It was a new semester and he was more than glad to be back.

But then again, who wouldn’t be?

Hogwarts was home and he was relieved in more ways than one to be home.

“How was home?” Kyungsoo asked him.

He smiled, somewhat more bitterly than he intended and shrugged, “Better than last summer. I went out a lot. Went to your house to kill time.”

His friend of over a decade, Do Kyungsoo had gone to the Bahamas with his family over the summer and his house, which was two houses down from his own, was empty. He, Kim Jongin, in order to avoid his overbearing family, kind of—, sort of—, broke into their house and spent his time inside of Kyungsoo’s room.

“You shouldn’t break into my house, Jong.”

“Your parents told me to water your plants,” Jongin said. “They said I was welcomed to come in and homesit whenever I wanted.”

The pair were seated at the corridor leading into the courtyard; Jongin, on the wall and Kyungsoo, sitting against the pillar beside it. Two weeks of school have passed and they had finally found time to spend with each other.

But it was clear that peace and quiet wasn’t a big trend in Hogwarts.

One minute it was peaceful, and in the next, students were running into the courtyard, excited.

Kyungsoo caught one by the trousers and asked, “What’s going on?”

The student, most probably a second year, exclaimed excitedly, “There’s a fight! Chanyeol and Jongdae are duelling with Tao and Sehun again!”

At this, Jongin scoffed, “Only two weeks in and already they’re at each other’s throats.”

“Slytherin and Gryffindor never got along well before,” said Kyungsoo, shrugging. “Rivalry is in their genes.”

“I’m a Gryffindor and I don’t get into unnecessary fights.”

“You were always weird to start with,” said Kyungsoo, patting the dust off his pants as he stood up. “Come on. Let’s see the prefects try to stop this battle before it begins, and utterly fail.”

“You just want to see people get jinxed.”

“I sure do.”

Within minutes, the area beside the lake was full. In the centre of it stood four students, namely, Kim Jongdae and Park Chanyeol from Gryffindor and Oh Sehun and Huang Zitao from Slytherin.

A.k.a. the greatest mischief-makers, and well-acclaimed rascals in the school.

Though they’re several years apart, their dislike for each other was clear.

“Bombarda!” Chanyeol shouted, pointing his wand at the two Slytherins, causing a small explosion in front of them. Seeing the pair jump, he laughed, satisfied.

“Aqua Eructo!” Sehun countered him, as a jet of clear water spouted from the tip of his wand. It was more controlled and looked more powerful than a regular, old Aguamenti.

Always quick on his feet, Jongdae flicked his wand, “Protego,” he yelled, as an invisible shield conjured in front of himself and Chanyeol, protecting them both from the jet of water. Using the cover of the water jet, he spun from his shield and closed one eye for accuracy, aiming straight for one unexpecting Tao, “Impedimenta.”

Chanyeol laughed again as he saw Tao being carried into the air. He ran a hand through his silver hair and spun his wand, waiting for the next move.

“Incarcerous!” Sehun shouted, and ropes materialized from his wand, heading straight for Jongdae but Chanyeol’s stunning spell met it halfway and rendered the ropes useless.

“Levicorpus!” Sehun said, this time aiming for Chanyeol and within seconds, the silver haired muggle-born was dangling in mid-air.

“Now we both have something in the air,” Jongdae said, laughing. “Difference is, Yeol’s upside down and Taozi here isn’t.”

“We all know Park there doesn’t have the best tolerance for upside down things,” Sehun smirked, feeling satisfied.

Moving his wand away from Tao and effectively dispelling his charm, Jongdae pointed it towards Chanyeol and muttered a quiet Liberacorpus.

“Locomotor Mortis!” Chanyeol yelled as soon as he tumbled to the ground, intent on getting revenge but as he was still dizzy from the spell, the spell missed for about a mile and hit one of the spectators instead of its intended target.

Jinxes and curses flew around the courtyard, some hitting their mark,but most ended up rebounding off the shield charms conjured.

The limit was finally reached when Jongdae hit Tao with a pus squirting hex causing yellowish goo to start squirting out of his nose. The grounds collectively went silent after Chanyeol’s Riddikulus hit Sehun squarely in the chest, turning him from the cool-looking pink-haired boy he was, into a grungy, emo kid with black makeup smeared over his face.

That was it.

The cunning Slytherins had finally had enough.

Tao raised his wand and even before the spell was said, Jongdae knew what he was going to use and he fumbled for his wand, the shield charm at the tip of his tongue.

The next second happened very quickly indeed.

There was a loud roar of Alarte Ascendare and Tao and Sehun were both thrown backwards into the air. Tao went straight into the lake, screaming and cursing all the way, while Sehun mysteriously slowed down before plunge, and was pulled forward  pulled by a magical force, letting Tao literally take the fall for him.

“Sonorus!” a voice from the crowd shouted and everyone backed away from it. The voiced amplified and the owner of the voice stepped forward. Kim Minseok, the Head Boy, strode past the other students, cloak swishing at his ankles, “I WANT EVERY STUDENT OUT OF THE COURTYARD BY THE COUNT OF THREE OR TEN POINTS WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM EACH OF YOU. ONE! TWO!”

He didn’t have to finish. The students had already started fleeing when he made an appearance.

“AND YOU, MR PARK CHANYEOL AND MR KIM JONGDAE!”

The two were going to make away with the other students but Minseok, bless the guy, had keen eyesight.

Jongdae, eyeing the seething black-haired seventh-year in front of him, knew it wouldn’t do him any good to act cute. But he did it anyways. “Aw, hyung, you know you can drop the formality with us.”

It was unbelievable, Minseok thought. Kim Jongdae was the biggest troublemaker he had the misfortune to ever cross roads with. Even without doing anything, he was a walking penalty seeker. Hair dyed maroon – he knew this because last year it was a normal brown – and his pants were fitted; he was already breaking the two easiest rules to abide by.

It was even more unbelievable that he thought that just by flashing his catlike smile, he was able to get past this. Though it was cute, it wasn’t that impressive. Especially since he’s been friends with one Luhan since he was eleven.

“I would punch you right now if I could,” he seethed through his teeth, jabbing his wand at Jongdae’s chest, pushing the younger boy backwards. “Episkey would fix you up quickly enough.”

“That would go against your non-violence belief though,” Jongdae said, still smiling, unfazed by the bloodthirsty aura around Minseok.

“I have no such beliefs,” said Minseok, advancing.

“But you might get stripped of your Head Boy position if you attack me physically,” said Jongdae, grinning even wider. “I’m just looking out for you, hyung.”

“Acting cute will not work.”

“When did it ever?”

“Both of you will have detention for misuse of magic,” said Minseok with finality. “If this happens again, I will send you to the headmaster.”

“Aw, come on,” Jongdae whined, blinking his eyes innocently. “We were just defending ourselves from those kids. You saw Huang. He was gonna use the Sectumsempra curse on us. He won’t even get a detention for it but we will for using self-defence?”

“I didn’t see any self-defence when Chanyeol here used Bombarda.”

“Just let us go this once, eh?” Jongdae asked, putting an arm around Minseok’s shoulders. “It’ll be our little secret, eh?”

Minseok ducked under his arm and gave him an unamused look, “Another detention for that.”

“Double detention,” said Jongdae, brow raised; he too, unamused. “Are you serious?”

“Very.”

Not wanting to push his luck further, Jongdae merely pursed his lips and nodded. He turned around, gestured for Chanyeol to follow him and they left, leaving a satisfied Kim Minseok behind.

Wu Yifan waited for the brat to get out of the lake. The other brat, the one with pink hair, ran off earlier but that was fine. He only needed to talk to this brat.

The annoying nuisance, Huang Zitao, was loud and brash since day one. He didn’t pay close attention to Tao but after he was made prefect, it was hard not to. The kid caused so much trouble and after the pink haired brat came along, it doubled.

Though he didn’t pay Tao close attention, he knew that the boy was more than capable for someone of his age. He was skilled and he wasn’t as stupid as most people thought he was.

In fact, he wasn’t just skilled, but he was also smart enough to kill. Apparently.

Just as Tao managed to fish himself out of the lake, looking rather like a forlorn cat after a forced bath, Yifan pulled him up by the collar, hoisting him up the last few centimetres to his own height and looked him straight in the eye. “Are. You. Stupid?”

“Are you?” Tao snarled the question back at him, eyes full of venom as he realized who he was talking to. “Let me go, you bastard.”

“Then what were you doing earlier, you moron?” Yifan growled into his face, refusing to relinquish his firm grip. “That curse could’ve seriously injured Kim Jongdae and Park Chanyeol. Do you want to take responsibility if it did?”

“They can’t really do anything to me,” said Tao flippantly. “Park’s a muggleborn and Kim doesn’t really have great connections. They can’t touch me.”

Yifan drops Tao, watching the younger stumble back a bit, “That may be so. But this school has rules. Had Minseok been faster than me, you would be packing right now.”

“So? You’re not going to report me then?”

“Of course not. That would cause us a lot of house points,” said Yifan as if it was the most obvious thing in the world; his Slytherin house bias beginning to cloud his judgement a little. “And do you really think he doesn’t know? Even without me telling him, he knows what you were going to use. Hell, by the look of Kim Jongdae’s face, he knows it too.”

“Is he going to do anything about it?”

“He trusts my judgement,” Yifan said, stepping forward so that they were inches away from each other. “Next time, I’ll make sure you’re expelled for trying a stunt like that, Huang. You may be rich but you’re just another pest to me.”

Having said everything he wanted to, Yifan gave the fourth year one final glare before heading back to the castle.

He could see Minseok watching from afar, out of the corner of his vision. If he had done anything else to the brat, he would’ve been punished also. There was a reason Minseok was Head Boy. While he was tolerant to Yifan’s rough approach on discipline, he drew a line at the usage of violence. It didn’t matter if they were best friends, Yifan was just another student in his eyes when it came to discipline.

Any usage of violence calls for punishment. Even when violence was used as a form of punishment itself.

Still standing drenched by the lake, Tao was still seething.

Not only did that prefect just throw him into the lake, he had also been manhandled.

Never once in his fourteen years of life has he ever been roughly handled like that. Such disrespect didn’t sit well with him.

He got out his little book that he always carried with him, from his back pocket and dried the wet pages with his wand. He took out his bright purple quill and opened up to the last used page of the book, writing down in rough cursive writing, Wu Yifan.

Yifan had officially made it to his burn book.

Just as Oh Sehun’s foot touched the solid ground, he heard the splash behind him, telling him that Tao had fallen into the lake.

He looked around, his sharp eyes looking for the saviour who saved him from falling with Tao. There was no way Yifan saved him and not Tao. That wasn’t how the prefect worked. He was all for fairness and equality. Well, until the other houses were involved.

In conclusion, it couldn’t have been Yifan’s doing.

Though he had no idea who it was, he knew it was probably someone from the seventh year and someone who was at least on par with Yifan himself.

There were a few suspects but when he saw a head of bronzy hair bobbing in the crowd, he knew that must be the person. He didn’t break eye contact and though he didn’t have his wand out, he was mouthing the incantation.

The minute Sehun heard the Head Boy’s voice, he bailed.

Tao could take care of himself.

He pocketed his wand and went after the boy from earlier.

Lu Han was a seventh year Gryffindor. They don’t cross paths much for anything other than Quidditch, where both of them play Chaser.

Sehun didn’t know much about Luhan other than the fact that he was friends with two of the most intimidating people in school, Wu Yifan and Kim Minseok. He was captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and he played around a lot.

Which begged the question as to why the hell did Luhan save him from falling into the lake?

“Hey,” Sehun called, weaving through the mass of students trying to get away from Minseok. “Hey!”

Having longer legs was really beneficial especially during chases because apparently, Luhan didn’t move all that fast. He managed to grab Luhan by the arm and for a split second, he felt blessed that Luhan didn’t hex him or something.

He’d seen Luhan duel someone before.

It wasn’t pretty.

“Wait,” said Sehun, letting go of Luhan’s arm carefully. “What was that for?”

Luhan looked at him with his deer like brown eyes and tilted his head to the side, acting confused. “What was what for?”

“Earlier,” said Sehun, his patience wearing thin. “You saved me from going into the lake.”

“Did I?”

“Acting dumb doesn’t suit someone like you,” the pink-haired third-year said, unimpressed. “It works on everyone else but I’m not fooled.”

“Does it not now?” Luhan asked softly, looking up at Sehun through his long lashes. “Didn’t think it would.”

“You still haven’t answered me.”

“Why I saved you?” Luhan said, shrugging. “Your hair looked too good to go into the lake. It would be a shame if it did. I saved it. You’re welcome.”

He frowned, not satisfied with the answer he received. “That makes no sense.”

“Being nice doesn’t have to make sense,” Luhan laughed, his laugh sounding very light and feathery. “I’ll see you around, Sehun. Try not to get into too much trouble, okay?”

Just like that, Luhan slipped away, following the crowd back into the castle, leaving Sehun standing alone in the crowd, confused. 

a/n: this was the fastest idea that I ever typed up thanks len