Seungwan had many friends. Joohyun, never the big socializer, couldn’t imagine why anyone would subject herself to such a large group of acquaintances and all the social engagements that that entailed. She much preferred having a few close friends, but she seemed to be surrounded with extroverts. It must be the Hufflepuff thing, since Seulgi was very similar in that department.

Some of Seungwan’s friends, she liked. Namely Seulgi, for obvious reasons, and Heeyeon, who was awkward but well-intentioned and studious. Some Joohyun tolerated, like Yongsun, who spoke a little too loudly and had a tendency to smack people on the back a bit too hard.

Some she disliked. Mostly the Ravenclaws, but even other Houses had their black sheep.

One friendship she’d never really understood was Seungwan’s affection for Park Chanyeol, the Gryffindor Beater who managed to annoy Joohyun every single time he was in her vicinity. From the way he slammed into his friends as they walked and nearly sent them flying into other students, to his constant habit of leaning fully into Seungwan as they walked together and nearly crushing her under the weight of his freakishly tall body.

He was also part of that ever-present subset of Gryffindors that enjoyed taunting the pureblood Slytherins, out of some rivalry that anybody with half a braincell would have questioned and discarded by their third year. Joohyun supposed he wasn’t used to using the scarce braincells he must surely possess somewhere in that cavernous head.

Still, regardless of Joohyun’s preference or dislike for Seungwan’s friends, it was generally accepted that she wasn’t going to befriend them as well just because she now spent time with Seungwan. Sure, she might spend more time than before with Heeyeon, particularly when the girls were having their Herbology study sessions, but they certainly didn’t interact without Seungwan’s mediating presence.

So she was justifiably displeased when she walked out of Potions and suddenly found herself face to face with the worst of them, Chanyeol himself.

She was unluckily alone, as she’d told everyone to go on ahead while she asked Professor Youngbae a few questions about Felix Felicis. Soojung was off to catch some precious sunlight, Seungwan probably already seated in the library amid a dozen textbooks.

Joohyun had planned to join her, but apparently she was expected to first interact with the giant now gazing down at her with earnest purpose.

“Can I help you?” she asked impatiently, wondering if she couldn’t simply walk around the obstacle and avoid eye contact.

“Can we talk? Uh, in private.”

“Look, I’m a bit busy right now. Can’t it wait?” Forever, ideally.

He shifted, looked away uncertainly. “No, it’s… It’s important.”

This couldn’t be going anywhere good. She made the effort to twist her neck at the unnatural angle needed to make eye contact and studied his expression. He seemed uncomfortable but determined, and it was an expression that Joohyun had seen before, unfortunately.

“If you’re trying to ask me out, I’ll just say right now that I’m not interested.”

His shock at the suggestion was amusing, if nothing else. Oh well, if it wasn’t that then maybe he’d be offended enough to simply leave.

“No, it’s definitely not that.” Joohyun huffed at the quick dismissal. He’d be so lucky. “It’s- It’s about Seungwan, alright?”

Oh. Well, Seungwan wouldn’t be interested either, if she had any taste. She was too busy to date, either way. Even someone as unintelligent as Chanyeol should be able to grasp that.

“I’d… rather not be involved with that. Just ask her yourself, it usually works best that way.”

“What? Ask- No, listen, I’m not trying to ask anyone out!”

“Great! Can I leave, then?”

“No!”

Chanyeol seemed either annoyed or confused. Probably both. To be fair, Joohyun doubted there were many times in his life when he wasn’t confused. He raised his hands to his face like he needed a moment alone with his thoughts, then brought them down swiftly and wrapped one around Joohyun’s wrist, pulling her inside the nearest empty room.

“We need to talk about Seungwan. Now.”

“We don’t need to talk about anything. And the next part of you that touches me…” She raised her hand for emphasis, pointing out the fading redness on her wrist. “You will not be getting back.”

"Please," Chanyeol scoffed, "I'm not afraid of you." Still, he at least had the decency to look embarrassed at the mark he'd left.

"Of course you aren’t, you're a Gryffindor. You're probably missing the part of your brain that registers fear."

"At least I'm not a Slytherin."

"Devastating comeback. Bye now."

An oversized arm flew in her path, settling itself securely across the door she'd been about to step through. She could still pass under it, if she ducked a bit, but it felt undignified.

"Look, Chanyeol, in case you're genuinely too dense to have caught on: I don't want to talk to you. I don't particularly enjoy your company, or your presence, or, quite frankly, your existence. So please take a hint and move that noodle of a limb out of my way."

"What are your intentions with Seungwan?"

Joohyun froze. She hadn't actually stopped to consider what he might want from her, but of course it would be this. The noble Gryffindor, stepping up to be the white knight that nobody had asked for.

"To study. You might consider doing it sometime."

"Cut the crap, Slytherin." He leaned closer and Joohyun instinctively stepped back, unimpressed. "What are you planning?"

She should just leave, but she'd never liked Chanyeol in his best days and she certainly felt like throwing a few more insults his way before storming off.

"Honestly, I'm planning to score above an Acceptable in my NEWTs. Again, you might want to try it at some point."

"You Slytherin are all the same. You think you're so smart and everybody else is some idiot who can't put two and two together."

"Not everybody else, surely, but if the shoe fits…"

The muscles in Chanyeol's arm tightened as he slammed his palm against the doorframe in frustration.

"Just stop! Stop with the witty comebacks and the insults and just admit it. You never liked Seungwan and that wouldn’t change overnight. You’re hiding something.”

“I don’t hide-“

“Slytherins scheme. You plan and you-“

“I am not ‘Slytherins,’” she declared tensely, growing more frustrated by the second, “I am Bae Joohyun. What I want to say, I say. What I want to do, I do. And I do nothide.”

Chanyeol only lifted his chin defiantly, scoffing at her assertions. “I don’t care who you are. You hate her, I know you do. And I just want to know why you’re doing all this. Are you going to turn against her? Humiliate her? Sabotage her?”

She stepped backwards, away from his accusing tone and self-righteous posturing. He followed quickly, spouting off accusations endlessly. It was pathetic. Gryffindors really didn’t know how to mind their own business.

“Why would I hate her?” she asked once he’d finally exhausted his supply of possibilities.

“Why?” he repeated incredulously. “Because! Because she’s a better student than you, because she has more friends, because she stole your best friend. Because you’re a Slytherin, because she’s a Hufflepuff. A pureblood Hufflepuff.”

The words struck her curiously, leaving her unsteady, uncertain. She hovered at the edge of something she couldn’t identify, but she carried on all the same. “A pureblood Hufflepuff? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because purebloods have an image to maintain,” he spit back in a flash. “Because you have to be all old-school and arrogant and Slytherins. A pureblood Hufflepuff would be forsaking her heritage.”

“You’ve been learning some big words, haven’t you?”

She smiled bitterly as fire erupted inside her, white-hot anger. Because he would never come up with something like that on his own. No, the words were familiar, she’d heard them before.

He was just repeating what he’d heard.

He opened his mouth to throw some more idiocy into the world, but she cut him short. “We’re done here.”

“I’ll say when we’re done.”

“No. There, as in most aspects of your life, you’re wrong. We’re done, now and forever. Get out of my way.”

“Stop!”

She swept past him, shoulder ramming into his frame and pushing him out of the way. Her teeth ground together, she thought only of leaving and putting as much distance as she could between them, when a familiar word sounded from behind her, one which she didn’t recognize until the spell hit her.

She was thrown off her feet immediately, body slamming hard against the stone floor, pushed by Chanyeol’s Knockback Jinx.

The whole world went red for a second, and barely aware of her own movements, she flipped over on her back, aimed her wand squarely at his chest and called out, “Bombarda!”

The regret on his face morphed into panic, his arms frozen by his side instead of casting any protective spell. Joohyun watched as if in slow motion, the same panic rising from deep within the waves of fury that clashed inside her.

The explosion she’d sent his way burst against an invisible shield, rippling in shockwaves and fading to nothing. She blinked stupidly, confused at the situation. Chanyeol’s gaze landed somewhere over Joohyun’s head and she turned to follow it.

Ahn Hyojin stood by the open door, studying them both with bored disgust. Her Head Girl badge glittered on her chest and Joohyun knew she’d made a terrible mistake.

“You idiot,” Hyojin muttered before stepping forward to help her up. Joohyun had to agree.

(…)

“Refresh my memory.” Headmistress Kwon drew a finger to her lips and tapped them thoughtfully. “When is a Hogwarts student allowed to cast offensive spells on another individual within the walls of the castle?”

Joohyun pursed her lips unhappily, wishing the Headmistress would simply deliver her punishment and be done with it. By her side, sitting far too close for the comfort of either of them, was Chanyeol, who looked away in embarrassment at the scolding.

“That was not a rhetorical question,” the Headmistress clarified after a beat of silence.

“In class, in supervised practice sessions or in a duel following the rules of the duelling club,” the two recited the rule, not quite at the same pace, which caused the words to meld together in slight cacophony.

“And were you in class?”

“No, ma’am,” both muttered reluctantly.

“In a supervised practice session?”

“No, and we weren’t-“

“I asked a simple yes-or-no question, Ms. Bae,” Headmistress Kwon interrupted icily.

“No, ma’am,” Joohyun repeated tensely, eyes straight ahead.

“Were you, perhaps, in a duel following the rules of the duelling club?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So, am I to conclude that you were breaking Hogwarts rules?”

“He started it,” Joohyun mumbled through gritted teeth.

“And you escalated it, quite steeply. I understand you hope to become an Auror, Ms. Bae.” Chanyeol turned to her in surprise at the revelation and Joohyun’s mood grew darker. “If this is how you plan to approach all conflicts in your future, then you will be a very poor fit for that job, and will only further endanger what is already a quite dangerous occupation.”

She crossed her arms, feeling like a petulant child for doing so, but unsure of what else to do when she only wanted to get up and storm out.

“Ms. Bae, and you too, Mr. Park. You are 17 years old and that makes you adults in the eyes of wizarding law. I expect you to act as such and to treat the advanced spells you have learned with the respect and maturity they require.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I will be taking 50 points from each of your Houses. The next time you step in this office, it will be on your record, permanently, so make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, Mr. Park. You will have six weeks of kitchen duty. Report to the kitchen today after dinner and you’ll be given your detention schedule. You may go.”

Chanyeol sat still, only looking between the Headmistress and Joohyun. “What about her?”

“Yes? What about her?” the Headmistress repeated with condescension.

“Well, isn’t she getting punished? You said it yourself, ma’am, she- she escalated!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is this not the Headmistress’s office? Have I, by mistake, walked the three of us into the circus, or perhaps a matinee at the cinema, where you have bought a ticket to sit and be entertained?”

“Uh, no, I-“

“Wonderful. In that case, you may leave it to me, the Headmistress, to assign punishment to your classmate, and go. Now.”

“Right, uh, yes ma’am. Goodbye, ma’am.”

He hurried off, seeming to wilt down to a human height under the force of the Headmistress’s authority. It almost brought a smile to Joohyun’s face.

The door swung shut behind him and Kwon turned to Joohyun.

“I thought my troubles would stop when you befriended Ms. Son, not increase tenfold,” she remarked in a tone that had quickly become more casual.

“This isn’t about Seungwan,” Joohyun replied defensively, unhappy with the direction the conversation seemed to be taking.

“Yes, I’m sure you and Mr. Park crossed paths for an entirely unrelated reason.” Joohyun began to wish that the Headmistress would go back to her previous detached demeanour. “Joohyun, should I be concerned? I thought things were going well for you.”

“They are. They are,” she repeated, a bit more vehemently.

Kwon didn’t seem impressed, gazing at Joohyun like she could see right through all the protective layers. She supposed it was a useful quality for the head of a school, regardless of whether it was only a bluff.

For a moment, they locked gazes in a silent battle of wills. Seeing that Joohyun kept her silence stubbornly, the Headmistress relented with a sigh.

“I know better than to force teenagers to share their secrets,” she said simply, waving her wand wordlessly to float over a scroll that balanced on top of a large pile. She unrolled it leisurely, eyes sweeping the lines on the page. “Do you know your classmate Kim Jennie?”

“Um, Slytherin? Sixth year,” Joohyun recalled with some difficulty, distracted by the abrupt change of topic. The Headmistress continued to scan the scroll in her hands.

“Yes, that’s her. She transferred from her school in New Zealand to complete her NEWTs here, but it appears that there is a bit of a mismatch in our curricula, so she’s ahead of the programme in some classes and struggling to keep up in others.”

Joohyun began to see where this was going, and she didn’t like it. “Headmistress Kwon, I’m very busy with my own NEWTs and-“

The Headmistress hummed noncommittally. “Perhaps that is something you should have kept in mind when you decided to attempt exploding your classmate.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have… exploded,” she offered weakly.

“The professors have put together a list of topics that you will have to go over with Ms. Kim. You will tutor her for the next six weeks or until you’ve finished the list, whichever comes first.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Joohyun sighed out, slumping in her chair. Detention was detention, and she supposed this was better than washing dishes or polishing the silver.

“Alright, that will be all.”

The Headmistress leaned forward to hand over the list, a comparatively smaller piece of parchment annotated on both sides. Joohyun took it reluctantly and stood up to leave, but the Headmistress stood up as well.

“And Joohyun? Please try to keep things in perspective. So much of what feels most important right now, you won’t even remember in five years.”

If the words had been intended to soothe Joohyun’s feelings, they had quite the opposite effect. Hearing them, all the events of the past hour crystallized in her mind, throwing shards of anger and hurt through her. She clenched her fists, the parchment crinkling in her grip, and nodded stiffly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She stepped out of the office, thoughts swirling in her head and nearly overtaking her, wanting only to retreat to her own dorm for some time alone.

Heads turned to study her and she knew at once that the news had already spread. That would make it harder to reach the dungeons without running into Seulgi or Sunmi, who would surely want some explanations. They weren’t unaware of her dislike for Chanyeol, but she had to admit that an impromptu duel definitely went beyond simple animosity.

Distracted, she swept past crowds of students leaving their classes, making it all the way to stairs.

Before she could make it down the steps, a hand gripped her arm. It was Seungwan, a little out of breath, and in a manoeuvre that was becoming unpleasantly familiar, Joohyun found herself being pulled inside an empty room.

“I just heard what happened. Joohyun, I know that Chanyeol can be difficult, but what were you thinking?”

Joohyun scoffed wordlessly, shrugging off Seungwan’s hand with a rough movement. She hadn’t forgotten what had happened, and why.

Seungwan’s demeanour changed immediately, animated concern replaced by uncertainty. “What is it?”

“Did he tell you why he wanted to talk to me?” she asked tightly, taking a step to distance herself from Seungwan, then another.

“I couldn’t get much out of him, he just stormed away,” Seungwan answered, looking more lost by the second. Joohyun looked away. “Joohyun, what happened?” she insisted, a little more quietly.

“He’s worried about you.” Joohyun’s words were tinted with sarcasm, artificially light. “He doesn’t trust my motives.”

“Your motives?”

“Oh, you know. He thinks this…” She opened her arms to sweep the world around her, as if not putting a name to it would make it empty, meaningless, nothing. “…is all some trick. To gain your confidence. To turn against you.”

Seungwan stood silently, studying Joohyun, who continued to avoid her eyes. She’d realized something was wrong, she’d made it that far, but she hadn’t pieced it together yet.

“Joohyun,” she tried again, a bit softer, her hand reaching out, and Joohyun stepped just out of reach.

“But the funny thing is, do you know what he said?” Seungwan shook her head. “He said… that I hate you because you’re a pureblood Hufflepuff. Because you’ve forsaken your heritage. Now, where have I heard that before?”

Seungwan blinked, said nothing. It might be the realization, or it might simply be that she still didn’t understand.

“You might not remember,” Joohyun eventually added. “You were a bit drunk.”

“Joohyun-“

“He came to me, to accost me, because of what you said! Of what you said to him.” She stopped herself, clenched her jaw to stop her breathing from halting, from leaving her in a choked sob. “You don’t trust me.”

“Joohyun, it isn’t like that! I don’t think- You’ve never- I just worry.” Seungwan paused, ended her sentence abruptly. Joohyun felt something like anger grow inside her, but it wasn’t anger, because anger was simple, and this was strange and complicated and she didn’t quite understand it. “I just worry, it’s what I do.”

“Do you trust me? It’s as simple as that, Seungwan. I’m not asking if you worry, I’m not asking if you’re insecure. I’m asking if you trust me. Yes or no.”

The silence that fell then was telling enough, but still Joohyun stood frozen to the spot, and now she was looking at Seungwan, finally looking at her, because she wanted her answer. She needed her answer.

“You never told me,” Seungwan whispered, so quiet that Joohyun barely heard her. She began to step closer then stopped herself, feeling ridiculous. “You never told me why you hated me.”

Like a punch to her gut, Joohyun felt all the air in her body rush out of her. She struggled for relief that wouldn’t come. Seungwan noticed, of course she did, and she reached out to help her, of course she did, and Joohyun swatted her hand away. Of course she did.

“You know what, you’re right.”

“Joohyun-“

“No, you are. You have no reason to trust me. So let’s not pretend anymore. Let’s not play this game, and wait for the betrayal.”

For once, Seungwan said nothing. She held her own hand, brushing at the fingers where Joohyun had struck them, and said nothing. Only looked at her with big watery eyes.

Without another word, Joohyun rushed out of the empty room, slammed the door shut behind her, and joined the growing crowd of students on their way downstairs, all the while clenching her jaw tightly to fight off stubborn tears.

She was Bae Joohyun, the big, bad, irredeemable Slytherin.

She’d been an idiot to expect otherwise.