sicheng hugs onto his bed post as he waits for baekhyun to finish fixing himself up. this year, he has the same four roommates: baekhyun, sehun, and minhyuk. they were all around the same age, so it made being roommates easy. while sehun, and minhyuk aren’t in sicheng’s main group of friends, he certainly loved hanging out with them. they all had really genuine personalities and they all surprising worked well together. who said that hufflepuffs were the worst house? they had a hodge-podge of character, mixed with both loyalty and hard work. they helped each other almost unconditionally and sicheng felt a real sense of family when he was with his housemates. there was nowhere he’d rather be.

“i think i’m going to talk to kino today,” sicheng states as he presses his cheek against the wooden pole. he’s been thinking about kino a lot lately, cooking up mini scenarios in his mind that depict the two doing small, everyday tasks together. in some of them, they’re doing homework peacefully in the library, and in others, sicheng imagines them together in his bed, cuddling underneath his thick comforter on a cold winter afternoon. it’s really unhealthy how much he thinks about kino despite them having almost no connection to each other, but sicheng really can’t help himself. besides school work and quidditch practice, he really has nothing else to distract himself with.

baekhyun raises his eyebrow as he tightens his tie around his collar, “this is like the fifth time you’ve said this. do you really mean it this time?”

“yeah,” sicheng lets go of the pole and stands up straight, showing his determination, “yerim said she was going to eat lunch with daniel today, and i told her that we would join her if she doesn’t mind. she was kind of confused why we wouldn’t just go and eat with our other friends, but i told her… about kino… and she was like oh.”

baekhyun stifles a laugh as he slips his black sweater vest on. the polo logo was a deep golden color, which contrasted beautifully on the black background. he pulls at the ends of the vest to adjust it on his body, “you finally decided to tell her? well, at least this time you have a real plan! remember last time? you said you’d just wait in the corridors until you saw him and then you’d just ask for directions and try to charm your way into a conversation, but he just pointed somewhere and then ran away. you think it’s going to work this time?”

“if it doesn’t work this time, i am officially the lamest hufflepuff in existence,” sicheng huffs before he jumps onto his bed and buries his face into his pillow. he screams a bit dramatically to release stress, “why is this so hard?”

baekhyun slips on his robe before he taps sicheng on the shoulder, “it’s hard because you’re being so cautious, which isn’t very like you.”

“i am cautious though,” sicheng argues, “i am probably one of the most untrusting people in this house, probably second to william and justine.”

“there is a difference between cautious and untrusting,” baekhyun sighs, shaking his head, “anyways, let’s get to class. i can’t be late to potions again or prof limus is going to cut my head off and brew me into one of his secret potions.”

sicheng groans before he slides out of his bed and the both of them head out of their room and through the tunnel pathways to the exit. the tunnels are pitch dark, similar to the burrows that badgers normally live in, however, there are lanterns every five meters to help students see. the first time sicheng ever lived in the hufflepuff dorms, he got lost within the tunnels frequently, but now, his feet are on autopilot. he doesn’t even have to think about where to go anymore.

they exit through the common room, hurry through the kitchen, and they’re about to enter the hall of stairs when they hear a loud commotion coming from outside. curious, the two rush over to see what’s happening, when they notice a swarm of woodland sprites terrorizing a first-year flight lesson. sir flemmings is calming down his students, and sicheng sighs as he catches a glimpse of professor aciosia apologizing profusely while her teaching aide (unsuccessfully) attempts to stabilize them. this reminds sicheng of his second year, where professor aciosia forgot to charm her more feisty sprites and they ran loose, causing sicheng to help out in rounding them back up.

sir flemmings was the flight instructor at hogwarts, and he was quite obsessed with the hufflepuff quidditch members due to their uncharacteristic passion to playing this time around (he normally has trouble with the hufflepuff team in the past due to lack of competitive drive), and professor aciosia was the headmistress for hufflepuff and she taught herbology. she’s normally not forgetful, but when family matters appear, her mind somehow travels all the way back to france.

sicheng sends baekhyun off to class before he runs onto the field.

“sicheng!” professor aciosia exclaims, an air of relief resounding through her voice, “thank heavens you’re here. last night, i was on a call with my parents, and i…”

“you forgot to charm them again, professor?” sicheng sympathetically finishes, before he turns to the first year next to him. he smiles apologetically as he asks, “is it alright if i borrow your broom for a bit?”

the first year was a slytherin, and he had a small look of shock on his face, before a sneer falls onto his face as he notices the golden yellow accents on sicheng’s robe, “let a random hufflepuff touch my broom? no thanks. my father bought this for me as a congratulations gift for getting my letter. no way are you going to use it. even if i did let you use it, you’d probably crash it, and it doesn’t look like you’d be able to afford to replace it anyways. it’s a nimbus 6000, best of its kind.”

sicheng takes a step back, slightly appalled. why was this kid being so snobby? he looked chinese, and by the air of his tone, his family must’ve been quite wealthy. what ever happened to asian solidarity?

“student zhong, we will not tolerate this type of unnecessarily rude behavior, especially not towards student dong,” sir flemmings scolds, quite upset that a child would dare to insult one of hogwart’s best fliers, “i’ll be deducting five points from slytherin. if this behavior continues—”

there’s a shocked look on the first year’s face, probably embarrassed and regretful that it’s his first week of classes and he’s already lost points for his house. sicheng politely interrupts sir flemmings, looking at the first year with a hard stare, “there’s no need to deduct points, sir. i just wanted to save a couple of seconds, but i guess i will just call for my own broom.”

sicheng lifts his hand and mentally beckons his broom to come to his hand. about thirty seconds pass and ‘student zhong’ is snickering to his fellow slytherin peers. they don’t think a broomstick is coming.

but another fifteen seconds pass and a jet black broom cuts through the air and sicheng catches it swiftly. a golden “fleur de méchant 19” shimmers in the handle, and the first year students are in awe. the fleur de méchant broomstick was crafted by hand out of a strong combination of cherry blossom branches and the ashes of dead yew wood, specially crafted by only one wizard in the entire world, and it’s known for its rarity and its ability to deflect dark magic. only thirty of these brooms are in existence, and it seems like sicheng is in possession of the 19th one.

sicheng was gifted this broom when his wai gong died last year. why and how his wai gong had this priceless broom stashed up in his attic, he didn’t know, but he hasn’t been able to part ways with it since. he’s never been close with his wai gong in the past, considering that he lived in watford for the majority of his youth, but ever since he discovered his wizarding powers and his family moved back to zhejiang for good during his second year, he’s never grown so close to someone so quickly.

“in the future, i’d watch what you assume about other students,” sicheng gifts a piece of advice to the first year. his face seems calm, but his voice tells a different story. his words contained a quiet, mental venom that seeped into the skin of all the first years on the field. student zhong took a step back, intimidated. the student definitely didn’t expect such an aura to resonate off of a ‘lowly hufflepuff’.

sicheng hops onto his broom before he flies into the air, towards the spiralling sprites. the gaggle of them are buzzing around a bit faster than usual, which is strange. woodland sprites are usually the most unpleasant of all sprites, but they’re not usually this menacing. 

the swarm of sprites greets sicheng in a loud, high pitched cackle, “sicheng! sicheng! sicheng! sicheng!” each of them laughs as they flitter around sicheng, pestering him as they fly close and attempt to nip him on the exposed sections of his skin.

fortunately, sicheng knows how to maneuver his broom to avoid getting bitten, but sicheng has to move quite fast. he whips out his wand before he does starts flying up, luring the sprites to follow him. when he gets high enough, he pauses a bit to bait the sprites, before he dives head-first towards the ground. the overzealous sprites chase after him, speeding up as they follow him. sicheng takes a sharp L-shaped turn as he’s about three meters from the ground, heading back up towards the sky.

the sprites, however, end up crashing straight into the ground below. sicheng flies up over them and before the sprites can recollect themselves, sicheng stabilizes himself and swishes his wand cleanly, “vis subicite!”

sicheng’s voice is sharp and clear as it echoes throughout the field. the sprites below are stunned into their positions, and sicheng flies down to collect them. as he gets closer, the sprites start transforming into different beings. they were no longer sprites. their human-like qualities shedded off and stormy grey nymph-like creatures replaced them. their teeth disappears and a set of large fangs replace them. shocked, sicheng hesitates to use his corralling spell, and the new creatures break free from the former charm and chase after him once again, this time, more furious and more aggravated.

what are those things, sicheng wonders in panic as he flies away from the students and towards an empty patch of land, near the entrance of the forbidden forest. sweat begins to drip down his forehead. sicheng is getting a bit tired from all of the flying and intense dodging he’s been doing, but he continues on. who knows what would happen if he got bit by one of them?

sicheng wracks his mind for a spell that could possibly slow them down enough for sicheng to make a more powerful move, or maybe a time saving spell, or possibly just a spell that could stun the creatures completely. stupefy would probably be able to subdue them, but would it be so powerful that it would kill the creatures? he didn’t want to be charged with about fifty sprite deaths. it’d be nice if he could stop time momentarily…

that’s it!

sicheng rounds around one last time before he exclaims, “有时间有自由!” and the nymphs are paused in mid-air. this was a dangerous spell because not only does it create the slight possibility of changing time and space as he knew it, but there was no way of knowing how much time he actually had. everytime he used the spell, it either lasted for a couple of seconds to a couple of minutes, never more. he had learned this spell from his wai gong when he was six; it was his first time in zhejiang and his wai gong wanted to make his visit especially memorable.

when he was six, however, he didn’t know that his wai gong was teaching him a spell. he just though his wai gong just had a funny way of saying “if you have time, you’ll have freedom.” but in his third year at hogwarts, the memory came back to him, and he tested it with his wand and it magically just.. worked. to this day, he doesn’t know of another person who knows this chinese spell (or any form of it, really).

sicheng works quickly as he lands on the ground and constructs a tight box out of fallen branches on the ground with a quick “flexicaito” and he sends the creatures into it with a swift wave of his wand and a “stabilivouz”. he’s so thankful that he had minhyuk as a study partner, or else how would he memorize how to do this?

time resumes right after he charms the box with a protectant seal. the nymph-like creatures buzz within the box, but they aren’t able to escape. sicheng drops down onto the ground out of exhaustion. he didn’t realize how much energy he had been exerting until now. his breathing’s heavy and his heart pounds wildy in his chest. he’s a bit light-headed and dizzy. just a bit.

sicheng closes his eyes for a bit, thinking that he’ll open them again in a couple of seconds after resting, but he doesn’t.