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Chapter Text

No one had ever claimed that Jonghyun was a lucky person, and rightfully so. Based on evidence that he had gathered in the last eighteen years of his life, he could only conclude that he was most definitely not blessed with good luck.

Prime examples of his rotten luck included the time he tripped down the stairs and collided with Headmistress Kwon and sent them both tumbling down into the entrance hall; the time he accidently sneezed in potions and somehow caused his potion to explode and dissolve his eyebrows (it had taken weeks for them to grow back to their former glory); and the time that he had lost a bet with Minki that had ended with his shoes in the great lake. He had had to buy a whole new pair because he couldn’t swim fast enough (well really, he couldn’t swim at all) to get them in time before the giant squid ate them.

And then there was the time that he got caught in the crossfire of one of Minki’s more imaginative pranks.

Jonghyun’s day had started normal enough.

He had woken up on time and made it to breakfast at the same time as he usually did. He sat in his usual spot at the Hufflepuff table and ate what he usually ate in the mornings – mayonnaise on bread. The only thing slightly out of the ordinary was the fact that Minki hadn’t come over from the Slytherin table to join him as he usually would.

Since a number of years ago, in order to promote inter-house unity, people were allowed to sit wherever they wished. Most people still stuck to the house tables, mostly out of habit but also because most friendship groups were within one’s own house anyway.

Quickly looking around the great hall, Jonghyun noticed that his best friend was actually nowhere to be seen. He didn’t think much of it though, since sometimes his friend overslept and ended up a little late to breakfast.

Without Minki to talk to during breakfast, Jonghyun found himself finishing a bit earlier than he usually did. Deciding to put the extra time to good use, he opted to head to the library to finish up his arithmancy essay that was due the next day. He had most of the work done, he just needed to do a final fact check and then write his conclusion.

He was almost at the library when he heard a sudden crash and the clattering of some suits of armour. ‘Probably just Peeves up to no good again…’ Jonghyun thought to himself. Not wanting to bother himself with Peeves, he continued on his way.

As he rounded the corner to the library, he spotted someone else coming from the other direction, also headed for the library.

It was Hwang Minhyun. Most of the time, the Ravenclaw could be seen wandering the corridors with either Aaron, his housemate and best friend, or Dongho, his childhood friend who was in Gryffindor. So, to see him alone was rather unusual.

Jonghyun continued towards the library, though now a little more slowly. As he got closer to Minhyun, his palms started to sweat and he tried to look at anywhere but the other male.

If Minki were here, he would probably tease Jonghyun for being so ridiculous at just the sight of his crush.

Crush. Because who wouldn’t have even the slightest hint of a crush on the Hwang Minhyun? He was tall and impeccably handsome, but looks aside, his personality was just appealing. Everyone admired how gentle and kind Minhyun was; always willing to stop and help a person in need. (No wonder he had been made head boy this year.) And he was oh so very charming. With the right look and one of his signature eye smiles, he could probably charm the legs off a chair – without magic –  if he tried. Most of the student body, and probably even some of the teachers, admired Hwang Minhyun. Jonghyun included.

Jonghyun was aware that probably nothing would ever come of his not-so-small crush on the tall Ravenclaw, but he couldn’t help but find his eyes always straying to where the other sat whenever he was in the great hall for meal times, or when they were in the same class and Jonghyun was conveniently sat just a few rows behind Minhyun.

But when Minhyun was merely a few steps in front of him, he could not bring himself to do anything but stare at the ground, lest he make eye contact with Minhyun and subsequently turn into a blushing mess.

Just as they both reached the library entrance, a number of things happened at once:

Firstly, Peeves came shooting over their heads wailing, closely followed by The Bloody Baron, who was presumably trying to get the poltergeist to stop whatever trouble he had been causing.

And then at the same time, Jonghyun faintly heard an incoherent shout coming from behind him. Turning to the source of the yelling, he saw Minki with his wand out pointed towards the two ghostly figures flying overhead. What concerned Jonghyun the most was the look of pure mischief painted across his friend’s face.

Then, the next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground with his back aching from the impact. Luckily, his head hadn’t hit the ground too harshly. In fact, it seemed to have been cushioned by something warm and solid. Hearing a soft groan coming from his left, he turned and found Hwang Minhyun rubbing the back of his head as he looked down at Jonghyun in confusion.

It was then that he noticed that the solid warm thing that had cushioned his own head had in fact been Minhyun’s stomach. Eyes widening in shock, he quickly stood up, ignoring the blood rushing to his head from the sudden movement.

“Oh my gosh, I don’t know what happened but I’m so sorry that I landed on you like that and oh my gosh you hit your head, are you okay?” Jonghyun couldn’t stop the words from spilling out from his mouth. At this point, he just wanted to forget the entire past 5 minutes of his life.

Standing up and dusting himself off, Minhyun gave him a soft smile, one that made Jonghyun’s insides melt and turn to goo, before replying:

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Though I don’t really know what happened there either, I don’t think it was your fault.”

“Oh, that’s good. That you’re fine, I mean. Anyway, I’m just gonna…” he trailed off as he gestured to leave. Jonghyun couldn’t take any more of the awkward and embarrassing encounter and decided that the best course of action would be to get as far away from Hwang Minhyun as possible, as quickly as possible.

But before he could even take two steps away, he felt a force tug at him, flinging his body backwards, straight into Minhyun again. Luckily, Minhyun was able to catch them this time so they didn’t end up on the floor again, but that didn’t stop Jonghyun from being mortified by the fact that right now, in front of the library, he was essentially being back hugged by Hwang Minhyun.

Minhyun also seemed to realise the position that they were in and he quickly let go of Jonghyun with an embarrassed cough.

Once they were once more a socially acceptable distance apart again, the looked at each other in confusion.

“Um… What just happened?”

Jonghyun just shrugged, not having an answer.

It was then that Minki decided to step in. Thus far, he had been having a great time watching his friend flounder in front of his crush. But he felt that now was as good of a time as any to reveal himself.

“Yeah… erm… I would probably have something to do with that…It was just meant to be a joke, a prank on Peeves, but it kinda backfired and hit you two instead?”

Jonghyun watched as his friend walked towards them with a sheepish expression. Jonghyun knew that expression. It was an expression that only meant trouble.

“Minki…” Jonghyun began sternly, staring down his friend. Being friends for so long, he knew that there were never-ending possibilities for what Minki had done this time, and judging by the fact that the Slytherin had winced when Jonghyun called his name, this was probably going to be one of the more…eccentric pranks the other had tried to pull. “What did you do this time?”

“Weeell, you know how Peeves basically frustrates everyone in this castle, and you know how The Bloody Baron is like, the only thing that can control Peeves? I thought it would be a good idea to try and stick them together?”

“WHAT?! Minki, what were you thinking??? You can’t stick two non-corporeal things together! That’s not how it works!”

Jonghyun could feel a headache forming, courtesy of Choi Minki.

“Well duh, I know that now…”

Sometimes, Jonghyun wondered if Minki ever did a sense check on his plans before he carried them out. He’d done some fairly strange things in the past but this time was definitely one of the stranger things he had done.

It baffled Jonghyun that anyone could think that trying to stick a poltergeist to a ghost would be a good idea. But then an awful thought occurred to Jonghyun. If Minki had been using a spell to stick two things together –

“Wait… So, does that mean that Jonghyun and I are stuck together?” Minhyun asked incredulously. Evidently, he had also been following the same train of thought as Jonghyun.

“Well ‘stuck’ is rather a limiting term in my opinion so I wouldn’t say you were ‘stuck’ per se… more like bound to each other?”

“’Bound to each other?’” Now it was Jonghyun’s turn to sound incredulous. What on earth did Minki mean by ‘bound to each other’? If it was what Jonghyun was thinking, he would seriously have to reconsider Minki’s title of best friend.

“What I mean by that is that the spell that I used was designed to make two objects sort of attracted to each other.”

Jonghyun raised his eyebrows at Minki’s choice of words.

“Like magnets! My original intention was for Peeves to be bound to the Bloody Baron so that he couldn’t be any further than a metre away.”

Jonghyun was going into shock and panic mode at these new revelations. He could barely look at Hwang Minhyun in the eye let alone be within a metre of him all day for goodness knows how long.

“Um, right so, how long is this supposed to last?” Jonghyun asked, trying hard not to stutter. He was scared at what Minki’s answer was going to be.

“Hmmm… about a week? It was only meant to be a prank so I didn’t want it to last too long.”

A week. A whole week. Jonghyun almost wanted to cry.

“So what now?”

“We should probably tell the Headmistress.” Minhyun suggested. He too was in shock over the situation he had suddenly been thrust into.

With two of the three of them still vaguely in a state of shock, they set off towards the Headmistress’ office.

To say that Professor Kwon was not impressed would have been an understatement.

She gave Minki a weeks’ worth of detention for getting them into such a situation to begin with. As for Jonghyun and Minhyun, she decided that there not much she could actually do and said that they should just ‘wait it out’.

“I’m afraid I don’t see anything that I could do to remedy this, boys.”

Both Jonghyun and Minhyun just stared at her, disbelieving. It was Minhyun that broke the silence first.

“But how are we just going to wait it out? It’s not really possible for us to continue on with our own schedules if we can’t be any more than a metre away from each other.”

He made a good point. While Hufflepuffs shared the majority of their classes with the Ravenclaws, it wasn’t all of them. And that wasn’t even taking into account the time outside of lessons. Did this mean that they were going to have to share a bed?! Jonghyun could already feel his cheeks begin to flush at the thought of sharing a bed with Hwang Minhyun. He quickly tried to control his blush and divert his attention back to the professor before anyone noticed how red he had gotten.

After a few moments of thoughts and checking of their schedules, the professor had a solution.

“Seeing as the two of you share most of your classes, those shouldn’t be too much of an issue. And by the looks of things, there’s only one subject that the two of you do not share and coincidentally they occur at different times. Which means that while one of you has a lesson, the other has a free study period. I’ll let your respective professors in those subjects know that for the next week, they’ll have an extra student sitting in their class but not participating. I would suggest that you continue to use that time as personal study time.”

The professor looked to them and waited for them to nod in agreement before continuing:

“As for your living situation, given that, as head boy, Mr Hwang lives in his own quarters, it makes sense that for the next week you, Mr Kim, just stay there with him. I’ll have the house elves move your trunk tomorrow. And as for your evening patrols, Mr Hwang, the two of you will have to do it together.”

Neither of them could think of anything to say at this point. Jonghyun was on the brink of panic at having to live with Hwang Minhyun for an entire week. It was official: the universe hated him.

“Now, I believe that’s all of the main issues addressed, I trust that between the two of you, you will be able to sort out any other problems. You are now free to leave and continue your day.”

And with that, the conversation was over and the pair of them left the headmistress’ office in a dazed state.

“I’m sorry.” Jonghyun muttered, just loud enough for the taller male to hear.

Minhyun stared at him confused.

“What are you sorry for?”

“This. All of this.” He gestured vaguely between them with his hands, trying to convey what he meant.

“It’s hardly your fault. You weren’t the one to cast the spell.”

While that was true, this situation that they were in was technically Minki’s fault, Jonghyun couldn’t help but feel the need to apologise.

“I’m still sorry that I’ll be taking away some of your free time since you have to come with me to my classes when you should be on a free.”

Minhyun chuckled lightly before responding, “I think you’re forgetting that you’re going to have to do the same. And don’t forget that because of me, you’ll have to walk around the corridors after curfew because of my patrol duties, so I’d say that if anything, I’m the one who should be apologising for taking away your free time.”

Jonghyun had almost forgotten about the patrols. He could already tell it was going to be awkward, just the two of them walking around the empty corridors. And Jonghyun knew that he was probably not the best conversational partner.

But above all else, he was nervous. So nervous. He could almost feel himself shaking. The idea of spending all that time alone with Minhyun was enough to make him feel sick.

It was going to be a difficult week.

Fortunately, both of them were free for the first lesson, which gave them time to head down to the Hufflepuff dorms so that Jonghyun could gather some of his things that he would need before the house elves moved his trunk the next day.

Stepping into the common room, the pair of them received a number of curious glances from the small number of Hufflepuffs who were there. It wasn’t everyday that someone of another house, let alone the head boy, could be found in a common room that was not their own.

Jonghyun could feel the heat flood to his cheeks as he imagined the rumours that were about to spread at the sight of the usually quiet and reserved Kim Jonghyun heading into his room with the school’s resident heart-throb Hwang Minhyun following closely behind. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see how the tips of Minhyun’s ears were also getting.

While the members of his own house were not normally considered avid gossips, every group had their outliers or had people who were friends with people who did enjoy a good gossip.

Not wanting to allow the gossipers’ imagination to run too wild, Jonghyun quickly flitted around his room gathering a few things he might need before the next day before ushering Minhyun back out again. 

Jonghyun’s suspicions were confirmed when the moment they appeared back in the common room, everyone fell silent. Both of them could feel all the pair of eyes glued to them as they rushed towards the exit as quickly as they could.

Once clear of the common room, Jonghyun let out a deep sigh. He wouldn’t be surprised if by lunch, everyone had heard about the strange occurrence in the Hufflepuff common room.

As Minhyun led them towards his private quarters, Jonghyun began to wonder if it was too late for him to change his name and escape this life and begin a new one somewhere far away from anyone that knew him here.

They reached the head boy’s dorm too soon in Jonghyun’s opinion. After Minhyun gave the password to a portrait of five knights, the portrait swung open and the two of them stepped through, into the sizeable common room.

From the carpet to the furniture, from the walls to the ceiling, everything was coloured varying shades of blue and trimmed with silver. To Jonghyun’s left, a Ravenclaw blue sofa and two similarly coloured armchairs surrounded a fireplace. Slightly away from that, a deep blue, almost black, bookcase leaned against one of the walls. Each section of the bookcase was jam packed with books of all different sizes, and upon closer inspection, Jonghyun would have found them to cover a wide variety of different topics and genres, both fiction and non-fiction. To the right of the room, was a window with a view overlooking the grounds. In the alcove by the window, Jonghyun noticed that Minhyun had lined the area with cushions and blankets. Jonghyun guessed that this was probably Minhyun’s spot for reading.

Said boy then gestured for Jonghyun to follow and he was led further into the room and towards another door. The door to Minhyun’s bedroom.

Upon entering Minhyun’s room, Jonghyun noted that the décor was much the same as the common room outside, simplistic yet elegant. A large queen-sized bed was placed in the centre of the room with Minhyun’s own trunk sat at the foot of the bed, and a wardrobe stood against the furthest wall from the door. Along the right-side wall was another door that Jonghyun assumed led to the bathroom.

Minhyun motioned for him to place his stuff down anywhere. Not wanting to disrupt the ordered balance of the room, he tentatively placed his bag of possessions next to Minhyun’s trunk at the foot of the bed before following Minhyun back out into the common room.

Jonghyun let himself be led over to the sofa and took a seat as far as he could from Minhyun without triggering the spell to pull them back together.

The pair of them sat in quiet contemplation, both of them thinking of a good way to start a conversation.

As nervous as Minhyun made him, it was hardly possible for Jonghyun to not speak to him for the entire week, especially not with them bound together like this.

“It’s a bit awkward isn’t it?”

Minhyun’s deep voice cut through the silence and the unexpected question jolted Jonghyun from his own thoughts.

“Uhhh, I little bit.” Jonghyun gave an embarrassed chuckle.

“We don’t really know each other that well yet here we are, now bound to each other for the next week. I mean, I don’t know how you feel, but I think that perhaps we should get to know each other? Then it won’t be as weird?”

‘Getting to know each other’, just the idea of getting closer to Hwang Minhyun made Jonghyun’s heart race. While he knew that he had no chance with Minhyun romantically, getting to know each other meant friendship which was something that he had never thought he would have with the person he had been pining over for the better part of the past 4 years.

As he looked up at Minhyun, he thought that maybe he saw a hopeful glint in the other’s eyes, but he dismissed the thought quickly; it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.

“Y-y-y-yeah, um, that’s a g-good idea…” Jonghyun cursed at his own inability to speak and his amazing ability to sound like a fool in front of his crush.

“Great! Then how’s about we start over with a proper introduction. To break the ice?”

Minhyun’s beaming smile rendered Jonghyun immediately speechless. With words caught in his throat, he nodded sharply in response.

“I’m Hwang Minhyun, Ravenclaw and current head boy. In my spare time, I like to read or clean, even though I know that house elves can do that for me, I find cleaning to be a relaxing activity.” Minhyun said this all maintaining the blinding smile on his face, and as he finished, he held out his hand for Jonghyun to shake.

Tentatively, Jonghyun reached out with his own hand as he replied, “I’m Kim Jonghyun, Hufflepuff. I…” and what was there to say about himself? He wasn’t like Minhyun, he was boring, if he wasn’t in classes, he studied. Unable to think of much more to say, he broke off and just settled for shaking Minhyun’s hand.

The handshake was warm and when they let go, Jonghyun could feel his skin burning with heat of where Minhyun’s hand had been on his. He averted his gaze downwards to avoid showing Minhyun how red he must have been.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Jonghyun, I hope we can be friends.”

“I hope so too.” Jonghyun muttered quietly, almost too quiet for Minhyun to hear. But Minhyun did hear. And if Jonghyun had looked up at that point, he would have seen a look of hope and adoration, coupled with a shy smile, directed at him and only him.

When Minhyun had first laid eyes on Kim Jonghyun during the sorting ceremony in their first year, he remembered thinking that the shorter boy was perhaps the most adorable being that he had ever seen before in his life. More adorable than his sister’s dachshund puppy, more adorable than Dongho’s poodle, more adorable than anything he’d ever seen. Throughout the sorting ceremony, he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. When it had been time for him to be sorted, it had taken a short jab in his side from Dongho for him to realise that his name had even been called.

He remembered wishing and hoping that Jonghyun would be sorted into the same house as him and being rather disappointed when he wasn’t.  He remembered resisting the urge to coo and the sight of the shorter boy jumping down from the rickety stool at the front of the great hall and shuffling over to the Hufflepuff table with shy smile tugging at his lips.

That day was the start of his fascination with the Hufflepuff named Kim Jonghyun.

Minhyun quickly found himself enamoured with the boy and everything he did. They didn’t share very many classes together in the earlier years, but in the ones that they did share, those were always the ones where Minhyun struggled to concentrate the most, especially if he was sat behind the other boy. Far too often did he find himself spacing out and just staring at the back of Jonghyun’s head admiring its shape. During meal times, he deliberately sat on the side of the table facing the Hufflepuff table so that Jonghyun could be right in his eye line. It got to the point where it was just natural for his eyes to stray to where Jonghyun was whenever he entered the room.

Both Aaron and Dongho had long become accustomed to Minhyun’s endless ramblings about what new thing he had seen Jonghyun do or how amazing he was. Even though he had first fallen for Jonghyun’s looks, it hadn’t taken long for him to also fall for his shining personality. From what Minhyun had observed, Jonghyun was an angel. Despite being shy and reserved, the Hufflepuff boy was kind and considerate to those around him. He was a true Hufflepuff; loyal to his friends, patient with those that needed his help, and dedicated and committed to everything he did. And according to his own friends, he never shut up about how much he admired Jonghyun’s qualities. Neither of them could understand why Minhyun didn’t just go and talk to the shorter boy.

And truthfully, it was because Minhyun was a coward. He just didn’t know what he could possibly say without coming off like a stalker or a weirdo and he would much rather Jonghyun have no opinion of him than a bad opinion.

It had been seven years since he first laid eyes on Jonghyun and it had taken seven years for them to even hold a proper conversation. And it wasn’t even because the other boy wanted to talk to him. In a way, he was forced to talk to him. They had no choice now but to talk to each other since they were bound together for a week.

When Minhyun had first regained his senses after landing on his back in front of the library earlier that day, he had almost had a heart attack when he sat up and saw that the slight weight on his stomach was in fact the very head that he had been admiring for the past seven years. His heart had stopped the moment that a pair of shimmering brown eyes filled with confusion and disorientation returned his gaze. Then all of a sudden, the weight had gone and Jonghyun had stood up and begun to apologise rapidly. The words had sailed over Minhyun’s head as he had still been in the midst of coaxing his poor heart back to life.

Regaining his senses, he had tried hard to remain calm but it had been so difficult with Jonghyun standing before him looking so cutely flustered. In an attempt to calm the other boy, he had given what he hoped was a reassuring smile as he had tried to assure the other that there was no harm done.

Minhyun had thought that perhaps he could see a blush form on Jonghyun’s cheeks but it had probably just been the light or his eyes playing tricks on him.

And then when Jonghyun had been pulled back into Minhyun, he had almost fainted when he realised exactly what position they were in. He could only hope that Jonghyun had not felt his own heart thumping madly in his chest.

From there, most of the conversation with Minki and then Headmistress Kwon had been almost background noise to the turmoil that was brewing in Minhyun’s mind as he tried to process his situation.

One moment he had been heading towards the library, about to review the content of their last transfiguration lesson, and then in the next moment, he had been knocked off of his feet by Jonghyun (both literally and figuratively) and then magically bound to the boy he had been pining over for the past seven years, the boy he had never spoken to, and the boy who probably had no interest at all in Minhyun.

Minhyun could just imagine Dongho and Aaron laughing and teasing him mercilessly when they heard about this. He could only hope that they wouldn’t reveal anything too embarrassing whilst Jonghyun was around.

Once Minhyun had managed to shake himself out of his daze, he realised that he really didn’t know how to start a conversation with the Hufflepuff boy. As he had followed the shorter boy towards the Hufflepuff common room, he had been frantically trying to rack his brain for some sort of conversation topic but truthfully, having not done much besides stare at the other boy for the past seven years, he didn’t really know what to say. Especially not without giving himself away.

It wasn’t until they had reached his private quarters that he decided that given that he had no idea what to say to Jonghyun, he should just start with the basics. Introductions and getting to know each other. At least then, he would learn more about Jonghyun while maybe even becoming his friend. Though Minhyun tried not to hope for too much in that respect. He would just settle for friendship, anything more was probably completely out of the question.

Chapter Text

Shortly after they agreed that getting to know each other better would be a good idea, the bell rang, signally the end of the first lesson. Quickly gathering their bags, the pair of them headed towards their first lesson together: charms.

As they approached their charms class, Minhyun noticed a significant number of people staring at them as they walked past. ‘Surely they can’t already know…’ Minhyun thought to himself.

The situation upon entering their class was no different. From the moment they stepped through the doorway, everybody’s attention seemed to be on them. Scanning over the room, Minhyun quickly spotted Aaron wriggling his eyebrows at him, eyes full of amusement. At least his friend had managed to reserve both him and Jonghyun seats somewhere near the back where no one would be able to stare at them. Nearing his friend, he gave him the most unimpressed glare that he could muster but Aaron was far too used to Minhyun for it to be effective.

Aaron greeted his housemate before quickly introducing himself to Jonghyun who shyly introduced himself back. Minhyun couldn’t help but find the way the corners of Jonghyun’s lips tugged upwards as he slightly ducked his head whenever he was shy or embarrassed absolutely heart-warming. The sound of Aaron’s throat clearing made him turn to his friend who was still grinning at him like a mad man.

“You were staring. Again.” He whispered so that Jonghyun wouldn’t hear.

Minhyun was just glad it wasn’t Jonghyun who had caught him. He was seriously going to have to be careful this next week if he didn’t want Jonghyun to find him creepy or weird.

“Shut up. Mind your own business.” Minhyun grumbled, embarrassed that he had been caught staring.

Turning back to Jonghyun, he noticed that the latter was stuck staring down at the table, unmoving. Thinking that something must be wrong, Minhyun’s brow furrowed, a worried or upset Jonghyun was not something he ever wanted to see.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked softly, he didn’t wish to startle the other boy too much.

“Hmm? Oh, um, yeah, it’s just all of the staring, it’s not something I’m used to and it’s really… unnerving…”

Minhyun really wished he could do something, anything to help but really there wasn’t much he could do without drawing even more attention to them and that was exactly what he needed to avoid. But before he could say anything to try and calm down the nervous boy next to him, the professor walked in to begin teaching and everyone stopped their staring to pay attention.

Minhyun had never been more grateful for a teacher to begin teaching a class before in his life.

As much as Jonghyun tried, he just couldn’t bring himself to focus on whatever his professor was trying to say. The stares that he had received from everybody had deeply unsettled him. He wasn’t lying to Minhyun when he said that it was unnerving. Usually he was one to blend into the background while someone else had the attention. Usually, it would be Minki who would garner all the stares, directing them away from Jonghyun who stood off to the side grateful for having the attention directed elsewhere so that he could have some room to breathe.

The lesson had ended before he had even realised any time had passed, and Jonghyun couldn’t recall a single word of what the professor had said for the past hour. Perhaps he could see if Minki had any notes he could borrow. Asking Minhyun seemed too much of a daunting task at this stage.

He hoped that transfiguration, their next lesson, would go a little smoother. He couldn’t afford to not pay attention two lessons in a row and fall behind.

Luckily, transfiguration was a lesson where he was forced to pay attention, so there was no time to worry about whether or not people were still watching him. Today’s lesson revolved around transfiguration of inanimate objects in living organisms, so the practical element of the class kept Jonghyun’s mind from straying too much.

Transfiguration had never really been Minhyun’s strongest suit.

While he wasn’t necessarily bad at it, he wasn’t particularly good at it either. His grades in the subject were still respectable but that was mostly thanks to his affinity for soaking up knowledge like a sponge. The same could not be said of his practical abilities. It usually took a bit longer than other people before he managed to get a spell right, but at least he did get there in the end, it was just rather frustrating to watch other people successfully transforming vases into various animals while his vase refused to co-operate.

He had lost count of how many attempts he had made before he huffed in frustration at the potato that lay on his desk – an organism rather less alive than what was being required of him. He heard Aaron snort at his misfortune from beside him, but it wasn’t like he had faired much better – his vase had shattered the first few times he had attempted the spell.

“Try not to let your wand swish so much, transfiguration requires more firm and decisive movements.” Jonghyun piped up from beside him. On his desk, a small turtle was slowly trying to climb its way up onto Jonghyun’s outstretched palm. Minhyun had almost forgotten that the other boy was one of the best at transfiguration in their year. Undoubtedly, he had probably mastered the spell on his first attempt.

Taking in Jonghyun’s advice, Minhyun tightened his grip on his wand and let his movements come out more sharp and decisive, like Jonghyun had advised, as he tried to transfigure his potato into something less… vegetable-like.

The potato wobbled a little, which Minhyun hoped was a good sign. But then it sprouted ears. And nothing else. Minhyun took one look at the furry, red ears that protruded from the sides of potato and he sensed that his ears had probably already turned a similar shade. He heard Jonghyun let out a short giggle, and wow, well if that wasn’t the most wonderful sound that Minhyun had ever heard.

“Sorry I shouldn’t laugh. But at least you’ve made some progress.” Jonghyun tried hard to stifle his giggles but was rather unsuccessful as he watched Minhyun continue to turn even more red.

“It’s kinda cute though.”

Well, if Jonghyun thought it was cute, maybe he could learn to accept his fuzzy-eared potato.

Jonghyun really shouldn’t have been surprised that everybody already knew about what had happened to them by the time lunch came around. When it came to spreading news exceptionally quickly, Choi Minki was unrivalled. Though he supposed that he couldn’t really fault his friend for anything this time, it was inevitable that people would find out anyway.

As the three of them (Minhyun, Aaron and himself) had made their way to the great hall, Jonghyun had insisted that it would be easier to just sit at the Ravenclaw table while they were stuck together. Truthfully, he just didn’t want to be too much of a nuisance by dragging Minhyun away from his own house. He didn’t really have many friends in his own house anyway so it wasn’t a bother to him, and he figured that Minhyun would probably rather have some company besides just him.

Thankfully, once they had sat down, they became significantly harder to stare at so most people went back to minding their own business. Not long after, Dongho came and plonked himself down on the bench next to Aaron, across from Minhyun and Jonghyun.

The four of them began to eat in silence until Jonghyun suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around his torso as a voice almost screamed into his ear.

“JONGHYUNNIE, I’M SO SORRY, PLEASE FORGIVE ME.”

After some struggling, Jonghyun managed to free himself from the tight grasp and manoeuvred himself so that Minki could fit on the bench next to him. Facing the Slytherin, he was met with a pout and a look of regret and apology.

He could never stay mad at his friend for long anyway.

“It’s fine, Minki. Don’t worry about it, what’s done is done. Just… don’t ever try to stick a ghost and a poltergeist together again. Please.”

Dongho chortled from across the table.

“You tried to do what? Did you even think about that before you went and cast the spell?” More laughter spilled from Dongho as Minki’s expression grew more indignant.

“Excuse me! I do think about the things I do! I thought it was a great idea!” The Slytherin huffed.

Dongho snorted in amusement.

“But Minki, look where that ‘good idea’ of yours got us. And to be fair, you think that a mashed-up cake that you can drink is a good idea, so I’m not sure I can trust your opinion of what constitutes a ‘good idea’” Jonghyun added.

The others burst into laughter at Jonghyun’s comment while Minki shot Jonghyun a betrayed look, to which he just shrugged - he had to agree with Dongho slightly on this one, this morning had not been Minki’s finest hour.

“Mashed-up cake? What? How could you defile such a wonderful food in such a way?” Aaron questioned sounding understandably appalled at the idea of cake-mush.

“Apparently very easily if you’re Choi Minki.” Jonghyun commented wryly.

“I see how it is, none of you know how to appreciate my genius.” Minki’s pout returned as Jonghyun continued to tease his friend.

“Of course, Minki. That’s it.”

And at Jonghyun’s words, the group of them exploded with laughter once more. Jonghyun made sure to pull his friend in for a quick hug to make sure he knew that he was just joking.

“I like him, he can stay.” Dongho said to Minhyun as he looked at Jonghyun with intrigue and while the boy in question was busy with catching up with Minki.

Aaron laughed at Dongho’s words, “well it’s not like he has much of a choice right now.”

Both of them turned to Minhyun to gauge his reaction but Minhyun’s mind had been elsewhere during Dongho and Aaron’s exchange. He had been too busy watching the way Jonghyun laughed whenever Minki cracked a joke or the way that Jonghyun looked at Minki with so much fondness. How he wished he could be on the receiving end of those smiles one day.

The conversation lulled as the five of them began to eat, and a comfortable silence settled over their group. But the quiet atmosphere that surrounded their group meant that Jonghyun could easily hear some of the whispers that begin to float around the great hall about him.

“Wow poor Minhyun, stuck with that guy for Merlin knows how long…”

“I heard that the spell that bound them together is gonna last about a month…”

“A month? I heard it was a week…”

“Probably the longest week of Minhyun’s life…”

And many of the whispers followed this common theme.

Jonghyun tried not to let the comments get to him but he couldn’t help but think they were right. Jonghyun was probably a massive burden on Minhyun, even if the latter refused to admit it. He seriously doubted that the taller male didn’t mind having to share his own space and sleep in the same bed as someone who was essentially a stranger.

Having also heard the whispers, Minhyun couldn’t understand how anyone could think ill thoughts about the angel sat beside him. Out of the corner of his eye, Minhyun noticed Jonghyun’s downtrodden appearance – it was clear just how much the comments had affected him. Looking around, it didn’t seem as if anybody else had sensed Jonghyun’s foul demeanour.

With his heart pounding in his chest, Minhyun put what he hoped was a comforting arm around Jonghyun’s shoulder.

The sudden weight jolted Jonghyun out of his spiral of thoughts and he gazed blankly at Minhyun’s arm.

“Hey, look at me.”

He had never looked at Minhyun this close up before and as he peered up at the taller male, he couldn’t help but notice the small flecks of gold that glimmered in Minhyun’s otherwise deep coloured eyes. ‘Beautiful’ His mind helpfully supplied.

“Ignore all of them. They don’t know what they’re talking about.” Minhyun’s tone was soft, almost at a whisper.

‘But do you know what you’re talking about either?’ Jonghyun couldn’t help but think. They were still borderline strangers after all.

Not entirely able to believe Minhyun’s words, Jonghyun shrugged in response.

“Don’t let them make judgements about you when they don’t even know you. Their opinions shouldn’t even count for anything.” Minhyun stared hard into Jonghyun’s eyes, trying to make Jonghyun understand that he was in fact more than happy to have Jonghyun sitting beside him and that those people really had no idea what they were talking about if they thought he didn’t want Jonghyun’s company 24/7.

Unable to come up with a response, Jonghyun merely shrugged again before he picked up his fork and began to pick at his food. He knew the other was just saying the words out of pity. He knew that he didn’t actually mean any of it. It just didn’t make any sense, why would Hwang Minhyun ever want to spend time with someone as uninteresting as himself?

Minhyun sighed in acquiescence. He could tell that none of what he had said had gotten through to Jonghyun. None of it was a lie; he did truly, honestly, 100% want Jonghyun around. He had been waiting for an opportunity to talk to the boy for the past 7 years, and now he had it – albeit maybe not in circumstances he could have ever imagined – he was determined to make the most of it. Hopefully when this whole thing was over, they would be able to remain friends.

After lunch, on a normal day, Jonghyun would have had a study period but instead, he followed Minhyun and Aaron to their next lesson, ancient runes.

The walk from the great hall up to the fifth floor was quiet. Still affected by the whispers he had heard over lunch, Jonghyun walked as far as he could from Minhyun without triggering them to be pulled back together.

Minhyun noticed the distance. He could feel the slight pull towards Jonghyun in his chest from the spell. Or perhaps it was just his own heart yearning for Jonghyun to be closer.

Jonghyun had planned to use the time in runes to finish his arithmancy essay that he hadn’t gotten the chance to do this morning, but his eyes kept straying to admire Minhyun’s side profile. He had never been close enough to the Ravenclaw to admire the gentle slope of his nose that contrasted with his sharp jawline. Up close, Minhyun was even more breath-taking.

Jonghyun almost gasped when he noticed Aaron watching him with a smirk on his face. He instantly felt his face colour as he turned back to his essay. For fear of being caught again, Jonghyun tried to put more effort into focussing on his essay rather than his handsome seatmate.

For the most part, he was successful, he had managed to finish his essay. He hadn’t even realised that the lesson was over until he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He stiffened minutely in surprise before relaxing once more when he realised it was just Minhyun – it seemed that everyone had already left the room, leaving just the two of them. Turning to his left, he saw that Minhyun was already standing and smiling down at Jonghyun with that breath-taking eye smile of his.

“Sorry if I surprised you, but class is over.”

“O-o-o-oh, sorry if I kept you waiting…” Jonghyun stuttered out, struggling to find his words in the face of such a mesmerising smile.

“Not at all, you looked pretty engrossed in your work, I didn’t want to disturb you.” Jonghyun hadn’t thought it was possible for the smile to get even brighter, yet somehow, Minhyun managed to prove him wrong (if things continued like this, Jonghyun was not going to last the week).

The sound of the bell ringing stopped Jonghyun from having to embarrass himself further by stuttering through another sentence. After hurriedly packing up his things, the two of them made their way as quickly as they could down to the basement for their last lesson of the day, potions.

Potions was the least eventful lesson of the day. Everyone, having gotten their fill of the staring during lunch, paid Jonghyun and Minhyun little to no attention – a fact that Jonghyun was very thankful for.

Afterwards, they both settled on heading back to Minhyun’s room to get some studying done. Usually Jonghyun would have preferred the library but he had had enough of other people for today.

Still frustrated by his own lacklustre transfiguration work from earlier, Minhyun grabbed his textbook from his bag and seated himself down on the sofa and began to re-read through the theory behind the anthropomorphism spell they had been covering.

Meanwhile, Jonghyun was sat next to him, watching as the Ravenclaw ran his hand through his hair in frustration (a not-so-small part of him secretly wished that he could run his hands through the silky strands of hair too). Jonghyun had been slightly surprised earlier when he had discovered that Minhyun had been unable to master the spell during the lesson. But for some reason, it had made the head boy seem more human – less of a perfect ideal and more of a normal human being that still required improvement (‘though probably still less improvement than most’, Jonghyun thought).

“I could help if you want.” The words had left his mouth before he had even had the chance to think. In an attempt to appear more friendly and helpful, Jonghyun lifted his lips up into a small smile.

Minhyun looked at him, eyes wide and blinking owlishly.

“It’s just that, I noticed you were struggling and I don’t know… maybe I could try to help?”

Minhyun continued to stare and it made Jonghyun think that perhaps he done something wrong so he began to backtrack.

“You can say no! And I didn’t mean to insinuate that I’m better than you or anything, I’m sure you’d be able to get it on your own—”

“Some help would be very appreciated, thank you.” Minhyun’s sweet voice cut through and stopped Jonghyun’s uncontrolled rambling. In truth, the reason it had taken Minhyun so long to respond was because he was distracted by the smile that Jonghyun had directed at him. 

For hours, the two of them had lost themselves in their studying. With Jonghyun’s help, Minhyun had soon been able to master the spell and turn a vase that Jonghyun had conjured into a tiny fox cub and then back again. Proud of his achievements and overcome with gratitude, he had acted entirely on impulse and smothered the shorter Hufflepuff in a tight hug before quickly releasing him, deep blushes painting both of their faces.

After a short moment of awkwardness after the unexpected hug, Jonghyun had suggested that they run through more of the transfiguration content, in case Minhyun had struggled with anything else. Minhyun had been tempted to wrap the other in another hug for being the reason his practical transfiguration grade was about drastically improve. But he had managed to stop himself before he created yet another awkward situation.

Before they knew it, time had flown by and it was already time for dinner.

Once again, they sat at the Ravenclaw table, opposite Dongho and Aaron with Minki sitting on the bench next to Jonghyun.

Dinner gave Minhyun, Aaron and Dongho the time to catch up with each other. With Dongho being in Gryffindor, who usually had lessons with Slytherins, the three of them rarely had classes together. Had it not been for the fact that Minhyun and Dongho were childhood friends, it was unlikely that they would have met and become friends. And both of them would claim that as a tragedy – even if neither would admit it to the other.

With the three of them preoccupied, Minki subtly prodded Jonghyun for his attention.

“How’s everything been going?” Minki inquired softly.

“It’s…okay?” Jonghyun replied hesitatingly.

“You don’t sound so sure, Jonghyun-ah.”

“I don’t know, like I think everything is fine but I don’t know if things really are fine or if I’m just delusional and it’s not actually fine. Like what if he’s just acting and putting up a front and he actually hates my guts or –”

Minki cut of Jonghyun’s panicked babbling with a sharp call of his name. Jonghyun blinked owlishly at his friend.

“I think you’re being ridiculous.”

“Minki…” Jonghyun began.

“No, Jonghyun, listen to me. You’re being ridiculous, because of course he doesn’t hate you, who could possibly hate you?”

Jonghyun opened his mouth to protest, only to be cut off again.

“Don’t even try to deny it. No one hates you, you’re too nice for anyone to hate.”

Jonghyun had given up on trying to say anything by this point, already conceding that his friend would just cut him off before he managed to get a word out.

“Believe me Jong when I say that you’re not delusional if you think things are going fine. It just means that things are more than likely to just be fine. Don’t overthink it.”

Jonghyun nodded – he knew Minki wouldn’t move the conversation along until he did.

“But anyway, onto more interesting topics… How are you coping with being around your lover boy all day?”

Jonghyun felt his cheeks flush at what Minki called Minhyun. He wished he hadn’t nodded earlier. Maybe then they wouldn’t have moved onto this topic of conversation.

“Don’t call him that, he’s not… We’re barely friends. He’s not… that.” Jonghyun felt a small pang in his chest when he remembered that it was unlikely that that term could ever be used in relation to him and Minhyun.

“Yet.”

Jonghyun gave his friend an unimpressed glare.

“What? I’m just saying, you never know what might happen with you two stuck in close proximity with each other for a week. Things are almost bound to get heated and you’ll both find yourselves indulging in each other in the throes of passion soon enough.”

“Minki!” Jonghyun reprimanded, scandalised. Truthfully, the idea of him and Minhyun like that sent a chill down his spine and brought a strange feeling to his gut but he quickly tried to clamp down on those feelings before they got too dangerous.

“I – I’m not – We’re not – It’s not like that.” Jonghyun barely managed to stutter out.

“Yet.”

“Minki, stop it.” Jonghyun could feel his whole face burning as red as a tomato. “He probably won’t ever see me like that anyway.” He added, ducking his head down self-consciously.

“My dear Jonghyunnie, I don’t think you give yourself nearly enough credit.”

“Or perhaps you give me too much.” He mumbled.

Minki was about to protest but Jonghyun had already turned away and effectively ended the conversation.

Throughout the rest of dinner, the two friendship groups began to warm up to each other – the five of them bantered and joked around together so easily, to an outsider, it would have seemed like the five of them had always been friends. The conversation flowed naturally between them and there was never a moment of awkward pause (well, maybe one or two but those only came after one of Dongho or Aaron’s awful dad jokes).

Not wanting to separate after dinner, the five of them all headed to Minhyun’s dorm to play some exploding snap. Everyone found it hilarious when Minki would scream every time the cards exploded. You would have thought the Slytherin would have gotten used to the loud explosions at the end of each round but to the dismay of everyone’s eardrums, that was not the case. Eventually, the game continued until everyone gave up trying to beat Jonghyun. Minhyun had never thought that someone could be that good at a simple card game.

None of them had realised how long they had been playing for until Minhyun looked over at the clock and noticed that it was almost curfew. Being the responsible head boy that he was, he quickly ushered everyone out and back to their own dorms before they could get in trouble for being out after hours.

Once the others had left, Minhyun turned to Jonghyun and caught the other mid-yawn. Minhyun was faintly reminded of a tired kitten and he had to physically resist the urge to squeal at the sight. Minhyun himself was also equally exhausted, the day’s events had certainly taken its toll on both of them.

“We should probably clean up ready for bed…”

Jonghyun sleepily hummed his agreement. But then all of a sudden, he looked wide awake and his face began to redden, leaving Minhyun rather perplexed by the abrupt change in demeanour.

“Um… how’s that going to work…?” Jonghyun asked, sounding very shy all of a sudden.

“Hm? How’s what going to work?” Minhyun’s sleep addled brain couldn’t quite grasp what Jonghyun was trying to get at.

“Y-y’know, the ‘cleaning up’…” Jonghyun trailed off.

And suddenly Minhyun understood. He felt his own face flush as he realised what Jonghyun had been referring to: showering.

When they had first learnt that there wasn’t anything they could do about be bound together, both of them in their minds had realised that that meant they would have to share a bed, but both of them had neglected to think about the whole showering situation. It was something that Minhyun had not yet considered so his only response to Jonghyun’s question was a rather eloquent “ummmm…”.

“You don’t happen to know a cleaning spell, do you?” Jonghyun asked rather hopefully.

Minhyun shook his head.

“Sorry, I don’t.” Cleaning spells had never really appealed to Minhyun, he had read that while they make you clean, they don’t make you actually feel clean, and you would just end up still feeling grimy, so he never bothered learning one. He didn’t think he could stand that grimy feeling even for a second, a shower was just the better option.

The two of them stood in silent contemplation, trying desperately to think of a good solution. It was Jonghyun who broke the silence first.

“Well, we can be a metre apart, right? So, I dunno, one of us could just stand on the other side of the shower curtain while the other takes a shower…?” Jonghyun suggested, very apprehensively.

Jonghyun looked up to gauge Minhyun’s reaction to his suggestion and found the other completely still with his face betraying none of what he was thinking. He knew he shouldn’t have suggested his stupid idea, Minhyun probably thought he was weird now for suggesting that they shower like that.

In reality, Minhyun’s brain had completely stopped functioning upon hearing Jonghyun’s idea. The mental image of Jonghyun being entirely naked, in his shower, while he was separated only by a thin veil of shower curtain drove him insane. He was almost tempted to veto the idea in the name of self-preservation but he didn’t have any better ideas and emotions aside, it wasn’t really a bad idea.

Just as Jonghyun was about to start backtracking and apologising for perhaps weirding Minhyun out, Minhyun snapped out of his daze and with his heart thumping manically in his chest, he agreed to go along with Jonghyun’s plan.

It was perhaps the most awkwardly terrifying shower experience Jonghyun had ever had in his entire life.

Minhyun had offered to let him go first, and without seeing a reason to decline, he pulled aside the shower curtain and stepped into the shower. Fortunately, the shower itself was fairly sizeable so it wasn’t difficult for him to remove his clothes without banging his limbs on the walls or the shower head. He stripped down as quickly as he could, but his trembling hands hadn’t made the task easy.

Once fully undressed, he turned on the shower and let out a small sigh as he felt the hot water cascade over him. It was nice, relaxing. Then he remembered that his long-time crush was less than a metre a way and separated only by a shower curtain and the thought sent his heart pounding with nervous energy.

Not want to prolong the awkward shower any longer than was strictly necessary, Jonghyun washed himself hurriedly. Turning off the shower, he quickly dried and dressed himself, still behind the veil of the curtain. Once done, he pulled the curtain aside and stepped out, avoiding Minhyun’s eyes as the latter stepped into the shower.

Minhyun was incredibly thankful that the Hufflepuff had refused to look at him. Normally, he would have loved to have the other boy’s attention on him but at that moment, that probably wouldn’t be the best idea. He knew that his own face was likely to be flushed a deep shade of red. The fact that Jonghyun had been in his shower, naked, had created some not so appropriate images in his head. And the quiet sigh that Jonghyun had let out during his shower… that was a noise that he was likely to never forget. He could just imagine the shorter male making the same noise while he had him pinned underneath---

It was dangerous thoughts such as these that meant that Minhyun could not risk looking at Jonghyun as he came out of the shower. It was thoughts like these that meant that, contrary to Jonghyun, Minhyun had had to take a very cold shower to deal with his situation which had arisen.

With both of them showered and ready for sleep, the two of them stood at the foot of the bed, both of them hesitant to get in.

“Do you, um, have a preference for which side of the bed you want?”

Not trusting himself to not stutter, Jonghyun shook his head.

Then more awkward silence followed as neither of them made a move for the bed. Minhyun sensed that if someone didn’t move soon, they were going to be stood there for entire night, so he slowly climbed into bed, shuffling over to the far side of the bed to give Jonghyun some room to get in as well.

Jonghyun lay stiffly on the bed, completely unable to relax knowing he was in a bed with The Hwang Minhyun.

“Goodnight, Jonghyun.” Minhyun said softly, before he turned over onto his side to face away from Jonghyun.

Jonghyun did the same as he replied in an equally gentle tone.

“G’night Minhyun.”

It wasn’t long before Jonghyun heard the faint sounds of Minhyun’s breathing even out as the head boy fell asleep. Closing his own eyes, he let his own exhaustion take over and fell asleep to the slow in and out of Minhyun’s breathing.

Chapter Text

Jonghyun woke up early the next morning to the sound of birds singing outside, something that didn’t happen an awful lot considering the Hufflepuff dorms were down in the basement. But then he remembered that he wasn’t currently in the Hufflepuff dorms. He was in Minhyun’s dorm. In Minhyun’s bed. With Minhyun.  

He had hoped that the previous day had all just a bad dream but as previously established, luck had never really on Jonghyun’s side.

Slowly he sat up and glanced at the clock that was hung on the wall across from him. It was only 6:30am; still a bit too early to be up. Looking to his left, he saw Minhyun still sleeping peacefully. Even when sleeping, the taller boy looked ethereal. His brown hair was splayed around his around head and the messiness made him seem softer and younger. The neutral expression that he wore as he slept highlighted his sharp jawline and his prominent cheekbones; he definitely looked the part of the prince that everyone had taken to nicknaming him as.

Jonghyun recognised that it was probably a bit creepy to be watching someone sleep, but before he could look away, Minhyun began to wake up.

The Ravenclaw let out a hoarse groan as he stretched out his arms above his head. Yawning, Minhyun rubbed his eyes as he slowly regained his senses. He glanced over to the side and noticed Jonghyun already sitting up awake. The brightness of the room made him close his eyes again, but not before he had caught a glimpse of Jonghyun’s magnificent bed head. Black strands of hair stuck up at weird angles at the back of Jonghyun’s head from where he had rested it on his pillow. The front of his hair was equally messy, puffed up all over the place, revealing Jonghyun’s forehead and Minhyun had never thought he could be attractive to another person’s forehead, yet here he was. Everything about Jonghyun was just so precious. Minhyun felt privileged that he got to witness Jonghyun first thing in the morning, it was a sight that he had never thought he would get to see.

“What time is it?” He eyes were still too sensitive to look at the clock.

The deep huskiness of Minhyun’s voice sent a shiver coursing through Jonghyun’s body.

“A-a-about six-thirty.”

Minhyun let out a deep hum in acknowledgment that sent Jonghyun’s heart beating haywire.

Then Minhyun sat up abruptly, opening his eyes and running a hand through his hair as he finally began to wake up fully. Jonghyun followed the movement of his hand, watching as slender fingers combed through soft brown locks of hair that flopped back down to once again cover Minhyun’s pale forehead.

It wasn’t until Minhyun waved a hand in front of his face that he realised that he had completely blanked out and had missed what Minhyun had just said.

“Huh?” Jonghyun let out rather unintelligently.

A small smile graced Minhyun’s lips as he patiently repeated himself.

“I said, we should probably start getting up since it’s probably going to take longer than usual for us to get ready.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, good idea.”

The two of them slowly climbed out of the bed. Just as Jonghyun was about to head to the bathroom, Minhyun put out a hand to stop him.

“Hold on a sec.” Then Minhyun turned back towards the bed and Jonghyun watched as Minhyun took his wand, and with a flick of his wrist, made the bed. Minhyun turned back around only to see Jonghyun observing him with a questioning eyebrow raised.

“Sorry, I know that the house elves would probably do it, but just knowing that there’s a mess on my bed for any extended amount of time would drive me mad.” Then Minhyun continued towards the bathroom, with Jonghyun now being the one trailing behind.

Getting ready for the day did take a little longer, as Minhyun had predicted, since they had had to take turns getting dressed behind the shower curtain. But even then, the two of them were ready much faster than they had anticipated and so they headed down to breakfast early.

Minhyun woke up that morning feeling energised from a good night’s sleep. He had barely realised how exhausted the previous day’s events had made him feel until the moment his head hit his pillow and he feel into a deep slumber right away.

That night he had dreamt of a universe where magic didn’t exist, where he never went to Hogwarts, but Jonghyun was with him. And any dream where Jonghyun was with him was automatically a good dream. Dongho, Aaron and Minki were also there with them. In his dream, the five of them were older than they were now, though not by much, and they were famous. He couldn’t quite recall why exactly they were famous, he only remembered that he was next to Jonghyun as the five of them stood together, hands linked, as they bowed to a crowd of what looked like thousands of people from the top of an enormous stage. The him in the dream had felt a wave of pride and elation, an indescribable happiness, as the crowd cheered. His breath had caught in his throat when the dream Jonghyun had turned to the dream Minhyun and with eyes sparkling under the stage lights, beamed at him like he was the only other person in the world.

The dream had ended with the five of them disappearing back stage, their hands still linked, as the crowd chanted their names.

Minhyun didn’t really know what to make of his dream but he could only hope that one day, the real Jonghyun would look at the real version of him with as much affection as the dream Jonghyun had looked at the dream Minhyun with.

As the two of them sat together, quietly eating the breakfast, Minhyun felt compelled to speak. The silence that kept engulfing them every time they were alone was beginning to become suffocating for Minhyun. Usually, he didn’t mind some peace and quiet every now and then, but the silence between him and the Hufflepuff boy was almost stifling. The problem was, he just didn’t know what to say. If you had asked Dongho or Aaron, they would have said that Minhyun never shut up, to the point that he was annoying. And perhaps that was why Minhyun struggled for words when Jonghyun was around. He just didn’t want to come off as annoying.

He knew that this couldn’t continue though. There was no way that he was just going to let them remain in a state of awkwardness for a week. Even though the situation they had found themselves in was far from ideal, Minhyun had to admit that it was a golden opportunity for him to get to know Jonghyun and vice versa.

Minhyun wasn’t oblivious to the rumours that circulated about him. He was very aware that his image painted him as the perfect head boy of Hogwarts, which could make him seem rather unapproachable to most people. But he wasn’t what the rumours made him out to be at all. He wasn’t perfect, nobody was, everyone had their strange personality quirks and Minhyun’s friends never failed to remind him of his. (“If we didn’t tell you how much of an idiot you are, your big head would just inflate even more.” As Dongho had once said when Minhyun had jokingly complained about his friends making fun of him all the time.)

Minhyun hoped that by showing Jonghyun that he wasn’t anything like the figure that the rest of the school had put on a pedestal to ogle at, then perhaps Jonghyun wouldn’t be so awkward around him.

Just as Minhyun was about to try and make conversation with Jonghyun, Dongho and Aaron sat down on the bench opposite them.

“Dongho! Aaron! My bestest friends in the whole wide world! Good Morning!” He always was happy to see his friends. He was thankful to have the two of them, the two people in the whole school who knew how to look past the rumours and see him for who he actually was.

Minhyun saw Jonghyun peering at him curiously from the corner of his eyes. Minhyun’s sudden enthusiasm and hyperactive-ness had surprised Jonghyun who wasn’t used to seeing this side of the Ravenclaw. Looking at Minhyun’s friends, Jonghyun noticed that neither of them were phased at all by Minhyun’s behaviour.

Aaron and Dongho returned the greeting, both of them far too used to Minhyun’s loudness to be all that bothered by it.

“I see you’re back to being your annoyingly loud self this morning.” Dongho had grumbled – he had never been a morning person.

“And here I was, hoping that we’d be able to have another day without your constant talking.” Aaron joked good naturedly.

“Awww guys… you wound me…” Minhyun cried dramatically with a hand on his heart, pretending to be hurt.

“It’s okay though, I know you love me really.” And then Minhyun started shoving his face towards his friends and making kissy faces. Dongho didn’t hesitate to smack his friend right in the face.

“Yah, stop it. I’m trying to eat, but you’re making me want to throw it all back up.” Dongho yelled as he continued to push Minhyun’s face away with his hands.

After a bit more struggling, Minhyun finally pulled back with a laugh, while Dongho mumbled something about Minhyun being annoying under his breath.

Minhyun pointedly chose to ignore his friend’s comment in favour of turning to Aaron, who was still chortling at his friends, to ask him to pass over the plate of pancakes from the other side of the table.

Jonghyun sat stunned as he watched the exchange between Minhyun and his friends. He had never seen Minhyun act so… he didn’t even know how to describe it. He had never thought that Minhyun would be so… loud? Judging by Dongho and Aaron’s reactions, Jonghyun figured that this must have been a regular occurrence from Minhyun. Jonghyun had always thought that if anything, Minhyun would be the quiet one being frustrated by his friends’ antics, not the reverse.

Jonghyun continued to quietly observe the trio of friends from the side. He noticed that their friendship seemed to involve a lot of teasing and making fun of each other good naturedly. It wasn’t too dissimilar to how he behaved with Minki – while he loved his best friend, sometimes he would poke fun at the Slytherin, who would do the same back to him. Looking at the three friends, Jonghyun could feel the closeness and the camaraderie that surrounded them. He could tell that they were very close friends.

A few minutes later, the four of them were joined by a rather tired looking Minki.

“What happened to you? You look dead on your feet.” Jonghyun asked concerned upon seeing the state of his friend. Usually Minki was the more put together one of the two of them, so to see Minki looking so dishevelled was very strange.

“Detention happened to me.” ’Ah, that explained things.’ Jonghyun thought. He had forgotten that while he was stuck to Minhyun, Minki had to serve detention every day for getting them stuck in the first place.

“What’d they have you do?” Aaron chimed in, interest piqued.

“Professor Han had up me far too early this morning cleaning one of the unused rooms down in the basement, without magic.” The four of them winced upon hearing the punishment. Some of the unused rooms, especially the ones in the basement, tended to have mould growing up the walls from dampness seeping through the old stone walls of the castle. Jonghyun felt burning sympathy for his friend, having to be anywhere near those rooms was a vile attack on a person’s sinuses. To be in there for extended amounts of time to clean… Jonghyun shuddered at the thought.

“Woah, Professor Han is really something when it comes to punishments…”

Minki scoffed at Dongho’s words.

“You said it, not me. And I don’t even know what the point is, it’s not like we even need any of the rooms down there for anything.”

No-one quite knew what to say. Jonghyun had never been much of a talker, so he settled for wrapping his arm around his friend’s shoulder and pulled him in for a comforting hug which his friend gladly reciprocated.

Not liking the sudden tense atmosphere, Minhyun decided to step in to perhaps lighten the mood.

“Awww… why can’t you guys be like that with me? You guys always hit me or push me away whenever I try to hug you!” He huffed indignantly to his two friends.

“Face it Hwang, you’re just not as good looking as me. That’s why your friends don’t want to hug you.” Minki piped up as he separated from Jonghyun. Looking at Minki, he noticed the grateful look that the Slytherin directed at him for clearing the atmosphere.

Minhyun put up an offended front as he retorted.

“Pfft, whatever, if believing that helps you sleep at night…” He added an eyeroll for dramatic effect before turning back to his friends with a pout.

His friends merely scoffed at him as they went back to eating their food. Minhyun huffed at his friends before turning to Jonghyun.

“Jonghyunnie! You won’t ignore me, will you?” The nickname caught the Hufflepuff off-guard, making him blush, and Jonghyun froze as Minhyun gazed deeply into his own eyes. ‘Was eye contact with another person always this intense?’ He hadn’t expected Minhyun to suddenly turn to him like he had and he certainly hadn’t been expecting to be on the receiving end of Minhyun’s pouting.

“U-u-h, erm, n-n-no.” Jonghyun forced the words out, embarrassed by the amount of stuttering that he had done along the way.

Minhyun beamed at Jonghyun’s response, his whole face lighting up as he turned back to his own friends to gloat.

“Ha! If you guys don’t want me, that’s fine. Jonghyun can be my new best friend, he’s not gonna ignore me!”

Jonghyun felt himself blush even more at Minhyun’s declaration of him being his best friend (even though he knew that Minhyun was just joking around).

But Aaron and Dongho continued to ignore him, both of them inwardly amused at how childish their friend could behave at times.

“Fine, you two have fun!” Aaron chirped happily before turning to Dongho. “Did you hear that? After seven years, we finally got rid of him!” Aaron fake whispered, making sure that Minhyun could still hear him. Dongho let out a loud laugh as Minhyun shrieked in indignation.

“Hey! Get your own best friend, Jonghyun’s mine already!” Minki protested from beside Jonghyun, who rolled his eyes at his own friend’s dramatic antics.

Minki then turned to Dongho before adding, “you’ve dealt with him for seven years, we’re almost done with school, can’t you just keep him for a few more months?”

“Hmm… I dunno, he’s a bit too much too handle if I’m being honest…”

“Hey!” Minhyun’s cries were left unacknowledged by everyone as they just continued their discussion.

“Well, that’s your problem, not mine. He was your friend first and I don’t want to deal with him!” Minki argued.

“Guys! I’m right here!”

“What about a compromise? A time share or joint custody or something?” Dongho suggested, very aware that his friend in question was slowly getting more and more riled up for being ignored.

“GUYS!” At Minhyun’s sudden explosion, everyone finally turned to him, all of them inwardly laughing at his frustrated expression.

“I’m not an object that can just be passed around or thrown out like last week’s left overs!”

There was a beat of silence before the four of them burst out into laughter at the put-out expression that Minhyun had been wearing. Minhyun continued to pout as his so-called friends laughed at him.

It took a good few minutes before everyone managed to calm down and continue to eat their breakfast. For the rest of breakfast, a comfortable, quietness settled over their group after the communal activity of making fun of Minhyun had brought them together.

Jonghyun had watched the back and forth banter between his own friend and Dongho with amusement. He liked Dongho, from the outside, the Gryffindor looked slightly intimidating with his stocky build, but after all the banter at breakfast, Jonghyun could tell that Dongho was not nearly as terrifying as he might appear. And Aaron, who at first glance might have seemed cold and distanced from everyone else, was actually a very warm and lively person. While both of them loved to tease Minhyun, Jonghyun could tell that they actually both cared very deeply for their friend.

The fun atmosphere at breakfast had made Jonghyun feel more relaxed than he had in a long time. It was nice to see Minki getting along so well with Minhyun’s two friends, and it was funny to see Minhyun behaving so playfully. It was a side of Minhyun that Jonghyun decided he wanted to see more often. If the other had been handsome before, seeing Minhyun smiling so bright, enjoying himself and laughing his characteristic staccato “Ha! Ha! Ha!” laugh, could be described as nothing short of mesmerising.

Their first lesson of the day happened to be Ancient Runes, so once again, Jonghyun followed Minhyun and Aaron up to the 5^th floor Runes corridor. Having already finished his arithmancy essay that was due later, Jonghyun decided to use the hour to make a start on the potions essay which they had been assigned the day before.

Potions had never really been Jonghyun’s area of interest, the precision in handling ingredients and preparing potions just seemed convoluted and unnecessary to him. He much preferred subjects such as transfiguration where the magic came more from himself than a method that someone else had written. So, when it came to writing essays, potions were his least favourite ones to write. And it really didn’t help that from beside him, he could here Minhyun’s deep voice muttering under his breath as he translated the runes in front of him.  

By the end of the lesson, Jonghyun had been so distracted that he had barely finished writing his introduction.

“Couldn’t concentrate?” Minhyun asked as they headed out of the class to head up to transfiguration – he had noticed Jonghyun’s unproductivity and was curious as to what had managed to distract the normally focussed Hufflepuff.

“Yeah, something like that. It’s just, I’m not much of a fan of potions.” Jonghyun replied. He often questioned why he had chosen to continue potions past OWLs, but back then he had had no idea what he had wanted to do after Hogwarts so keeping his options open seemed like the best choice.

“I could help you if you wanted?” Minhyun offered. He would hardly call himself the best at potions, but he certainly wasn’t bad at it.

Logically speaking, Jonghyun knew that he should probably accept Minhyun’s help, but he was hesitant since he wasn’t sure how much studying with Minhyun would help his concentration levels. But on the other hand, he really did need that help…

“Think of it this way, you’re already helping me with transfiguration, so let me return the favour by helping you with potions.” Minhyun could sense hesitation and he tried not to take offense in the fact that Jonghyun might not want to spend time and study with him.

Jonghyun figured that Minhyun would probably be always be a distraction, whether he was helping him or not, so if he was going to be distracted, he might as well get some help at the same time.

Minhyun grinned when he heard Jonghyun quietly agree to his suggestion.

They made their way up to the 7^th floor in comfortable silence. Under normal circumstances, Minhyun would have felt dread seeping through his body as he made the trek up to transfiguration, but since yesterday’s study session with Jonghyun, he felt much more confident going into today’s lesson. Between their last lesson and dinner, the two of them had managed to revise and review most of the transfiguration spells they had learnt since the start of the year. Jonghyun was a great teacher, attentive and patient whenever Minhyun couldn’t get a spell quite right, and he always managed to explain a concept in a way that helped Minhyun finally understand the topic. He pretty much owed his entire transfiguration grade to Jonghyun now.

Transfiguration was spent learning an extension of the spell they had learnt the previous day. Instead of transfiguring objects to animals, they were transfiguring animals into other animals.

While everyone else had started practising the spell the moment the professor told them to start, Minhyun wavered and hesitated with his wand in his hand. Normally, he wasn’t one to hesitate before trying a new spell, especially in transfiguration. But after having Jonghyun tutor him, he didn’t want to completely fail at the spell and feel like even after all of their hard work, he had still achieved nothing.

Jonghyun saw Minhyun staring at the rat on his desk with apprehension. He figured that the source of the apprehension was probably a fear of not being able to successfully transfigure the animal. Now fully aware of Minhyun’s transfiguration abilities, Jonghyun knew it was a legitimate fear for the Ravenclaw, but also after their study session the day before, Jonghyun also knew that it was definitely a possibility for the other to succeed. During their session together, Jonghyun had to admit that by the end, Minhyun had already improved massively from when they had first started. He had begun to get the hang of the spells faster and faster with each one that they reviewed. Granted, this was an entirely new spell that was harder than the things they had done in the past, but Jonghyun really did believe that Minhyun could do it.

“Hey Minhyun,” Jonghyun getting the other’s attention, “Just remember all the theory we went through yesterday, relax and have a clear image in your mind as to what you want to do. And remember, sharp decisive movements.”

Minhyun nodded minutely as he turned back to his rat. Slowly he closed his eyes and took some deep breaths to clear his mind as Jonghyun had suggested. He envisioned as clearly as he could what he wanted to achieve before he opened his eyes again and with a sharp flick of his wrist, cast the spell.

And it worked. It actually worked. Minhyun could barely believe it himself. He had never been able to get a transfiguration spell to work first time before and yet here he was, now with a rather small guinea pig sat on his desk.

“Jonghyun, look! I did it!” Minhyun could barely contain his surprise or his excitement as he hastily pulled the Hufflepuff in for a tight hug.

“See? I knew you could do it.” Jonghyun’s words were muffled as he spoke them into Minhyun’s, rather broad, shoulders that his face had been tightly pressed into.

“Well done for performing the spell correctly, Mr Hwang.” Their professor had been passing by right as Minhyun had succeeded in transfiguring his rat and had been very impressed by Minhyun’s sudden improvement in his class. “Though perhaps for the sake of Mr Kim’s physical wellbeing, I’ll have to ask you not to celebrate your successes this way every time.”

Minhyun looked down to Jonghyun, seeing the Hufflepuff squished tightly into his body – maybe he’d underestimated slightly how tightly he been hugging Jonghyun. He let go instantly and quickly apologised to Jonghyun as the latter waved him off, still trying to catch his breath from being in such a tight squeeze. Minhyun felt his face burn with embarrassment as he heard Aaron’s loud cackling laughter coming from beside him.

Throughout the rest of their lesson, everyone continued to practise the same spell, only a few people managed to get it right though, which gave Minhyun and immense sense of satisfaction that for once, he had managed it. While he wasn’t successful every single time he tried the spell, he did get it right most of the time. And it was all thanks to Jonghyun.

After transfiguration, it was Minhyun’s turn to follow Jonghyun to one of his lessons, arithmancy. Once they had finally made it down to the third floor arithmancy room, Minhyun moved to pull out his potions notes to make a start on their essay, only to find that they weren’t in his bag. He realised that he must have left them back in his room. He didn’t have any other homework that he needed to do, so resigned to his fate of having to do more work later. He decided to use the free hour to do some leisure reading instead.

Part way through the lesson, Jonghyun watched as Minhyun pulled out a black notebook out of his back and began scribbling away furiously as he held open the book he had been reading with his other hand. Curious, Jonghyun peered over to see what the other hand been reading, it didn’t look like one of their text books. In fact, it looked a lot like… poetry. Was that what Minhyun was reading? Though, to be honest, Jonghyun had to admit that poetry and literature looked like it would suit Minhyun’s style – he looked like the kind of person who could sit in the window seat back in his room and read poetry all afternoon as sunlight poured through the windows like liquid gold and spilled over his body, bathing him in an unearthly angelic aura.

If Minhyun was reading poetry, Jonghyun wondered if what Minhyun was scribbling were poems of his own. He wanted to ask, but it was the middle of class, and he also didn’t want to seem prying or too nosey, so he refrained.

By the time that arithmancy came to an end, Minhyun and Jonghyun were all too ready for lunch. Suddenly not being able to use their free periods to have a snack meant that the two of them were more hungry than usual.

When the others came and sat with them, they barely lifted their heads in greeting before returning to their food. Aaron, having just come from herbology, sat himself down next to Minhyun for a change. Minki and Dongho happened to have both come from the same divination class, so they had walked into the great hall together and sat on the bench opposite to the three of them.

Most of lunch was filled with some idle small talk about how their classes so far had been, how frustrating they had been and how much work their professors liked to give them, along with a collective moan about how NEWTs were coming up soon and how devastatingly unprepared they all felt. Fairly standard conversation for a group of seventh years.

“Hey Minhyun, haven’t you got patrol today?” Aaron asked all of a sudden.

“Oh yeah, I do, almost forgot about that, thanks for reminding me.” The whole idea of patrol had just about escaped Minhyun’s mind entirely. As head boy, normally he would have to do patrol everyday (except on evenings when he had astronomy), but he had been able to handoff his duty to another prefect the day before so that he and Jonghyun could get some much-needed rest.

For once, Minhyun was rather nervous for his patrol. Typically, Minhyun tended to do his patrols on his own and he appreciated the solitude as he walked around the deserted corridors. But today, today he wouldn’t be alone. He would have Jonghyun with him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with Jonghyun, but it was more the fact that he didn’t want things to be tense or awkward – patrols lasted a long time and if it was spent in awkward silence, it would only feel longer.

The matter of patrols had also escaped Jonghyun’s mind. The idea of being alone with Minhyun still unnerved him a bit, although he had to admit, not as much as it would have done a day ago. He supposed that being around the Ravenclaw for over 24 hours straight had meant that he had somewhat grown accustomed to the other’s presence. Not that that meant his heart didn’t still thump madly in his chest every time Minhyun so much as looked at him – he wasn’t sure he could ever get used to having Minhyun’s focus on him.

The five of them returned to their quiet eating, until Minhyun decided to take a particularly large bit of his treacle tart and a large proportion of the tart and the cream topping ended up around his lips. Aaron was the first to notice and point it out to his friend as he laughed at how ridiculous he looked.  

The rest of them turned to see what Aaron was laughing at, only to start laughing themselves. But Aaron’s laughter quickly died out and turned into a choked cough as Minhyun stuck out his face towards his fellow Ravenclaw and gestured for his friend to wipe it for him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Aaron deadpanned, looking at his friend incredulously.

“Aaronnie! Wipe it for me!” Minhyun whined before sticking his face even more into his friend’s personal space.

“No way, do it yourself.” Aaron shoved his friend away roughly before Minhyun could get any close.

Dongho stiffened and froze, looking repulsed by Minhyun as the Ravenclaw began to lean towards him instead.

“Not in a million years. No.” Dongho said firmly.

“Hmph, what kind of friends are you?” Minhyun huffed.

“Ones with self-respect.” Dongho quipped.  

Minhyun pouted, making him look even more ridiculous.

He even turned to Minki but before he had even managed to ask, Minki had scoffed and looked at him in disgust.

“Are you always this weird… and clingy.” Minki asked judgementally.

“Sadly yes, trust me, he’s always like this.” Dongho said offhandedly – being Minhyun’s childhood friend meant that he was far to used to Minhyun’s weird behaviours.

Aaron nodded in agreement before adding “Everyone has this weird ideal about him but really, Minhyun’s just a huge idiot. And it’s a little-known fact that Hwang Minhyun is clingier than gum stuck on the soles of your shoes.”

“He’ll drape himself all over you like a cape.” Dongho added. “A loud, annoying and oversized cape.”

“I sometimes wonder why you guys are my friends…” Minhyun interrupted.

“Oh, so do we.” Dongho retorted quickly.

Everyone else laughed as Minhyun gasped, affronted by the betrayal of his own friends.

“And will you just clean your own mouth already, I know you have the mental age of a child, but right now, you look like one too.” Dongho continued, still rather repulsed by the cream still on Minhyun’s lips.

Jonghyun continued to watch Minhyun as the taller boy continued to bicker with his friends, his face still a mess.

Before Jonghyun had even realised what he was doing, he had a napkin in his hand and had placed a hand on Minhyun’s cheek, turning his face towards him before proceeding to wipe Minhyun’s lips for him.

Once Minhyun’s lips were cleared, Jonghyun’s hands lingered momentarily on Minhyun’s face as both of them stared at each other in shock. Minhyun was in shock over the fact that Jonghyun’s hands were currently on his face, he could feel them trembling slightly against his cheeks as Jonghyun stared at him in wide-eyed stupor.

Then Jonghyun snapped out of his frozen state, turning away from Minhyun quickly, feeling his cheeks turn a vibrant shade of red that probably matched Dongho’s tie. He hurriedly tried to just continue eating and pretending that the past minute or so didn’t just happen. But he couldn’t. Because it did happen and he couldn’t even run away.

Minhyun himself wasn’t faring much better than Jonghyun. Even though Jonghyun had already turned away, he still couldn’t turn away from the Hufflepuff – he was still stunned by the sudden turn of events. He could see the blush rising onto Jonghyun’s cheeks and there was no doubt that he was probably in a similar state. Minhyun could still feel the ghost of Jonghyun’s touch on his cheek and his lips burned where Jonghyun’s fingers had accidentally brushed against them. Inwardly, Minhyun was on the brink of internal combustion.

Slowly, he turned back to his dessert and began picking at it, his appetite for food suddenly gone.

Their friends had been watching silently, gaping at the events that had just occurred before their very own eyes. The three of them exchanged questioning glances at each other, none of them knew what to make of what they just witnessed.

From beside him, Minhyun heard Jonghyun mutter a quiet apology for invading his personal space. Minhyun would have like to tell him that he could invade his personal space anytime he wanted, but he figured that that probably wasn’t the best response at that very moment, so he settled for assuring the other that it was fine and that he should just not worry about it.

But Jonghyun couldn’t stop thinking about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the softness of Minhyun’s lips and how much he wished that he could feel that softness with his own lips–-- he quickly cut off his train of thought before it could get out of hand. There was no point in imagining things that were never going to happen.

Lunch ended soon after the incident with the cream. The atmosphere had been a little awkward for a bit until Aaron had taken it upon himself to lighten the mood, which had then sparked a battle of the dad jokes between him and Dongho. Both of them had refused to back down and concede to the other and it had only ended when the bell had rang signalling the start of fourth period.

Jonghyun and the two Ravenclaws then made their way up to charms. For Minhyun and Jonghyun, it was their final lesson of the day, both of them having free periods last.

Having not been able to pay attention the previous day, Jonghyun resolved to make an extra effort to focus so that he wouldn’t fall even more behind. During breakfast that morning, Jonghyun had asked Minki if he had any notes from his class but rather unhelpfully, Minki hadn’t paid any attention in his class either.

“What do you mean you didn’t pay attention?” Jonghyun asked rather agitatedly.

“Hey, you can’t get on my case when you did the same… talk about the pot calling the kettle black…” Minki retorted.

Jonghyun sighed, he hated that Minki was right.

“And now I can’t even steal your notes…” Minki moaned, he had been heavily relying on the fact that his best friend was an exceptionally kind person, an exceptionally kind person who took good notes. But now that plan had gone down the drain…

“Ugh now what am I going to do…” Jonghyun complained.

“Just ask Minhyun for his.” Minki had suggested.

And as logical as that suggestion was, Jonghyun was almost too nervous to ask the Ravenclaw for his notes. He didn’t want to admit that he had completely zoned out for an entire hour of a lesson. But there was no other choice. So once they had sat down in their seat in charms, and before their professor arrived, Jonghyun turned to Minhyun and gently prodded his arm to get his attention.

Minhyun’s sudden attention on him made him freeze and suddenly the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. Swallowing his nerves, and after taking a deep breath, he finally spoke up.

“Uh, do you mind if I, erm, just borrow your notes from yesterday…?”

Minhyun looked a little puzzled at the request since he knew that Jonghyun had been right here in class with him yesterday, but he handed over his notes without hesitation.

“T-th-thanks.” Jonghyun stuttered in gratitude before quickly replicating the notes and handing them back.

“It’s no problem, we all have those days where we can’t concentrate.” And Minhyun flashed him a quick smile that made Jonghyun’s heart almost jump up and out of his chest. “Damn Hwang Minhyun for being so nice and understanding and kind and too bloody handsome.” Jonghyun cursed in his mind.

Charms passed by smoothly and luckily Jonghyun had managed to pay attention this time, and now that he had a copy of Minhyun’s undoubtedly perfect notes, he hopefully wouldn’t be behind for much longer.

Both of them having a free fifth period, they made the unanimous decision to return to Minhyun’s room and work on some potions together.

Minhyun found it absolutely adorable every time Jonghyun would furrow his eyebrows or scrunch up his nose when in deep thought. Very quickly he found himself getting lost in just watching the other’s expressions, his own essay almost entirely forgotten – at least it was until Jonghyun suddenly looked up at one point asking for help and caught Minhyun in the act. Minhyun had felt his ears warming when he had been caught, he could only hope that Jonghyun hadn’t noticed.

From then on, Minhyun made sure to actually try to focus on his essay, or at the very least, look like he was focussing on his essay.

A little while later, Jonghyun finally put down his quill and sat back from his work. Looking at the clock, he had been working on it for two hours already, and he had had enough of it. It seemed his body agreed with him as he stifled back a loud yawn.

“Tired?” Minhyun asked, a hint of concern seeping into his voice.

“Mmm… A little, potions is just draining.” Jonghyun grumbled sleepily. He heard Minhyun chuckle minutely before responding.

“Take a break then, we still have time before dinner, you could take a nap.” He suggested.

Jonghyun tried to protest and insist that he really wasn’t all that tired, but Minhyun insisted that he take a break. It wasn’t good if Jonghyun was already this tired this early in the afternoon, he had argued, they still had patrols later and Minhyun would feel bad if Jonghyun missed out on sleep because of him.

Jonghyun felt warm at hearing Minhyun’s concern for him. Appreciative of how determined Minhyun was at getting him to rest, he reluctantly agreed to take a short nap.

Jonghyun moved from where he had been sat on the floor and lay down on the sofa, next to where Minhyun was already sitting. It was a fairly lengthy sofa so there was plenty of room for Jonghyun to curl up to sleep, even with Minhyun occupying part of it as he worked.

“Wake me up for dinner…” Jonghyun mumbled as he drifted off.

“Of course, I don’t plan on missing out on the food, I’m a growing boy!” Minhyun joked.

Jonghyun huffed out an amused snort as he let his body relax and drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Minhyun almost didn’t have the heart to wake Jonghyun when it was time for dinner. With Jonghyun asleep, Minhyun had had the opportunity to properly look at the other boy without worrying about being caught. The shorter boy had looked so young and innocent as he slept. All signs of worry and nervousness had disappeared of the Hufflepuff’s face, which made him look far younger than he really was.

But as much as he would have liked to stay and admire Jonghyun some more as he slept, he also knew that they would both starve if Minhyun didn’t hurry up and wake the sleeping boy. Gently, Minhyun reached out and shook Jonghyun’s legs which were stretched out over to his side of the sofa. Jonghyun woke up almost immediately and Minhyun had to resist the urge to squeal at the cute way Jonghyun rubbed at his eyes and stretched out as he woke up. There was no way that one person could be this adorable.

“Hey sleepy head, it’s time for dinner.” Minhyun called softly.

Jonghyun only hummed in acknowledgment before he stood up to follow Minhyun down to dinner, brushing down his bed head at the same time.

Still in a half-awake state as they made their way down to dinner, Jonghyun barely registered when they had reached that great hall and had already sat down with their friends.

Absentmindedly, he reached out to spoon a portion of whatever was closest to him onto his own plate, but before he could, Minhyun had suddenly grabbed onto his wrist, stopping him.

Jonghyun turned to Minhyun, eyes full of sleepy confusion, not quite understanding what the other’s intent was.

Minhyun hesitated slightly before he let go of Jonghyun’s wrist and replied to Jonghyun’s silent questioning.

“It’s just, there’s tomatoes in that…” Minhyun mumbled out quietly, looking rather embarrassed.

Jonghyun’s sleep addled brain couldn’t quite catch up to what his ears were hearing so he continued to stare blankly at Minhyun as he continued to ramble.

“…and I noticed that you don’t seem to like tomatoes, so, um, I just thought I’d warn you…” Minhyun trailed off as he flushed as red as the tomatoes that he had been warning him about.

Looking back towards the dish he had been reaching towards, he noticed the tomatoes swimming around in the casserole dish amongst the meat and other veg.

“Oh. Erm. Thanks. For telling me.”

Jonghyun was touched by the other’s concern but there was one fact that he couldn’t quite get over.

“How did you know that I don’t like tomatoes?” The question was out before Jonghyun realised it.

Jonghyun hadn’t realised that a person could blush as much as Minhyun currently was. It was an interesting look on him. Out of the corner of his eyes, Jonghyun saw the rest of their friends watching their exchange with deep interest, eyes alight with glee as they watched Minhyun splutter at the question.

“I, erm, well you see I…”

Jonghyun raised an eyebrow at Minhyun’s hesitation. This definitely didn’t seem like the perfectly put-together Minhyun that he would usually expect. Although recent events had already proved to him that that Minhyun had perhaps never existed to begin with.

“It’s just that before, I always noticed that if there were tomatoes in your food, you would pick them out and there was one time when I think you didn’t realise that you missed one and you ate it and spat it back out again.”

Jonghyun blinked. Did that mean… Minhyun been watching him all this time? That certainly seemed to be what he was implying. But why on earth would Minhyun want to look and pay attention to him in so much detail. That whole idea was baffling to Jonghyun.

Unsure of what more he should say and unsure of what these new revelations meant, he merely muttered a quiet “oh” before turning to survey the table to see what else he could eat.

Now even more confused by their own friends, Minki, Aaron and Dongho glanced at each other with wide eyes full of surprise and bewilderment. Their silent conversation went completely unnoticed by their friends. Though that wasn’t all that surprising, seeing as it seemed that they were all just friends with fools – fools who were in turn fools for each other.

After dinner, Jonghyun and Minhyun were hesitant to do anything that would make them too tired for patrol. But on the other hand, it was a Friday evening so even if they were tired after patrols, they could just sleep in later the next morning. But really the two of them didn’t fancy doing much studying anyway. After little deliberation, the five of them headed up to Minhyun’s room, which was quickly becoming their go-to spot for relaxing.

Aaron and Minhyun – and therefore Jonghyun also – sat in front of the fireplace; the two Ravenclaws playing Wizarding Chess while Jonghyun spectated. Meanwhile, Dongho and Minki were off to the side hurriedly trying to finish a charms essay that they had completely forgotten about which was due in first thing the next day.

At around 9:30pm, Minki bid them goodnight to go and serve his second detention.

Soon after, Minhyun finally checkmated Aaron, just in time for him to shoo his friends back to their own common rooms so that they could get ready for patrol.

Promptly, at 11 o’clock, the two of them set out for patrol. The floor they were assigned to today happened to be all the way up at the seventh floor. The journey up to their destination was awkward, both of them were too self-conscious to say anything. In fact, neither of them quite knew what to say to each other at all. For each of them, they both felt some lingering mortification over the day’s earlier events.

Minhyun was scared that he had come across to Jonghyun as a weird creepy stalker, whereas Jonghyun felt deeply horrified over the fact that he had completely invaded Minhyun’s personal space and wiped his face during lunch. Both of them wanted to clear the air, to apologise, but neither knew where to begin. Minhyun knew that they could hardly walk around for the hour completely wordlessly, if anything, that would just make things more uncomfortable between them. By the time they had reached the seventh floor to begin patrol, Minhyun had his mind made up: he would apologise first and hope that Jonghyun wasn’t too mad or weirded out.

“I’m sorry.” Minhyun was surprised to hear Jonghyun also apologising at the same time – though Minhyun wasn’t quite sure what Jonghyun felt the need to apologise for. The small coincidence evoked a bashful giggle from each of them.

Suddenly too shy to be the first to speak, Minhyun allowed Jonghyun to continue to speak first.

“I, er, I’m sorry for, um, invading your personal space earlier.” Jonghyun said as he took an unexpected interest in the ground.

Minhyun was a little confused as to what Jonghyun meant, until he remembered the incident at lunch and then all of a sudden, the butterflies found their way back to his stomach and he could feel his cheeks burning again at the memory of Jonghyun’s delicate fingers on his face.

“Oh, erm, honestly it’s fine…” Minhyun replied slightly sheepishly, “I mean, I was kind of asking for it so you didn’t really do anything wrong…”

His words made Jonghyun visibly relax, which Minhyun was glad to see.

“So, t-t-then w-what did you want to apologise for?”

Minhyun’s nervousness multiplied tenfold as he tried to find the right words for his apology, not wanting to aggravate the situation or risk exposing himself even more.

“Uh, I-I, erm, j-just wanted t-t-t-t-t-t-o apologise for, erm…” Minhyun stuttered and stumbled for his words, and Jonghyun being the kind soul that he was, waited patiently for Minhyun to finish gather his wits.

“I-I wanted t-to apologise if I came across really creepy or invasive with what happened at dinner earlier.”

“Oh.”

Jonghyun hadn’t quite known what he was expecting but he knew that he hadn’t been expecting this. Truthfully, he hadn’t known what to think of that entire incident, he just couldn’t seem to internalise the fact that Minhyun had apparently been attentive enough to him that he knew he didn’t like tomatoes without Jonghyun even telling him…

Jonghyun’s lack of a multisyllabic response sent Minhyun rambling as he always did when he was nervous.

“I swear I wasn’t trying to be creepy… I just happened to notice you picking out tomatoes one time…” ‘or twelve’ his mind mentally correctly – but Jonghyun didn’t need to know that. “Only– I– You–” Minhyun struggled to find a good way to explain himself without making everything worse.

“It just happened to be that you caught my eye…” Minhyun mumbled almost too quietly for Jonghyun to hear. But Jonghyun had heard. And surely his ears were playing tricks on him, because Minhyun couldn’t possibly mean what Jonghyun thought he had meant…could he?

“Truthfully, I’ve noticed you for a while, and I’ve always wanted to be friends with you but I never knew what to say or how to start a conversation with you, so I guess I just never did…” Minhyun trailed off again, feeling extremely self-conscious at the semi-confession.

Jonghyun felt a small stab of disappointment when he heard the word “friend” tumble from Minhyun’s lips. Though, honestly, what should he really have expected? To believe he could have anything more than friendship with Minhyun was delusional. But friendship was far more than anything he would have thought he could have 48 hours ago, so if it was friendship Minhyun wanted, then he would settle for friendship.

“Well, w-we c-can be friends now?” Jonghyun started hesitatingly, “I-I-I mean, if you want…”

Minhyun’s disposition brighten almost immediately upon hearing Jonghyun speak.

“Of course!” Minhyun nearly yelled, before returning his voice to a normal speaking volume, “I mean, yes! I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to be friends with you.”

To a spectator, it may have seemed as if Jonghyun just announced that Minhyun had won the lottery – though in Minhyun’s mind that’s exactly how he felt. In Minhyun’s mind, he had pretty much hit the jackpot. At long last, after seven long years, he could finally call Jonghyun a friend. It was a day for the history books for sure. ‘Kim Jonghyun, my friend’. Personally, Minhyun thought that had a nice ring to it. Though deep inside, he would have preferred to be able to add another three letters to the beginning of the “friend” bit, but that would be getting too much ahead of himself.  

Their patrol continued, the air now cleared between and the atmosphere much lighter.

“I feel like now that we’re friends,” Minhyun continued, still feeling giddy at being able to call Jonghyun his friend, “that we should probably learn more about each other?”

“Oh, uh yeah, I suppose we should, though I’m not sure that there’s all that much to know about me…” Jonghyun trailed off, he was very aware that he wasn’t much of an interesting person.

“Nonsense!” Minhyun proclaimed, “I’m sure you’re more interesting than you think.” ‘Because I for once can’t keep my focus off of you.’ Minhyun thought.

But Jonghyun couldn’t really bring himself to think that he was interesting. He ate, slept, studied and not much else.

Minhyun hummed in contemplation, wondering how to continue the conversation. Then it came to him:

“Well, how about we take turns and play 20 questions?” It was a good idea he thought, start small and try to slowly get Jonghyun to open up to him.

“Um, okay,” Jonghyun was a little hesitant, afraid that the more Minhyun knew about how boring he was, the further he would drive him away, but he gave in anyway. He could never say no to Hwang Minhyun. “You can go first.”

After a few moments of thinking, Minhyun started with a simple question to begin the game simply.

“Okay, so, favourite colour?”

“Black, you?”

“Oh, me too! Do you have any siblings?”

“Just two older sisters, they’re both a fair bit older than me so they left Hogwarts a while ago. What about you?”

“Just one older sister, she graduated a few years ago too. Are you ever going to think of your own question or are you going to just keep throwing my questions back at me?” Minhyun joked.

Jonghyun chuckled shyly as he tried to think of a good question to ask.

“How long have you known Dongho?”

Minhyun huffed out a breath of air as he tried to figure out how long he had known Dongho.

“Uh, like maybe since birth? We grew up in the same neighbourhood and being from the only two wizarding families in the area meant we practically grew up together.”

“Woah,” Jonghyun knew that they had been childhood friends, but knowing each other for their entire lifetime was a long time, “You must be really close then.” He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t jealous; not at all jealous of their long-lasting close friendship. Not at all.

“Yeah I’d say so. Dongho’s like a real brother to me.”

Jonghyun hadn’t realised that he had even been tense until he relaxed upon hearing Minhyun label Dongho as a brother. Not that he had been jealous or anything.

“But what about you and Minki? Like I don’t mean this in a bad way but you two seem like unlikely friends.”

Jonghyun could see why Minhyun might think that way. Minki was loud and outgoing where Jonghyun was quiet and introverted – but Jonghyun supposed that that was what made them better friends, the fact that they complimented each other by being opposites. Had they both been loud, they would have clashed in personality and had they both been quiet, neither would have ever spoken to one another.

“We met in one of our first-year defence lessons.” Jonghyun could remember the lesson as if it happened yesterday. The quiet Hufflepuff who didn’t have anyone else to sit with was paired with the loud Slytherin who had arrived to lesson late that day after getting lost.

At first, Jonghyun had been rather intimidated by Minki, but the moment that the Slytherin began screaming bloody murder when a spider had landed on his desk, Jonghyun had realised that there was really nothing to be scared of. Minki had then instantly taken a liking to Jonghyun who had helped him trap the spider and throw it out the window. From that moment, Minki had declared Jonghyun his saviour and they had become friends shortly after.

Minhyun laughed upon hearing Jonghyun recount his story about how he became friends with Minki. A few days ago, he wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told him that the resident trouble maker of Hogwarts shrieked at the sight of a spider but after their game of exploding snap the previous evening, he wouldn’t even be surprised. If one thing was certain, Choi Minki’s lungs seemed to be made for screeching.

Eventually patrol ended, something for which both of them were grateful. While they had enjoyed getting to know more about each other, they were also both fully drained from the day and were ready to pass out in Minhyun’s bed.

That night, Jonghyun insisted that as he went first yesterday, that it was Minhyun’s turn to shower first. Too tired to protest, Minhyun went ahead and showered as quickly as he could, not wanting to making Jonghyun wait. Once he came out of his shower, he noticed Jonghyun sleepily leaning against the wall, barely staying awake. Now feeling even worse for not letting Jonghyun shower first, Minhyun gently shook Jonghyun out of his half-slumber. Jonghyun mumbled incoherently as he stood up bolt straight and stared at Minhyun in wide-eyed surprise.

“You fell asleep against the wall.” Jonghyun vaguely heard Minhyun say. Honestly, he wasn’t really paying attention to what the other way saying, he was far too distracted by Minhyun’s flushed cheeks and the way the humid, steamy bathroom air had made Minhyun’s fringe cling to his forehead. Jonghyun’s eyes involuntarily followed a droplet of water as it dripped from Minhyun’s hair, down his rosy cheeks, over his perfect jawline before sliding down his throat, over his delicate looking collarbones before gliding even further down and disappearing into his loose t-shirt. Jonghyun watched as Minhyun’s Adam’s apple bobbed as the other gulped dryly.

Minhyun had noticed the way that Jonghyun’s gaze had trailed heatedly over him and really, in their current situation, that was a very very dangerous thing to notice. If Jonghyun kept looking like that, Minhyun would end up doing something that he would probably regret. In normal circumstances, if he had any sense of self-preservation, this would be when Minhyun should turn away and leave the situation all together. It was obvious that Jonghyun probably didn’t mean anything by his gaze, he was tired and not himself, Minhyun was just a fool for thinking too much of it. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance. Minhyun couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. And that was the thing, he didn’t want to.

On the one hand, Minhyun wanted to step closer, to see if Jonghyun’s gaze would follow him. He wanted to know if Jonghyun’s eyes would sparkle and shimmer the same way they always did, when he was looking at them from mere centimetres away. But on the other hand, they had only just agreed to be friends, and these were definitely not the kind of thoughts regular friends had about each other. These were the kind of thoughts that could potentially drive Jonghyun far away from him, and he couldn’t risk that. Not when he’d come so far in even just getting the other to talk to him. Losing this friendship wasn’t worth it, especially when he wasn’t sure that Jonghyun even meant anything by the way he was still looking at Minhyun. Sleep tended to mess with peoples’ heads, people didn’t think straight when tired.

Jonghyun was just tired. He didn’t mean it, for all Minhyun knew, this same situation could have occurred with anyone. It just happened to Minhyun that Jonghyun saw in front of him whilst tired. It was equally likely that Jonghyun would have looked at anyone the same way if it happened to be them here instead of Minhyun.

And that thought made Minhyun feel a stab in his chest. He wasn’t special to Jonghyun. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it was these thoughts that prompted Minhyun to shuffle back slightly – though not too far as to trigger them to be pulled back together – before calling out to Jonghyun with a shaky voice.

“J-j-jonghyun?”

His voice seemed to do the trick and instantly Jonghyun snapped out whatever sleep-induced haze he had been under. Minhyun watched as the other shook his head vigorously to clear it before turning back to look at Minhyun an expressionless face. And Minhyun’s heart dropped even further into his stomach. ‘I guess I was right then… It really didn’t mean anything at all.’

Having snapped out of his daze, Jonghyun began to stutter out apologies for zoning out – to which Minhyun responded with a tight-lipped smile – before quickly jumping into the shower.

While the other was showering, Minhyun took the time to gather his thoughts. He concluded that he had no valid reason for being upset or mad about anything – and if he were going to be mad, the anger could only be directed at himself. Jonghyun didn’t do anything wrong. It was just Minhyun’s own stupid brain jumping to wild, unfounded and improbable conclusions.

And so, he decided he would just try to forget. He would try to forget the way Jonghyun’s eyes had lingered around his lips, he would just pass it off as his own wild imagination because to think of it as anything else was ridiculous. Because Jonghyun simply did not see him like that.

He was determined to not let this whole ordeal affect him in any way. He had just earned Jonghyun’s friendship, he wasn’t about to jeopardise that when it had taken them so long to get there. The only thing he could do was pretend as if he wasn’t affected, he couldn’t let Jonghyun catch wind of what Minhyun had been thinking minutes earlier. If he ever found out, no doubt he’d be disgusted and repulsed.

(What Minhyun didn’t know was that Jonghyun’s mind hadn’t been sleep-addled – if anything, the moment Jonghyun’s eyes had landed on Minhyun’s perfectly sculpted face, he had woken right up. And Jonghyun had in fact been so stunned by Minhyun’s visuals that he had blanked out a second time, and what Jonghyun didn’t know was that his blanked-out expression was the cause of Minhyun’s own heartache.)

Jonghyun finished his shower fairly quickly and after getting redressed, the two of them clambered into bed.  

Muttering soft good nights to one another, they closed their eyes and tried to fall asleep.

That night, it was Jonghyun who fell asleep first – his whole body had been practically crying for sleep the moment patrol ended.

Meanwhile, Minhyun tried hard to fall asleep but instead lay awake, his mind a flurry of thoughts and his face burning, feeling the ghost of Jonghyun’s deep and penetrating gaze trailing over his own features. It was a gaze that haunted him even as he eventually fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Minhyun woke up early the next day. He had always been an early riser. Beside him Jonghyun was lying still asleep, sprawled all over his side of the bed. Minhyun couldn’t help but take the time to admire Jonghyun’s sleeping form. Having spent the past seven years admiring the person before him from afar, Jonghyun’s face was nothing too unfamiliar. But seeing him so close like this was different – it made Minhyun feel short of breath and his heart beat faster.

His mind was still in turmoil over the incident that had happened the previous night. He wanted to forget the way that Jonghyun had looked at him as if Minhyun was something he desired. To remember the way that Jonghyun’s pupils had dilated as he raked his eyes over Minhyun was something that would probably only cause him pain in the long term. He had to forget for both of their sakes; he couldn’t let the events of last night affect him, especially when Jonghyun didn’t seem to realise that he had been staring at all.

Giving Jonghyun one final wistful look, Minhyun carefully sat up and grabbed the notebook he kept on his bedside table and began writing.

Jonghyun woke up to the sound of a quill scratching on paper. Slowly opening his eyes, he saw Minhyun already awake and scribbling away in the same notebook that he had been writing in during arithmancy. Jonghyun let his gaze seep over Minhyun’s face of concentration, secretly admiring the crease between his eyebrows and the cute way Minhyun screwed up his face in thought.

After a few minutes of silent observation, Jonghyun decided he should stop the staring before he got caught. Closing his eyes again, he turned over onto his back as he stretched out his arms and let out what he hoped was a convincing yawn. Minhyun turned to him and putting down his notebook smiled at Jonghyun.

“Morning.”

“Morning. You haven’t been sitting there waiting for me to wake up for long, have you?” Jonghyun questioned; the last thing he wanted was to have kept the other waiting. “You could have woken me up.”

“Nah, I hadn’t been awake for that long, and judging by how tired you were last night, I figured you needed all the sleep you can get.”

Now that Jonghyun was up, Jonghyun followed Minhyun off the bed, and before Minhyun could do it himself, Jonghyun flicked his wrist and made the bed the moment both of them were off it. Minhyun looked at Jonghyun curiously and the shorter boy beamed back at him. It was almost too blinding with the way Jonghyun’s eyes crinkled and turned into crescents as he continued to smile.

“Thought I’d do it for you, I’d feel bad if you did it every morning, especially seeing as I’m sort like of a guest here?” Jonghyun reasoned with a cute lilt in his tone.

Minhyun almost wanted to pinch the Hufflepuff’s cheeks with how adorable he was being. If this was how Jonghyun was going to act now that they were friends, Minhyun’s sanity was never going to survive. He could barely survive around a “normal” Jonghyun, let alone a cute one.

Deciding to take a leap of faith in this whole friendship thing, Minhyun reached out and ruffled Jonghyun’s hair affectionately.

“Hmph, cute.” He muttered with a smile, before turning back towards the bathroom.

Jonghyun followed, his face deep crimson and barely able to stand after having Minhyun ruffle his hair and call him cute like that.

Most people were already at breakfast by the time they made it down to the great hall. It had taken them longer than the previous morning to get ready because Jonghyun had accidentally stumbled whilst trying to put on trousers and had brought the shower curtain down with him as he fell. He had been relieved that the curtain had managed to cover his bare legs.

The moment that Jonghyun’s head had popped out from the heap on the floor, Minhyun had been barely able to contain himself and burst into a fit of giggles at the sight of Jonghyun looking completely stunned with his hair a complete mess lying in a bundle of shower curtain. Minhyun’s giggles had been enough to set Jonghyun off chortling at his own clumsiness. The two of them probably spent a good five minutes collapsed on the bathroom floor in a fit of laughter before Jonghyun finished putting on his trousers under the fallen curtain and then stood back up again as Minhyun waved his wand to fix the damage.

As a result, they arrived at their spot at the Ravenclaw table red faced and out of breath and were met with three pairs of questioning gazes and raised eyebrows.

“What took you guys so long?” Minki asked first, his eyes were suspicious as he looked between the two of them. He fixed Jonghyun with a particularly questioning gaze. “Jonghyun, you’re not usually one to sleep in, you’re usually one of the first down here.”

“Yeah, Minhyun, you rise with the sun on most mornings. Why are you both so late?” Aaron shot Minhyun an equally inquiring look.

“Unless of course you both slept in because you had a late night.” Dongho suggested crudely, wriggling his eyebrows. The others struggled to muffle their giggles.

“Jonghyun had a little mishap in the shower.” Minhyun explained, rolling his eyes at his friends’ ridiculous insinuations. He totally was not blushing at the implications of Dongho’s statement.

“Oh, is that what you kids are calling it these days?” Minki joined in with the suggestive eyebrow raising that Dongho had started.

“Minki!” Jonghyun sounded scandalised and his face portrayed exactly how mortified he was at how his friends were twisting the meaning of their words. “It’s not what you’re thinking, at all. I just fell over! Nothing more.”

“Right… you ‘fell over’… that’s why you’re both red and out of breath…” Minki drawled sarcastically.

Jonghyun sighed, this conversation wasn’t going anywhere. When Choi Minki’s mind was convinced of something, it was exceptionally difficult to change his mind.

Choosing not to continue a futile debate, Jonghyun instead grabbed himself some bread and some mayo and began eating his breakfast. Following Jonghyun’s lead, Minhyun also began eating his portion of waffles, pointedly ignoring the constant sniggering coming from his friends.

Sensing that he would not be getting a rise from his friend anytime soon, Aaron opted to change the topic of conversation.

“So, what’s everybody planning to do today?”

“Sleep.” Minki answered instantaneously, “I need to go pass out for twelve hours, I’m exhausted.”

“What’s got you so tired? it wasn’t detention with Professor Han again was it?” Jonghyun really hoped that it wasn’t because of his detention the previous evening. After hearing what Minki had had to do the first time, Jonghyun felt that the concern he had for his friend was particularly valid.

“Oh no, thank Merlin it wasn’t with him again. It was with Professor Park and thankfully she only had me sorting out filing cabinets for half an hour.”

Hearing that made Jonghyun relax.

“But I’ve been pretty tired lately with all the essays that are being piled on me so I need to catch up on some sleep before my eye bags get worse.” Minki continued.

With NEWTs coming up in the summer, every professor was assigning essays left, right and centre and when they weren’t busy with those, they were busy revising old content so that they would fail their classes. Seventh year life in general was exhausting.

Everyone grumbled at the reminder of the variety of essays that were on their to-do lists.

Aaron then turned to Dongho and repeated his question.

“I’ve got quidditch practise for most of the day. The captain wants to get as much practise in as possible before Tuesday’s game against you Ravens.”

Jonghyun had almost forgotten that Dongho was one of the Gryffindor beaters. Truthfully, Jonghyun had never paid too much attention to the quidditch games, he only ever went to the watch the occasional match, usually opting instead to spend the time studying peacefully in the empty library.

“Aww that’s cute, but even with all the practise in the world, you lions won’t beat us.” Minhyun teased, to which Dongho scoffed.

“Just wait until Tuesday when your house gets their asses kicked, then we’ll see.”

“You’ve lost to us for the past 6 years, what makes you think you’re gonna start winning now?” There was a proud glint in Minhyun’s eyes as he gloated.

“Well for starters, you’re not on the team for the first time in 6 years, so without the Ravenclaw star chaser, it’s everything to play for.” The Gryffindor argued.

And that there was the only reason Jonghyun ever went to see any quidditch match.

The only games he ever went to see were the ones where Ravenclaw played, he didn’t even watch any of his own house unless they were playing the Ravens.

Minhyun had joined the team in their second year and he had instantly made the starting team and it wasn’t difficult to see why what with the way Minhyun rode a broom like he was born to fly. Jonghyun had barely paid attention to the actual games that he attended, only being able to focus on the way Minhyun zipped and zoomed up and down the pitch with the wind tangling through his hair, his face full of determination.

And the sheer force Minhyun put into throwing the quaffle had fuelled Jonghyun’s imaginations over the muscles that potentially hid under Minhyun’s robes enough to perhaps last a lifetime. Jonghyun had thought it was a real shame when the Ravenclaw had quit the team this year in order to focus on his studies and being head boy. Rumour had it that Minhyun would have otherwise been made team captain and for Jonghyun, the image an authoritative and assertive Minhyun sent his mind and his heart into overdrive.

“I’m touched you think so highly of me my dear Dongho, but quidditch is hardly a one-man game. It’s the whole team working as a single unit who managed to bring us victory after victory. It’s simple really, our team is just better than yours.” Minhyun threw his friend a small smirk, goading his friend further.

“Pffft whatever, just wait ‘til Tuesday and then we’ll see.” Dongho rolled his eyes at Minhyun, refusing to be baited any more than he already had.

Jonghyun felt Minhyun’s deep rumbling chuckle through the bench that they sat on more than he heard it.

“Anyway, Aaron, what’re you planning?” Minki asked, desperate for a change in subject – he had never been that interested in quidditch, another reason Jonghyun had managed to avoid watching many games.

“Some people have organised a study group for our herbology class.”

“Oooh, herbology, sounds like fun.” Dongho jested sarcastically.

“I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”

“Well I’m giving it to you anyway.”

Aaron’s only response was to punch his friend’s arm as said friend laughed at Aaron’s annoyance.

“What about you two?” Aaron asked, directing his question to Jonghyun and Minhyun.

The two of them turned to look at each other, they hadn’t really thought about how they would spend their Saturday.

“Potions?” Minhyun suggested.

“And transfiguration?” Jonghyun added.

Minhyun grinned at Jonghyun, glad that they were both on the same wavelength of thought. Turning back to Aaron, he answered his friend’s question.

“Jonghyun and I are planning on head up to the Head’s dorm,” Minhyun started.

“Planning on practising and reviewing some potions and transfiguration.” Jonghyun continued.

“Aw look at them finishing each other’s sentences already, so cute.” Minki jibed.

“Next thing you know, they’ll be parading around wearing couple outfits.” Aaron joined in.

Jonghyun and Minhyun just rolled their eyes at their friends, not wanting to give their friends the satisfaction of getting a response from them.

True to their word, after breakfast, Jonghyun and Minhyun headed back to Minhyun’s private common room and settled themselves down on the floor next to the table that was positioned next to a large window overlooking the lake to begin studying.

There was a comfortable camaraderie between them as they took turns explaining subject content to each other. With each other’s help, they were beginning to not only remember more of the content, but also understand the theory behind it.

“I wish I’d become friends with you earlier,” Minhyun stated after an hour had passed, “If I could have had you tutoring me all this time, perhaps I wouldn’t be so hopeless at transfiguration.”

“Well I wouldn’t say you were hopeless…” Jonghyun assured him, “But I agree, I probably would be getting a D in potions this year if it weren’t for you.”

“Nah, you’re not that bad.” Minhyun argued.

“Maybe not anymore.” Jonghyun quipped, adding in a small smile of gratitude that made Minhyun’s heart stop momentarily.

The two of them turned back to their books shortly after, resuming their studying.

After a couple hours, Jonghyun turned to look at the clock and noticed that it was almost time for lunch. Lightly nudging Minhyun’s leg with hit foot, he directed Minhyun’s attention to the clock.

Minhyun hadn’t realised that so much time had already passed. He had been so engrossed in transfiguration for the past couple of hours, he was rather proud of himself that he hadn’t managed to be massively distracted by the way the light shone through the window and onto Jonghyun, making the Hufflepuff more eye-catching than usual. Okay so maybe he had been somewhat distracted, but in his defence, he had managed to keep his staring to a minimum. For the most part.

Jonghyun watched Minhyun as the taller boy stretched out his arms above his head. His gaze was instantly drawn to the way that Minhyun’s shirt rode up as he stretched, revealing a small strip of smooth, milky skin, and was that… abs that Jonghyun also caught the shadow of? But before he could get a better look, Minhyun had stopped stretching and Jonghyun quickly turned his focus elsewhere to avoid being caught ogling.

“Hungry? Shall we head down for lunch?” Minhyun suggested. Luckily for Jonghyun, he hadn’t caught onto the staring or the way Jonghyun suddenly couldn’t quite meet his gaze.

Before Jonghyun could reply, a loud grumble emanated from his stomach and interrupted them. Minhyun let out a short laugh of amusement at the noise and at Jonghyun’s sheepish expression.

“I’ll take that as a yes then.”

Slightly embarrassed, Jonghyun slowly stood up before following Minhyun towards the portrait hole and down to the great hall.

They had just sat down at the usual spot when Dongho came trudging into the great hall looking haggard and rundown with exhaustion, before slumping down onto the bench next to Minhyun and using his human beanpole of a friend as a leaning post.

Dongho wasn’t usually much of a touchy-feely person so for him to voluntarily force himself into Minhyun’s personal space like this was a true testament to how tired he was. Grabbing a piece of bread from the basket in front of him, Minhyun wordlessly shoved it into his friend’s mouth who began to chew on it gratefully.

“Tough practise?” Minhyun asked as he looked down at his friend, making sure the Gryffindor wasn’t getting his bread crumbs all over his clothes.

“’Tough’ can’t even begin to describe it. The captain was so high-strung, he made us do drill after drill to the point we could barely even fly straight.” Dongho whined through a mouthful of bread.

“Your captain’s a mad man.” Minhyun proclaimed while dusting off some of the crumbs Dongho had spewed whilst complaining.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Dongho mumbled gruffly.

“Making you all work so hard, and yet you’re still not gonna win.”

“And here I thought you were being nice and sympathetic.”

“Now why would I do that? Consider it payback for every time you’ve laughed at me.”

“Your stupid ass deserves to be laughed at.”

“Fine be that way then.” And with that, Minhyun suddenly jerked forwards on the bench, causing Dongho’s head to slide off it’s perch on Minhyun’s arm and almost cause him to fall of the bench.

“Asshole…” Dongho grumbled as he caught himself from falling over.

“Yeah but I’m still your best friend.” He shot a charming smile at his friend who merely scowled before returning to eating his bread, grumbling out an irritated “whatever”.

“Have you still got practise after lunch?” Jonghyun piped up from Minhyun’s other side.

Dongho was caught off guard by the sudden question – in the past few days, he hadn’t really spoken to Jonghyun much, both of them a little too shy to start a conversation with someone they didn’t know very well.

“U-uh, no, thankfully not. The captain at least had some mercy.”

Minhyun was jealous of the shy smile that Jonghyun then directed at Dongho.

“Oh that’s good, perhaps you could take the after of the day to relax and rest then. It’s not good to be overworked.” Jonghyun advised kindly, his smile becoming softer.

Minhyun could have sworn that Dongho was now blushing lightly, and he’d never seen that happen before.

“Y-yeah, that’s a good idea, t-thanks.”

Minhyun was practically green with envy. He had befriended Jonghyun first. It wasn’t fair that now his friend was the one getting all the cute eye smiles. And why on earth was Dongho blushing and stuttering like some prepubescent teenaged girl faced with her crush? Minhyun had to put a stop to this before things got too out of hand. As subtly as he could, he aimed a kick straight at his friend and managed to hit his shins, making Dongho suddenly jerk and yell out in surprise and a bit of pain.

Dongho fixed Minhyun with a glare before hissing at Minhyun.

“What the heck was that for?!”

Schooling his expression into one that he hoped looked innocent, he replied lightly.

“Oh sorry, I had a muscle spasm in my leg.” He threw in an apologetic smile in an attempt to make it more believable.

But Dongho was more than able to pick up on his friend’s lies. Being the good friend that he was, he didn’t call him out on it and opted to instead shoot him a glare that clearly showed he wasn’t buying into his nonsense.

Before anyone could say anything else, Minki and Aaron coincidentally arrived at the same time and sat themselves down opposite to them. Instantly, Minki grabbed Jonghyun’s attention as he began rambling away to the Hufflepuff about the latest Hogwarts gossip, Jonghyun listened patiently, nodding occasionally in acknowledgment – he was far too used to Minki’s endless gossip streams.

Meanwhile, Dongho took the opportunities to whack Minhyun in the arm before angrily hissing out:

“Yah! What the fuck was that for?!”

Minhyun rubbed his arm where Dongho had hit him, his friend certainly wasn’t the Gryffindor beater for nothing.

“Like I said, my leg muscle spasmed.” Minhyun replied as nonchalantly as he could.

“Cut the crap, I’m not buying it.”

Minhyun stayed silent, his pride not allowing him to admit aloud that he was jealous of the attention Dongho had gotten from Jonghyun.

“Is this about Jonghyun?”

Minhyun cursed inwardly, sometimes his friend was smarter than he gave him credit for.

“No.” He replied shortly.

“You’re a shoddy liar. It totally is about Jonghyun! Hey are you jealous?” Dongho whispered, suddenly his voice was coloured with amusement.

Minhyun refused to respond, instead continuing to pick at his food.

Dongho let out a low whistle as he began to tease his friend.

“Wow, never thought I’d see the day that Hogwarts’ heartthrob head boy, Hwang Minhyun, would be jealous of humble ol’ me.”

“Shut up.”

“Jealousy is not a good look on you my friend, if you keep this up, Jonghyun’s gonna think you’re constipated or something. Your face is all screwed up.”

Minhyun tried to relax his face into something less ‘constipated’, as Dongho had so eloquently put it, but judging by his friend’s snort, he wasn’t particularly successful.

“Well, it’s not like Jonghyun would be looking at me anyway…” A childish pout made its way onto Minhyun’s face.

“You can’t be serious… You can’t seriously be jealous because Jonghyun spoke about two sentences to me when you two are literally sleeping in the same bed for a week.” Dongho was reaching his tolerance limit for Minhyun’s nonsense, he was far too tired for this.

“He smiled at you. And you stuttered and blushed.” Minhyun argued, still feeling betrayed by the fact his friend had coloured when Jonghyun had smiled at him.

“It was the first time we ever properly spoke to each other, forgive me if I stuttered, I was caught off guard.”

“You still blushed.”

“It’s not like I wanted to! I tried not to.” Dongho retorted.

“Well try harder.”

“You’re being so petty right now, I hope you realise. You’ve been pining over Jonghyun for the past seven years, I’m not about to try and steal him away from you–”

“Good, you better not be.”

Dongho pointedly ignored Minhyun’s interruption and continued on.

“– I might make fun of you from time to time but I’m not that much of a crap friend.”

Minhyun softened upon hearing Dongho’s reassurances. Logically, he knew that being jealous of Dongho’s short interaction was ridiculous but it was difficult to control his own emotions, particularly when it came to matters surrounding Jonghyun.  

“You’re right, I was being jealous for no reason,”

Dongho raised his eyebrows at Minhyun’s admission. For Minhyun to admit that he was right was unusual.

“There’s no need to be jealous if you’re the competition, I would obviously win.”

Dongho rolled his eyes, but inwardly he was glad that his friend was no longer acting too much like a petulant child.

“I hope for your sake that Jonghyun finds stupidity attractive, because you’re an idiot.”

“Minhyun? Being an idiot? I never would have thought.”

The two of them turned to Aaron who had joined the conversation. He had been quietly listening to his two friends bickering for the past few minutes and had barely been able to contain his laughter at Minhyun’s new found levels of pettiness.

“How long have you been listening in? How much did you hear?” Minhyun asked, slightly panicked. If Aaron could hear them from across the table, Jonghyun could also have overheard and that was the last thing Minhyun wanted.

“Long enough to realise exactly how much of a fool you are, although that wasn’t really a new revelation--”

Minhyun squawked in indignation while Dongho burst out into loud laughter.

“--But don’t worry, I don’t think he heard, Minki’s still busy half shouting gossip at him.”

Minhyun sighed in relief.

“And Minhyun,” Aaron continued, “I really don’t think you have to worry about any competition, I’m pretty sure I speak for Dongho as well when I say that we’re not, and never will be interested in competing with you for Jonghyun. And besides, Jonghyun would be lucky to have you.”

Minhyun quirked his eyebrow at his friend’s sudden change of attitude. It wasn’t often that his friends went soft on him. Of course, he knew they cared, they wouldn’t have stayed friends this long if they didn’t. But they were all as close as brothers, and just like brothers, they showed affection by good-naturedly making fun out of each other at every given opportunity. Minhyun felt touched by the sudden honesty from Aaron.

“Awww Aaron,” Minhyun pretended to wipe a tear from his eye, “I always knew you cared.”

Minhyun continued to pretend to cry before suddenly leaning into Aaron’s personal space and began making kissy faces, finding joy in making his friend squirm.

“EWW, get away from me you weirdo! You see, this is why we’re not normally nice to you…You return the favour by being insufferable.” Aaron cried as he tried hard to get out of Minhyun’s reach.

Their squabble finally ended with Minhyun getting tired and ceasing his attack as Aaron fixed him with a repulsed expression. But despite that, Minhyun could see the hint of affection that Aaron lets seep into his gaze as he looks as Minhyun. That’s how it has always been between his friends, they bicker and tease but at the end of the day, they were still best friends who cared for each other a lot.

Chapter Text

Dinner that evening was quiet as everyone was far too tired to do much talking. All of them seemed to be in a semi-dazed state as they sat absentmindedly picking at their food, blankly staring into nothing.

Suddenly Minki let out a particularly frustrated sigh. Everyone turned to look at him, wondering what the cause of his frustration was.

“Do any of you guys remember the last time you weren’t stressed about exams?”

The silence that surrounded them made it obvious that none of them could. Sixth and seventh year were full of stress about NEWTs, and before that came OWLs. It had been years since they had had a year without some sort of big exam at the end of it.

“Unbelievable… We spend so many years of our life working for these exams that in turn just slowly suck out our souls until we’re left like this, lifeless beings who can’t even remember the last time they were relaxed.” Minki continued, his voice tinged with obvious annoyance.

“Well at least we’ve only got a few months left.” Aaron pointed out.

“I’m not sure I can even take another second of this, let alone another few months.”

All of them could empathise with Minki’s words. All of them were stressed out and tired and just needed a break.

The five of them returned to their state of silence before Minki made a sudden declaration.

“That’s it, I’ve decided.”

“What have you decided Minki?” Jonghyun asked with a hint of concern – Minki’s decisions weren’t always the best, he and Minhyun were currently exhibit A of that theory.

“Tomorrow, we are going to spend a whole day, a whole 24 hours relaxing. No thinking about exams, no stressing, no mention of anything school related. We will take a break from this stressing out.”

“We?” Dongho questioned.

“Yes. We. All five of us. No arguments allowed.”

“Minki, no one was going to argue with you about taking the day off.” Aaron replied.

“Yeah, we’ve all worked hard enough lately, we all deserve a break.” Jonghyun added.

Minki whooped as everyone agreed to go along with his day of relaxation. Honestly, they all felt that they deserved a day of rest by this point. If they had carried on as they were for much longer, someone was going to burn out soon. Inwardly they were all thankful that Minki had had the insight to suggest this idea.

Perhaps not all of Minki’s ideas were bad ideas.

During that night’s patrol, Jonghyun and Minhyun decided to continue their game of 20 questions, seeing as they only managed to get through three questions each the previous night. They wander around the sixth floor, asking each other whatever comes to mind.

“Favourite food?”

“Fried Chicken. Did you always think you would be sorted Ravenclaw?”

“Mmm… Yeah, most of my family have been Ravenclaws, and it seemed to fit the best anyway.”

“I don’t know about that, I think you could have made a good Hufflepuff…” Jonghyun said quietly.

Minhyun was slightly surprised to hear that from Jonghyun, but mostly he was curious as to why he would say that.

“Really? You think I have the traits to be a badger?”

“You wouldn’t be head boy if the Headmistress didn’t think you were kind, hardworking and dedicated… And I think all of your friends would agree that too…”

“Does that include you? You’re my friend, do you agree?”

Jonghyun looked up at him, making direct eye contact, before he shyly murmured a faint “yes”. Minhyun’s heart jumped in his chest as Jonghyun’s admission tumbled from his lips accompanied by a shy smile. And he could hear the sincerity in Jonghyun’s tone, the Hufflepuff really did believe in what he said and wasn’t just saying it for the sake of it. Having Jonghyun compliment him so earnestly made Minhyun elated; glad that Jonghyun thought well of him. He was determined to make sure that he never did anything to tarnish the other’s opinion of him.

Minhyun bashfully muttered out his gratitude, suddenly feeling very self-conscious.

They walked on for a few more minutes with only the sound of their footsteps echoing through the corridors filling the air, before Jonghyun managed to think of another question.

“Any hobbies?”

“Well, I guess there was quidditch, though I don’t really play anymore. I do still love it though. But other than that, I guess I read? What about you?”

“I…” He had a hard time thinking of how to reply. There wasn’t anything he did in his life other than study. “Not really anything… Sorry, I’m pretty boring.”

“You said that yesterday and I still don’t believe you. There must be something you do that’s not studying. What about during holidays? What do you do then?”

Jonghyun thought back to the last time he had visited home, during their Christmas holiday. Most of the time, he had spent the holiday babysitting the younger members of the muggle side of his extended family so he didn’t actually get much time to himself. Although, at night, after all the young ones had gone to sleep, he had spent most of his time playing games on the family computer.

“Um, I guess I play games? Like muggle computer games?”

“Ooh, that’s pretty cool, one year I went to Aaron’s house during the holidays and we tried playing some of those together. I wasn’t very good though…”

“Well it was only your first time playing though right? It’s normal to be bad on the first attempt.”

“Yeah, I guess, but Aaron wouldn’t stop laughing at me.”

“From what I’ve seen over the past couple of days, he’s always laughing at you anyway.” Jonghyun replied wryly, making Minhyun laugh loudly.

“I suppose you’re right about that one. All my friends are bullies.”

The fondness in Minhyun’s eyes told Jonghyun that he didn’t really mean that but he could help but tease the head boy anyway.

“Even me? We’ve only been friends for about a day, do you want to end our friendship already?”

Minhyun was so busy backtracking on his words and profusely insisting that he was only talking about Dongho and Aaron, that he completely missed the playful glint in Jonghyun’s eyes. It wasn’t until Jonghyun burst out into a fit of laughter, his loud guffawing reverberating through the corridors, that Minhyun stopped his rambling and just looked at Jonghyun with an expression of utter panic still stuck to his face.

“Calm down—” Jonghyun barely managed to get out between his laughs, “I was—just--- teasing you!”

Minhyun felt Jonghyun’s body lean into his, small hands cluthing his arm and shoulder, as Jonghyun continued to laugh. The feeling of Jonghyun’s smaller frame pressed against his side made Minhyun’s face heat up.

“W-w-what?” Minhyun stuttered out. Emotionally he was a mess; caught between panic, shock, embarrassment and nervousness.

Jonghyun stopped them both from walking, finally letting go of Minhyun’s arm, and turned Minhyun face him.

“I was just teasing you, I knew what you meant.” His words finally coming out normally now that the laughs had calmed down. Minhyun could see the faint pools of tears that had collected in the corners of Jonghyun’s eyes and the grin that tugged up at his mouth, remainders of his previous laughing fit.

Jonghyun saw the way that the panic seeped away from Minhyun’s face as he relaxed at Jonghyun’s words. Once satisfied that Minhyun was once again relaxed, Jonghyun turned back around and continued walking with Minhyun following shortly after.

The fact that Jonghyun now felt comfortable enough with him to tease him so freely like that sent Minhyun’s heart fluttering.

Not wanting to let to good atmosphere between them die, Minhyun reminded Jonghyun that it was his turn to ask a question.

“What do you want to do after Hogwarts?” He asked after a few moments of thought.

When he was younger, that would have been an easy question. But now, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do with his future.

“I… I don’t really know.” But wanting to keep the conversation flowing, he added: “Though when I was younger, I remember wanting to be a singer-songwriter.”

Jonghyun seemed shocked to hear his response. Though Minhyun supposed that that was fair enough, stereotypically, Ravenclaws were more inclined to become academics or ministry workers than musicians.

“Yeah, that was when I was younger though, I know now that it’s not very realistic and I moved on.”

“I don’t think it’s unrealistic, you still could do it if you wanted.”

“Nah, I’m over it now anyway, it’s not really something I can see myself doing anymore. Though I do still write lyrics from time to time when inspiration hits.”

Jonghyun was visibly impressed after hearing Minhyun’s admission. At first, he had been surprised by a young Minhyun’s aspirations though on second thought, it seemed to make more sense. From the last few days, he had already gathered that Minhyun enjoyed reading and many of the books on his bookshelf were literature or poetry. And then another thought occurred to Jonghyun.

“Is that what you were writing in your notebook during arithmancy?” He slightly regretted the words as he said them, afraid that it was too prying. But fortunately, other than looking slightly surprised, Minhyun didn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, I hadn’t realised you had noticed, but yeah, it was.”

“They must be pretty good.” Jonghyun said almost too quiet for Minhyun to hear.

“Aha I don’t know about that.” Minhyun rubbed at his neck self-consciously. He had never shown anyone else his lyrics before so he couldn’t really judge if they were good or not. “Perhaps I’ll show them to you one day and you can be the judge.”

Jonghyun’s face visibly brightened at hearing the suggestion. And seeing the way the Hufflepuff’s face lit up prevented Minhyun from regretting his words. If it made Jonghyun happy, he could put aside any of his embarrassment and let Jonghyun read his lyrics.

(Inwardly he thought that if it made Jonghyun happy, he could do anything.)

 “You said singer-songwriter though; you sing too?”

“Mhmm, a bit.” He admitted timorously I usually sing under my breath a lot, I’ve tried not to in the past few days with you around though.

“You didn’t have to stop on my account…” He felt a little bad that Minhyun had had to make changes to his habits because of him.

“I didn’t want to bother you with my constant singing. Aaron and Dongho always complained when I wouldn’t stop singing.”

“It wouldn’t bother me. I wouldn’t mind hearing you sing.” In fact, he really wanted to hear Minhyun sing. Feeling emboldened by their developing friendship, he asked Minhyun if he would sing to him.

Minhyun was a bit taken aback by the sudden request but he could never say no to Jonghyun. Clearing his throat lightly, he began to sing the first song that came to his head.

Jonghyun knew that he shouldn’t be as surprised as he was upon hearing Minhyun sing. Jonghyun was barely able to keep it together when just hearing Minhyun speak, let alone when he sang. His singing voice had a velvety smooth quality to it, slightly airy but beautiful. He imagined that this was what angels probably sounded like.  

Secretly Jonghyun wondered if Hwang Minhyun could be any more remarkable than he already seemed to be. As if he needed any more reasons to swoon for Minhyun. He had the good looks; an even better personality and he was multi-talented – Jonghyun was 100% gone for Hwang Minhyun already. 

“Anyway,” Minhyun said, desperate to move on from talking about himself anymore, “What are your plans for the future?”

“Like you, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought too much about it.”

“I suppose, with your skills and subject choices, you could be anything.”

“Except maybe potions master.” Jonghyun joked, making them both chuckling. “I had thought about being a mediwizard, but I’m not sure I can meet the potions requirement.”

“I can see that, I think you would make a great mediwizard.”

Jonghyun blushed lightly at the praise.

“And you’re not that bad at potions. No, really you’re not!” Minhyun proclaimed upon seeing Jonghyun’s disbelieving expression. “And if you want, I can keep helping you in potions, you’ve shown a lot of improvement already. With a bit more work, I’m sure you’ll manage to get the grade you need.”

Jonghyun was stunned by his words. He didn’t know how Minhyun could sound so confident when he had already seen Jonghyun in potions being a complete mess.

“Really? You think I can do it?”

“Definitely. I believe in you.”

The reassuring smile on Minhyun’s face told Jonghyun that this was something that Minhyun actually believed. And even if he still couldn’t quite believe himself, who was he to argue with Hwang Minhyun?

As patrol ended, the two of them headed back to the dorm, both of them far too ready for sleep. As they walked, they discussed what Minki planned to have them do during the next day seeing as he insisted that none of them do any studying. Neither of them quite knew what to expect from Minki.

They reached the dorm and today its Jonghyun was turn to shower first.

Once Jonghyun disappeared behind the shower curtain, Minhyun had to close his eyes and take a few deep breathes to calm down his own mind and prevent another situation like the previous two nights occurring. He secretly wonders if showering like this will every not be such a huge source of psychological turmoil for him. But considering that it is Jonghyun who was showering in his shower, he supposed that he will probably never get used to this.

As usual, it didn’t take Jonghyun too long to finish his shower. Minhyun made sure to divert his attention elsewhere as Jonghyun came out from behind the curtain. Not giving his imagination any material to work with, he quickly jumped into the shower the moment that Jonghyun had vacated it.

The hot water pouring over his body helped to sooth the hurricane of thoughts that flurried through his mind. He relaxed under the hot spray and tried as hard as he could to put all of his concerns out of his mind.

Jonghyun jumped when all of a sudden, Minhyun began to sing as he showered. It was barely louder than the sound of the shower but Jonghyun could hear it nonetheless. Jonghyun didn’t think that there were many sounds, if any at all, that could make him feel like he was floating on clouds, but Minhyun’s singing voice was definitely one of them.

A few moments later, Minhyun stepped out of the shower. He couldn’t help but notice a small rosy tinge which was making its way onto Jonghyun’s cheeks that made him seem utterly gorgeous. Minhyun reasoned that it was probably there as a result of the steam and the heat in the bathroom from Minhyun’s shower.

(It didn’t even occur to him that it could have been there because Jonghyun had been swooning over his voice and imagining having his deep yet soft voice murmuring endearments and sweet nothings into his ears as they found comfort in each other. In Minhyun’s mind, such unrealistic scenarios didn’t even occur to him.)

Both of them showered, they headed into bed. After having bid each other good night, Jonghyun lay staring up at the ceiling, in a state of wonderment. He had never thought that could be where he was now; he had never dared to imagine that he could have even ever held a conversation with Minhyun, yet in the past 3 days, he had already had multiple. They were even friends. And Jonghyun felt like Minhyun was already fast becoming a friend that he could trust.

Meanwhile Minhyun lay with his back facing Jonghyun, similarly mulling over their new friendship. Minhyun regretting not having the guts to talk to Jonghyun sooner. It was seventh year and soon they would all be going their separate ways once the year was over. He hoped that he would be able to keep this friendship with Jonghyun so that they wouldn’t have to part ways permanently after exams.  

Both of them overjoyed with the newfound friendship, they peacefully drifted off to sleep, ready to see where this new friendship would lead them. Both of them hoped that it could lead to something more, but both of them too afraid to hope, to initiate anything. After all, neither wanted to jeopardise their budding friendship.

Chapter Text

Jonghyun woke up the next morning encompassed in a foreign warmth. His barely awake mind vaguely registered the sound of sniggering coming from near the end of the bed as he snuggled closer to the warmth, burying his head deeper into his rather solid pillow. In fact, now that he thought about it, whatever his head was resting on was far more solid than he remembered his pillow ever being. He scrunched his nose in confusion but ultimately decided not to pay much attention to that state of his pillow.

Jonghyun felt a small gust of warm air fan his face as something warm and heavy came to rest across his waist.

“Don’t you think we should wake them up?” A voice said, it sounded suspiciously like Aaron.

“No way, where’s the fun in that?”

“But like, I’m don’t really fancy just standing here watching our friends cuddle each other…”

‘Wait what?’ suddenly Jonghyun’s mind jolted awake as he realised that those voices weren’t just his imagination. And if they weren’t his imagination, that meant that what they were say was true – Jonghyun stiffened as he realised that the warm mass he was pressed up against was Minhyun and that the pillow that he thought was too hard was actually Minhyun’s arm.

Jonghyun tried not to jostle about too much as he went into straight panic mode, the last thing he wanted was to have Minhyun wake up and find himself with Jonghyun right in his personal space. Slowly he opened his eyes, he almost squeaked when he found his face nuzzled into Minhyun’s neck. Bringing his gaze up, he almost screamed when he saw Minhyun’s equally shocked looking expression facing him, Minhyun’s perfect lips forming a perfect O-shape in surprise with eyes widened as he stared straight at Jonghyun in his arms.

Minhyun had woke up suddenly when the warmth pressed against his body had begun to move out of his grasp. He had jolted awake when his mind had realised exactly what, or rather who, was pressed up against him. Looking down at Jonghyun, he watched as the latter slowly opened his eyes and looked up to meet his own gaze.

The two of them lay there, staring at each other in total shock, before their friends noticed that they had awoken.

“Oh look the love birds have finally woken up!” Dongho declared loudly.

The sound of Dongho’s booming voice was enough to snap them both out of their stupor and they both hurried to scramble out of their embrace. But of course, in light of being caught cuddling with Minhyun in his sleep, Jonghyun clumsily scrambled perhaps a bit too far away. He ended up falling off the bed in his haste. But with both of them moving away from each other so frantically, Jonghyun falling off the bed made them far more than a metre away from each other.

Before he knew it, Jonghyun felt the tugging in his chest and in the next moment, he found himself with Minhyun lying on top of him, their noses brushing as Minhyun struggled to brace himself with his arms to keep him from completely squashing Jonghyun.

Minhyun could feel every single part of Jonghyun pressed against him, making his skin tingle at every point of contact. Being in such a position with Jonghyun essentially pinned down by his own weight made his own heart race. As quickly as he could, he jumped off Jonghyun before a situation could arise and before things could get too dangerous. Once he was stood up, he offered a hand to Jonghyun, who gripped it weakly as Minhyun helped him up. They both avoided each other’s eyes as they dusted themselves off.

By this point, their friends’ quiet snickers had turned into full hearty laughs at their friends’ expense.

“I mean, we all knew that this spell thing meant that you two were going to get close to each other,” Aaron commented in between bouts of laughter, “But we didn’t think that you would get this close.”

“Is there something you guys aren’t telling us?” Minki added slyly, wriggling his eyebrows in the process.

The two of them coloured considerably at the implication behind Minki’s words. It only took a second before they began to deny all accusations profusely, stuttering madly as they spoke.

“N-n-n-n-no, W-what are you t-talking about?” Jonghyun squeaked, still very embarrassed at being caught in such a comprising position.

“T-t-t-there’s nothing going on! We were just sleeping!” Minhyun stammered, inwardly panicking over the memory of having Jonghyun so close to him.

“It’s okay guys, you don’t have to hide anything from us.”

“We’re not going to judge you.”

“This is a very welcoming and accepting environment.”

Their friends took turns in getting them to blush, it was almost like a competition to see who could make them more embarrassed and awkward. Trust their friends to be annoying at every given opportunity. Jonghyun regretted ever letting Minki get close to Dongho and Aaron, together the three of them were an unstoppable force of mischief. Thank goodness they hadn’t become friends earlier.

Finally deciding to have some semblance of mercy, Aaron ushered Dongho and Minki out of the room before following them out himself.

“We’ll be out here waiting for you, so hurry up and get ready for breakfast!” Aaron shouted back to them as he left.

“And don’t do anything too frisky kids, we can hear you!” Minki chimed in. They could hear Dongho’s booming laugh trail off as the door to the bedroom closed.

“I hate that I ever told them the password to my room.” Minhyun sighed. Jonghyun merely grunted in agreement.

Not wanting to allow their friends to have anymore material to tease them with, they got cleaned up and changed in record time.

Because Jonghyun and Minhyun had woke up late that morning, their group were some of the last people to arrive down for breakfast. Consequently, they all had to squish together a bit more for them to all fit together on the bench. Jonghyun found himself sandwiched in between Dongho and Minhyun. He could have sworn he saw Minhyun glaring at Dongho as the latter sat down but Minhyun had turned away again before he could get a better look. It was probably just his imagination, he couldn’t think of anything Dongho could have done to make Minhyun uncharacteristically mad.

“So, what are we actually going to do today?” Dongho asked Minki as he reached across the table for another bread roll.

Minki hummed in contemplating before making a suggestion.

“We could go to Hogsmeade? Walk around a bit, have some butterbeer?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Jonghyun enthused, as the others nodded in agreement, all too busy stuffing their faces to properly respond.

As planned, after breakfast, they headed out of the castle and followed the gravelly path down to Hogsmeade. 

As they arrived in the village, they decided first to visit Zonko’s sweet shop, to stock up on their favourite snacks. Only a few minutes later, they left the shop, all of their wallets significantly lighter than when they went in. Then they proceeding to follow (or rather, be dragged by) Minhyun towards the bookshop, the Ravenclaw claiming that he could never visit Hogsmeade without visiting the bookshop.

Aaron, Dongho and Minki waited outside the small establishment as Minhyun and Jonghyun ventured inside by themselves. Jonghyun trailed after Minhyun as he paced up and down each aisle of the store searching for things that looked interesting that he didn’t already own. Every now and then, Minhyun would stop abruptly, reaching to grab a book of the shelf and inspect it, flick through the pages before either putting it back or adding it to the growing stack of books he already held in his arms. Jonghyun observed him secretly, his eyes sweeping over Minhyun’s tall frame, trailing over his chiselled jawline and admiring the way his hair flopped over his eyes as he studied the book in his hands.

No matter how often he did it, he could never tire of looking at Minhyun.

“Finally! I thought you two were never going to leave that shop.” Minki had exclaimed rather impatiently as the two of them exited the shop, Minhyun now weighed down significantly by his haul of books.

“We weren’t in there for that long!” Minhyun protested.

“You were in there for like, 15 minutes while we were out here standing waiting for you.” Aaron pointed out.

Minhyun had the decency to look sheepish; he hadn’t really realised exactly how much time had passed while he had perused through the shelves upon shelves of books. He felt a bit bad that he’d made his friends wait for him, but he justified it to himself by claiming that it was payback for all the times they picked on him.

Then it was Dongho’s turn to drag them all towards the quidditch supplies store, stating that he just needed to go see the newly released beater’s bat in person. They ended up walking away from the store shortly after with a sulking Dongho trailing after them, cursing to himself about how expensive the bat was.

After a bit more walking around and window shopping, the five of them went to claim a booth at The Three Broomsticks and within minutes each of them had a tankard of butterbeer in front of them.

At one point, Minhyun had (inevitably) managed to get the foam on his lips, but before he could even begin to be obnoxious about it, Dongho had pinned him with a sharp glare and threatened him with a hex if he even dared to think about trying to get one of them to wipe his lips for him. Minhyun hadn’t hesitated before grabbing a napkin and cleaning himself, and from then until he finished his drink, not a single bit of foam ended up on his lips.

But for Jonghyun that meant that his eyes were constantly drawn to the way Minhyun’s tongue would dart out of his mouth and lick over his lips after every single sip of butterbeer. Jonghyun was so distracted that by the time Minhyun had finished his drink, he himself had barely had a quarter of his own.

Turning back to the rest of his friends, he noticed Minki looking between him and Minhyun before stopping to give him a pointed look that told him that he would undoubtedly be pulled into a conversation about this later.

Not wanting to keep everyone else waiting, Jonghyun quickly down the rest of his drink, the warm liquid soothing his dry throat. With his eyes closed as he drank, he didn’t notice Minhyun’s heated gaze locked on the way his Adam’s apple bobbed every time he gulped. The moment he opened his eyes and placed the tankard back on the table, Minhyun’s eyes were already averted and staring off into the distance.

Their three friends looked at each other, all in agreement that their friends were true idiots.

After finishing their drinks, it was nearing time for them to be returning to the castle to be back before dinner.

By the time they got back to the castle, they had about an hour left before dinner and so decided to head up to Minhyun’s dorm to rest for a bit.

Upon arriving at his own common, Minhyun was so tired that he instantly rushed towards the sofa before jumping over the back of it, landing lengthways lying on his back. But in his haste to lie down on the soft cushions, he had neglected to realise that he had jumped rather far to land on the sofa and with Jonghyun already struggling to keep up with Minhyun who had all of a sudden half-ran to the sofa, they had well exceeded their one metre limit.

One moment, Minhyun was settling him into the soft cushions and then the next moment he was gasping in shock as all the air had just been forced out of him as Jonghyun had been pulled onto him harshly. It was similar to how they had landed earlier that morning, except this time, it was Jonghyun who lay on top of Minhyun.

“Guy, we know you’re all over each other and can’t wait to be all up in each other’s space, but we really don’t need to be here to witness it.” Minki remarked wryly as Aaron and Dongho laughed like hyenas at their friends who couldn’t seem to stop landing themselves in compromising positions.

Hurriedly, Jonghyun pushed himself off Minhyun, falling off the sofa in the process and landing on the soft carpet. Minhyun sat up to check if Jonghyun was okay and to attempt to apologise for not thinking about his actions, but Jonghyun waved him off before he could finish, claiming that he himself had squashed him before so they were technically even.

Minhyun went back to lying down on the sofa, closing his eyes to rest before dinner as Jonghyun sat on the floor by the sofa – with how tall Minhyun was, it wasn’t possible for him to also fit sitting next to him. Aaron and Minki followed suit and closed their eyes to nap on the two armchairs next to the long sofa.

Not of them feeling particularly sleepy, Jonghyun and Dongho passed the time by engaging each other in a game of Wizard’s chess. Neither of them being particularly good at the game, it was nice to not be judged by their opponent as they blundered around ordering their pieces in non-sensical moves. By the end of their game, their own pieces were practically yelling profanities at the two of them for how bad they were doing. As dinner approached, they decided just to give up on finishing the game, sparing the chess pieces any further trauma.

When the time for dinner rolled around, Dongho went to go wake Aaron and Minki while Jonghyun was tasked with rousing Minhyun. Being a light sleeper, it didn’t take much to wake Minhyun. Just the slightest shake of his leg made him sit up, eyes blinking blearily.

It took slightly longer to wake the other two, Aaron in particular, but they managed eventually and then proceeded to head down for dinner.

During dinner, Minki pulled Jonghyun in for a private conversation the moment they sound down, having already persuaded Aaron and Dongho earlier to distract Minhyun while he talks to his friend.

Jonghyun could tell that this conversation was not going to be fun for him.

“So, is he your ‘lover boy’ now?” Minki probed, referencing back to the conversation they had on the first day that Jonghyun had been stuck to Minhyun.

Jonghyun narrowed his eyes at his friend, unamused.

“No, he isn’t, and he will almost certainly never be.” Having to admit that fact stung a little, but it was better to accept it than to give himself false hope for something that would never happen.

 “‘Almost’?”

“Minki, drop it,” Jonghyun sighed, “it’s not going to happen, and there’s not anything you can do about it. We’re just friends.”

“Right… because ‘just friends’ end up snuggling up together in bed…”

“We were asleep! I can’t really control what happens in my sleep.”

“But apparently snuggling together is what your hearts want.”

Truthfully, Jonghyun couldn’t really argue too much with that one because it really was what his heart wanted. But not Minhyun’s. It couldn’t be what Minhyun’s heart wanted. Jonghyun knew that that was impossible. He knew that no matter how close they got over the next few days, they would probably only ever remain as friends.

He looked away from Minki, a forlorn expression marring his face.

“No. It isn’t. It is what both of our hearts want.”

Minki’s gaze filled with pity as he understood the meaning behind Jonghyun’s words. Personally, he thought that Jonghyun was wrong, but he knew better than to argue with his friend when he got like this. Jonghyun was so adamant that Minhyun didn’t have any romantic feelings for him and it broke Minki’s heart to see Jonghyun so torn up over it. He just wished that his friend could have more confidence in himself.

Deciding to drop the subject lest he make Jonghyun feel even worse, he slung an arm over Jonghyun’s shoulders, giving him a half hug before letting go to allow both of them to continue eating.

Minhyun could tell that something wasn’t quite right with Jonghyun. He had noticed the quiet conversation between Jonghyun and Minki during dinner, despite being lured into a conversation with Dongho and Aaron. While he hadn’t been able to hear any of what was said, he had seen the sadness that lingered on Jonghyun’s face when he had turned away from the Slytherin.

At first, he had thought that it must have been something that Minki had said, but as dinner went on, it seemed that that wasn’t the case. After a while, Jonghyun and Minki were talking and laughing together with Dongho and Aaron over whatever topics came to mind. So logically, Minhyun reasoned that the reason for Jonghyun’s sadness couldn’t have been something that Minki had said.

After dinner, the five of them headed up to Minhyun’s dorm to play through rounds of an extremely intense exploding snap tournament, Minhyun had almost forgotten about the forlorn expression that Jonghyun had had earlier. It wasn’t until everyone else had left for their own rooms to retire for the evening, leaving just the two of them, that that expression returned to Jonghyun’s face.

Minhyun had tried to ask if the other was okay but all he got in return was a tight-lipped smile and an unconvincing “yes, I’m fine”. Minhyun had learned over the past few days from Minki that Jonghyun really wasn’t the best at lying. He tended to avoid direct eye contact and look away whenever he lied – just as he was currently doing.

And Minhyun felt a stab in his chest when he realised that the only logical conclusion was that Jonghyun’s issue was with him. Why else would the Hufflepuff be fine joking around with the others one minute, and suddenly looking forlorn the moment he was left alone with Minhyun.

‘Perhaps he’s already tired of me.’ Minhyun thought. ‘Perhaps he regrets our friendship already.’

Later that night, during patrol, Jonghyun was still unable to shake off the cloud of despondency that hung over his head. The air between them was awkward again and filled with silence. There was no back and forth banter as they learned more about each other through 20 questions. There was no laughter echoing through the halls. They were just back to being two people who just happened to be stuck together.

Minhyun was convinced that he was the cause of Jonghyun’s despairing expression, that he had done something to upset or annoy Jonghyun.

‘Had I been too annoying? Loud? Clingy?’

Was Jonghyun perhaps embarrassed by him for causing them to be caught in multiple compromising positions that day? These thoughts plagued Minhyun’s mind, as he tried hard to rack his brain for a reason why Jonghyun was so distant all of a sudden.

The Hufflepuff had barely spoken to him since dinner and Minhyun noticed the shorter boy shying away from him, just as he had when they first found themselves in their current situation. It was as if Jonghyun had forgotten about the past few days where they had become friends and had reverted back to being a stranger in Minhyun’s life.

Minhyun couldn’t stand it. To have Jonghyun get so close to him and then suddenly have his treasured friendship seemingly dissolve back to nothing, as if it never existed, hurt Minhyun more than he could ever admit. Did their friendship even mean anything to Jonghyun? Or did it even ever exist in the first place?

“Jonghyun…?” Minhyun couldn’t stand not knowing what he had done. He had to know and see if he could fix things between them. The past couple of days had proved that they could be friends and he wasn’t about to give up quite so easily.

Minhyun only heard a small hum in acknowledgement from Jonghyun, the latter still not meeting his eyes.

“D-d-did I… do something wrong?” Minhyun asked hesitantly, unsure if the answer to his question would be something he would want to hear.

Jonghyun’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Did Jonghyun not even realise the cold shoulder he had been giving Minhyun?

In reality, Jonghyun was confused as to why Minhyun would think anything would be his fault. To Jonghyun, it was the fault of his own stupid head that couldn’t accept the truths of reality.

“You’ve been ignoring me since dinner…” Minhyun continued, sensing that Jonghyun wasn’t about to say anything any time soon. “…And I wanted to know if it was because of something I did… and I wanted to apologise if it was because something I did. Whatever it was, I swear I didn’t mean to upset you or anger you or anything—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Jonghyun mumbled quietly. Minhyun stopped suddenly at Jonghyun’s words. He almost hadn’t caught Jonghyun’s response as he had continued to ramble on.

Then it was Minhyun’s turn to be confused. If he hadn’t done anything wrong…

“T-then w-why have you been avoiding me?”

Jonghyun’s eyes widened at the hurt in Minhyun’s voice. He almost gasped audibly when he finally turned to meet Minhyun’s gaze. Stuck in a wretched mood of his own construction, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to face Minhyun until now. But now, seeing the hurt and confusion swirling in the depths of Minhyun’s eyes, Jonghyun wished he had looked up sooner and had spared Minhyun the feeling of guilt that was completely unfounded.

“I-I-I—” Jonghyun struggled to find the words to explain his own thoughts to Minhyun without completely exposing himself. He was desperate to make amends with Minhyun and assure him that nothing had been his fault, that this was just Jonghyun being Jonghyun. “I’m sorry, i-it… I didn’t—I just— It wasn’t anything you did, I j-just had some thoughts g-going t-through my head that bothered me… I’m s-sorry f-for avoiding you.”

“W-was it s-something about me?”

“Huh?”

“The things going through your head… was it about me? Because you weren’t avoiding anyone else… just me.”

Jonghyun knew that he couldn’t lie to Minhyun, and not just because the other would see right through him, but also because Minhyun deserved at least some of the truth.

“Y-yeah, it was.”

The idea that thoughts about Minhyun himself caused Jonghyun so much distress that the latter had been in a slump and had avoided him since dinner made Minhyun feel sick. Was even just the thought of him so repulsive? Was he so unbearable? Minhyun could feel the bile rising in his throat as he struggled to hold back the tears that were forming in his eyes.

Jonghyun hadn’t realised how his words had come out until a few moments later. Panicked, he stopped suddenly, pulling Minhyun to stop also. The taller boy was staring at the ground, completely avoiding Jonghyun’s eyes – a stark contrast to the Minhyun he knew who would never fail to maintain eye contact at all costs. But Jonghyun, being a fair bit shorter, could still see Minhyun’s face. His felt a pang in his heart as he watched Minhyun blink back the tears pooling in his eyes.

“Y-y-y-you d-don’t have to explain yourself, Jonghyun. Don’t worry, it’s okay. If even just the thought of me repulses you—” Minhyun stuttered shakily, his voice cracking with emotion.

“No no no no no, that’s not—I didn’t mean it like that! You don’t repulse me, not at all.” Jonghyun tried to explain. He was cursing himself for letting this whole situation get so out of hand that he had made Minhyun believe that Jonghyun found him repulsive when the truth was that he was far far far from repulsive to Jonghyun.

Still not able to look up from his feet, Minhyun let out a noise of confusion.

“If not that, then… what was it?” he asked in a small voice.

Jonghyun took a deep breath as he gathered his courage. With the way this conversation was turning out, there was no way that he not tell Minhyun anything and expect things to be okay. But he could hardly tell Minhyun the real reason for why he had been so despondent.

He could hardly tell Minhyun that the reason that he had been so torn up on the inside was because every moment he spent with Minhyun was a reminder that they could never be anything more than friends. While he had come to realise that Minhyun wasn’t the picture-perfect person that Jonghyun had thought he was, it wasn’t as if Minhyun wasn’t still extremely handsome and smart and brilliant and everything that he himself wasn’t. They could never be a match for each other. It would be like wearing a pair of ratty trainers with your best suit. It was an image full of contradictions. A combination of two things which should never mix.

How could he tell Minhyun that it wasn’t him that he found repulsive, but that it was himself who he found more repulsive?

But he had to tell Minhyun something. He wasn’t about to let their friendship be so short-lived.

“I…” He hesitated before continuing, “I started to think that maybe you thought having me around 24/7 was getting tiresome. I really value our friendship and I didn’t want to be a burden to you.”

It wasn’t a total lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. Though it got Minhyun to finally look back at him, eyes still glistening wet with unshed tears.

Minhyun was slightly relieved to hear that Jonghyun valued their friendship, that Minhyun hadn’t just been making up their camaraderie in his head for the past few days. But he also wondered if maybe he could have done anything to prevent Jonghyun from thinking that he could ever be a burden to him. To Minhyun, the words “burden” and “Jonghyun” could never be associated with one another.

“I do too. Value our friendship, I mean.” Minhyun assured the Hufflepuff, “And I could never see you as a burden. Never.”

A tension that Jonghyun didn’t know that he had been feeling relaxed inside him at Minhyun’s assurances. To hear Minhyun say that he cared about the relationship that they had developed over the past few days put some of Jonghyun’s concerns to rest.

Jonghyun felt a small smile worm its way onto his face and the sight of it made a grin tug at Minhyun’s own lips.

“I’m sorry for overreacting.” Minhyun apologised tentatively.

“I probably would have done the same in your place. I’m sorry for avoiding you and making you think that you repulsed me or that I didn’t want you around.”

“So, are we good?”

“Yeah. We’re good.”

They stood in the middle of the empty corridor grinning at each other before they continued on with the patrol. Both of them feeling better about where they stood with each other. As friends.

When they went to sleep that night, they made sure to sleep as far from each other as possible. Just to avoid any more awkward situations.

The distance between them made Jonghyun feel a bit cold. The large size of the bed only served to emphasise the distance between them. But he reminded himself that it was for the best. Keeping his distance was good.

It was better for both of them in the long term if he didn’t get too close. He could be friends, he could settle for friendship.

He could allow himself to be the moth chasing after the sun, trapped in an endless pursuit but never quite getting to where it wanted to be. But he could never let himself be the weed amongst a bed of beautiful flowers, loitering somewhere it didn’t belong. That was exactly what he couldn’t be, the persistent and annoying weed that sprawled across all the places it wasn’t wanted.

He would settle for being the admirer for, unlike Minhyun, he had never been someone worth admiring.

Chapter Text

Thankfully, the next morning, they did not wake up with their friends surrounding them. They did not wake up tangled together (though if you asked Minhyun, he would probably say that he was far less thankful for that).

They got ready for the day and trudged down to breakfast in relative silence, both of them a little worn out from patrolling. Part of the way down to the great hall, they met up with Aaron, who was considerably more awake than either of them, and the three of them plonked themselves down at the Ravenclaw table. It wasn’t long before Minki came up to join them. It took considerably longer until Dongho made it to breakfast, but that had almost always been the case anyway; that wasn’t surprising.

“I see you two managed to make you way down on time this morning.” Dongho noted as he sat himself down. “No more early morning cuddle sessions?”

The teasing went ignored by Minhyun and Jonghyun, both of them having come to the realisation that responding would just spur their friends on even more.

“We’ll take your silence as an admission of guilt.” Aaron snickered.

The rest of breakfast continued in a quiet fashion, all of them too tired and feeling the Monday blues to be all that talkative so early in the morning.

After breakfast, Jonghyun and Minhyun made the short trip up to the third floor for Jonghyun’s arithmancy class.

Minhyun was mostly zoned out during that hour. He had essays he could be working on but they weren’t too urgent and could wait. So instead he spent his time deep in thought.

A lot had happened in the past couple of days and he had barely had time to mentally process any of it.

Firstly, and most importantly, he could finally call Jonghyun his friend – a fact that he still could barely believe. But also, as the days went by, the more he actually spoke to Jonghyun, the more confident he was becoming about them and where they stood with each other.

From the start, he had been scared to come off as a creepy stalker and given that he had spent a good proportion of his school life admiring the Hufflepuff boy, it was a legitimate concern. And all this time he had been so scared of what Jonghyun might think of him that he had held himself back from revealing so much about himself for fear of what Jonghyun might think of him. But if he really thought about it, if Jonghyun didn’t like these sides of his personality and couldn’t deal with them, should he really still want to be friends?

But fortunately, as time went on and he and Jonghyun opened themselves up to one another more, he came to realise that perhaps Jonghyun had maybe been more… flattered (?) than creeped out. Well, that was if the blushing on Jonghyun’s cheeks were any sort of indication. It wasn’t much to go on and it wasn’t something he hadn’t really considered before but for the first time, he let himself have a slight glimmer of hope that maybe their friendship could blossom into something more.

Arithmancy came and went faster than either of them thought it would. It seemed that within in no time at all, they were making their way down to the potions dungeons.

“Ughhhh… Why do we have to have double potions?” Jonghyun complained, “And on a Monday of all days.”

Minhyun patted his shoulder sympathetically, and the brief contact sent Jonghyun’s spine tingling.

“Why do they like to torture us like this Minhyunnie…?” Jonghyun questioned morosely.

Minhyun paused for a moment upon hearing Jonghyun’s words.

“M-Minhyunnie?” He asked flustered.

Jonghyun must have uttered the nickname without thinking about it or meaning to do so, because in the next moment, Jonghyun turned that familiar shade of red that he tended to do whenever he was embarrassed.

“I, uh, I guess it just slipped out, sorry…” Jonghyun apologised.

“It’s fine.” Minhyun rushed to assure him. Truthfully, the sound of such a cute and affectionate nickname falling from Jonghyun’s lips sent his heart beating furiously. He wouldn’t be surprised if he himself were also a blushing mess. “I don’t mind it. Actually, I quite like it.” He added boldly.

After all the reasoning he had done with himself earlier in Arithmancy, he had decided once and for all that now that he had the chance to, he would finally try and make this friendship work. No more skirting around each other like strangers. It was time to become real friends.

Jonghyun looked more comforted and relaxed upon hearing Minhyun’s reassurance that the nickname was fine and was actually welcome.

“But,” Minhyun began, and he saw Jonghyun visibly tense a little at the interjection, “You have to let me give you a nickname too.”

He watched as Jonghyun relaxed, though not completely.

“You want to give me a nickname?” Jonghyun questioned as if his ears were deceiving him.

“Yeah. It’s only fair don’t you think? A nickname for a nickname.” Minhyun wasn’t quite sure why he felt the need to make such a deal out of this. Actually, maybe he did. Call him deluded but the idea of the two of them calling each other cute nicknames made his heart flutter, and it made them seem more… together and friendly.

“Well… Okay then.” And at last Jonghyun relaxed fully once more. “So, what’s my nickname?”

Minhyun thought for a moment. He didn’t want to make the wrong choice, he needed something good, something that would stick. But his mind was drawing blanks.

“I’ll get back to you later about that. I’m going to have to think about it a bit more.”

Jonghyun huffed in mild annoyance.

“Well that’s hardly fair… making me wait…” Jonghyun whined playfully.

“I’ll try to make it worth the wait then.” Minhyun assured him with a charming smile on his face.

A smile that made Jonghyun feel weak at the knees.

For the rest of their long journey down to the potions dungeons, they walked together in companionable and comfortable silence.

Minhyun was too busy racking his brains for a good nickname for Jonghyun that he didn’t have any more brain power to spare for conversation. Not that Jonghyun minded of course, he was content with simply being by Minhyun’s side, in his company.

They spent potions making… something. Jonghyun had no idea. He merely followed the instructions that Minhyun read out to him, pretending to understand exactly what was happening. In his defence, he did try to understand, but it wasn’t his fault he was simply awful at potions. He’d just have to try and get Minhyun to explain everything again to him slower later on. Frankly, there wasn’t enough lesson time for Minhyun teach him effectively. He was just that hopeless, regardless of whatever protest the Ravenclaw would make if he heard Jonghyun saying that about himself.

“Hey Jonghyun, do we have any ashwinder eggs around?” Minhyun asked with his eyes fixed upon the potion method in his textbook.

“Uhhh…” Jonghyun did a quick scan of their workspace and could not see the eggs in question. “I don’t think so. Hold on, I’ll just go get some.”

Jonghyun barely took a step away before he felt Minhyun’s hand on his wrist pulling him back and stopping him from moving any further.

He had totally forgotten that they were stuck together. He had gotten so used to having Minhyun around, gotten so comfortable with that idea, that he had completely forgotten that they literally couldn’t be apart from each other.

Jonghyun looked from the hand gripping his wrist up to meet Minhyun’s wide-eyed stare.

Before Jonghyun could say anything, Minhyun let out a low chuckle with his eyes crinkling into familiar crescents.

“Sorry,” he said as he let go of Jonghyun’s wrist, “I just figured we probably didn’t need to be creating an incident in the middle of class.”

“Aha…” Jonghyun laughed awkwardly, embarrassed that he had forgotten the predicament that they were in.

“Cute…” Minhyun murmured quietly, as if it was only meant for him to hear. But Jonghyun heard and he tried to will his heart to calm down before he went into cardiac arrest.

“Come on, let’s go to the store cupboard together.” Minhyun suggested.

In an attempt to hide his flushed face from further scrutiny, Jonghyun turned suddenly and powered towards the store cupboard, trusting that Minhyun would make an effort to keep up with his pace.

Reaching the store cupboard, he flung open the door and immediately spied the ashwinder eggs on the middle shelf near the door. Unhesitatingly, he grabbed the amount that they required and sped back out of the room before Minhyun could even step foot in the store room.

Once they had returned back to their workbench, Jonghyun tried to look immersed in the potions textbook that they were sharing, but with Minhyun staring at him so… fondly, it made focussing on an already boring subject, even harder.

After a while, he felt Minhyun’s gaze finally shift away from him and back to their potion and he released a breath that he didn’t realise that he had been holding in. Having Minhyun look at him like that… so intently and softly… it was scary. Scary, because it gave him hope. And hope was a dangerous thing.

The rest of potions passed without any incident, which Jonghyun was grateful for. And so, it after the two hours finally came to an end, Jonghyun found himself almost running from the dungeons and towards the great hall. As he sped towards the hall, he registered Minhyun’s loud and melodic laughter echoing through the halls as the Ravenclaw scrambled to keep up with Jonghyun’s brisk pace.

It took almost no time at all for the two of them to find themselves at the Ravenclaw table, where their friends were already waiting for them.

“Jju, did you really have to walk so quickly?” Minhyun asked, slightly out of breath from walking so quickly whilst laughing.

But before Jonghyun could formulate an appropriate response, one part of Minhyun’s question stuck out to him.

“Jju?”

Minhyun seemed to look confused.

“Huh? What?”

“’Jju’, that’s what you called me right now, wasn’t it?” Jonghyun attempted to clarify.

“No…? I said ‘Jonghyun’, didn’t I?” Minhyun looked deep in thought as he backtracked through their conversation in his mind.

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter either way.” Minhyun declared after another moment of thinking, “But I’ve decided what my nickname for you is going to be now.” he added.

“’Jju’?” Jonghyun asked, a little sceptically.

“Yeah! It suits you. It’s cute.”

And there was that word again. ‘Cute’. If Jonghyun wanted to keep living he would seriously need Minhyun to stop calling him that.

“Whatever…” he grumbled down at his plate.

 “How cute, look at that guys, they’re already working out cute pet names for one another.” Aaron teased.

“They grow up so fast.” Minki chimed in whilst pretending to wipe tears from his eyes.

All this time, their friends had been watching the exchange with curiosity and intrigue painted clearly on their faces. Their eyes widened in sync when they heard Minhyun call Jonghyun cute. They could hardly believe their ears. Were their friends perhaps, finally, at long last, getting their shit together?

They tried to not let themselves hope too much. With friends like theirs, they knew that there was still a long way to go before the two of them actually got anywhere.

Much to their relief and pleasure, after lunch, both Minhyun and Jonghyun had a free afternoon.

It was an uncharacteristically warm and sunny day that day so the five of them opted to go outside and enjoy the sun while it lasted. They dumped their bags underneath the large, bushy, oak tree by the lake, before settling themselves down in the shade.

“Aren’t you really warm?” Minhyun asked as he turned to Jonghyun and curiously eyed the many layers that Jonghyun was wearing.

“Hmm a little, but it’s okay.” Jonghyun replied.

Minhyun could tell that Jonghyun was probably a little warmer than he was letting on, with the light flush on his face giving him away. It was cute though, he thought, Jonghyun’s rosy cheeks always were.

Upon making himself comfortable on the grass, Minki immediately diverted his attention towards the lake.

“Hey Jonghyun, remember that incident you had with the giant squid in 4^th year?” Minki asked teasingly.

Jonghyun groaned as he buried his head in his hands and began to turn even more red from the mortification of remembering that day.

“Ugh don’t remind me, I still can’t believe I went along with you on that. I had to get a whole new pair of shoes thanks to you.” He grumbled.

“A bet is a bet.” Minki said by way of explanation.

“Wait what’s this about?” Aaron asked out of curiosity.

“Nothing you need to know about.” Jonghyun replied before Minki could say anything. The latter instantly snapped his mouth shut when Jonghyun shot him a piercing glare that just screamed “Don’t you dare, or there will be consequences”.

“Aww come on, it can’t be that bad that you can’t tell us about it.” Aaron tried to wheedle the story out of them but to no avail. Jonghyun was too tight-lipped and Minki was a good friend (who was very aware that sometimes Jonghyun could be a little scary in times of anger).

“Surely it’s not as bad or embarrassing as the time that Minhyun tried one swig of firewhisky and we found him 15 minutes later curled up on his bed, getting a little too cosy with a cleaning broom.” Dongho reasoned.

“Hey!” Minhyun interjected, face flushed from being exposed so plainly by his friend.

Everyone other than Minhyun burst into laughter at his expense, the mental image being too much for them to handle.

“I can’t believe you’re such a lightweight, Minhyun.” Minki snorted disbelievingly.

“Is that why you got into quidditch?” Aaron interjected as he raised his eyebrows suggestively, “I mean I know you said you liked riding broomsticks, but this isn’t what I thought you meant…”

Aron yelped as Minhyun reached over to roughly hit his arm in reprimand for his crude comment. Everyone else sniggered in response.

“And who would have thought, the much sought-after Hwang Minhyun’s ideal type is actually cleaning equipment?” Dongho chimed in gleefully.

“All those girls would surely be so disappointed.” Jonghyun joined in the teasing.

“And what about you?” Minhyun couldn’t help but ask.

“Huh? What about me?” Jonghyun asked.

“Would you be disappointed?” Minhyun asked with his eyes gazing intently at Jonghyun.

Jonghyun couldn’t work out what Minhyun was trying to get out of asking the question and really, he didn’t know how he should best answer either.

“I…”

“Trying to stroke your own ego are we, Minhyun?” Minki suddenly interrupted, joking without malice, and Jonghyun was glad and relieved that he wouldn’t have to answer the strange question. “Your big head doesn’t need to get any bigger.”

And now, with Minhyun indignantly protesting that his head was in fact not all that big, the conversation was safely steered back to safer, and less strange, topics. Internally, Jonghyun was thanking the universe for providing him with friends like Choi Minki.

An hour later, the bell rang and echoed throughout the castle grounds, signalling the end of the previous lesson. Aaron, Minki, and Dongho took it as their cue to leave as all three of them were not as fortunate as Jonghyun or Minhyun to have the whole afternoon off.

“I wish I didn’t have another lesson.” Dongho complained as he stood to leave, “I want a free afternoon too.”

“Well, we’re only free because we have astronomy this evening,” Minhyun reasoned as he gathered the textbooks he had been studying from, “and I don’t know about you, but I would rather have a lesson now, than have to stay up to try and stay awake during astronomy.”

“… point taken.”

And before the second bell could ring to signal to start of the next lesson, their friends scurried off to their lessons, leaving the two of them alone.

They spent the next hour amicably, with each of them working on various essays that they had been assigned, and exchanging comfortable conversation whenever they took a break to rest their hands.

It was a far from the awkward tension that had always been present a few days ago. Now, all of the awkwardness and tension was replaced with congeniality and a lighter atmosphere – one you would typically find between good friends.

Before they knew it, the end of the school day was upon them, and shortly after bell rang to signal its end, they were once again joined by their three friends – and with them, the loudness and liveliness also returned.

Tired of all the studying the five of them had done, and in Minhyun and Jonghyun’s case, not wanting to be too worn out for astronomy, they decided to forego anymore studying for the rest of the day, opting to just sit in the shade and relax.

Time almost seemed to pass by faster when the five of them found themselves joking around and getting to know each other better. After all, it wasn’t just the friendship between Jonghyun and Minhyun which had been building in the past few days. At this point, their groups of friends had seemingly merged seamlessly – the five of them got along tremendously, almost as if they had always been friends.

Minki, ever the social butterfly, had taken almost no time at all to befriend Dongho and Aaron. Though while he wasn’t particularly close with Minhyun just yet, it was never uncomfortable between them.

Dongho and Aaron had heard enough gushing about Jonghyun from Minhyun that it felt like they already knew the Hufflepuff boy. And for Jonghyun, the two of Minhyun’s friends were nothing but nice and welcoming, making him feel more at ease as he and Minhyun fumbled around trying to make their current situation work.

There wasn’t much the five of them could be sure about in terms of their futures at this point, seventh year was always going to be hectic, but from just a few days together, all of them could already tell that even after the week was up for Jonghyun and Minhyun, it wouldn’t be the end for the five of them.

Night was upon them faster than they thought it would be. As the moon rose higher and higher in the night sky, and the stars began to shine through the wispy cloud cover, Minhyun and Jonghyun climbed up the stairs up to the astronomy tower.

“Why—do there—have to be—so many—stairs?” Jonghyun huffed when they reached the top.

“Perhaps you just need to exercise more. Then you could be as in-shape as me.” Minhyun teased good-naturedly. Looking over at him, Jonghyun noticed that he looked far less worn out than he was.

“No thanks, I’d rather not.” Jonghyun grumbled under his breath. As far as he was concerned, sports and exercise were the work of the devil and something he’d rather not expend his energy doing. That energy could be better spent indoors with a good game like the ones he had back home.

Minhyun laughed at Jonghyun’s grumpiness. But as Jonghyun flung out an arm to whack Minhyun playfully across the stomach to get him to stop laughing, Jonghyun couldn’t help but be ever so slightly less resentful of exercise when the back of his hand was met with a solid wall of abs that tensed and contracted as Minhyun laughed.

“It’s a good day to star gaze.” Minhyun noted as he began to label up some of the stars they had plotted on their map. The professor had set them on drawing an accurate and labelled map of the night sky.

Jonghyun hummed in agreement as he bent down to look through the telescope.

“Yeah, a cloudless night is the best for astronomy.”

Pulling back from the telescope, Jonghyun leaned over to where Minhyun was sat next to the telescope to inspect their half-finished map.

“Cassiopeia.” He read as Minhyun labelled up said constellation.

“My favourite constellation.” Minhyun remarked with a slight smile on his face.

“I can tell.” Jonghyun replied, “It’s the password to your room. Why do you like it so much?” Jonghyun continued to ask.

“It’s a bit of an irrational fondness I guess. Started when I was young and out stargazing with my older sister and she pointed it out to me. The five brightest stars form a ‘W’ shape, and she said if I looked at it another way, it’s an ‘M’ for ‘Minhyun’. Since then, it’s been my favourite constellation.”

As Minhyun spoke, he looked up to the constellation in question, and Jonghyun felt his breath being snatched from his lungs as the stars reflected in Minhyun’s eyes, making him look more ethereal than usual.

Minhyun laughed embarrassedly as he ducked his head and shied away from the sky as he turned back to their map.

“It’s a little silly I guess, but it’s just stuck with me.”

“It’s not silly.” Jonghyun assured him in an attempt to make Minhyun feel a bit less embarrassed.

“Aha thanks.” Minhyun shot him a grateful look through the hair that flopped over his forehead – the hair that Jonghyun had to resist the urge to brush out of the way. Jonghyun took a step and sat himself down next to Minhyun, but instead of acting on his impulses he began to help Minhyun label up their map.

Minhyun’s eyes had followed Jonghyun as he moved and he couldn’t help but notice the way the Jonghyun’s arm would brush against his own every time the Hufflepuff reached out to add another label. His arm tingled at every point of contact and the sensation was so addicting that Minhyun didn’t want to move away.

So, he didn’t. The two of them stayed pressed lightly together for as long as they worked, neither of them bothering to move away.

Neither of them wanting to move away.

Chapter Text

Jonghyun woke up the next morning feeling unusually well rested for a stressed-out student in their 7^th year. He figured that he could probably attribute at least some part of that to the new-found sense of calmness and familiarity that was increasingly becoming associated with being around Minhyun. Of course, it wasn’t that Minhyun was anything resembling calm all the time, but the more time that they spent together getting to know each other, the more at ease Jonghyun became in the other’s presence.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that just the thought of being within a 5-metre radius of Hwang Minhyun would have set Jonghyun’s nerves totally on edge, but now? Well, his nerves still acted up – he didn’t think that would ever change – but it was less because of stress and panic-induced reasons. Those feelings of skittish, jumpy, nervousness had faded somewhat, leaving just the fluttering nerves that came with feeling perhaps too much fondness than he reasonably should.

But that was a different matter entirely. One that he was determined not to address for the time being.

He put such thoughts out of his mind as he blinked away the heaviness of his eyelids as he slowly dragged himself away from the land of peaceful slumber.

“Good morning.” Minhyun chirped happily from beside him, making Jonghyun almost jump out of bed in surprise.

Willing his heart to beating at a normal pace, he turned to face Minhyun, noticing that he was already sitting up and reading some book that he couldn’t see the title of.

“Morning,” he greeted in return, “you’re up early.” He noted once he saw that it was only 7am and Minhyun seemed as if he’d already been awake for quite some time.

“I tend to be up early on the day of a quidditch match.” Minhyun explained.

“But the game isn’t until much later.”

“I’m usually too excited for the match to be able to sleep in much regardless of what time the game starts.” He responded with a slight chuckle.

Jonghyun huffed in amusement as he sat himself up while Minhyun put away his book.

Without the need for words, the two of them were easily able to get themselves through their morning routine and down to breakfast as if they weren’t at all hindered by the fact that they were magically bound to one another. It had only been a few days since the incident but already they acted like a well-oiled machine, getting things done without any hassle or fuss.

The day passed normally, with nothing particularly out of the ordinary interrupting them. Though Jonghyun did notice that Minhyun seemed to be practically thrumming with energy for much of the day. His eyes constantly darted to and from any clock that he came across, and any time they were near a window that over looked the quidditch pitch, his eyes would linger as he stared anticipatingly at the empty pitch as if already watching a game play out in his mind.

If Jonghyun had any doubt that Minhyun was a quidditch fanatic before, watching the way that Minhyun sprang from his seat at the end of the day, desperate to leave, would have convinced him. In fact, had they not been bound together, Jonghyun would be willing to bet that Minhyun would have all but sprinted towards his room to drop off his bag before rushing down to the pitch to get the best seats.

But instead of sprinting away, Minhyun stood by Jonghyun’s desk bouncing on his toes out of excitement as he patiently waited for Jonghyun to gather his things as quickly as he could. Not wanting to make Minhyun wait for much longer, Jonghyun made sure to be as fast as possible to keep up with the energetic pace that Minhyun was working at.

Jonghyun couldn’t bring himself to complain though, for as difficult as it was to keep up with Minhyun when he buzzed with so much energy, it was equal amounts of endearing to watch as Minhyun’s eyes lit up with joy when they reached the pitch, and when a blinding pleased grin formed on his face as they managed to secure seats right by the side of the pitch which would allow them an unobstructed view of the game.

Jonghyun let Minhyun run his mouth off about all the players and how he thought the game could pan out. He tried as much as possible to pay attention to what Minhyun was saying about  who was on good form, who had what weakness and how it would affect the game and whatever else Minhyun deemed would be a deciding factor in who won the game, followed by a lengthy commentary on why of course the Ravenclaw team was the best and would utterly thrash everyone (no offense, of course).

For the most part, Jonghyun let Minhyun ramble, knowing that the other just needed someone to talk at and didn’t actually require any input for him to keep going, but occasionally he would ask a few questions and make some comments to show that he was very much listening and trying to understand everything the other was saying. The amount of information that Minhyun was piling on him at speed was making his head spin but it was worth trying to get his head around it if he got to see Minhyun’s eyes gleam in enthusiasm every time Jonghyun made it obvious that he was still very much listening and paying attention.

Towards the end of the information overload, Minhyun had even thanked Jonghyun for letting him go on and on about stuff that he realised to most people wasn’t very interesting. Apparently, Aaron couldn’t handle Minhyun’s endless tirades quite as well as Jonghyun could.

Minki and Aaron had insisted that they didn’t need to save them any seats in the stands. Jonghyun had been confused at the time, wondering why their friends wouldn’t want to sit with them but now, it seemed that maybe Aaron had taken the opportunity to not have his ears overloaded with the sound of Minhyun’s voice. Minki, on the other hand, had mumbled some off-handed comment about them not wanting to be 3^rd and 4^th wheels that Jonghyun chose to pointedly ignore.

The game began shortly after, promptly and on-time.

Jonghyun didn’t usually pay much attention in the games he had attended previously. In all honestly, he found it difficult to stay focused as he found himself more drawn towards watching Minhyun watch the game with rapt attention. Besides, it was almost a long-standing tradition that he spent more time watching Minhyun than watching what was actually happening in the game. It had always been that way whenever he had gone to games in the past, especially when Minhyun used to play – after those, he could tell you exactly what Minhyun had done but literally nothing relating to anyone else.

He was just lucky that Minhyun was too focused on the game to catch him not paying attention to what he should have been more than half the time. Of course, he did manage to concentrate on the actual game from time to time but it usually took more effort than it should have done for him to bring himself to focus on it.  

About an hour of gameplay later, both teams were tied. It had been a long back and forth of one team gaining a 10-point lead and then the other side scoring a goal or two before the other team caught up or gained the lead again. Jonghyun could only imagine how tense the players on the field were. But before he could even realise it, everyone in the Ravenclaw stands where they were sat were up and out of their seats yelling in celebration as their seeker caught the snitch. Jonghyun winced at the unexpected loudness of the deafening cheers.

Then without any warning, he felt himself being dragging up out of his own seat and Minhyun’s waiting arms as the latter brought them into a hug and exclaimed his joys over the Ravenclaw win directly into his ear. Jonghyun didn’t know if Minhyun did it intentionally or if it was just a spur of the moment thing but perhaps he would have to watch more quidditch matches with Minhyun in the future if after Ravenclaw win, Minhyun would pull him into a celebratory hug.

But before he could savour the feeling for too long, Minhyun pulled away, coughing awkwardly as the realisation of what his impulses had led him to do caught up with him. Jonghyun sends a soft smile his way, just to make sure that Minhyun knows it’s okay, there’s no need to feel bad about it or anything and Minhyun returns it before they both get swept out of the stadium with the rest of the jubilant crowd.

It was all Minhyun could talk about over dinner. Between bites of food, he regaled in giving them all a play by play run down of the match they all just watched, highlighting how wonderful his house team are, much to Dongho’s annoyance, and points of the game he found particularly enthralling. Perhaps it was because they found him easy to tune out that none of the others bothered trying to get him to shut up. Not even Jonghyun could bring himself to truly listen to Minhyun’s rambles this time. Once or twice, Dongho looked like he was going to say something, but he always seemed to give up last minute and let Minhyun go on.

“Better just to let him get it out of his system.” Jonghyun heard the Gryffindor mutter to himself.

It turned out that Dongho was right, since the moment that Minhyun ended his detailed retelling of the game, he instantly then went on to ask about what everyone was planning to do later, as if he hadn’t just been prattling away to an audience that wasn’t paying attention.

Things returned to normal after that, or as normal as things were ever going to get, as the five of them talked about how their days had been aside from the game. The four of them, excluding Minhyun, did most of the conversing though, leaving the latter to actually get around to eating his dinner.

Despite the fact that the game was already long over by that point and he had already gotten all the rambling out of his system, an exuberant aura still surrounded Minhyun and continued to do so well into the evening and didn’t leave him right until the point he fell asleep that night utterly exhausted by the thrill that a simple game of quidditch gave him.  

Chapter Text

Minhyun blinked his eyes open blearily as he woke up the next morning. Slowly, Jonghyun’s still sleeping form came into focus and he felt a smile worm its way on to his face as a natural reaction to the peaceful expression on Jonghyun’s face.

He trailed his eyes over the soft contours of Jonghyun’s face, from his fluffy hair that drooped over his forehead, over his closed eyes and eyelashes that fanned out over his cheeks, and down to his plush lips that looked they would feel like clouds against his own if he ever got the privilege of kissing them.

Jonghyun’s lips parted suddenly as he let out a breathy sigh before reaching up with his hand to rub away the sleep from the corner of his eyes. Minhyun kept his gaze entirely focused on Jonghyun, right up until the moment when Jonghyun sat up suddenly, still tightly hugging a bundle of the duvet close to his chest and opening his eyes sleepily. A small lock of hair near the front of Jonghyun’s head was flicked up and out of direction with the rest of Jonghyun’s hair and for some unfathomable reason, Minhyun found it simply adorable.

Jonghyun suddenly turned around to face him and when he saw that he too was awake, he curled his lips up and greeted him good morning with a deep and grumbly timbre that came with having just woken up. Minhyun returned the sentiment readily before joining Jonghyun in a sitting position.

After so many days already of waking up together, their morning routine was well practised, and they were able to get ready and get down to breakfast without a single hitch. If Minhyun really thought about it, it was surprising to him how quickly and easily the two of them had been able to integrate into each other’s lives.

Six days ago, they were little more than just classmates to one another right up until the point that they got hit by that spell. It felt like some distant time in the past when they were still trying to work out how to get through their days without being able to leave each other’s side, but now it just felt natural as if it had always been this way. Now, he was faced with the reality that by tomorrow, Jonghyun would no longer have any reason to stick by his side all the time.

There would be no more reason for them to hang out so much anymore, no more reason for Jonghyun to sit right next to him on the bench in the great hall, no more reason for the first sight to bless him in the morning to be Jonghyun’s sleeping form. He had no doubt that he would miss the other’s constant presence, the other’s persistent warmth by his side.

Of course, he knew that it wasn’t like they were suddenly going to go back to mere classmates again. They had gotten past that, and he knew it, but it would still be different to how it was now.

He didn’t want things to change. He wanted to keep Jonghyun close to his side, he wanted to have a reason to be with Jonghyun all day every day.

“What did that glass of juice ever do to you?”

The sudden question directed at him snapped him out of his thoughts and he turned to stare wide eyed at Dongho who had asked it.

“You were staring so intently at your cup that I thought you were going to burn a hole through it.”

“Oh. I didn’t realise.”

“Is something wrong?” Dongho asked him softly, peering at him with obvious concern.

Minhyun flicked his eyes over the rest of their friends for a moment, noting that all of them hadn’t noticed their exchange and were still munching away at their breakfast. He turned back to Dongho who watched him patiently.

“It’s nothing.” Minhyun said, shrugging as he brushed off the question.

“Sure?” Dongho looked at him sceptically.

“Yeah.”

While his words were easily able to convince Dongho to not push the matter further, they did nothing to convince himself that it really was just nothing.

Something needed to be done, to be said, if he wanted to have a reason to be pressed so closely into Jonghyun’s side as they ate breakfast every morning.

\\\

“It’s the last day today, isn’t it?” Aaron asked towards the end of breakfast. “The last day of being stuck together, right?” He clarified when he was met with blank, uncomprehending, stares.

“I thought tomorrow was the last day.” Minki said almost to himself.

“Today is the last full day.” Jonghyun clarified, hoping that any of his disappointment didn’t carry through the statement.

“Around this time tomorrow is when the spell wears off.” Minhyun added.

Jonghyun wondered to himself if Minhyun would feel as disappointed as he himself did, or if Minhyun would just be glad to have his room back, his personal space back. He wondered if Minhyun would feel the loss of his presence by his side as much as Jonghyun knew that he would miss Minhyun constantly being by his side.

The more Jonghyun thought about it, the more he wanted to know the answer. Perhaps with Minhyun beginning to call him cute with increasing frequency, and the casual touches here and there, he was allowing himself to become too hopeful about his developing relationship with Minhyun. But the more time he spent around Minhyun, the less he thought that he could just keep everything he was thinking and feeling to himself.

It felt like he might burst if he never said anything, and besides, maybe it was better to say something sooner rather than later. If worst came to worst, it would be easier to end a budding friendship before it developed too much that doing so would be even more painful. It was better to nip it in the bud, as the saying went.

Six days ago, Jonghyun would have never considered confessing his feelings to Minhyun. But six days ago, he hadn’t realised how much of a softie Minhyun really was and hardly the cool, ice prince figure that everyone else seemed to believe. With this knowledge, Jonghyun’s previous apprehensions were soothed somewhat and the whole prospect of confessing didn’t seem quite as daunting as before. It still made his knees shake and his heart thump in his chest, but at least it wasn’t making him was to run away from it all.

“A week has gone by pretty quickly, huh.” Aaron mused, which received a collective murmur of agreement.

“At the same time, it feels like we’ve been stuck together for forever. I’ve kind of gotten used to it.” Minhyun noted with a thoughtful look on his face.

Maybe… Maybe Jonghyun could really do this.

Tomorrow, once this was all over, then he would do it.

\\\

“Final patrol,” Minhyun announced that evening as they headed towards the portrait hole to his room, “ready?”

Jonghyun responded by pulling open the portrait and stepping out into the empty hallway.

“After tonight, I won’t have to keep robbing you of your sleep anymore with these patrols.” Minhyun noted lightly as they walked along the dimly lit corridors.

“It’s not that bad, a lot of the time I’m not yet sleeping anyway.” Jonghyun assured him. “I think I’ll actually kind of miss this though.” He remarked absentmindedly.

Minhyun glanced over at him curiously, wondering if Jonghyun meant that he liked walking around patrolling, or if he liked walking around and patrolling with Minhyun.

“Really?”

“The castle has always been rather beautiful to me, especially having grown up in the muggle world, being here feels like a bit of a fairy tale. Walking around the halls at night adds an extra mysterious feel to it all. It’s exciting.”

‘ah so that’s what he meant’

Even though he was disappointed that Jonghyun didn’t say that he would miss his company, the way that Jonghyun’s eyes lit up and glistened in the golden lights that shone from the lamps that lit the hallways soothed most of the disappointment.

“You’re always welcome to join me.” Minhyun blurted out before he properly thought through it offer.

Jonghyun appeared caught off guard by the proposition but he considered it for a moment before he spoke up.

“Wouldn’t I get in trouble for breaking curfew, and you for not enforcing it?”

“Nah, the other prefects wouldn’t give us any trouble. Besides, I’m the head boy.”

Jonghyun scoffed at the exaggerated tone of pride that Minhyun place on his last few words.

“This sounds like an abuse of power, are you sure you’re really head boy material?” Jonghyun joked.

Minhyun took on mock-scandalised expression before the two of them laughed it off.

“Plenty of the other prefects bring along company if they’re ever patrolling alone, it wouldn’t be any different.” Minhyun explained once their laughs died down.

“Really?” Jonghyun supposed that that would make sense, he could imagine that walking around almost aimlessly might be boring for some people without someone else to pass the time with.

“You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve walked in on when other prefects bring along company.” Minhyun said as he winced and cringed at the memories that sprang back into mind - memories that he would quite like to forget – before he realised how that might have sounded to Jonghyun considering he had just suggested that the two of them patrolling together wouldn’t be any different.

“Not that I’m offering for you to join me for that reason!” Minhyun hastened to say in an attempt to backtrack on his words. “I just thought that since you liked walking around the halls that—”

“Don’t worry about it, I get what you meant.” Jonghyun interrupted, sounding like he was about 2 seconds from laughing at his flustered state.

 “The offer still stands though, whenever you feel like living out your fairy tale, just let me know.” Minhyun re-iterated.

Even though Jonghyun knew what Minhyun meant in this context, he couldn’t help but wish that if he also wanted Minhyun to be his Prince Charming coming to sweep him off his feet, that that could happen too.

He would just have to wait for tomorrow to see if that particular fairy tale would ever get its happy ending.

Chapter Text

Jonghyun blinked open his eyes blearily as he forced himself to wake up. He grumbled incoherently as he pushed himself up on shaky arms until he was sitting up and saw that Minhyun was sitting with his back against the headboard smiling at him in amusement.

“Morning.” Minhyun chirped brightly.

Jonghyun mumbled out as much of a response as he could muster from his sleep addled brain – that is to say that he grunted back unintelligibly.

“You know, I never would have guessed that you would be so… not a morning person.” Minhyun mused, half to himself really – Jonghyun wasn’t yet in the state of mind to respond.

“Your fans would have a culture shock seeing you like this compared to how you usually are the rest of the time.”

Jonghyun fixed him with a confused look.

“Fans? What fans? I don’t have fans.” Because he didn’t. Minhyun was someone who had fans – many of them in fact, if the whispering crowds of girls that lined every corridor that Minhyun walked down was anything to go by – but Jonghyun? No, surely not…

“Maybe just none that you’ve noticed Jonghyun-ah.” Minhyun replied, his tone carrying something that Jonghyun couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Not knowing how else to respond, Jonghyun merely shrugged.

They sat side by side for a few more moments in silence before Jonghyun spoke up once more.

“Just a few more hours before…” he left the sentence hanging but the conclusion of it could be heard loud and clear.

“Yeah…” Minhyun hummed, “We can use our free first period to move your stuff back to your room.”

“Oh, um, I can manage it myself if you’ve got other things you need to do—”

“It’s fine, I’m happy to help.” Minhyun assured him with a smile. “Besides, it’s a long of stairs down to the Hufflepuff dorms, and I’m not that much of a bad friend to make you do it all on your own.”

Jonghyun smiled at him in thanks before the two of them rolled out of bed to start their day.

“So when exactly does the spell wear off?” Aaron asked curiously around a mouthful of buttered toast.

Jonghyun furrowed his brow in thought.

“Around the end of breakfast, I think?” he replied, thinking back to that day a week ago. “I remember I left breakfast early that day…”

Minhyun hummed in agreement, too busy munching on his own breakfast to speak.

“Oh yeah, I remember Minhyun excusing himself from breakfast early that day too muttering something about wanting to go see his cru—” Dongho’s recollections were interrupted sharply by a sudden coughing fit from Minhyun.

The four of them stared at Minhyun’s quickly reddening face in varying levels of concern, and in Dongho’s case, amusement.

“You okay?” Jonghyun asked once Minhyun had regained control of himself.

“Yeah—” he cleared his throat gruffly before continuing, “it just went down the wrong pipe.” Minhyun managed to explain.

“You should eat more carefully.” Jonghyun chided as he handed Minhyun a glass of water which he gratefully accepted.

Aaron snickered as he prodded Minhyun’s other side playfully.

“Yeah Minhyun, you should be more careful~~” the older echoed. Aaron ended up poking and tickling Minhyun’s side a few more times before he had to stop for the sake of Jonghyun who had almost been shoved off the bench when Minhyun flinched so hard that they knocked into each other.

The rest of breakfast passed without ceremony and it wasn’t long before the five of them were heading out of the great hall and headed their separate ways to their various classes.

Jonghyun didn’t say anything about the spell wearing off as he and Minhyun walked up the stairs to Minhyun’s room and Minhyun didn’t either. Jonghyun wasn’t sure if he should acknowledge it or not, or if bringing it up would sound too much he didn’t want Minhyun to be close to him – which certainly wasn’t the case.

For the most part, they packed up Jonghyun’s stuff back into his trunk in silence. It took them longer than Jonghyun would have thought, but Minhyun was insistent on packing things neatly where Jonghyun wouldn’t have minded just shoving everything in as long as it all fit. Jonghyun had to admit though, his trunk had never had so much free space despite all his possessions being in it. Though despite this, it didn’t take them long to have Jonghyun all packed up – he had been mostly living out of his trunk anyway.

It only took them one trip with Jonghyun’s trunk levitating in front of them, courtesy of Minhyun, and the two of them following it to get all Jonghyun’s stuff down to the Hufflepuff common room.

Not that he thought it would have really changed in the space of just a week, but his house common room was still the same. Everything from the décor to the curious students whose eyes followed the two of them as they headed to Jonghyun’s room.

“I did not miss that…” Jonghyun grumbled to himself. Kind and loyal Hufflepuffs they all may be, but teenagers were teenagers and gossipers they all certainly were to an extent.

He heard Minhyun snort in agreement as he set down Jonghyun’s trunk at the foot of his bed before turning and gesturing for Jonghyun to lead the way back out.

“Wouldn’t want to stay too long and give them anything more to talk about.” Minhyun said wryly.

Jonghyun was almost certain that the moment the two of them made it out the portrait hole and closed it behind them that they were being talked and speculated about. It had been a common occurrence any time they walked past anyone for the past week and he had no reason to believe that it would stop now nor any time soon.

Charms followed by transfiguration took up the rest of their morning and the 2 hours passed by easily. Charms was more of the same old pedanticism from their professor over their wand movements and transfiguration was the new usual cycle of Minhyun pouting and frowning when he didn’t get a spell right and then beaming with joy when Jonghyun managed to teach him how to do it.

It was much like any other day from the past week as they walked to class together, sat together and worked together.

It wasn’t until the end of lunch that they had to properly separate. Minhyun had his ancient runes class and Jonghyun had a free.

Their friends had long left the great hall for their own classes, leaving just the two of them stood outside the great hall. Jonghyun almost had the compulsion to follow Minhyun to class before he realised in time that that wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

It was strange how quickly some habits could form.

“I guess I’ll see you later then.” Jonghyun said somewhat awkwardly.

“Potions in an hour, right?” Minhyun confirmed.

“Sadly.”

“Well, I’ll see you there then.”

There was a short moment where neither of them knew what to do next and just stood there looking at one another, not saying anything.

“See you then.” Jonghyun finally said.

Then Minhyun took a step back, and then another, leaving them stood further apart that they had been all week. Then after giving a short wave, he turned around and headed up the stairs to his classroom on the 5^th floor.

Jonghyun stood there staring up the now empty staircase, not quite knowing what to do next. He a strange sense of loneliness that he wasn’t accustomed to feeling and he tried his best to brush it off as he headed to the library in the hopes that some studying would take his mind off things.

Studying did not take his mind off things. It probably reflected the dryness of the subject content how easily his mind could distract him away from the words on the page of his textbook.

It was ridiculous how easy Minhyun’s presence had become so natural and normal to him the space of just one week. He had gone almost a full 18 years without having Minhyun constantly by his side and had managed just fine, but in just one week, Minhyun had carved himself out a place right in the forefront of Jonghyun’s mind. Minhyun’s presence was just so… obvious whenever he was around.

From the way Minhyun would occasionally hum to himself as they studied or walked around the castle, to the way that Minhyun was just so clingy – everything about how he tended to make himself so obviously there made his absence all the more apparent.

Perhaps these feelings would wane with time. Jonghyun hoped that they would for the sake of his studies if not for his sanity.

He must have blanked out staring at his textbook at one point because the next thing he knew, the bells were sounding, and he was rushing to make it down to the potions dungeon in time.

He fortunately made in into the classroom on time and he felt himself relax when he saw Minhyun walking through the doorway and coming down to sit next to him at the bench. He hadn’t even realised that he had been tense.

“How was runes?” Jonghyun asked by way of greeting.

“Had some trouble concentrating but it was fine for the most part.” Minhyun answered vaguely.

“Why couldn’t you concentrate?” Jonghyun asked curiously. It wasn’t really like Minhyun to not be able to pay attention in class, particularly runes which he knew that Minhyun enjoyed and excelled in.

“I…” Minhyun paused for a moment, “I’ll tell you about it later.” He sighed.

Before Jonghyun could pry any further, the lesson began, leaving him confused and also concerned about what could have made Minhyun so unfocussed.

Potions passed without incident, at least not from Minhyun and Jonghyun’s bench. The same could not be said of some of the other students in the class. It was frankly a miracle that no one had to be sent to the hospital wing.

They all filed out of the room at the end of the hour, dragging their feet along the stone in exhaustion after the taxing hour of potion brewing they had just endured.

“Hey Jonghyun,” Minhyun called out to him while tugging on his sleeve to get him to stop walking.

“Hmm?” Jonghyun hummed as he slowed his pace to a halt and turned to face the Ravenclaw.

“Can we— um, can we talk?” Minhyun asked hesitantly. “Not that we aren’t currently talking but I mean ‘talk’ as in there’s something I want to tell you.”

Jonghyun felt his heart start to thud in his chest out of nervousness as his mind ran through the various scenarios that Minhyun could be leading him into with this ‘talk’.

He tried to appear nonchalant as he replied ‘sure’ and allowed Minhyun to lead them through the corridors until they reached an unused classroom.

The door closed behind them with a soft thump. Jonghyun shuffled into the room before setting himself down on top of one of the desks at the front of the room. He watched Minhyun pace back and forth a few times in front of him. It was a bizarre sight to see the usually composed Minhyun look so suddenly nervous and anxious.

Minhyun paced for a few more moments before he came to a halt in front of the desk where Jonghyun was sat.

“I wanted to tell you something.” Minhyun began.

“Okay.”

“You know how I said I couldn’t concentrate during runes earlier?”

Jonghyun didn’t know what he had been expecting, but this was not one of the scenarios he had been envisioning.

“Yes…” he prompted, unsure where Minhyun was going with his line of conversation.

“Well, I couldn’t concentrate because…” Minhyun seemed to take a few breaths to gather himself before continuing to speak, “because of you.”

Jonghyun’s eyes widened. Minhyun didn’t mean what Jonghyun thought he meant… did he?

“Because of me…?” he parroted back.

“Because of you.” Minhyun confirmed.

“W-what do you mean?” Jonghyun asked in a small voice, trying to keep any hints of hope out of his tone.

“I… Not having you around…” Minhyun trailed off, trying to think of the right words, “The fact you weren’t there with me, I noticed it a lot. Maybe more than I should.”

“Oh.” It wasn’t a very coherent response but at this point, Jonghyun’s brain couldn’t really come up with much more. His mind was swimming with the idea that Minhyun was just now admitting to him that he was so preoccupied with Jonghyun’s absence that he couldn’t focus.

It was something he felt he could relate to when he remembered his own lack of focus in the library earlier. If Minhyun was feeling anything like Jonghyun had done at that time, then did that mean that Minhyun liked him in a way at all similar to how Jonghyun liked him? Jonghyun hoped so, oh did he hope.

“I-I get it.” Jonghyun forced himself to say. “I felt the same earlier too.” He clarified.

“You…did?” Now it was Minhyun’s turn to stare with shock-widened eyes.

Jonghyun nodded once, sharply, before taking a deep breath to steel his nerves.

“Minhyun…” he began shakily. He could do this, he could say the words, if there was ever a time to say them, it was now.

“I like you.”

There was a beat of silence in the room – a moment where the only sound Jonghyun heard was the thundering of his heart in his chest as he waited for Minhyun to say something. Anything.

“You… like… me?” Minhyun repeated back, as if not quite understanding the words.

Jonghyun felt his face heat up as Minhyun did nothing but stare at him.

“Y-yeah. I like you. In more than a ‘just friends’ way.” He continued. Go big or go home, that was the saying wasn’t it? He had already opened this conversation path so he might as well continue down it until the end.

“Can you say something?” Jonghyun asked softly when Minhyun didn’t respond, “please…?”

He small voice seemed to reawaken Minhyun from whatever mental blank he had been experiencing as the Ravenclaw took a small step towards him, bring them close enough that Jonghyun’s knees almost brushed against Minhyun.

He hadn’t thought it possible but Jonghyun’s heart thumped even more at the close proximity and at the smile that began to take over Minhyun’s features.

“I like you too.” Minhyun finally said, making Jonghyun’s breath catch in his throat, “in more than a ‘just friends’ way.”

“You do?” Jonghyun questioned, in disbelief that this was really happening. He had confessed and it hadn’t been a total disaster.

Minhyun’s smile grew larger and brighter as the taller boy reached out to grab Jonghyun’s hand from where it rested on the desk and intertwined their fingers together in a loose hold.

Jonghyun was thankful that it wasn’t his wrist that Minhyun held for his heart was going embarrassingly crazy and he certainly didn’t need Minhyun knowing that.

Minhyun’s hand was soft against his own and it fit perfectly with his own. Minhyun’s hand cradled his own as the Minhyun’s thumb brushed back and forth over his knuckles. He looked down at their hands in fascination before squeezing Minhyun’s hand with his own to make sure this was really happening. Minhyun squeezed back and when he turned back to meet Minhyun’s gaze, he was floored by the warmth and affection that had filled Minhyun’s eyes. How he hadn’t noticed it before was a mystery when now it was all he could see when he looked into Minhyun’s eyes. Though he reasoned to himself that you just don’t see what you’re not looking for, because all this time, he hadn’t ever expected his affections to be returned.

“So… what does this make us now?”

“What do you want this to make us?” Minhyun asked in return, putting the ball back in his court.

“I think… I think that we’re still new to even just this ‘friends’ thing, but I don’t want to be just a friend to you.” Jonghyun said carefully, making sure every word was what he meant to say.

“I don’t want to just be your friend either.” Minhyun replied softly, “We can just take this slowly?”

Jonghyun smiled and bit his lip to stop it from growing out of control.

“Yeah, I’d like that. A lot.”

“Well… does taking things slowly mean I can’t kiss you?” Minhyun asked shyly, with a dark blush spreading rapidly up onto his cheeks.

Jonghyun subconsciously gripped tighter onto Minhyun’s hand out of shock.

Minhyun took a small step forward and began to lean closer and closer until he was almost looming over Jonghyun who had tilted his head up to hold Minhyun’s gaze.

“You can say no.” Minhyun offered. “Can I kiss you?”

Jonghyun entire field of vision was filled with Minhyun and it really didn’t help his brain formulate a coherent response when Minhyun was so close to him. Giving up on his words, he settled for a slight nod of his head. It was barely perceptible but Minhyun saw it anyway and then his hand that wasn’t holding Jonghyun’s came up to hold his jaw to tilt his face up.

Jonghyun’s eyes fluttered closed as Minhyun closed the gap between them and pressed their lips together softly. Minhyun’s thin lips were soft and warm against his own and he felt them curve up into a smile as Minhyun pulled back a few moments later.

It had just been a short and innocent kiss, but it made Jonghyun’s toes tingle and he wanted to pull Minhyun back and chase the warmth of his lips, but he managed to control himself. It wouldn’t be good if someone caught them kissing in an empty classroom.

“We’ll have more time for more of that later.” Minhyun said with a smile, seemingly knowing exactly what Jonghyun was thinking – or perhaps it was because his thoughts were following the same lines as Jonghyun’s.

“Yeah, later.” Jonghyun agreed, letting his full grin finally take control of his features, lifting the corner of his lips into a wide smile and allowing his eyes to shine with the happiness that he was feeling.

“For now, let’s go to dinner.”

Minhyun continued to hold Jonghyun’s hand as the latter hopped off his perch on the desk but let his grip loosen until their hands were falling away from each other’s. Jonghyun missed the warmth of Minhyun’s hand, but ultimately his desire to not want to cause a scene won out.

“Don’t worry, I’ll still be right here.”

Jonghyun would soon begin to think Minhyun was some sort of telepath what with how he seemed to know exactly what to say.

Minhyun had his hand on the doorknob when he turned back to Jonghyun with a question on his lips.

“Ready?”

Jonghyun took one look at the warmth in Minhyun’s eyes that was reserved just for him and it gave him the confidence he needed to head to dinner where their friends awaited them. He nodded.

“Yeah I’m ready.”

“…”

“You two are making heart eyes at each other and not even looking away flustered and embarrassed.”

“Something happened, didn’t it?”

“…”

“…”

“No way…”

“I never thought I’d see the day…”

“I can’t believe you two finally got your shit together.”

“Both of you owe me 10 galleons.”