𝐝𝐞𝐜 𝟐𝟒 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕
"it's nearly christmas, chenle. i hope you're safe out there and in a warm place." yunhee whispered to the pendant, from where she was laid down on the bed. "usually i would spend christmas with you and catch you up on whatever you missed. i'd tell you all my secrets and right now there's something i need to rant to you about. something happened, but i doubt you'll react well when i tell you, so if you're hearing this — wait then can the rest of you hear this too? i can't say it now."
"yes, yunhee, we can hear you." jeno said from the table he and mark were sitting at. things had slowly gone back to normal between them all. they didn't bring up what had happened because they were too focused on chenle leaving and trying to figure out how to destroy the horcrux.
"of course you can hear me because you're right next to me. i'm talking about the other four who aren't here. do you think they can hear me through this?"
"doubt it, but they'll be able to feel that you're trying to communicate." renjun replied as he tossed a bag over his shoulder. "we need to leave anyway. to godric hollow."
"i'm still against the idea of going to it. not only is it the place you-know-who expects us to go to the most, but chenle won't be able to ever find us if we move around so much."
"we're going to come back here and he will find us. i promise." he told her, holding his hand out. "come on. it's time to apparate."
"okay. i believe you."
she took his hand and so did mark and jeno. they apparated onto the middle of a road that was covered in snow and surrounded by houses with fairy lights. it was a beautiful sight.
"i missed the snow." yunhee said, trying to catch some snowflakes.
"you doing that reminds me of the time back in fourth year when we were in the courtyard discussing our dates for the yule ball." jeno sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets.
"those were good times." renjun mumbled.
"and to think that back then our most stressful problem was finding a date and now..."
upon noticing the two downcast faces, yunhee hooked her arms with theirs and mark joined on the other side of jeno.
"guys i think it's christmas eve, so cheer up a little. listen, do you hear the people singing in the church?" she said, gesturing to the church ahead of them, but mark's eyes were set on something else.
"do you think they'd be in there? my parents?" mark asked, referring to the graveyard next to the church.
"we can check if you want." renjun said and he nodded.
they made their way over, checking all the names on the graves. an uneasy feeling settled in yunhee as she walked past all the graves. she hated going to graveyards because every time she visited one, it was to visit her sisters grave and it was so painful to do.
"jeno, what are you doing?" yunhee asked as he brushed away some snow.
"look, it's that symbol again." he told her, pointing to the triangle with a circle and line in the middle of it. they had seen the symbol on luna's father's neck and in some books. they were still trying to figure out what it meant.
"guys, come on." renjun called.
mark had already paid his respects to his parents grave and had seen an old woman watching them. they followed the woman as she wobbled down the road, leading them to a destroyed house.
"this is the house. the one where they died, where they were murdered." mark said then turned to the woman. "you're bathilda, aren't you?"
she wordlessly led them into the house and struggled to light a fire with a match. mark took over, lighting it for her as she stared at him, ominously.
"who is this man?" mark asked, holding up a picture inside of a frame. bathilda ignored him again and walked up the stairs, him following close behind.
"i've got a bad feeling about this." jeno said, watching mark disappear upstairs.
"glad i'm not the only one. she creeps me out." yunhee whispered.
"renjun, you stay with mark. we'll look around down here." jeno told the ravenclaw and he nodded then hurried up the stairs.
the two hufflepuff's walked through the rusting rooms, with their wands illuminating it, as they picked up certain items they found. they made their way to a room where they could hear loud buzzing and a horrible stench coming from. jeno followed the sound and smell and pushed open the door. a swarm of bugs buzzed around him as he pointed his light up to the ceiling that had blood dripping from it.
"mark! renjun!" he yelled, turning around and dragging yunhee with him to the stairs.
they rushed up in time for yunhee to throw a spell at the snake going after the two boys so that it was knocked away from them and crashed through the floorboards.
they stayed silent and kept a distance away from the hole the snake fell through in case it jumped back up. mark reached out to yunhee and renjun, who was holding onto jeno, so that they could apparate out, but the snake suddenly sprang up the hole and towards them.
"confringo." yunhee yelled the first spell that came to mind. the fire hit the snake and renjun quickly apparated them back to their tent.
"everyone alright?" mark asked.
"shit. i got burnt." jeno groaned, holding his arm to his chest.
"i'm so sorry! that's my fault." yunhee said, guiding him to sit down. she pulled up his sleeve, revealing the small burns. "i'm sorry."
"it's okay. payback for messing with you before, right?" he joked, a smile on his face.
"sure." she replied, smiling back as renjun was panicking behind them, looking for the burn-healing paste in the bag of supplies.
"guys... my wand." mark mumbled, holding up his wand that had a large crack running through it.
"how did that happen?" renjun asked as he applied the orange healing paste to jeno's wounds.
"i don't know. i think when we apparated. this is bad — real bad. nothing can be done about it now." he muttered, dropping it on the table and flopping down onto the beds.
"you can borrow mine, mark." yunhee said, rolling her wand towards him.
"i might need to later. thanks. i'll take care of it." he said.
"i trust you."
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𝐝𝐞𝐜 𝟐𝟓 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕
on the night of christmas, mark and jeno were sat outside, monitoring the area in case any snatchers came back. in the distance, they caught sight of a patronus and got up to follow it.
inside the tent, renjun was listening to music on the radio, but the hufflepuff girl was laying on the bed, her eyebrows furrowed.
"what is the matter?" renjun asked, placing his fingers on her eyebrows to smoothen out the wrinkles.
"you know the worst thing about this all is that i no longer have my dreams about the future. maybe if i did, him leaving wouldn't be so bad because i'd have an idea of where he was. but i have no clue and i also don't know what else might happen to us. i'm just as clueless as every other person." she replied, hugging the pillows to her chest. "i miss him."
he hated so much to see her drowning in constant terror that her friend wasn't safe. if he had stayed, she'd have one less worry.
"you're a seer and your abilities don't just disappear like that. it'll come back and you've already done so much to help everyone, so don't stress. i miss him too. we just need to cling to the hope we have left. he's going to come back. i'm sure of it. and when he does, i will beat him up." he said.
"please don't beat him up." she muttered, placing a pillow on her face. "i just want to hug him."
renjun sighed, then bent down to the radio to turn it up louder. "okay, enough of this. get up."
"what? why?"
"just get up." he repeated and she did, reluctantly.
"what are you doing?" she asked as he took her hands.
"you know... i'm an awesome dancer." he said as he spun her around, along with the music.
"really?" she said, amused. "prove it."
he smirked, pulling her towards him and she responded by wrapping her arms around his neck. he spun them around again, controlling both of them so she was forced to dance. she let out a laugh as he stumbled on an item on the floor and she had to grab him by the waist to help him, completely switching their roles.
"how dare you laugh at me." he glared playfully and she tilted her head forwards, her hair covering her right eye and her laugh getting louder.
"i thought you were an awesome dancer."
"i am." he rolled his eyes.
she withdraw her hand from his shoulder to brush away the hair on her eye, but he clutched onto her hand and placed it around his neck again. he tucked the hair behind her ear and she smiled, leaning forwards to rest her chin on his shoulder.
"thank you."
"any time."
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𝐝𝐞𝐜 𝟐𝟔 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟕
yunhee and renjun fell asleep after their sweet moment together, but mark and jeno were yet to return. the light from outside seeped into the tent, landing on yunhee's face. she scrunched her nose, waking up from her sleep and pushed herself out of the blankets. she looked over at renjun who was still asleep beside her and pulled the blankets over him.
just as she was about to leave the tent, she could hear voices calling hers and renjun's names from outside and sighed, turning to renjun to wake him up. she wanted him to sleep a bit longer because she knew he stayed awake till she had fallen asleep first.
"renjun." she whispered, shaking him. "wake up."
"i'm awake, i'm awake." he mumbled, yawning and pushing the blankets off him. "what's up?"
"mark and jeno are calling us." she told him then left the tent. she eyed the two boys that were drenched and crossed her arms. "where have you two been? why are you wet? everything alright?"
"it's fine. more than fine actually." jeno replied, pointing behind him. she followed where his finger was pointing and gasped at the third person they had brought back with them.
"chenle?!"
she ran at her best friend so fast that he wasn't prepared enough when she threw her arms and legs around him. after his shock, he held onto her, tightly, so she wouldn't fall. he sunk his face into her hair, taking in the smell of marshmallows that he missed.
"hey, yunhee." he whispered against her hair.
"weeks have passed and that's all you can say to me?" she smacked his back. "but i can't even be mad at you. i'm just so happy you're okay."
renjun on the other hand was fuming. when he came out of the tent the first thing he did was throw a pile of sticks at the younger boy. "you arse!"
"hey! what are you doing? that hurts!" chenle yelled, turning around so that his back would get hit by the sticks instead of yunhee.
"yeah? well, i'm sure it won't hurt as much as what you put yunhee through these past weeks!" renjun yelled back, picking up a bag to throw.
"okay! chill!" jeno grabbed the boy by his waist and picked him up as he flailed around trying to escape.
yunhee slid off chenle and stood back onto her feet, looking up at him, taking in his drenched hair and clothes. she didn't even care that hugging him had made her wet and cold too.
"look, you have every right to be mad at me, but i wanted to come back as soon as i left. yunhee, i saw you turned the pendant into a compass and i tried following it... but mine, it went mad, changing directions every second. it wouldn't work. and... i heard your voice. every night when you spoke into the pendant, i heard you and then yesterday, this," chenle held up the deluminator. "when i clicked it, a tiny ball of light appeared, filling me with a sense of comfort. i just knew to follow it and it guided me here, to mark and jeno."
"and then we destroyed the horcrux. well, jeno did, using the sword of gryffindor." mark said, dangling the locket on his fingers for them all to see. yunhee nodded, acknowledging why dumbledore had left the sword to jeno. this was its purpose.
"yun, i'm so sorry that i left. it was an irrational decision and i regretted it straight away. not knowing where you were or if you were safe was killing me and it must have been killing you too that you didn't know where i was. i swear i'll never do that again."
"chenle, you—"
"i'm an idiot, i know."
"listen—"
"you can hit me if you want." he said, squeezing his eyes shut and turning his face to the side.
"chenle, i'm not going to hit you." yunhee laughed. "maybe tomorrow i will when anger takes over because right now i'm just too relieved."
"i'll make sure to avoid you tomorrow then."
"that would be a good idea. say, do you want to to get all warm and cosy then join my pillow fortress?" she asked, taking his arm and dragging him into the tent, past the yelling renjun.
"don't you mean my pillow fortress?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"um. no. it's mine because i rearranged it to a better version." she replied, showing him the fortress she had made.
"wow. it's ugly. a few weeks without me and you start ruining things. you really can't live without me."
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a/n: aaaaand he's back. i couldn't keep him away for too long. 🙁🙁