"Remind me again how you ended up in Slytherin", Donghyuck jests just as Jaemin flops down onto the grass, sighing as he looks up at the dark clouds clustered overhead. Renjun and Chenle pay no attention to his theatrics.
They were sat by the Great Lake, the four of them referring to it more as the Dark Lake instead as the water was always some shade of darkness and the clouds would constantly threaten rain whenever anyone ventured towards near.
Such an atmosphere didn't bother the four students, though. As it looked rather bleak, not many others dare to walk to such a place, even though technically it's not against the rules.
"Somebody had to keep an eye on you", The Chaser huffs back, draping an arm across his face as he closes his eyes, "Plus, if Renjun was sorted into Slytherin and had to also share a dorm with you, he probably would've drowned you in this lake by your second year."
"Second? That's being optimistic", The Ravenclaw murmurs, munching on one of his sugar quills with his eyes not leaving the page of the book he was currently reading.
"You do hang out with us an awful lot", Chenle pipes up, offering one box of his Fizzing Whizzbees around the group, everyone complying, "Do your fellow Ravenclaws not wonder what you get up to?"
"I hardly think they care", Renjun shrugs, "We aren't nosey like you."
"Says the one eavesdropping on my conversation with Jeno", Jaemin sulks, to which Renjun just scoffs.
"Can it be classed as a conversation if you just stuttered your way through introductions?"
"See!" Jaemin cries, pulling himself up into a sitting position as he points over at his friend, "You were listening!"
"You were offering free entertainment", The other boy responds, almost challenging Jaemin to tell him that he wouldn't have done exactly the same.
With a pout still present on his lips, Jaemin crosses his legs as he gets comfortable again, his hands reaching out to tidy up the books in front of him, "And anyway, it was a conversation... He said that he saw the Quidditch game, that I played well."
"That's because you did", Donghyuck agrees, but Jaemin just shakes his head softly, a smile returning to his face.
"Yeah, but he noticed."
Chenle makes a comment about feeling nauseated as he casts a glance to Jaemin before looking back to his lap where his half-finished letter to his parents lay.
He had to write to them every so often otherwise they'd employ their own means to find out about the ongoings of Hogwarts. Pure-blooded families always got so involved with their children's education; however, the reason wasn't to do with their children themselves- it was all politics. Anyway, despite needing to write, Chenle knows that they wouldn't care for the overdramatic sappy strangers-to-friends-to-possible-lovers story of a half Veela and a Hufflepuff nerd, and so he tries to block his friend out.
Jaemin just brushes off his grumblings as he gathers up the scribblings he had done of new Quidditch plays to then reach into his bag and pull out his Care of Magical Creatures handbook.
Donghyuck felt a brief sting of guilt pierce his heart at the thought of keeping his Healer dreams a secret from his best friend instead of wishing to become a professional Quidditch player like they had planned. But right now, with Jaemin whining about Jeno's obliviousness, Donghyuck pushes his own worries to the back of his mind.
"Wow", Chenle exclaims as Jaemin opens his book, "He can read and everything."
And if anything else but Jeno was on Jaemin's mind, a hex probably would've been sent Chenle's way. But instead, Jaemin just starts scanning the page.
Since his Veela charms didn't work on the Hufflepuff, Jaemin came to the conclusion that he's just going to have to impress Jeno the old-fashioned way- through knowledge.
"Did you know there's a creature called a Kelpie..." Jaemin starts, his nose inside his textbook, "It's a water demon, looks like a horse... an angry horse from this drawing", as Jaemin turns his book to the side to get a better look Renjun casts him a glance.
"And why are you telling us this?" He asks, only for Jaemin to hold his book upright again, continuing to recite from the pages.
"It lures people onto its back and then drags them down to the depths of lakes and eats them", He reads, his tone nonchalant as he looks over the group whose faces all read some kind of discomfort or disgust, "Legend says that there's one that occupies this lake..."
As he trails off, going back to his book, he misses the glances of alarm his friends send to one another.
"Okay, the giant squid and the grindylows, I can... I'm fine with that," Donghyuck announces, for these creatures lurked at the bottom of the dark lake, not coming up to the surface, therefore, posing no threat (unless Renjun decides he's had enough and throws him in), "But a water horse demon... maybe we should think of a new spot to hang out at"
"Not scared, are you Lee?" Renjun prods with a smug look on his face, and Donghyuck debates if he could be the one to dunk Renjun into the black waters before their roles are reversed.
"There's this know-it-all Hufflepuff in my herbology class", Chenle chimes in dully, not looking up from his parchment, "And he never shuts up about this lake and all the obscure plants within it, I won't be surprised if one day he goes snorkelling in here, I think something is seriously wrong with him"
Donghyuck casts a glance out over the lake, watching the black waves rhythmically roll and turn as it mirrors the dark clouds overhead.
"And on that note", Donghyuck sings, pushing himself up onto his feet and dusting off his robes, "I left my half-finished potions essay back in the Common Room."
"Can't you just start it again?" Chenle asks to which Renjun makes a snide comment about 'well, how good was it anyway'.
The comment came from a place of bitterness as in their second year, Donghyuck dethroned Renjun as the master of potions and has excelled ever since. Donghyuck knew Renjun was proud of his achievements, and it was nothing more than a tease, therefore he just stuck his tongue out childishly.
"I guess someone doesn't want any Chocoballs then", He sighs, Jaemin and Chenle beginning to chorus all kinds of excited noises as Renjun just motions that he'll zip his mouth shut.
With a victorious nod, Donghyuck then turns on his heel, trudging back up to the castle.
~~~
With a slight spring in his step, Donghyuck picked up his pace as he jogged through the corridors, wanting to get his parchment and sweets and get back to his friends as quickly as he could.
As he passed a courtyard, getting slightly distracted by his surroundings, Donghyuck had to do a double-take as talking to a small first year, was Mark, looking ever so good with his messy black hair and his glasses on.
Donghyuck comes to a gradual stop as he reasons to himself that he'll only linger for a moment more before getting on his way again. However, such a plan falls through spectacularly as across the courtyard, some fifth or sixth year Slytherin raises their wand.
They were aiming for the first year- no one in their right mind would jinx the golden Head Boy, adored by teachers and students (minus some Slytherins) alike. But one of Mark's Gryffindor tendencies, which Donghyuck loves and hates, about him, means that instead of taking his wand out to counter the jinx, in the moment, Mark shoves the smaller student aside, the Levicorpus jinx then picking him up and swinging him into the air, leaving him to dangle from his ankles.
Feeling something protective burn inside him as the Slytherin and his friend laugh, Donghyuck whips out his wand exclaiming loudly, "Flipendo!" sending the boy who jinxed Mark flying backwards, landing on the floor with a loud grunt.
He races over to where his boyfriend is suspended in the air, quickly asking the first year who was with him to move to the side before he then picks up Mark's glasses that had fallen to the floor.
"Liberacorpus!" With the counter-jinx, Mark too ends up in a heap on the floor, groaning as he tries to gather his bearings.
His vision red, Donghyuck looks at the Slytherin with narrowed eyes.
Only he was allowed to jinx Mark.
Fully aware that he had caused quite a scene, Donghyuck looks around at the students gathered, "Get back to your Common Rooms before I jinx you all too!"
Bringing his attention back to Mark, who groans, bringing his hand up to his head, Donghyuck quickly kneels beside him.
"What is it? Does your head hurt? Did they do anything else? Get up, I'm taking you to the Hospital Wing!"
"Hyuck, I'm fine", Mark protests, trying to sit up on his own. However, as he speaks, he winces slightly, a frown on his face as he seems to have attempted to move too quickly as his vision blurs.
"You're not", Donghyuck reasons, allowing Mark a couple of minutes to just sit and recover.
"They won't be able to do anything there", Mark continues, "I'll just be told to rest"
"You hurt your head on the landing-"
"That was your counter jinx-"
"A simple thank you would suffice."
With a sigh, which again causes him to pull a face due to the pain, Donghyuck looks at him with an 'I told you' expression and Mark already knows that he's going to the Hospital Wing whether he wants to or not.
~~~
Nurse Moon gives Mark a potion for the pain and requests that although all he needs now is rest, he'd like for him to stay in the Hospital Wing for the rest of the day, just to make sure that he is healing well, to which Donghyuck has no objections to.
Since it was the weekend still, there were no classes, and Donghyuck begged Mark to just do his studying here as opposed to the library, to which the older gives in to, of course he does, because it's Donghyuck.
The rest of the Hospital Wing was empty, luckily, and so Donghyuck perched himself onto the side of the bed that Mark was directed to and laced their fingers together.
"You can't stay with me all day, you know", Mark points out, looking at Donghyuck, who has made himself comfortable on Mark's bed.
"Of course not", The Slytherin answers, to which Mark then nods, "I have Quidditch training later, but then I'll be back. You should be able to be discharged then."
And although a smile spreads wide across Mark's face at the knowledge that Donghyuck wants to stay by his side, he wouldn't wish to become a burden- even though Donghyuck's counter curse was part of the reason as to why he was here.
"You don't have to stay. I'm sure you've got some prank ready to terrorise someone with."
"I wouldn't want to cause you any more harm", He confesses, leaning over to plant a soft kiss on Mark's forehead. When he pulls back though, Mark can see a question written all over his face, "But Mark, why didn't you use a counter curse yourself?"
At the question, Mark's eyebrows furrow as he thinks through his response, "It all happened too quickly, I suppose", Mark admits with a shrug, "Plus, what kind of Head Boy would I be if I cursed a student?"
At the rhetoric, Donghyuck tilts his head to the side, "You've cursed me before."
Just a few days ago, he sent a leg locker curse flying his way. But to that, Mark just smiles.
"That's because it was you."
"Oh", Donghyuck exclaims, putting his elbows on Mark's bed and leaning forwards so that he can rest his chin on his hands, staring up at his boyfriend as he looks at him with big eyes, "you really know the way to a man's heart."
At his teasing, Mark just pushes Donghyuck's arm gently, causing the boy's chin to slip from his hand, and him to stumble, to which he throws a mean glance Mark's way.
"Besides..." Mark continues with a chuckle, "We're not allowed to use that kind of magic against one another outside of classes and with no professor supervision... you shouldn't have jinxed him, Hyuck."
"But he deserved it!" The Slytherin shouts, "How dare he point his wand at you?"
And although the whole of Mark's body goes fuzzy and warm as he knows Donghyuck will do absolutely anything for him, he has to remind himself that he is there to enforce rules and safety- to which Donghyuck has always been such a liability.
"You're better than that- than him", Mark replies softly, and at the low bow of his head, Mark takes Donghyuck's hands in his own, kissing it gently, "But thank you."
Turning away from Mark as Donghyuck's cheeks stain pink, he rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, shrugging passively, "Yeah, well, you're welcome, I guess."
And at that, Mark kisses the back of Donghyuck's hand again, giving it a little squeeze in his own.
"Not that I don't love that you want to stay..." Mark speaks up, "But what if someone comes in? I know that you're not quite ready for our relationship to go public..."
Mark knew that Donghyuck was afraid of what his parents might do if they find out, and with everything with his older brother, Mark could only imagine how afraid his boyfriend must be. To be walking on eggshells around people who are meant to make you feel safe- he couldn't imagine it.
And yet, in all his fear and uncertainty, Donghyuck never once gave Mark a reason to doubt him. Mark always felt loved and secure in his relationship, despite the secrecy. If anything, Mark appreciated the privacy.
"In addition to my extra potion classes, I'm also going to be shadowing Nurse Moon to get some more hands-on experience", The Slytherin explains with a proud grin, "So I can use that as my cover."
At the news of his work experience, Mark also breaks out into another grin, "Hyuck, that's great that-"
"Yes, yes, it truly is" He cuts off with a devilish smile, shuffling closer to Mark as the Gryffindor braces himself for the unpredictability of his boyfriend, "But do you know what is also great... us, here, alone..."
As soon as his cheeks flared up, Mark wanted to facepalm, "I thought you wanted me to rest?"
However, in response, Donghyuck just grabs hold of Mark's robes, tugging him closer with a smile, "Just kiss me, Golden Boy."
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Notes-
so hello future era comes to an end 😭
hopefully it's not another year till we get the dreamies again but as least we've got some action coming from the other units soon
also how we feeling about this story??