Winston, Yunho discovers, is hideous. And he does indeed, bite. Not that Yunho gets bitten, but it’s a close call. 

He isn’t quite sure what Winston is, though. He isn’t even sure if it is a creature or a plant and when he asks Jaejoong the boy just shrugs. 

Whatever he... it... is, is probably illegal. 

If an octopus, spider and devil’s snare came together to create offspring? Winston. 

It’s potted into a roomy enough pot of rich soil, with six beady little red eyes and several rows of sharp teeth (Yunho assumes they’re teeth) around a small oval shaped mouth (he thinks it’s a mouth), with several winding, spindly like arms or... branches... or tentacles. They’re pale, pinkish in some parts like blistering sunburned flesh and dark and shiny in others like devil’s snare, there are some pieces around its... face that are brown like a tree that had had its bark carefully carved away. 

“Don’t poke him,” Jaejoong scolds sharply over his shoulder and the next thing he knows his wand has been snatched out of his hand, “I told you he bites, and he is venomous. I’m not dragging your dumb to the hospital wing because you were picking on an innocent, harmless baby like Winston.” 

“Oh, oh the plant creature with sharp teeth and venom is a poor innocent babe-” Yunho is scowling, motioning briefly at the subject of his disdain but he does take a cautious step back, “I was just curious.” 

“Was he bothering you?” The Slytherin’s tone is sharp, and Yunho freezes, hesitant but glancing toward the other all the same. 

There isn’t a whole lot of glaring, rather just an impassive stare and it unnerves him, he doesn’t like that look at all. He doesn’t like the question either, so the Gryffindor looks away first, brow furrowing. 

He doesn’t even complain about his confiscated wand, not when he is suddenly mortified with himself. It’s in his nature, in anyone’s really, to poke and prod at something new to see what it was, how it worked and what it did. But Hagrid’s... whatever he was had been entrusted to them to be cared for, for a little while and he hadn’t been very kind. 

Curse his mind for instantly relating Winston to Jaejoong and himself to their classmates. 

“Look, I get it alright? Just... he’s in his own little safe space and I’m not sure what he is, but I do know Hagrid is taking care of him and he’s minding his own business, so we are not going to with him,” he really doesn’t think Jaejoong belongs in Slytherin, but he doesn’t think such commentary will be welcome, “he eats insects and thankfully Hagrid has already fed him so we just need to water him a little.” 

Although he probably should respond, Jaejoong doesn’t seem to expect one and he doesn’t wait either or seem to mind the one-sided conversation. So Yunho watches quietly as the raven fetches a small cup of water and carefully dampens to soil in three different places.  

Actually, he is pretty content to watch the raven flutter about the space like he is familiar with it. Well, he clearly is familiar with it, which is curious. Winston for his part is still hideous, but the plant creature seems to make a small rumbling purring sort of noise which is... cute, kind of. In an extremely unsettling way. 

“The thestrals are next, right?” Yunho asks suddenly, surprising the both of them, but he gets rewarded with a smile for the question. 

And his wand, which he should have minded the other boy holding onto far more than he did. Still, he gladly accepts it back, tucking it away as they make their way outside. 

“We need to move a bucket of blood and a few full of meat into the forest for them, we don’t have to go far.” 

“That’s not weird at all,” but it isn’t, not really. 

Care of magical creatures has never been a passion of his, just a class he took because he needs to be as well rounded as possible. Still, leaning what something is and what it can do is different than actually tending to it.  Knowing the thestrals are attracted to the scent of blood is much different to the reality of moving said blood round for them. 

----- 

Jaejoong is a sight to behold and the Gryffindor cannot decide if he is terrified or awestruck. He’s never seen anything like it before. 

He casts a simple levitation charm, flicking his wand and holding it steady as he guides the bucket of blood in front of him. Once he’s confident he isn’t going to jostle the wretched thing he turns to see if Jaejoong needs help... and nearly drops his blasted ward. 

The raven has three different large wooden buckets floating smoothly, but that isn’t the reason Jung Yunho nearly trips over his own shadow. 

Jaejoong’s hands are empty, as in without a wand as in... wandless magic. 

More than that, the Slytherin boy doesn’t seem to be struggling at all, waving his hands back and forth in front of him in tiny movements. There are too many motions, too many tiny circles and large flailing sweeping gestures, he’s about to ask if that is the cost of wandless magic except, he gets his answer once the boy draws close enough. 

“Oh I've been caught under the spot, spot, spotlight, I wanna cave in to the dark side calling to me, the ending's obvious, I know it's not right, I can't stop me, can't stop me," Kim Jaejoong is singing, some kind of semi-horrible pop song by the sound of it and several belatedly moments following being slapped in the face with that knowledge he realizes the exuberant motions are not magical at all but some kind of jazz hands. 

Do pop singers dance? Is that what is happening? 

Kim Jaejoong, foul mouthed snake with too large doe eyes, and a complete potions disaster is singing and dancing while casually magicking buckets of raw meat around. 

Yunho actually does trip, to his horror, and he is ever thankful the blood bucket does not crash to the ground or even jostle enough to spill. He has no intentions to pull a walk of shame back into the castle covered in blood. 

“What are you?!” the Gryffindor shouts, voice pitching upwards an octave in alarm as his feet plant themselves onto the ground and refuse to move forward. 

He is definitely not mortified that he sounds shrill, not at all because he doesn’t sound shrill at all.  

Besides, it’s best they do this now, before they are too far past the edge of the forest where his bout of totally manly shrieking will attract who knows what. 

Jaejoong stops and whips around, eyes travelling the space as though searching for a threat, and then deep confusion blossoms over his face. 

He wants to be angry, how dare this... this thing, this boy show up suddenly to his stomping grounds and settle in like he owns the place? Yet the anger he wants to grip onto isn’t quite there. 

“Yunho? Are you alright?” 

“Seriously, what are you? With the... the,” he motions with his free hand. 

“You just uh... you gestured to all of me?” 

The realization dawns on Jaejoong’s face slowly, but as it does his mouth forms a small ‘o’ and his eyes go wide and a little wild as he looks around. The buckets thump to the ground in a manner that seems both gentle and firm at the same time and the Slytherin boy seems to wilt a little under his gaze. 

For all of the cursing and snarling and anger, this feels all wrong. The sheepish brush of a hand across the back of Jaejoong’s neck sickens Yunho. 

“Right, right... I’m not really supposed to... Well, I’m- I’m a witch?” as though that explains literally anything... 

“You aren’t using your wand,” the Gryffindor points out, “wandless magic is... you don’t ever really see it here and you’re... you... Even old witches and wizards tend to need their wand.” 

“If I whip out my wand can we pretend none of this happened? You didn’t see any-… okay I’m going to assume that’s a no based on the murder eyes I’m getting?” 

----- 

They tend to the thestrals first, and then Kim Jaejoong attempts to bolt and he is pretty sure there is going to be a bruise in the shape of his hand on the pale boy’s wrist tomorrow. 

They end up in Stella’s pen, nestled in behind the fence and pressed closer together on the ground while the hippogriff lays just out of arms reach like some kind of majestic guardian... that happens to be napping. 

“Just so we’re clear,” Jaejoong murmurs softly beside him, “you want to know my tragic backstory because I can do some hocus pocusing without a twig?” 

He can feel a headache building, really. The desire to grab Jaejoong by his shoulders and shake him as hard as he can leaves his fingertips tingling, but the whole casual wandless magic and slumbering hippogriff help him refrain. 

Stella will jump to the defense of one of them, and it won’t be Yunho. 

“It’s a tragic story?” he asks instead, drawing in a slow deep breath, he can do this- he can- “it’s a wand not a twig.” 

Or perhaps not. 

“You haven’t even bought me dinner yet, man, you. In fact I made you dinner,” luckily it seems to be amusement that fuels the other, not anger, “do you want the gory details or the TL;DR?” 

Yunho’s face is carefully blank as he shifts through every stitch of knowledge he manages to retain. TLDR does not come up at all, so he starts trying to figure out the most logical set of words. 

He figures T might be for toad before the Slytherin sighs. 

“Too long... didn’t read?” 

“You wrote a book about your life? A diary?” 

He petulantly ignores the way Jaejoong groans and makes a pained noise as though he’d just been injured because, rude. So rude.  

“So, one day little Jaejoong, age six, wakes up and he is suddenly obsessed with magic after having a dream about people flying on broomsticks chasing a ball with wings.  Unfortunately for little Jae he lives on the country side of South Korea, the population is not even a quarter of this magical school. Everyone knows everyone, and little Jae and mom have already been the gossip of the town since moving there two years prior because little Jae’s father isn’t in the picture.” 

Somehow, Yunho already hates the story. Something awkward twists in his stomach and makes him nauseous. Jaejoong’s voice is light like he’s retelling a warm, fuzzy tale and he sounds positively fake.  

“Little Jae’s mom humors him at home as long as he promises not to talk about it outside. Except he’s already convinced he is magic so it’s very hard for him to keep quiet. One day at home he can’t reach his favorite toy from the top of the book shelf, so he gets mad, and then all of a sudden, the teddy bear jerks forward and falls into his hands. The window was closed, little Jae wasn’t even touching the bookshelf. He already thought he was magic and now he is convinced he can move things with his mind. Professor X will have a new pupil in no time.” 

Tragic, the word keeps flickering through Yunho’s mind. The single word is the only thing that keeps him from cooing a little. He doesn’t know many muggle-born witches or wizards, most of them don’t talk in detail about how it comes up or how their families react. Those he knows with a muggle parent are half-blood so there wasn’t much of a secret.  

It sounds like it could be the feel-good story of the century. The little boy who dreams of quidditch and then realizes he’s a wizard. Maybe as he grows up he starts doing amazing things in the background of his little town before getting his letter to school and then- 

Jaejoong didn’t attend magical school, he remembers, and he was attending school in Seoul. Prison the boy specifically relates his experience of arriving to Hogwarts. As in against his will. As in being locked away from the world. 

Yunho feels cold. 

“Mom didn’t believe him, but little Jae was always strange and a little wrong compared to the other kids, so she smiled and brushed it off. He was obsessed though, more so than before. Within the year little Jae could successfully move things without touching them, most of the time he was extremely emotional when it happened. Little Jae taught himself to swing his emotions from zero to one hundred and back again, like turning a light on or off. He was seven and a half when Shindong snatched his drawing from art class out of his hands. The town is small, a lot of the kids in that class, like Shindong were a year or two older. They mocked him about his football game played on broomsticks and tore the picture to shreds. He was a stupid, stubborn little boy though, even with tears in his eyes the dumb kid argued. Told them all they were just jealous because he was magic and they were ordinary.” 

The Gryffindor flinches instinctively. Nothing too horrible has really come out, but he knows because he can feel it, because he knows not to tell muggles about magic.  It was worse probably, surely much worse than some kids poking fun at random one day out of nowhere.  

He doesn’t realize until seconds later than he’s laid his hand over Jaejoong’s arm, the other boy notices it too, but doesn’t shrug away. 

“The secret was out and things got kind of bad. Shindong and his pack of fiends decided little Jae was a freak. Hardly a day went by that there was not a new cut or bruise on him, but he didn’t want to bother his mom so he kept his head down and took care of himself.  

“One day a little girl approached him. He knew it was a trick, but she was nice and he was so lonely. It took two weeks before the girl, Hwayoung, convinced little Jae to talk about magic. It took three months before he showed her. Hwayoung wasn’t amazed, she screamed in terror and slapped the boy so hard that her fingernails scratched his eye. He almost went blind from an infection before he confessed to mom what happened. When they got out of the hospital, he showed mom, too. She seemed supportive, she seemed proud. 

“A few days later, the boy skipped school and mom took him to the park for a picnic. After lunch mom told him to play on the swings while she went to get them both ice cream and told him specifically to wait at the park for her, not to go anywhere.  He didn’t even realize it was all strange until it got dark outside and started raining. Lightning streaked across the sky and the thunder was so loud the ground shook. The boy hid in the jungle gym, cold and wet and shaking. The next day a strange lady appeared. Said mom was busy but she was taking him home. He fell asleep. 

“And when he woke up, he wasn’t in the country side anymore, but a large busy city. Mom wasn’t there and eventually the lady said that mom called his father, told him about the magic and said she won’t raise an abomination. The lady wasn’t family, just someone being paid to look after him. The boy stopped thinking about magic, stopped dreaming about broomsticks and started dreaming about it being cold and dark while he drowned.” 

It’s strange, Yunho is surprised to find it has gone quiet, and he is horrified to realize his eyes sting. He blinks rapidly until the watery haze clears from his vision. 

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