The first time Changmin met him, they were on the Hogwarts Express, and he had just made an entire compartment burst into laughter by failing to succeed at a what didn’t even sound like a legitimate spell. With nowhere else to sit, Changmin had slipped in during the chaos and sat down right by the door. After the laughter died down, he’d noticed him and said, ‘Oh, you must be new. What’s your name?’

‘Changmin,’ said Changmin, quietly. He’d nodded, the rest of the compartment introduced themselves (Boa, Donghae, Hojun), and then he said, brightly, ‘I’m Yunho.’

Jung Yunho, Changmin later learned. A name that, from then on, would be carved into his mind, every part of his body, his very existence. Jung Yunho.

Changmin read the entire train ride, propping his book (A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot, with notes from Hermione Granger) up on his drawn-up knees, and sometimes peeked over it to look at Yunho, who would be laughing with one of his friends, usually Boa. It was a weird feeling, one that bubbled and burned in the pit of his stomach, and he might have called it heartburn, if only he knew what heartburn felt like, but he didn’t, so he tried to ignore it.

He tried to ignore it like he tried to ignore the way Boa purposely fell against Yunho when she laughed, the way Yunho’s eyes got all crinkly when he smiled back, the way Yunho’s eyes sparkled when he sometimes made eye contact with Changmin, who’d blush and pull up his book to cover his face.

In short, Changmin was glad when Yunho ended up being a third-year in Hufflepuff and he got sorted into Slytherin. All the better not to bump into him, he thought, but that was before his new best friend, Kyuhyun, a pureblood-raised pureblood, informed him that Slytherin and Hufflepuff held a traditional friendship.

‘And most of our classes are together,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Hey, are you okay? I know they’re a bunch of losers, but you don’t have to look that put-out. It’ll be fine.’

It would not be fine, Changmin just knew. It would be okay because Yunho was a third-year student, and third-year students wouldn’t have first-year classes. But it would not be okay because it just wouldn’t, and Changmin felt it deep in his stomach, a tugging sensation that tried to warn him against the inevitable meeting of fate.

---

The second time Changmin met him, they were in the library, and Jung Yunho was in the middle of what seemed to be his potions homework. He was also, unfortunately, in the middle of tearing his hair out when Changmin approached him.

‘Oh, hi!’ he said, immediately letting go of his hair. They both pretended there weren’t strands of dyed brown hair on the parchment on the table. ‘You sat in our compartment on the way here. Changmin, right?’

‘Yep.’ Changmin sat down in the seat opposite Yunho. ‘Is that potions?’

At the mention of potions, Yunho’s head drooped down like a kicked puppy. ‘I hate potions,’ he grumbled, and Changmin couldn’t help snickering. ‘Hey, stop laughing, you know how Slughorn is.’

‘His little Slug Club, huh?’ Kyuhyun had told him all about it. ‘Are you in it?’

Yunho let out a scoff. ‘I wish, but I can’t do this for .’ He looked up at Changmin, face between his hands. ‘Must be nice, being in Slytherin.’

Changmin shrugged, pulling out his own homework. ‘He doesn’t really favor us. That’s one thing people from other houses like. Mind if I join you?’

It took Yunho a while to follow the change in topic. ‘Oh, no, go ahead!’ He hastily pushed aside some of his books to make room for Changmin, and for a long time, the only break in silence was the scratching of quills on parchment, or the ruffling of book pages, or the occasional cough.

Sometimes, Changmin looked up at Yunho, only to find the older boy engrossed in his work, eyebrows furrowed and not a trace of that charming smile on his face. He had long lashes, Changmin noticed, lashes that his sisters would die for, and high cheekbones, ones that made his face look chiseled and mature under a certain lighting.

It was then that the feeling came back, the lowly-burning fire in the depths of his stomach, the feeling that he would have called heartburn if he knew what it felt like. He shook his head, tried to push it away, and determined to focus on his charms homework. But it was distracting, the tightening warmth in his stomach, and he couldn’t stop the heat creeping up his cheeks.

‘Is it too hot in here?’ Yunho asked, and Changmin looked up abruptly, meeting his eyes. They were brown, honey brown, and faintly worried. Changmin shook his head, not trusting himself to speak, fearing he’d be too lost in those wonderful eyes, but Yunho persisted. ‘Or are you sick? You look sort of red.’

‘I’m fine,’ Changmin croaked out, voice rusty, and Yunho’s eyebrows knit themselves together again. ‘No, I swear, I’m okay. Just…’ He didn’t have an excuse. ‘Stressed, I guess.’

Yunho looked at him for a long while, and then nodded unconvincingly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll be here for a long time so if you want to talk, just let me know.’

‘Can we?’ Changmin said quickly, hoping it didn’t seem like that was what he was waiting for. ‘I mean, if you don’t mind. We’ve been studying for a while.’

He never imagined that he would live to hear Jung Yunho laugh because of him, a small, soft breath of air that passed his lips as he looked down at the table, but he did, and Yunho put down his quill. ‘Okay. Tell me about yourself.’

So Changmin spent the next few minutes telling Yunho about how he was muggleborn, the son of first-generation Korean immigrants who’d been slightly confused when the Hogwarts letter came. He spilled his soul out to Yunho, told him how he fell in love with the wizarding world immediately, the sense of wonder and amazement when he crossed the lake with Hagrid, when he first stepped foot into the Great Hall.

Yunho’s eyes crinkled up at this part, and he nodded, chin propped up in his hands. Then, he told Changmin about life as a half-blood, spending the first part of his life in muggle school while also learning elementary magic with his mother. His parents had met in London, and his mother had been afraid of telling his father that she was magical.

But it turned out okay, and Yunho went on to elaborate on his friends. Donghae was a transfer student, all the way from Mahoutokoro, in Japan, and he had lost his father to the sea. Strangely enough, his family specialized in water magic. Hojun was a fifth-year, fire as much as Donghae was water, and he was the first person to befriend Yunho on the Hogwarts Express.

‘What about Boa?’ Changmin asked, quietly, because he didn’t think he wanted to know. Yunho smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. It was a look that Changmin never wanted to see on his face again.

‘Boa is my childhood friend,’ he said, a hint of affection tinging his voice. The fire in Changmin’s stomach flared painfully. ‘We grew up together, next-door neighbors.’ He hesitated, and Changmin had a feeling that his next words would be monumental. ‘I think she might have a crush on me. But I don’t see her in that way.’

A wave of peace washed over Changmin, and he leaned back in his seat. ‘Well, that’s okay,’ he said, trying not to sound flippant or too relieved. ‘I mean, you can still be friends, right?’

‘Yeah.’ Yunho rolled up his parchment, a clear dismissal of the conversation at hand. ‘Sorry, I have to get to practice. See you later, Changmin, it was nice talking to you.’

He rushed off, robes fluttering behind him, leaving Changming gaping at the empty seat in front of him.

‘It was nice talking to you too.’

---

The third time he met him, it was snowing, and Yunho had just slipped on a patch of ice. His book fell open around him, and he scrambled up, a curse rolling off his tongue in Korean, and Changmin bent down to help him pick up his things.

‘Oh, Changmin!’ Despite the fall, Yunho seemed to be in a good mood. ‘Thanks for helping me. I hope you didn’t see me embarrass myself.’

The courtyard was empty. ‘It’s Christmas break,’ Changmin reminded him, and then took a risk, heart thudding. ‘Hyung.’

‘Hm.’ Yunho smiled at him. The falling snow muffled any other noises, and it felt like a scene in a drama, the main leads gazing soulfully at each other before they passionately kiss. ‘Well, do you want to come to my dorm? Just to visit.’

The Hufflepuff dorms were in the basement, not far from Slytherin’s. But whereas Slytherin lived in the dungeons, Hufflepuff lived in the storage units. Yunho led Changmin through barrels of potatoes and crates of flour before they finally stopped at a blank brick wall.

‘Close your eyes,’ Yunho said, and Changmin did, but not without a quip.

‘Like Diagon Alley, huh?’

He received a pinch on the arm for that, but it didn’t hurt, and he could hear Yunho laughing. ‘No, not like that at all. That would be too easy to guess. Come on in.’

The Hufflepuff common room was round and cozy, and also short. The ceiling seemed only two feet above his head, and Changmin wondered if some upperclassmen had to bend down to fit. Yunho threw himself onto a large, overstuffed couch in front of the fireplace and patted the space beside him.

‘Make yourself at home. It’s our motto, we make everyone feel welcome.’

He still sat cautiously, trying to take in everything about the room, from the various potted plants hanging from the ceiling to the multitude of tasseled pillows strewn across the room. Yunho watched him, eyes following every moment he made, and Changmin finally swallowed.

‘I like it,’ he said, watching a slow smile bloom on Yunho’s face. Something about this smile made him nervous. Not in a bad way, though; maybe it was because instead of the usual brightness, it was more sharp, more dangerous. ‘Better than ours.’

‘Oh?’ Yunho’s smile grew, like a Chesire cat. ‘Tell me about it, Changdol.’

He flushed from the nickname - though he could have easily blamed it on the fireplace - and launched into a nervous babble about the Slytherin common room, the murky green light that came from being directly underneath the lake, the cold marble floor and walls that never quite seemed welcoming, the bone-chilling cold that invaded even the thickest of blankets during the winter.

Yunho took all this in calmly, dangerous smile still playing on his lips. Sometimes, Changmin thought, it was easy to forget that Yunho was only thirteen years old. He acted either like an adult or a child. There was no in between, and there was no telling when he’d act how, or why, and it threw Changmin off.

He changed the subject, hoping to alleviate some of his own nervousness. ‘Are you the only one staying?’ He knew he wasn’t; plenty of Slytherins, first-years and upper-years, had chosen to stay.

The frosty look in Yunho’s eyes melted a bit. ‘No,’ he said, voice some resemblance of normal again. ‘There are a few of us. They’re probably playing in the snow right now.’ And like that, the look was back, sharp and cutting, and Changmin shifted in his seat, looking deep into the fire as if it would solve all his problems for him.

He knew he had a crush on Yunho, had known for a while, but there was no way he’d admit it to the older boy, especially not when he had that look in his eyes. Changmin wanted to melt away, wanted Yunho to look at him like that forever, yet it also made him somewhat uncomfortable.

‘I should send my parents a letter,’ he mumbled, looking down at his hands. ‘But I’m still kind of mad. They’ve gone back to Korea and just assumed I’d want to stay here. They didn’t even ask me.’

‘Oh no!’ In a flash, Yunho was a kid again, all concern and warmth. ‘Here, I think we have some cute stationery, if you don’t mind it being Hufflepuff colors.’

Changmin laughs, waving the paper away. ‘I think I should at least write to them on Slytherin colors, hyung.’ But he accepted the plain parchment that Yunho gave him, and a Hufflepuff-colored quill to write with. The ink, thankfully, was black and not yellow.

After watching Changmin write for a bit, Yunho asked, ‘Do you know anyone in Gryffindor?’

‘Don’t think so. I usually stick with the Slytherins. Why?’

Yunho shrugged, pulling out a sheet of parchment himself. ‘My sister’s in Gryffindor. Your year. Her name is Jihye-- ah, but she goes by Jessica.’

‘Jessica?’ Changmin started. ‘I know a Jessica Jung from back home…”

It was Yunho’s turn to start, but then he burst into laughter, nearly spilling ink all over himself. ‘It must be fate! No, it’s fine, I thought you might have known her since, you know, first-years and all.’

‘Sorry.’ Changmin wrote a mental note to himself. ‘Maybe I’ll bump into her sometime.’

---

After that, Changmin did not bump into Yunho’s sister. He did, however, bump into Yunho quite often. The older boy always had a smile for him, no matter where he was or who he was with, or how much of a hurry he seemed to be in. If they made eye contact, Yunho would send a dazzling smile his way, and Changmin would quickly smile back.

But they never talked again, and Changmin wondered if this was going to it, if his puppy crush was going to end because Jung Yunho didn’t want to hang out with him, a first-year loser, anymore, but Kyuhyun only cackled and reassured him that there were ‘more fish in the ocean’.

When the weather warmed up and all the snow melted away into the ground, Changmin found himself studying outside, enjoying the sunshine. One such afternoon, he rested his head on his books and sighed, felt a body drop onto the bench beside him and assumed it was Kyuhyun, and said, ‘I want to die.’

‘Aw, Changmin, why?’

It was Jung Yunho, and Changmin’s head snapped up so quickly he heard bones crack. ‘Hyung?’ His voice cracked embarrassingly - he wasn’t even going through puberty - and he cleared his throat, watching Yunho’s eyes curve into crescents. ‘Wha-- I thought you had practice?’

He’d long realized that Yunho was on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team. A Keeper, and a damn good one at that. He would never admit that whenever Slytherin played Hufflepuff, some part of him secretly hoped that Hufflepuff would win, if only to see the joy shining in Yunho’s eyes.

‘We ended early, captain was in a good mood today.’ Yunho eyed the bottle of pumpkin juice beside Changmin’s hand. He pushed it towards him, and Yunho snatched it up with a brief ‘thanks, Changdol’. Changmin pretended not to be affected by the nickname, but he couldn’t stop the quickening of his heartbeat (focus, focus, transfiguration, please).

Everything Yunho did was graceful, Changmin noticed. The way he flew, light and effortless, the way he wrote, sloppy and careless, even the way he drank, slow and cautious, gulp by gulp, swallowing each mouthful before drinking more. He seemed to flow with movement, as if that was all he was made of, and Changmin found himself transfixed.

‘...min, Changmin?’

He snapped back to reality to see Yunho waving a hand in front of his face. ‘You were spacing out,’ he explained, tilting his head. ‘Tired from studying?’

‘I, ah, yeah.’ It would take too long to explain, and Changmin didn’t want to explain anyway. He rubbed his eyes with a sigh. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier being a muggle. Or, I don’t know, going to a muggle school.’

‘And give up the chance to come to Hogwarts?’ Yunho looked shocked, but in a kind way, as if he understood. ‘It would have been a different life, but who’s to say it would have been easier? Muggles have their worries too. You know that.’

A few students glanced at them, but Changmin continued to reply in Korean. ‘I guess so. I’m glad I came here, but I sort of miss a mundane life.’

Yunho laughed then, taking out his wand. ‘Alder and dragon heartstring,’ he said, ‘eleven and a half inches.’

Changmin’s own wand was, as Mr. Ollivander had put it, ‘elm and unicorn tail, twelve inches precisely. Stable and, in the right hands, dangerously powerful.’

Before he could dwell more on the subject, Yunho tapped his wand on the now-empty bottle of pumpkin juice and murmured, ‘Aguamenti.’ Clear water began to fill the bottle, though bits of pumpkin still remained. Yunho made a face, poured it out onto the grass, and filled it again.

‘Here.’ He handed it to Changmin. ‘I can’t summon more juice, but I felt bad for drinking your water.’

He looked so innocent that Changmin almost felt bad. ‘Thanks,’ he said, drinking. The water helped to clear his head, and he looked out over the lake. A slight breeze rippled the surface of the water, and despite the sunshine, Changmin shivered.

‘Sort of cold, isn’t it?’ he asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Yunho nodded, wrapping his scarf more tightly around his neck. ‘Can’t wait for spring.’

‘Uh-huh, the grass is green and the sky is blue. It’s very beautiful, in April and May.’

Changmin could imagine.

---

Exams loomed overhead, and Changmin did not see Yunho for weeks on end until the older boy plopped himself down at the Slytherin table during breakfast, taking Kyuhyun’s seat, and said, ‘The Quidditch Cup is tomorrow. You should come.’

Changmin fought to get over his shock, and said, intelligently, ‘Uh.’ Yunho laughed, ruffled his hair, and left, calling over his shoulder, ‘Come to support me.’

A few upperclassmen looked at him weirdly. ‘The Cup’s between us two, though. You’ll support us, right?’

Changmin grunted something in reply, and then turned back to his eggs and toast. He wasn’t sure why Yunho had chosen today, of all days, to drop by. He hadn’t even known the Cup was between Hufflepuff and Slytherin, but then again, he’d been holed up in the library, studying, for the past few weeks.

Kyuhyun laughed when Changmin told him. ‘Then go,’ he said, as if it was as easy as that. ‘Wear the Hufflepuff colors and go.’

‘I have exams,’ Changmin hissed, but it didn’t stop Kyuhyun from waking him up early the next day. 

‘No,’ he said pleasantly, as Changmin wrapped himself up in Slytherin colors. ‘You have a Quidditch match to see.’

It wasn’t like he’d never been to a Quidditch match before, but this particular one was packed to the brim and very, very loud. Changmin didn’t think he wanted to stay, but Kyuhyun grabbed his arm and refused to let him leave. Soon afterwards, the crowd began to settle, just a bit, and through the gaps in people’s arms, Changmin spied bright yellow robes.

Still with Kyuhyun hanging off his arm, Changmin shoved his way towards the front of the crowd, catching the teams kicking off into the air. He could spot Yunho immediately, not only because the letters J-U-N-G were emblazoned across the back of his robes, but because… okay, maybe that was the only reason.

‘Ooh, he’s fierce.’

Where in the world had Kyuhyun managed to get a pair of binoculars? Changmin didn’t want to know, but he tugged at his friend’s hand. ‘Hey, give me those, I want to see.’

‘To goggle at your crush all match?’ Kyuhyun snickered, but relinquished his hold. ‘I want all the details.’

‘You know who he is,’ Changmin muttered. Through the binoculars, he could see that Yunho did indeed look fierce, an expression of extreme concentration on his face. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he dove out of frame. Changmin whipped the binoculars away - Kyuhyun snatched them back - to catch Yunho batting the Quaffle away from the Hufflepuff goal.

‘Keeper Yunho Jung successfully defends!’ the announcer exclaimed. ‘Slytherin, you’ll have to do better than that.’

A smile spread across Changmin’s face, and Kyuhyun wasted no time mocking him for it. ‘Ooh, look at my crush, I’m in love with him, he’s such a jock.’

Slytherin won the Quidditch Cup, much to Changmin’s both joy and chagrin, and when he and Kyuhyun left the stadium, Changmin insisted on going down to the pitch. 

‘To see him?’ Kyuhyun sniggered, and Changmin very resolutely ignored him. But when they reached the pitch, Kyuhyun tugged him back, suddenly serious.

‘There’s already someone talking to him.’ He peered across the field. ‘It’s a girl. Gryffindor, I think. I see her gloves.’

Boa. It must be. Changmin shoved Kyuhyun away to see for himself and sure enough, the girl was almost pressed up against Yunho, who kept trying to back away. The fire that Changmin thought had been extinguished flared up again, ugly and angry, and Kyuhyun finally had to drag him away.

‘Hey, maybe she’ll take the hint,’ he suggested. ‘Besides, it’s not like they’re actually dating or anything.’

‘No,’ Changmin said miserably, ‘but apparently everyone thinks they look good. She’s on the Gryffindor team, and all the players ship them.’

Kyuhyun didn’t have anything to say to that, and only patted his shoulder in consolation.

---

The last time Changmin saw him this year, Yunho was in the middle of helping a girl unload her luggage. He sent her off with a goodbye and turned to Changmin, unsurprised, as if he’d been expecting him.

‘Changdol,’ he greeted happily, pushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘Have a good summer! Are you doing anything fun?’

‘No.’ Changmin knew his parents would be waiting for him, but he dawdled on the train for as long as he could. ‘Probably just staying home.’

Yunho shoved his robes into a knapsack and shouldered it, tugging his own trunk out from beneath the seat. ‘Well, you should come visit me! If you can, of course. And if your parents let you.’

That brought a smile to his face. ‘Oh, wait, I remember. Kyuhyun made me promise I would visit him. I’ll just visit you both, then.’

‘Perfect.’ Yunho cast a glance around the train compartment. Empty and spotless, as it had been when they boarded. ‘Should we get going?’

He didn’t want to, but there was always next year. ‘Yeah. Yeah, we should.’

i do not usually write in past tense; there may be tense inconsistencies; i tried to take them out but i am only human and very tired