❝King Hwang did it again!❞
Those words used to sound so terrific, so heroic, and they sound even more magical than magic itself.
But words are only words, they come in different shades, and now the words are black and white and Hyunjin no...
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Seungmin was shocked, least to say, when he sees Felix Lee burst open the door of Honeydukes with the look of urgency in his eyes. When their eyes meet, the Hufflepuff quickly rushes to him. He swears he almost loses his mind when Felix shoves the very same Defence Against the Dark Arts book, the one he's been wanting to get rid of ever since yesterday, to his face.
"Ew get this away from me!" he screeches, slapping the book but Felix holds on to it.
He pulls Seungmin aside, away from his friends. They disappear behind a rack of what muggles call 'sour straps', hidden from the rest of the shop and most definitely much quieter. "Listen here, Person," he begins to speak in a sharp tone, "I think I might know what's happening to Hyunjin."
The boy in front of him flashes him a look. "What do you mean, he's getting better and if he's happy with that Kwon Yujin then just let him be," Seungmin sounds completely unbothered and he tries to move Felix out of his way, but the Australian holds him back.
"Look, I'm not a hundred percent sure yet since I've only found out literally minutes ago but..." Felix takes a deep breath, "don't you care about him?"
"Of course I do!" Seungmin protests, placing his hands on his hips. "We've been friends for six years, why wouldn't I?"
Felix then strongly pulls Seungmin's hands so that they're outstretched in front of him, and he places the book on top of it. "Read this," Felix instructs the younger boy, pointing his finger at the beginning of the chapter.
The brunette's face twists, clearly unimpressed and yet he complies. The more he reads, the harder his eyebrows furrow and the tighter he grips the hard cover of the book. Once he's done (that's what Felix assumes anyhow), Seungmin closes the cover and observes it. "What the heck, this shouldn't even be in our textbooks, should it? What book is this, where did you find it?" he asks the older.
"This is our DADA textbook, silly," Felix snatches the book away from Seungmin, tucking it safely under his arms.
"Are you even sure this is what's going on?"
Sighing exasperatedly, Felix rolls his eyes. "What I suspect, yeah," he tells the latter, "but I'm not 100% sure. I'm still a bit sleepy right now and couldn't process nearly half what I read but judging from the bits and pieces I could pick up then I'm afraid..."
Felix and Seungmin both fall into silence, both thinking of the same thing but too scared to say it out loud. Seungmin bites the bottom of his lips, mind thinking of a million scenarios. There's actually no way, right? The year has been going so smoothly and it's almost at the end of Sixth Year. Nothing will happen, right?
"... He won't have much time?" Seungmin speaks up, despite the negative thoughts inside of his head.
"I really don't want to say that," Felix replies, "we don't even know if this thing is true or not. As you've read, there's not much research done on it so far."
"But yeah, just in case anything happens..." the blonde continues in a much quieter tone.
Seungmin reaches for the book, flipping he pages roughly to the back and trails his hand down the pages of the chapter. "There must be a way to stop this, everything has a solution," he says.
"I hope so."
"But like I said earlier, I'm not sure that's what he's got but we've got to keep an eye on him for now," Felix explains, "especially since you're still not on speaking terms with him, I think that's what's best for now. Unless you're going to somehow be okay with him again and you know, talk to him about it?"
Seungmin forces out a small laugh. "I think he's too preoccupied with Kwon to do that."
"I don't think they've written anything else for this just yet, maybe in next year's edition?" the Slytherin disappointingly hands the book back to Felix. "But maybe since Hyunjin's getting better, then I think it'll go away soon."
"You're right," Felix nods, "but we need to keep an eye on Yujin too, I think she's starting to catch the same bug as Hyunjin. We need to find the source of this before it spreads."
"If he's made it this long then, he'll be alright, I think," Seungmin concludes, "anyways, I'll probably look more into that and keep an eye on him when we're in the dorms. Since you're closer to him now, it'll be your turn to watch him when I'm not around."
"Okay, that works," Felix then grabs a small brown paper bag from the side of the shelves and stuffs a handful of sour straps into it, before rolling down the top to close it. "That's all I really came to tell you, really, so we can work on this together."
"Sure," Seungmin grins when Felix flashes him a lopsided smile as he walks to the front counter to pay for his lollies.
Shaking his head, he wanders off to find his group of friends who are hanging out by the sugar quills stand. He distracts himself by taking a few for his own, chatting with Jeongin and his friend Beomgyu. "What did Lee talk to you about?" Beomgyu asks him as he sneakily snaps the tip of a sugar quill off and pops it into his mouth.
"Nothing," Seungmin answers, "although, I'm going to need to ask you guys for a favour."
Jeongin hums, paying attention to the older as Beomgyu mirrors him.
"I'm going to need to go to the restricted section in the library tonight," Seungmin tells them, "Beomgyu, you're a prefect right? You can have access to any rooms in the school except for the 6th floor, if I can recall correctly."
The said boy nods slowly.
"I'll be out past 6 pm so I can take my time in the restricted section," Seungmin continues, "and if teachers find us, you can say I'm with you guys. Please?"
Beomgyu tilts his head as he flashes Jeongin a glance. "Sure, it gets really scary at night sometimes when you're alone," he says with an added shrug.
"Oh and Jeongin, where are you up to with reading my book?"
"Almost finished, why?"
"I need to borrow it for a bit and afterwards you can have it back."
Seungmin leaves the shop with a satisfied smile at both the things he bought and knowing that Beomgyu is willing to help him. Since there was really nothing else that he needs at the village, he was thinking of heading back to the castle. Maybe he could use a little nap as a small breather, trying to actually let what Felix revealed to him really sink into his head.
But no, as soon as Jeongin spots a new karaoke shop tucked into one of Hogsmeade's corners, he jumps up and down in excitement. With one arm looped around his and the other around Beomgyu's, before dragging the two of them down the street and into the karaoke shop.
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a short filler-ish chapter! before some things happen owo:))) i really hope yall are enjoying this oof i feel like it's getting boring bUT DONT WORRY! it'll get inchresting owo.
p.s. ik that i "updated" yesterday or the day before jshfd i forgot but heheh sorry that was an accident but now it's here! uwu
