MIRIAM'S POV

We almost missed lunch. After lunch and free period was one of my favorite classes; Magical History.

I was in fifth year magical history because I'm that nerdy. I loved history, and since I was muggle - born, magical wars and stories were facinating. 

When I walked into class, I saw someone sitting at the far back that hadn't been there the past few days. It was a tall lanky guy with light hair wearing Gryffindor robes. He was obviously trying to hide himself and kept glancing to the front right corner of the room, where an unsuspecting Mark sat.

Mark was a sixth year, but had missed his first year wich set him back in magical history, potions, or anything else that required text reading.

My gaze shifted to the back of the room. I was grinning so hard I thought my face would melt off. It looked like Jinyoung had managed to force someone to class. 

I skipped to the back of the class. I would have sat by Mark, but I figured he had friends since he came to class. 

Sneaking up behind the kid in the back, I leaned over his shoulder and smirked. 

"KUNPIMOOK, " I boomed, my voice breaking obnoxiously and screeching loudly. Bambam squealed and jumped three feet into the air.

Everyone was looking at the shaking Bambam and I. I looked up and saw Mark turn around, then start guffawing with laughter at Bambam's face. Bambam slowly turned his head, jarringly shifting it as if his neck was rusty, and looked at me. When he saw who it was, he let out a loud sigh of relief and dropped his head onto his desk.

"Oh, jeez. I thought you were Jinyoung, " he muttered. I giggled.

"Hey, Bambam. Not skipping?" He shook his head. 

"Ani. Jinyoung's been personally escorting me around." He sighed. I nodded in sympathy.

"Iza is scared of him and my brother, but IDK why..." I trailed off. Bambam grinned.

"Well, I'm not scared of them," he said. I knew he was lying.

"JUST like you weren't scared when I grabbed your shoulders." Bambam ignored my sarcasm and nodded.

"Yes, I was definitely NOT scared," he said, like he was trying to convince himself. I smirked but he didn't see it.

"Whatever you want," I said. 

The professor called us all to attention before instructing us all to take out parchment and scratch out everything we already knew about history in ten minutes. Once the dwarvish white-haired professor had finished explaining, he sat at his desk and folded his arms.

“Begin,” said the professor, lacking much enthusiasm. Despite the professor’s attitude, I excitedly gripped my feather pen so hard in nearly snapped and dragged it into my parchment.

    After hastily scratching almost two huge paragraphs into my notes, I paused to think. That was my first mistake. I looked up and saw the professor asleep at his desk at the front of the room. I invited all the clutter of scratching pens and muttering voices into my mind as I brainstormed, trying to grasp more information from the back of my mind. Behind me, I heard two brunette Gryffindor girls whispering in front of me. I could tell they thought that people couldn’t hear them. Unfortunately, I could, and I didn’t like what they were talking about.

    “I don’t think it’s fair that they let so many Asians into our school this year,” the one on the left whispered. I craned my ears to hear better.

    “Yeah. It’s going to drop all of our scores and make us all look bad,” the other one muttered.

    “Just because they have an Asian You-Know-Who doesn’t make it okay to invade our country,” the one on the right continued.

    “I know, right?” the other whispered. “It’s not like we decided to invade Asia when Voldemort came around.” she then glanced around before continuing.

    “And besides, they’re all really bad at actually doing spells. They’re only good at tests. It’s not fair,” she whined quietly. The other nodded in agreement.

    I started to shrink down into my seat. Did everyone really think that? Were we really invading that much of other people’s space?

    I looked over at Bambam to see if he had heard. If he had, he didn’t show it. He was gripping his feather in a tight grip, but he was staring at the paper furiously so I didn’t suppose he had bothered to listen. I turned back to the girls who were whispering together.

    “They should all be deported. They’re changing our population dramatically; eventually we’ll be the minority. The Daily Prophet said that if we don’t do anything, they’ll take over.” As they spoke, I tried to turn my attention to the paper we were writing, but if someone had looked, my teary eyes would probably have given me away.

    I was Asian. I thought about what had caused us to move. There was a violence crisis in China that had spread to Korea under a Magic Dictatorship rule, and being Korean, our family had moved to avoid it. In Asia, there were only a few magical governments for such a large population of wizards and witches. The governments were as follows:

• The Japanese Monarchy of Magic that ruled over Japan and much of the Japanese Sea before the Magical Dictatorship

• The Chinese Imperialist Magic Society known outside of its power as the Imperialist Magic Dictatorship that controlled China, Vietnam, Laos, Bhutan, Burma, much of Mongolia, and some parts of a few middle-eastern countries

• The South Korean Republic of Magic which controlled South Korea

• The North Korean Magic Dictatorship (now a part of the Imperialist Magic Dictatorship) which controlled North Korea and some of China

• The Thai Magical Monarchy which controlled Thailand and Cambodia

• The Indonesian Magical Empire which controlled Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and New Guinea.

    There is also an Indian Democratic Magic Magistrate, but they do their best to not come in contact with the other Asian governments. The only magic schools in Asia had been the Taj Institute, the School of Changdeokgung or the School of the Palace of Prospering Virtue in Korea, the Institute of Indonesia, and the Murashi Magic School of Japan. The School of Changdeokgung and the Institute of Indonesia had already been demolished by the Dictatorship, while the Murashi Magic School of Japan was on the verge.

    As the situation stood while I sat at my desk, the Imperialist Magical Dictatorship had overrun both Korean governments, and much of the Japanese territory. The Thai Monarchy of Magic was in serious danger, and I knew it set Bambam on edge because the people of Thailand had already lost their unmagical King just years ago to Chinese wizard assassins and had been through alot of grieving already. To the muggle public of Thailand, it had looked as though the King had died of old age, but the magical community knew better.

    I felt constricted. I knew they were right. I really had no right to be there, at Hogwarts, with everyone else. If I had wanted to go to school, I should have went to study in India at the Taj Institute or joined the Imperialists and asked to go to the Xiao Yinchuan boarding school in China. Instead, I had decided to invade other people’s space and run from my own problems. Even so, just the thought of seeing our precious landmarks and palaces being razed to the ground through a television brought tears to my eyes. The beautiful palaces from the Joseon period, the shrines, the many magical artifacts that had been passed generation to generation; gone. I tried to make myself feel better about having to move by making the excuse that my life had been at risk in Korea, but it just didn’t cut the requirement for a real need to move to England.

    I gripped my feather pen just as hard as Bambam had and let my head fall onto my parchment. I blocked out any more of the girl’s conversation and just sat there with my face in my paper. I didn’t look up until I felt something lightly poking my shoulder. As I shifted my head, I saw Bambam poking me with his pitch black quil. When he smiled at me painfully, I knew. I knew that he had heard what they said, and that what they had said had bothered him too.