Timeless: Hours of Anguish [ATEEZ Hogwarts AU]

Saturday, December 3rd

Mingi showed a sympathetic smile before putting the time turners' golden necklace around the two of them. He then checked the time on the old clock next to the fireplace. It was five past one in the morning. He nodded to himself, probably deciding on a good time to travel back to.

"Okay," he said and looked at the time turner. "Take us to the Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries, Office B. December 2nd, 2016, 11:30PM."

The familiar feeling of falling took over San as time reversed, and the surroundings around them changed. He closed his eyes and waited for it to end. He couldn't help but notice how used his body had gotten to the process of traveling through time. His insides still felt like they were being squeezed together every time, but it didn't affect him as much as it had the first few times.

When time finally returned to normal and Office B had come to be around them however, things went south very quickly.

San couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the empty cell.

"Hold on, where is he?" he asked uneasily.

"Maybe... Maybe they took him somewhere else?" Mingi suggested, looking just as dumbstruck and concerned as San felt. "But why would they – "

His sentence was cut short when the door behind them sprang open. San's jaw dropped as he watched the scene unfold in front of him.

Two men were dragging a kicking and screaming Wooyoung into the room, closely followed by a third man. A very angry and bloody man. Something told San that he'd seen him before somewhere, but he couldn't make out his face well enough to recognize him.

The man swung his wand and let the bars that split the room in two halves disappear.

"What the fuck is happening?" asked San, bewildered to say the least as he watched those men tie Wooyoung to a chair with magically summoned strings.

"Let me go, you – " Wooyoung yelled at the familiar man, who then put a hand around his throat and started to choke him.

San reacted immediately and wanted to leap forward to stop him, but Mingi held him back. He tried to free himself from his best friend's grip, but Mingi was once again stronger than him.

Mingi then half dragged half carried San out the door just as the man started to threaten Wooyoung who was struggling to breathe. San tried to fight Mingi off, yelling and kicking.

"What the hell are you doing?! Let me go! We...We need to do something!" San exclaimed as Mingi kept him pressed against the wall outside to prevent him from running back inside.

"Somebody needs to show you that you have no choice but to cooperate. I'll make sure your pathetic little escape attempt for the rest of the few days you have left to live," San heard the man growl over Wooyoung's strangled gasps and coughs.

Judging by the coughing that followed those words, the man had finally let go of Wooyoung's throat, but those soon turned into screams of pain and protest.

"San, stop it! We can't help him right now!" Mingi yelled and struggled to hold him back but San couldn't care less. He could barely even hear him. All he heard were the sounds of Wooyoung's pained yelps and cries along with the man's insults. He was coughing, crying, screaming, begging for him to stop.

"But he... they... we have to do something..." San mumbled desperately. His imagination was doing the worst things to his mind. He didn't know how exactly the man was hurting Wooyoung, but it sounded like he was beating and kicking him countless times. Every kick made San wince, his senses overflowing with fear and worry. How far was that man going to go? How was any of this happening? How was any of this real?