Mina left the library. It wasn’t incredibly late, but she had missed dinner. Thank Merlin they let you stop by the kitchens if that happened, or the next two years would be filled with hunger in addition to stress. 

She heard commotion in the hall. Raised voices. At night. The hairs raised on the back of her neck. She pulled out her wand, silenced her footsteps, and rushed in the direction of the argument. It didn't feel like the best thing to be good at, but dueling was one of her strengths. 

“The answer’s no,” someone said in a hushed voice. 

“The hell? You can’t just stop me from going in there.” The other voice was far louder. They wanted to be heard. 

Mina stopped in a shallow alcove, looking around it. She saw Chaeyoung first, almost dwarfed by the other student, a guy with light brown hair. His robes had red in them. A Gryffindor. 

“Yes, I can.” Her face was as expressive as a statue. Yet her eyes still looked swollen. Mina had known the two were friends, but not how close they were. Not until Chaeyoung’s cheeriness and wittiness had faded in class. It was either this closed off side to her, or anger. “She has enough visitors.”

She heard a scoff. “Like Minatozaki? You’ll let her in, but not me?” He took a step forward, and Mina tensed. She didn't think anything would happen, but she raised her wand just in case. Petrificus Totalus would do the trick.

Chaeyoung’s hand drifted towards her waist. A small silence. “Just go, Luke. The last thing she needs is you coming into the picture.” 

Mina felt her unease rise. Luke was Dahyun’s ex. The tone she was hearing here was very different from his usual cheeriness. 

“When she’s awake, maybe you can see her,” she shrugged, “if she even wants to see you.” 

“And she will,” another scoff, “screw you, Son.”

He turned around, his eyes catching Mina’s. She wanted to shrink away. He looked just as shocked. 

“Hey, uh, Mina,” his face broke into a wide smile, “doing alright?” 

She just nodded. “Yes.” Then she walked past him, intent on going the long route back to the staircases. To her relief, he didn’t try to start up a conversation this time. Probably because she’d seen him lose his cool. 

Chaeyoung’s eyes were on her. Mina looked from her to Luke. He was leaving. When she looked back, instead of an expressionless face, she was met by an exhausted one. The Ravenclaw’s hand fell to her side. Was it the news of the accident that had drained her? Or was it the warding off of unwanted visitors?

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

“Fine,” she replied. 

She decided it would be better if she didn’t ask any more. The girl probably didn’t want to say anything else. 

“It’s not my business to say it, but,” Chaeyoung started, then she bit her lip, “nevermind, forget I said anything.” 

Mina smiled. “And now I’m curious.”

She grimaced. “Dahyun would kill me if I said this.” 

“You want to warn me off Luke?” she asked. “You really don’t have to.”

“As in you already like him?”

“As in already rejected.”

She looked torn between a smile and a scowl. “Good.” Then she leant against the stone arch. 

“Why didn’t you let him in?” 

“Pretty much the same as everyone else,” she shrugged, “I don’t need people getting a detailed image of how Dahyun looks right now, because that’s what most want.” Her face scrunched up. “This is a school full of vultures.” She glanced at her. “You know what those are?”

Mina wasn’t sure. Animals hadn’t ever interested her, be they magical or not. 

“Look like phoenixes, but uglier, and they prey on dead things,” she paused, “they’re scavengers.”

She nodded. “Accurate description.” 

The corner of her lip tugged up. “Sorry for this morning.” 

“Which part? The one where you accused Sana of trying to actively kill someone? Or that she would just let someone to bleed on the stairs?” The remnants of that anger came back to her. Chaeyoung looked so tired, she wanted to let it go. But because Sana looked just as exhausted, she didn't. 

She frowned. “Both.” It sounded like the word was hard to say. She wasn’t sure if that made the apology better or much weaker. 

“But you still think it’s her fault.” 

The response was immediate. “Yes.” 

“Goodnight, Chaeyoung. Get some sleep.” Then she turned away. 

“Night,” she heard her say. 

Mina felt as if she should have stayed. At the very least, there had been an apology. Yet something held her back. 

______

Sana hadn’t noticed just how much Dahyun did in school until she wasn’t there. There were new patrols for the whole week. Four of them. Double the amount of shifts Sana had. She took two more, landing her with Nayeon for all four of them. She had a sneaking suspicion her friend had switched with Jihyo. She was grateful for that. Tense silences and glares would definitely make her feel even worse. She didn’t exactly need that. 

She had gone to the different professors, asking them about assignments and lesson plans. Then she'd made a list of everything, dropping it off in the Hospital Wing after her patrol or time in the library. The Hufflepuff’s N.E.W.Ts were Sana’s nightmare: Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Alchemy, Ancient Runes, Herbology, and History of Magic. Three more than Sana had. If the rumours about Dahyun's job at the Ministry were true, she was definitely a prime candidate. 

She’d thought she’d never have to hear Binns’ yawn-inducing voice, but he made her sit through a long explanation on the assignments Dahyun would be missing and need to catch up on. Naturally, the ghost didn’t have much sympathy for the girl still lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing. No, he preferred to give her assigned reading on the Black Death in the wizarding world. 

Dahyun would have to make up the time she missed for all her subjects. Only one had said the essay wasn’t mandatory, which was potions. At least most of them extended the deadline. Only Binns hadn’t. 

She was leaving Alchemy when she almost bumped into Jihyo. The Hufflepuff looked at her coldly. Sana was relieved that her gaze wasn’t as furious as it had been before. 

“I just asked Professor Erthe for Dahyun’s homework, and she said you already stopped by,” she said. “Is this you trying to make up for what you did or,” she trailed off. 

“You think I want to sabotage her?” Sana scoffed. “Like she isn’t going to stop by herself the moment she recovers.”

If she wasn’t imagining things, the other girl’s expression softened a fraction. 

“If she wakes up while you’re bringing the work, you better hide it. If she thinks she’s falling too far behind, she’ll sneak out and crawl to her classes.” 

Sana could only nod. This was someone who had fallen down two flights of stairs, and her friends knew exactly how she’d get back up. She wondered if they’d go as far as tying the girl to the bed just so that she wouldn’t try to get up before she was ready. 

“And don’t tell people where you were when she fell,” her eyes hardened, “Dahyun hates that kind of attention. Don’t make this worse than it already is.” Then she left, leaving Sana to sink further. 

Encounters with the Quidditch team had rubbed things in even more. They all looked at her as if she’d killed their keeper. Sana had checked Dahyun’s hands each time she visited. Madame Selen had assured her each time that they would heal fully. 

On the sixth time asking, she’d told her a story of when Dahyun had broken four of her fingers in her first Quidditch match. She was in second year. She’d been devastated, not so much that she couldn’t keep, because she was convinced she’d be able to catch the quaffle with crooked fingers. No, she’d been terrified of the fact that she’d never be able to play the piano again. Apparently, she played the thing a lot in the muggle world. 

In the three days since the accident, Sana had learned more about Dahyun than she’d ever expected she would. Or wanted to. If she was completely honest, she’d started learning the day before the accident with the first years. And every new piece of information just made her feel worse. 

____

“Any news?” someone asked. Chaeyoung looked up, prepared to shut them down. It was Mina. 

“Still asleep,” she muttered. The other girls and her agreed that if there was one good thing that had come out of this, it was that Dahyun had probably slept longer than she had in weeks, maybe months. 

The Slytherin was giving her a look. The look that told you she was going to talk, a rare occurrence itself, but also that she was going to be honest, not polite. It had been seen before when Mina stood up to other houses when they bullied Slytherin first and second years. Chaeyoung had also seen it a few times when Mina had to react people for the second or third time, because no one got the message when she was polite. And now she was giving her that look. 

“You’re gonna tell me I’m being unfair.” She turned back to her sketchbook. The lake was the focal point, but she was currently working away on the surrounding mountains. 

“It wasn’t Sana’s fault. At the very least, stop staring at her like you’re gonna kill her.” 

“Look, I get that you’re trying to defend her, but how do you think it looks when a person gets hurt, nearly dying in the process, while the one who should have been there and could have avoided it, was somewhere else, sleeping around at that?”

There was silence. She looked up again to see that look had turned subdued. Almost like she was disappointed. Chaeyoung felt a pang of guilt, but she pushed it down. 

“How could she have known? This isn’t the first time prefects have walked around alone in Hogwarts, but it’s one of the first times someone got hurt on patrol.” She sighed. “Look, Sana’s complicated and I know that the accident doesn’t even seem like an accident, but she never,” steel had entered her voice, “would have wanted Dahyun to get hurt.” They met eyes. “And I know Sana well enough to know it’s killing her. So drop that buried anger you have against Slytherins and Sana, and just look at this situation as it is.” 

What could she say to this? She wanted to say being complicated doesn’t excuse you from making mistakes. She wanted to say that Sana should have been there, because there were plenty of other days in the week for her to get her girl or guy quota filled. 

“I don’t have any buried anger against Slytherins.”

The smile she gave her tugged at Chaeyoung’s chest. “Sure about that? Everyone does.”

She didn’t have anything to say against that. 

“I don’t mean to make you feel bad about this,” she said. “But I don’t want Sana feeling any worse than she already does. You know she’s trying.”

She felt her eyes burn. It was so frustrating to know someone was right. Especially if she could easily deny the same exact thing if it was said by someone else. She was torn between lashing out and apologising. 

“Anyway,” Mina sighed, “at least none of you are fanning the flames.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one’s talking much about Sana and Junghwa. What are you telling them?”

“Dahyun wouldn’t want us to say anything.”

“Why would she care?” The girl frowned. “She’s getting all the attention anyway.” 

“Telling the truth will just make things worse. At least it would in her mind.” Dahyun’s attitude hadn’t always worked out for her, not with her ex, nor with people she disagreed with, and it probably wouldn’t work out here. But they had to make sure nothing would blow up without the girl being able to do something against it. Chaeyoung thought they were doing a pretty good job of it, even if Sana didn’t deserve it. 

“Right,” Mina said. She was avoiding her eyes. “Madame Selen’s not allowing more visitors,” she dug around in her bag, “could give these to her?” A box of chocopies was taken out. One of Dahyun's favourites. 

Chaeyoung looked at it. “Where’d you get those?” And how did she know?

“Ordered them,” she smiled slightly, “Japan has a pretty cool merger between the muggle delivery system and the wizarding one. She brought these to a study group last year, I thought it might be nice for when she's awake.” The box was placed in front of her, a good distance away from her drawing. “See you around.” Then she was gone. 

_______

Author's Note

A little more Michaeng for this chapter! I hope you like this aspect of the story, because there are two sets of characters being pitted against one another after the accident. Well, not technically pitted against each other, but things aren't much better than before (yet?). 

Because this chapter's dealing with the days after the accident, things might seem a little slow at the moment. However, Dahyun will be waking up soon, so we'll see what awaits her then. 

What do you think of Chaeyoung's attitude to both Luke and Mina? And Sana's response to it, is she trying to show everyone she feels guilty? Or are these amends being made to actually help Dahyun?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! See you in the next chapter :D