For everyone who read this with the dividers mysteriously absent, my sincerest apologies -- hopefully now it makes more sense :) 

**

They met on the train. No, not that train—the Hogwarts Express wasn't due to set off for another month yet—they met on the train from London Victoria towards East Sus. They wouldn't have met at all, in fact, if Luhan hadn't slept through his alarm—and he wouldn't have slept through his alarm if he hadn't been up till the crack of dawn, reading up on Quidditch. Luhan loved Quidditch, was obsessed with Quidditch, lived and breathed Quidditch—and had never, not once, played it.

Well, that was a bit of a lie—he'd played around with his cousin's broom, whenever his cousin would let him (not often) and he'd snuck (or stole—semantics) out one of the school brooms every now and again, just to remind himself what it felt like. But a couple of turns around the lawn on his cousin's broom wouldn't get him a place on the House team. He knew that. Of course he knew that. That's why he'd never tried out for the team, of course. But it hadn't stopped him from wanting it.

As fate would have it, his father was finally recognized for his work at the Ministry. Which didn't seem like much, exactly, except that this recognition meant a raise, which meant his mother was nearly catatonic with joy, which meant that when they stopped by Diagon Alley, and Luhan said, "Say, mum, can I have a broom?" his mother's response was not a frustrated, repressive, "You know we haven't the money for that, Luhan," but rather a mild, "Oh, well, if it's not too expensive—"

It was to be delivered Saturday. Luhan tore through his Quidditch books as if they were brand new, as if he didn't already know them by heart, and had fallen asleep muttering things like, "Left feint—right feint—lower feint—"

Of course, his new broom had driven everything else clean out of his head. Specifically, the reason they'd gone to Diagon Alley at all: supplies for their trip to the coast. The month-long family vacation, courtesy of the Ministry, who wanted his father to write a report on bunyip trafficking between England and France.

Needless to say, Luhan had awoken to find a note attached to his face.

I told you a thousand times to be ready at 5 AM, young man. I never should have gotten you that broom. And you're too old to have your mother hovering over you, trying to drag you out of bed by your ear.

Enclosed is money for the train, if you feel like joining us.

Love,

Mum

He couldn't even be mad about it. Day after tomorrow he'd have a broom—his own broom!—and he'd have a full month to practice before school started.

It was really a miracle that Luhan made it onto the train at all—and a miracle that the train he got onto was the right train, because Luhan kept sneaking his Quidditch books out of his bag and trying to read them without the Muggles noticing. He threw himself down into a seat, dragged his bag up onto his lap, and began the complicated affair of reading a Quidditch book while trying to keep all the moving bits covered up. Little ink drawings of wizards kept zipping out from between his fingers and making rude faces at him in the margins.

"You know," a voice said, "you really ought to put that away."

Luhan froze. For a heady moment he thought he'd been caught by a Muggle—but a Muggle wouldn't tell him to put it away, surely. Which meant he'd been caught by a wizard. Visions of Azkaban filled his head, and the book slid free of his numb fingers and hit the ground, where it sprawled open, a team photo of the Chudley Cannons grinning cheerfully out at him.

Before Luhan could convince himself to move—he seemed to be frozen in horror—slender pale hands entered his vision and plucked the book up off the floor. Luhan looked tentatively up; eyes gently curved into amused half-moons twinkled back at him.

"You—you're—" Luhan said, or tried to. It was hard not to recognize him: Kim Minseok, Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Luhan had been memorizing his plays for the better part of six years. And he had, of course, managed to make a complete fool of himself.

"Yes," the other boy agreed, lips moving into a diminutive sort of smile. "And you're Luhan."

Luhan's mouth flapped open. "You—know me?"

"Well, sure," said Minseok. "You're the one who convinced all the paintings to boo and hiss at the Slytherins before our match last year."

Luhan promptly went scarlet from the roots of his hair to the collar of his shirt, but Minseok, thankfully, didn't seem to think this was strange. He set the book onto the table that stood between their chairs and slid it over to Luhan. "You really should put that away, though," he said. Luhan nearly dropped it all over again in his haste to get it into his bag.

"Just—just doing a bit of studying, you know," he was babbling, and knew he was babbling, but he was embarrassed and perhaps a little starry-eyed, because the Quidditch Captain was talking to him, holy jumping Merlin—"Just got my first broom, and I wanted to look up a few things before I got it, you know, just brushing up a bit, can't know too little about these—kinds—of things—" His voice faltered and trailed away.

"First broom?" Minseok said, and Luhan braced himself—a sixth year, and you're only just getting a broom? How poor are you, exactly?—"That's excellent. What'd you get?"

Relief swamped the pit of his stomach and turned into butterflies. Best Quidditch Captain in over a decade, and nice. As far as Luhan was considered, at that precise moment, there was nothing that could be wrong with the world. He launched into a long and detailed description of his broom, right down to the shape of its twigs; it occurred to him, every now and then, to wonder if he was boring the other boy, but then Minseok would smile and nod, and Luhan would be off again.

Really, Minseok had to do precious little on this train ride, save smile and nod; Luhan was talking enough for three people. And not quietly, either. More than one Muggle had given them a long, hard-eyed stare, as if to say, "You do know how loud you're being, don't you? And what nonsense!"

Not that Minseok minded. No, he didn't mind in the least. He wasn't talkative, but that didn't mean he disliked talking—he was perfectly happy to let someone else do it. And there was something to be said for sitting back and watching while a handsome, shiny-eyed sixth year talked Quidditch until he was breathless.

At some point in the tirade Minseok caught a mention of Lowhall. Lowhall—the same place Minseok was going to, segued into an impassioned speech on the subject of Slytherin indecency, the landscape outside their windows turned swiftly to hills and farmland and ravines, and Minseok told himself (unsuccessfully) that he wasn't just a little relieved to know that there would be someone else exiled in Lowhall. Lowhall was little old ladies and pensioners and empty summer homes, and had, thus far anyway, held absolutely nothing of interest.

The train pulled into their station, and Luhan broke off abruptly, looking out the window. "Are we here?" he said, surprised. "Already?"

"Yes, already," Minseok said, in what he hoped was a teasing voice—he wasn't good at teasing. He swung his bag onto his shoulder. "You're staying in Lowhall, then?"

"Uh—yeah," said Luhan.

"Excellent," said Minseok. "I'll be the blue house in the cliff. Come see me, we'll play some Quidditch, yeah?"

Minseok slid free of the seats and disappeared onto the platform, and tried not to be too pleased by the look of open-mouthed ecstasy on Luhan's face.

Oh, yes, he thought. This summer is definitely looking up.

**

Luhan all but floated onto the platform. A new broom—and now this. He had the distinct impression he'd just become mates with the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. We'll play some Quidditch, yeah?

"See, look, he's fine," a voice said, and out of nowhere Luhan was tackled by his mother, cheeks shining with tears.

"I was so angry!" she said into his shoulder, holding him so tightly that breathing suddenly seemed impossible. "I just left you, I'm a terrible mother, I can't believe—"

"No harm done," said Luhan, patting her back. "Found one of my mates from school, he's staying in Lowhall too!" Mates from school. His mate. From school. His heart fluttered happily.

"See, dear, all's well," his father said soothingly, prying her off of Luhan. "Come on, we'll get a little something for tea, and then we can show him the house—"

Still sniffling, his mother allowed herself to be led off, and Luhan, grinning, hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and followed them. He'd had his doubts about this whole Lowhall thing, but he was beginning to think this just might be the best summer of his life. The only thing that would make it better, in fact, were if a certain Quidditch captain happened, by some weird of luck, to also be gay ...

But, Luhan reasoned, there was only so much luck in the world.

**

Luhan wasn't rubbish. He was surprised—he was definitely surprised—and Minseok even seemed a bit surprised, in his own way. Minseok, Luhan was learning, wasn't given to big expression. You had to watch him, and glean what you could from the twitches of his mouth and the narrowing of his eyes. It was like trying to read a stone, sometimes, but Luhan didn't mind, because it at least gave him an excuse to stare at him shamelessly.

"You know," Minseok said, after the third day of this, "we should run through some plays—just some light stuff, you know, like what the team does for practice."

Luhan could imagine no better thing in the universe. No, that was a lie, the one thing better than running through a practice play with Minseok was when Minseok looked at him with those strange, beautiful eyes, and said, "Really well done, Luhan. Have you thought about trying out for the team?"

Why, yes. Yes he had. And until that moment, he'd thought it was the most impossible thing in the universe.

"Oh," said Luhan, demuring, "well—yeah—course—I just didn't think I'd be—you know—good enough."

"A bit raw, maybe, but you've got talent," Minseok said. His eyes had begun to twinkle again in what Luhan was learning was the Minseok equivalent of a smile. "If you're serious about trying out, I could help you. Use the next few weeks to train you up a bit."

"I would love you," said Luhan. "Possibly forever."

And, you know, he kind of sort of meant that.

**

Luhan's friends were looking for Luhan. Minseok's friends were looking for Minseok. They'd been up and down the platform and had finally begun making their way through the train, and they more or less collided in the middle, where they found Luhan and Minseok, crammed together on one side of the compartment, bent over a parchment Minseok had bewitched so that Quidditch plays moved across it in inky squiggles and blobs.

"See?" Minseok was murmuring. "You see what I mean?"

"Oh, yeah," Luhan was murmuring back. "Yeah, god, that's so obvious—"

Someone—it was hard to say who; there were plenty of them crowded in the doorway—cleared their throat. Luhan jumped, sending the play flying out of Minseok's hands, and Minseok, with typical aplomb, simply raised his head and looked at them.

And then, because it was definitely not (sarcasm) obvious enough to any of them that Luhan had been sitting very close indeed to Minseok, or that their heads had been bent very close together, and that this might mean something was afoot, Luhan promptly went red in the face. And Luhan's friends, who knew a thing or two, began to grin.

"We'll, ah, leave you to it, then," said Yixing pleasantly, and with only the mildest of innuendo. As his friends filed away, Luhan buried his face in his hands.

Minseok's eyebrow rose, just a hair.

**

Luhan, after that, tried to be careful. If it was obvious to Yixing, it was obvious to everybody, and that everybody might possibly include a certain Quidditch captain—so he tried to be careful. No flirting. None. No subtle rough-housing, no leaning on Minseok to get the butter at breakfast (because that was completely unnecessary and very, very bad, and had gotten him an entire fleet of paper airplanes on his desk next period, all sporting very inventive drawings of a stick-figure Luhan mauling a stick-figure Minseok) and absolutely, under no circumstances, was he to stalk Minseok in the library. Because that was creepy. And bad. Creepy and bad, even if Minseok seemed happy to see him (his eyes twinkled) and would sit with him all evening, pretending to help him with homework.

Besides, he had more important things to worry about: namely, Quidditch tryouts. Minseok was tight-lipped on the subject—more tight-lipped than usual, that is—but whenever they flew together, he said things like, "Excellent turn there, Luhan, you've really improved your cornering," and "Spot on with that catch, great form," all of which made him think he might actually have a shot. But there was a little corner of his brain that insisted this was nonsense. Minseok was only being nice; Minseok was, after all, nice.

He didn't say any of this to his friends, of course. The only thing that terrified him more than the idea of failing at tryouts was the idea of failing and having everyone know about it. Of course, if Luhan had been sensible about such things, he would have realized that everyone was going to know about it anyway, once tryouts were over; but Luhan's brain mostly worked up to the day of the tryouts and then just stopped.

That, and Jongdae was bound to make fun of him until they were both old and grey. Jongdae was already in throes of delight over Luhan's infatuation with a certain Quidditch captain (not that he was, you know, infatuated—he just looked infatuated. Because they were, um, close) and adding fuel to the fire was not particularly high on the list of things Luhan wished to do with his life.

The night before tryouts, Minseok found him at dinner, sitting wedged between Jongdae and Baekhyun, both of whom were trying to see who could get Luhan's pumpkin juice to explode first. "Luhan," Minseok said, leaning over him to speak in his ear, "could I see you for a moment?"

You would have had to have been blind not to see the way Luhan froze the moment Minseok bent over him, nor the near-habitual flush that stole over his cheeks, but his friends were nicer than he gave him credit for, and pretended they hadn't seen.

"Sure," Luhan said, and got up. His pumpkin juice shot towards the ceiling, and Chanyeol, sitting across from Jongdae, shouted out, "Foul! That's a foul!"

Minseok led him away from the tables, through the doors and into the entrance hall, and drew to a stop at the foot of the stairs. He sat down on one of the steps, and directed a look in Luhan's direction that said, in Minseok-speak, I command you to sit, or a rough equivalent thereof—Luhan sat.

"So," said Minseok. Luhan stared at his toes. "Your name is on the tryout roster." Luhan stared harder. "Look up, Luhan."

Having never heard Minseok say something quite like this, Luhan looked up, a little surprised, and met Minseok's eyes. Minseok was twinkling at him again, and there was the beginnings of a smile at the corner of his lips. "You'll do great," he said, and Luhan couldn't help believe him, because it was, well, Minseok. "One of my chasers graduated last year, you know, and unless there's another talented, good-looking Gryffindor I don't know about, I'd say your chances are fairly good. So don't worry yourself about it." He said the last as a command, and reached out to grab Luhan's shoulder, like his father liked to do—except that it didn't feel very much like when his father did it, and it felt as though Minseok's fingers lingered ever so slightly when he pulled his hand away.

Then Luhan thought, good-looking? He thinks I'm good-looking?

"See you tomorrow, bright and early," Minseok said, and got up from the stairs. Luhan was still trying to process the good-looking part, and didn't hear him.

**

As it would turn out, Luhan's friends didn't need to be told about tryouts, because they knew Luhan perfectly well, and had more or less pieced together what it was he had spent his month-long vacation in Lowhall doing. (In Luhan's presence, however, Luhan's experiences in Lowhall were made to include riding with Minseok across the beach, . While this probably hadn't happened—probably—it was worth it just to see Luhan go pink, then red, then purple, and vow to strangle them in their sleep if they ever repeated that to Minseok.)

They'd turned up en masse: Yixing and Jongdae, Chanyeol and Baekhyun, and even small, dark-eyed Kyungsoo, who looked as if he'd been dragged out of bed by force and wasn't particularly happy about it. Luhan felt his stomach somersault, and lifted his hand to wave at them. A cacophony of catcalls echoed up from the stands in merry response; not for the first time, Luhan wanted to knock their silly heads together.

Such things had a time and a place, obviously. That time and place being somewhere and sometime that very delicious Quidditch Captain Minseok was not.

"Okay," said aforementioned delicious Quidditch captain. "Let's begin, shall we?"

Luhan was going to be sick.

**

Luhan was not sick.

Luhan was untouchable. Luhan was in the clouds. Luhan was perfectly, incandescently happy. But most of all, Luhan was on the team.

Really, it was more a matter of, of course he's on the team. The Quidditch captain only coached him, one-on-one, for a month. Out of the goodness of his heart, obviously. (Or, you know, something else.)

His friends were pounding his shoulders, hugging him round the middle and lifting him in the air, cheering as if he'd just single-handedly won the championship for Gryffindor. Even Kyungsoo, who tended to be a little more reserved about these kinds of things, was grinning so hard his mouth had gone heart-shaped. And when they finally set him down so he could hit the showers, Minseok appeared by his side and put on a hand on his back to tell him he did a good job, and when he stepped away his hand slid down to Luhan's waist—just for a moment—and then Luhan's mind went blank and his friends were mauling him again.

And then Luhan had a terrible thought. A terrible, terrible, awful thought. He was on the Quidditch team ... which meant he would have to play a game. In front of the entire school. Very, very soon.

Oh, hell, Luhan thought.

But then, even if they did lose because he was awful and couldn't fly and had backwards thumbs or something (was that a thing?), he at least had something else to look forward to: weekly practices. Specifically, weekly practices with Minseok.

Luhan grinned.

**

Apparently, the world didn't stop spinning because of Quidditch, although this was news to Luhan, which is how he ended up in the library, buried under a pile of homework.

"I don't get it," Kyungsoo said disbelievingly. "You kept saying you were going off to the library to do homework!"

The tips of Luhan's ears began to redden, and he didn't answer. And then: "Luhan!"

Kyungsoo said, "Ah."

Minseok took the seat beside Luhan's, wearing his Minseok-smile again, eyes twinkling at Luhan full-force. "Did you catch up on that Potions essay?" he asked. Behind his stack of textbooks, Kyungsoo mouthed, Potions essay? They didn't have a Potions essay. Or, it might be more accurate to say, they had had a Potions essay, which had been due, well, the week before. Which Luhan supposed he had probably gotten a zero on, but he'd had other things on his mind, like round cheeks and beautiful eyes and that small thing called paralyzing terror of the upcoming tryouts.

"Oh," said Luhan. "Yeah. Yeah, course."

Liar, mouthed Kyungsoo.

"Want to go flying, then?" Minseok asked. His lips twitched—Luhan stared, mystified—yes, yes, there was the actual beginnings of a smile there. "It'll be a full moon tonight."

, Kyungsoo mouthed. . Beach.

Luhan threw a scroll at him, and was rather pleased when Kyungsoo let out a hiss. Minseok blinked. "Sounds amazing," Luhan said.

"Great," said Minseok. "Meet me in the Common Room at curfew, then?"

"Yeah," said Luhan, articulately. "I'll be there. Definitely. For sure."

And then Minseok smiled at him, and Luhan turned a shade of red so violent that he stayed that way at least ten minutes after Minseok had gone.

"Well, well, well," said Kyungsoo, with a hint of nastiness in his voice. He was doodling all over Luhan's scroll of parchment. "Looks like you've got yourself a date."

"Do not," said Luhan, snatching the parchment away. He looked down at it in despair. He hadn't brought any other parchment with him, and Kyungsoo had already managed to fill up most of it with a drawing of two stick figures on broomsticks that zoomed around and around the moon, forming the shape of a heart. Which would have been cute, if he hadn't known that Kyungsoo had done it for the expressed purpose of enacting revenge.

"Do so," retorted Kyungsoo.

"No—I—we flew at night plenty of times over the summer," Luhan said indignantly, but then Kyungsoo's eyebrows flew up so high that they disappeared beneath his bangs. Luhan fought the urge to bury his face in his hands.

Kyungsoo, however, had begun to pack up his books. Luhan looked at him quizzically. "Where are you going?" he asked. "We still have loads of time before curfew—"

"Oh," said Kyungsoo. "I promised to meet Jongdae in the Common Room, actually. Go over some of his Runes homework."

Luhan's eyes widened in horror. "Kyungsoo. No."

To which Kyungsoo replied, "Luhan and Minseok, sitting in a tree—K-I-S-S-I-N-G—"

Luhan dropped his head onto the table with an audible thunk.

**

Although Luhan had rather expected his friends to wait up with him, on hand for any and all jeering they might wish to partake in, they were all suspiciously absent from the Common Room. (This was actually due to Junmyeon, one of Minseok's friends, who had overheard Chanyeol, and summarily banned them from the Common Room for the night.)

Luhan, meanwhile, was trying not to fidget. He kept worrying about his sweater—too lumpy? Too tight? Too blue?—and smoothing his jeans as if they were slacks. He kept wheeling around to go back to the window and check his hair, all the while chanting to himself, Not a date. Not a date. Not, not not a date.

"Ready?" Minseok asked, and Luhan spun around, trying wildly to look as if he hadn't just been staring at his reflection in the window.

"Uh, yeah," Luhan said.

"We'll have to sneak out," Minseok said, straight-faced. "We'll get detention if we're caught."

"That's—okay," said Luhan, who probably would have agreed to just about anything at that moment, because Minseok was wearing a knit striped sweater and tight jeans and his cheeks were pink and his eyes were definitely doing the twinkly thing.

"Okay," said Minseok, eyes crinkling up a little. He held out his hand. "Come on, then." Like it was no big deal. Like the entire idea of it didn't make Luhan want to throw up with happiness. Like this was a thing that you did with your mates past curfew on a full moon.

Luhan reached out his hand, and Minseok took it, knitting their fingers together. Luhan's heart hammered hard against his ribcage.

Minseok let him out the portrait hole—"Well, I never!" said the Fat Lady, looking scandalized—and pulled him down the corridor. It had begun to sink in that they were sneaking out of the castle, and that this was conceivably going to get them a whole lot more than a singular detention. But then Minseok pulled him hard to one side, down a small hallway, to a portrait of a sheepdog.

"Go fetch," said Minseok, and as the dog ran out of the picture frame, the painting itself swung back from the wall to reveal a staircase.

"Merlin's beard," Luhan said, and Minseok gave him a little smile, very like the smile he'd worn on the train when they first met. Minseok tugged him forward, and together they ran down the steps, descending down and down and down, the air growing colder and colder, until the stairs ended and they found themselves in a little covered courtyard.

"You can't get in here anymore," Minseok said. "It's all fallen in. But I cleared out some of it—look—" He tugged at Luhan's hand again—Luhan's heart gave an accompanying jump—and led him to the end of the courtyard, where a pile of rubble had been shifted just enough to make room for one person to siddle through. The other side was a mass of bushes: the bushes, Luhan realized, that ran along the castle on the way to the Quidditch field.

Minseok—who still, it should be noted, had a tight grip on Luhan's hand—had begun moving sideways through the space in the rubble, pulling Luhan along behind him. Just before they ran face-first into the bushes, Minseok swerved and started sidestepping against the castle wall, the little outstretched evergreen needles of the bushes brushing past his face.

Luhan had been watching his feet instead of his head, however, and so got a face ull of needles—he sputtered and jerked his head back, and therefore knocked the back of his skull hard against the stone. He hissed in pain, and Minseok let go of his hand.

"Luhan?" he whispered. "Are you okay?" He reached up and pressed his hand against the back of Luhan's head where he's knocked it, as if he were genuinely concerned, but when Luhan looked over at him he saw that Minseok's eyes were curved into deep half-moons, and little lines were appearing around his mouth as he fought not to smile.

"It's not funny," Luhan said, but he was grinning.

"Come on, you big baby," Minseok said—which was not called for, thanks much—and together they wiggled free of the bushes at last.

Minseok had been right, Luhan thought, to suggest they sneak out. The grounds looked different at night—of course they did—but awash in moonlight, every color turned to silver, to blue, to grey, every shadow turned to the deepest of blacks—it was the faerieland of Hogwarts, and he loved it.

Fingers caught in his again, and then Minseok was smiling at him—smiles seemed to do funny things to Luhan's stomach, and made things like running difficult—they pelted together towards the Quidditch field, running not because they feared being caught, but because they wanted to.

They rescued their brooms from the locker room and took off hard from the ground, sailing high into the sky—higher than the stadium, higher than the goal posts, till they floated nearly as high as the North Tower. The air was colder now, and the wind bit into him, but Luhan didn't care. He gripped his broom tight in both hands and leaned forward to stare.

None of it looked real. If he had reached out, and his fingers met with paper, he would have understood. It was surreal, but most of all it was beautiful. "Do you like it?" Minseok asked, and Luhan breathed, "Oh, yes."

Minseok caught his eyes, and gave a little chin jerk, a chin jerk that meant, in practice, that it was time to get your moving. Luhan grinned. "Whatever you say, captain," he said, and a moment later they were speeding over the grounds—Minseok's broom wasn't as new nor as fast as Luhan's, but he was the better flyer by far—they spiraled around Hagrid's cabin and over the trees and then wheeled and pelted off towards the castle—Minseok arced daringly past Gryffindor tower, then dipped below Luhan and took off at top speed for the lake—Luhan, spying his intent, pointed his broom towards the lake, abandoned all fancy nonsense, and focused everything on faster, faster, faster.

He was close enough to touch the twigs of Minseok's broom—the edge of the lake was coming fast—he drew level with Minseok's shoe, and then they were over the lake, cool air rushing up. They slowed, flying close now, knees bumping into one another; Luhan realized, with a jolt, that Minseok was grinning. He was so distracted by the magical things this new expression did to Minseok's face that he was quite unprepared for the moment when Minseok reached out one hand, took a fistful of Luhan's shirt, and yanking him forward, kissed him.

Luhan somewhat spoiled the moment by promptly losing control of his broom, which dropped several feet; he heard the distinct sound of Minseok laughing. All right, then, he thought, and zipped back up again—Minseok looked at him, startled, as Luhan let go of his broom altogether and took Minseok's face between his hands. Luhan didn't think he'd ever properly appreciated how round Minseok's cheeks were until that moment. "By your leave, captain," he said, and pressed their lips together. He felt Minseok smiling, and a little thrill went down his spine, because he knew, he knew, that Minseok didn't smile like this for anyone but him.

A stray current of air caught their brooms, and they broke apart. They were smiling at one another, but there was a hint of hesitation as Minseok said, "Okay?"

"Yeah," said Luhan. "Very okay." Minseok's smile spread into a grin.

Luhan squinted skyward. "Little chilly," he observed. "Fancy coming down, or—?"

"Oh, yes," agreed Minseok. "Quite chilly, don't know what I was thinking—"

They headed back for the Quidditch field, flying a little slower than before, bumping into one another every so often just because they could. They landed just outside the locker rooms, and went in together to lock their brooms back into their respective lockers—due diligence, and all that.

Standing with his back to Luhan, fiddling absently with his Quidditch robes, Minseok said, "You sure you're, um, okay with this?"

"Pretty sure," Luhan said, who'd been "pretty sure" since the first time Minseok smiled at him on the train, and "really damn sure" for at least a month.

"Because," Minseok began again, voice smaller and lower yet, "you don't—have to—um—play along, just because I'm—"

Luhan was beginning to see where this might be leading. "Don't be stupid," he said.

Minseok looked around at him sharply, eyes flinty and hard, and Luhan was far gone enough to note, distantly, that Minseok looked almost as good angry as he did laughing. "If you think I like you because you're the Quidditch captain, that's stupid," Luhan maintained obstinately. He got to his feet and crossed over to where Minseok was standing. Suddenly Luhan was in the awkward position of explaining his feelings to the boy who'd kissed him first, and his mouth tugged down into a frown.

"Why the one-eighty?" he asked at last.

Minseok looked away. "Your broom dropped."

"And you, what, got to thinking that maybe it was because—because I don't like you?" Luhan said, incredulously.

His lips thinned dangerously, but Minseok nodded.

"I could just shake you right now," Luhan said.

"Yeah?" Minseok said defiantly.

"Yeah," Luhan said, and shoved the other boy backward into the locker. Minseok froze for a split second, shocked, and then Luhan was kissing him, hands digging into Minseok's hips and pinning him hard against the wooden lockers. It only took Minseok by surprise for a moment. He hooked a hand around the back of Luhan's neck and dragged him down another inch or two—optimal range, he thought—and was a little derailed when Luhan laughed.

"Going to be a contest?" Luhan murmured against his lips.

Minseok pulled his head away. "No," he said, eyes gleaming. "Because I'd win."

**

It's hard to say who won, exactly, because they both looked smug the next morning; they sat together at the breakfast, hair in varying states of disarray, elbows doing subtle battle while they pretended, nonchalantly, to eat. No one commented on this—or the footsie; we don't talk about the footsie—nor asked about how the date had gone, perhaps because the latter was largely obvious.

Then, halfway through breakfast, Luhan flicked a grape at Minseok's face—there was a startled pause as everyone realized, collectively, that no one had ever dared to do such a thing before—and then Minseok said, savagely, "Now you're going to get it."

Except this seemed to be precisely what Luhan wanted, for he'd gotten up from the table and walking as fast as he could out of the hall, an unmistakably gleeful smile plastered across his face. Minseok followed behind, hands in pockets, calling out, "You think you can run away from me?"

"Merlin," Jongdae muttered into his pumpkin juice. "It's too early for this."

"Five galleons say they never actually went to bed," Chanyeol said. They looked at Chanyeol, then down the hall, where Minseok was disappearing out the doors, all of them wearing identically delighted expressions.

"They are going to be so gross," Kyungsoo sighed, and Baekhyun snorted into his orange juice, but only because it was true.

**

Minseok was annoyed. At first, when he'd heard Madam Hooch was ill, he'd been concerned. Of course he would give the first years their first flying lesson; it was such a small thing, no, no, don't worry about it at all—and then he'd crash landed into a world in which he could kiss Luhan in broom cupboards whenever he liked. Which meant, now, that these first years were detracting from very valuable time that he might be spending ... otherwise employed.

He glowered at them, and they stared back, wide-eyed, like rabbits. Minseok disliked rabbits. He disliked first years. He disliked the sun for shining when there ought to be thunder and lightning and torrential downpours.

"So," he said curtly, hands knotted behind his back, "who thinks they know how to fly?"

A few little hands went up; one of them, a boy with deep golden skin and full lips, looked positively petrified when Minseok locked eyes with him. "What's your name?" Minseok barked. The first year jumped and nearly tripped over his broom.

"J-Jongin, sir," said the first year.

"Who's that to your right, Jongin?"

Jongin's eyes slid to his right, then snapped back to Minseok's face as if he was afraid of being caught looking. "Sehun, sir."

"And to your left?"

"Zitao, sir."

Minseok looked away from Jongin, and the little first year sagged with relief. He gazed around at the class. "The first rule of flying," Minseok said, "is to be aware of your surroundings. What's the weather like? How strong is the wind? Are there any buildings to be aware of, or as is most often the case, other flyers?"

Little heads bobbed all around him in earnest.

"We'll give it a go," Minseok said. "Reach out your hand, concentrate, and say, 'Up!' "

Jongin's broom rocketed upward with such force that it made an audible sound when it collided with his hand; his friends Sehun and Zitao were only seconds behind him. The rest of the class, however, was abysmal. He walked around, correcting mistakes and murmuring encouragements, until they all had their brooms aloft.

"Good," he said. "Now. Step over your broom, get your feet firmly on the ground, and then push. I want you to hover, and hold it till a count of ten, and then set down again."

"Yes, sir," the class said. And then, all over the place, he had kids dropping to the ground, or forgetting to count, or drifting around like they'd been caught in a current—except for little Jongin, who floated gently in place for ten seconds and the landed again, just fine.

He stopped at Jongin's shoulder. "Fly a lot at home, Jongin?"

Jongin's hands tightened on his broom handle. "N-No, sir. I'm Muggleborn, sir—I've never ridden a broom before."

"Hm," said Minseok. "Excellent job. You too, Sehun and Zitao; good job, all of you."

And he moved on, but not before he saw that Jongin had gone pink, and was smiling happily at his broom handle.

Okay, so he didn't actually hate first years. Or the sun. He still had better things to be doing, though.

**

Luhan was , an arm thrown over his eyes, lying prone on the couch in the Common Room. Jongdae, who was seated on the arm of the couch, rolled his eyes heavenward. "Minseok," he said to the Quidditch captain, as he came in through the portrait hole, "come and console your boyfriend."

"Define 'console,' " Minseok said, earning a "bleccch" from the corner of the room in which Kyungsoo was seated. ("You're just jealous because that third year snubbed you!" Baekhyun said, tossing a shoe at him, and only just missed getting hexed in the face.)

"I'm going to die," Luhan moaned. "First I'm going to cost us the Quidditch match and then I'm going to die."

"Unlikely," Minseok said, "on both counts."

Luhan threw his arms out and stared dramatically at the ceiling. "You don't understand," he said. "I am the worst Quidditch player in history."

Minseok stepped up to the couch and peered down at him. "That distinction goes to that Hufflepuff third year who tried to try out," Minseok said. "Firstly, wrong team, and secondly, they could scarcely get off the ground."

Luhan let out another powerful moan and covered his face again. Jongdae sent Minseok a long-suffering look as if to say, you see? You see what I have been dealing with?

"Here's an idea," Minseok said. "Until you get your act together and win us a Quidditch match, two feet."

Luhan peeked at him under his arm. "Two feet of what?"

"Space," said Minseok. "Between us. At all times."

Luhan jerked upright, horrified, and there was a little murmur of "What!" "Unfair," and "Will Luhan even be alive by Saturday?"

"Wait," said Luhan. "I take it back. I was just kidding. I'm totally going to win. Who cares if they're Slytherins and built like trolls? I totally going to win."

"Oh, but you seemed so genuine before," said Minseok, opening his eyes very wide, the picture of innocence. "I think I'll keep the two foot rule, just in case."

Luhan hung himself over the back of the couch, leaning as far towards Minseok as he could manage. "Min-seok," he whined. Minseok's reply was to eyeball the distance between them and then take a careful, measured step back.

"That's metal," said Jongdae.

"Well, must run," said Minseok. "Duty calls, you know. See you later, Luhan."

He left Luhan hanging over the couch, face pressed into the fabric, Kyungsoo standing at one shoulder saying, soothingly, "It's only till Saturday—"

He didn't actually have anything to do. He'd really intended on getting some good, er, quality time in with Luhan. Which meant that Minseok was left wandering the halls, highly irritable and shouting at first years because it was better than going back to the Common Room. Luhan, last till Saturday? What about him?

He'd be lucky to make it to dinner.

**

The morning of the Quidditch match with Slytherin, Minseok and Luhan were sitting hollow-eyed at the breakfast table, staring at porridge that neither one of them had touched. Minseok was thinking, Just one more hour, and Luhan was thinking, One hour which is sixty minutes which is three thousand six hundred seconds which is FOREVER and I want to die.

If anyone cared to measure, there was not two feet of distance between them, but Minseok's determination about the thing had been so worn down that there had been a bad moment, in the hallway outside the Charms room, in which he had very nearly seized Luhan by the shoulders and kissed him in front of the entire bloody school. Or however much of it was in the Charms corridor, anyway. So the required space was very quietly wheedled down, for the sake of Minseok's sanity, although this seemed to drive Luhan even more crazy.

"He's drawing skulls in his Transfiguration book," Jongdae reported, and then promptly went off into gales of laughter, because Jongdae had a cruel kind of humor and thought this was fully the best thing that had ever happened.

Fifty-four minutes which is three thousand two hundred and forty seconds which is DEFINITELY FOREVER—

"We should go," Minseok said, in a reasonably even voice.

"Right," said Luhan, in an equally even voice, and the rest of the Quidditch team got up and followed them.

"This was a bad idea," said Chanyeol.

"No, it's not," said Jongdae.

"The second they win, Luhan is going to jump Minseok in front of everyone," Chanyeol said. "Does no one see a problem with this?"

"No," said Baekhyun. "If they get detention they can just make out the whole time."

"Merlin," said Kyungsoo, and knocked back his pumpkin juice like he'd have rathered it was something stronger.

**

They were huge. They'd been huge before, but now they were huger, and if that were possible, uglier. Except for Beatrice; Luhan had to give them points for Beatrice. She was, admittedly, very pretty. She was also at least half gorgon and was known to eat men for breakfast.

Luhan's stomach was doing an unhappy wiggly thing that seemed to be communicating a general threat to vomit forth the contents of his breakfast at any moment. He knotted his hands into fists and focused on the goal. Literally, the goal posts—metaphorically, Minseok.

Almost immediately, his stomach calmed. He had a mission. There was a boy with pretty eyes and a smile that took some coaxing and by Merlin's beard he was going to see it. If anyone had been paying attention to them, they would have seen a slightly manic gleam come into his eyes. He stared hungrily at the Slytherins. You, he thought. You will be the thing that brings me Minseok. I will destroy you. I will destroy you.

Madam Hooch, looking slightly pale but otherwise healthy, blew the whistle. The balls went into the air, and Luhan was gone.

He seemed to move much faster than his broom ought to be capable of; he was here, he was there, he was weaving between the Slytherins, crowding their air space and doing slightly inadvisable things like whispering "I'm gonna get you," as he flew past, quaffle in hand, to score.

The Slytherins, who aren't kindhearted on the best of days, were working themselves into a proper frenzy. It became their personal mission to strangle Luhan on his broom. Unfortunately, this left the rest of the players in the game—namely, the entire Gryffindor team—open to do whatever they liked. And what they liked, of course, was to score.

So while Luhan was tormenting the Slytherins, and the other Chaser was scoring (repeatedly, and with astonishing ease), Minseok was left to do little else other than sit in front of the Gryffindor goals and watch. Truth be told, he didn't much like what he saw. He was beginning to wonder to what lengths the Slytherin team would be driven to.

Luhan, who had just snuck up behind a Slytherin beater and whispered, "I like your wart, is it new?" was now zooming across the Quidditch field as fast as he could go, drawing the Slytherins away from their goals—whether consciously or not—so that the other Gryffindor chaser could begin pegging the quaffle at the Slytherin keeper, who was purple-faced and so genuinely irate at the whole preposterous thing that the quaffles more or less just sailed in unencumbered.

"Come on," Minseok muttered, glancing towards their seeker. They were well ahead in points, farther ahead than they had a right to be—they needed the snitch, and they needed it now, if Luhan was going to survive the game. But the seeker was watching the game below, paying no attention whatsoever, and he was too far away for Minseok to shout for him.

Minseok dropped his gaze back to Luhan, who had done a clever zigzag and was now flying past the Slytherins, who were scattering in their determination to get at him—except for one Slytherin, who seemed to have caught the rhythm of Luhan's flying—Minseok watched as the Slytherin beater lifted his bat and swung it, as hard as he could manage, directly at Luhan's head.

The sound of the bat striking Luhan's skull echoed across the field. Minseok yelled incoherently as Luhan slipped bonelessly off his broom.

All was chaos. People were screaming; players had scattered, even the Slytherins, a little astonished, perhaps, at their own violence. And though Minseok flew as hard and as fast as he ever had before, he was too far to reach Luhan before he struck the ground—and lay still.

Madam Hooch's whistle seemed unending; it echoed through Minseok's head and erased everything. Everything but a singular thought: Luhan. Luhan, Luhan, Luhan. The players had landed—they were swarming towards Luhan—Minseok landed and began throwing bodies out of his path. Some of them might have worn red, some green, he didn't care. Someone that might have been a teacher threatened him with detention at high volume, but he didn't care about that, either, because he had reached Luhan at last.

There was blood everywhere. He knew, distantly, that head wounds bled a lot—but there was so much of it. He reached down, fingers hovering over the place the bat had caved in—brief visions of moonlit grounds and Luhan grinning, rubbing the back of his head, flew past his eyes—there was something crumpled about the body before him, like a bird broken on the ground. He could not see, beneath the Quidditch gear, whether he was breathing.

"—deserved it, didn't he, provoked us, my bat slipped—"

The stone face with which Minseok was staring down at Luhan broke, and all those who were standing near him took an involuntary step back; there was a terrible rage in his eyes that seemed to the air out of their lungs. And the Slytherin beater turned just far enough around to catch sight of Minseok—and blanched.

Minseok roared—there were no words in him, not at present, except nameless, boundless anger—but his wand understood him—he did not even recall drawing his wand—something hot and red and furious roiled out of his wand, eating up the space between them, and ramming, with all the force of a runaway train, directly into the Slytherin beater's chest. The Slytherin beater went flying backward, hit the ground, and was still.

Someone—many someones—had grabbed his arms and was trying to drag him away, but he had caught sight of Luhan again, and began the dour job of making his way back to him. It wasn't easy—it seemed more than one person was trampled—but then the path cleared and he dropped down beside Luhan. Everything was turning grey—there was no more anger left in him—he reached out, with trembling fingers, and felt along Luhan's wrist for a pulse.

"Stand aside," a voice said, a calm, terrible voice, and Minseok looked up.

The Headmaster looked down at him, mouth very thin, and though his face was quiet Minseok thought he was furious. "You have done quite enough, Minseok," the Headmaster said. "Let us do what we can for Luhan now."

Had it been anyone else—anyone in the world—Minseok would have bared his teeth and dared them to try (you can't take him) but this was the Headmaster, and some hardwired part of Minseok's brain understood this was not something to be contested. He watched, quiet, as Luhan's body was lifted gently into the air and laid down on a stretcher.

"Someone look after him," said the Headmaster, and he carried Luhan away.

Minseok pressed his face into the crook of his elbow and began to cry.

**

It was Kyungsoo and Jongdae who dared get close to Minseok again; Jongdae was sporting an impressive black eye and the side of Kyungsoo's jaw had begun to swell up, but they came forward again anyway, and lifted Minseok up off the ground.

"Come on," Jongdae said. "Let's go after him, mate. Come on. Walk for us."

They carried Minseok more than he walked; he had ceased to care about anything other than sinking where he stood and staying there. He was crying silent tears, the tears of someone who does not even realize they are crying, even if their heart does. When they reached the castle he seemed to revive a bit—"That's it, mate, that's it, Luhan's up this way," Jongdae repeated monotonously, sweat dripping down his chin—Kyungsoo said, "He's alive, Minseok, you know he is," and Minseok thought, I don't know that—

But he didn't know the opposite, either. He dropped his hold on them, and nearly stumbled—he seemed to have lost a great deal of his strength; something to do, perhaps, with what he had done to the Slytherin beater—then pulled himself upright again and hurried, as fast he could manage, towards the hospital wing.

He didn't so much open the doors as he leaned heavily against them till they gave way—there was a crowd of people in one corner of the hospital wing, mostly teachers, whispering together fretfully. Ahead, though, was a white curtain, and Minseok could guess what was behind it.

The Headmaster loomed in front of him, took him by the shoulders, and directed him to a bed. When Minseok tried obstinately to rise, he only pushed him down again, and gave Minseok a baleful stare over his eyeglasses that promised one way or another, Minseok was going to stay in that bed.

"He is alive," the Headmaster said, and Minseok sagged back into the mattress. "Madame Pomphrey is hopeful that in a week or so, he will be good as new." The Headmaster turned and looked over his shoulder, at another white curtain, around which the boot of a Slytherin beater was visible. "Our friend here, however, may take a little longer than that."

"Am I expelled?" Minseok asked, and when the Headmaster looked at him, he met the Headmaster's eyes with a kind of mulish pride that was as admirable as it was misguided.

"No," said the Headmaster. "I am not in the habit of expelling people for defending one's friends. However, the taking of revenge—which that very nearly was, my dear boy—is absolutely inexcusable. And for that, I must take action."

Minseok waited. His expression did not change, although his hands turned slowly into fists.

"You will step down as captain," said the Headmaster. "Whether or not you will still be allowed to play, I have not decided. And Gryffindor will lose a hundred and fifty points."

Little gasps of horror sounded from Kyungsoo and Jongdae, who were trying very hard not to be noticed. The Headmaster gave them a thin smile. "I think you will find," he said, "that after the performance we had today, that a hundred and fifty points is not so great a loss as you think."

"And him?" Minseok asked. His face stayed impassive; his voice dripped with venom.

"He," said the Headmaster, "is none of your concern; but he will be banned from Quidditch for as long as he attends school here."

Minseok's expression soured marginally; it seemed he had hoped for a far more serious punishment.

The Headmaster leaned over him. "For now, you should rest," he said. "You did a thing or two yourself today." And though Minseok didn't feel like sleeping, his eyes closed, and he slipped into darkness.

**

Luhan awoke with a bit of a headache. Probably, he thought, because someone had tried to knock him off his broom, the great lumpy git. However, he thought, he'd scored about a billion goals, which surely (surely!) meant that he'd won himself a Minseok.

He cracked open an eye—oy, hospital bed, that didn't bode well—and then spied, humped over the end of his bed, his Minseok. Part of Minseok was still in his chair, which he'd drawn hard up against Luhan's bed, but the rest of him was lying against Luhan, as if he wanted desperately lying in bed with him, but hadn't been allowed to.

Luhan grinned lewdly, and leaned forward to whisper in Minseok's ear—the world spun sickeningly on its axis, and threatened to throw Luhan sideways. He grabbed hard at the bedclothes and waited till everything slotted back into place again, but by the end of it his stomach still seemed to be moving back and forth on its own.

"Poor dear," said Madam Pomphrey, coming into view. "That was quite a hit you took; it's a wonder you've come back this quickly. Drink up, dear; it'll help with the dizziness."

At the sound of her voice Minseok had awakened. Perhaps because Madam Pomphrey was there, he did little more than open his eyes and stare, hard, at Luhan.

Luhan drank down the potion—it tasted like every unmentionable thing you'd find in a bathroom on a hot day—grimaced, and handed the goblet back. She patted his foot, glanced once at Minseok, and disappeared back into her office.

"Say," Luhan said, smiling at Minseok, "did I score enough points to lose the two foot rule?"

Minseok sat up, slowly, and Luhan watched as behind his face he thought very hard about something—but then some determination wavered and broke, and then Minseok was leaning over Luhan and pressing kisses to every bit of his face he could get to—he was crying, Luhan realized, shocked, and reached up numbly to put his arms around Minseok's middle.

"Stupid—two—foot—rule," Minseok said between kisses. Luhan pushed him away just enough to be able to stare up into his face—to read something in those strange, beautiful eyes—instead Minseok's face crumbled and he dropped his forehead against Luhan's chest, shoulders trembling.

Minseok was a very quiet cryer; Luhan didn't think Madam Pomphrey would have known even if she'd come out of her office. But it was somehow worse than loud crying—it made him wonder why Minseok had learned to cry silently, and if it had anything to do with why he so rarely smiled.

"Minseok," he said, quietly, rubbing gently circles into Minseok's back, "tell me what's wrong."

It was a long while before Minseok would raise his head. His hair was a terrific mess, Luhan thought; his clothes too. "Nothing," said Minseok. Luhan stared at him, and beneath the weight of Luhan's gaze another tear managed to leak out. Minseok's chin trembled a little. "I thought—" His voice broke, and he had to take a deep breath before trying again. "I thought you were gone," he said, simply, and shrugged.

"Was it really bad?" Luhan asked, a little scared now, both because of the dizziness and because of Minseok.

"Yes," said Minseok.

Luhan decided he needed to be courageous, just this minute: for Minseok. He smiled. "Well," he said. "I'm here now, and I think I broke that two foot rule right in half. So get up here and keep me warm before Madam Pomphrey notices."

"I heard that," Madam Pomphrey said dryly from within her office, but made no move to come out.

Slowly, gingerly, Minseok climbed up beside Luhan; he seemed afraid that he would break him. And maybe, Luhan thought, that was actually a possibility. But he felt strong enough, anyway, and he felt better yet with Minseok stretched out beside him and his head tucked under Minseok's chin. Minseok wrapped his arms around Luhan's shoulders, and gradually, so gradually that Luhan could feel it happening, began to relax.

"I'm glad you're here now," Minseok said, his breath stirring Luhan's hair.

"Me too," said Luhan.

"No," said Minseok. "I mean, I love you."

"Yeah," said Luhan. "Me too."