𝐬𝐞𝐩 𝟏 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟓
"am i the only one that's extremely tired?" yunhee asked, yawning and stretching her arms above her. she felt her right arm get knocked to the side by seonghyun who had purposely walked next to her. he was worse than draco.
"so the ministry are letting you walk free? don't get your hopes up. you can expect to get your own personal cell in azkaban soon." he sneered at mark, getting up into his face. jeno grabbed ahold of him to stop him from attacking.
"ignore him. he wants a reaction from you, so you shouldn't give him one." renjun told him as they continued walking towards the carriages.
yunhee's eyes were set on a fleshless horse that had a dragonish head and leather wings like a bat. despite the creature looking eerie and scary, she though it was beautiful.
"what an extraordinary thing." she gasped, reaching out to stroke its rough head. the creature bowed, allowing her to do so.
"um. yunhee, what on earth are you doing?" chenle asked, staring at her like she had gone crazy.
"petting the creature?"
"have you gone mad? there's nothing there." renjun said, pointing to where he saw absolutely nothing. "the carriages are pulled by magic."
"wait. you guys don't see it too? only yunhee and i do?" mark asked, confused.
"there really is nothing there." jeno told him as he climbed onto the carriage, followed by the rest of them.
"but it's such a beautiful creature. how do you not see it?" yunhee furrowed her eyebrows, disappointed that she couldn't show off it's beauty to them.
for the rest of the way to hogwarts, everyone was quiet. no one seemed to know what to say to each other or what to do. everything was dull and gloomy. hogwarts didn't feel the same.
things were changing and that was something yunhee was sure of. over the holidays, she had dreams of a short woman wearing pink clothes. the woman brought tragedy to hogwarts and sucked away the life from it. students didn't look happy and as cheerful as before.
yunhee wasn't sure what the dreams meant or why she was dreaming of them, but she hoped it was nothing. that there would be no pink clothed woman, but there she was...
sat at the front of the great hall, in one of the seats, was a stubby woman with brown curled hair, a ghastly pink coat, skirt, beret and matching handbag. with the amount of dark colours in the room, the woman stood out more than anyone wished.
"good evening, children." dumbledore spoke, his voice overlapping the loud students that excitedly ate their food. "now, we have two changes in staff this year. we're pleased to welcome back professor grubbly-plank who'll be taking care of magical creatures while professor hagrid is on temporary leave."
"no way!" yunhee turned to chenle and jeno, an evident frown on her face. "hagrid's not here? this is awful."
"it is. hagrid is the best professor for care of magical creatures." jeno agreed.
"we also wish to welcome our new defense against the dark arts teacher... professor dolores umbridge. and i'm sure you'll all join me in wishing the professor good luck. now, as usual, our caretaker, mr filch has asked me to remind you..."
dumbledore was cut off by dolores umbridge who let out a high pitched 'ahem' while placing her pink bag on the table. she stood up and walked around the table, her fingers entwined.
"thank you, headmaster, for those kind words of welcome. and how lovely to see all your bright happy faces smiling up at me." she said, but no one was smiling. "i'm sure we're all going to be very good friends."
"i don't like her." jeno whispered.
"the ministry of magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. although each headmaster has brought something new to this historic school, progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be prohibited."
"what is she on about?" chenle scoffed, turning around to finish his food.
"she's giving me bad vibes." yunhee admitted. "i just hope nothing else changes here."
"well, yun, i know one thing for sure has changed." jeno said, wiping his hands on a piece of tissue.
"what's that?"
"we're the one that have to lead the new kids to the common room later while explaining everything and we get to stay up past curfew."
⚯͛
𝐬𝐞𝐩 𝟐 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟓
in the first class for defense against the dark arts, yunhee had her head rested on the table, half asleep. she was exhausted from her restless night on the first day back at hogwarts. every time she closed her eyes, she would see professor trelawney crying in front of umbridge and an angry dumbledore. the images were plaguing her dreams and she wanted it to stop.
she sat up in her chair when something hot landed on her head. it was a paper bird. she quickly brushed away the burning pieces of crumbling paper and looked over her shoulder at umbridge.
"good morning, children. ordinary wizarding level examination." she spoke, using her wand to write on the blackboard. "O, W, L's. more commonly known as OWL's. study hard and you will be rewarded. fail to do so, and the consequences may be severe."
she pointed to the books stacked on her table and they moved forwards, placing two on each table.
"your previous instruction in this subject has been disturbingly uneven. but you'll be pleased to know, from now on you will be following a careful structured, ministry-approved course of defensive magic. yes?"
"there's nothing in here about using defensive spells." someone mentioned and umbridge let out a loud giggle.
"using spells? well, i can't imagine why you would need to use spells in my classroom."
"this is a school of magic, how can we not learn about magic?" yunhee asked jeno who looked at her, defeated. umbridge heard what she said and walked over to her table.
"you'll be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way."
"what use is that? if we're attacked, it won't be risk-free." mark said and yunhee stifled a laugh at the way he was challenging the stubborn woman.
"students will raise their hands when they speak in my class." umbridge snapped. "it is the view of the ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be sufficient to get you through your examinations which, after all, is what school is all about."
"and how's theory supposed to prepare us for what's out there?"
"if he doesn't stay quiet, she might use the killing curse on him." jeno whispered, glancing at mark who he knew wouldn't give up.
"she definitely looks pissed enough to do it." yunhee replied.
"who do you imagine wants to attack children like yourself?" umbridge asked, mockingly.
"oh, i don't know. maybe lord voldermort."
"and... the bomb has dropped." jeno sighed as the class broke out into whispers and umbridge's face morphed into an angry scowl then a forced toothy grin.
"now, let me make this quite plain. you have been told that a certain dark wizard is at large once again. this is a lie."
"it's not a lie. i saw him. i fought him." mark argued.
"detention!"
"so according to you, cedric diggory dropped dead on his own accord?" mark interrogated.
"cedric diggory's death was a tragic accident." umbridge started and yunhee opened her mouth to speak. jeno noticed this and quickly took ahold of her hand.
"keep it in, yun. don't say anything."
"it was murder. voldermort killed him! you must know that!"
"enough!" the pink dressed woman screeched. "enough. see me later. my office."
⚯͛
"how was detention mark?" renjun asked as the boy sank into the sofa in the gryffindor common room.
"it was fine. well, awful actually. her office was all pink and the walls were covered in portraits of cats." he explained, shivering at how ghastly the office was.
"oh! i love cats!" yunhee exclaimed as she snuggled her face into her and chenle's shared cat.
"not when there's hundreds of them meowing while you're made to write notes." he said, covering his ears as he thought back to the annoying sounds.
"i'm glad you spoke up about cedric. what she said was bothering me so much. i can't believe she'd lie about such a thing like someone's death. it's... disgusting. i was ready to lunge at her." yunhee said, running her hands through her hair.
"i don't regret speaking up, but if she says anything again, let me do the talking. promise me none of you will get detention with her." mark looked around at his friends and they nodded their heads.
"i promise. only because i'd hate to see so much pink in one place." chenle said.
"you know, at this point, i wish we had professor moody and not the barty crouch junior one. umbridge seems like such a bitch." renjun stated, looking at his friends upside down. his head was hanging off the edge of the sofa.
"umbitch." chenle snorted at the name he had come up with.
"don't say that around her though. you don't want a weeks worth of detention like mark over here." jeno warned, placing his hand on the back of mark's head.
⚯͛
𝐬𝐞𝐩 𝟕 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟓
"yunhee, where are you off to?" mark's voice rang in the hufflepuff's girls ears. she came to a stop to face him, a pair of shoes in her hands. "and who's shoes are those?"
"luna's. i found them and i'm going to find her in the forest. want to tag along?" she asked, dangling the shoes in her hands.
"sure. i was planing to head there anyway. i heard those horse-like creatures live there." he said, folding his long robe sleeves.
the two headed to the forest where they found luna, bare-footed, feeding one of the creatures. she didn't need to turn around to acknowledge who was behind her.
"hello, mark, yunhee."
"your feet must be cold." mark said.
"a bit." she replied. "unfortunately, all my shoes have mysteriously disappeared."
"good thing i found these ones." yunhee piped in, handing the shoes over to the girl. she leaned closer to her ear to whisper, "must have been the nargles."
"i suspected as so." luna replied, gratefully taking the shoes. the creature in front of them spread its wings as it walked away from them.
"what are they?"
"they're called thestrals. they're quite gentle, really, but people avoid them because they're a bit..."
"different." mark finished. "but a while ago, we were with our friends and they said they couldn't see the thestrals. why?"
"they can only be seen by people who've seen death."
"death?" yunhee repeated as mark glanced at her, concerned and intrigued. luna saw this and understood that the two hadn't spoken about whatever had happened, so she slipped on her shoes and dusted her clothes.
"anyway, i'll leave you two to speak." she said then went on ahead to feed one of the baby thestrals and mark continued peering at yunhee, hesitantly.
"you want to know who i've seen die, right?" she asked. he nodded his head as she clutched onto the side of her skirt, preparing herself to explain. "my sister."
"you have a sister?"
"had." she corrected. "before i joined hogwarts.."
"actually, you don't have to tell me if it's too hard to talk about." mark interrupted, placing a hand on her shoulder, but she shook her head.
"her name was dahee. she was older than me by a few years and she was much more of a rebel than i am. she was muggle-born, but i'd like to think that if she was a witch like me, she'd be a gryffindor... maybe even a slytherin." yunhee laughed, softly. "and she would be best friends with jia and hyejin."
"i think she'd make an awesome gryffindor." mark said, smiling at his imagination. he imagined a girl that looked similar to yunhee, but with a more mature face, a bit taller and shorter hair.
"i agree. my memory about her is a little hazy, but she was the best sister. she wanted me to live a good life and one day, she decided to run away with me. get me away from our parents and provide for me in any way she could. that was brave of her, but it was unfortunate that that was the reason she died."
"can i ask... what... what happened?"
"she was arguing with my mum about it and they were standing at the top of the stairs. things got aggressive quick and my mum pushed her. she fell. it killed her instantly. i was standing at the bottom of the stairs when it happened. it still haunts me to this day."
"i'm so sorry, yun." mark rubbed her back as she relived the scenes in her head.
"the police ruled it as an accident and my mum didn't suffer the consequences. i suppose, that's why no one believing that voldermort killed cedric bothers me so much. they believe his death was an accident, but the evidence is right in front of them. it hurts that those victims won't ever get justice because no one will believe the truth."
"i'm sure your sisters so proud of you, seeing how you grew up so strong."
"i hope she's proud of me and i hope she doesn't feel like i'm replacing her with the others." she joked. "having a sister was the best so i guess that's why i'm so close with aerin, jia and hyejin now. they're like my sisters and are filling in the missing gap. i wouldn't be able to handle losing anyone else."
"when i first saw you, in first year, i thought you were scary. you were so bright and tough, even though you were just as new as i was to the wizarding world. i was intimidated, but behind that mask you put up, you were suffering. i never would have thought you had all these burdens on your shoulders." he pulled her into a hug. "don't suffer on your own. rely on me and the others when you're down, confide in us and we'll be here to help you. you're not alone, yunhee."
"mark, you need to take your own advice." she chuckled, pinching his arm. "you still can't see that we're all holding a hand out to you. you need to take it and stop holding back. i do think it's safe to say our whole group of friends are like that though. we all have our differences, our own struggles, but we just need a small push to help us."
"you're right. we're all arcane, but if we stick together..."
"everything will work out."