A new friend and a weird explosion

When Jongin opened his eyes, the first thing he thought was that the room was too white. White ceiling, white bed, white fluffy pillows. Well, at least he was very comfortable.

The second thing was that he wasn’t a canary anymore. Sehun had panicked and rushed him to the infirmary when, still in his bird form, he had begun to cough red bubbles. It wasn’t the Slytherin’s fault for not knowing he was allergic to magical eggs, he had never told him, but when he had tried to tell him he just needed some medicine in his pocket, more bubbles had flown from his beak to the ceiling. Sehun had almost lost it.

Looking at the big clock on the wall, he’d had a four hours’ nap, remarked by a hungry growl coming from his stomach. He had positively skipped dinner and it was now nighttime.

The third, after finally fully waking up, was that somebody was still sleeping in the bed next to him. He had always had a good memory for faces and names so it came without surprise when he recognized him: Do Kyungsoo, the Gryffindor in his Charm class that had helped his friend stop floating. He was snoring faintly from a slightly bent nose, magically fixing itself bone after bone; he probably was the poor victim the Ravenclaw beater had knocked out while Jongin was trying to find a good sleeping position.

On his cheek there was still the mark of the bludger, harsh red lines circling down to his lips. Poor kid.

As if sensing his stare glazing over him, Kyungsoo suddenly opened his eyes, gently batting his eyelashes, but as soon as he sat up, he winced and brought his hand up to his nose. He barely touched it, scared to feel the wrecked bones that, however, weren’t there: much to his surprise, they were already half healed.

Jongin couldn’t help but break in a low chuckle, immediately stopping when he saw a trail of tiny purple bubbles making their way up to the roof.

“You…” Kyungsoo whispered, looking at the magical allergic phenomenon with suspicion “You’re breathing bubbles”

“Yeah, it happens sometimes”

For a long moment nobody spoke, then Kyungsoo pressed his lips in a thin line and finally exploded in an enchanted laugh, immediately followed by Jongin who was now rolling on his bed, surrounded by a rainbow of foam.

“God, I love magic” panted Kyungsoo, taking a deep breath between hiccups “My nose isn’t even broken anymore”

“Bones are easy to repair; the medicine just tastes horrible”

“It really does”

It almost felt surreal, talking in the empty infirmary in the dead of the night about magic. If you had asked Kyungsoo a year ago if he had ever thought this could happen, he would have answered with a loud scoff and he would have left with a laugh, but now it almost felt normal.

Still high on hilarity and magical medicines, the Gryffindor stretched himself over edge of the bed and offered Jongin his hand, a shy glint in his big brown eyes.

“I’m Kyungsoo”

The Hufflepuff had to refrain from replaying that yes, he knew, biting his lips and silently shaking his hand.

“I’m Jongin”

And this was when the first year Gryffindor surprised him, almost making him choke on his now blue bubbles.

“I know”

Now, being a pureblood, Jongin had always been taught guys weren’t supposed to be cute. Men are strong, energetic, independent and other stereotypical bull, and even though he had never listened and refused to cut his long fluffy hair, that idea had stuck with him.

Guys. Aren’t. Cute.

And may Merlin be damned, Kyungsoo stuttering over his words after realizing what he had said was straight up adorable.

“I mean… we’re in the same class? So I just kind of remembered your name… you know, because of your hair? Sorry, you must think I’m weird”

Scratch that, Kyungsoo was the definition of adorableness. He was even hiding his cheeks in his hands for Dumbledore’s sake!

“Don’t worry, my hair is kind of bright anyway so it’s not surprising people notice me. It happens a lot.” He smiled, running a hand through his white locks.

Truth is, Jongin had thought about getting the rest of the night of sleep, so he could be somewhat awake the next morning, but it turned out the clueless and magicstruck Kyungsoo was not only cute, but also very clever and full of interesting stories to tell, like when he had first discovered he could do some magic when really angry and had set the teacher’s wig on fire when she had given him detention or when his mother had seen for the first time food levitating towards her son’s room in the middle of the night.

The Muggle world was something very distant from his family and his previous life, so Jongin drank every word like ambrosia, filling his head with knowledge he lacked of and laughing his off with Kyungsoo witty way of telling stories, full of details and sassy remarks on his weird persona.

Hours passed with them talking and talking about everyday life in their respectful houses, the Gryffindor talking more than listening because Jongin was very careful of letting something slip past his lips, but they enjoyed their time nonetheless, until morning came. The sun rose and bathed the infirmary in his warm light, finding a two very tired boys finally asleep, their words still echoing between their lips, tucked in their tiny white beds, arms swinging free from the covers.

The nurse came an hour before lesson with the full intention of waking them up, so that they could be in class in time, but it took her just a second to change her mind: they both looked so peaceful, each wrapped up in their own magical dream. She silently checked Kyungsoo’s nose if there were any mutation due to the potion (sometimes that happened: students slept the night away and found themselves with a new pair of ears), but everything looked normal. As for Jongin, he was snoring quietly a no bubbles were coming out of his mouth so he was pretty much cured, she decided.

But you see, the nurse had been very kind and let them sleep another hour, but karma was a little bit more vicious: ten minutes later, when the nurse had left the room, someone loudly slammed the doors open, followed by the most obnoxious sound there could be on this planet: fangirls.

The doors had been hexed to be soundproof, but as soon as the incriminated boy opened them, the sound of dozens of girls, chirping and swooning, each holding some kind of gift with red and pink wrap and enchanted glowing cards. Waiting, of course, for one white-haired boy to give him their get-well-soon gifts.

Fortunately, as soon as the boy entered the Infirmary, he also closed the door with an equally loud wumpht, barricading himself inside with a terrified expression. Oddly enough, he too had a pink package under his arm, squashed in the run.

Unfortunately, the two boys left sleeping weren’t really sleeping anymore, one on the floor (Jongin) and the other frantically looking for his glasses (Kyungsoo).

“Hello there” said the intruder, catching his breath.

Kyungsoo, finally with the ability to see what was going on, glared at his friend.

“Hi Chanyeol. What are you doing here?” he croaked, his voice still sore from sleeping.

The giant trotted to his side, not noticing the Hufflepuff still on the floor, without any idea of what which where when who… well, pretty much still sleeping with his eyes open.

“I was worried about you, so I came to check.” Sang the tall wizard, swinging his arms around the smaller one “Are you ok? Does it still hurt? Your nose looks fine, but yesterday it was all blue and cracked so I…”

Kyungsoo exhaled, trying not to get smashed between his friend and the bed. That was too much talking and not enough tea that early in the morning, so he just rubbed his temples, wondering if there was a caffeine infusing spell he could learn.

Luckily for him, Jongin had finally found the mental strength to get up and sit once again onto his bed, hair messily going in every direction.

“Who ‘r you?” he mumbled, cocking his head to the side.

Kyungsoo pretended to be scratching his nose, hiding his smile underneath his hand. Nobody could blame him: sleepy Jongin in the morning was clearly a sight. Chanyeol on the other hand had his eyes wide open, amused.

“Where did you come from? You weren’t here a moment ago”

The Hufflepuff laughed, flashing them both with a set of perfectly white and sharp teeth.

“May I remind you that there are spells for that? Even though someone told me they don’t work in here. Anyway, I was under the bed”

“Under”

“Yes, under”

“And why is that?”

“I fell”

“Oh”

“Yeah”

“That must’ve hurt”

“Not really, I’m soft”

“Cool”

The alienating conversation was interrupted by the sound of Kyungsoo’s laughter, not able to keep it in anymore. It was just too much and they were both so serious about it, it was just hysterical.

The giant, like he had just been counter-spelled, looked at his friend and grinned, offering Jongin a hand.

“I’m Chanyeol, one of Kyungsoo’s roommates”

The Hufflepuff shook it, his eyes fluttering, still half in the realm of dreams but awake enough to recognize the wizard who had been floating in the air during their first Charms lesson.

“I’m Jongin, Kyungsoo’s… well, let’s say new acquaintance”

“Let’s say friend” added the Gryffindor in question with a shy smile, leaving Jongin with a flushed expression. “By the way Chanyeol, I’ve been wondering: what is that pink box?”

The wizard turned to fetch it and placed it onto Jongin’s bed.

“Well, the nurse wouldn’t let the girls enter because they were too loud, but with my killer charm I got permission so one of them chucked this in my face screaming to get it to you” he looked at Jongin, who had suddenly darkened in expression.

“Yeah, they’re not really for me” he said, tiredness in his voice.

“There’s your name on the card” replied Chanyeol.

“Yeah, it is, but that’s different. It’s not like… never mind, I think I’ll sleep some more. Catch you two this evening?”

Kyungsoo, now fully standing and having retrieved his belongings, nodded wanting to say more, but Jongin had already buried himself in the cover so he just followed Chanyeol out the infirmary, in the most dangerous territory of all: heartbroken girls’ domain.

***

Over the course of five years at Hogwarts, all Ravenclaw students had learned one simple thing: if there was something that had to be done at all costs, it was to leave a stressed Junmyeon alone.

Waiting outside the Hospital Wing for Madama Pomfrey to report his brother’s condition, Junmyeon had the scowl of a very anxious mom, or worse, a grandma, tapping his foot on the floor so hard the other students strolling in the hallway could see a dent in the stone. They almost could feel it too, the halo of worry and wrath coming from all his pores. It was a mixture of Oh-my-God-I’m-a-terrible-brother and Oh-Sehun-your--will-never-be-the-same-after-this. It was so powerful all the girls had long gone back to their dormitories, too scared to stay.

He had always known that little scoundrel his brother associated with was a trouble maker, but this was too much. His poor little brother, all alone through the night in the cold Infirmary. His little Nini-bear.

He had woken up that day by Yixing barging into his room like it was nothing new, which it wasn’t, with T-rex wrapped up in his hair and a tense face. It had been him to break the news: while strolling around the castle at night, completely lost as usual, he had seen Jongin on a floating stretcher surrounded by yellow bubbles racing to the Hospital Wing.

“Merlin, why haven’t you told me yesterday night?” Junmyeon had yelled, sprinting around his room to find his clean robe and his shoes.

“I couldn’t. I didn’t know the way back, so I just crashed in Griffindor’s common room, thanks to Baekhyun. I’ve woken up ten minutes ago” he’d replied with a big yawn.

Normally, Junmyeon would have ignored his friend and set his mind to mom-mode, running to the Hospital Wing faster than a Peruvian Vipertooth, but that was Yixing. Lovely Yixing who had probably slept on a couch with his mouse on his head and was truly concerned about his brother’s health.

“I swear you have the ability to unlock any door. Isn’t it prohibited to stay in the other’s Houses dormitories?” he had asked, struggling to get his socks on.

“I think so”

The Ravenclaw’s mood had lifted just a tad, offering Yixing to sleep until breakfast in his room.

“Thank you Juny” Yixing had replied with a big tired smile. “And by the way, you’re going out without pants”

And now he was there, outside the door. Waiting. With pants on.

Finally, the nurse came out, looking rather annoyed and tired, with her report in hand.

“Sorry, this morning was rather chaotic. Your brother is sleeping inside; do you want to see him now?” she asked.

Junmyeon peeked inside the room, staring at Jongin’s figure hidden under the blanket; everything but his bare feet and his white nest of hair slipping out the silk protection. His face looked so tense, even in his sleep, brows furrowed, fingers tightly wrapped around the hem.

He opened his mouth, as if to reply to the nurse, but he immediately closed it.

“No, I’ll just have the reports, thank you”

Sometimes, he was just a good brother.

Sometimes.

But Mama Junmyeon hadn’t finished, not yet. Papers under his arm, a malevolent smile made its way on his face as he ran to his Herbology class.

“Oh Sehun, I hope your is ready”

***

“Wake up sleepy head” is what Jongin would have heard on a normal day with Sehun waking him up any time in the day. Maybe accompanied by a snarky remark, but more often than not by a pinch on the cheek and an amused smile.

He surely wasn’t expecting a:

“Wake up you half-brained owl! You’ve been sleeping for hours” in an angry, irritated voice.

The Hufflepuff rolled over, trying to cover his head with the pillow, but he underestimated the tininess of the infirmary bed and epically fell over, dragging cover and pillow with him.

“Good morning to you too Sehun”

His vision was still blurry and dreamy, but when he got onto his feet, scratching his head to wake himself up, he saw that in front of him there was no Sehun. It was a leek plant with feet.

Two big leeks were coming out of his friend’s ears, green and puffy, making his friend walk very unstable bending left and right with each step. There was a moment of silence where Jongin just stared at the two vegetables with perplexed narrow eyes, before exploding in a boisterous laughter.

“You look so stylish, Sehun-ah, you should keep those” he stuttered between fits of hilarity.

And he fell off the bed again.

“Serves you right, you traitor.” Said hastily the Slytherin “Do you even want to know what happened or you just want to laugh at my misery?”

Jongin stopped laughing but kept his amused smile, hoisting himself up again.

“I’m sorry, it just wasn’t what I was expecting first thing in the morning. Tell me everything, as the muggles say, spill all the tea”

“Okay, so here’s what happened…”

***

“I hate him” Luhan thought, as he watched all the Slytherin students surround Sehun and compliment him for his newly acquired role of Seeker in the team.

Yes, he was the youngest to get the role in years, yes, he had been incredibly good at flying and had caught the Golden Snitch in record time, yes, he had been very cool while doing it (even though Luhan would have never admitted this part), but really? How was it fair that he got a hug from Tao and that was it while Sehun was being congratulated from even the upperclassmen.

A true Slytherin they called him. HA! If Luhan could have spat on the ground he would’ve, but even he didn’t want to cause the wrath of the prefects with their every knowing eyes.

What was so great about him anyway? Leisurely sitting on one of the common room’s armchair, Luhan folded his arms under his jumper and stared at him, looking for something, some weak point, some flaw that could bring him even a slight advantage.

But no, even if he had the personality of a troll (Luhan was sure), he was taller than him, with broader shoulders, shinier hair and mysterious smile. He had the charm of his father, it was impossible not to notice, and the delicacy of traits of his mother, with a smooth complexion and thin lips, but cold eyes and even colder smile. One that was now directed at him, having noticed his stare. Luhan immediately adverted his eyes, cursing under his breath.

Was there something off? Anything…

“Well” Luhan thought, hiding his mischievous smile behind the cup of tea “If there are no flaws, why not create one myself”

Tao, sitting on the couch near him, watched as his expression darken, tinged with the sweet taste of revenge, and turned pale.

“Luhan, what are you doing?” he cautiously asked.

“Just trying to uplift my mood for the day. Sit back and watch”

And so he placed the cup on the wooden table, tidied up his clothes, and strode over to Sehun with his warmest and fakest smile.

“Congratulations, it looks like we’ll be on the same team” he exclaimed with an overly sugary voice. “I hope we can get along”

He put his hand forward, looking directly into Sehun’s perplexed expression. The younger Slytherin seemed to be studying him for a long, long moment, then reluctantly shook his hand.

“Yeah, me too…?”

Luhan’s smile broadened, losing all his cordiality and reveling his malice.

You see, Luhan’s mother had been and still was a very powerful witch, one that believed in protecting her children with everything she could. One of her methods included making him learn a variety of spells earlier than the other kids. One thing he had particularly enjoyed mastering had been nonverbal spells.

Sehun didn’t hear a single word, but surely a second later, two big wonky leeks were growing out from his ears, much to the hilarity of the whole room. Luhan, still in front of him, had innocently grinned at him.

“Oh my, it seems you’ve been hexed. I wonder who could have done this to you.”

Tao, mouth agape, watched the scene with a terrible feeling creeping down his spine. It was not going to end well.

On the other hand, Sehun had been on the edge of hexing the boy that instant, but he kept his anger under control. If he had gotten in trouble, his father would have been furious, so he stormed out the common room, down to the Hospital wing. Leeks flapping along with his steps.

***

“And so here I am. Can you believe that little devil? I swear he could be Voldemort’s offspring and I wouldn't be surprised.”

Jongin muffled another laugh in the pillow, looking at his friend in disbelief.

“So that is the Lu’s heir. Well, you can’t say your families don’t have a rocky history, but this is a bit much”

The Slytherin sighed, flopping his head onto Jongin shoulder. He was tired, tired from talking to all those people, tired from having to deal with Luhan, tired from everything actually. Not only that morning he’d had to listen to a very angry Junmyeon’s rant on his brother’s health, for which he had apologized again, but he still had two essays to write and three chapters of History of magic to revise.

And of course he was still waiting for his father’s letter saying how much of a disappointment he was already, joining something as pointless as a Quidditch team.

Jongin had been his friend since they shared their first diaper, so as soon as he recognized what was hiding behind that tired expression, he pushed himself forward and hugged Sehun tight, gently patting his back. There was no use in trying to console him. He had done that for years, before Sehun himself had asked him to stop. So he let his friend silently vent against his shoulder.

“Cheer up Hunnie” he whispered.

“How. Why.”

Jongin snickered.

“The nurse is here. I’m sure she will be thrilled to prune your leeks”

“Jongin… you’re an obnoxious friend”

***

The room was empty. Much to being fashionably late, Junmyeon was famous for being always embarrassingly early. Better coming earlier than everybody than charging in the room at full speed in the middle of the prefect’s meeting like some of his friends had done. *coughs* Kris *coughs*.

But surprisingly, the Gryffindor was actually the first to arrive after him, his face pale and his forehead sweaty.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

Kris looked at him, taking a moment to recollect himself and get his cool attitude on once again.

“I swear he’s everywhere I go. I am in the hallway and I bump into him, I am in my common room and he is there, hanging out with Jenni. I was in the bloody prefect’s bathroom and he was there, and he is not even a prefect!”

Junmyeon gave him a tight lipped smile, nodding along. He was the only one knowing about Kris’ problem with Tao, and Kris was the only one to know about his Yixing problem. They were in a similar situation: both liking an oblivious person, both having problem to admit it, both being very awkward about it.

Very, very awkward about it.

But seeing how their stories were so similar, they had found in each other a good friend to talk to, especially when having a crush related breakdown.

“Are you sure he’s not doing it on purpose?”

The taller wizard looked at him, unconvinced.

“Yeah, sure. He probably just wants to freak me out. He said he was going to take revenge for the Quidditch listing, so maybe this is it”

“Last time he hanged you by your trousers from the Whomping Willow just because you had taken the last carrot cupcake. I don’t think he’ll stop at stalking you around” Junmyeon grinned at the memory.

It had taken two professors and a couple of hours to make him reach the ground safely, the Willow refusing to give him up even with the best hexes. Kris’ buttcheeks had never been the same.

“Or maybe he knows. He knows you have a crush on him and he’s playing hard to get”

Kris scoffed.

“That’s impossible. If he knew, which again, impossible because if there’s someone denser than him is him again, he would turn my life into a living hell. It’s hard enough as it is, do you think I’ll be able to endure it if he knew?”

“No, you’re right. It would be funny though”

“Mean.”

They continued to idly talk like that for a good quarter of an hour, but no other prefect showed up. It wasn’t the first time that happened: the year before Junmyeon had waited alone for half an hour before discovering there was a party going on in the Hufflepuff’s common room and everybody was there, drinking apple juice and an excessive amount of candy. But now, Kris was there and he was sure there wasn’t anything going on aside from their meeting, and he knew everything about parties going around.

Then suddenly, all the lights went out. All the magical candles and torches lighting up the hallways were turned off by a strange gray mist spreading near the ceiling, leaving the two wizards in the complete darkness of the late evening. Something clearly was happening because, after the initial panic which made Kris scream like a first year girl and jump in Junmyeon’s arms, they heard other screams of students all around the castle.

“Lumos” yelled Junmyeon, lighting up his wand, followed by Kris.

The two ran down the hallway, in search of someone who could explain what was going on. Many first year students didn’t know the enchantment and were blindly trying to go back to their dormitories, only to be rescued by their upperclassmen. It was mayhem: all the castle had gone dark, except for the pale moon’s light shining up in the highest parts of the towers, but there was no trace of spells having been casted onto the castle, no sign of Dark Arts hexes.

They ran and ran, when they finally found all the professors and missing prefects packed outside the potion’s room. With them, were Baekhyun, Jongdae and Minseok, all covered in coal, gray ashes and what was left of their cauldron.

***

A few hours before…

Baekhyun was glaring at his schedule for the upcoming week: he had three essays to write, a never ending list of new spells to master and a whole lot of brand new potions to be able to make perfectly or else.

Or else.

Even if he had convinced himself to be a pretty good student (stellar, if you wanted to quote him), but if there was anything he at, it was Potion. He just wasn’t cut for the subject, but he still couldn’t choose to abandon it, so he was stuck with a week coming straight from Hell.

Just when he was wondering how could he pull of all those assignments, an idea struck him: he could ask one of his friends to help him. And he had just the right person in mind.

“No”

Baekhyun frowned at Jongdae, currently buried in a very comfortable coach, leaning onto Minseok, who was reading.

“Why not? I’ve done things for you before… kind of”

The Ravenclaw cocked an eyebrow.

“Kind of? You’ve blown up my breakfast last week because you wanted to show me a new spell, you’ve almost knocked Minseok down his broom during the Quidditch tryout and you still have to give me back my Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes’ catalogue. Are those the things?”

Baekhyun was taken aback, looking down and nervously scratching his neck.

“Well…”

But he was interrupted by Minseok. The wizard set his book aside and nudged at his partner with his elbow.

“Dae, wait. If he needs help I think we should. He’s our friend.”

The other snorted, crossing his arms and opening his mouth to retort, but once again Minseok interrupted him.

“Besides, I was the one to give him the catalogue because you had lost it four times.” He added with a mischievous smile.

Jongdae turned to a pretty shade of red, muttering something about Minseok having the soul of a Death-eater, but at the end nodded nonetheless. Baekhyun beamed at the two, truly grateful.

“Thank you so much. I promise I return you the catalogue and… well, let’s say I’ll try to be a good student”

The three went down in the dungeon, in the potion’s room. Baekhyun brought his cauldron on the flame and took his copy of “Magical Drafts and Potions”, opening it at the page of the Swelling Solution, the first he had to make.

Minseok leaned on the table, flicking the pages to read the instruction aloud, ordering Jongdae around to bring him the ingredients.

“I vaguely remember making this, but I don’t know if I ever made a decent one” he mumbled.

“Well” said Baekhyun, opening up the jar of dried nettles. It vaguely smelled like vegetable soup “Let’s hope you did, or else I’ll be here until next morning”

They took their time, brewing the potion with extreme caution because if done wrong it could explode, inflating everything it touched and Baekhyun surely didn’t want his nose the size of a dinner plate. Ingredient after ingredient, Jondgdae’s yawn after yawn, they finally arrived at the end of the process.

“Okay Baek, wave your wand one more time and we’re finished for today”

The young Gryffindor peeked inside the cauldron: the color was perfect, the smell as described in the book. Everything had been done well. With a content smile, he waved his wand.

And that was when the cauldron exploded and the castle went dark.

***

One hour later, the three students were in the Hospital Wing. Fortunately, they hadn’t been bruised seeing that Minseok had had the reflex to cast a defense spell, but they were covered in the remains of the potion, various layers of ashes and unidentified grimy material and Baekhyun could swear that he still had some brass and iron bits from what once had been his cauldron stuck in his head.

His poor, expensive cauldron. His poor, difficult to make potion. His poor, once shiny hair.

He wanted to cry.

On the other side of the castle, all professors had woken up and were trying to understand what had happened when they finally discovered the true intent of what they thought had been a spell gone wrong: while they were trying to get the lights back on, the Headmaster’s office had been forced open and someone had searched inside for something. Something they apparently hadn’t found because the whole place was a mess but nothing was missing: the desk was on the floor, several smashed trophies were now laying on top of it, and there was a mountain worth of papers thrown everywhere. Fortunately, the Headmaster was away for the week, but who could have done something so reckless?

Whoever it was, the professors decided to keep the incident a secret to not alarm the students. They’d had already their fair share of weird and scary incidents and they knew what to do: they would begin their investigation in secret.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, hello there. I'm finally home from Japan!! It was so cool, but there was barely any internet access and definitely no time to write, but I've finally got into the writing game again so here we are. 

In this chapter i wanted to write a cute interaction between Kyungsoo, Jongin and Chanyeol and add a little bit of plot to get the story going forward and I hope i succeeded. And for the people who were wondering in the comments, yes, it will all be explained somewhere in the story and it will make sense (hopefully).

Get ready for Christmas presents and cute Chanbaek later on:))))