"Thank Merlin" Jiha exclaims, as soon as the three girls exit the classroom after choosing the same exact class times. 

"Don't you mean thank Headmistress McGonagall." Soomin chuckles, as Jiha looks at the girl who's quietly walking behind them.

"Audrey, let me see what class you're in." Jiha turns to her roommate and pulls the paper out of her hand to compare with hers.

"I'll go check on Seungwan." Hera whispers to Soomin, pushing her towards her own roommate.

"Do you want to compare timetables?" Eunmi asks Soomin, noticing the girl silently looking at the paper.

"If you don't mind." Soomin replies, to which her roommate holds it out so they can both compare side-to-side.

"Hey, look we choose the same exact classes." Soomin notes happily, as she looks over to make sure once again.

"I actually, heard your friends and you talking so I selected the same classes as you guys." Eunmi confesses, causing Soomin to look at her wide-eyed.

"I'm sorry. It's just I don't really know anyone here and just wanted to be in class with someone I know. I'm sorry. I didn-" Eunmi confesses,

"It's fine. You don't have to apologize. I'm glad we'll be in the same classes." Soomin beams at her along with looping their hands together as they enter the Great Hall, immediately spotting Jiha as she's frantically waving them over to her table.

"Guess what?" Jiha asks, as soon as Eunmi and Soomin are within hearing distance.

"You won't belive this. Audrey is with us in all our classes. Can you believe it?" Jiha excitedly asks, as her roommate looks slightly flustered at the attention.

"So is Eunmi." Soomin informs them, taking a seat across the two Gryffindor girls.

"Coincidentally, so is Seungwan." Hera smiles, joining them at the table with her roommate as well.

"Jongdae." Jiha calls as soon as she sees her twin enter the Great Hall.

"What's up?" Jongdae greets as Baekhyun and him join the group of girls.

"What classes are you taking?" Jiha asks, while the others are focused on filling their plates.

"Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, History of Magic, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Astronomy, Herbology and Flying lessons." Jongdae lists out.

"Wow, thanks it's not like we're all first year students as well." Jiha rolls her eyes at her twin's pathetic attempt at humor.

"I mean you did ask him what classes he's taking, rather than when he's taking them." Soomin defends Jongdae.

"Uhh, of course. It's house loyalty over frienships?" Jiha jokes, causing the entire table to burst into laughter as Jongdae puts his timetable in the center allowing for everyone to see.

"We choose the same classes, so that's how mine looks as well." Baekhyun says, and the girls look at the boys with wide-eyes, as they hand their timetables to the them.

"Wow. How awesome is this?" Baekhyun yells, noticing the similarities in classes.

"Guys, I can already feel an awesome friendship forming between the eight of us." Audrey excitedly chirps, look at the group with stars in her eyes and they can't help but agree to her. In that moment, an unspoken bond forms among the eight, never to be broken.

Eight seems to be a good number as each person in their group seems to excel at one subject, allowing them to help their friends out with homework and quizzes, though they all excel at flying, even if Baekhyun, Eunmi and Audrey are slightly terrified of heights turning a little green at the thought of being several hundred feet above the ground.

Transfiguration is Audrey's forte. Not only does is understand the theoretical reasoning, but is more advanced in comparison to her peers.

History of Magic seems to be Eunmi's favorite. She already has the book memorized along with reading up on the second year book as well. While the other seven find Binns boring as he always seems to be droning on, Eunmi enthusiastically pays attention along with asking questions. Which is why she becomes one of his favorite students, as she happens to remind him of a certain red-head that happened to be a major factor in saving the world as they knew it.

Defense Against the Dark Arts or DADA is where Hera and Jongdae shine. Jongdae thanks his father's job as an auror as there were many books in their house library that allowed for him to advance, while Hera points to the nature of the subject being interesting to her.

Seungwan's favorite subject happens to be the most unexpected as she leans in favor or astronomy. "Stars are interesting, they've been here before we were even born and they'll be here after we're gone."

Herbology is Soomin's favorite and she has her mother to thank for that. Her mother's position at St. Mungo's required many books in the subject and the many magical plants around their house kept Soomin interested after learning of the different effect about the plants.

Charms is were Baekhyun and Jiha excel in, they have memorized almost half the charms in their textbook and are definitely not ashamed to prank their classmates or friends for that matter. That has led to the group receiving detention and several deductions in house points. However, there is one subject where they all have quite some trouble in. Which happens to be potions and more often than not, someone out of their group will mess up the day's recipe each and every class. It's so expected that Professor Boot would have his wand at the ready pointed at the right side of the classroom where the group worked in pairs of two, switching partners depending on the potion.

While this was going on it seemed that a certain first year had caught the eye of a second year, as his friends noticed the boy always looking out for her. Thankful for his sister befriending the cute dark-haired, with the prettiest smile he had ever seen. He enjoys watching her talk to her friends as he can see her happiest in those moments. But the one's he cherishes the most are during night time, when she's trying to understand her potions homework.

"You're whipped." His best friend teases, but the boy ignores him in favor of watching his crush chasing his sister around during flying lessons.

"Hi." Soomin looks up as a shadow falls over her.

"Hi." She shyly greets said boy, moving her work to the unoccupied seat, so the boy has enough room to put his bag.

"I hope you remember me. Jongin Kim." The boy introduces himself.

"I do. You're Jiha and Jongdae's older brother." She blushes as the tanned boy refuses to look away from her.

"I'm sorry. Midterms are coming up and all the tables are occupied. I was wondering if I could join you." Jongin asks, the girl can only nod.

"DADA." Jongin guesses, watching the girl pulling her hair out in frustration.

"Huh." Soomin blinks, tearing her eyes from the book.

"DADA Homework." Jongin asks,

"Yeah. Finnigan wants a 10 inch essay. One would think after 3 months of his class, we would know what to expect, but that's all he said. 10-inches on Imp and Ghosts, due before Christmas break." Soomin grumbles, going back to reading a book.

"Have you asked Jongdae or the snake for help?" Jongin asks, immediately wanting to take his words back as he notices the frown on her face.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that." Jongin hurriedly apologizes,

"You're apologizing to the wrong person." She cuts him off.

"I'm sorry. Soomin. Just please let it go." Jongin pleads, noticing her about to shut her book.

"It's not me you should be apologizing. And Jongdae and Hera are fighting about the latest quiz grades, so it's been a tense week. That's why I needed some time alone to finish my homework. I'm absolutely certain if you go to the Charms aisle, you'll find your sister there. If you'll excuse me I really need to finish this." She says, turning back to her book.

"I'm sorry. How about letting me help?"  Jongin offers,

"I'm fine. Why don't you work on your things." She says, without spaing him a single glance.

"I'm sorry. How can I make this up to you?" He asks,

"Many try- "

"Can I join you guys?" A loud voice booms, taking the seat between Soomin and Jongin.

"This table is occupied." Jongin says, though Soomin can't see his face, she can tell he's quiet annoyed at the new person.

"There's three empty chairs, I don't think that counts as occupied." The deep voice chuckles.

"They're not empty for snakes." Jongin sneers, startling as Soomin bangs her book on the table.

"You're unbelievable." She looks at Jongin, extremely disappointed, charming her stuff to pack itself up and heading towards the exit. Jongin tries to follow her, but he's still not learned the charm to help pack up.

"For a hufflepuff, she's quite intelligent." The deep voice laughs, causing Jongin to sneer at him as he tries to run after her.

"Thank You." A soft voice stops Soomin from stomping her way towards the kitchen.

"Excuse me"  She turns to look at the boy sitting on the windowsill, as he looks at the night sky.

"Thank you for defending my sister. At first I was skeptical of how she would be looked at, but I guess I didn't have to worry. So, thank you." The boy says, moving to wrap his silver and green scarf tightly around his neck.

"You don't have to thank me. She's one of my closest friends. I can't stand anyone talking negatively about her. "

"Even if it's your crush, huh." The boy teases, causing the girl to blush, and before she can comment she hears Jongin call her name giving the slytherin the distraction needed to escape.

"Soomin, I'm sorry. But this mindset has been engraved in my mind for so long, it's difficult to not think that way. Though I promise to keep my opinions to myself. I'm sorry." Jongin apologizes, taking one of her hand in his and looking at her with nothing but sincerity. She can't help but forgive him.

"Jongin, our house's don't define us. They're a part of us, but they're not what we are. Even though neither of the eight of us are in Ravenclaw, but we've managed to hold on to the top spots in our year. Just because someone is put in slytherin doesn't mean they're evil, it just means they have more qualities that define them as slytherin. Jongdae is quite intelligent, he should have been in Ravenclaw but he values loyalty and hard work the most, not intelligence, that's why he was sorted into Hufflepuff. I wish you look beyond the houses and see their personalities." Soomin says, before pulling her hands away and walking away without sparing him another glance.

"Soomin." Soomin snaps her head searching for her parents. She sees them waving at her from near a small clearing behind other families and sprints towards them with her luggage charmed to follow after her. Her father doesn't waste a single second and picks his daughter up as she jumps into his arm. There's visible tears in his eyes when he puts her back to her feet. Though they choose to ignore it.

"I missed you guys soo much." Soomin cries hugging her mother.

"Where's Minkyung?" She asks noticing his absence.

"Your grandparents are over, they're taking care of him." Her mother informs her.

"Oh Okay." Her parents can see her mood plummet at the mention of her maternal grandparents, but unfortunately there's nothing more they can do other than comfort her.

It's not that Soomin hates her mother's parents, it's rather the fact they seem to dislike her. The first time she meet them, they looked at her once and turned their head in a different direction. They've never once acknowledge her and due to them at a young age Soomin understood the meaning of hate and contempt.

"SOOMIN." A loud voices breaks her out of her bad memories, as the twins are running towards her family.

"Hello, Mr and Mrs. Nam." The two children bow in unison.

"My name is Jiha, and my twin Jongdae. I don't know if Soomin told you, but I would like to invite you guys to my house for Christmas dinner." Jiha starts, and Jongdae takes over with "Our parents have given us permission to invite my friends and their families, it would be an honor to have you over for dinner. " Jongdae finishes with a slight bow. Mrs. Nam asks for contact information while Soomin talks her father into letting her friends stay over the day before they're expected to return, so they can all head to the King's Cross together. Jiha conveniently produces a list of contact information with all seven families.

"There you are." Jongin huffs, catching up to his siblings.

"Oh, Hi Soomin." He waves as her, before turning to look at her father.

"Hello, You must be Soomin's father." Jongin shakes the man's hand.

"Dad, this is Jongin, he's the twin's older brother." She introduces.

"Nice to meet you." Mr. Nam says, looking behind the kids to watch his wife make him way towards them.

"Well, we should be heading home. I'm sure Minkyung is excited to see you. He wouldn't stop asking for his Soom." Her father bids as the friends share one last hug, with Jongin hesitantly giving Soomin an one-armed hug.

"Pumpkin." Soomin beams hearing the familiar endearment, quickly jumping out of the car as she notices her paternal grandparents waiting for her.

"Ye Ye. Nai Nai." Soomin screams, running towards her grandparents, as her grandfather gathers her in his arms, while her parents get her belongings.

"Pumpkin. How have you been?" Nai Nai asks, as she gently tucks a piece of her granddaughter's hair behind her ear.

"I missed you and YeYe a lot." She pouts, bending to hug her grandmother as her grandfather holds her.

"We missed you a lot too." Nai Nai says, kissing her forehead, as Soomin imitates the action and leaves a kiss on the elder's forehead.

"What about me?" Ye Ye playfully asks, resulting in Soomin laughing as she turns to give a sloppy kiss to her YeYe.

"Soom." A tiny voice yells and Ye Ye puts her down, just a small body crashes into her. 

"Minkyung." Soomin yells, bending down to give her brother kisses all over his face. As he continues to wrap his arms around her middle, only reaching her hips.

"I missed you, Kyungiee." Soomin cries.

"I missed you too, Soom." The sweet moment is interrupted with the clearing of a throat. And Soomin finally looks at her maternal grandparents. Her face losing the smile immediately as she looks at the disdain they're looking at her with.

"Hello." She politely bows to the both of them, before seeking refuge with her Ye Ye.

"Mother, Father. May I please have a word?" Mrs.Nam breaks the silence, pulling her parents down the wing of her private library.

"Why do they hate me so much?" Soomin wonders out lot, breaking her grandparents and her father's heart as they still don't understand how the wizard's still look down on Soomin, because of her father's status of being a Muggle.

"Because they have their heads up their arses and should they continue to behave so rudely, they can continue to keep it there." Nai Nai fumes, causing Soomin to burst into laughter along with her grandfather, while her father looks conflicted, with trying to stop his mother for cursing in front of his children or joining them in laughter.

Laughter wins out.