A/N: I've made some minor changes to the story, in hopes of clarifying some things up.

 

 

Siyeon is about ten minutes late for her detention session, it isn’t really her fault though because she would have been right on time, hadn’t the staircase decided to move the opposite way right as she stepped on it. She just hopes her detention supervisor is not McGonagall, or Snape, or anyone who wouldn’t let her off easy for being late, after all, it isn’t really her fault she’s late. When she opens the door to the classroom she can’t tell whether she’s ed or not. Her supervisor is Kim Minji, the renowned Gryffindor prefect (who is also much prettier up close than she could have ever imagined).

Bora’s told her plenty of times that Minji hates her guts, well, she hasn’t exactly worded it like this, but it comes pretty close and Siyeon figures she can’t really blame her, after all, she is quite the piece of work. Which makes her wonder, Bora isn’t much better than her, how does Minji not hate her guts either? And how did Bora even become a prefect in the first place? She shakes her head and musters a friendly smile as she greets Minji.

“Hey, I’m Lee Siyeon, here for detention.”

She can see how the corner of Minji’s mouth twitches downwards, but otherwise her face remains emotionless. She simply points to the table in front of her desk and returns to her book, Defence Against the Dark Arts for professionals. Siyeon walks to her table, trying her best not to be smug about the fact that Minji, just like herself (and most of her friends, really), wants to become an auror.

Siyeon doesn’t really mind detention, some professors practice magic with her, sometimes she practices wandless magic, small things, like moving papers, but with Minji she isn’t exactly sure what to do, except stare at the girl. She can already hear Gahyeon nag at her for being too easily distracted, but can she be blamed? She can’t help staring at Minji when the girl has such beautiful brown eyes, when the light coming in from the window is creating golden reflections on her blonde hair, when she moves her supple, rosy lips (Siyeon wonders what kissing her would feel like), her eyes widen suddenly. Minji’s moving her lips, Minji’s talking to her and she wasn’t listening, she’s going to have her head. Siyeon swallows hard and looks up to meet Minji’s eyes.

“Finally decided to listen, hm?” Her gaze is strict, eyebrows slightly furrowed, her lips pressed in a thin line and there is a certain tenseness to her jaw. When Siyeon offers her an apologetic grin she huffs, but her jaw relaxes slightly. “God, you really are insufferable.” She sighs, fixes Siyeon with a hard stare and says: “Have some respect for yourself.”

Minji leaves the room with a slam of the door, the lock clicking shortly after. Siyeon doesn’t need anyone to tell her that Minji has locked her in, but she does need someone to tell her what she meant.

 

//

 

For a reason unbeknownst to Siyeon, Minji still supervises her during her next detention session and all the ones after it (which are embarrassingly numerous). When she brings it up with Bora, the girl just laughs, throws her head back and opens wide as her body trembles to the point where she nearly falls over. She stops laughing after a while, when she realises Siyeon still looks as confused as when she pointed it out, then she pulls the corner of her lips up in her trademark smirk.

“Ohoo, you really don’t get it, do you?” The remnants of laughter can still be heard in her voice, but her gaze is sharp and focused. Siyeon wants to answer ‘no’, but Bora beats her to it. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Siyeon stares at her, a little bewildered. She doesn’t know what Bora’s playing at, but judging by the look on her face, she isn’t going to elaborate either. Siyeon decides to drop the topic. She leans onto Bora, drops her head on her shoulder and closes her eyes.

She doesn’t really mind Minji supervising her detentions, even if she would sometimes rather have one of her professors doing it so she could practice magic, but the Gryffindor student is incredibly easy on the eyes (it doesn’t help that she sometimes smiles to herself, as if she forgets that Siyeon is in the room). At least she lets Siyeon sleep, so really there is no big downside, except that Siyeon can literally feel Minji’s annoyance whenever she enters the room or when she just as much as breathes in the wrong direction. So why does she supervise her detentions?

And why does she hate her in the first place? It’s not like they’ve ever interacted and Siyeon isn’t particularly evil – she doesn’t even play pranks like Yoohyeon. Siyeon groans, none of this makes sense and she feels like her head is going to burst if she thinks about this any longer. Underneath her, Bora moves to stand up.

“Follow me.” She says and so Siyeon does.

They walk for a while until Siyeon grabs Bora’s hand, squeezing it ever so slightly. She doesn’t normally dislike silence, but this one feels a bit uncomfortable, mostly because it lets her think more than she likes.

“We’re going to the Quidditch Pitch.” Bora explains, her thumb the back of Siyeon’s hand, it makes her feel at ease. “You have an easier time thinking when you’re outside.”

Siyeon doesn’t speak again until they’re at the pitch, until Bora hands her practice broom and they’ve set off. Being in the air is liberating, makes her feel like there’s nothing holding her down, Siyeon lives for the feeling. Next to her Bora does a few daring manoeuvres, likely in an attempt to show off and Siyeon can’t help but shake her head. They stay outside for a while longer racing each other until Siyeon is out of breath, until she can barely move her hands because they’re so cold and her cheeks and nose are tinted red. They dismount their brooms and put them away. Siyeon feels considerably more relaxed now. She doesn’t necessarily understand Minji’s behaviour any more, but she doesn’t feel as stressed about it anymore as she was earlier.

“Okay, I’ll see you later, gotta accompany Dongie for a bit.” Bora grins, ruffles Siyeon’s hair and turns to leave the pitch, but looks back before she’s fully gone. “Talk to her Siyeon, she’s really nice.”

 

//

 

Talk she does. Or tries to do. Rather unsuccessfully.

The next time she is in detention (only three days later) she enters the room with a surprising confidence, considering that just thirty minutes earlier she was shaking so bad Bora had threatened to knock her out.

Minji is already there, sitting at the front desk and reading a book. This one is on Quidditch techniques. Siyeon tends to forget that the girl is a prefect as well as the Quidditch captain, it’s kind of admirable. Both are a lot of work, but then again Bora manages too and she’s a lot less diligent that Minji.

“Hey.” She grins and sits down in front of the other girl.

Minji looks up surprised, but the initial surprise soon wears off and she frowns at Siyeon. “Hi.” She says. There isn’t any bite in her tone and she doesn’t sound annoyed either just, wary. It’s a bit disheartening, but Siyeon won’t let it discourage her, after all, she wants to be Minji’s friend. She opens her own book (a book McGonagall recommend her to improve her transfiguration skills) and searches for the topic on wolves. Once she has found it, she looks up to meet Minji’s intrigued gaze.

“How are you?” She asks, doing her best to muster a relaxed and friendly smile.

Minji’s eyebrow arches, her eyes searching Siyeon’s face for something, but Siyeon can’t tell what. After a short while she sighs and answers. “I’m good, thank you.” She contemplates for a bit then continues. “How are you?”

Siyeon can’t help but beam at her and gives her a thumbs up. “Never better.”

She starts reading the chapter, wondering what she could ask the Gryffindor prefect to get a conversation going. Maybe she could talk to her about Quidditch, ask her if there was a professional team she liked, or maybe she could talk to her about her plans for the future, like where she wants to work, or maybe about her favourite subject?

“Hey Minji.” She says after a few minutes of rather comfortable silence, waiting for the girl to look up before she continues. “What’s your favourite subject?”

The blonde girl frowns, looking a bit confused and maybe also slightly annoyed, but she answers nonetheless. “Defence against the dark arts.” She studies Siyeon closely. “Why?”

Siyeon shrugs, a grin plastered on her face. “Hm, I just wanted to get to know you better.”

Minji just replies “okay”, a clear sign that the conversation is over and focuses on her book again.

Siyeon can’t help but feel excited, surely if Minji hated her guts she wouldn’t answer her questions, right? She decides that after working on the chapter for a bit she’ll ask Minji another question and this time, she’ll try to hold an actual conversation. Maybe she’ll talk about Quidditch after all, conversations about it flow easily, most people like it anyway.

Around twenty minutes later she finds herself bored of the topic and decides that now might just be the best time to talk to Minji. “Hey Minji.” She calls again and this time the girl groans a bit before looking at Siyeon with a frown.

“What is it? I need to work.”

Siyeon hesitates for the fraction of a second, but decides to shake it off. “I just wanted to talk to you a bit. Is there a professional Quidditch team you like?” When Minji doesn’t answer, solely looks at her with a deadpan expression Siyeon continues, desperate to kill the awkward silence. “I mean, you’re the Quidditch captain, I assume you follow professional teams and such.”

Minji’s frown deepens. “I like the Holyhead Harpies.”

“Oh cool!” Siyeon can’t hide her excitement, not that she tries. “I like them too! Have you ever seen them play live?” Having a common interest with Minji excites her more than she thought it would, it might make befriending her easier.

“Live? You mean if I’ve attended their matches?” When Siyeon nods she shrugs. “Yeah one or two, it wasn’t anything special though, just some local games.”

“Oh but that’s still really awesome!”

Minji shrugs again, returning her attention towards her book and Siyeon feels her shoulders slump in defeat. Holding a conversation with Minji does prove to be harder than expected, but she won’t give up. She wants to prove that they could be friends. So she tries again.

“Hey Min-”

“No.” Siyeon flinches, taken aback by the sharp edge Minji’s voice. “Look, this is detention, I’m not here to entertain you.” She gives Siyeon an annoyed look, but her voice softens just a bit, now sounding more exasperated than anything else. “And you’re disturbing me while I’m trying to work.”

All Siyeon can do is mumble a weak apology and shift her attention to her book, trying to hold back tears. She’s never been good at handling direct confrontations like this one. The rest of her detention goes by agonisingly slow with Siyeon being hyperaware of every move Minji makes but at least she doesn’t talk to her anymore.

 

//

 

“I just don’t get why she hates me.” Siyeon sighs, dropping her head into her hands. Next to her Gahyeon is doodling in her notebook, homework long given up on. In front of them Bora is playing with Handong, teaching her some muggle games that wizards surprisingly don’t have.

“You’re just that annoying.” Handong shouts, only to have Siyeon flip her off before dramatically falling into Gahyeon’s lap and earning a shout of protest from the younger girl. Siyeon sighs again, this is affecting her a lot more than she’d like. She closes her eyes when Gahyeon starts massaging her scalp in slow circles.

“Don’t think about it too much Siyeon. She might’ve been stressed because of her exams.” Gahyeon says in a reassuring tone, letting a sad smile grace her lip at the frown on Siyeon’s face. When Siyeon sighs for the umpteenth time, Gahyeon hits her head and calls for Bora to come over. “Seriously Siyeon, you’re being way too dramatic right now.”

“You do look a bit pitiful though.” Bora quips, sitting down in front of her two friends, Handong joining suit, head leaning on Bora’s shoulder. She waits for Siyeon to sit up and look at her, which takes longer than any of them would have liked, and then continues to talk. “Look, Minji, like Gahyeon said, is kinda stressed at the moment. But she’s also awkward.”

Siyeon grumbles. “She didn’t seem awkward when she had a go at me.” She flicks at some grass, huffing when it doesn’t make her feel better. She doesn’t like not understanding things, especially things that don’t seem to make sense and Minji hating her this much doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Siyeon gets sent to detention often, but she’s not some kind of delinquent, most of the time she just accidentally breaks things by trying out some weird magic.

“Look, rules are very important to her and when sh’es talking to someone she likes, she’s kind of awkward. It’s like she forgets how to function properly.”

Siyeon glares at Bora. “She hates me, Bora. You told me that and besides, I don’t break rules.”

“You have detention like every other day, it sure seems that way for her. Besides, I said she thinks you’re insufferable.” Bora sighs, shakes her head then smiles. “Okay, just try one last time, okay?” When she sees the frown forming on Siyeon’s face she quickly adds: “When you’re in a group.”

Were it a regular day, Siyeon would’ve found Bora’s persistence on this issue odd, today she doesn’t have the necessary energy to be insightful.

She begrudgingly agrees, only because Bora is giving her her best puppy eyes. Definitely not, because she really wants to be closer to Minji, no definitely not. Bora is doing some weird victory dance along with Gahyeon who doesn’t try to hide the fact that she doesn’t want to participate, when Handong sits down next to her.

“So you agreed.” She says, her eyes trained on Bora. Siyeon simply hums. “That wouldn’t happen to be because of a crush, would it?”

She is a bit taken aback, but in the end it’s not surprising Hadong has seen through her. She’s always had a very good sense of perception.

“What? No, what. No way.” She mentally chastises herself for not sounding as confident as she should have. There is no way Handong will buy that; at least her arched eyebrow and the hint of a smirk tugging at her lips say so. “Um I mean, she’s really pretty and I’ve seen her around campus; she is kind. I wouldn’t mind being friends with her.”

Handong simply hums, she knows better, Siyeon is aware of that.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Not at all.” Handong laughs. “We’ve been friends for four years Siyeon. I know you.” Siyeon sighs and leans onto Handong’s shoulder. There is no point in trying to convince Handong otherwise, it’s a battle she has already lost. And besides, just because her heart beats a little bit faster when she sees Minji it doesn’t mean she has a crush on her. And even if she did, it doesn’t mean she can’t want to be friends with Minji.

 

//

 

Handong and Bora are standing outside the Quidditch pitch with a grumbling Siyeon next to them. When Siyeon grumbles for the fifth time how much of a bad idea this is and how much she doesn’t want to do this, Handong and Bora start laughing.

“You’re so funny Singsing.” Bora says, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder and earning a deadpan expression for Siyeon. “Look. Everyone here likes flying, everyone here likes Quiddtich, playing a watered down version of it will be the perfect bonding experience.”

Next to her, Handong grimaces slightly and Siyeon feels the same. They could’ve gone straight to one of Hogsmeade’s many inns. She doesn’t have time to complain further though, because Minji is walking towards them, clad in simple washed-out-blue jeans and her Gryffindor Quiddtich jumper with her hair tied up in a high ponytail. She looks cute.

She greets Bora and also Handong, to Siyeon’s surprise, with a hug and gives Siyeon an awkward smile, accompanied by a soft ‘hey’ that sends Siyeon’s heart racing. She’s really cute. Siyeon greets her back just as awkward, much to Handong’s amusement, who wastes no time mocking her behind Minji’s back.

“So,” Minji drawls after moving to stand next to Siyeon, “what are we doing?”

Bora grins, her mischievous grin, Siyeon knows she won’t like it. “We’re gonna play Quidditch.” She points at the Quaffle then at Siyeon and Minji. “You two are a team. Handong’s with me.”

Siyeon can feel her stomach churn. She wants to get closer to Minji, but like this? No thanks. She isn’t good enough at Quidditch and if they lose, well it’ll be her fault and she really doesn’t want to give Minji another reason to hate her.

But Minji doesn’t seem to mind, instead she turns to face Siyeon, grabs both her hands and beams at her and wow. She has never seen Minji smile like that, her entire face is lit up and Siyeon thinks she shines brighter than the sun, easily.

“Okay, let’s do this Siyeon, we’ll beat them!” Siyeon is a bit taken aback by Minji’s enthusiasm and her attitude towards her, it’s like she’s seeing Siyeon in a new light – but she’s not going to complain. She wouldn’t have had the time to anyway, because Minji is already pulling her towards the changing rooms, rattling on about Bora’s techniques and which strategies are most likely to make them win. Her and Bora are so much alike when it comes to Quidditch (extremely enthusiastic and passionate), Siyeon realises, no wonder they get along so well.

Siyeon gets to play in one of Minji’s old practice jerseys and for once she thinks the Gryffindor colours actually suit her. They play for about an hour until Handong and Siyeon unanimously decide that it has been enough and the two prefects will just have to be content with a tie.

Siyeon likes to think she did pretty well, Minji mostly had her covering the hoops and she managed to save the ball pretty often, every now and then they’d pull a combined attack and sometimes Minji sent Siyeon off to attack on her own.

“You did well.” Minji says softly once Siyeon has stepped out of the shower, hair still wet and clothes a bit damp. When Siyeon doesn’t answer, she continues. “I’d like us to do it again some time, even if it’s just the two of us.”

If Siyeon was taken aback earlier, she is even more now. Even if she played well, Minji carried the whole game, she’s surprised the girl wants to play with her again, just the two of them on top of that. So she just smiles a bashful smile, avoiding Minji’s gaze and goes to dry her hair.

When they step outside, Bora and Handong are already waiting for them, lost in their own world and Siyeon can’t bring herself to interrupt them, because seeing them so carefree and happy warms her heart. It’s only when she feels a hand grab hers – Minji – that she snaps out of her stare.

“Are you okay?” The blonde girl asks softly, thumb rubbing over the back of her hand; it makes Siyeon’s heart beat like crazy, both in excitement and in confusion. Minji feels like a riddle, one becoming more complicated with each passing minute.

“Y-yeah.” Minji gives her a reassuring smile, before she lets go of Siyeon’s hand and walks over to their friends to burst their little bubble. Siyeon tries to ignore that her hand suddenly feels cold.

 

//

 

They’re in the middle of their third round of Butterbeers when Handong brings up the dreaded topic of detentions and Siyeon swears she’s going to strangle her sooner or later. “So,” she says, a smug smile on her face, “I heard you got yourself detention again.”

Bora seems annoyed too (if the glare she shoots Handong’s way is any indication). Before any of them can react, she puts some money on the table and drags Handong away – so much for spending time with Minji in a group. When Siyeon turns to Minji, the girl looks troubled and somewhat disappointed. All the progress they made earlier today just vanished in a matter of seconds.

“Look.” Siyeon starts, not really knowing if Minji will believe her, or if it’ll even change anything. “Some creep was bothering Gahyeon and he wouldn’t leave her alone so I had to step in. Sure, maybe hexing him wasn’t the best decision, but he wouldn’t listen to anything I said.”

Minji doesn’t say anything, just orders them another round of Butterbeers and Siyeon can’t help but feel like her chance at a friendship (or anything else really) with Minji is gone. When their drinks are empty, Minji orders another round and another, head resting on Siyeon’s shoulder and fingers playing with Siyeon’s.

They don’t speak for a while, until Siyeon cracks. “Why do you even hate me?” She asks, head hanging low, fingers intertwined with Minji’s. She sounds sadder than she’d like and she’s pretty sure that if it wasn’t for the alcohol she wouldn’t have asked.

It takes Minji a while to answer and Siyeon can smell the alcohol on her breath when she does. “I don’t hate you Singnie.” She is surprised by the nickname, but she likes it, likes the way Minji makes it sound like she’s something precious.

“Then why do you act like it?”

Minji cups Siyeon’s cheeks in her hands, forcing her to make eye-contact. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to. It’s just… I guess it’s kind of complicated.” She acknowledges Siyeon’s confused expression by her thumb over Siyeon’s cheekbone. “You’re just, you’re really pretty, so beautiful and you’re incredible, but you keep getting in trouble, even more than Bora, you have detention like every week, it’s annoying. But you’re so hot.” She pauses, looking at Siyeon intently.

Siyeon can feel her face heat up. Minji thinks she’s hot? Her heart skips a beat at the confession. Her gaze falls to Minji’s lips, smooth, rose-coloured lips, suddenly wondering what they would feel like against her own.

“I thought you were wasting your talent, not taking your education seriously and it annoyed me so much, but then Bora would tell me about something amazing you did and I, I don’t know. I was always so confused when I was around you, I wanted to be angry at you for causing so much trouble, but I kinda liked you. I, god, Siyeon I don’t–” She stops when she notices how close Siyeon’s face has gotten. Neither of them moves or says anything for a while, until Siyeon decides to follow her gut and leans in.

Minji mostly tastes like alcohol and butter, but Siyeon doesn’t mind, she decides she’ll simply have to kiss her again to find out what Minji’s lips would normally taste like. Their kiss is slow, almost hesitant and Siyeon can feel Minji gasp when she takes her lower lip between her teeth – she is definitely going to kiss Minji again.

They don’t talk for a while after the kiss is over, instead Minji is sitting curled up against Siyeon, legs over hers and head on her shoulder, both feeling oddly comfortable. And maybe she should have listened to the entirety of Minji’s explanation, should have let her finish, but this is so much more enticing, they can always talk later

“Hey Minji?”

“Signie?” Siyeon can’t help how her heart flutters and she wouldn’t mind feeling like this more often.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

 

//

 

Siyeon groans, annoyed and maybe also a little hurt, because she thinks acts of bravery and good deeds should not be punished. Yet here she is, on route to yet another detention session. She doesn’t usually mind them, they’re all justified, in a way.

(She does break things every now and again, which is to be expected when practicing experimental magic and she does hex other students when she has to stand up for Gahyeon or some terrified first years, nothing major of course and the students are never seriously harmed.)

This detention session however? Completely unreasonable.

Snape must have been fed up with her, completely unrightfully, but it’s Snape so she does feel a little better about it. It’s not her fault one of Hagrid’s baby Nifflers managed to escape and somehow ended up plummeting down from the highest point in the castle. She wasn’t going to let the poor thing fall to its death. Surely catching it on her broom could be excused. No?

She shakes her head, trying her best to ignore the anger bubbling up inside. Her friends will make fun of her for it later and Minji… Well she’ll find out in a minute. Ever since she started dating Minji a few weeks ago, she has made a conscious effort to not get detention (for the most part it worked).

She takes a deep breath before entering, mentally going over her apology one last time and finally works up the courage to open the door. The words on the tip of her tongue die out when she sees who’s supervising her detention – or rather, who’s not.

At least Minji not supervising her means she won’t have to explain herself, but it means that the prefect is probably with their friends and they’ll (without a doubt) know where Siyeon is. She could have had a worse professor supervise her she decides, greeting Professor McGonagall as she enters.

The old woman smiles at her and greets her back. They spend the entirety of detention talking, about Siyeon being unrightfully sent to detention (unsurprisingly, McGonagall agrees, she has, after all, quite the soft spot for Siyeon), about Siyeon’s decreasing amount of detentions, about advanced Transfiguration spells, about Animagi and experimental magic. Siyeon has a blast. She’s enjoying herself so much she doesn’t see time passing, it’s only when someone knocks on the door that they both realise detention has been over for around 20 minutes.

Professor McGonagall is the one opening the door and the one apologising to the visitor for ‘loosing track of time’, Siyeon can’t see who she’s talking to but she suspects it’s another student.

McGonagall turns to face Siyeon, a soft somewhat mischievous smile playing on her lips. “Goodbye Miss Lee, I’ll see you in class on Tuesday. It was nice catching up with you.” When she leaves, Siyeon finally sees who knocked at the door.

It’s Minji.

Siyeon can’t help the grin breaking out on her face when she sees the prefect walking towards her, expression mirrored. “Hey,” Minji says when she stands in front of Siyeon, reaching out to tuck a rogue strand of hair behind Siyeon’s ear.

Siyeon answers just as softly. “Hey.”

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Minji leans forward until her lips are just a few centimetres away from Siyeon’s. “I missed you.” She whispers and finally leans in fully, making Siyeon’s heart burst in happiness. Siyeon doesn’t hesitate to kiss her back, she isn’t big on PDA, but more often than not Minji makes her forget where she is, makes her forget about her reservations. With Minji she feels safe, feels like she’s in her own little world.

“Our friends are waiting for us outside.” Minji says when they break the kiss, lips never really leaving one another. Siyeon just hums, she’d much rather kiss Minji for a while longer and she’s pretty sure the prefect knows about it.

(She’s made abundantly clear how much she enjoys kissing Minji; repeatedly. Like when she attended the last Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, dressed in Gryffindor colours from head to toe. Maybe she did kiss Minji under the stands, before the games began, for good luck. And maybe she did keep kissing her, nearly making her miss the game – hadn’t it been for Bora and her everlasting sense of mischief. In retrospect she’s glad Bora came to get them; she doesn’t want to think of the potential scandal had Minji not appeared for her game.)

“What did you get detention for this time?” Minji asks as they walk down the hallway, lips ghosting over Siyeon’s knuckles, hands intertwined. Her tone is teasing rather than accusatory, but that doesn’t stop Siyeon from pouting at her girlfriend. She launches in a rather grumpy explanation of what went down, occasionally interrupted by Minji’s melodious laughter. She’d rather it be like this, instead of Minji being mad at her for getting into actual trouble.

Their friends laugh at her well, mostly Bora as she expected, but she doesn’t find the force in her to be mad at them, because they make her happy and she wouldn’t want anyone else as friends. Minji meets her gaze and Siyeon can feel her heart flutter. Besides, it’s thanks to Bora she ended up dating Minji, if Bora laughing at her is the price to pay, she’d pay it tenfold. (It’s not like she doesn’t do it anyway.) Minji reaches for her hand and pulls her close, lips finding Siyeon’s forehead to press a soft kiss against it and in that moment Siyeon decides she’s made up her mind. Being with Minji is worth anything she might have to deal with.