THE HUFFLEPUFFS

“I told you, you really shouldn’t be hanging around that Slytherin girl,” Jisoo chided as the two best friends made their way past a pile of wooden barrels and into the Hufflepuff common room where other students were headed into their respective rooms to get ready for bed. “If you don’t listen to me after what happened tonight well… I’ll know for sure that you are indeed insane and presume that you have the biggest death wish.”

Momo rolled her eyes and took a deep breath in, slowly walking up a couple of stairs, trying to not to succumb into a food coma after probably one of the biggest dinners she’s ever had in her life (and that’s saying something).

“First of all,” Momo began, halting in front of their room and turning the knob, pushing the heavy door open and going inside. “Just call her by her name, Nayeon. Second, it’s complicated. I’m sure there was a good reason for her to blow up like that.”

Jisoo tsked under her breath and flopped on her back onto her bed in the corner. After lazily kicking off her shoes, she curled into a little ball, her face buried under her bony knees.

“She said she was going to kill her friend…” Jisoo mumbled, her voice muffled by her legs. Next to her, Momo untied her shoes and didn’t even bother to change into pajamas, climbing under her thick sheets and into bed. Of course Momo had to object.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

Jisoo couldn’t help but laugh.

“You see way too much good in people,” she said, grabbing her wand from the inside of one of her long socks and waving it in the air to turn off the lights. “And in the wrong people at that.”

Momo shook her head and closed her eyes, welcoming the darkness. She loved her best friend but Jisoo just didn’t understand. From what Momo could tell, Nayeon just liked to give off the wrong impression, she liked to surprise people-- she loved to see what kind of reactions she could get from them. As far as Momo knew, from their conversations and the brief time she has spent with her group, Nayeon was all talk, no action. She had not once seen her explode like she had done today. Besides, Momo knew what that girl Jennie was capable of. She was always pushing people to their limits. In turn, Nayeon probably had a legitimate reason to go off on her like that…. right?

Momo frowned at the assumption Jisoo had concocted, that she always only sees the good in people. It made Momo sound idiotic and naive and she wasn’t -- at least she didn’t think so. Momo definitely didn’t think everyone was good. She didn’t think Voldemort was good, although she likes to think that he did have his soft spots and that he didn’t get to the level he was at all by himself-- his surroundings and adolescent life attributed to his wrongdoings as well. She certainly didn’t find Minatozaki Sana to be a good person either. She was a girl that liked to masquerade as a nice human being before showing her true colors. Sana was a serpent in sheep's clothing-- well actually in regular human girl clothes but that wasn’t the point. Sana was mean and a pure-blood supremacist, but most of all she was a liar.

There was nothing more Momo hated than liars.

Anyway, Momo hadn’t found any evidence to support why Nayeon could be a bad person, it just didn’t make sense. Nayeon was nice to her and seemed to always tell her the truth. She gave her things too, candy occasionally which always brightened Momo’s day and bad people don’t just hand out candy. Also most of the stories about Nayeon doing wicked things were all rumors, all anecdotes passed through who knows how many students who could have changed or misheard the actual facts.

Regardless, there was just no tangible reason that Momo shouldn’t trust Nayeon. Not one at all.

“Well you worry too much,” was all Momo could say back to Jisoo as she shifted under her covers. “I trust Nayeon and I think you should too.”

~~~

It was difficult for Momo to wake up the next morning. It was almost like all of the food she ate actually intended to kill her, the turkey in her system weighing her down and practically making it impossible for her to stand up. Eventually she did get out of bed-- with Jisoo’s help-- but they were both late, accidentally sleeping through breakfast and cutting it close to the beginning of their first day of Charms class.

“You forgot your tie Momoring…” Jisoo teased lightly, pointing to Momo’s plain white shirt as they speed walked through the corridor. Momo looked down and sighed, adjusting her shoulder bag.

When they finally made it to their Charms lesson they sat in the two empty seats in the back and tried to remain unnoticed. Luckily their professor Jeong Hyeong-don was also head of Hufflepuff house as well as a fan of Momo’s. When he saw the two out of the corner of his eye he couldn’t help but smile, silently dismissing their tardiness.

“Do you have an extra quill, I seem to have forgotten that as well,” Momo whispered to her friend, rifling through her bag as quietly as possible. Jisoo chuckled to herself.

“Of course, why do you think I always bring two?”

Momo grinned and nudged Jisoo’s shoulder.

~~~

During their free period right before lunch Momo and Jisoo sat on the grass in the courtyard on both of their sweaters so their skirts wouldn’t get wet. Textbooks and small snacks surrounded them and Jisoo was flipping through one of her notebooks to find the page she was looking for.

“What classes do you have after lunch?” Jisoo asked, on an acid pop she had bought off the Express the day before, turning between two specific pages in her notes indecisively. Momo shrugged, grabbing the schedule she had jammed into her bag and read it aloud.

“Um… Muggle Studies and uh, Ancient Runes. Only on Tuesdays and Thursdays though. On Wednesday and Friday I have…. History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

A tiny whine escaped from Jisoo’s lips and she groaned, falling on her back onto the damp ground.

“Seriously?” She frowned, turning onto her side to look at her best friend, raising her hand over her eyes to block the sun from above. “I have the exact opposite! Now I’m going to actually have to talk to people.”

Momo pouted in thought and reached out to brush a strand of hair off of the other girl’s face. She didn’t want to leave Jisoo alone either, they always did everything together since the beginning of their first year but things were changing and becoming different now and they were getting older-- this was bound to happen sometime.

“We’ll still have Charms together and we’ll eat lunch as usual,” Momo assured her, “We’ll be fine.”

Jisoo nodded and gave her a light smile, although it soon turned sour once her warm brown eyes shifted to focus on a figure in the distance across the courtyard. Momo didn’t even have to guess who it was.

Nayeon was strutting the perimeter of the grass with Yeri and Sana in tow trying to keep up her pace. They all looked determined like they had somewhere to be. Jennie was nowhere to be seen.

The other students in the courtyard all halted their conversations to watch them, both due to the three looked like royalty and because every student alive was curious about when Nayeon would blow up next. It was strange too, despite the gossip traveling fast around Hogwarts almost no one could exactly pinpoint what the argument was about. A Ravenclaw in Momo’s Transfiguration class said she heard it was all about money-- that Jennie had stolen from Nayeon, but that theory didn’t make any sense. Like Nayeon, Jennie’s family was rich and definitely didn’t need any more money to spend. A younger Hufflepuff girl named Dahyun had whispered in the common room that the fight had started because Jennie had called Nayeon fat. Momo was more inclined to believe this rumor than the others but if you asked her, Nayeon’s reaction then would have been slightly… less dramatic. Maybe.

Regardless of the reason though, Jennie’s popularity had now sufficiently plummeted, leaving Nayeon still at number one, handing the second spot over to….

“Damn that Minatozaki girl is something else,” said a voice just behind Momo that made her flinch. She looked over her shoulder. It was Wonwoo, a boy in her year and also a player on the Hufflepuff quidditch team. She watched as his eyes followed the Slytherins until they were all out of sight and back sauntering throughout another corridor. His lingering gaze sent a jolt of displeasure down her spine.

“Actually she’s just as she appears to be….” Momo sighed under her breath, cursing herself for sounding so incredibly bitter even though she couldn’t help it. Wonwoo seemed unfazed however, his eyes glassy, his mind probably whirring with fantasies. Shaking his head, he plopped down next to the two on the grass and crossed his legs, resting his arms on his knees.

“So Hirai I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he began, rolling and relaxing his shoulders under the sun. Momo stuffed her schedule back into her bag and closed it, giving him all her attention.

“Hmm?”

“The Tri-Wizard Tournament. The Goblet of Fire-- are you going to put your name in?”

Momo paused for a moment.

“I’m sorry, the what?”

Wonwoo narrowed his eyes suspiciously and crossed his arms. He really didn’t think he was going to have to spell it out for her but what kind of friend and teammate would he be if he didn’t? He took a deep breath.

“Look no offense Mo, I know you’re a Muggle-born and all but were you listening to Headmaster Park’s speech at all last night? This year Hogwarts is hosting the Tri-Wizard tournament. It’s kind of like… what do your people call it, the Olympics?” He asked, cringing his own poor choice of words, but Momo ignored him. She knew he meant know harm, plus boys are idiots, and NO she wasn’t listening at all to Headmaster Park’s opening statements-- every year they were mostly the same and all that occupied her mind that night was the feast that was going to occur once he was finished talking. So it wasn’t really her fault.

“But how does that tie in to the flaming goblet?” she asked, fidgeting with the wrapper for a chocolate cauldron she just popped into . Beside her Jisoo chuckled and Wonwoo made a face, gripping onto the grass now with both of his hands.

“The Goblet of Fire.”

“Whatever.”

“Whoever puts their name into the goblet has the chance to be chosen to become apart of the Tri-Wizard tournament,” he explained, looking her dead in the eye “And I think you should put your name in.”

Momo hesitated for a moment and then turned to Jisoo who didn’t seem as surprised as she was that this was being brought up. But still there was something that Momo didn’t understand.

“Why me?”

This time Wonwoo and Jisoo exchanged glances, ones that completely read as a kind of ‘Are you kidding me?’. Jisoo laughed, consequently then choking on her acid pop and Wonwoo shaking his head in utter exasperation. He twisted a blade of grass and pulled it out of the ground as he spoke next.

“Because you’re well, you. You’re an amazing athlete and I think you could have a good chance representing Hogwarts in the tournament. I mean really, who else in our school could do it?” he asked, looking around the courtyard for some sort of dramatic emphasis.

Momo was unsure. Of course in passing she had heard about this game but from what she could remember, the tournament was insanely dangerous. Plus there were riddles and scavenger hunts involved and she really wasn’t sure if she could solve those on her own. If the tournament involved quidditch then maybe yeah she would have a shot at it but all in all she wasn’t sure if she was meant for it. It wasn’t just a game of physicality it was a game of wits too.

“Doesn’t it last all year?” She asked, wiping a smudge of chocolate off the corner of . “I can barely finish homework with just having quidditch practice, I can’t even imagine having to add some giant contest into my schedule too.”

“We would help you,” Jisoo suggested, nudging Momo’s knee with her shoe. Wonwoo nodded along, agreeing and scooting closer.

“You would be ultimate competitor,” He said, a smile stretching across his big face but Momo shrugged.

“Haven’t people like… died playing?”

Wonwoo’s fingers actively drummed against his lap.

“Eh only twenty or thirty…”

Momo gasped and stood up, tightly crossing her arms. Jisoo let out a sigh and leaned back, biting on the end nub of her acid pop.

This is it, Momo had thought. My friends have gone insane.

“I don’t want to die guys! I just- I don’t know that sounds crazy to me! Risking my life for a stupid game,” She said, beginning to lightly pace back and forth between the two.

Jisoo nodded partially agreeing, although she definitely thought it would be cool to have a Tri-Wizard Tournament competitor as a best friend.

“All I’m saying is think about it. Okay?” Wonwoo asked before he too stood up and collected his things. “I’ll see you at practice.”

“Okay,” was all Momo could say back, her mind now clouded with anxiety. Momo really would do anything for her friends but risk her life? That sounded crazy. Although maybe she was overthinking it, the tournament was a school event after all and there would be lots of people in charge of keeping her safe so what was she so afraid of? A part of her didn’t want the exposure-- being a well rounded quidditch player was difficult enough now that a few students were starting to notice her more. She wasn’t popular by any means but she now could recognize the stares she felt as she walked down the hallways and from the quidditch pitch. She could hear her name getting chanted at the matches now as she flew past the stands. She think she saw a couple signs with her name on them too. But Momo didn’t exactly like the way it felt to be noticed, especially if it meant that those who now noticed her only cared for her because of some sport. If anything, she wanted people to like her for who she actually was, not her quidditch persona. Momo often found herself wondering if one day she couldn’t play at all would these people still be there for her, would they still be interested? Or would they leave and forget about her, seeing her as someone worthless? Being worthless just might be her biggest fear. If being in the tournament could somehow make her valuable to people then wouldn’t it be worth a shot?

“I’ll think about it.”