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part five: seventh year (fifth year)

The smell of Amortentia - of vanilla and hot chocolate and Jeongguk's hair when he hugs him - haunts Yoongi for the first three days of summer inactivity, sitting in his room stewing about it or throwing empty beer cans with the Muggle kids he's friends with. Then, he does what any sensible Slytherin would do with a problem, and writes to Gerry about it.

Gerry, predictably, sends him a Howler.

In his defence, the Howler has Kind But Loud Advice written on the outside of it, and Yoongi honestly doesn't know what he was expecting.

On the third of July the red envelope arrives in the mouth of Gerry's hyperactive screech owl (officially called James, unofficially called Mental Bastard.) Yoongi recognises the smoke around the wax and the writing on the mouth of the paper, but it's too late to dive for cover, and he sits in his back garden staring in horror as Gerry's rough approximation of good advice is yelled cheerily at him.

"What do you mean, you're not sure? What the fuck does that mean, you absolute plonker? Are you insane? Has the world gone mad? Go to him and tell him his hair smells like true love and all that shite - you can do it, you idiot, write to him and say you want to meet somewhere romantic like, like, I dunno, Paris or Cornwall or Hobbiton or a fancy ice-cream place in Rome or some shit. Yeah, that's the idea. Go. Go get your man, you beautiful anxious bastard!" And then, as the envelope is burning up and Yoongi is contemplating his own death, a slip of paper falls out and smiles at him through crinkled dead-tree teeth. "Sending my love to you always, Gerry Thompson."

All of this is screeched at a terrible level across Yoongi's nice middle-class English neighbourhood. His friend Nathan shoves his head out a window, looking at him weirdly, waving an Xbox controller at him.

"Is that Gerry?" His mum yells out the kitchen window. "Tell him hi!"

So Yoongi catches that little piece of motherly wisdom in a Howler of his own and sends it by a borrowed Friedreich to Ireland, because Gerry deserves love even if he is totally mental.

Then he sits down and writes a much better, much nicer letter to Jeongguk.

Hi,
I know its been a while since we talked, but I wanted to talk to you about something I can't write to you about because I'd sound like an ass over letter. Do you want to meet at Florean Fortescue's sometime and try not to kill me?

Your friend, Yoongi

He debates adding a heart and then doesn't, and sends it before he can change anything else, and then spends two days desperately dwelling on the ramifications of not adding that little less-than-three symbol after his name. Dwelling until Jeongguk's reply, at least.

Hi,
Sounds good. I'm looking forward to seeing you again. Friday at 11?

jk x :D

Which is good. Really good.

(Jeongguk added an emoticon. Should Yoongi have done that?)

But that gives Yoongi three days to scream into his pillow and Face-Floo Namjoon and cry into his fireplace ashes and gets dust all in his mouth.

Totally in control.

Yeah.

***

"The flannel in grey and red, or the flannel in white, grey, and... is that maroon?"

"Yoongi, I can honestly say I do not give a single fuck," Nathan says, on his phone. "It's not even a date, not officially, right? And you're going to miss the train if you change one more time, and I am going to lose my bloody mind for much the same reason. Keep what you're wearing and chill the fuck out."

"Thanks, man. Real supportive," Yoongi drawls, staying with the maroon and snatching the red cap off Nathan's head. "Does this make me look like a cock?"

"Yes! Yoongi! Train!"

"Oh, shit..." Yoongi scrambles for the door, and has to wait until Nathan has left before he can use the Floo to get to the Leaky Cauldron on time for his not-a-date with Jeongguk. He'll apologise for being a giant wimp and hopefully not blurt out the Amortentia thing he's been sitting on since the Potions exam. Vanilla, hot chocolate, and the smell of Jeongguk's hair.

Yeah, not talking about that. Avoiding it completely.

"Have fun!" His mum says cheerily.

"I'm going to die," he says, kissing her on the cheek. "Love you bye Diagon Alley!"

He arrives with a mouthful of ash, a cough, and a feeling of intense dizziness, in the wide open hearth of the Leaky Cauldron. The people at the bar don't look up - arrivals are more than commonplace here, especially over summer when most of the British wizarding population under eighteen is free to spend all the money they've saved at Hogwarts. The bartender does give him a nod, which Yoongi returns, before he dusts off his knees and heads for the back door, towards the hidden wall behind the bins. Jeongguk. Ice cream. Rejuvenated platonic friendship.

Yoongi sort of feels like he can't breathe, a little.

At least the rumble of the bricks folding back into the wall is familiar, and it gives him a moment to close his eyes and focus on not exploding before he even sees Jeongguk.

Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlour is now owned by two Fortescue nieces, since the man himself retired back to Italy a few years back. The ice cream glitters and sparkles and pops on the tongue, and some of it tastes of feelings rather than flavour, and some of it is so expensive that only, like, Harry Potter would ever be able to afford it.

And Jeongguk is there, sitting outside, eating a mint ice cream - normal but for the shining chunks of chocolate in the mint - and reading a Muggle paperback novel, nibbling on the end of his thumb as he turns the page. The sun of early July shines in his hair, on his cheeks, and he's filled out even in the last two weeks since Yoongi's seen him last. His lips are all bitten and his hair is all ruffled, a little longer than he usually lets it grow, a little lighter with the bleach of the sun.

Yoongi's missed him a lot more than he realised.

"Hi," he says, knocking on the table but not sitting down yet. "Uh. Hey. Long time no see."

Jeongguk smiles at him - a little stiff, a little awkward, but a smile. "Yeah. Sit down, mate, you look dumb standing up."

Yoongi draws the chair out from under the table and thinks about that time he lost a jigsaw puzzle piece when he was younger, and how the picture had been so painfully incomplete without it. He'd looked everywhere for the thing, and found it three days later sitting happily inside the box, and - okay, okay, so maybe the metaphor isn't a perfect one, but when Jeongguk offers him the rest of the magical mint ice-cream, Yoongi thinks it's pretty much all there.

"I just wanted to say-"

"Yoongi, I-"

They stop. A glob of ice-cream drips onto the table, and Yoongi swipes it up with his sleeve, looking at Jeongguk in confusion, seeing the feeling reflected back at him. "Let me apologise first."

"I want to apologise," Jeongguk says, his brows furrowed. "Is that not what this is about?"

"I - no?"

"What?"

"What?"

Yoongi looks at Jeongguk and Jeongguk looks at him, shoving the rest of the ice-cream over. "I was a dick," Jeongguk says. "I - you were hurt and I yelled at you instead of helping, and then I ignored you for six months. What part of that is your fault?"

"Listen," Yoongi pauses to lick the spoon clean, and he can't help but grin at the flavour. "I was an idiot? Like - you were right."

"No, I was an asshole. And I kept being an asshole." Jeongguk kicks him under the table. "I had no right to say that shit, not with - Izzy, that one time, and you're being a better senior to them than I am to my first-years."

"What kind of example am I setting by constantly getting beat up to hell and back?" Yoongi shakes his head. "I just look like a doormat and, yeah sure maybe I stop Max from getting a shiner in the short term but in the long term I just get more shit thrown at me. So I told Malfoy."

"You said Malfoy couldn't do anything," Jeongguk frowns.

"Yeah, maybe he can't put them in detention without the other teachers overriding it, but he can deduct points," Yoongi shrugs, smiling a little. "He started doing that. I'm - yeah. He's a solid guy, Malfoy."

"And...?"

"And I'm sorry for being a shit."

"And I'm sorry for being a terrible friend," Jeongguk says, and across the table the tips of his fingers cover Yoongi's and the gentle breeze blows a waft of Amortentia across his nose. "I - you deserved better than what I gave you, no matter what you say. And I'm sorry. I really, really am."

"Fine, then," Yoongi finds himself saying, and this isn't the right  time for the Amortentia - it isn't. It can't be, not when Jeongguk is looking at him so open and trusting and happy that they're back to normal. There'll be a time for it, soon, but not now. "Okay, then, we make this year one to remember."

"I'm glad," Jeongguk says, and the tiny smile dancing on his face is far better than anything Yoongi's seen in a while.

Dear Gerry,

You were right but you still suck.

Love, Yoongi.

***

"So, does this mean the Quidditch is back on?"

Damien, Yoongi, and Sam are all in one compartment, just across the hall from Max, Izzy, Alwyn, and Edie-Maude, who are making faces through the glass. The three of them, three seventh years, on the Hogwarts Express for the last time - every September, no matter what, they'd ridden together and done the Slytherin bet and slung a summer's worth of shit and talked about the Quidditch and now they're doing it again. Start of the last year.

Feels more like an ending than a beginning.

(Don't think about it.)

"Quidditch is back on," Yoongi shoots Sam his best set of finger guns, "My turn to be captain. I'll knock the pair of you right outta the water, just you wait 'n see."

"Your turn," Damien says. "I wonder what Gerry'll say."

"Probably tell us to get our shit together and win," Sam breaks a lump off a bar of chocolate, splitting that in half again and handing it to the two boys. "This is - this is our last year, right? We gotta win. We gotta make it count."

"We owe it to the mad Irish bastard," Yoongi says, smiling. When he looks out the window all he sees is the speed of the scrubby brush speeding miles behind them. Scotland. Hogwarts. This is the last time he'll be catching this train, unless he takes Malfoy up on that careers offer.

(Don't think about it.)

Quidditch, Jeongguk, Potions, Divination. Yoongi'll make the most of the year, this time.

"Bet! Bet! Bet!"

"Fuck off, gremlins," Sam throws the chocolate wrapper at the door as the other four flood into the compartment - with seven people in, it becomes uncomfortably crowded, and Yoongi ends up squished against the window with Max bracketing him in, opposite a giggling Izzy.

"Jimin bet three," Max says, taking a near-empty moneybag out of his pocket. "He's with his Hufflepuff man - the pretty one. What's his name? Kim something. I bet one, anyway, and those three bet two between them, and the twins told us we were dumb and gambling is bad and they gave us a galleon anyway, and so there's not many numbers left. Place your bets, people!"

"You'd wanna stick to the day job, mate," Damien tells him, setting a galleon on the compartment table between them. "I'll nick Yoongi's technique from last year so's he can't be a sad dick. Zero. That's my bet."

"Boo."

"Valid bet."

"Still. Boo."

"Still valid."

Izzy sticks her tongue out at him."Yoongi, what you gonna pick now Damien's filled our quota of depressing bastard?"

Yoongi leans his head against the window, closing his eyes, seeing clattering bones in the darkness behind his eyelids. "Gimme a second and I'll tell you."

In the meantime, Sam bets four, grinning at Yoongi as though she's won. "No way there'll be more than four. You won't win this year, you prat."

Max giggles, and digs his elbow into Yoongi's side. "Right, mate, what'll it be? Ten? Twenty?"

"Six," Yoongi says decisively, handing over the galleon to the sound of the kids booing in the background. "My winning streak shall continue, oh ye of little faith. Just you wait."

"it's totally cheating if you got an O in your OWL Divination, you prick."

"How is me succeeding academically a cheat in any way? And anyway," Yoongi beams, "That was a simple coincidence. Six was just a shot in the dark. Swear on my life."

The younger four dissolve into giggles and, with a heavily dramatic sigh, Sam pulls another chocolate bar out of her bag to pass around.

The last year.

Six Slytherins. Yeah, totally. They can totally pull that off.

Jimin joins their little train of Slytherins on the way up to the castle, smiling happily and as they flood into the Great Hall Yoongi catches Jeongguk's eye - Jeongguk beams over the glimmer of a thousand candles, dancing on top of the wooden tables. Namjoon is there, wandering in at the head of the Gryffindor line - Hoseok, behind Taehyung, the Head Boy badge glimmering on his chest. Seokjin's gone, entering his first year as an apprentice reporter for the Daily Prophet. Everyone else is still here - Sadie's gone, and without her the mass of blue and bronze Ravenclaws look far less intimidating, especially with Jeongguk in their midst.

"I bet three," Jimin says as they sit down, watching the flood of prospective first-years walk through the central aisle. "Money my way this year. What did the mini-Bloom bet on?"

"Six," Sam replies before Yoongi can.

"Hah! You lost already, mate. Three is the way to go, I feel it."

From the top table, Malfoy is smiling, but when he notices Yoongi looking he coughs and fiddles with the goblet at his elbow.

And in one of the portraits, of course, Snape is pretending not to watch.

The first fifteen kids go to the other three houses, and Damien and Jimin begin to look increasingly smug, and Alwyn has started flashing Yoongi the bird when the top table isn’t looking.

Yoongi raises an eyebrow in what he hopes is a just you wait sort of fashion.

“Davidson, Keith!”

No Divination at the dinner table,” Max snarks at Yoongi, kicking him under the bench. “Bets this one’s a Puff. He looks like a Puff.”

“Puff, yeah.”

Keith Davidson has his eyes closed under the hat, which is taking an absolute age to decide. Yoongi finds himself holding his breath, fingers crossed under the table, and he wishes he wasn’t.

“Slytherin!”

“Holy shit,” Sam says, and now all nineteen of them are on their feet, clapping and hooting as Keith Davidson - looking faintly stunned - slides into place beside the two youngest twins. “Holy shit, Yoongi, you little bastard.”

“What did I do?”

“One down, five to go,” Izzy says. “You won’t win yet, just wait. Me ‘n Alwyn are coming home this year-”

“Slytherin!”

“What the fuck-”

Robert Elias staggers down to the table, and Yoongi begins to grin despite his very best efforts to do otherwise. Alwyn and Max lean over, beaming at the two new kids and trying to shake their hands at the same time, and Elias at the very least looks - well, not-unhappy to have been landed in this particular house.

Sarah-Kate Foster, Esther Mae, and that brings it up to four and Yoongi smiling smugly every time Max’s elbow jostles the moneybag and the entirety of Slytherin House riding some sort of high as the first years become some sort of scary - well, not majority, but a huge chunk of the table.

Jason McDonald joins them, then, beaming broadly and flinging a high-five at one of the other new kids, and the rest of them are on cloud nine. Damien’s staring at the table, chanting what the fuck what the fuck, and Sam has started loudly bitching about how OWL Divination so totally is cheating and it isn’t fair in the slightest and fuck off, Yoongi.

“One more,” Yoongi says, grinning victoriously at Izzy, who beams at him. This - this is a good feeling. Slytherins, so many that it’ll be pretty damn hard to give them a rough time. One more and Yoongi’ll be a three-time winner of the Slytherin Sorting pool.

Carol Wilkinson walks down to the Slytherin table with a self-assured confidence reminiscent of Jimin himself, the heartbreaker of the house in his time, and with a cheer Yoongi leaps to his feet to shake her hand and wave the bag of galleons over his head. He sees Jeongguk laughing, two tables away, and Professor Malfoy hiding his smile behind his sleeve.

“Six!” Damien yells. “Six! Gerry’s gonna fuckin’ lose it!”

“Language, Roadfell!” Professor Ryder shouts down from the top table, and the room falls onto the most crowded welcoming feast Yoongi can remember having in a long, long time.

***

The first Quidditch practice of the year takes place in the middle of September, watched by a miniature crowd of the six new kids, Max waving his hand-made little banner, and Jeongguk all bundled up in his blue scarf, his red nose peeking out between the wrapped layers around his face. When he sees Yoongi and the others trooping onto the pitch, brooms in hand, he waves, and there’s no - no hurt, that Jeongguk doesn’t know about the love, the vanilla and the hot chocolate. Yoongi doesn’t feel like he’s missing anything. He just feels warm, and happy, and good.

“We’re gonna win this year,” Yoongi says. He doesn’t think he needs to say much else, and he’s never been one for the sort of drunk dramatics Gerry used to perform. “Uh - I guess Gerry’ll be pissed if we don’t win, okay?”

Around him, the six players nod solemnly. Gerry, in the four years since he’s left, has gained almost godlike status in the Slytherin House - just look at Max. He practically idolises him.

“Do it for Gerry,” Alwyn says. “Like the Simpsons episode, right?”

“Right,” Yoongi agrees.

(He has no idea what Alwyn is talking about, but that’s nothing new.)

They’re practicing at a normal time of day, for once - Malfoy’s battled hard for the Slytherin spot, nine in the morning on a Saturday, and it feels good to not be doing it at the arsecrack of dawn for once. There’s not much else to say - they get on brooms and fuck around in the air for a bit, pulling robes and tossing Beater bats at each other until Jimin and Edie-Maude get their hands on the equipment, and then Yoongi throws the Bludgers at the pair of them until they’re yelling for him to piss off Min you bastard and, meanwhile, Damien leads the Chasers in a little exercise in seeing how many Quaffles they can lose.

“Coach us, dickhead,” Sam yells, flinging their last Quaffle to Izzy and catching it again on the rebound. “What do we do, c’mon, Damien’s depressing me.”

Yoongi looks over the stands. “Well, we could do a practice match.”

“Oh, no,” Damien says. He’s smiling, though - another thing Yoongi’s missed. “I know that look.”

Five minutes later and there’s fifteen people in the air, and lots more screaming, and a lot more danger around the place too. They split roughly in two, two teams, Jeongguk seeking among the first-year team, Max doing absolutely nothing but chasing after Izzy and Alwyn and trying to get in their way as much as he possibly can.

“Good training plan!” Damien shrieks from the goals, dodging five Quaffles at once. “How is this useful, exactly?”

“It isn’t!” Yoongi shouts. “But it’s bloody good fun - jesus!” As a Bludger comes soaring past his cheek.

And it really is, for all the danger there is of being brained. One of the new kids, that Robert Elias with the smile and the chubby cheeks, is Muggleborn and hasn’t the first clue how to fly a broom, and they waste a happy half hour showing him how to move through the wind, and how to bend across the broom - like a bicycle, but in the air, going very very fast, with the possibility of falling a thousand feet and cracking something vital in the sand and grass of the pitch.

Yeah, totally safe.

“I’ll do seeking next year,” Robert Elias declares, as soon as he can fly without wobbling dangerously. “You’re going next year, right? I can seek? You look super cool. Is it hard? I bet it’s easy for you or something. It looks so cool.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome,” Yoongi can’t help but grin - enthusiasm is catching. “You gotta work out how to go fast, first.”

“He can Seek, but I bag chasing,” Max waves across the pitch at Sam. “Had my eyes on your job since first year.”

“Whatever, you tosser,” she flings the Quaffle at him.

The first match they’ll play is against Hufflepuff in three weeks time, and honestly Yoongi isn’t worried. Maybe he should be, since Hoseok’s still the captain of the Puffs and his tactics are so tight as to be almost unbeatable, and the Slytherin team is out of practice what with the year out, but there isn’t any tension anymore - no pressure to perform. Have fun. Like what Gerry said, way back. Have fun, you fuckers.

“The Puffs ‘ull be tough,” Yoongi says, when it nears eleven in the morning and they haven’t done anything useful at all. “But Hoseok focuses on the Quaffle, yeah? McDonnell on Seek - he ain’t all that. So we don’t give a shit about our Chasing offensive, right, we just help Damien Keep them and stop them from being too overwhelming, yeah, and I’ll take McDonnell and we’ll all come home in time for tea.” He takes a deep breath. “Sound all sound, or does someone else have a better idea?”

“Sounds solid,” Damien says, clapping him soundly on the shoulder with a smile. “We’ll knock them outta the water, just you wait and see.”

Jeongguk is smiling softly when Yoongi looks over at him, and Yoongi looks away as fast as he can, hating how he knows he’s turning pink.

(And Robert Elias and five other Slytherins are looking at Yoongi like how three little kids looked at Gerry Thompson seven years ago.)

Beginnings and endings are all just too fucking hard to cope with.

Yoongi points at Jeongguk. “You - come with us, too, and we’ll all head up to the dungeons and let’s see if anyone’s left any whisky in the Common Room from June.”

***

Robert Elias tries his best to get his hands on the Slytherin whisky, and Damien and Yoongi up the ante in the hiding places they find for it. In the three weeks between the first practice and the Puff match, Yoongi is either practicing, desperately doing late homework, drinking tea with Jeongguk in the Room of Requirement, or hiding alcohol in increasingly ridiculous places with his ex-boyfriend.

And that’s the other thing. Yoongi - although he feels bad, and he’ll always feel bad, for the way he treated Damien - thinks there’s less there, too, like they’re back where they were. Damien is his friend, his oldest and maybe his closest through his whole time at Hogwarts, and that never vanished.

“The little shit just learned Accio in Charms,” Damien says, Levitating the half-full bottle onto the top of the canopy on his bed. “Just you wait, we’ll have a dorm full of pissed twelvies before the end of the week.”

“Remember when we nicked Gerry’s booze?”

“Yeah,” Damien laughs, all reminiscent and soft. “Oh, fuck, do you remember when Katie Jeffries spiked the pumpkin juice and didn’t tell us and we thought we’d got food poisoning?”

“Sam got blackout drunk on Halloween night!”

“Fucking hilarious.” Damien shoves his wand into his pocket. “I’m gonna miss this place. Christ.”

“Don’t act like it’s over yet, mate. Only October,” Yoongi says, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling of ending in the back of his head. “We got plenty of time. And it’s not like we won’t stop. Hell, we all still talk to Gerry.”

“True.”

Robert Elias says his little sister wants to be a witch, and she’s written him several letters since the start of term about how she wants to be in Slytherin because she thinks her big brother is the coolest guy in the whole world. Yoongi’s written that one in the letter to Gerry he’s slowly composing, aided and abetted by Max. Gerry would like the new kids.

“Match tomorrow. How’ll we do?”

“Good,” Yoongi says, staring at the ceiling. “I have… fuck, so much work for Bloom. And Malfoy on my ass about practicing more.”

“Same,” Damien flops down onto his own bed. “I thought free periods would mean, like, rest. Not going and brewing Liver Elixir every five bloody minutes, y’know?”

“Ugh.”

Divination and Potions are at the forefront of his mind. Malfoy, in a low voice at the end of yesterday’s lesson, told him he would accept nothing less than an O in Potions NEWT before he would consider Yoongi for an apprenticeship, and that Bloom would no doubt expect the same. But Yoongi - he doesn’t know if he can teach. If people can find him someone to respect, and listen to.

“I’ve fucked up a lot,” he says to Jeongguk, later in the library when they’re bent over their books. “I don’t - think. Things. I don’t think I would be great at that.”

“You haven’t, though,” Jeongguk says. Under the table he kicks Yoongi’s ankle, and taps his finger against Yoongi’s knuckles, and Yoongi aches. “You haven’t. Like, sure, you had a messy breakup, but - but you’re great with your juniors. Like - like, like Max and Izz and Al, and even the new kids, they think you’re the best ever. Hell, I think you’re the best ever. You’d be a wonderful teacher,” and his eyes are so big and soft and Yoongi wants to kiss him.

“I don’t know,” he says, instead of anything else he might want to. “I just… gotta think about it.”

“You’ll make the right choice.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Jeongguk kicks him again. “You will.”

Yoongi shrugs. He can’t stop thinking about Damien, and all the things he messed up there, and the whole messy mess with Jeongguk last year. “What else do I do? Malfoy’s done all my thinking for me. I have, like, zero clue of where I want to go next year.”

“Why is teaching such a bad plan?” Damien asks in the dorm late one night. “You’d be okay.”

Yeah, and the guilt bubbles up all the while.

“I’m no good,” Yoongi says, as soon as he thinks Damien’s gone to sleep. The dorm room is dark and murky, the light cast in from the night of the moon, and with only a week to go until his first match as Quidditch Captain - and two weeks until the Halloween break - he feels like this is it, in some sort of weird way. Like he can’t move forward with Jeongguk or Damien because he fucked up so badly with both of them.

And who does he talk to about this? Snape, the dead Potions master, who’ll tell him to shut up and stop being a teenager? Malfoy, who looks like emotion is a thing he’s long lost contact with? Namjoon and Hoseok, who’s solution to everything is to see if it looks better from the other side of a bottle?

“You’re good,” Damien says, five minutes later, in the dark. He sounds muffled, like he has a pillow pressed to his face. “Yoongi, you’re a fucking idiot, but you’re not a bad person.”

“Mmf.”

“Seriously.”

Yoongi balls up his duvet in his fist. “I’m a dick.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yeah I am.”

Damien sits up; Yoongi hears the rustling of sheets and cotton pyjamas. “Look, Yoongi, it takes two to bloody tango. You can’t take all the, all the, all the blame for a failed relationship, that’s just - it’s just mental, and stupid.” If Damien hears Yoongi’s soft noise of protest he doesn’t acknowledge it. “Don’t act like I was the only one that got messed up in that shitstorm last year.”

“Just - don’t, Damien,” Yoongi mumbles into his pillow. “I said I’m sorry and I’ll keep saying it as long as I want to. I just - fucking hell, let me feel bad, c’mon.”

“I don’t fucking want you to say it in the first place.”

Yoongi faceplants into his bedsheets.

“I want my friend back,” Damien continues, relentless in the harsh whispers of the night. “Not - not Yoongi full of fucking sorries all the time when I don’t give a shit about any of that, about any of them. I just want us to go back to how we were without bloody apologising. Get used to it. I want you to stop feeling like an ass, so stop fucking acting like you should be an ass and be my friend again.”

Yoongi breathes in fresh cotton; breathes in for a long time.

And then gets the breath knocked out of him as Damien’s pillow hits him in the back.

“I’ve forgiven you, you wanker. Do us all a favour and forgive yourself.”

This time, Yoongi is definitely sure Damien’s asleep before he exhales. “Okay, whatever,” he says, and rolls over, and goes to sleep.

***

The party after they win the Hufflepuff match is insane.

For one, Yoongi remains adamant that he’s dreaming, and that the match hasn’t actually taken place yet, and therefore any attempts to cheer are met with blank eyes and shrugs. Damien starts singing in his ear, and Max and Izzy and Alwyn have vanished into a store cupboard, shedding Quidditch robes and giggling and Yoongi really, really doesn’t want to know.

At seven in the evening, when the entirety of Slytherin House plus the handful of others they’ve befriended over the years - Namjoon, Hoseok, Taehyung sitting on Jimin’s lap having grapes fed to him, a girl probably called Janet who’s in some sort of loose arrangement with Sam, a set of twins from Hufflepuff who have befriended the Slytherin twins and who sit in the corner, drinking Butterbeer and playing Go Fish - all of them pile into the Common Room, half of them drunk, the other half reaching it, and melt onto the floor.

“You’ll win this year,” Hoseok says, all tipsy, his accent so thick and strong that it’s almost hard to hear him. “I know it. I don’t even mind it. You’re good.”

“You old bastard,” Yoongi says. “Gimme beer. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

In the corner, Namjoon is telling a similarly-pissed Sam all about the details of his long, complicated relationship with Seokjin. Sam is nodding. Namjoon looks like he might cry.

“I love him three,” Jeongguk says, passing out cans of beer from the stuffed grocery bag Hoseok brought with him. (Snape sees all, but it’s a long-accepted fact that the kids are gonna drink no matter what the teachers do, so he might as well accept it. Drinking. A time-honoured tradition.)

“I love you the most,” Yoongi kisses his thumb and then tries to touch Jeongguk’s neck, but he misses and ends up falling on his shoulder. “Holy fuck, did you see when we did that thing and we won? We’re awesome. Nobody give that Elias kid any drink.”

“Too late!” Damien shouts. “I gave him something. Possibly vodka. Maybe lemonade.”

“Definitely vodka,” Robert Elias says, lying in front of the fire, hugging an empty plastic shot glass. “I want some more.”

“No,” six different people say at once, and Namjoon ends up confiscating the vodka bottle for the ‘good of the rest of the house’. The rest of the first years still manage to nick Hoseok’s beer, and sit in a circle playing Gin Rummy and giggling for the rest of the night.

“I love you,” Damien begins, and burps. “No. Shut up, shut up, I’m talking, shut up.”

“Nobody said anything.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

“Shut up.”

Yoongi locks his lips and throws away the key.

“You’re, like, my best friend,” Damien’s hand lands heavy on Yoongi’s shoulder, “Like, ever I think maybe, and I love you, okay? And we’ll win the Quidditch and I love you and you should probably kiss that kid you like, because I love you and I’m giving you permission. But, like, soft love. I don’t wanna fuck you sorta love.”

“I love you too,” Yoongi agrees. “Same way. Don’t wanna fuck love.”

“Don’t fuck love.”

“Abstract concepts,” Namjoon says, and falls off the couch.

“To Slytherin!” Yoongi holds his cup in the air, and across the room, he sees Jeongguk’s smile in the haze. Plastic cups, beer cans, and in one case a vase empty of flowers and full of whisky are all thrust in the air, but Yoongi’s only looking at one person as they all yell to Slytherin and down whatever drink they’ve found in their cups.

Drinking receptacles.

Things.

***

Predictably, when it happens, it’s as understated and quiet as their friendship always has been - soft moments playing Gobstones in the hidden rooms of the castle, and studying together on rainy days, and eating hot fudge and talking about the Quidditch.

Malfoy is working hard on Yoongi this year, and Yoongi’s giving back as good as he gets. None of the seventh-years go home for Christmas; between Quidditch and NEWTS, Yoongi’s drowning under tactical plans for their Ravenclaw match, and star charts for Bloom, and endless memorised recipes for Malfoy, and letters to and from Gerry and chess matches and silent moments snatched with Jeongguk and time to drink and complain with the rest of his House.

So - scene. The day before Christmas Eve and he’s in the dungeons on his own, brewing Amortentia and hoping that this will be the time it goes right, so he doesn’t have to spend more time scrubbing dried goat liver from the inside of his cauldron.

“Yoongi?”

“Hey,” Yoongi doesn’t look around at the call of Jeongguk’s voice; he’s busy trying to cut an onion root perfectly in half. “Sorry - if you wanna, like, sit down - my shit is everywhere-”

“I got it,” there’s the sound of rustling papers and the scrape of a wooden stool against flagstones, before Jeongguk’s hand appears in the corner of Yoongi’s vision, holding a knife. “This one is better for cutting onions.”

“Huh,” Yoongi takes it without question, pleased when it actually works. “How’d you know that?”

“No Potions talent. I just like cooking with my dad,” Jeongguk grins; Yoongi can hear it in his voice. “What are you making?”

“Attempting Amortentia for the thousandth time,” Yoongi tosses the onion hairs into the cauldron - the method calls for the shaved part of the bald onion, which is a fucking riddle, which isn’t fair to find in a Potions textbook. “It’s hard as hell. Malfoy will kill me if I can’t do it right by January, though.”

“You seem to be doing it pretty good,” Jeongguk mumbles, propping his chin on his hand as he stares into the cauldron. “Potions looks stressful.”

“Not really,” Yoongi takes up the knife again, fiddling with the lilywort in his hand. “It’s - once you get the hang of it, right? I like it.”

“I could never,” Jeongguk says. “Transfig and Charms all the way.”

“Intuition and practice,” Yoongi says absent-mindedly.

“Huh?”

“Bloom always says there’s two kinds of magic, and they’re intuition and practice,” Yoongi wipes his sticky hands on his robes and starts stirring, as carefully as he can. “Like… working hard and learning charms and movements and stuff, that’s practice, and that’s awesome. And intuition is feeling shit, which is - less than ideal.”

“Yeah, but you can do Divination,” Jeongguk says. “That’s pretty awesome.”

“Only some of the time.”

“You won the Slytherin draw.”

“Pure chance,” Yoongi grins.

“Yeah, for sure.”

The Amortentia is turning a shade of pale pink, slowly but surely, with a sweet smell of vanilla and hot chocolate and Jeongguk flooding into the room that Yoongi is too used to now to react to. He inhales, and smiles in satisfaction, and when he looks at the wall he sees Snape looking at him with what could be called pride, if that painting ever admitted to feeling emotion in the first place. “Well, sir?”

“Good,” Snape says. “Very good.”

“What - does this potion do,” Jeongguk asks. His cheeks are all pink and blotchy, and his hands are clasped together so tight the knuckles are white. “It’s not, like… what?”

“Amortentia is the strongest love potion there is. Side effects include smelling like your true love,” Yoongi dips a decanting bottle into the cauldron and corks it, setting it in the centre of Malfoy’s desk with his name on the label. “It can be - uh, disconcerting, I guess.”

“Disconcerting,” Jeongguk repeats. He’s bright red. “Like - cut grass and tea and-”

And the door is swinging shut behind him before he can say anything more, and Yoongi -

“He’s going to the Astronomy Tower, if you want to catch him,” Snape says dryly. “Confess your undying love or whatever it is young people do these days.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi gasps, and he’s scrambling out the door after him.

***

“I’m in love with you,” Yoongi says, when he bursts out onto the top of the Astronomy Tower, when he sees Jeongguk’s tipped neck staring up into the stars. “When I make that potion it reminds me of you and I’m in love with you and that’s why I’ve been so weird and all last year, too, and I - oh my god, I’m taking Gerry’s advice, I’m fucking up - no, okay, I’m in love with you.” He inhales. Jeongguk isn’t moving, but he is looking around, his eyes all big and soft. “I’ve been in love with you for a while, I think,” Yoongi says, quieter. “I dunno when. I just - if you don’t, then that’s okay, because whatever you can be to me is all I want. But. But I want you to know, I suppose. That I love you.”

“Okay,” Jeongguk says. “I love you too.”

“And I don’t - wait, what?”

He laughs like Yoongi’s said something worth laughing at, giggling until the tears puddle in the corners of his eyes. “I love you too, you nutcase. I, unlike you, know what feelings are and how to deal with them.”

“How dare,” Yoongi says, but he comes closer, and sits down, and Jeongguk’s shoulder brushes his. “I am in control of my feelings.”

“Your reaction to anything is to either drink yourself into a coma with Jimin Park, or talk to Gerry for advice, when he’s genuinely the craziest guy I know. Control,” Jeongguk crooks his fingers playfully, “Yeah, sure.”

Yoongi knocks him back. “Shut up. I worked hard on that confession.”

“It was sweet. Very you.”

“What’s that meant to mean?”

“All over the place, unplanned, kind of a trainwreck, but it all worked out in the end,” Jeongguk nudges Yoongi’s hand with his, and their fingertips cross, watched by the twinkling constellations. “You ruined mine, though. I was going to write a pretty letter and confess in the Room or something, and it would have been really sweet, y’know?”

“Oops,” Yoongi says. He’s holding Jeongguk’s hand. Or - their hands are kind of crossed over one another, fingertip-to-knuckle, but still. He’ll take what he can get. “I panicked. Kind of still panicking. Sorry about ruining your cheesy Muggle movie plans.”

“You’re terrible,” Jeongguk says, and they sit and watch the stars and their hands creep closer together until Yoongi falls asleep, right there, against Jeongguk’s shoulder, and doesn’t wake when Jeongguk moves back inside.

(It’s winter. Still cold, even if they are trying to be romantic.)

(And they have the rest of the year to be sappy.)

(And then Jeongguk, very quietly, gives himself five minutes to panic about being in love with his best friend, and then when he’s done panicking he thinks he’s pretty okay with the way things have turned out, what with all the potions and the studying and the Quidditch and the mint ice-cream in the summer.)

(All good, all good.)

***

Really, it’s just like their friendship has been for years.

The kissing is a pretty good bonus, though.

***

Really, Divination is the only NEWT subject that isn’t actively contributing to Yoongi’s death wish. Ancient Runes is just a lot of bookwork, studying, translating, and shoving his head into books ten times as old as he is - he can just about deal with Runes, which is just memorisation and regurgitation among the interesting nuggets of information, but it’s still a lot to try and learn. Potions, much as it is falling into the method, is still a very - precise, exact sort of subject. Yoongi’s trying to learn all ten NEWT potions for the practical exam, not to mention the potioneering history he needs to know for the written.

But Divination is fun.

“Miss?”

“Yes?” Bloom pours them two cups of tea, the black liquid pooling against the thin china. “You appear to have had a wonderful Christmas break.”

Yoongi slaps his hand to the side of his neck. “Um-”

“I meant emotionally,” she says, eyes twinkling, tipping the sugar bowl into her own cup. “Clearly you think there have been other benefits.”

“Um,” Yoongi repeats, scarlet to the shoulders, shrugging further into his shirt collar to hide the splotchy hickey on his neck. “No? Um. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Ask away.”

“If you see something in a crystal ball, does it really have to come true?”

Bloom sits down, eyes narrowed, slender fingers folded under her chin. “Why do you ask?”

When he opens his eyes, the crystal ball isn't murky.

He sees Jeongguk, first of all, Jeongguk kissing someone whose face is obscured by the mist. Someone a little shorter than him. This Jeongguk is older, a little more built and a lot more confident, but no matter how hard Yoongi seeks it out, he can't see the face of the person Jeongguk's kissing. Then the crystal mist whips the picture away from him again, and it's gone, vanished into the depths of the ball.

He sees Alwyn Brydon bleeding from the nose, his eyes full of tears, jumping up and down and cheering. Alwyn's hair is longer. The mist takes him away.

He sees Damien, curled up with his hands around his knees, staring into a cup of something hot and smoking, someone holding his shoulder. Is it Yoongi? It has to be Yoongi.

He sees another misty figure, pink in the face, screaming fit to burst, a fat lip burst open, blood all down the front of his robes, his hands shaking. Yoongi can see all of his face, and he looks familiar, but for the life of him he can't recognise who it is. He's yelling at Jeongguk, though, this figure, and crying quite a bit, and as Yoongi watches Jeongguk bites out something and turns on his heel and walks away, and the misty figure leans against the wall and slides down it, beginning to mop up his lip with the end of his robes.

He sees someone else. Malfoy and someone else, shouting. Who the fuck is that? Yoongi recognises him, but he doesn't know from where. He makes Yoongi feel kind of sick.

He sees -

Jeongguk. Kissing someone again.

“A few years ago I looked in a crystal ball,” he says, even though that’s totally inadequate - what does he say? A few years ago he found a cathedral to the future, and tried to read himself with only a small portrait for company? “I just - some of the things have come true, but not all of them. And - I was wondering. What. What exactly-”

“What do you think the future is?” Bloom interrupts, eyes all narrow and catlike through the steam of hot tea. “What would you define it as?”

“As -” Yoongi stops, nonplussed. “As - I dunno. It’s the future.”

“But is it fixed?”

“I dunno,” he says again, gazing into the depths of his own teacup. If he focuses he could probably read something in them, but he doesn’t much feel like it. “I guess… the existence of Divination means it must be? But then - what’s the point of doing things if you’ll always end up the same?”

Bloom doesn’t say anything.

“The future is both fixed and fluid at the same time?”

“A paradoxical statement,” she says.

Yoongi shrugs. “How else are we meant to exist?”

Bloom stares at him another half minute, and then smiles, her cheeks crinkling. “I’m impressed, honestly. That is the basis of Divination theory, although many choo

se to discard it to believe in their horoscopes and their blood types and their Hogwarts House. The future is fixed and fluid. If you saw something in a crystal ball a few years ago, and it hasn’t come to fruition, but other things have, what do you think that means?”

“I dunno.”

“Think, Min. I can’t do your NEWT for you.”

Yoongi’s foot taps an anxious tattoo on the ground. “Uh… fixed, fluid… a few years ago my future was - fixed… but... but actions I took made it fluid and fixed a different future, and therefore…”

“And therefore,” Bloom nods. “Therefore the actions you took avoided the outcome you saw. You changed your future.”

“But I saw a future,” Yoongi says. Alwyn, with a bloody nose - that never happened. But the yelling, the fat lip, the blood… that happened, and Damien curled up on the floor, someone comforting him. It must have been Izzy, back when Yoongi was sleeping in her unused dorm and nobody was talking. “Did that future still come true? Somewhere?”

“I believe the Muggles have more theories for that than we do,” Bloom says. Again, she smiles. “But let me tell you - if you continue on the fixed future you have set yourself, I see only goodness for you. And I shall be seeing a lot more of you in the future, so don’t fall off the path you’re on now.”

And Jeongguk is waiting for him at the bottom of the tower and they go to eat lunch and study and throw chips at Jimin and Taehyung and Yoongi thinks he’s quite happy with the path he’s on now, really, if he’s honest.

Jeongguk smiles and Yoongi kisses him on the cheek, because he can.

Pretty good path. Pretty good, indeed.

***

The second Slytherin match of the year is in mid-February, against the Ravenclaws, and Jeongguk spends a lot of time among his housemates - apparently they want him to ask Yoongi for insider strategy, which Yoongi refuses to reveal, and any conversation even approaching the Quidditch ends in the two of them arms-folded staring angrily at opposite walls, before one of them pokes the other and they fall into a game of Gobstones, or a long half-hour of sharing sleepy kisses and avoiding any mention of the dreaded topic.

Yoongi’s favourite pastime is becoming the drag of Jeongguk’s lips against his, the way they both giggle, the way they can never find a comfortable position, the way their teeth knock together when they try to move, the way they’re learning how to be.

And Quidditch, of course.

“Gerry wrote yesterday,” Damien says, the morning of the match. None of them have got much sleep, and the atmosphere in the Great Hall is much more unfriendly this morning than it usually is. Nobody really wants to give Slytherin a winning shot at the Cup, which they have if they win this match.

“What did he say?” Robert Elias, one of the new kids, is eating marmalade by the spoonful, and chewing happily on cheekfuls of orange peel. “Is he the cool one? Is he coming?”

“He said he’d shove a broom up Yoongi’s arse and kick him to Timbuktu if we don’t win,” Damien says, in the same glum voice. “And he said he was coming to the village to stay for Easter break.”

“Doesn’t Yoongi get a say in what gets shoved up his arse?” Yoongi asks, taking the marmalade off Robert and dumping the rest of the jar onto his toast. “Oi, you scrawny kicker, you ate all the marmalade.”

“Use marmite instead.”

“I would rather die.”

“Yoongi gets no say in what gets shoved up his arse, according to Gerry,” Damien hands the letter over. “He’s listed broomsticks, the wrath of his mother, and the country of Wales, with more to come if we lose.”

“Forgive me for not feeling very inspired.”

“I’ll hit you with a Bludger if you don’t catch the Snitch,” Jimin suggests from down the table. “Oh! I’ll tell Taehyung to tell Jeongguk to stop making out with you for a week if we lose.”

“Do that anyway,” Alwyn says, squinting at Yoongi. “That bloke is a fucking vampire, mate, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you had a really bad rash.”

“There are children present,” Yoongi says as haughtily as he can manage, tipping his collar up to his jaw. “Kindly shut the fuck up, ‘cos I know you have a thing-”

Which leads to a breakfast tussle, which leads to a threat of detention from Malfoy, which leads to a lot of giggling-behind-hands and kicking-under-tables and a general atmosphere much lighter than the one that they brought from the Common Room.

Right before they have to march out to the pitch, Jeongguk runs into the Slytherin rooms, pink in the face and bedecked in the Ravenclaw colours. “Good luck,” he squeaks, and dives into a kiss with Yoongi to the accompanied hooting and whistling of the rest of the Slytherins. “I’ll be cheering for you,” he says, scarlet to his toes, before he runs out again and back to the Ravenclaw stands.

Samantha wipes an imaginary tear from his eye. “Do it for your sweetheart, Min. Are we in a fucking Muggle film?”

Yoongi wipes the spit from his lips - it wasn’t a very neat kiss - and shoves his broom in the air. “Let’s win!”

“Yeah!”

And so they do.

With bells on.

Fuck yeah.

***

“I sucked that Quaffle’s dick!”

“That doesn’t make sense, mate-”

“I sucked it-”

“Nah, man, it sucked your dick-”

“Ravenclaw can kiss my ass-”

“We’re gonna win the cup-”

“We’re gonna win the cup-”

“We’re gonna win the cup-”

When they spill into the Common Room at night, drunk on adrenaline and the cheers of - okay, the boos, but Malfoy was cheering and so were the kids - and also drunk on a considerable amount of pre-drinks stashed in the changing room lockers, there’s pastries sitting on the table, with a little note signed be awake in class tomorrow and the wax seal that matches the silver ring on Malfoy’s thumb. Yoongi grins at it, because it means more when he’s wobbly with drinking, and folds it into the inner pocket of his robes, and rips a Danish in half with his teeth. “Mffuckyeah!”

“We’re gonna win the cup, we’re gonna win the cup,” the six youngest sprawl next to the fire, half-chanting and half-singing and squabbling over the jam donuts. “We’re gonna win the cup…”

Sam vanishes into her room and when she reappears, she’s wielding cans in packs of six, condensation rolling down their cool sides from the icebox that nobody officially knows about. “Fuck yeah we are,” she says, tossing a drink to Yoongi and Damien before letting the younger ones have at it. “My god, imagine the look on Gerry’s face.”

“He’d die.”

“He’d die.”

In the corner, whooping and yelling, Izzy and Max are hauling out the great big gramophone Izzy’s mother had sent to them, complete with pressed records of Muggle songs and wizarding hits. Hazy with the shots and the beer, Yoongi slumps in his seat - no Jeongguk tonight, he’d be slaughtered if he left the mourning Ravenclaws - and this is a more intimate celebratory party, all slow and loose and Alwyn fighting with the gramophone as he tries to get Iggy Pop to work.

“Another,” Damien hollers, and cans of beer fly through the air.

“Accio great big shot of whisky!”

“Not how magic works,” Sam yells, and Yoongi bursts out laughing when she ducks to avoid the flying bottle. “Oh, fuck you!”

Esther Mae and another of the new kids, Carol Wilkinson, are over by the records when someone puts on Great Balls of Fire, of all the fucking things, and Yoongi topples off the sofa with laughing, clutching his stomach as the little trio try a bizarre Frankenstein version of the jive.

“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!” Damien screeches. “You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain…”

“Accio another great big shot of whisky!”

“That’s not how magic works!”

And more drinking. More pastries. At one point they bother Alwyn and Izzy into running down to the kitchens to tickle the pear and ask the elves on night duty if they could kindly have whatever food is lying about; they end up listening to Penny Lane and the Beach Boys and eating cold sausage rolls with the Firewhisky they begged off the elves.

“Someone’s gonna have to do a booze run,” Yoongi says, when he holds up his hand and his vision spins. The night is winding down. Sam and Damien are asleep, pillowed on each other and their Quidditch robes, and someone has put George Harrison on the record player. Yoongi is talking to himself.

Around the Common Room, his friends are mostly sleeping, mostly knocked into a drunken stupor. The first years are in a sugar coma puppy pile by the fire, covered in a light layer of sugar frosting, fingertips glistening with jam. In his sleep, Robert Elias is humming goodness gracious great balls of fire, a beaming smile on his face.

Yoongi takes one last swig of the whisky, in honour of Gerry and the headache he’ll have in the morning, and happily passes out leaning against Alwyn’s shoulder.

A good night.

They won.

(And everyone booed.)

A good night.

***

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I love you,” Jeongguk says. Yoongi has his legs flung over Jeongguk’s lap, sucking on the end of a sugar-spun quill as he doodles pictures of Malfoy’s nose in the margins of his study notes. They’re in an abandoned classroom on the Transfiguration corridor, in theory because Jeongguk wants to revise for his practical, but in reality because they want a change of scenery but without having to go to the library and start whispering among the stacks.

Yoongi hums, leaning his forehead against Jeongguk’s shoulder. “Love you too. Why?”

“Why do I love you?”

“Why now, you dumbass,” Yoongi dips the tip of the quill back in the ink bottle Jeongguk is holding up for him. “I love you all the time, you know I do.”

“I like saying it,” Jeonguk says. He presses his nose into the crown of Yoongi’s head. “Let me be a sap.”

“You’re always a sap, whether I let you or not.”

“Mm. Love you.”

Yoongi hasn’t kissed many people. He kissed Yasmin Taylor, his neighbour, when he was nine and wanted to know what it felt like, and he kissed Sam in first year on a dare, and he kissed Damien consistently for, like, a year. The first two don’t count, but Damien does, and Jeongguk doesn’t kiss like Damien did.

His thumb brushes Yoongi’s chin, and Yoongi sighs and eats the rest of his quill and sets his revision out of harm's way before wriggling fully into Jeongguk’s lap, letting the wandering hand land on his jaw and pull his face around to face Jeongguk’s. “Hi, there.”

“Fancy meeting you here,” Jeongguk says. He has warm hands, and he doesn’t mind holding Yoongi’s, and he likes touching things. Yoongi’s hair - his cheeks - his hand. “Mind if I proposition you?”

“How very forward,” Yoongi says.

Jeongguk giggles, and his hand falls to the back of Yoongi’s head and his fingers twist a little in the curly hairs there and he pulls Yoongi forward - Yoongi lets himself be pulled - and brushes his lips against Yoongi’s, as soft as summer and as sweet as sugar.

Jeongguk kisses like he knows Yoongi will always be there to kiss him back. Yoongi could do this for hours, and he has; sitting in Jeongguk’s lap, hands on his waist and in his hair, soft little noises murmuring out of their bubble of intimacy. Jeongguk’s lips are warm and wet and every so often, with a soft giggle, he nips on Yoongi’s bottom lip and tugs it, because Yoongi always whines when he does.

“Hey,” Jeongguk says, when they surface for air.

“Hey,” Yoongi says. With the absence of Jeongguk’s mouth, he trails down from his lips to his jaw to his neck, leaving wet open-mouthed kisses there. “Love you.”

“Love you too,” Jeongguk says, and tugs on Yoongi’s hair as light as he can. “My eyes are up here.”

“Don’t wanna make out with your eyes.”

“Fuck you, that came out wrong. I was trying to be smooth.”

“Yeah, and failing,” Yoongi looks up to see the unbearable softness creasing Jeongguk’s face. “You could just ask, you nerd.”

“I’m being flirtatious,” Jeongguk says. “I have spit on my neck, now. Look what you did.”

“I was making out with you.”

“Improve your technique, then come back to me,” Jeongguk kisses him. “Mm. I love you.”

I love you too. “I love you too,” Yoongi hums at the flat tongue, the scratching teeth Jeongguk scrapes against his throat. “Izzy’s getting sick of - oh - me borrowing her foundation.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’m a respectable adult. I can’t walk around with - owfuck - hickeys on me like a horny teenager.”

“You are a horny teenager, you fucker,” Jeongguk pokes his side and they bend into laughing, warm and nice. “Just gotta play the part you were born into.”

“Gimme a gold medal.”

“Will a kiss do?” Jeongguk asks him, and Yoongi smiles - well what do you think written all over his face - and tilts his head forward to accept his reward.

***

“Name three common substitutions you would make if foxglove was not available to you during the brewing of the Cold Cough Cure,” Snape says.

Yoongi wipes his brow; the potion is hot, and the condensation keeps cooling on his cheeks and the tip of his nose. “Um. Dandelion root, docken leaves, or the left lung of an Irish Elk,” he says.

“What would you do in the event of an exploding Liver Salt?”

“Shove my fingers in my ears and hope for the best,” Yoongi sets the silver spoon to self-stir and runs his fingertip down the well-worn pages of his Potions book. “Ask me some proper questions, go on, you weren’t a Potions Master for nothing.”

“There’s no point in asking you any more,” Snape says, with no small amount of exasperation. “You know that book inside out and then some, even with all the mistakes in the methods, and you’re a natural even at the most difficult of potions. Hell - look what you’re doing now!”

“Practicing questions never did any man any harm,” Yoongi says. The potion, which he’s been working at on and off for three months now, is finally starting to thicken, turning translucent in the very base of the cauldron. Within the month, he thinks, it’ll be gold. “Either you help me study or you bugger off.”

“Don’t be rude to elders and betters.”

“You’re only one of those, and even that’s debatable - that frame you’re in looks pretty modern.”

Snape rolls his eyes, the action exaggerated through the - very modern, in truth - painting of a dog he’s currently inhabiting. “I never thought I’d say this, but you’re actually preferable when you’re sniping about your love life.”

“You’re petty as hell,” Yoongi says, wiping his damp hair out of his eyes. “Go on, hush, you wanna see if I can get this right too.”

Snape obligingly shuts up, but Yoongi can feel his judgemental stare though layers of canvas and splotched paint.

Yoongi is brewing - or trying to brew - a working batch of Felix Felicitas, although he knows it’s way beyond the level of skill he’ll need to do well in the NEWT. He started this lot in January, and now it’s March and he hasn’t fucked it up yet, and it isn’t much more than something to keep him occupied, but he knows if he can do this, he can do anything. And Bloom said he would succeed if he stays on the path he’s on, which means studying until his eyes fall out and become an essential ingredient of whatever potion he’s working on at the time.

Which means luck potion, and Snape endlessly grilling him about Potions trivia.

“What on earth are you doing? No, don’t answer that, I know exactly what you’re doing - why on earth are you doing that?”

Yoongi looks up from the cauldron to see Malfoy leaning in the doorway, looking bright and intrigued, his robes unbuttoned down his neck. It’s after hours, but Malfoy never really relaxes - Yoongi wonders if he knows how. “I don’t think this potion is on our syllabus,” Malfoy says, moving into the room and shutting the door behind him. “How far through are you?”

“Three months,” Yoongi says, letting Malfoy peer into the cauldron. “But it’s just - like, for fun. Not real.”

“Some of these ingredients are only available to people who have a license, and who have sat a vetting exam in the Ministry,” Malfoy says.

“Yeah, but your old Master knows the password to the restricted cupboard, and he likes me.”

Malfoy flings a half-hearted glare at Snape. “Traitor.”

Snape just shrugs.

I actually do want to talk to you, Min,” Malfoy says, as Yoongi gives the mixture one more stir before sliding the pewter lid back over the cauldron. “Have you given any more thought to what you would do after Hogwarts?”

“Nope,” Yoongi says. He has. Lots of thought. Usually they end with him getting incredibly drunk with Namjoon, and debating whether it’s too late to rejoin Muggle society and become investment bankers.

“I have.”

“Sir, you already left Hogwarts,” Yoongi says. “You don’t need to think about it.”

Malfoy blinks at him. “No - thinking about your case.”

“Oh.” He feels kind of slow, and he can see Snape hiding a smirky sort of laugh behind the cuff of his robes, in the big portrait of Merlin’s wife starkers near the door. “Yeah, sure. What did you think?”

“Bloom and I have decided she can have you, but I want you to know that if you prefer Potions, it certainly is an option.”

Yoongi feels like he’s going through the mental equivalent of missing a step when climbing a staircase. “Hold on - what?”

“Apprenticeship,” Malfoy says slowly, like it’s Yoongi who isn’t making any sense in this conversation. “For Professorship, or - Masterhood in the Potions sense. I believe Divination is less formal, in the structure of the art, although Bloom and I don’t really discuss it.”

“They just discuss you,” Snape says, like a gleeful child. “Very loudly. They annoy everyone else in the staff room, you know.”

“Apprenticeship?”

Malfoy squints at him. “I thought - well, Severus told me you were considering entering teaching. And Bloom is looking for someone; the centaurs refuse to allow another one of their kind to teach, and according to her, Seers are growing less and less. But if you were thinking of something else…”

“I don’t think I can teach, sir,” Yoongi says firmly. He folds his book over and shoves it in his satchel, and starts walking crabwise to the door, bent over trying to politely leave the conversation. “I was going to… leave my options open.”

“You would be very good.”

“Uh.”

Malfoy raises an eyebrow, and very deliberately shifts to block the doorhandle. “You are an incredible Potioneer, and Professor Bloom says only good things about your aptitude in Divination. You’ve led the Slytherin Quidditch team the closest they’ve ever come to the Cup so far in over twenty years, and your juniors practically worship you.”

Yoongi says nothing, but he knows he’s turning red.

“You remind me of Gerry Thompson,” Malfoy says, like that isn’t the highest praise anyone could ever give him. “Driven and capable of inspiring people to do better. Did you know Gerry’s making waves in the Irish Ministry? They’re considering making him Senior Assistant to the Taoiseach of Magic. He’s doing wonderful.”

“We still talk a lot, sir,” Yoongi mumbles, staring at the wall.

“I think you can teach,” Malfoy says. He makes eye contact with Snape. “Most people have to be talked into seeing where their real talent lies, I find.”

Snape coughs.

“Okay,” Yoongi says. He feels kind of weird. Of course Gerry’s told him, and Jeongguk, and Damien too, but it’s different coming from Malfoy; Malfoy, who’s a solid guy, and Malfoy, who told him what being a Slytherin means, and Malfoy who was attacked by Harry (fucking) Potter and who still came back to Hogwarts and who’s been the saviour of the House, this past year, who almost-totally stopped the black eyes and bruised cheeks. “Uh. Can I talk to you after the NEWT results, then? About it?”

Malfoy’s mouth twitches and it might be a smile. “Of course. I feel obligated to tell you that both Professor Bloom and I will only accept apprentices who achieve an O in the NEWT of their subject of choice.”

“Of course,” Yoongi says mechanically.

When he walks away from the unused room he’s been brewing the luck potion in, he pretends he can’t hear Snape and Malfoy talking about him, in loud (muffled) voices.

He knows what he wants to do, he guesses. Even if Malfoy does have to prod him into doing it.

And he can totally get an O in NEWT Divination, no problem.

(He looks forward to the look of betrayal on Malfoy’s face, and on Snape’s, too - but he thinks Bloom will be proud of him, and Gerry will be, too.)

***

He comes back from a soft, cosy conversation (kisses, giggles) with Jeongguk, one balmy night in April, punch-drunk on nothing but love and the surreal happiness washing through his whole body, because it can’t be this easy, and yet it is. Nobody has come to tell him his time is up; there is no other shoe to drop, no other leg to pull, and Yoongi feels constantly like he might just explode with the joy of it - in reaching out, and finding Jeongguk’s hand there for him, his smile there for him, his lips and his eyes and everything that he is waiting for Yoongi to catch him.

Jeongguk likes to remind Yoongi that he loves him, in this soft, reverent tone, like if he says it any louder Yoongi will vanish. He likes to cup Yoongi’s cheeks in his palms and says i love you so much and kisses the tip of his nose.

Yoongi is in love.

“Potatoes,” he says to the Slytherin door, and slides through when it lets him pass. It’s so late, and on a Tuesday night; nobody will be around, especially with the last Quidditch match of the year on Saturday morning. The whole team is trying their hardest. Gerry is coming. They’re gonna win the cup.

Which is why it’s such a surprise to see Robert Elias curled up on his own in front of the dying fire, surrounded by bloody tissues, sniffing into a flower of white paper around his nose, red and snot covering his fingertips.

“Elias?”

Robert swings around like he’s been punched. He has. “Fubk - why abnt you asbeep?”

“Tip your head back,” Yoongi sinks down to his knees, grabbing Robert’s jaw and pinching the tissue tighter around his nose. “I could do a healing charm, but Jeongguk’s better than I am - fucking hell, you lost a pint or what? Hold on, I’ll do the spell. Keep your head tipped back.” He pretends he doesn’t see the shame in Robert’s eyes as he slips his wand out of his sleeve and flicks it at the bloody nose. “Episkey.”

Robert takes his hand away from his face gingerly, and wriggles his nose. “Fucking hell, thank you. That was a bitch to mop up.”

“You took a fuckin’ beat,” Yoongi starts tossing bloody tissues into the fire, grimacing at the acrid smell. “Wanna tell me what happened? Who do I have to kill?”

“Nobody.”

“Yeah, shit. You didn’t whack yourself in the face.”

Robert sets his jaw grimly, his chubby cheeks looking disturbingly bloody with his fingertips. “Nobody.”

Yoongi sits down, cross-legged, facing him. Robert Elias is short and skinny and his hair is too long and his smile takes over all of his face and he always seems to be surrounded by the other five, in this little posse of inside jokes and giggling, a little bubble of protection from the reality of being in Slytherin. Yoongi doesn’t want Robert to do what he did. “Listen, mate, why bother pretending? What good is that gonna do? This way, me ‘n Malfoy ‘n Damien will fuck them up, and Sam’ll probably kill them. And Izzy will give you hot chocolate.”

Robert looks down at his knees. “Yeah, but,” and his voice cracks, “But nobody ever bothers you.”

Circles. Life is full of fucking circles. Coming full circle, going ‘round in circles…

Yoongi feels like laughing, even though nothing is funny.

“Mate, I’ll tell you this in the strictest confidence, ‘cos apparently you kids think I’m cool,” he begins, and Robert Elias looks up with a little glimmer in his eyes, the excitement of secrets that other people won’t get to hear. “Right, well, lips zipped and all that, but - you know Jeongguk? Love-of-my-life-wonderful-boyfriend, lets you drink beer because he thinks I don’t see him sneaking it into your pockets during parties?”

Robert flushes, and then nods. “The Ravenclaw?”

“That one. Well, him and me had a big fall out last year. He ripped me a new one, and you know why?”

Robert shakes his head.

“‘Cos I wouldn’t ever say when I was getting the shit kicked out of me,” Yoongi takes the last tissue out of the pack, and tries to dab at Robert’s face. “Listen, it isn’t - don’t think - listen. Nobody ever bothers me anymore because I wised up and told Malfoy and he got at the ones that were doing it, and I’m - you’re meant to come to me, and let me sort it out, yeah? I’ll fuck them up. They shouldn’t be the ones fucking you up, though, ‘cos you ain’t ever done shit.”

Robert shrugs. He’s cleaned up, mostly. “Okay, but - they said, they said it was ‘cos I was in Slytherin. And I’m not dumb. We’re a tiny fucking House and I might be Muggleborn or whatever but I did the reading. We’re, like, the evil house, right? Voldemort-” he pronounces it wrong, doesn’t stress the hard e, but then when would he ever have heard it aloud - “He came from Slytherin, right?”

Yoongi exhales. Circles. Bloody, bloody circles. “So did Merlin, mate.”

“But-”

“So did I, and so did Malfoy, and Sam and Damien and Izzy and - listen, does Alwyn Brydon look like the sort of boy that has any capability to be evil? And Izzy has Winnie the Pooh pyjamas. Does she look evil to you?”

“No, but-”

“Listen, Malfoy told me this, just so’s you know where it’s coming from,” Yoongi resists the urge to bite his thumb. “Slytherin isn’t the evil house, no more than Gryffindor’s for hardy fuckers and Hufflepuff is for dumbasses and Ravenclaw is for people with sticks up their bums.” He pauses, and Robert giggles almost despite himself. “Right? Slytherins are resourceful and smart and cunning and those aren’t evil things to be. What do you think is worse, huh, being in Slytherin or beating up a first year?”

“But if you thought that first year deserved it-”

“Hey, Elias, nobody deserves getting their nose punched in because of the results of a personality test,” Yoongi says, as gently as he can. “Listen - you deserve just as much as anyone else does, okay, and don’t fall into thinking you don’t, ‘cos it all ends in tears. You have just as much right to be here as everyone else in this fucking castle, and I’ll fight anyone that tells you otherwise.”

Robert sniffs. “But-”

“Don’t even think about it. Who were they?”

Robert tells him, and Yoongi smiles, and writes a little scrap of note for Namjoon to catch in the Gryffindor dorms. “Go to bed, kid,” he says, and he sounds like - not himself - “Go to bed, and I promise you on Saturday we’ll show them all wrong, and we’ll win the Cup, and you can carry it around the castle screaming if you want to. Okay?”

“Okay,” Robert says. He smiles, a bit, and scurries off to bed, and when Yoongi’s sure he’s gone he trudges up to his room and collapses into his pillow.

Damien is snoring.

(And there’s a little bedtime note from Jeongguk. I love you sleep well x.)

Yoongi smiles at it, and does.

***

“So,” Gerry says, as Damien returns to their table in the Three Broomsticks, “I’ve decided I’m writing the speech at your wedding, seeing as without my wonderful advice, this fucker here would still have his head shoved so far up his ass he’d be able to see what he ate for dinner.”

“Gross, Ger,” Yoongi says mildly. Jeongguk buries his face in Yoongi’s shoulder, muffling giggles. “And you - don’t encourage him. Nothing good will come of this.”

Gerry flew in from Dublin to Hogsmeade yesterday; he’s staying the weekend, because according to him the very thing the Slytherins need to win is the inspiration of their one true father. This naturally means Jeongguk, Damien, Sam, and Yoongi have all sneaked out of the castle to meet him for drinks, and to stop on his ego a little.

“Something good has come of it already,” Jeongguk elbows him in the side. “Ass.”

“Who’s been keeping up the good work, corrupting the children of my house and home?”

“That would be Yoongi,” Samantha says, coming back down with two pint glasses frothing butterbeer. “Those little shits worship the ground he walks on, y’know. It would be revolting, but it’s kinda cute.”

“Fuck you,” says Yoongi. “No they don’t.”

“Yeah they do,” Jeongguk pulls at his fringe, and accepts the glass from Samantha with a mumbled thanks and a grin.

Damien laughs. “There’s this one kid, Robert Elias - right, yeah? Chubby li’l baby, he’s adorable, and he’s always going on to the rest of them about how wicked cool Yoongi is, and all that. I feel quite redundant. Here, mate, there’s your beer, take it or leave it.”

“Ta very much.”

Gerry claps Yoongi on the shoulder. “I’ll be in the Slytherin stands tomorrow, in any case, so you better not let me down. Win that fucking cup, lads.”

“And lassies.”

“And lassies,” he says, and they all tip their glasses together, and Jeongguk presses a warm kiss to Yoongi’s cheek.

***

There’s a repeat showing of that warm kiss, as the seven Quidditch players arrange themselves in the little tented area before the pitch. Yoongi tightens the strap of his leather gloves as tight as they will wind; around him, the other six are doing much the same sort of thing, Jimin tossing his bat in the air and catching it again, and Damien trying to fix the chin straps tighter around his cheeks.

“Good luck, lads,” Yoongi says. “And lassies,” before Izzy or Sam can say anything. “Fucking hell - okay, okay, Gerry is out there, right? So forget the cup and all that shite. Just - Gerry deserves a Quidditch Cup at least once. Let’s fucking give it to him.”

Jeongguk is there, too, decked out loyally in the silver and green, Yoongi’s scarf around his neck, Max’s hat on his head, Alwyn’s tie wrapped around his forehead. He looks bizarre. “You’re going to win,” he says, slipping his hand into Yoongi’s and squeezing. “You’ll be amazing, just you wait and see.”

“I love you,” Yoongi says, and tips his cheek back for the incoming kiss.

“And here they are - the Slytherin Quidditch Team!”

Namjoon has been joined by Hoseok in place of Seokjin for the commentating this year, a browbeaten Malfoy retiring to the staff seats with a growl at the pair of them to behave, for godssakes.

“Slytherin!” Namjoon hoots. “Captain and Seeker, the most wonderful Yoongi Min, returning to the world stage again! We have Keeper, Damien Roadfell, and Chasers Isobel Way, Alwyn Brydon, and Samantha Woods! Lastly, our Beaters, the handsome Jimin Park-” Jimin wolf-whistles up at the Hufflepuff stands, and Taehyung waves back, a splot of green and silver in the sea of Gryffindor colours. “Yes, thank you Jimin - and our final Beater, Edie-Maude Black!”

Yoongi stands in the centre, his team fanning around him. They’re playing Gryffindor, of course they are, and the atmosphere is oppressive; the boos that face them, and the cheers when Hoseok announces the Gryffindor team.

“Remember what we planned,” he says, out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t freak.”

The handshake leaves his fingers numb, and the whistle of the beginning of the match rings in his ears as the fourteen players shoot into the air.

Remember what we planned.

“And they’re off!”

The Gryffindor Seeker, a fifth-year called Lumley, is hot on his heels as Yoongi soars into the sky, hovering far above the main action. Yoongi expected it. He flies high, eagle-eyed; Lumley likes to dog the opposing Seeker, and follow them, and whip the Snitch from under their nose.

“Immediately Slytherin takes possession - oh, fucking hell, Jimin that was close-”

“No swearing! Namjoon! For fuck’s sake!”

Yoongi laughs out loud, the wind stinging his nose. Malfoy is a legend.

Below him, Izzy and Alwyn toss the Quaffle back and forth, and over the yelling of the student body Yoongi imagines he can hear Max hoarse with cheering them on. As they reach the Gryffindor hoops, Samantha appears out of nowhere, and the Gryffindors - all of whom are shadowing Izzy and Alwyn - are powerless to do anything as Sam takes aim and scores with apparent ease.

“An easy first score for Slytherin! Up the silver and green, eh? Ten-nil!”

Yoongi punches the air. Looking down, he can see Jeongguk in the Slytherin stands, jumping up and down, hugging Max and Taehyung, who must have sneaked over from Hufflepuff. Gerry is waving three different banners in the air at once.

“You won’t win,” Lumley shouts over the wind. “We will!”

Yoongi ignores her, balancing on his broom, scanning the air for the glint of gold. Where is it?

“Oh my fucking god!”

Malfoy doesn’t tell Hoseok off. Yoongi looks down just in time to see a small cloud of green and silver falling, surrounded by appropriately-contrite players in red and gold.

“Oh my fucking god, Samantha Woods knocked off her broom by that bastard Collins - sir, you know it’s true-”

Yoongi aims down and flies faster than he ever has before. “Sam! Sam-”

“She’s okay!” Izzy yells at him. Malfoy is desperately signalling for O’Shannon to take Sam to the Hospital Wing, and Sam is standing - albeit wobbly on her feet - seeming equally desperate to stay. “She’s - she’s okay - Yoongi we have to win-”

“Bastard Collins rules foul, Slytherin given two free shots at the goal! Give them hell, Izzy - sir, with all due respect, I don’t care if I’m showing a bias-”

And around the stands, there aren’t any boos. You’d have to be a real asshole to cheer for someone falling two hundred feet from the air, after all, even if it results in another free twenty points for Slytherin that Alwyn scores twice in a row, his face white and set and furious.

“Give them hell, Yoongi!” Gerry screeches into the sky.

Yoongi nods, and flies upward again so fast that Lumley is caught in the tailwind and goes spinning off to the right. Get the Snitch. Sam is sitting at the edge of the pitch, totally ignoring Malfoy and the half-dozen people trying to drag her to the Hospital Wing; when she sees him looking, she waves her broom in the air.

Remember what we planned.

(Plan: quick Snitch grab, but focus on just scoring. Damien can hold his own. Piss off the Gryffindors enough that they make mistakes.)

(Pissing them off enough that they knock Sam off her broom - definitely not part of the plan.)

Where is it?

Where the hell is the bloody Snitch?

Lumley follows on his tail, and Yoongi entertains himself for a slow ten minutes with shoving her this way and that in his tailspin, watching the match below. Slytherin are up fifty points to Gryffindor’s ten, and any time That Bastard Cheater Collins gets the Quaffle there’s a muffled - but loud - mumbling boo, and not just from the Slytherin stands.

Sam, down on the ground, is cheering magnificently. Even down a Chaser Izzy and Alwyn are a wonderful pair - fuck, Yoongi should have taken the time to train Max properly, and then they could have subbed him in -

“Slytherin scores again! Up sixty points on Gryffindor!”

Snitch, Min. Catch the Snitch. Do it now and beat them.

Snitch, Min. Catch the Snitch.

Snitch, Min.

Snitch. Where are you?

Lumley is behind him now, lost in the spins and flicks, and she doesn’t see what he sees; the golden glimmer, right behind the Slytherin stands. The sound, amplified after countless hours of practice; the clockwork hum and tick of those speedy little wings.

Snitch, Min. There it is. Catch it, mate, and win the cup.

He flies - Lumley catches on a bare five seconds into the speed, but by then it’s far too late to catch up to him - and the whole school turns to stare at him, and he can’t hear a thing over the rush of the wind in his ear and the swishing click of the Snitch’s wings. He flies.

Snitch, Min. Get the Snitch. Come on.

Snitch, Min.

He flies so close to the Slytherin stands that he hears Gerry shout his name, hears Max screaming himself hoarse, hears the six new kids cheering and stamping their feet, hears Taehyung whooping and hollering.

(Sees Jeongguk so full of something that for a moment Yoongi just wants to stop and kiss him.)

Snitch, Min. Get the Snitch.

Come on.

When he does, there’s a full five seconds of silence. Yoongi can feel the sweat in his palm, drying against the cold metal and the warm leather, and he can feel his eyes and nose running from the shock of the cold to the warmth, and he can feel the stares of a thousand of the next generation of British wizards.

A full five seconds of silence, and then Jeongguk dives into his arms and kisses him full on the mouth.

***

Yoongi has got into the habit of reading his future after he finishes his morning cup of tea, which is a really terrible thing to do, because it sets his mood for the whole day. Luckily these past few weeks have been full of nothing but good fortune - the path he’s on, as Bloom would say.

“You look happy,” Jeongguk says, bending down to kiss Yoongi on his way to the coffeepot. They’re spending the summer mostly living in each other’s houses, much to the consternation of their respective parents. “Results?”

“Them, and a few letters,” Yoongi says.

(One from Gerry, full of news, and then a little aside - small and solid, about how proud he is, about how wonderfully Yoongi has grown. It’s entirely too sappy and Yoongi will never ever throw it out.)

(One from Robert Elias, full of news, and then a little aside - small and hopeful, about how Max has decided to be the new Captain, and about how he hopes they’ll have a winning streak, and about how he’s been thinking of what Yoongi said a lot, and about how he hopes he’ll see Yoongi sometime soon. It sets something warm inside Yoongi and he’ll never ever throw it out, either.)

“What did you get?” Jeongguk drapes himself over Yoongi’s shoulders, reading the letter from Hogwarts. “Hold on - holy shit!”

“Dear Mister Yoongi Min,” Yoongi reads aloud, “It is my immense pleasure to write to you to tell you this, although I am sure you already know. Due to the Outstanding grade you achieved in your Divination NEWT, I would be beyond honoured to take you on as my apprentice, as you expressed interest in such at our last meeting. Within seven years of study you will have Mastery of the noble subject of Divination.”

“You didn’t,” Jeongguk says, awestruck. “Oh, you wonderful - I love you.”

“In addition,” Yoongi grins at Bloom’s curling words, “Professor Malfoy and his painted companion were very displeased with your choice, but I had no doubt. And perhaps you can make some time in your busy schedule to talk to them - I believe you have an unfinished project that should bring you much luck, if you continue.”

Jeongguk laughs into the crown of Yoongi’s head.

And Yoongi beams. There’s a lot left still to do - a lot left still to think - but he belongs exactly where he is, and he knows it.

“You’re the best person I can think of for the job,” Jeongguk tells him -

and Yoongi believes him. He really does.

fin.