"I'm sorry I can't make it." Mr.Nam apologizes once again as his wife and daughter enter the living quarters, dressed for the Christmas dinner at the Kim's.

"No. Dad you have to come. It's not Christmas if we're not all together. " Soomin whines.

"I know darling, but Dad needs to go to work, so he can spend the rest of your holidays without having to worry about his work." His wife calmly explains  and just like that, Soomin stops whining as she looks at her father.

"I'm sorry for whining, Dad. But promise you'll spend the rest of the holidays together." Soomin extends her pinky and her father quickly interwhines their pinkies for a promise.

"Come on, or we're going to be late." Mrs. Nam smiles, watching the father-daughter duo as their son is staying with his paternal grandparents for the evening.

When they get there, they're satisfied to know, they weren't the only ones that decided to drive as there's a few other cars on the long driveway.

"Soomin." Someone calls down, as the Nam women exit the car.

"Eunmi." Soomin beams, dragging her mother along with her to greet her roommate and her parents.

"Mom. Meet Eunmi Micheals. My roommate and her parents" She introduces.

"Hello, Mrs. Nam. My parents, Carson and Nari Micheals." Eunmi introduces, as they begin walking to the front door.

"Hyori Nam"

Mrs. Micheals lets out a small scream, noticing the house-elf opening the doors for incoming guests.

"Welcome to the Kim Manor. All the guests are currently in the living room, if you would follow me." The small elf says and begins leading the way, as Soomin and Eunmi try to start a conversation with the elf, though the creature chooses to politely answer, he refuses to further the conversation.

"Soomin. Eunmi." They hear Jiha's voice, before they see her speeding towards them.

"Brace for impact." Eunmi jokes, as they manage to catch Jiha, while their other friends calmly follow behind her.

"Happy Christmas." They wish each other, as the house-elf takes the presents for the host, The kids promised to wait until their sleepover to exchange their presents as it could get messy.

The kids turn to the parents as they introduce themselves. The Micheals and Hyori fall in love with Baekhyun's outgoing personality as he manages to make them feel comfortable in less than 10 minutes. Watching Soomin laugh with her friends, Hyori is relieved to know she's got herself a good group of friends.

The Byun's are the first to come join their little corner as they introduce themselves and everyone sees where Baekhyun gets his personality from as his father is extremely comedic, while his intelligence and beauty comes from his mother.

Next are the Hills as they greet their daughter's friends with nothing but smiles. Audrey's mother seems to form a quick friendship with Nari, as they both were into the magic world after their marriages. The Byuns and Hyori seem to be familiar with each other as they had both attended the same school back in Korea, but never really good friends, due to the extreme segregation of houses.

Seungwan's parents are the next to join and to no surprise, Mr and Mrs. Kim had been classmates of the Byuns and Mrs. Nam though they were a few years older.

The hosts of the dinner, come to quickly greet them and Mr. Micheals recognizes the Auror from their years at Hogwarts, while Mrs.Kim seems to recognize Mrs.Nam and Mrs. Byun. The host have to excuse themselves, as they have others to greet and are off on their way.

Hera's father, Aaron Zhang gets along quite well with Mr. Byun as they're both jokester's bringing laughter to the group. Jiha discreetly drags Soomin and Hera off the huge group as everyone else was busy talking among themselves.

"Jiha, what are we doing here?" Hera questions noticing the hallway get quieter as the portraits are looking over the three girls with curiosity. 

"I'm taking you to my room, this is the first time ever, I can show someone my room." Jiha practically skips the rest of the way as she talks about her plans for the rest of the holidays.

"Seungwan would love this." That's the first thing spoken as the girls look at the ceiling that has a view of the night sky.

"She would, wouldn't she." Jiha smugly smiles, and the two roll their eyes, as they figure out Jiha's gift to Seungwan.

"Where's Jongin? I didn't see him downstairs." Soomin says, while Hera looks at the pictures displayed on the vanity.

"He's with his friends in his room. Mom and Dad said he can go back to his room after one hour of interaction with the guests. As soon his hour was up, he left." Jiha pouts, thinking about how lucky her brother is.

"Why? Are you curious about him? Do you want to wish him?" Jiha quickly jumps on her feet and once again starts dragging the girls behind her.

The boys in the room as busy with a game of Exploding Snap when Jiha decides to barge into the room without knocking and completely scaring them as one of the cards decides to explode at that moment.

"What the fu*k." Sehun curses, jumping in his seat as he looks at the three girls, while Jiha is confidently smiling at the four males, the other two look somewhat apologetic.

Sehun clears his throat and fixes his robe, before standing to greet the three girls. No one comments if his eyes seem to linger on one of the girls for a second later, as they're too busy staring at the shortest male in the room gawking at a certain dark-haired witch as this is his first time seeing her dressed in Muggle clothing.

"You're going to get drool all over the floor, if you don't shut your mouth soon." Jiha bluntly states, helping her brother close his mouth while he tries to form coherent words to compliment the Hufflepuff.

"You look amazing." Jongin says, causing Soomin to blush, no one notices the boy blush himself.

"Thank you. You also look good." She softly says.

"Happy Christmas." She wishes, looking at each of the boys, as they greet Hera and her.

"W-what are you guys doing here?" Jongin raises an eyebrow, looking over his sister who looks too innocent.

"I wanted to show my best friends my room." She pouts, seeking refuge with Junmyeon as he happily wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"It's fine. I think it's better if we head off downstairs as well. I'm sure dinner is going to be served some time soon." Junmyeon advices, and everyone agrees with Jiha and Junmyeon leading the cluster.

"Happy Christmas." Kyungsoo wishes Soomin as he joins to walk the two girls, while Sehun and Jongin remain behind them. The two girls greet him as well.

"What have you been doing for the holidays?" Soomin asks, trying to keep conversation with him.

"My grandparents are here, so I'm currently staying with them. Though I might have to go to Korea to visit my paternal grandparents." Kyungsoo tells her, there's no joy nor sadness in his voice, just quite neutral.

"That must be fun. I love spending time with my ye ye and nai nai, they're the best." Soomin smiles, remembering them.

"Nai Nai and Ye Ye. Are your grandparents Chinese?" Hera asks, hearing the Chinese terms.

"Yeah. Nai Nai is Chinese." Soomin confirms. "Nai Nai grew up in China, but she came to London for vacation and meet Ye Ye and the two ended up falling in love, five years and a marriage later, my dad was there." Soomin smiles, recalling the hundreds of times, she's heard the story and yet it never seems to get old.

"That's sweet." Hera smiles, as the noises get louder since they're only a few feet away from the party.

The boys separate from the girls, heading directly to the sweets, while the girls look for their friends.

"Hera, there you are. Sweetheart, it's time to go." Mr.Zhang stops the three girls.

"Happy Christmas, Mr.Zhang. I apologize, we got a little distracted and lost track of time. I'm Soomin Nam, Hufflepuff. First Year as Hera" Soomin greets and Jiha follows soon after.

"It's nice to meet the two of you. Hera writes about the two of you quite a lot. I'm happy she's able to find amazing friends. But we must get going. We have another event, we need to attend." Mr. Zhang smiles at the two.

"I guess we'll be seeing you in a 10 days then." Mr. Zhang says, before he's walking off with his daughter towards the exit.

Soomin notices the subtle glances and pointing the other guests seem to be doing behind the Zhang's back, but she doesn't understand and when she turns to ask Jiha. Jiha has a somber expression on her face, as she looks about ready to kill  the other girls that keep pointing towards Hera and snickering.

"Before the two of you do anything stupid, think about the trouble we'll get in. Mom and Dad won't allow us to go to the sleepover and we won't be able to exchange gifts." Jongdae blocks off their view of the girls and Baekhyun works on turning them towards their friends.

"Soomin." Her mother and her come to a halt, turning around to see Jongin running towards her.

"Hi." He huffs, trying to catch his breath, before he stands up as straight as possible, though he only ends up being 2 inches taller than Soomin.

"Happy Christmas." He holds a small box for her with trembling hands, waiting for her accept, while she stares at him wide-eyed.

"Soomin." Her mother nudges her slightly, and she hurriedly takes the gift.

"I hope you like it, have a good holiday. I'll see you back at the castle." He quickly runs away, before she even has the chance to thank him.

"That's beautiful." Mrs.Nam says, looking over the enchanted peony necklace as it happens to also smell like the flower.

"It is, isn't it." Soomin smiles, delicately holding the necklace to look at the peony charm. She turns it around to find her name engraved into it.

"It's really pretty." She smiles to herself, as she wears the jewelry.

As her father promised, he spends as much as time as he can with his family and the family was currently out grocery shopping for to stock up their vacation home, where they would be spending New Year's along with the Nam elders.

"Yixing." Soomin calls out noticing the boy, pondering over the ice cream freezer.

"Hi." She greets, once she's closer to him.

"Hi." The boys waves, before he's turned his attention back to the ice cream.

"Would you like help?" She asks him.

"Yes, please. Chanyeol asked me to buy ice cream, but I don't know which one to get. What is Slow Churned? Why are there two different kinds of the same ice creams." A pout makes itself on his lips and Soomin can't stop herself from laughing.

"You look so scary at school, and now you look just so- not scary." Soomin blurts out, before she can stop herself.

"Yixing immediately schools his expression and focuses his attention on ice cream.

"Does Chanyeol care about calories and fat?" She switches topics.

"Not really, he just wants ice cream."

"Well get the regular. The slow churned is good, but not as good as regular." She tells him.

"Thank you for helping me." Yixing says, after he's chosen a tub of Mint Chocolate Chip. He notices the look of disgust on Soomin's face as she glares at the tub in his hand but before he can comment, they hear voices calling for Soomin. She turns to look at her parents, wanting to introduce Yixing, but when she looks back at the boy he's already left.

"You're welcome." She whispers, before she's walking to find her parents, though she does get herself a tub of Double Fudge Brownie.

Liking the idea of the muggle tradition of Secret Santa, the group had picked names at the random since the hassle to buy gifts for eight people would have been quite a lot.

Just as Jiha had hinted, she gives Seungwan an enchanted mirror, allowing her a personal view of the sky and stars whenever she wants.

Seungwan gifts Audrey a Pink Pygmy Puff.

Audrey's gift for Eunmi is a copy of Hogwarts: A History.

Eunmi gifts Baekhyun a pair of seeker gloves as the boy hopes to join the Hufflepuff Quidditch team.

Baekhyun gifts Soomin a scarf with her colors, as he was responsible for ruining hers, of course it had happened during Potions.

That leaves Hera and Jongdae. While Hera gives Jongdae Weather in a Bottle, he gifts her chocolates.

Soomin hides the jersey signed by the Chaser of Puddlemere United, deeply into her suitcase.

Returning back after Christmas break leads to a slow start as everyone is gearing up for the annual Muggle Fest, which is basically an entire weekend dedicated to Muggles. It's basically like a talent show, without the use of Magic.

The Muggle Weekend as it had been dubbed is held the last weekend of February as it allows enough time to relax when the students go home for Easter Holidays. The Muggle Weekend allows for students to dress in Muggle clothing and also for Muggle devices to be used freely in the castle. All thanks to a certain Weasley, since he had invented a charm allowing for this phenomenon to occur,  giving students access to wi-fi.

The witches go all out, as they allowed to wear make up and dress up fancily, though keeping in mind the school dress code.

Saturday is Sport days, when Muggle sports are played, over the years Rugby and Cricket have been more popular sports of choice. There's an unspoken tradition that had started in the third year of this weekend, where a young wizard would ask a young witch to the Annual End-of-term dance, and one of the two would be involved in one of the team sports. While Sunday is the day of the Shows, giving the students a day to cool down and relax. Over the years, the Muggle weekend has been widely accepted as it reduces hostility among the students, which is why the tradition has been going on for 16 years now.

For the sports competition the teams are chosen at a random from the people that have signed up to play. Rubgy is played first as it ends in 2 hours, while the Cricket game is saved for after lunch due to the length of the game.

Soomin enjoys watching the sports, as her dad has been a huge sport enthusiast, but what she enjoys more is seeing the familiar Navy-blue jersey on the Ravenclaw stands.

Baekhyun vows to join the Cricket team next year, along with Audrey.

Hera, Seungwan, Jongdae and Jiha seem to know about the game, but they don't really care much.

On Sunday is when their jaws are dropped as the performances by the dance club and the Muggle-Music club take their breaths away. Soomin and Eunmi sing along to all songs, as Soomin also happens to recognize the dance forms as she was taking ballet classes, not even a year ago. 

Soomin looks forward to joining the dance club along with Jiha, Eunmi and Baekhyun, while Jongdae wants to join the Muggle-Music club along with Seungwan.

Easter Holidays are spend with their families and just as Christmas break, the group elects to spend the last day at Baekhyun's place.

The start of Summer term brings with it the incoming end-of-year exams and that has everyone stressed.

"Happy Belated Christmas. I hope this helps."  - Cordialement (à vous)

"Guys." Soomin hesitantly calls, as she looks over the small notebook in her hand along with the note on the first page.

"What." Jongdae asks, looking up from his Potions homework.

"This was in my bag." She warily says, scanning through the notebook with extremely neat and beautiful handwriting.

"What is it?" Jiha asks, hopping over to stand behind Soomin and scanning the contents.

"OH MY GOD. These are notes for Potions. Oh my god." Jiha cheers, snatching the notebook and plopping it in the center of the table allowing for everyone to see. 

The notebook is filled with notes on all the potions for their exams along with specific side instructions on how and where things could go wrong and what can be done to correct those errors.

While some of the friends are cheering at the notes, one person recognizes the handwriting and connects the dots together.

"You're whipped." His best friend teases, watching the boy looking over the table with the group of eight as they all look at the notebook with fondness.

The boy thinks the hours of writing the notes out perfect was definitely worth it, as the dark-haired girl radiates happiness.

"I'm glad that's over with. Do you have any idea how many nights he stayed up to make sure that notebook was perfect." His roommate complains, but the boy chooses to once again ignore his lanky friend.

Thanks to the notebook given by Soomin's admirer as the group now teases her, they're finally able to get better at Potions and also the endless sneaking around after curfew to practice the Potion's. 

Hera and Jongdae are the two most competitive people, due to which Baekhyun innocently joked about making it a bet and the two took to it seriously, deciding for the loser to either run 8 laps around the Quidditch ground only in his boxers or attend the end-of-term dance in their pajamas, along with letting all seven of their friends to do their makeup.

The results are posted and the eight friends have successfully managed to keep the top eight spots, though Baekhyun continues to hold on to his first spot, with Hera coming in number two, tying with Soomin and Jongdae, just one point behind the two.

Well, the seven along with Jongin and his friends have the much required comidic relief needed after the stressful exams.

At the end of the term dance, Jongin finally plucks the courage to ask Soomin to dance and the two spend the all their time turning circles.

Their friends tease them endlessly, but she gets a chance to join in on the teasing when Baekhyun is asked to dance by a second year Gryffindor.

First year brought along many new things along with friendships, Soomin knows she's always going to cherish and also the blooming of first love.

The friends promise to spend a whole week together rather than just one day, before the start of second year.

Soomin's out shopping with her father, when she gets a sense of deja-vu.

Right in front of her is Yixing Zhang and he's once again looking at the shelves in confusion.

"Hi." She greets, walking to stand next to him and looks at the snacks he's pondering over.

"Oh. Hello." He says, not turning his head away from the display.

"Like some help?" She asks.

"I can't seem to understand Kettle Cooked." Yixing tells her and once again his pout makes an appearance.

"I prefer Kettle Cooked." She tells him, choosing a bag and handing it to him.

"I think you'll enjoy this." He looks at it weirdly, but takes it without much complaint. 

"Thank you." He turns to walk away, but stops at a second thought.

"Thanks for the Chocolate Mints. I enjoyed them quite well." She freezes.

"W-w-what are you talking about?" She stutters.

"You're the only person, other than my friends who know about my preference of Mint and Chocolate. It wasn't difficult to guess. Thank You." His dimple makes an appearance before he disappears around the corner.

For Christmas, Soomin decided to gift Yixing a box of York Patties. She's seen how some of the students snicker and talk behind the Slytherin's back and wanted to do something nice for him.

"Soomin." Her father calls her and she's running off to find him, pushing the thought of Yixing away.