Hey lovely readers! Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, courtesy of N<3 Thanks as always for reading, commenting, and subscribing *^.^*

- J 

P.S. - Thanks to the lovely newyorkandbubbletea for the sweet shout-out about this story<3 Please check out her writing through the link below if you have the time *^.^* (http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view_author_stories/584000/L)

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Kris slinks through the shadows of the school, watching as Chanyeol and Baekhyun head in the opposite direction, towards the Gryffindor common room because it's now a few minutes after everyone is supposed to be in bed, laughing about something.

Kris is hoping they're laughing about Sehun, but at the moment, he's more preoccupied with finding a hiding spot.

Kris isn't stupid, even though Kai and Sehun frequently call him that, and he has definitely been keeping a closer eye on Kai ever since the Winter Formal.

So of course he had known that Kai had been planning on getting revenge after Kris had cursed him perfectly with the Jelly-Legs Curse.

Kris pauses for a moment in the middle of the dark hallway, brushing imaginary dust off of his shoulder and smirking proudly.

A portrait nearby of a fat, old man glares at him grumpily.

"Keep moving Kris Wu," he says sternly. "You're not supposed to be out of bed at this time young man."

Kris shoots the picture a disgruntled glare before continuing on his way, sticking his tongue out quickly as he does so.

Anyways...

Kris had seen the thirst for "justice" in Kai's eyes right before he'd left the other's room earlier, mumbling out an excuse about having to study when in fact he had just been trying to escape before Kai's idiotic brain could remember that his wand was lying very close by.

Hiding in the Slytherin common room would have been too obvious, and Kris hadn't even been sure that he could fit behind any of the furniture in the room, or remain inconspicuous behind the ink green curtains that hung around the huge, glass windows that looked out into the school lake.

So he had left, willing to risk being caught by Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris rather than stay and risk being attacked by Kai.

He had been meaning to head towards the library, sure that he could spend a few hours tucked into one of the back corners of the room, surrounded by bookshelves, but he had heard screaming coming from the direction of the infirmary, and had decided to go check and see if his plan for Sehun was running smoothly.

By the sounds of the screams, Kris had come to the conclusion that yes, Chanyeol was doing just what he had asked him to do.

Kris smiles victoriously, wondering if Sehun has made it back to the Slytherin common room yet, crying like the big baby that he truly is underneath that sharp jawline and those broad shoulders and dreamy eyes-

Kris stops again, shaking his head to clear his obviously addled thoughts, nose wrinkled in disgust.

"Pull yourself together," he mentally scolds himself.

Kris continues down the hall, oddly cheerful despite the previous, disturbing thoughts.

There's no sign of Kai, the rain pattering down outside is soothing, and Kris indirectly probably made Sehun pee his pants.

Kris is almost in a good enough mood to forget about the horrible Quidditch match from earlier that day.

Until there's a sudden flash of lightning directly in front of him, lightning up the hallway.

Because in that flash stands a figure, standing stock-still in the middle of the hall, face angled downwards so that Kris can't make out any facial features in the brief lighting.

Kris screeches to a stop, all thoughts leaving his mind except for one.

"Kai."

A few moments earlier...

Suho stares down at the floor frantically.

"Oh fudge cake," he thinks, getting ready to drop to his knees because he just dropped his wand somewhere.

This is what he gets for sneaking out of bed after hours, Suho thinks bitterly.

But Luhan hadn't been in the room after him and Lay had returned from dinner, and Suho's panic mode had gone into full swing, visions of Luhan bound and gagged by centaurs dancing through his mind.

Lay had assured him that Luhan could take care of himself, but Suho had laid in bed staring at the ceiling until he could hear Lay's breathing slow down and steady out before getting up and slipping out of the room.

And now he's dropped his wand in the dark, and he's almost one-hundred percent sure that he can sense that darned Mrs. Norris nearby.

There's a sudden flash of lightning outside that lights up the entire hallway, and Suho almost screams.

But he manages to swallow the sound, glancing up in surprise instead.

And in the brief millisecond of semi-darkness before the gloom settles again, Suho glimpses a figure standing directly in front of him.

Luhan's breath catches in his throat as Sehun bends towards him, eyes intent and determined and focused on Luhan's mouth.

"He's going to kiss me," Luhan manages to think faintly, pressed up against the classroom door, Sehun's body emanating warmth from where it's slightly pressed against his.

And Luhan can just feel the barest whisper of a breath against his lips, his eyes falling closed against his will, when, suddenly, Sehun stops.

Luhan holds his breath, eyes fluttering open to look at the other boy, but Sehun has a different look on his face now.

He looks confused.

Luhan isn't sure what to say to break the silence, especially since they're still so close to each other, noses almost brushing, but Sehun beats him to it.

"Did you hear that?" he asks quietly, not moving an inch, his bangs tickling the top of Luhan's forehead.

"Hear what?" Luhan asks.

But Sehun doesn't answer, closing his eyes as if to seemingly listen closer.

Memories of the screeching monster from the infirmary float through Luhan's mind, but he pushes them away quickly.

"What is it?" Luhan asks, a tinge more desperate because it seems as if whenever he roams the school at night something disastrous happens.

But Sehun just cups a hand over Luhan's mouth, keeping him quiet, Luhan jumping at the sudden contact.

He's about to push Sehun's hand away when he hears it.

It almost sounds like a child's giggle.

Luhan's eyes widen, staring into Sehun's, whose eyes have snapped open immediately upon hearing the sound.

The two stand frozen for one second, two seconds.

And then...

There's a chorus of children laughing somewhere near the back of the classroom, the sounds echoing eerily around the stone walls.

Luhan and Sehun both scream.

Five minutes earlier...

"Did you hear that?" Xiumin asks Chen, and the latter pauses from where he's hunched over the Glumbumble cages stacked in the back corner of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Xiumin isn't sure why he let D.O. convince him to leave his warm bed at this time of night.

It may have had something to do with the fact that D.O.'s creepy-as-hell owl patronus had appeared above his head, muttering murderously about "treacle" and "Glumbumbles" and "do it now or I'll put flesh-eating slugs in your bed."

But anyways, as soon as Xiumin had snuck out of the Hufflepuff common room, he had been distracted by the sight of someone else hurrying down the hall, away from him.

Xiumin had started to follow, curious about who else was sneaking out at night, but then a pair of hands had dropped down over his eyes.

"Boo," Chen had giggled, flinching when Xiumin smacked him, heart racing.

Chen had explained that D.O. was already in his secret kitchen in the Room of Requirement, and Xiumin had just managed to absorb the words, "revenge plan", "new recipe", and "Hufflepuff" in his sleepy state.

But he had followed Chen nonetheless, the latter grabbing his hand and tucking it inside the sweatshirt he was wearing, intertwining their fingers together in a warm cocoon.

Xiumin's heart never failed to flutter whenever Chen did things like that.

Chen had led them to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Xiumin standing nearby while Chen searched the various cages in the back for Glumbumbles.

Xiumin didn't even want to know why D.O. needed the grey, furry insects, so he didn't bother asking.

And everything had been going smoothly, no signs of Filch or Mrs. Norris, until about two seconds ago.

"Hear what?" Chen asks.

Xiumin holds up a hand for Chen to be quiet, closing his eyes to listen more closely.

And there it is again, the hushed sound of voices and footsteps coming from the front of the classroom.

Xiumin's eyes snap open, but he can't see anything through the shadows.

"What is it?" Chen asks, a Glumbumble cage clutched to his chest with one hand, another, smaller cage in his other hand.

"Someone else is here," Xiumin answers quietly.

Quick as a flash, Chen shoves the smaller cage into Xiumin's arms before grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the set of stairs to their right.

"Where are you going?" Xiumin hisses, almost tripping and falling, but Chen just tugs him up the stairs until they're crouched on the platform at the top, the door to Professor Lupin's office against their backs.

And then there's silence.

"Is it Filch?" Chen whispers, but Xiumin shakes his head, heart racing in his chest.

"I don't know," he replies, hand still clutched tightly in Chen's. "I couldn't see them."

"Them?" Chen asks.

"It sounded like more than one per-," Xiumin begins to say, but then he hears the voices again, much closer this time, and both him and Chen freeze.

"What is wrong with this school?" someone asks, the voice oddly familiar and very out of breath, but Xiumin can't place it.

There's the sound of a chair scraping back, a sigh, and then a second chair moving.

And then silence for a few moments.

Xiumin jumps when the first voice speaks again.

"So are you going to explain what was going on now?"

Why is that voice so familiar?

Xiumin frowns, knowing that he definitely knows the person, has heard their voice countless times, but it's so dark and he can't see down into the classroom and he's still trying to calm his heart after thinking that it was Filch.

All he knows is that the voice is male and breathy.

There's a thunk, as if something has landed on top of one of the desks, and then a second, less familiar voice joins in, muffled enough that Xiumin has to strain to understand them.

"I was trying to go to sleep, and then I heard a noise, and then that thing that you heard screaming ran towards my bed."

Xiumin stops pondering who Breathy is, distracted not by the new boy's voice so much as he is by what he just said.

Xiumin glances sideways at Chen, raising an eyebrow, but Chen only shrugs in confusion.

Breathy makes a noise of what sounds like surprise, and suddenly Chen is jerking next to Xiumin, releasing his hand to clap his own over his mouth.

Xiumin's eyes grow wide with alarm, but Chen is grinning like a cat when he lowers his hand.

"Luhan," he mouths, motioning down towards the classroom.

And a lightbulb goes off in Xiumin's head.

Of course that's Luhan's voice, how could he have forgotten it?

But who's the other person?

In the excitement, Xiumin has missed a few things the two have said, but then the slightly familiar second voice is speaking again, now less muffled.

"What were you doing outside of the infirmary?"

There's something nagging at Xiumin, in the back of his mind, because he's sure he knows this voice too, although it's not as familiar as Luhan's.

Chen is also frowning in concentration, but he's beginning to look more like he's remembering a horrifying memory more than anything else.

Xiumin decides not to ask.

"Ummm," Luhan says, sounding uncomfortable, "I was just-"

"Shouldn't you have been at dinner with everyone else?" the second voice interrupts, sounding curious, but also somewhat hopeful.

Hopeful for what, Xiumin isn't sure, but he can probably make an educated guess based off of the tone.

Xiumin smirks.

Luhan hadn't told him he was seeing someone.

Xiumin kind of wishes that Suho could be here right now because he would love to see the motherly protectiveness spread across his body, eyes lighting up with protective wrath and all that.

There's silence for one second, two seconds.

Three seconds.

Both Xiumin and Chen are leaning forward, straining to hear Luhan's answer like they're watching some Muggle soap opera or something.

"Next on The Chamber of Secrets, Scandal, and Love..."

Xiumin shakes his head, clearing his thoughts.

"I came to see if you were okay," Luhan suddenly blurts out.

Chen shares a knowing look with Xiumin, making exaggerated kissy faces.

"I saw all of the other players come in for dinner..." Luhan continues as Xiumin stifles giggles behind his fist.

"...and I even saw Kai headed back to the Slytherin common room with a bowl full of pudding."

Chen freezes again, eyes growing wide as if he's seen a ghost.

"What?" Xiumin mouths at him, confused.

"He tied me to a chair," Chen whispers half-hysterically, half-angrily, and now Xiumin is even more bewildered.

"Luhan?" he ventures quietly, although he's not sure why Luhan would have had Chen tied to a chair.

He ignores the spark of jealousy and slight nausea he feels at the thought.

"What? No!" Chen says, looking a little disturbed, and Xiumin puts his hands up in a "Well, I don't know" gesture.

But Chen doesn't have time to correct him because there's sudden movement from down below, and Xiumin just catches Luhan saying, "I'll just go," before there are footsteps headed towards the front of the classroom.

A few seconds later, there's the screech as a chair is pushed back quickly, and then more hurried footsteps in the same direction.

And for some reason, Xiumin and Chen realize who the second person is at the same time.

"Sehun," they say simultaneously, looking at each other in surprise.

“Oh my goodness get me some popcorn,” Chen mutters with a smirk, forming binoculars with his hands as he peers over the railing towards the duo.

Xiumin’s right behind him, still slightly shocked as he grips Chen’s shoulders and attempts to spot their companions in the darkness.

He can’t see anything.

Great.

“Ahh, and then there was silence,” Chen whispers with a grin, and Xiumin frowns.

Because really though, why’d they stop talking?

Unless if they were-

“And let the y times ensue,” Chen comments smugly, shoulders shaking under Xiumin’s hands from his silent chuckles.

Xiumin’s eyes widen in the darkness, and an uncomfortable feeling settles in his stomach.

It’s like Suho’s motherly instincts have taken over his body.

Xiumin releases a quiet groan of discomfort, because he is perfectly fine with letting Suho keep the role of mom of the group.

Absolutely fine.

He’d rather have to kiss Luhan than be on the giving end of Suho’s infamous Talks.

Although it seems like someone else has already filled the kissing Luhan position.

“Someone needs another Talk,” Suho’s voice singsongs in Xiumin’s head.

Suddenly feeling like the room’s a little too warm, and Sehun and Luhan’s silence is a little too unnerving, Xiumin quickly releases his hold on Chen’s shoulders, hyperaware of their close proximity.

“You ok?” Chen says, turning to look at Xiumin with concern as he lowers his binocular hands.

Xiumin nods as he steps backwards

Right into one of the cages sitting on the ground.

It releases a noise as its jostled, almost like, laughter?

But Xiumin doesn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it as he finds himself falling backwards, praying that he won’t wake up the entire school in the process.

That is, until a hand grasps his forearm firmly, pulling him away from his inevitably noisy doom.

And up into Chen’s embrace, the latter holding onto Xiumin with one hand on his arm and the other coming up to pull him closer by the hip.

“Well that was close,” Chen whispers, and Xiumin nearly goes cross-eyed at how close they are now, the tips of their noses brushing and Chen’s cheshire grin filling his vision.

“Protection!” Suho’s voice screams in Xiumin’s head.

Xiumin chokes on air as he spins around blindly.

His hands connect with the stone wall in front of him as his feet hit the cage again, hard enough this time to send the cage door swinging open with its tell-tale creak.

Chen gasps behind him.

And then Xiumin’s freezing, completely pressed against the cold stone wall, when what sounds like children’s laughter fills the room.

Meanwhile...

Suho has never been as scared as he is now in his life.

The kind of heart pounding, palms sweating, adrenaline pumping scared that one would expect in a horror film.

It’s partially due to the fact that he still hasn’t returned to his dormitory, probably making this a record for how late he’s stayed out after hours.

It’s been nearly fifteen minutes.

But it’s also due to the fact that he has now come to the conclusion that Luhan actually was kidnapped.

Suho cringes.

But it’s ok.

Because he has also come to the conclusion that he has found Luhan’s kidnapper.

Oh yes.

The suspicious figure that he’d seen in the split second of lightning earlier had initially terrified him, but his kidnapper conclusions only became more real when the mystery creature escaped off into the shadows of the school.

Or should he say, tried to escape.

Because as soon as Suho envisioned Luhan, his poor Luhan, bound and gagged and terrified somewhere in the school before inevitably being carted off into the Dark Forest by this kidnapper…

Something snapped.

Which is why, instead of being back in his beloved dormitory, Suho is now hunched behind a suit of armor, eyeing the kidnapper through the darkness ahead as it finally stops running.

Suho almost chuckles as he watches it glance around.

“Yeah, that’s right, you think you’re safe now,” he murmurs under his breath.

Because amongst the fear pulsing in his veins, Suho now feels a different emotion rise up inside him, something that makes him grip his wand tighter as he eyes the creature ahead of him.

Motherly rage.

Kris is beginning to rethink his life choices.

Because, despite how absolutely golden his pranks had been throughout the night, he’d almost forgotten how very deranged Kai could become when he wanted revenge.

And it seemed like Kai was on a mission tonight.

Because when the lightning had flashed in the hallway earlier, and Kris had spotted Kai’s hunched form further down the corridor, he’d whispered out his name in one last attempt to save himself.

But when there had been no response to the whispered “Kai”, and Kris’ stomach had felt like it was sufficiently stuffed up his throat, he’d gone into fight or flight mode.

Naturally, he chose flight.

No one chooses fight with a deranged Kai.

And apparently, so did Kai, seeing that he managed to stay on Kris’ tail the whole. damn. time.

Ten minutes later, Kris finds himself bent in half, hands on his knees as he gasps for air.

It’s kind of difficult when you’re trying to be quiet since you may or may not still have a psychopath following you.

But Kris manages, wheezing through his nose as he scans the area around himself.

It seems like he managed to finally lose Kai.

Thank god.

The only problem is that he now has no idea where he is.

But there’s a set of double doors further down the hallway, and he may as well find a more secure area to hide until he can get back to the common room.

Kris fails to notice the shadowed figure step out from the suits of armor behind him, tilting their head to the side before slowly following after him.

Darkness permeates throughout the seemingly empty school corridor, the night enveloping the area in complete silence.

Or nearly complete silence, if one could ignore the faint sound of breathing and scuffles within the darkness.

And in the dim moonlight of the hallway, a figure scurries halfway across the hall from one suit of armor before rolling behind another further up.

The sight would terrify anyone from a distance.

Kai raises up from behind his current suit of armor, wand clutched between both palms with his pointer fingers raised in a sort of Charlie’s Angels pose.

He grimaces shortly when his head connects with the arm of the suit of armor, sending it a glare before smirking.

What can he say?

Every great spy has obstacles at some moment.

“Kim Jongin, cunning member of the Hogwarts Assassins,” Kai begins in a hushed tone as he slinks out from behind the suit of armor.

“Stealing hearts by day-," another roll.

“Annihilating them by night,” he breathes out, back pressed to the wall as he scans the area.

And by “the area”, he means the same hallway he’s been in for the past five minutes.

“Subject is spotting no signs of movement at the moment,” he whispers, crawling on the floor towards the end of the hallway.

Peeking his head around the corner as he positions himself, now sprawled on his side, Kai stills when he hears a noise up ahead.

“Most know me as Kim Jongin,” he huffs out, inching out of the hallway into the next corridor.

“But once I’m done, they’re simply left with one name in their befuddled minds,” he continues, still scooting along with floor with a determined expression on his face.

Kai stills, lounging back onto his side as he lowers his gaze straight at the imaginary camera capturing his movements.

Smirking into the darkness, he levels his hands at nothing his target.

“Agent Kai”.

Lay swears as the door he just let go of swings shut a little louder than he’d intended.

Holding his breath for a second later, he waits to make sure the coast is clear before quietly setting off again.

“Where the hell did Suho go?” he mutters in frustration, because really, out of everyone he knows, Suho would be the last person to be out of bed after hours.

And yet here he is, padding through the halls of Hogwarts in his socks and pajamas in search of the other Hufflepuff.

Lay pauses for a second to admire his current attire.

Twisting his sock-clad foot from side to side, Lay sighs contentedly as the moonlight catches on the sparkles of his socks.

They’re unicorn patterned.

With sparkly unicorn horns.

His whole attire is actually a matching set.

Lay releases a hum of excitement as he waves his arms in the faint light, thrilled as the sparkly horns glitter slightly on his sleeves as well.

He’s fortunately knocked out of his sparkly-unicorn-horn reverie, however, by the faint sound of scuffling coming from behind him along with…is that breathing?

Almost feeling like he’s being watched, Lay feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand as he slowly turns around.

“It’s nothing, come on,” Lay chides himself, turning back around.

He’s honestly not sure where he is.

After all the years he’s been there.

But he has to find Suho, so he sets off further down the dark corridor, unicorn pajamas glinting slightly in the moonlight.

Even though the feeling that he’s being watched doesn’t go away.

Nor the idea in the back of Lay’s mind that he could have sworn he’d seen something when he turned around.

Almost like a large dark shape moving across the floor.

D.O. looks up from the fresh batch of cupcakes he just took out of the oven when he hears the doors to the Room of Requirement open.

Followed by the cackling laughter of his two accomplices.

He swears, if those two got too busy snogging each other too much and forgot his Glumbumbles, he's gonna be delivering some special cupcakes to more than one person in the future.

D.O.'s eyebrows raise as he hears Chen imitate some sort of high pitched laugh, almost like a child's laugh, which Xiumin then imitates as well, followed by an uproar of their regular laughter.

Those two are gonna make an interesting couple.

Xiumin and Chen finally come into view, practically leaning on each other for support as they continue to laugh.

At least D.O. can see the cage of Glumbumbles swinging from Xiumin's hand, and he releases a sigh of relief.

"Had fun on the Glumbumbles trip?" D.O. questions with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.

That seems to stop the laughter, however, as Xiumin's face turns unnaturally pink and Chen scratches the back of his neck.

D.O.'s smirk widens.

Xiumin clears his throat and lifts the cage of the moth-like creatures onto the table.

"We ran into Luhan," he starts, grin starting to creep back onto his face.

D.O.'s excitement for the Glumbumbles increases at the statement, and he grins as he leans in to look into the cage.

"But he wasn't alone," Chen picks up for Xiumin, raising his eyebrows mischievously. "A certain Oh Sehun was with him".

Xiumin and Chen share a knowing glance, before similar, slightly evil grins spread on their faces again.

D.O.'s eyes widen.

"What did you two do?"

Tao's undecided.

On one hand, he's exhausted, and his bed looks gloriously comfortable right now.

On the other hand, Kris isn't in the Slytherin dormitory, and it's been a while since everyone was supposed to be in their dormitories.

And after checking the other room, Tao's also aware that Sehun and Kai aren't exactly present at the moment either.

Hmm.

Tao sits heavily on the couch in the Slytherin common room, sending the hallway leading back to his room a yearning look.

Find Kris.

Or sleep.

It's not that hard of a decision.

He'll give Kris five more minutes.

If he doesn't fall asleep by then.

Kris wishes he was asleep in his bed, or at least back in the Slyt