The weather doesn’t play ball the last two weeks. Hyosang swears he’s never seen a bad summer at Hogwarts but Seokjin laughs and reminds him that they’ve been at school in Scotland for the past seven years, 

“Those rose tinted glasses came out fast,” he smiles, pulling up his hood and casting a water proofing spell over his trunk as they descend the castle steps towards the lake. 

The seventh years move across the grounds in closely knit pockets, sharing rain repellent charms and precious last minutes together. They all know that soon – as soon as the following week for some of them – they’ll be starting work and apprenticeships inside a community so tightly knit that they’d have a job avoiding each other, but they also know that they’ll never be friends in quite the same way as they were at school ever again. 

Hyosang doesn’t want things to change. He’s spent so much of this final year complaining about how he’s done with school and ready to move on but now that the time has come to head out into the big wide world he’s not so sure. It’s scary, looking towards his future and knowing that everything that happens from here on out is on him, for better or worse. 

“Are you gonna miss it?” Hyosang asks, falling into step with Seokjin as they pass the greenhouses,

“Oh I’m sure I will, but I’m also sure the Wizengamot will keep me busy enough to distract me for a while,” Seokjin pulls his wand out of his sleeve and waves it in Hyosang’s direction, casting the same water proofing charm he left on his suitcase. Hyosang appreciates it, he never could get the hang of that particular spell. 

And not a moment too soon – the heavens open, the rain intensifies and the skyline is erased by a wall of water. No more forest, no more quiddich pitch – Hyosang feels like he’s been robbed. 

They reach the edge of the lake just as the boats begin to land on the shore. Hyosang remembers arriving in them on the first day with no hope of magically shielding himself from the heavy rain and a firmly enforced ‘three to a boat’ rule. He knows that the whole point of having the seventh years leave school by boat is so they can go as they first came but it turns out that seven years of school can do a lot to a person and Hyosang isn’t sure that the same people are leaving who once arrived. Hansol is no longer a whiny , Yoongi is capable of talking to people like they are not, in fact, scum and Bomi managed to pass all her NEWTs without setting anything on fire – if you’d have told the eleven year old Hyosang that the people he met on his first day would turn out the way they have he’d never have believed you, yet here they all are. 

Standing on the bank watching the boats come in. 

Seokjin was perhaps the most surprising student of their year. Showing up with no magical heritage and less than no clue about wizarding customs he has become a man with a bright future ahead of him in Ministry law keeping. Hyosang still has to remind himself from time to time that Seokjin knows what he’s doing these days and doesn’t require a guide through the world of magic, but it’s hard when his first impression was that of a clueless muggleborn who couldn’t even remember the specifics of his wand. 

Seokjin’s wand is chestnut and unicorn hail, twelve and a half inches, slightly springy. And he’s head boy, he doesn’t need anyone to hold his hand anymore. 

Seokjin hauls his luggage into the boat and holds out his hand to help Hyosang down, “scared?” he chuckles as Hyosang snaps out of his daze looking stunned,

“Of course not,” Hyosang takes the offered hand and the boat wobbles as he steps in. 

“It’s ok to be scared you know, the world’s a scary place,” Seokjin looks towards the opposite shore as the boat sets sail, “besides, you can’t be brave if you’re not scared. Gryffindors need to be brave,”

Try as he might, Hyosang can’t see the castle through the rain. He can see Seokjin though, close and comforting as ever, and still right next to him after all these years.



***



“Wait, what?”

Seokjin throws up his hands in despair, “I don’t know! It doesn’t make any sense,”

“That’s such a weird thing to get hung up on,”

“Tell me about it, they’re talking about calling in the Prophet,”

“What? Who’s talking about calling in the Prophet?”

“Well not Professor Park that’s for sure. Jiyeon went to talk to her about it and she didn’t even seem to know this was happening,”

The door to the Hufflepuff common room swings open and a small, mousey looking boy with sad eyes walks in. 

“Jinhwan!” Seokjin exclaims, “just the person I wanted to see,”

Hyosang doesn’t know Jinhwan personally, but he recognises him as one of the Hufflepuff chasers. He also recognises the look of suspicion that people pick up when they’ve been ‘just the person’ Seokjin wants to see once too often, 

“What happened this time?”

“Chaos,” Hyosang mutters,

“Oh don’t be so dramatic Hyosang. Although I suppose…for lack of a better word…”

“Is this about the Gryffindor quiddich trials?” Jinhwan cuts in

Seokjin blinks, “what do you know about the Gryffindor quiddich try-outs?”

“I was there,”

“The hell were you doing at our quiddich try-outs?” Hyosang snaps

Jinhwan eyes him up, “what are you doing in my common room?” he turns to Seokjin, “inviting members of other houses over for tea isn’t very prefectly you know,”

“The hell are you to go telling prefects how to behave?” grumbles Hyosang

“He’s the fifth year prefect Hyosang, now do be quiet,”

Hyosang blinks at Jinhwan in surprise. He barely looks old enough to hold a wand, yet alone be a prefect. 

Seokjin fills him in on the details at quickly as possible, “did you see the first year girl who tried out for Gryffindor seeker? Well obviously she wasn’t riding her own broom but no one thought to check which broom she picked out from the shed. You’d think someone would have noticed a first year riding a Nimbus 2011 but apparently not. Anyway long story short she accidentally picked out Professor Park’s broom and now the school is in an uproar saying that it was some sort of plot to disrespect or disrupt the divination department or something,”

“That’s…ridiculous,”

“I know,”

“Hold up,”

Seokjin and Jinhwan turn to look at Hyosang who has just had an almighty brainwave, “You never said the first year was a girl, it was Kyungmi wasn’t it?”

“Wait, you know her?”

“Well yeah I mean she’s in the same house as me. I’m not that unobservant,”

“Does it matter who she is?”

Hyosang lets out a bark of laughter, “Of course it matters! There’s no way Kyungmi chose the best broom in the shed by accident, she probably knew who it belonged to and all,” he pauses, “maybe it was a plan to overthrow Professor Park’s teaching schedule,”

Jinhwan purses his lips, “Park Bom is the divination teacher, first years don’t take divination. This is a girl who made a mistake, and I sincerely doubt that Professor Park even cares – besides, the Gryffindor prefects probably have this under control by now.”

Hyosang doesn’t say anything, but given that the current Gryffindor prefect roster consists of Park Sehyuk, Kim Wonsik, Yoon Bomi, Bang Minah and Jung Ilhoon he doesn’t have much faith in Jinhwan being correct. Still, Kyungmi doesn't seem like the type of person to let false accusations trouble her unduly. 

Smiling, Seokjin ruffles Jinhwan’s hair “Ahh you’re probably right. Now be a dear and make us all a cup of tea,”

Jinhwan’s lips tighten further but he doesn’t pull away from Seokjin’s hand, “why do I have to make the tea,”

“Because I’m a prefect. And a sixth year. So I out rank you,” Seokjin beams and turns back to Hyosang, “I wonder if that girl made the cut,”

“First years can’t play for the house teams, silly,”

“Well there’s a first time for everything.”



***



All of a sudden, Seokjin’s face turns pale and his eyes cross, “I think I’m gonna puke,”

“,” Ikje hisses, glancing around the room for something for him to vomit into,

“Too late,” Hyosang sighs as Seokjin wretches into a bucket that Minwoo had conjured out of thin air not a moment too soon,

Ikje looks confused, “where did that come from?”

“Magic,” Donghyuk moans, “remember that thing you went to school for seven years to study?”

“Six years, I dropped out, remember?”

“Well you’d think you’d remember something, I can’t believe we were in the same house” 

Donghyuk downs another shot of firewhiskey – Hyosang hasn’t been counting how many that makes but he knows that the diminutive Slytherin has had more than Seokjin and to the average passerby he could pass for sober. Given that Donghyuk is in fourth year, it should be kind of worrying, but Donghyuk is also friends with Ikje who was never a very responsible alumni.

Nights out with Daenamhyup tend to get a little wild, Hyosang wouldn’t have brought Seokjin but it wasn’t he who invited him, it wasn’t even Namjoon. 

It was Hunchul. Somehow no one in their friendship circles managed to make the connection that they were both Hufflepuffs; and in a school with as small a student body as Hogwarts and with only a year between them, the chances of them not being friends was practically zero. Hyosang would be bitter that in five years of friendship neither of them has mentioned the other to him but he’s so stunned that someone actually managed to talk Seokjin into drinking on a school night that he’s willing to let it pass. 

“Guys he has DADA first thing tomorrow,” Namjoon chides, “He’s gonna have such a bad hangover,”

“I know, it’s gonna be amazing,” Hyosang grins. He’s had just enough alcohol that the idea of Seokjin his way through classes the next day is funny rather than unfathomably annoying. 

Namjoon looks confused, “you don’t have DADA with him though, fifth year Hufflepuffs have it with the Slytherins. You’re not gonna get to laugh at him”

“Wait no that’s not right,” Ikje cuts in, “once you’re in fifth year you’re all just shoved together for the test thingies aren’t you?”

“By ‘test thingies’ do you mean OWLs?” Donghyuk sighs, “and Defence Against the Dark Arts is compulsory at all levels whether you like it or not. Now,” a dangerous grin begins to spread itself across Donghyuk’s face, “I think the more pressing matter is Namjoonie’s uncanny knowledge of Seokjin’s timetable,”

Namjoon blushes scarlet, “like you don’t know your friends' timetables,”

“I know my friends’ timetables because we’re in the same year . And even then I have no idea what Sungkyum does once he’s finished repotting daises with me in herbology on Fridays,”

“I have a free,” Sungkyum’s voice rumbles up from somewhere behind Hunchul

“Fascinating,”

“Isn’t it just?”

Donghyuk turns back to Namjoon, “I suppose you knew all about that though,”

“Sure,” Namjoon sniffs. The blush hasn’t left his cheeks though, and as even Choi Ikje isn’t irresponsible enough to give a third year firewhiskey Hyosang knows it’s not from the alcohol.

“Aww c’mon guys I think it’s cute! Namjoon’s allowed a little crush after all,” Hyosang reaches across the table to pinch Namjoon’s cheek.

The younger boy scowls, slams his firsts on the table in a display of impotent rage and stands up to leave.

“Come on Taegyun, let’s go!”

“Why do I have to leave? I’m having fun!” Taegyun looks up from trying to charm Seokjin’s unfinished drink towards him unnoticed. With a wave of his wand Namjoon has smashed the glass and transformed it’s contents into glitter. 

Taegyun look disappointed to say the least,

“Hey I was-“

“Look at that! You’re not having fun anymore! Come on let’s go,”

“We’re not even going back to the same dorm, there is literally no point in us leaving together,” Taegyun turns his attentions to Ikje, “pleaaase can I stay?”

“Sorry kid, but you know the rules, if one third year goes you all have to go,”

Whining under his breath, Taegyun stands up to follow Namjoon out of the dungeon classroom that Ikje has commandeered for the night – working as a castle cleaner has its perks – when Hyosang takes pity on the both of them,

“Hey Namjoon, I’m really tired tonight, been studying really hard for that transfiguration test on Friday,” Hyosang doesn’t miss the sceptical glances everyone graces him with, “I don’t suppose you could stay for a little longer and help Seokjin back to his dorm? I’d do it myself but I’m just so tired,”

Namjoon is back at the table before Hyosang has even finished his proposition, “I could do that”

Next to him, Seokjin looks up from his bucket and blinks his preposterously huge eyes at Hyosang, “whas going on? D…d’you think I’ll be ok tomorrow?”

“Sure you will Jin, Namjoon’s going to take good care of you,”

“That…that’s good!” Seokjin exclaims and reaches for another firewhiskey. Hyosang doesn’t envy Namjoon the walk home that evening. 



***



“YES! HIT HIM RIGHT IN THE ING FACE! BREAK HIS ING NOSE!” Taeyang shrieks, standing on the bench to get a good view of the action, “NO YOU IDIOT NOT LIKE THAT!”

Quiddich has a habit of bringing out everyone’s more violent side, but in spite of the fact that hardly any of them play Hyosang can’t help but feel his friends always manage to go the extra mile. Ravenclaw aren’t even playing today and still Taeyang screams at the beaters to rip each other to shreds like his life depends on it. 

Hyosang knows that if anyone really was seriously hurt Taeyang would be devastated, but he enjoys the carnage while it lasts. 

“If someone doesn’t get the snitch pretty damn soon this is gonna be a draw,” Seokjin shouts over the crowd, Hyosang glances at the clock and sees that the game only have five minutes to go and Gryffindor are only ahead of Slytherin by ten points,

“,” he replies, “I guess Sehyuk wasn’t talking out of his arse when he said he was ready to be a good keeper this year,”

“Look at Sooyoung!” Byungjoo squeals behind them, “she hasn’t seen Jinah she’s going to get a bludger to the back of the head,”

Hyosang and Seokjin turn their gaze to where Gryffindor beater Park Sooyoung is playing the role of sitting duck as her Slytherin counterpart, Im Jinah, flies in ready to intercept a bludger and send it flying straight into the back of the other girl’s head. 

“Nearly there, nearly there,” Byungjoo is bouncing in his seat with excitement,

Jinah raises her bat, ready to strike, but at the last minute seems to change her mind and lets the ball go soaring onwards to her teammate, Jung Hoseok who wallops it into the side of Kim Yukwon. 

“I really thought she was going to hit her,” Byungjoo sounds so disappointed 

“Don’t be silly, Jinah and Sooyoung are friends,” Sangwon pokes Byungjoo in the side causing him to nigh on jump into Hojoon’s lap, “she wouldn’t send a bludger after her unless she had to. 

Slytherin now in possession of the quaffle, Hansol, Minhyuk and Minji race down the field to where Sehyuk is patrolling the Gryffindor goalposts, alone and with no sign of help reaching him fast, 

“Where are Sooyoung and Ilhoon?” Hyosang wails, “of all the times for the beaters to go awol.”

Hansol makes a final pass to Minhyuk who pops the quaffle through the third goalpost whilst Sehyuk’s still guarding the first. The claxon goes to signify that a goal has been scored and every Slytherin in the stands goes wild. 

“We were winning! If they could have just kept the score for two more minutes…”

“Oh there’s no need to be so sulky Hyosang, the snitch is still out there,” Seokjin smiles up at the skies, scanning for the seekers. 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Hyosang mutters, and sure enough no sooner than the words have left his lips than a tiny green dot high above the stadium goes into a dive, and from that moment onwards, the fate of the game is sealed. 

“When did he fly so high?”

“Is it safe to dive from that distance?”

“If he doesn’t start slowing down soon he’s going to crash!”

“He’s going to be fine,” Hyosang snaps before Byungjoo can work himself into too much of a frenzy regarding the Slytherin seeker’s safety. 

And even Hyosang has to admit that it’s an impressive dive, most professional players would struggle to pull it off so well, but his Gryffindor pride is too great for him to join the hordes of student’s who raise their hands in a V sign as the snitch is caught and an extra 150 points is added to the Slytherin score. 

“And Lee Seunghyun has caught the snitch! Slytherin win!” the announcer cries across the stadium. 

Hyosang casts a dirty look at Seokjin who has his fingers raised in salute along with a good two thirds of the crowd, “traitor,”

Seokjin shrugs, “I’m no Gryffindor!”

Every eye in the stadium is on Seunghyun as he takes his victory lap, the snitch struggling but losing heart in his fist. Hyosang supposes that they don’t call him Victory for nothing. 



***



The forest looms threateningly before them, the line between the neatly mown lawn and the tall weeds that dominate the forest floor unbearably striking in the early morning sun. 
Seokjin frowns, “isn’t this forest supposed to be unspeakably dangerous?”

“Yes,” Hyosang replies, “what’s your point?”

“Well doesn’t it seem a little cruel and unusual to send a group of thirteen year olds in there as a punishment?”

“Not really? I mean my mum makes me fight the ghoul in our woodshed when she’s angry with me and he's pretty dangerous,” Hyosang shrugs, “it’s nothing special,”

“Woo Jiho told me that there are werewolves in there…werewolves sound scary,”

“Will you please stop whining?” Yoongi snaps, “yes the forest is a little unpredictable but we’re all here now and we’re not leaving until these barrels are full of stinkwort – so get picking!”

“Or we could wait for Professor Sprout, I mean she only said she was going to triple the detention time for anyone starting without supervision but what do I know,” the Slytherin boy who’s been landed in detention with the rest of them looks down his nose at Yoongi with an expression of distaste. 

Yoongi’s eyes narrow, “sorry, what was your name again?”

“Jung Hoseok,”

“Well Jung Hoseok, how about you shut your ing mouth before I-“

“Goodmorning chaps!” Professor Sprout shuffles into view from behind a mulberry bush, “what do we have today? Caught in the greenhouses after hours with no adult supervision!” she chuckles, “I’m sure you boys are just keen students with a passion for plants, or I hope so because I’m afraid only the most diehard plant enthusiast could possibly have fun picking stinkwort,”

Hyosang tries a weak smile in response but his heart is already sinking. The five of them out here today are collateral damage in one of Park Kyung’s less well thought out schemes. The number of incidents that the fourth year Ravenclaw is indirectly responsible for far outweigh the number of times he has actually been punished for his misdeeds and the entire school is in agreement that if he didn’t have the Woo brothers on his side they would have collectively ratted him out before he finished first year.

Professor Sprout pulls out a pair of reading glasses and a rather shabby looking piece of parchment, “just got to make sure that you’re all here – shout if you hear your name! Kim Seokjin,”

“Here,”

“Jin Hyosang,”

“Here,”

“Min Yoongi,”

“Here,”

“Jung Hoseok,”

“Here,”

“Kim Namjoon,”

“Here,”

“Excellent! Good job chaps, jolly good of you to show up so early on a Saturday morning,”

“Yeah, you’d almost think someone was forcing us to be here,” Yoongi mutters under his breath,”

Apparently Professor Sprout doesn’t hear Yoongi and so presses on, “this is a simple, essential, and horrifically time consuming task I’m sorry to say boys, but we’re going to try to get you out with as few scrapes as possible. Now I’ve brought you each a pair of extra thick dragonhide gloves – you’ll have a job tearing through them but please don’t take that as a challenge! I’m assuming that you don’t need any instruction on how to pull up plants.”

“Now,” she peers at them all like she’s sizing them up, “I’m going to split you into teams so we can cover a bit more ground and hopefully stay out of each other’s hair. You two,” she gestures to Yoongi and Hoseok, “you head over to the spruce thicket down by the lake – waterproof yourselves and for god’s sake stay out of the way of the whomping willow,”

Yoongi and Hoseok step forward to claim their gloves before prowling off over to the lake. They’re barely ten steps away before Yoongi picks up where he left off five minutes ago.

“Hyosang! Ahh yes Jin Hyosang, third year, steady pair of hands. I’m sending you off with Namjoon – he’s a first year so be nice to him. Kim Seokjin you can come with me,”

Hyosang turns to Seokjin so they can share one final look of misery before they are torn apart for the rest of the day, but Seokjin is beaming, “there’s no way anything will attack me if I’m with a teacher,” he grins as he follows Professor Sprout away and out of sight.

“I’ll see you at dinner tonight!” Hyosang calls after him, but it would seem that Seokjin is already out of earshot and he is left alone with Namjoon,

“Uhh…”

“Nice to meet you,” Namjoon extends a hand for Hyosang to shake. He may be a first year but there’s barely an inch height difference between them and his voice is surprisingly strong for a kid,

“Nice…to meet you too?”

“Guess we better get started,”

“Yeah…”

Namjoon turns out to be surprisingly good company for stinkwort picking. He’s adorable in the way that only fresh faced first years can be yet unexpectedly proficient with his wandwork for someone who’s only been at school for six weeks. 

“My mum showed me loads of stuff before I got here. I couldn’t practice with a real wand but I could still learn all the words and the movements for the spells,” Namjoon absent mindedly sends a jet of blue sparks into a swarm of oncoming pixies, causing them to scatter, “I used to practice with a pencil,”

“And you never wound up accidentally channelling your magic through the pencil?”

Namjoon giggles, “all the time, but it turns out that sawdust and graphite doesn’t work nearly as well for me as beech and phoenix feather,”

Hyosang stops in his tracks, “phoenix feather you say?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s a rare core,”

“I guess,”

“Really though hardly anyone in the school has a phoenix feather core wand right now,”

Namjoon grins, “you gonna ask for my autograph or something?”

“Not quite,” Hyosang pulls out his own wand, “mine’s phoenix feather too,”

“Snap,” Namjoon clacks their wands together and turns his attention back to the stinkwort. 

But of course, Hyosang isn’t done with him,

“We have a sort of club you know, like a phoenix feather only club,”

“If you’re about to ask me to join Daenamhyup you should know that Minwoo beat you to it,”

Hyosang shuts his mouth rather abruptly and bites his tongue by accident. Minwoo has a way of getting in first. 



***



Professor Yang sits at the front of the classroom, grinning like a toad that has just acquired a particularly fat slug. He surveys the second year potions class from his advantageous position at the blackboard, occasionally fixing his attention on someone, a look of calculated disinterest behind his eyes.

Hyosang doesn’t like Professor Yang at all; he has a reputation for biased marking when it comes to end of year exams and no one ever knows what he’s smiling about.

“Watch out!” Bomi yelps as she scampers out of the ingredients cupboard juggling bat spleens. Hyosang ducks out of the way just in time, a resounding splash reverberating through their cauldron as the slippery ingredients find their mark. 

Hyosang sniffs, the air smells like peppermint.

It’s not supposed to smell like peppermint. 

“How many spleens did you add Bomi?” Hyosang peers into their shared caldron and gets a face full of purple gas.

Bomi shrugs as she happily stirs the potion four times anti clockwise, “oh not so many! Four I think,”

“F-Four?” Hyosang chokes out around the noxious gas, “why did you use four? The recipe says we need one,”

“Exactly! So if we use four it’ll be four times as good!”

“I don’t think you understand how magic works,”

Bomi appears to not have heard him as she waves her wand over the cauldron, the final step as the recipe would dictate, and then sits back to wait for the potion to settle. 

And she waits, and waits…

“Why isn’t it working properly?” she grumbles, leaning over to get a better look, 

“Bomi no!” Hyosang grabs her robes to pull her back but it’s too late. The swelling solution lets out an almighty belch and Bomi’s face is covered in a sickly green goo. 

At the bench next to them, Donggeun raises his hand, “Professor Yang, Bomi’s had an accident,”

“I think we’re gonna need the antidote sir,” Hyosang says, moving Bomi away from the cauldron to get a better look, 

“Don’t be silly Hyosang I’m fine!”

“You just got swelling solution all over your face,”

“I know and I’m fine,”

“We need to get you cleaned up before your head gets to heavy for your neck,”

“That’s not going to happen!”

“She’s fine,” Professor Yang clicks his tongue, “no sign of any swelling, or poisoning,”
With a wave of his wand Professor Yang has removed all of the good from Bomi’s face. Hyosang sighs in relief, 

“That’s good,”

Professor Yang shakes his head, “I’d have to disagree. As Miss Yoon remains unharmed and her face unswollen I can only conclude that you have failed to produce a successful swelling solution,” and with another wave of his wand the rest of their failed potion vanishes from the cauldron, “ah, what a pity,”

“I told you four spleens was too many,” Hyosang hisses at Bomi as Professor Yang returns to his post by the blackboard. She's not paying him any attention though, she’s already locked in noisy conversation with one of her Hufflepuff friends on the other side of the classroom. 

With no potion left to work on and his partner otherwise engaged, Hyosang figures that he might as well go talk to some of his Hufflepuff friends,

“S’up nerds?” he grins over Seokjin’s shoulder,

“Oh nothing much, just waiting to have our solution tested and then we can go,”

Hyosang looks at the potion bubbling good naturedly in Seokjin and Sangdo’s cauldron. It’s a pleasant dark blue colour and is giving off a faint aroma of horse manure, exactly as the book says it should, exactly as Professor Yang informed them that a successful swelling solution should appear.

“Sorry your potion didn’t work so well,” Sangdo smiles sympathetically, “what happened?”

“Bomi added four bat spleens instead of one,”

“Ah, well that’ll do it,”

At the bench in front of them, the boy Bomi is shouting at from across the classroom is paying little attention to his surroundings,

“Jihoon could you please stand still? You’ll knock someone’s cauldron over if you’re not careful,”

The words have no sooner left Seokjin’s mouth than Jihoon crashes into his and Sangdo’s bench and their cauldron flips over, right onto Hyosang’s feet. For a moment, they are frozen in horror as the gloop soaks through Hyosang’s socks and converse. 

And then Hyosang’s feet start to swell uncontrollably,

“Professor Yang! We need the antidote!” Seokjin shrieks, “Ohgodohgodohgod are you ok? I’m so sorry”

Hyosang doesn’t see what he’s so worried about, at least his potion works.



***



“GRYFFINDOR!” 

The table to the far left whoops and applauds as the sorting hat is removed from Hyosang’s head. Gryffindor is good, Gryffindor is a house Hyosang can see himself fitting into. His mum will be a little disappointed that he didn’t make the cut for Ravenclaw but his grandfather was a Gryffindor, so he supposes he can salvage some family pride in that. 

Hyosang scuttles over to the table and drops into a seat next to a girl with wide eyes, grinning hard enough to split her face in two. He opens his mouth to introduce himself but realises that hers and everyone else’s eyes are still firmly on the sorting. 

“Jung Daehyun!” Professor McGonagall calls out and a boy with a pointy face and thick set eyebrows steps up to try on the hat. He is declared a Slytherin and a few seconds later Kim Hansol follows him over to the table at the other side of the room. 

Hyosang keeps his eyes on the gaggle of first years waiting to be sorted, he knows that soon enough the boy from the train will be called, 

“Kim Seokjin!”

And there you go.

Seokjin walks forward nervously, looking pale enough to pass out. Hyosang wonders if muggle families have floating candles and talking clothing and ceilings that look like the night sky. He supposes that they have electricity, which has got to cover at least some of the bases. 

The hat is dropped onto Seokjin’s head and Hyosang hold his breath. They haven’t known each other very long, and they don’t need to be in the same house to have classes together, but all the same Hyosang finds himself hoping that the sorting hat sends them both into Gryffindor.

“HUFFLEPUFF!” 

The disappointment must show on Hyosang’s face. The girl next to him leans over and asks if Seokjin was his friend and he knods glumly, watching the other boy move over to where the Hufflepuffs are clearing space for him at the head of the table. 

Over the course of the evening, Kim Wonsik, Min Yoongi, Shin Donggeun and Yoon Bomi join the ranks of the Gryffindors. Hyosang knows Yoongi from wizarding circles and so knows to stay clear of the boy, but the others seem like they could be nice. The girl next to him eventually introduces herself as Ahyoung and the good natured bickering between two fifth year girls called Taeyeon and Soonkyu proves rather fine entertainment. They eat together, they laugh a lot and Hyosang starts to see what his mother means everytime she starts up about how her friends at school were like her family.

Eventually they reach a natural break in proceedings and Soonkyu along with a girl called Jia gather up the first years to lead them too Gryffindor tower. On their way out of the hall they temporarily merge with the Hufflepuffs and Hyosang turns around to find himself shoulder to shoulder with Seokjin once again, 

“How are you doing,”

“I’m terrified,” Seokjin says, but he’s smiling, “this place is ridiculous, I can’t believe it’s a school,”

“Yeah well you’ll believe it come Monday morning,”

“Oh I hope not,” Seokjin sighs, staring up at the stars on the ceiling of the great hall, “this is brilliant,”

“Hufflepuffs with me! I repeat, all Hufflepuff first years to me,” a prefect Hyosang doesn’t know calls over the crowd,

“I guess I’d better go,” Seokjin hisses, “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast though,”

He’s gone before Hyosang can point out that people from different houses can’t sit together at mealtimes, but he can’t say he’s complaining when Seokjin pops up next to him at the Gryffindor table the next morning and refuses to be told to move. 



***



“Honey have you packed your toothbrush?”

“Yes mum,”

“And your textbooks,”

“Yhup,”

“Do you have enough pairs of socks?”

“Yes,”

“Is your wand somewhere safe?”

“Oh my god mum yes! I’ve been through your checklist like twelve times already I’ve got everything,”

Hyosang’s mum stands on Platform 9 ¾ looking down at him with worried eyes, “I just want to make sure that you’re well prepared. The first term feels so long,”

“I’ll be fine,” Hyosang shrugs, “I know Kyung and Jiho and Eunji, it’s not like I’m gonna be alone at Hogwarts,”

The train whistle blows and before Hyosang can breathe his mother has him wrapped in a bone crushing hug, “I’m going to miss you so much!”

“I’ll miss you too,” Hyosang says, quietly, in case Yoongi is close enough to hear.

He steps onto the train alone and finds an empty carriage. He heaves his suitcase up to the luggage rack and puts Oscar’s cage up there after it, dropping into his seat just in time to see his mother vanish back through the barrier, back into the muggle world.

She was never one for large public gatherings, and his father can’t cross onto the platform. Hyosang tells himself that it’s not a big deal and he’s going to be fine without her, trying not to think too hard about how far away Christmas feels. 

Other parents crowd the train, eyes hunting for familiar faces through the windows. Jiho’s mum recognises him and spares him a smile but beyond that he is alone, staring down at the mass of faces, wondering if any of them is searching for a face of someone he will one day call friend. 

The Hogwarts express pulls away from the station and Hyosang lets the gentle rocking of the train lull him to sleep.