Timeless: Hours of Anguish [ATEEZ Hogwarts AU]

Tuesday, November 29th

Tuesday, November 29th. 08:25 AM. Hogwarts, Great Hall. Choi San.

San's latte tasted too sweet for his liking, but he still finished the whole cup in one go. Mingi sat next to him, Yeosang and Jongho across from him, but he didn't listen at all to what they were saying.

He hadn't gotten even a minute of sleep last night. He had spent hours tossing and turning, then pacing back and forth in the common room until sunrise. The conversation he had overheard in the dungeons was carved into his brain, repeating over and over like a broken record. Needless to say, a dull headache had been nagging at him all morning.

He started when one of the school owls dove across the Slytherin table and dropped a rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet into Jongho's lap. Jongho pushed his plate aside and unrolled the newspaper, promptly paging through it. Yeosang scooted closer to skim the articles as well.

"Anything useful?" asked San after a moment.

Jongho scanned the last few pages, then his shoulders slumped.

"No mention of him." Yeosang sighed in defeat. "I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Jongho put an arm around him. "Let's take it as a good thing for now. I'm sure there would be something in the newspaper if he was..." he gulped, "uh, if he was in serious trouble."

A tense silence settled between them and Jongho nervously continued to chew on his bacon. San sighed and rested his chin in the palms of his hands.

The table overflowed with a palette of breakfast foods, the same as every day. Several trays that offered french toast, apple pancakes, and scrambled eggs with bacon were accompanied by bowls of cereal, fruits, and salads as well as a pyramid of doughnuts and soft waffles. As delicious as everything smelled, San didn't have much of an appetite.

None of it tasted the same without Wooyoung.

He would have skipped breakfast altogether if it hadn't been for Mingi. He had dragged him out of bed and scolded him for missing lunch and dinner yesterday, saying that he won't let him skip another meal. San had gone along with it. It was a good opportunity to tell the others about what had kept him up all night.

He recited the entire conversation, word for word.

By the time he finished, all color had vanished from Yeosang's face and a deep crease appeared between Jongho's brows. San had never seen his friends this serious. Not that he could blame them.

Mingi was the first to break the silence. "I don't know about you guys," he said, "but to me, that sounds like a freakin' cult."

Yeosang nodded without a word, his face pale as snow. Judging by the dark circles under his tired eyes, he had gotten about as much sleep as San had. He didn't touch his food either.

Jongho eyed him worriedly. "This whole situation keeps getting more and more enigmatic every day. What are we going to do?"

San considered. "We need more details."

"Agreed," began Mingi, mouth still half full of his cinnamon cereal. "As long as we don't figure out what exactly happened to him," he swallowed, "we can't do shit."

Jongho frowned. "The question is," he said, "how are we going to get our hands on the details we need? Headmistress Park has a leash on the professors and the students don't know any more than we do."

Yeosang sighed. "Good point..."

San racked his brain. There had to be something. Anything that would give them a clue about what Headmistress Park was trying to hide.