"I really hope that none of you get sorted into Ravenclaw so that some other poor prefect gets stuck with keeping you in line," says Yeonjun.
"I would rather get kissed by a Dementor than be in Ravenclaw," quips the brunette, and though Ryujin has no idea what she just said, it seems to do the job of disgruntling Yeonjun.
"Ravenclaw doesn't want you anyway," Yeonjun retorts slightly childishly. He turns to Ryujin, then says, "I haven't seen you before. First year?"
Ryujin nods and Yeonjun continues.
"What house to you think you'll be sorted into?"
"I...l only found out this school exists a few weeks ago," confesses Ryujin.
Yeonjun's eyes widen momentarily in surprise, but he manages to collect himself quickly.
"Oh, you're Muggleborn?"
Ryujin nods, because Muggle is pretty much the only word that she knows the meaning of out of this strange new world.
"That's cool," continues Yeonjun . "Well there are four houses and these days they generally get on pretty well for the most part - except for on the Quidditch pitch, of course - so it doesn't really matter too much where you end up being sorted."
"Though if you end up in a different house to me, I might have to hate you a little bit," interjects the brunette. Her feline brown eyes meet Ryujin's with an intensity such as that it feels as though she is staring right into Ryujin's soul. It is only momentary though, because she quickly turns to her friends and adds, "That goes for you two as well."
Ryujin decides in that moment, for some inexplicable reason, that she wants more than anything else to be placed in the same house as this brunette girl.
She doesn't, obviously, because fate never seems to work in that way, and Hwang Yeji, as Ryujin learns her name to be during the sorting ceremony, gets sent to the Slytherin house table whilst the hat - yes, a talking hat - shouts out a booming "Gryffindor!" for herself.
(Ryujin wonders if there will ever be a time when things like talking hats and floating candles and walking through brick walls will ever seem normal to her, and though she doubts it, she tries to savour the feeling of incredulity, just in case.)
Anyway, fast forward five years and two months to the day of the fateful Quidditch match. Five years in which Ryujin has gone from a shy and clueless eleven year old to a still quite shy yet rather proficient young witch, Magic is almost normal to Ryujin now, but sometimes when she returns to Hogwarts after the holidays she'll still get caught off guard by a moving staircase or she'll forget that a door handle might shriek when she goes to turn it.
She's good at magic though, which is definitely surprising, because she doesn't really know how it's possible for her to consistently get the second highest marks in her year (behind fellow Gryffindor Choi Jisu,who somehow manages to pull incredible marks out of nowhere despite her penchant for "accidentally" blowing stuff up in the middle of class) when most of her classmates have been fully immersed in magic since birth.
But it is perhaps most important to note that the other big thing that has changed most since her first day at Hogwarts, is that whilst eleven year old Ryujin just wanted to be sorted into the same house as Hwang Yeji, sixteen year old Ryujin has a massive fucking crush on her.
Ryujin hates to admit it, but her crush on Hwang Yeji is probably the main cause of the ruckus in the Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match, because if she didn't get momentarily distracted by the way that the sunshines off Yeji's golden brown hair in a way that makes her look like an ethereal goddess, Ryujin would most likely have noticed Choi San hit a bludger in her direction more than half a second before it collides with the side of the head.
you knock me off my broomstick
Start from the beginning
