow wider at the contact. He’d been worried about how Jiyong would react, considering the fact that he still didn’t have a ‘real’ job, but apparently he didn’t have to worry too much. He pulls back from the hug and smiles up at Jiyong. “Yes, so…” He starts, but Jiyong starts speaking.

“We’ll have a big dinner tonight!” He says. “We’ll steal Seungri from his parents and we’ll head to that loud place that has all the lights…” He trails off toward the end, catching the look on Youngbae’s face. “What?” He asks, noticing that Youngbae was fidgeting more than normal.

“Ah…well…” He starts, his face flushing with embarrassment. “I do want to see everyone…but I was kind of hoping to, I dunno, go out withjustyou.” He tries to say it as clearly as possible, but the last half of the sentence is jumbled and the ending is just one word and he feels his palms start to sweat.

Jiyong his head to the side, one hand loosely holding his mug on the countertop. “What was that?” He asks, and Youngbae is pretty certain Jiyong heard him the first time, but he also knows that this is important.

“I wanted to just go out with you tonight.” He says, and it is clearer this time, and he feels pretty proud of himself.

Jiyong blinks at him for a moment, all thoughts having vanished from his brain. His first thought was that Youngbae wanted to go out on a date with him; his second thought was that Youngbae definitely didn’t want to go out on a date with him. But after a couple of seconds, he realized that Youngbae wouldn’t have been so fidgety if it hadn’t been meant as a date.

“I haven’t anything to wear.” He says, horror lacing his words at the very thought of going out that evening.

Youngbae’s head rears back in confusion, before he registers what Jiyong has said and he barks out a laugh. “Oh Merlin.” He says, shaking his head. He rolls his eyes and grabs Jiyong’s hand. “You have so much to wear and you never wear any of it.” He pulls Jiyong out of the chair he was sitting in and onto his feet.

Jiyong rolls his eyes at Youngbae. “I have clothes, yes. But I don’t have first date clothes.” He grumbles as Youngbae laughs again and drags him down the hall to their room.

“We literally share a bed already.” He responds, and Jiyong rolls his eyes again because he can’t believe that Youngbae is really this stupid.

“Yeah, as friends.” He scoffs, and then his face turns red and he has to cover that weird slip by pushing past Youngbae and into their room to get to his closet. “Did you have an idea for where to go?” He asks, trying to keep himself in check.

Youngbae is watching him from behind, his head cocked to the side and a blush fighting to take over his entire face. “Um, that small Korean place on the corner.” He says quietly. “Or the French place up the hill.” He adds, and Jiyong just nods, searching through his clothing. “Can’t you look for clothes later? I want to go for a walk or something.” He says, and Jiyong stops rifling through his shirts to throw a look over his shoulder.

Youngbae was still fidgeting. “Alright, I can wait to do this until later.” He says, closing the door and backing away from it. “Let’s get you some exercise.” He says with a grin.

~

“I want to open a store.” Seunghyun says during dinner. It was a month into Seungri’s final year at Hogwarts, and both Youngbae and Daesung had been working full time for a couple of months.

Because of this change in schedules, and the fact that Daesung no longer lived in England while he was working, their dinner schedule had changed. Seunghyun had lamented the fact quietly, and out of earshot of Daesung so as not to make him feel bad. He really liked schedules, and their Tuesday night dinners had been important to him. But Daesung was happy working with Dragons in Europe, and he had a small apartment that they could visit him in whenever they were free, so he couldn’t complain too much.

“What kind of store?” Jiyong asks while picking at his pasta. Neither Jiyong nor Youngbae worked on Wednesday nights, making it the perfect group dinner night.

“How?” Youngbae adds, before he can stop himself. He’d wolfed down his meal rather quickly, and it was obvious to Seunghyun that Jiyong was holding out on eating on the off chance that Youngbae was still hungry.

Seunghyun sighs and rubs a hand down his face before leaning forward to put his elbows on either side of his plate. “Well, I kind of wanted to do a café…” He pauses for a moment, letting his sentence trail off and trying to gauge his friends’ reactions to that idea. Youngbae’s eyebrows shot together, which Seunghyun took as the disapproval it probably was. “But, I think what I really want is to open a good music store…probably in Diagon Alley.”

His friends are quiet for a moment as they consider this idea. Jiyong has placed his fork onto the napkin beside his plate and is staring at Seunghyun rather intently. “What kind of stuff do you want to sell?” He asks after a moment, and Seunghyun blinks, kind of surprised by the question.

“Uh, I’m stil really working on it… but mostly I just don’t want to work for Maestro’s anymore.” He says, letting out a deep breath and leaning back. “I’m just sick of them not having anything worth buying? They have classical things, but there is nothing modern. It’s all instruments and sheet music.” Youngbae looks slightly offended by this and Seunghyun cracks a smile. “Not that that stuff isn’t useful, I’m just…I want to sell something relevant. Something that we do now.”

The table is quiet for a second, and then Jiyong shoves his plate in front of Youngbae and pulls out a piece of parchment and a quill; potentially from thin air. “Okay, so we need a plan of attack.” He says as he dips the quill into a pot of ink that had somehow appeared on the table.

Youngbae nods, then leans over to steal the quill from Jiyong. “With some careful planning,” He starts as he titles the list and makes columns. “You could be really successful. I mean, you could sell some of the stuff Ji writes…You could even go for anything on the art side of the spectrum, you know?” He says, writing out some ideas. Jiyong rolls his eyes but doesn’t move out of the way to make it any easier for Youngbae. Seunghyun lets out a surprised chuckle.

“So you guys are cool with this? You’re on board?”

Jiyong scoffs. “I’m always on board for things, Seunghyun, I have nothing to do.”

Seunghyun had kind of hoped that Jiyong would be interested in the idea. He knew that on his own he’d probably just get frustrated, but Jiyong had a lot of great ideas, and he was nothing if not creative. “Excellent.” He says, kind of lamely.

“You could sell like…things people have made, and make music a priority…” Youngbae mutters, finally shoving Jiyong over further so that he can be in front of the list. Jiyong pouts and crosses his arms over his chest, but Seunghyun laughs outright.

“Looks like the whole thing will be planned by dessert.” Seunghyun says, and Jiyong cracks a smile.

~

“Is it December yet?” Erato asks from the floor on the far side of the Room of Requirement.

Seungri is fiddling with the radio, trying to find a song that they can practice to. “Uh, no?” He says uncertainly, lifting his head to look at her through the glass before him.

She sighs and uses the force of it to blow her bangs out of her face. “I know, I’m just getting impatient.” She starts tapping her fingers against her thigh, her head tilted to the side as she watches him.

“Impatient for Christmas break?” He asks, a smile on his face as he finds the channel that he wants. He turns back to her and motions for her to stand up.

“Not exactly.” She says as she rises from the floor and moves closer. “I’ve just been waiting for December since last semester.” She says it nonchalantly, but Seungri is certain that she’s trying to hint at something because Jiyong has used this same technique before. He decides to ignore it though, because he has a hard enough time dancing with her as it is without adding thinking to the mix.

Seungri grabs her hands and pulls her close enough that they can start to dance. She hadn’t really improved much since they’d left off for the summer. He wasn’t surprised about this though, because she really wasn’t a good dancer and she didn’t seem too concerned by that fact. He’d actually been surprised when she’d mentioned continuing the lessons on the train ride in.

Twenty minutes later they are sitting on the floor in the center of the room, and Erato is inspecting Seungri’s hands. “I was reading one of the divination books that the third years use,” She starts as she turns his hands over to look at the palms. “And it said that you can figure out someone’s life trajectory from the lines on their hands.” She traces one of the lines with her finger, and Seungri bites his lip.

“That sounds stupid, I thought you said that divination was stupid.” He says, and she looks up at him with a smirk on her face.

“Yeah, I did.” She says, before dropping his hands onto his lap and leaning back with her hands behind her for support.

“What’s your real name?” He blurts out after a couple seconds of silence. She’s quiet for a moment, before she speaks.

“Claudia Drusilla.” She says, and he blinks a couple of times before tilting his head to the side and frowning.

“That’s very…”

“Awful?” She asks with a shake of her head. “Yeah, Mum and Dad are huge early Roman fans. It’s why I know Latin.” She says, shrugging her shoulders as she does.

“Who was she, then?” He asks, and she turns a smile on him, which makes him blush and rub his hands self-consciously against his pants.

“The first empress of Rome.” She states. “Most people called her ‘Livia’.”

Seungri tilts his head to the side and stares at her profile for a minute. The silence that creeps in is comfortable, and Seungri feels at ease for the first time in a while. “You kind of look like a Livia.” He says, and she laughs outright at that.

“Call me whatever you want, Seungri. You know I’m happy with anything.”

****************

A/N Hey guys! It's been absolutely forever! Unfortunately I couldn't find this story on my computer ANYWHERE so it isn't quite what I was expecting to have happen. >< Anyway, I hope you still enjoy ^^ <3