- October 24, 2005 -

Morning classes were, in Minho’s unbiased opinion, the bane of his existence. What did schools, both magical and Muggle, have against letting their students sleep in until noon? Or even until they woke up naturally? And, to have science class first thing, was the worst possible scenario. Still, as true as that was (and would forever be), for the past couple of days, Minho had been looking forward to going to Potions. 

This morning wasn’t any different.

He folded his arms over his chest, rubbing some warmth into them as he passed by Slytherin. The entrance to Slytherin was closed when he passed it, but he still glanced over to see if Kibum would be there, out of habit. 

He wasn’t.

Hopping up the steps in the darkened hallway, Minho turned the corner and hurried down the thin corridor to the pool of warm light spilling out onto the cold stone floor. There were already a could students there, but no Slughorn -- he was probably finishing his morning tea in his office. Minho set his backpack down at his favorite station, getting his textbook, parchment, and quill out and setting them on the workspace to save it. 

A couple boisterous Gryffindors came inside, but Minho didn’t even bother to look over at them as he went over to the wall of shelves made into cubbies and found his cauldron and ladel. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder before he reached inside the cauldron to pull out the scrap of parchment he knew would be hidden inside before he started back for his workstation. 

He set his cauldron up on the little rack above the candle and set the ladel aside before he flipped over the parchment, scoffing at the drawing Kibum had left him.

It all started a couple days ago, when he failed to recognize what Kibum was trying to draw. Twice. The next morning, he came into Potions to find a random scrap of parchment with Guess what I am? written on one side and what Minho thought to be a funnily drawn horse on the other tucked into his cauldron. After class, he wrote his guess down and slipped it into Kibum’s cauldron. 

This morning, it looked like a weirdly long person with stringy hair. Minho wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be.

“Good morning, class,” Slughorn said as he stepped inside, and Minho tucked the parchment underneath his book. “I trust you’ve had a good morning thus far?” There were some unenthused murmurs in response, but that didn’t seem to phase the professor. Everyone started opening their books and flipping through the pages to get back to where they left off. “No, no, put away your books. Remember? You’re supposed to have the Shrinking Solution memorized by now.”

Minho huffed quietly as he set his book aside. He glanced down at the parchment again, flipping it over to the blank side and looking up at Slughorn to make sure his back was turned before he scribbled out his guess.

“Alright, why don’t you get your ingredients and get started on preparing them for the potion.” They all got up, milling over to the shelves with the ingredients to grab what they could remember. Minho stopped by the cubbies again, dropping the parchment into Kibum’s before he joined the others. “Don’t forget to chop the daisy roots finely, or else they won’t dissolve!”

It wasn’t until Herbology, their last class of the day, that Minho would find out if he was right or not. He waited outside with the other Hufflepuffs, watching the door for the Slytherins to appear on their way up from Potions. Luckily, Kibum was one of the first to show up, and Minho greeted him with a grin.

“You were close,” Kibum said, smirking somewhat smugly as he glanced around the garden. 

Minho’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“You said mermaid...and it was a merperson.”

“That’s the same thing!”

Kibum snorted, his own smile blooming as he moved out of his reach and started for the greenhouse that Sprout had just opened the door to. Minho rolled his eyes, chuckling as he followed him inside.