There are four other boys in Seunghyun’s room. His four-poster bed is the farthest from the door, and therefore the closest to the window. He hates the set-up of the room, with three beds on one wall and two on the other in some weird type of staggering. Because of this, there is one bed on his left and one kind of diagonally across from him; he kind of wishes that the curtains on his four-poster were more substantial.

It’s not that Seunghyun dislikes the boys in his dorm; on the contrary he’s actually rather friendly with a few of them. The biggest problem is that he doesn’t really like crowds, and he doesn’t really like sleeping in the dormitory, and to be honest he doesn’t really like being away from home. It was only his third morning at Hogwarts, and he was contemplating the ramifications of just…leaving.

“We’re forever away from everything; you can’t just walk out of Hogwarts and be on your way.” Seunghyun looks up from his plate to see Youngbae sitting down across from him with Jiyong right beside him; twin smiles gracing their faces as they acknowledged him.

“Morning! How did you sleep? Terribly? I bet. So did I.” Jiyong says rapidly, leaning across the table to pat Seunghyun on the head. It had been Jiyong who had spoken previously, and Seunghyun thanked fate that he had met these two; they always seemed to say the right thing at the right time without ever even really knowing that they were doing it. “Youngbae tried to tell me that Connor Wayne walked off the grounds and back home or something yesterday, but that’s stupid, because you can’t do that, and why would you want to?” Seunghyun smiles as he watches Youngbae turn a light shade of pink at Jiyong’s comment.

“I didn’t believe it, Ji, I was just telling you what I heard!” He looks directly at Seunghyun, “Everyone knows that if you miss home you can just owl them, the school has tons of owls! I saw them yesterday!” Seunghyun just nods; he hadn’t really known that, but now that he did, he figured he would give it a try.

“We should go there later, check it out…” Seunghyun says nonchalantly, looking up at the Professors to avoid his friends’ gazes.

“Oh yes! Yes we should.” Youngbae says as he starts to dish out eggs, bacon, and toast onto his and Jiyong’s plates. “It will be fun, and we can send our parents letters! Do you want more pumpkin juice?”

Jiyong just shakes his head, “Leave him alone you weirdo, he has plenty of juice, see?” he says as he picks up Seunghyun’s goblet and shows it to Youngbae who sticks his tongue out at him and puts the pitcher down a little dejectedly.

Seunghyun smiles and shakes his head, “Gimme that back! I’m thirsty” he says taking a large drink before holding it out to Youngbae, “Can I have some more, please?” Seunghyun can’t help but smile wider as Youngbae happily obliges and Jiyong starts to pout.

As much as Seunghyun wishes he could leave Hogwarts, he is also so glad that he’s here.

***

Quidditch is officially Jiyong’s new favorite sport, not that he ever really had a favorite sport before but by the time the first game of the season was approaching and they had had their flying lessons, he was convinced that Quidditch was the sport for him…

…to watch. He liked watching it, and playing it casually with his friends. After their first flying lesson they were allowed to use the brooms and a quaffle during any supervised break time. Because of this, Jiyong found out that while he’s not terrible at the sport, he would much rather just watch the games than participate. He also found out that Youngbae is pretty good at it, and that Seunghyun would rather eat twigs than play when anyone else was around.

“You only fell once! It’s bound to happen! I mean you’re floating in mid-air! Can’t you just try to like it?” Jiyong says, tripping over himself as he chases Seunghyun down the corridor after Charms. It was their only Gryffindor/Ravenclaw class, and on Tuesdays they had free-time afterward.

“No, Ji, I don’t like Quidditch, I don’t like brooms, and if you don’t stop bothering me I probably won’t like you either.” Seunghyun replies angrily, swerving through the crowd of people in a vain attempt to throw Jiyong off so that he could head back to his dormitory in peace.

“Would you go to games with me? What if Youngbae were sick? Who would I watch with?” Jiyong asks, as if the whole world would end if he had to sit through a game alone.

Seunghyun just looks back at his small friend quickly, eyebrow raised, before shaking his head and facing forward again.

“Yah! Don’t ignore me! It could happen! It’s cold here and Youngbae might catch a cold and he wouldn’t be allowed out of the castle and then—“

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world, Ji. You would just go to the game with some of your other friends, or you would sit in your common room with him, pouting about missing the game.” Seunghyun says, coming to a stop in front of a tapestry with a goat on it.

“I don’t pout.” Jiyong says, crossing his arms over his chest…and pouting.

“Yes, I know. You should probably go back now, though; you left Youngbae at the Charms classroom talking to the professor. If you don’t hurry you will have wasted your entire break.”

Jiyong’s eyes go wide, “Oops.” He looks back over his shoulder as if expecting to see Youngbae running after him, “I…this conversation isn’t over!” He says, trying to look stern before he smiles, waves, and runs off, back the way that they had come. Seunghyun smiles slightly, before ducking behind the goat tapestry.

Jiyong practically runs into Youngbae. He hadn’t been gone for near as long as he had imagined because Youngbae was just walking out of the Charms classroom, eyes bright and his mouth lifted into a smile as Jiyong came streaking down the corridor.

“Woah! What happened?” Youngbae asks, catching Jiyong as he was about to hit him while skidding to a halt.

“Nothing!” Jiyong replies, smiling happily, “Just walked Seunghyun down a ways. He doesn’t like Quidditch.” Jiyong explains as the fall into step with each other and head in the opposite direction from where Jiyong had come.

Youngbae shakes his head, “well yes, we knew that. He fell really badly off of his broom, remember? I don’t blame him for not liking a sport that has to do with brooms…” He pushes Ji’s shoulder lightly, “He doesn’t have to like it, does he?” Even though the question was meant to be teasing, Jiyong could tell that Youngbae was a little worried, for some reason.

“No, of course he doesn’t, but, like…He’s a Gryffindor! Where’s his bold and courageous spirit?” Jiyong was whining, hoping that it would turn Youngbae’s mood around.

It worked, Youngbae laughs, “You’re so weird. His courage  is what got him hurt in the first place.”

“You’re right, maybe he should just stay on the ground.” Jiyong says, scrunching his nose and shaking his head.

“Probably for the best. Let’s go outside before all the good brooms are taken!” Youngbae says, eyes going bright again.

“Race ya!!” Jiyong yells, pushing Youngbae away from him as he runs ahead, laughing.

***

It was getting close to Christmas and their first chance to go home, when it hit Youngbae: over break he wouldn’t see Seunghyun or Jiyong. It had only been around three months since they had all met, but for some reason, even though it was only going to be around a month, he was extremely worried that somehow they would both forget about him and he wouldn’t have any friends anymore.

This thought first struck him in the middle of Potions. Jiyong was working with a Hufflepuff girl named Anna, and talking freely with the two boys in front of him. Even though Youngbae was hard at work on his potion and working well with his partner (another Ravenclaw, Danny) he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe over break his friendship with Jiyong would change, and they wouldn’t be so close anymore.

It bothered him all through lunch, and Seunghyun tried to cheer him up while Jiyong just sat across from him and kicked him repeatedly in the shins, whining about how Youngbae was being boring. It bothered him through a letter he sent home to his mom, and dinner, where Jiyong tried absolutely everything in his power to make him smile. It wasn’t until he heard back from his mother two days later, and she told him to talk to his friends about it, that he started to feel better.

“But we won’t see each other for basically a whole month!” Youngbae whispers frantically, trying to keep his voice down as the Librarian passes the table next to theirs.

“What, do you plan on forgetting me and never writing to me while you’re home?” Jiyong says, a twinge of hurt making itself plain in his voice as he leans forward and his head to the side.

Youngbae scrunches up his face and starts fiddling with his quill, “no, I just didn’t, don’t…you have a lot of other friends.”

“Yeah, so do you but look who we’re sitting with.” Jiyong says, gesturing at their otherwise unoccupied table. “Speaking of, where’s Seunghyun? I thought he wanted help on his Transfiguration work?”

Youngbae scrunches his eyebrows together, deep in thought, before smiling. “Yeah, you’re right, you’re stuck with me.” He reaches across and pats Jiyong on the head before shuffling his stack of papers and preparing to write, “I dunno, I thought that he had mentioned playing a game in his dormitory before he left dinner.”