“So,” Seungwan enunciated slowly, studying both sides of the empty corridor. “How do we get in?”

“Shouldn’t we check if the Headmistress is in there first?”

Seungwan gasped, eyes already growing wider, and Joohyun couldn’t help a teasing smile.

“You really trusted me with the planning, huh?” she asked, stepping towards the office entrance confidently. “Don’t worry, she left a bit ago for a meeting, so we should have some time. And the password is currently…” She fished out a piece of parchment from her pocket and tapped it with her wand, revealing its hidden contents. “… Solipsism.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask how you know all that.”

“I charmed some third-years into hiding behind the wolf-knight’s statue and gathering intel.”

“Charmed?” Seungwan repeated dubiously.

“I have a very… authoritative presence. It lends itself to obedience.”

“So, you terrified a bunch of children.”

“Most efficiently.” Joohyun put the paper back in her pocket and nodded Seungwan forward. “Now, shall we go? We don’t have all the time in the world.”

Seungwan followed along, shaking her head in light reproach. Joohyun grinned at the sight, despite herself. Really, the kids were asking for it. Nobody should be that intimidated by a single stern look.

The password got them past the guarding gargoyle and they climbed the staircase with some trepidation, trying their best to keep their footsteps quiet against the polished stone despite the apparent emptiness of the corridor they’d left behind. Upstairs, Joohyun headed straight for the shelf where she was sure she’d last seen the Sorting Hat, while Seungwan lingered a few steps behind her.

“Sightseeing?” Joohyun asked absently as she scanned the magical artifacts that seemed to have all shifted place since she’d been up here. She wouldn’t put it past them to do it on their own, just for the pleasure of being inconvenient.

“It’s just such an interesting place. I’d bet the books that the Headmistress keeps up here are all fascinating.”

“You’ll have all the time in the world to browse them when you come back next year as a researcher. Remember Kim Taeyeon? She was friendly with all the Professors, I’m sure she got invited up here for tea and a chat.”

“We don’t know for sure that I’ll stay here...”

“Well, let’s find out,” Joohyun said simply, reaching out triumphantly to pull the Sorting Hat from behind a jar of something that she hoped would never ever leave its container. She looked at the wrinkled item in her hand uncertainly. “Uh… Hello there.”

“Does it need to be activated?” Seungwan asked, suddenly much closer and no longer interested in the literature.

“I don’t know. I can tap it with my wand.”

“You will tap nothing,” a disembodied voice stated as the hat suddenly flapped against her grip. Joohyun nearly yelped.

“Oh- Oh, hello,” Seungwan said eagerly.

“I already said that,” Joohyun chimed in.

“Hello to you two, the pair of delinquents that has indulged in most evident trespassing. Do you have a name by which to be addressed, or will you be pleased with…” The Hat paused, and despite the lack of eyeballs, Joohyun could swear it was looking each of them over. “Lurker and Snatcher?”

“I’m Seungwan,” Seungwan eagerly offered. Joohyun rolled her eyes.

“Snatcher?” the Hat prodded as if turning her way.

“Joohyun,” she said against her better instincts. “I thought you’d know that already.”

“Put me on your head and I’ll name your childhood pet,” the Hat said ominously. “Hanging from your fist – you could loosen your grip a bit, by the way -, I can only tell you that the Headmistress’s office is currently a very mild temperature. And, of course, that the two of you should not be here.”

The comment jolted Joohyun into dropping the Hat entirely, setting it down on a nearby desk. It huffed in displeasure, then seemed to narrow its eyes at them.

“Well? I assume you came to me with a purpose. Unless this is part of some… challenge. Gryffindors are fond of those.”

“We have a question,” Seungwan cut in before Joohyun could express the full scope of her opinions on Gryffindors and their ‘challenges.’ “About your Sorting.”

“I’m sure there are books on the topic. I am, of course, a fascinating artifact.”

“I meant, a particular sorting,” Seungwan clarified as Joohyun muttered about the Hat’s clear humility. “Uh, mine.”

The words were received with a thoughtful hum that seemed to reverberate through the whole room, rumbling inside Joohyun’s chest.

“I’m not in the habit of giving… consultation.”

“Please. It’s really important,” Joohyun said, suddenly worried that after all this they’d just be rejected and sent on their way. “And it’ll only take a second, really.”

“We’re not, um, questioning it or anything. We just wanted to know your thought process, a bit.”

“That is not something that a human could easily grasp. The weave of enchantments that animates me does not process information in the way that a brain would. Or could,” the Hat declared regally. Joohyun held her breath. “But… you can ask your question. And then we will see.”

“Oh! Oh, thank you, sir- Hat, sir. I was wondering-” Seungwan began, but cut herself short as the Hat cleared its throat – or absence of throat – meaningfully.

“Again, sitting here, all I could tell you is-”

“Mild temperature?” Joohyun offered, secretly enjoying interrupting the pompous thing.

“And very fine quality wood on this desk,” the Hat conceded.

Seungwan got the message and quickly reached out to pull the Hat over her ears. Somehow, more than six years later, it was still too big for her head.

“Let’s see, then… Ah, yes, Son Seungwan, Hufflepuff. ‘Not Slytherin,’ I recall. A common enough request.”

“Yes, about that-”

“Unnecessary in your particular case, of course. I was… How to put it in human terms? Torn, perhaps, is the right word. Yes, torn between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, if you must know. Certainly not Slytherin,” the Hat concluded with a raspy chuckle.

“Why not?” Seungwan asked, her voice going a little high-pitched. Joohyun watched, only a step away, sure that she was almost as nervous as Seungwan must be.

“’Why not?’” the Hat repeated skeptically. “Why, my dear child, you know the answer to that as well as I do.”

“But I really don’t,” Seungwan said earnestly, hands clinging together. The Hat sighed and Joohyun wondered, once again, if they’d leave the office empty-handed after all.

“You do, you do, and I do think it would be much easier for your human brain to explain it to yourself than for me to do it, but I can see that your mind is being quite stubborn about it. Denial,” the Hat grumbled on, “is a most ridiculous mechanism. Entirely counter-intuitive.”

“So could you tell me?”

The Hat sighed again. Joohyun had never before wanted to strangle something that didn’t even have a throat.

“Ms. Son, you are bright and most capable, and you can achieve any task that you set your mind to. And in all the years that you have been alive, that task has been, first and foremost, to live up to the expectations set for you by others. This was true when you first entered Hogwarts and it is true today.”

“So the reason you never considered Slytherin…”

“It is because your ambition, which you do have – I have never sat on a head that did not have it, in greater or smaller capacity -, has simply never been the driving force behind your actions. Ambition requires wanting. Requires letting yourself want, in a way that some might see as inspiring, and others as simply selfish. And you, Miss Son, so rarely let yourself want. You are too eager to please. It makes you a good student. A good daughter. What it does not make you, is a good Slytherin.”

After that, there was a deep silence. Joohyun waited, unsure of what she was waiting for. Seungwan stood still, hat still buried all the way to her eyebrows, hands clenching and unclenching by her sides. Even the Hat was quiet, for once, folded in on itself like it was furrowing its brow in deep thought.

“I mean, putting you in Slytherin would be like putting Ms. Joohyun into Ravenclaw,” it finally said, punctuating the sentence with a sharp laugh.

“Hey!” Joohyun could only call out, entirely caught by surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean? You- you don’t know anything about me.”

“I can only assume you’re a Gryffindor.”

“A Gryff- Excuse me?!”

“Impulsive, prone to illegal activity, clearly short-tempered. All signs of a Gryffindor, and a very typical one at that.”

“Wait!” Seungwan cut in, stopping Joohyun from reaching for the Hat with murderous intent. “So that’s- that’s it? I don’t… want hard enough? That’s why you put me in Hufflepuff?”

“My child,” the Hat said at once, and Joohyun began to suspect he had a favorite, “the job of Hogwart’s Sorting Hat is to determine which of the Houses is a best fit for you, during the seven short years that you will spend at this institution. And I would argue, reading your mind only a few months away from that deadline, that I have done a good job of it. But the deadline approaches. And after that, I wash my hands of you. It is, after all, beyond the powers of even the mightiest of Hats to hope to know who a person will be, from the mere hints given by who they are.”

“You wash your hands of me?” Seungwan repeated hopefully.

“The world is, as has been put so eloquently in the past, your oyster.”

Joohyun could see it in Seungwan’s frame already, a little of the tension escaping it as she took in the words.

In the end, Joohyun couldn’t disagree with the Hat. They had known, both of them, deep down. It hadn’t told them anything that wasn’t already present in their minds. But she could also tell that it had helped, that it had allowed Seungwan to leave behind some of the what-ifs that had been haunting her, that maybe she’d been clinging to all along, for fear of being set truly loose.

A good daughter. A bad Slytherin. It was that simple, always had been.

Joohyun watched distantly as Seungwan took off the Hat with a final word of thanks and went to put it back.

Letting herself want. Joohyun always had. She’d wanted achingly, bitterly, with the full knowledge that she wasn’t allowed to have. Wanting had been a constant in her life, until she was so used to the loss that she wasn’t sure how else to live.

Denial, the Hat had said. Entirely counter-intuitive.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by Seungwan’s hand on her shoulder. She heard her say her goodbyes to the Hat, already back on its shelf.

“Goodbye, Ms. Son. Ms. Joohyun,” the Hat added as an afterthought. Yes, it clearly had a favorite. “You’ll be glad to know I won’t be sharing this little expedition with the Headmistress.”

Joohyun choked on air. “W-What?”

“Ah, yes, perhaps in your careful planning of this stealthy mission, of which there could surely be no witnesses, you forgot to account for the fact that the talking hat you have come to meet can… Well, talk.”

Seungwan’s eyes were locked on Joohyun, absolutely frantic. Well, it wasn’t like Seungwan had thought of it either!

“It did say it won’t give us away,” Joohyun offered weakly.

“Very typical Gryffindor,” the Hat quipped. Joohyun gritted her teeth to keep from testing its good will. “You are lucky, Ms. Joohyun, that your friend offered me such an interesting exercise. I so rarely get to have a second look into the minds of the students. The then and the now. Fascinating stuff.”

They made their slow retreat as the Hat continued to mumble to itself about the fascinating exercise, the sentences growing vague as they descended the staircase. Their hands had found each other, keeping them close together, and the last remnants of adrenaline kept Joohyun’s heart pumping against the relief and the first beginnings of exhilaration at their successful mission, at Seungwan’s answers that had already made it all worth it.

Outside, they leant against the wall for a moment, just to catch their breaths, but there were footsteps coming down the corridor before they’d had a chance to walk away. Joohyun caught Seungwan’s eyes and immediately saw the panic rising there. She squeezed her hand again, then released it right before the Headmistress herself came into view.

“Oh,” she said simply, studying the two girls. Joohyun swallowed dryly. “Ms. Son, I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

Joohyun could feel Seungwan freezing by her side, mouth opening as no words came out. The attention couldn’t be on her, not now. Even if she weren’t panicking at the thought of being caught, she would be at the prospect of having this conversation again.

“Actually, we’re here for me,” Joohyun said quickly, stepping forward. “I… I wanted to know if there’ll be another Hogsmeade weekend before the end of term.”

“Hogsmeade? You came all the way up here for that?”

She felt herself clenching her jaw and slowly willed it to release. “I want to know. So I can invite my parents.”

She could feel Seungwan’s questioning gaze turn her way before the girl could think to hide it. Thankfully, Headmistress Kwon had been taken by surprise too. Her eyes were on Joohyun, then on Seungwan, then back to Joohyun, carrying a question that slowly turned to an understanding that Joohyun wished she could share.

She smiled. Not much, just a quirk of the lips, just a softening of her usually sharp gaze. Behind it, Joohyun could see a warmth that she hadn’t expected, not like this, not so softly… proud of her. It made her eyes sting with a sudden heat that she hastily blinked away.

“There will be one more weekend,” Kwon said with a perfectly even tone. “I will let you know of the date. And Joohyun, I…” She hesitated, eyes darting once more to Seungwan and back. “I think they’ll be very pleased to hear from you.”

“Yeah,” Joohyun said dumbly, any other words leaving her head. She nodded, and then the Headmistress was off, and she kept standing there.

She felt herself be pulled away from the gargoyle, down the stairs, hand held in Seungwan’s worried grasp until she seemed sure enough that they had escaped danger. Then Joohyun stopped, because Seungwan had stopped, and she realized she wasn’t even sure what floor they were on.

“Joohyun, I am so sorry,” Seungwan began, oddly. It took Joohyun a moment to process the apology. “You really didn’t have to do that, I just- I just froze, but you don’t have to do it! We can say you changed your mind, or that your parents couldn’t make it, or-”

“It’s okay.” She smiled then, finally finding herself returning to her own body, catching her breath. “I meant it.”

“You did?” Seungwan asked softly, blinking in confusion.

“I did. I… I was thinking about what the Hat said, about being a good daughter and letting yourself want and… I can ask. I know that it’s a stupid realization to have, at this point, but, I don’t know. It never occurred to me. That I can ask them, that I don’t have to wait until I need something from them, or until they’ve found the money.”

She stepped away, hand running absently through her hair. She felt shaky, like she’d just been flying on a broom, limbs still lined with the tension of fighting the fear.

“Maybe they’ll say no. Maybe their pride won’t let them, or maybe they just don’t want to see me that badly. I don’t know. But I never asked, and I think I have to, at least once, before I never get the chance.”

“Joohyun, I didn’t even realize that you were… That you were thinking about all of that while I was just...”

“I mean, I told you,” Joohyun said as lightly as she could. She didn’t want Seungwan to feel guilty, to be weighed down by it. This was her moment. Her answers. It was never supposed to be about about Joohyun. “You’re not the only one with questions. I’m figuring it out too.”

“Thank you,” Seungwan said, with sudden intensity. “Thank you for this, for the whole thing, for, um, not tearing the Hat apart when it called you a Gryffindor three times. Thank you for bringing me here and for bullying the third-years and… Thank you. For everything.”

“You don’t have to- It’s not-” Joohyun felt herself stutter, losing track of her thoughts under the single-minded focus of Seungwan’s gratitude, that she still felt like she couldn’t possibly deserve. She held on to Seungwan’s hand for balance, before she could lose her train of thought entirely. “It’s fine, it’s more than fine, it was all… I just want you to be happy. I want you to be as happy as you make me, and I still can’t believe that we’re… That I get to have you. That you stayed, that night in the kitchen, that you stayed even though I scared you, that you could have just left and we could have gone our separate ways, and I wouldn’t have even known what I’d-”

And although her brain supplied her with a hundred more things to say, a thousand moments that she cherished, that she might have never had, she couldn’t say anything else, because suddenly Seungwan was kissing her, and then all those thoughts went away and she was kissing Seungwan back.

Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind, some conscious part of Joohyun could register the gasps of surprise from passing students, followed quickly by the rising murmurs. But that part was too distant, too small to possibly elicit a reaction.

It was only when Seungwan pulled away that she even remembered where they were. She smiled sheepishly at her girlfriend, unexpectedly unbothered by all the attention.

“I suppose that will put an end to the rumors,” Joohyun said, still a little breathless.

“Or start new ones,” Seungwan giggled. “In my defense, you were being very romantic.”

“You were romantic first.”

Seungwan smiled at that, offering no rebuttal.

“Are you okay with it? The rumors?”

“Seungwan, I was called a Gryffindor today. All the rumors in the world couldn’t faze me, after that.”