Sept of Jinwoo’s third year

The autumn wind blew softly against Jinwoo’s face, carrying scents of freshly fallen leaves, gold and red against the earth. Scores of students, coats drawn tightly around them passed him, hurrying towards lights in the distance that promised warmth and food. Jinwoo stood still. He was back at Hogwarts. It seemed like forever since he had left. Since he had returned to the little island with normal people who lived normal lives by the sea. This life had seemed to be no more than a dream there. In fact, he was half-convinced that it had been some kind of elaborate fantasy until the letter arrived. It was different from the last time. It wasn’t just his book lists. There was a special letter attached.

“Dear Mr. Kim,
It is understood that your family’s financial situation does not allow you to return to the Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, we are glad to inform you that there for special cases like yours, the school is more than glad to take care of all your needs. The officer in charge of your case will be waiting for you at the Leaky Cauldron two days before you leave for Hogwarts. She will take care of everything you need.

Yours truly,
Professor Minerva McGonagall”

Jinwoo sighed, his breath forming a small tired cloud. His family’s financial situation seemed to be the least of his worries. Tugging on his trunk, Jinwoo made his way to one of the carriages.

It was going to be the start of another long year.

*

The chandeliers over his head filled the hall with warm light that softened everyone’s features and gave everything a welcoming air. Students were talking left and write, calling out to old friends, and whispering the gossip in each other’s years. Jinwoo sat at the Hufflepuff table, a little overwhelmed by all the noise. Beside him, Sandy Park was telling about who had broken up with who over the summer. Jinwoo tried to listen the best he could, but there was always someone else’s voice cutting across her.

The babble was cut short by the sound of opening doors. The Sorting had begun. Curiously, Jinwoo scanned the line of first years. They seemed tiny. Jinwoo remembered being in their place two years ago. He had been terrified. A month before, he was the son of a fisherman and now he was a wizard studying magic in a castle. Least to say, he was a bit overwhelmed. The Sorting Hat thankfully hadn’t taken so long to decide which house was he to be sorted into.

Jinwoo watched as one of the first years, tall boy with a lanky frame, was sorted in to Ravenclaw. The boy opened his eyes and for a moment, Jinwoo felt like they met his own directly. The boy seemed cold and proud, his pale chin held high. He handed the hat back to Mcgonagall politely and made his way to the Ravenclaw table. Jinwoo felt like everything the boy did had a sense of controlled grace about it.

Kang Seungyoon, McGonagall had called him.

*

Dec of Jinwoo’s third year

Autumn had been bowled over by cold winds and the frosts of winter. Christmas holidays had begun. Jinwoo wandered the halls aimlessly, letting his mind drift. He loved walking around the castle. It was mysteriously beautiful. There was always a new corridor to discover and another painting to see. Sure, he got lost sometimes but he always found his way back somehow. Sometimes, Jinwoo felt like the castle itself was helping him though he wasn’t sure that was entirely possible. Most of the new places he saw, Jinwoo never found again. Not that he minded.

He was passing by the second floor when he bumped into someone holding a tall pile of books.

“I’m so sorry,” Jinwoo bent over hastily, grabbing the books that had been strewn in every direction.

“It’s all right,” a voice answered softly. Jinwoo glanced up to see the first year, Kang Seungyoon, looking back down at him.

“Where are you headed?” Jinwoo found himself asking the question automatically. “I’ll help you carry some of them.”

“The library. And it’s all right I’ll manage.” The younger boy seemed eager to move on.

“Really, I don’t mind.” The boy looked at Jinwoo for a while. His eyes were a dark unfathomable brown. They didn’t seem like the eyes of an eleven year old. Then, he shrugged. Jinwoo smiled, relieved.

*

Hesitantly at first, and then more naturally, the two boys found themselves talking. First about school, then family and then everything else. Jinwoo leaned that Seungyoon was raised by his mom, a witch working in the Muggle world, trying to support her son. Seungyoon in turn learnt about Jinwoo’s Muggle family and how he had work twice as hard as everyone around him to fit in.

It wasn’t a friendship that others noticed. A Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff tucked away in the corners of the library or roaming the edge of the grounds never caught anyone’s eye. Weeks passed and another boy joined them, a tall, proud Slytherin called Taehyun. He was rather unpredictable, his mood shifted easily and constantly but Jinwoo fund in him someone to turn to, a confidant if you will. There were two other Gryffindor boys. Mino and Seunghoon were daredevils, joined at the hip and determined to break every rule they could.

The five of them were an unlikely match but they fit somhow. Each completing their own part of the puzzle.

*

June of Jinwoo’s third year

Seungyoon’s finger moved on the guitar, strumming a half familiar melody. Taehyun and Jinwoo hummed along. Their exams were over and the five of them had decided that they need a day out of the castle. The sun was beating down on them, and the air already had a hint of summer. Mino and Seunghoon were in the middle of telling a joke, the funniest one they ever heard or so they claimed. Jinwoo wasn’t sure anything involving a Venomous Tentacula and a wizard with holes in his pants could be very funny but somehow with those two boys anything was funny.

Jinwoo found himself laughing till his chest hurt. The moment seemed surreal. The five of them so happy, surrounded with sunshine and they were in his favorite place in the entire world. It truly felt magical.

*
August before Jinwoo’s fourth year

The first thing Jinwoo noticed was the splotchy ink where tears had fallen ad blurred out the lines scratched onto the apartment. The second was that the letter lacked the drawings Mino usually managed to fit in the margins.

“Hyung,
I have been meaning to tell you guys this for some time. My mom … she is was sick. The Healers called it leakimleukemia. They said they caught it too late. None of the spells could have any effect. They tried anyway. We even went to the Muggles for help. None of that  Nothing worked. She’s gone now. I can’t I need I am trying, hyung. But I can’t let her go.

Mino”

*

Jinwoo’s fourth year

That year the four of them surrounded Mino like a shield. He was usually so bright it made Jinwoo’s heart ache to see his eyes downcast and clouded with grief. Jinwoo thought it was ironic that everything that was happening around them, the Chamber of Secrets, Sirius Black’s escape and the Triwizard tournament barely had an effect on them but things like this did. Things that magic couldn’t help them with. Stuff that they couldn’t even fight.

Jinwoo remembered wrapping his arms around Mino as he broke down, time and time again. Sometimes, they sneaked into the Gryffindor common room to keep him company. The holidays were the hardest, the times when Mino would usually be back with his family.
Life went on. Mino smiled again, small smiles but sure ones. Seungyoon learnt spells faster than anyone else except Taehyun. The two often dueled just for fun, with Mino and Seunghoon cheering them on. Adrenaline junkies, Jinwoo called the lot of them. That would usually warrant a flying snowball or - if Jinwoo was unlucky - mud right in the face.

Sometimes Jinwoo would sneak into the library at night to study. Somehow Seungyoon always knew when he would do this so he always found the younger boy at his side late into the night. To Seungyoon, as long as Jinwoo was by his side, it didn’t really matter what he was doing.
“I’m not going to leave you alone, hyung. Who knows what state would you get yourself into if I did.” Jinwoo would laugh and roll his eyes at this. Seungyoon nagged a lot but only because he cared.

“Are you sure you weren’t born middle-aged?” Jinwoo had asked him once. Seungyoon had laughed I reply. Jinwoo liked the younger boy’s laugh. It was a slightly crazy one and it made him look kind of dumb but it was endearing in a way.

*

June of Jinwoo’s fourth year

After the news about You-Know-Who’s return (Taehyun wanted to call Voldemort by his name but the others never could bring themselves to do it), Seunghoon had quietly asked Jinwoo, “Do you think it’s true?”

Jinwoo looked at him for a while. He knew Seunghoon wanted him to say no, that it all a hoax. That they would go on living their lives as they had been doing these past few years. That the future wasn’t as dark as Dumbledore said it was going to be and that everything would be okay, for now at least.

Jinwoo sighed. He wasn’t the decision-maker of the group. He wasn’t the bravest or the smartest. But Jinwoo knew that somehow it was up to him to keep them all together.

“Yes,” Jinwoo sighed. “I think Dumbledore’s right.” Seunghoon nodded, his hands curled loosely into fists by his sides.

“Do you think we’ll be all right?” Uncertainty and fear were mirrored in Seunghoon’s eyes. There wasn’t much Jinwoo could say that would make Seunghoon feel better. He tried anyway.

“Yeah, I think we will.”

*

September of Jinwoo’s seventh year

It felt weird not returning to Hogwarts.

After the Ministry had announced the hunt on Muggleborns, Jinwoo had fled. He left his family, praying that their isolation from his world would be enough to keep them safe. In the beginning he travelled alone, too afraid to contact his friends, for fear of betraying them into the Death Eaters hands as well.

Seung Yoon came first, apparating out of the thin air in the dark of the night. Jinwoo was terrified, begging him to go back, to leave him – he was as good as dead anyway. In his usual steady tone, Seung Yoon had calmed him down.

“They took my mother,” he had explained. Jinwoo noticed the cold gleam in his eyes and the absolutely fury they hid. Fraternizing with vermin was what she had been accused of. Was she alive? Seung Yoon did not know.

Next came Mino and Seung Hoon, practically blasting their way in. They had been chased by a bunch of Death Eaters. The duo had been running around rogue, sabotaging Death Eaters whenever they could. Death was only ever two inches away, they boasted.

Last was Taehyun. As heartbreaking as it seemed, the four of them had given up on the youngest boy. It was too much to hope that he would be immune from the ties of his pure blood family. Jinwoo told himself that Taehyun would never betray them. But he would never go against his family. It was almost like committing a cardinal sin. And it would most definitely have cost Taehyun his life.

But the pale, slim boy came anyway, stepping into their refuge like a shadow. His face was drawn with pain, not of a flesh wound but something much deeper and more difficult to heal. What he had seen, Taehyun refused to tell. But the nights that followed were pierced by Taehyun’s screams.

It seemed to Jinwoo that none of them ever slept anymore. Instead they drew closer, somehow the fact that they were all broken in one way or another somehow helping to make them whole.

*

The Battle of Hogwarts

Taehyun never wanted them to go. He insisted repeatedly that it was too great a risk - it wasn’t worth sacrificing their lives for a cause that they would probably lose anyway.

“You haven’t seen the things, I have,” he yelled until his voice was hoarse. “The Dark Lord is too powerful, the things he can do - .” Taehyun faltered. “Please,” he begged. “I don’t want to see you die.”

Mino and Seung Hoon were adamant. They were going to fight no matter what. And if they fell, so be it. Seung Yoon turned to Jinwoo, waiting for his say. Jinwoo nodded, he would fight for his family, both of them - the one on the island and the one that surrounded him now. They had been through too much for them to back down now.

“I’ll follow you,” Seung Yoon almost sounded casual, as though he was simply stating another fact. His words from what now seemed like an eternity ago echoed in his head.

I’m not going to leave you alone, hyung. Who knows what state would you get yourself into if I did.

Taehyun relented. Jinwoo smiled, looking around at his brothers.

They were going to war.

*

They were too young to die.

Their lives held so much potential, so much unfulfilled greatness. That was probably why they thought they would live. Hardly more than children, the five of them were sure, in their hearts of hearts, that they would make it out of this alive.

They always did say children made the best soldiers.

Taehyun, poor Taehyun, died first. They had been beside the lake, going against a group of Death Eaters so much larger than their own. Spells flew everywhere, lighting up the sky like fireworks. At that point, Jinwoo was hardly even sure who was shooting spells at whom. He was just trying to stay alive.

Out of the cluster of lights, a bright green one shot right at Mino. The dusky-skinned boy was distracted by Goyle and Taehyun was the only one who saw his incoming death. He reacted on instinct, throwing Mino down, out of the way.

Jinwoo saw Taehyun’s face the moment it happened. Eyes widened in surprise, Taehyun fell to the ground. He dimly heard the anguished shouts of the three other boys. They covered him as he sank to his knees beside the body. Tears fell from his eyes as he clutched Taehyun to his chest. He had been the youngest, his confidant and his little brother.

Why was he the first to go?

Jinwoo threw himself back into battle, fighting with all of his heart and soul. Mino had attacked Taehyun’s killer. Bright green was shooting out of Mino’s wand, his face twisted as he shouted out the killing spell. Seung Hoon had his back as always, blue shields shooting out from his own.

Jinwoo was ashamed to say that he never saw them fall. One minute they were there by his side, and the next light flashed so bright, he was blinded. They were gone.

Seung Yoon and he stood back to back. Jinwoo’s hands were shaking. His face was stricken by tears, sweat, dirt and grime. There was a war being waged inside him as well. There was hardly any point of fighting anymore; he might as well put his wand down.

‘Come on, hyung” Seung Yoon’s voice pulled him out of his reverie. “Do it for them, if not for anything else!” Seung Yoon fought like a dancer. The controlled grace that was always present in him now honed to be the deathly movements of a warrior.

They fought on. All around them bodies were falling. Screams of the injured and dying filled the air like demented music. Bodies of humans, centaurs and hippogryphs littered the ground. The battle was slowing now, the Death Eaters drawing back into the Forest. They did it casually, confident in the knowledge of their victory. As they passed, one of them casually glanced at Jinwoo. His lips moved as his wand flicked in his direction.

Light flashed. Jinwoo found himself on the ground.

‘This is it. I am finally dead.’ He almost felt relieved.

“Hyung?” Seung Yoon croaked beside him. Jinwoo turned to see Seung Yoon’s chest splattered with blood.

“Seung yoon, oh no – no – it can’t be.” Jinwo could hardly process what he was seeing. There was so much blood. So much blood.

“I knew you can’t handle yourself without me,” Seung Yoon managed to smile up at him.

“Stay with me, Yoon. Come on,” Jinwoo tried to lift him but the dead weight was too much for him to bear alone. “Come on!!”

There was no reply.

Seung Yoon died with a smile on his face.

Jinwoo stared, his hands drenched with blood that was not his own. His brothers’ bodies lay around him. His family was gone. Slaughtered, for a cause that was not worth their blood, their lives, their happiness.

A deathly cold settled around Jinwoo. Somewhere beyond him he heard cries.

“Expecto Patronum. Expecto Patronum, come on!!”

A hooded figure stepped before him, its rattling breath sending chills down his spine.

He was prepared for what was to come but, startled, Jinwoo realized he saw nothing – heard nothing. He was already living his worst nightmare. There was nothing worse the Dementors could do to him.

Jinwoo dropped his wand. His hand in Seung Yoon’s already cold ones, he raised his eyes to take in Hogwarts one last time.

They would all be together again.