Archive of Our Own

“Who pissed in your pumpkin juice?”

“Huh?” Jongdae blinks up at Baekhyun, away from where he’d been morosely pushing his food around on his plate for the first time all morning.

Baekhyun purses his lips and raises a pointed eyebrow. His best friend had been acting strange all morning, quiet and moody and very unlike his usual loud and talkative self.

“What’s going on? You’ve been looking like,” Baekhyun gestures to Jongdae’s face, where his expressive eyebrows are drawn together, “that since we got to breakfast.”

“Oh.” Jongdae blinks again, shaking his head like he’s clearing fog away. “Sorry, Baek. Everything’s fine.” He tries for a smile, then quickly looks back down at the mush he’s made of his food. Baekhyun’s not convinced. He tries to remember the last time Jongdae got distracted and moody like this. It’s a rare enough occasion that it could only be a few things.

“Did you fail another potions essay?” Baekhyun asks gently. “I can study more with you next time if you need, I know I was kind of busy this week so I couldn't meet up as much, but next time I can -“

“No!” Jongdae interrupts, looking back up, a genuine smile tugging at his lips now. “I actually did really well on my last potions essay, thanks to you.”

Baekhyun smiles back at him, something anxious still nagging at the back of his mind. If it’s not potions, what else could it be?

“You know you can tell me whatever’s bothering you, right Dae?” Baekhyun tilts his head down, trying to insert himself back into Jongdae’s line of sight. If there’s one thing Baekhyun excels at, it’s wearing down his best friend until he gets his way.

Jongdae sighs and places his fork down on his plate, finally giving up on his mission to liquify all of his food. His eyes flicker around the Great Hall, never settling, but not meeting Baekhyun’s gaze.

“It’s nothing to worry about. Just something I overheard some seventh year Slytherins saying in the common room the other day.”

“Are your housemates messing with you again?” Baekhyun asks hotly, glaring across the room at the green and silver table. Jongdae had issues with a few older kids picking on him back when they were third years. Baekhyun thought they had all graduated by now, but he’s never been more glad that Jongdae spends most meals at the Gryffindor table with him, instead of sitting with his own house. Baekhyun didn’t think all Slytherin students were bad - Jongdae and their friends Sehun and Minseok were both Slytherins, too. But he knew there were some rotten ones in the bunch. “Do you need me to kick someone’s ass for you?”

A flicker of another smile crosses Jongdae’s face. “Simmer down, Lion Boy. They didn’t say anything about me.”

“Oh.” Baekhyun deflates, partially relieved, partially disappointed that he won’t be starting any ruckus today. Baekhyun does so love causing ruckus.

“It was about you, actually.”

“What?” Baekhyun perks right back up again, blood running a little hotter in his veins. Jongdae doesn’t look quite as excited, though. Looks a little haunted, in fact, eyes still restlessly flitting around the room. Like he’s on high alert. “What did they say?”

Jongdae shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I don’t want to repeat it.”

“Oh, come on,” Baekhyun teases, trying not to let the quiet seriousness of Jongdae’s tone freak him out. “I’m not your mom, Dae, I promise not to wash your mouth out with soap.”

“It’s not that I can’t, it’s that I don’t want to,” Jongdae repeats stubbornly.

“You’re being such a baby,” Baekhyun retorts, just as stubborn. “You can’t tell me you heard someone talking about me and then not tell me what they said!”

“I didn’t even want to tell you I heard anything at all!”

Baekhyun sniffs and crosses his arms. “Well, that’s just not being a good friend.”

Jongdae’s face falls and Baekhyun immediately feels bad.

“It’s just,” Jongdae struggles with the words, “I’ve never heard anyone say that before. Not when they actually meant it.”

“Merlin, Dae, just spit it out! I’m sure it’s not any worse than the things they called me when I took the House Cup from them last year.” Baekhyun smirks, nudges Jongdae under the table to try and get some kind of rise out of him since it was technically his house, too, even if he’s not on the team.

Jongdae doesn’t even react. Baekhyun is starting to get a little freaked out now, if he’s being honest. This wouldn’t be the first time Jongdae’s housemates, or even people from other houses had said something about Baekhyun behind his back. He was widely known at Hogwarts for stirring up trouble and being a bit of a rebel. Nothing too extreme, but he knew some people weren't big fans of his. It came with the territory of having such a big personality.

“Okay, seriously, you’re acting like a total weirdo right now. Just tell me what they -“

“Blood traitor.”

Jongdae’s voice was quiet, the words barely a whisper, but they knocked all the breath out of Baekhyun’s lungs.

“What?” Baekhyun croaked.

Jongdae darted another glance around the hall, making sure no one else at the table was listening to them. He leans in closer, Baekhyun’s body instinctively following the movement, even as his heart pounds rushing blood in his ears. Almost too loud for him to catch Jongdae’s next words.

“That’s what they called you. They said it’s because you hang out with Park Chanyeol so much. Said it makes you a blood traitor.”

“I got it,” Baekhyun hisses. “You don’t have to say it again!”

It feels like his breakfast is about to make a surprise reappearance, and he suddenly envies Jongdae for his empty stomach.

Blood traitor.

Baekhyun’s heard it before. But unlike Jongdae, he’s heard someone say it and really mean it.

Heard his parents say it, in hushed voices, locked away in his father’s study late at night when Baekhyun was supposed to be in bed. He’d sneak downstairs sometimes, socked little feet barely making a sound on the hardwood floors, to ask the house elves for some extra pudding before bed. Sometimes he’d overhear them, voices dripping with false sympathy, talking about people who they used to call friends and now wouldn’t even call by their names. Family friends that Baekhyun knew his entire life, who suddenly starting disappearing from their lives like lights being sucked up by a deluminator.

Blood traitor, they’d say. There are so few pureblood families left these days. We have to stick together.

Baekhyun would pad back up to his room, belly full of pudding, blissfully unaware of what the poisonous words meant.

That is, until he met Park Chanyeol.

As if he can hear Baekhyun thinking so loudly about him, across the room, a dimpled face looks up at him from the Hufflepuff table and grins. Chanyeol is tan and has floppy brown hair, round features, warm and friendly and so unlike Baekhyun’s own. He wonders how he even attracted the other boy’s attention, with his icy blonde hair and sharp features. Wonders what it is about him that ever made Chanyeol want to be his friend.

Whatever it was, he’s thankful for it. Thankful to have Chanyeol as a part of his life.

Even if Chanyeol has Muggle parents. Not just one Muggle parent, but two. Not a single wizard in his entire bloodline.

Baekhyun didn’t understand at first when Chanyeol explained it to him. He’d never met someone like Chanyeol in his entire life, didn’t know how someone could be so good at magic without growing up with it, without learning from their parents since they were a little kid.

Chanyeol was a miracle, in Baekhyun’s opinion. Even once he understood what it meant to be Muggleborn, Baekhyun still thought Chanyeol was a miracle.

Baekhyun grins weakly back, even raising one hand in a little wave, hoping he doesn’t look as nauseous as he feels. Chanyeol doesn’t appear to notice anything amiss, throwing Baekhyun a quick wink and sticking out his tongue, before laughing at his own antics, nose scrunching up in a terribly cute way, and has his attention drawn back to his friend Yixing, who’s excitedly swatting at his arm.

How the hell could anyone in their right mind fault Baekhyun for wanting to be friends with Chanyeol?

It seems ridiculous to even think befriending Chanyeol was a choice, like there wasn’t some kind of magnetic forcefield around Chanyeol, warm and inviting, that made everyone want to be friends with him.

But Baekhyun knew there were people out there who felt differently. People like his parents. Pureblood elitists who thought people like Chanyeol shouldn’t even be at Hogwarts, shouldn’t be allowed to mingle with the likes of elite wizarding families like Baekhyun’s or Jongdae’s.

“How archaic,” Baekhyun tries to joke, flicking his hair off his forehead. “They couldn’t even come up with their own insult? That’s what offends me most here, you know?”

“Baek,” Jongdae says slowly, seriously. “I know it’s easier to just laugh this off but… But just be careful, okay? These guys sounded pretty serious.”

“Who were they anyways?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Not sure. When I heard them saying your name, I hid behind a curtain so they wouldn’t know I was there.”

“How Slytherin of you.” Baekhyun grins wryly. Had it been him, he probably would have thrown a few stinging hexes and landed himself in detention.

He steals a glance back over at the Hufflepuff table again. Chanyeol isn’t looking his way this time, but it’s almost better that way. Catching the sunlight streaming into the castle dancing over the apples of his cheeks, listening intently and nodding along to some story Yixing is telling him.

Good. Everything about Chanyeol is so good, and Baekhyun knows that it’ll take a lot more than a few cruel words thrown his way to get him to stop being Chanyeol’s friend.

(There’s probably nothing in the world that could keep him from Chanyeol, if he’s honest.)

Baekhyun had been acting weird lately.

Well, weirder than Baekhyun’s usual level of weird.

Normally, Baekhyun’s oddness is one of Chanyeol’s favorite things about him. It was the thing that drew Chanyeol to the smaller boy in the first place, the obvious way that he stood out so fantastically. How he did and said things, seemingly with no reason at all, and couldn’t care less what anyone else thought about him.

That was Baekhyun’s own personal brand of bravery, Chanyeol always figured. That, and his fearlessness on a broom. Chanyeol never doubted his friend’s place in Gryffindor.

But lately, Baekhyun’s weirdness was more concerning than it was amusing.

It started in Divination class.

It was an elective class that the two boys, plus Baekhyun’s Slytherin friend Jongdae, and their Ravenclaw friend Kyungsoo all took together. Chanyeol always made sure to save Baekhyun the seat next to him, since the other boy was always at least a few minutes late (you didn’t have to be acing Divination to know that).

One minute late, and Chanyeol wasn’t concerned.

Five minutes late, and Chanyeol expected him to come flying through the classroom doors at any second.

By the time Baekhyun was officially running fifteen minutes late for class, Chanyeol started getting concerned.

Where is he? Chanyeol mouthed to Jongdae across the aisle. The Slytherin’s eyes slid over to Baekhyun’s empty seat, clearly noticing it for the first time, as his expression went from confused to nervous in the blink of an eye.

Not the reaction Chanyeol was looking for.

He hoped maybe there was a simple explanation, that Baekhyun was sick today and not coming to class. If anyone knew where he would be, Jongdae would know.

The fact that he didn’t wasn’t sitting well with Chanyeol.

“Alright, students, we’re going to pair up for this next activity and take turns reading each other’s palms to see - Oh,” Professor Trelawney paused by his desk, lips twisting into a frown. “Oh, no no, Mr. Park, this just won’t do. It appears as if your partner couldn’t be here today. You’ll just have to pair up with -“

“He’ll be here!” Chanyeol interrupted, even though he had no idea if it was true or not. Jongdae was still staring at Baekhyun’s empty seat like he’d just seen a ghost (not the nice kind) and it was making something panicky bubble up in Chanyeol’s throat, forcing the words out. “He’s coming, he’s just gonna be a little late. I’m just going to wait for him, alright, Professor?”

And then, the most awful possible thing happened.

Professor Trelawney touched the back of Baekhyun’s empty chair, and started to weep. Not just teary eyes and little sniffles, but full, body-wracking sobs that seemed to rattle her entire ribcage with their force.

“Professor!” Chanyeol shot out of his chair, reaching for the trembling woman uncertainly. Was it okay to touch her? Would it just freak her out more?

He looked back over his shoulder at Jongdae for help and immediately wished he hadn’t. The Slytherin boy’s round eyes were starting to fill with tears of his own. He wouldn’t look Chanyeol in the eye.

What the hell was going on here?

“The boy,” Trelawney wailed. “Protect the boy!” Two shaky hands were suddenly fisted tightly in the front of Chanyeol’s robes, and Professor Trelawney’s big owl eyes stared deep into his soul. “We must protect the boy! The blood of the boy!”

“What boy?” Chanyeol asked desperately, trying to pry himself out of Trelawney’s hold. She was surprisingly strong for such a frail looking woman. “Are you talking about Baekhyun? Professor, is he okay? Where is he?”

The door to the classroom suddenly went flying open.

“Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late, I’m sorry!” Baekhyun burst into the room and Chanyeol nearly started sobbing himself with relief. His blonde hair was slightly ruffled, papers sticking haphazardly out of his satchel, the buttons of his shirt underneath his robe off by one, but otherwise completely unharmed. Baekhyun’s eyebrows shot up when he started to head towards his seat, and found Professor Trelawney sobbing, holding onto Chanyeol like she was about to sacrifice him to the gods. “Um, what did I miss?”

“Hey, Baek,” Chanyeol greets as casually as he can. And then, because he can’t hold it back any longer. “Also, where the hell were you?”

But Baekhyun isn’t listening to him at all. He’s staring, wide-eyed at Professor Trelawney, still spouting some nonsense about protecting a boy and his blood. Chanyeol honestly couldn’t care less now that he knows it’s not about Baekhyun, that his friend is here and safe.

“What’s wrong with her?” Baekhyun slowly approaches, but quickly stops in his tracks when it only serves to make Trelawney’s screaming louder. Chanyeol meets his helpless eyes over her shoulder and shrugs.

“I’ll go get the Headmistress!” A Ravenclaw girl that Chanyeol doesn’t know the name of finally says, rushing out of the room.

“I wasn’t that late,” Baekhyun jokes weakly, and as much as Chanyeol wants to grin, he also kind of wants to punch Baekhyun is his perfect, pretty face. Usually, he appreciates Baekhyun’s easy, charming way of diffusing any tense situation with a quick one-liner, but with his heart still pounding in his throat, Chanyeol really isn’t in the mood.

Slowly, Trelawney starts to tire out from her own screaming. Her hands finally release Chanyeol’s robes, and he eases her into his seat, taking a big step back. She stares into the distance, not screaming anymore. Not saying anything. She’s almost scarier this way.

Chanyeol turns to Baekhyun, maybe to yell at him a little more, but finds his friend has been dragged across the room by Jongdae. The Slytherin hisses something to Baekhyun under his breath, jabbing him in the chest repeatedly with his pointed finger. Chanyeol thinks he hears snippets of, I told you, and more careful.

Baekhyun is clearly trying to laugh him off, but there’s something vacant and distant in his eyes. Like he’s trying to disconnect from this moment.

“You okay?” Kyungsoo asks quietly, the shorter boy appearing at Chanyeol’s side.

“Yeah.” Chanyeol smooths out the lapels of his robes one last time. “I guess we knew when we signed up for the class that she does crazy stuff like that sometimes, right?” He shrugs with his palms facing out, in a what can you do? gesture.

Kyungsoo hums under his breath, eyes flickering over to Baekhyun and Jongdae, still having their intense whisper-conversation. Calculating.

“Scary, isn’t it?” He asks finally. Chanyeol doesn’t know if he’s talking about Trelawney or whatever the hell Baekhyun and Jongdae are talking about.

“Really scary. Suppose this is why we aren’t in Gryffindor, huh?” Chanyeol nudges him gently with a small smile. Kyungsoo returns it briefly, eyes still trained on the pair across the room. Baekhyun is starting to look more agitated now, as Jongdae’s eyes harden in an expression that screams this is not up for debate. Baekhyun argues more, and Chanyeol tries to ignore the fact that the Gryffindor’s eyes keep straying back to him, looking more and more upset every time.

“The blood of the boy…” Kyungsoo mutters to himself under his breath. Chanyeol pretends not to hear.

Eventually, McGonagall shows up and cancels class for the day. She wraps her arms around Trelawney’s shoulders and leads her from the classroom without another word.

“Looks like we have some free time. Wanna go down to the lake or something?” Baekhyun asks, suddenly at his side again, rocking back and forth on his heels like a little kid and grinning bright as a lumos, as if nothing had ever happened. Chanyeol chances a glance over a disgruntled looking Jongdae, who again refuses to meet his eye. “Come on, Yeol,” Baekhyun bumps him with his shoulder, glancing up at him with glimmer in his dark eyes. “Let’s get out of here. Too much freaky energy.” He wiggles his fingers and Chanyeol laughs, allowing the smaller boy to lead the way.

As shaken as Chanyeol still was by the incident, it looked like Jongdae had already told Baekhyun off enough for the both of them. Besides, Chanyeol hated to tell off Baekhyun. The blonde boy’s eyes would go wide, shimmering like he just might cry, lower lip pushed out and hands clasped in front of him cutely. Chanyeol could never really be angry with him.

The air is crisp with autumn chill as the boys make their way out of the castle, heading through the courtyard and down towards the lake.

“Why were you so late anyways?” Chanyeol asks. Baekhyun is walking alongside him, holding onto his shoulder for balance as he does a tightrope walk over a stone ledge, heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe.

“Hm?” Baekhyun doesn’t look up, too focused on his feet, tongue poking out between his lips in concentration. “Got stuck in the bathroom.”

“Ew,” Chanyeol grimaces. “Too much information.” Baekhyun laughs, jumping down from the ledge and looping his elbow through Chanyeol’s. He’s warm and Chanyeol pulls him in closer, if only for the shared body heat.

“Not like that! The door just got… Stuck.”

“Stuck?” Chanyeol repeats, eyebrows furrowing. Hogwarts may be a old castle, but things don’t just coincidentally get stuck around here.

“Yeah.” Baekhyun shrugs like it’s no big deal.

And that’s the biggest red flag of all.

Because Baekhyun was nothing else if not being overly dramatic about every possible occurrence in his life ever. He could make finding a leftover beetle from potions class in his robes pocket, or accidentally making his sneezes sound like trumpets into the grandest (and loudest) story of all time. In fact, he did. On more than once occasion. Getting stuck in the bathroom is exactly the kind of occurrence that Byun Baekhyun could turn into a three-part saga of adventure and intrigue.

And yet, he said nothing more.

“It was locked from the outside?” Chanyeol presses. Baekhyun shrugs again.

“Must have been. Maybe Peeves did it, or something.”

“Sure,” Chanyeol says. Then, after looking down, “Baek, why are your shoes all wet?”

His shoes and the bottom of his robes, to be exact. Chanyeol doesn’t know how he didn’t notice it before, the trail of water Baekhyun was leaving behind him, the squelching sounds his shoes were making as they left puddled footprints everywhere he stepped.

Baekhyun holds out a foot in front of him. “Huh.”

“Jesus, Baek, did you try to escape through the toilets?”

Baekhyun giggles, falling against Chanyeol’s side for support and slides his hand into Chanyeol’s. It’s smaller than Chanyeol’s, delicate and slightly chilled. Chanyeol knows it well.

“Yeah, Yeollie, that’s exactly what I did.” Baekhyun giggles again, lips stretched into a grin. “Tried to flush myself right to the Ministry to turn myself in for being so late to class.”

But he’s smiling like himself now, all twinkling eyes in the afternoon light, more magical than anything else in this castle, and Chanyeol can’t bring himself to ask any more questions.

It’s probably nothing, after all.

Baekhyun would tell him if it was something serious. He would.

Baekhyun never scared easily, never in his life.

It was all part of being a Gryffindor.

Not when he was a kid, curled up under the comforter of his bed as the wind from a storm raging outside seemed to whip through every large, empty, echoing hallway of his family’s estate, making it sound like their were ghouls traipsing just outside his door, ready to eat his soul.

Not when he was eight years old and his father and Jongdae’s decided they were finally old enough to try flying for the first time. Baekhyun took to it right away, leaving a fumbling Jongdae hovering only a few feet off the ground. He got too cocky in his abilities, though, and quickly found himself hurtling straight into the thicket of branches at the very top of the tallest tree in his yard. He had to hang there for a few minutes, waiting for his father to come and retrieve him, but still Baekhyun wasn’t scared.

Not even in his fourth year, when the beautiful and sunshine beaming Hufflepuff Park Chanyeol came right up to his desk in the middle of Charms class, with a bright smile and a flash of dimple, and said, “Baekhyun, right? We should be partners!” (Though this was probably the closest to being truly afraid in his life that Baekhyun can remember.)

But these past few weeks have had Baekhyun more on edge than he’s been in his entire life.

At first, he brushed off what Jongdae told him. Students from other houses had their gripes with him over the years, whether it was because they got caught in the crossfire of one of Baekhyun’s pranks gone wrong, or ended up on the wrong side of him and a Quaffle on the Quidditch pitch, he’s overheard plenty of nasty words said about him. Even a few threats.

But never - Never that.

And no one had ever involved Chanyeol before.

That was probably the part sitting heaviest in Baekhyun’s stomach, like a rock sinking to the bottom of the lake.

He tried to brush it off at first, but quickly realized this wasn’t like all the other times.

There were shadows following him. All the time, every day, slipping around every corner of the castle, just out of sight when he tried to catch them. It felt like he was being watched. Like something (or someone) was constantly lying in wait, always a few steps behind him.

He thought it was just a feeling at first. Paranoia. But then weird things started happening.

Small things at first; the cover torn off his Arithmancy textbook, his red and gold striped scarf shredded like an animal attack victim, his throat closing up every time he tried to take a sip of water, leaving him terribly thirsty all day.

Annoyances, but harmless.

And then, he made the nearly fatal mistake of going to the bathroom alone.

He was already a little late to Divination class, as was his usual schedule, so he decided making a detour for a quick piss wouldn’t be too big of a deal. It was an older bathroom, a little out of the way in a corridor not often used. Baekhyun was the only person in there.

He finished washing his hands, casting a quick Drying charm, then rubbing his hands off on his robes because his Drying charms were for shit. Nothing seemed amiss, until he took the door handle in his hand and pulled.

It didn’t budge.

He pulled again, this time put his back into it.

Nothing.

Frowning, Baekhyun didn’t even have the chance to piece together what was happening before the sound of rushing water filled the bathroom, echoing off the tiled floor and walls. Every sink lining the mirrored wall, every toilet in each stall, was spouting water from the source, rapidly filling up the small bathroom.

Still, Baekhyun tried not to panic. To stay brave. There had to be a way out of this, he was a wizard, and a damn good one at that. A stupid door that wouldn’t budge wasn’t going to be the thing to make him kick it today. He was still a virgin for Merlin’s sake!

Baekhyun fumbled his wand out of his robes. ”Alohamora!”

There was no telltale sound of a lock being undone.

”Alohamora! Alohamora, Alohamora!” Baekhyun cast in quick succession, but all it managed to do was drain his magic. A complete waste.

The water had been up to his knees by then. Every second that passed, it was getting higher and higher.

Baekhyun cursed in his head, tried not to think about what his mom or Jongdae, or Merlin, Chanyeol would say if he died right now. Pushed down the hysterical tears, rising hot in his chest. He banged on the door a few times, screamed for help, but he knew the odds of someone walking by were slim to none.

They hadn’t gotten to the lesson on Patronuses yet, so Baekhyun couldn’t send a message for help. His Bubble-Head charm was mediocre at best. All of his Alohamoras weren’t good for anything but tiring him out.

The water was at his chest.

“Fuck, fuck, shit!” Baekhyun raised his wand again with a trembling hand. He gripped it with the other to steady it, taking a deep breath and putting all of his power into this next spell. ”Reducto!”

For a long, terrible moment, nothing happened.

Then, as if the spell had been a bit delayed, the explosion building up like a detonated bomb counting down (Chanyeol taught him about Muggle warfare once), the entire door splintered into pieces. All of the water filling the bathroom flooded into the hallway, sweeping Baekhyun away with the current. He held his wand tight in one hand, his satchel in the other, and rode the wave all the way down the corridor, before coming to a stop right in front of the Divination classroom.

Funny how that worked out. Thirty seconds ago, Baekhyun thought he was going to die, and now he was right where he needed to be.

He let out a slightly crazed laugh, hunching over, hair dripping water down his nose. When he stood up, he noticed a few first years watching him with wide, curious eyes.

“What?” Baekhyun sniffed, straightening his tie and casting a quick Drying charm on himself. “You’ve never seen that one before?”

The first years shook their heads, shocked expressions still on their faces. Baekhyun didn’t grace them with another response, going for an air of mystery instead. Better than the alternative, which was to burst into relieved tears.

The scene that met him next was almost weirder than the one he just came from.

Professor Trelawney, clutching Chanyeol’s robes like a lifeline, sobbing, sobbing about a boy. And blood.

It had been the last thing Baekhyun needed in that moment.

The way Chanyeol looked at him when he realized Baekhyun was, in fact, alive kind of made Baekhyun want to cry all over again. What if he had died? Would Chanyeol be sobbing the way Trelawney was? It was all too horrible to think about.

Even worse, had been Jongdae.

He was more scared than Chanyeol was, had every right to be. He dragged Baekhyun aside and demanded to know what happened, and when Baekhyun told him, he know Jongdae was right. He knew what happened wasn’t an accident, or some coincidence.

It was because Baekhyun was the blood traitor.

“I know you don’t wanna hear this, Baek, but maybe until we get this situation under control, you should keep your distance from Chanyeol?”

And that - that had been the worst possible thing Jongdae could have said. No one was going to scare Baekhyun away from Chanyeol.

Almost as if proving a point, Baekhyun immediately returned to Chanyeol’s side, barely sparing Jongdae another look. He pouted and batted his eyes at Chanyeol in the way he knew made the Hufflepuff bend to his every whim (Chanyeol was just too nice for his own good), and practically dragged him from the classroom.

Baekhyun needed some air, to get away from that damn castle and all its shadows.

Just wanted to be with Chanyeol, where he was safe and happy and the taller boy’s smile lit up every dark corner.

“Baek, why are your shoes all wet?”

Baekhyun hadn’t even noticed.

Stupid Drying charm. It missed the bottom six inches of his body.

Luckily, Chanyeol was the trusting type, especially when it came to Baekhyun. And even though the lie tasted like ash in his mouth, Baekhyun managed to laugh the whole thing off and get Chanyeol to drop it.

What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

“You need to tell someone.” Jongdae points at Baekhyun with his fork at breakfast the next morning, jaw set seriously. Baekhyun sighs and drops his head into his hands. It was getting harder to hold it up. He hadn’t been sleeping much lately.

“I can’t.”

“And why the hell not? I’m sure if you told the Headmistress, she’d get them to leave you alone, no problem. She’s pretty fucking scary, if you haven’t noticed. Even the seventh years are afraid of her, I heard them say so.”

Baekhyun shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, trying to force them to be less heavy. “I can’t, Dae. If I tell someone what’s happening, it becomes a whole big deal and everyone at Hogwarts finds out.”

“What the hell do you care if -?” Jongdae stops, eyes flitting over to the Hufflepuff table, where Baekhyun can practically feel Chanyeol’s concerned stare on the back of his head. He forces himself to sit up straighter, but doesn’t turn around. “You don’t want Chanyeol to know.”

“Of course I don’t.” Baekhyun sighs. “I don’t want him to have to hear the stupid things those guys said about him and think that there are people at this school who don’t want him here. And I don’t want him to think that what’s happening to me is his fault. You know Chanyeol, you know he’d put all the blame on himself, and I - I just can’t let him do that.” Baekhyun pleads with Jongdae with his eyes. He knows he couldn’t stop his friend from telling the Headmistress himself if he really wanted to, but he just needs Jongdae to understand.

Needs him to help Baekhyun protect Chanyeol from all this ugliness.

“Fine,” Jongdae resigns, not looking very happy about it. “But if things start getting any worse, I will report them to McGonagall, fuck what anyone else thinks about it. I care about your safety before anything else, Baek.”

Baekhyun gives him a thankful smile, waving a hand to dismiss his worries. “It’s Hogwarts, Dae. I’m perfectly safe here.”

“They almost drowned you last time!”

“And yet, here I sit.”

Baekhyun had dark bags under his pretty almond eyes.

He had them every day now, Chanyeol noticed. Heavy, bruised-purple rings that got deeper, seemed to weight him down father every day. It was like he was staying up all night studying for exams for days straight, but Chanyeol knew that he wasn’t because Baekhyun had cancelled on their library dates nearly every night this week, claiming he didn’t have any work to do and he was going to turn in early.

He clearly wasn’t. Chanyeol wanted to know what he was really doing.

It broke his heart, just a little, seeing Baekhyun like this. Jumpy, easily startled, dragging his feet where he used to skip, and quiet where he used to sing silly songs under his breath.

It broke his heart the most knowing that whatever was going on, Baekhyun didn’t trust Chanyeol enough to tell him.

He’s known, ever since the incident in Divination class, that Baekhyun was keeping something form him. He couldn’t for the life of him even hazard a guess as to what it could be, but clearly Jongdae knew about it, and that stung.

Every time he asked Baekhyun if he was okay, if there was anything he wanted to talk about, Baekhyun just flashed him a dazzling smile, and said, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me, Park Chanyeol.”

Today, they’re supposed to meet up after dinner to do a little flying before it gets too dark outside. Baekhyun suggested they just meet in the Gryffindor Quidditch team lockers, so Chanyeol heads that way, freshly fallen leaves crunching under his feet. It got pretty chilly later in the evenings these days, so he was bundled up in a chunky grey knit sweater, his yellow Hufflepuff scarf wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Baek?” Chanyeol knocks lightly on the doorway to alert his friend of his arrival. It’s dark in the locker room, musty from all the sweat that clung to the air. There’s a little sliver of light coming in from a window near the top of room, dust particles floating in the ray. Chanyeol hears a frantic scraping sound from behind the row of lockers in front of him. “Baek?” He repeats, slowly rounding the corner, hand twitching towards his wand. The sound isn’t quite human. Did some sort of creature from the Forbidden Forest sneak in here? Was Baekhyun in trouble?

Chanyeol jumps around the corner, wand at the ready. “Aha!” He shouts, hoping to startle the beast into retreating. Then, “Baekhyun?”

The Gryffindor is standing in front of one of the lockers, the one with ‘BYUN’ proudly printed at the top. His eyes are wide, a little wild, much like his hair. He spins around when he hears Chanyeol shout, wand already in his hand, clutching at his heart when he sees who it it.

“Merlin, Yeol, you scared the hell out of me!”

“Sorry,” Chanyeol says, slowly lowering his wand. “You weren’t answering me, and I thought that sound - What is that?”

Baekhyun shifts his weight, tries to block Chanyeol’s view of the locker behind him, but it’s too late. He’s already seen it; the parts of the locker scraped away, paint torn away, and the letters still left, dripping fresh and red. It looks like something had been written there, something that Baekhyun blasted away with a spell, most likely the cause of the scratching sound Chanyeol heard. He hadn’t gotten to it all yet, though.

There was still an ‘OR’ left at the end of the word.

“Shit, Baek, is that - Is that blood?” Chanyeol reached out to touch the dripping letters, then thought better of it and pulled his hand away again. The air suddenly smelled a lot mustier, an undertone of copper.

“It’s fake!” Baekhyun laughed, a little strangled sounding. “Fake blood, just a prank. Some other guys on the team probably did it, you know? Nothing to worry about.”

Chanyeol is, though. He’s worried. Worried about the bags under Baekhyun’s eyes and the white-knuckled grip he had on his wand and the stench of blood in the air.

“What did it say?”

Baekhyun’s face goes carefully blank.

“Inside joke,” he says finally with a bright grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand it, Yeollie.”

“You’re lying!” Chanyeol accuses, harsher than he means to. Baekhyun visibly flinches back, and Chanyeol wants to hold his small, slightly trembling body in his arms until nothing in the world scares him at all. Least of all Chanyeol. “Sorry, I’m sorry, Baek, I didn’t mean to yell. I’m just worried about you, okay? I know something’s going on, and it fucking sucks that you won’t tell me so I can help you.”

Nothing’s going on, Chanyeol expects him to say. Or maybe, Everything’s fine, stop worrying or you’ll get premature wrinkles.

What he doesn't expect is for Baekhyun to glance back over his shoulder at the locker, and smile, tiny and sad.

“You are helping me, Chanyeol. You’re my friend, and that’s all I need.”

“Baek-“

“I’m sorry, Yeollie. I don’t really feel up for flying right now. I think I’m just gonna turn in early.”

Chanyeol stops him with a hand on his wrist when the smaller boy tries to brush past. It takes everything in him not to pull Baekhyun right into him, to crush him into his embrace and never let go.

“Please,” his voice breaks and he doesn’t even care. “Just tell me what’s happening, Baek. I can’t stand this, I can’t -“

“It won’t make it any better.” Baekhyun gently twists his hand out of Chanyeol’s grip. “Knowing won’t make it better for you.”

“I’m not thinking about me, I’m thinking about you!”

Baekhyun pauses, looking up at Chanyeol with a sudden clarity in them, like he’s just had an epiphany of epic proportions. This time, his smile pulls at his cheeks, a little more genuine. It’s completely out of place, given the situation, but it warms Chanyeol’s heart anyways.

“I’m thinking about you, too,” he says in all but a whisper, and then he’s gone. Leaving Chanyeol standing in the musty locker room, the ‘OR’ still slashed across his locker, the scent lingering in the air.

Wand raised, Chanyeol takes a step closer, pointing at the patch of paint that had been scraped away by Baekhyun’s spell. This might be wrong, an invasion of privacy somehow, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

”Aparecium,” he murmurs. Slowly, a phantom outline of the letters that were there before Baekhyun had hidden them start to reappear.

Chanyeol has to choke back the bile rising up in his throat.

There, in dripping red blood:

TRAITOR

Baekhyun is in love with Chanyeol.

Baekhyun is in love with Chanyeol.

Baekhyun is in love with Chanyeol.

Byun Baekhyun is in love with Park Chanyeol and it’s the scariest, most exhilarating feeling he’s ever had in his entire life.

How did he not realize it sooner? The very first day Chanyeol spoke to him - The first day he laid eyes on him, Baekhyun should have known. That pounding in his chest, the fluttering in his stomach, the inexplicable pull to get closer, closer, to know him, to watch him, to smile when he smiled.

Baekhyun was in love with him all along.

What a shame it took something as awful as this to make him realize it.

It was the very moment Chanyeol told Baekhyun that he wasn’t thinking of himself, only of Baekhyun. Of helping Baekhyun, no matter what it meant for him. And Baekhyun realized, that’s exactly what he was trying to do for Chanyeol, too. Was trying to protect him, even if it hurt himself.

Because Baekhyun would do anything to keep Chanyeol happy and safe.

Because Baekhyun loves him.

It’s all he can think about as Chanyeol joins him and Jongdae at the Gryffindor table for breakfast that day, when really he should probably be thinking more about the big match they have against Slytherin later today. Jongdae even snuck Baekhyun some sleeping draught last night so he could be well-rested for the game, but the furthest thing from Baekhyun’s mind is Quidditch when Chanyeol is sitting across from him. His deep chocolate eyes peer up at Baekhyun from over the rim of his drinking glass, quirking an eyebrow and Baekhyun realizes he’s been staring.

“Your hair is getting long, Yeollie.” He reaches across the table, taking the ends of the pieces on his forehead between his eyes and tugging lightly. Hopefully Chanyeol will think that’s why Baekhyun was looking at him for so long. Chanyeol goes slightly cross-eyed to see.

“Now, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this since it’s treason against my own house, but our Keeper isn’t as good as yours. That being said, our Seeker is much faster, so…” Jongdae prattles on about the match, but Baekhyun isn’t paying attention at all.

“Really? Is this your way of telling me I need to get it cut, huh?” Chanyeol teases, entire attention caught on Baekhyun and not whatever Jongdae is rambling about.

“No.” Baekhyun shakes his head and lets the soft brown strands slip through his fingers. What he really wants to do is run his fingers through it over and over, feel it tickle his palms, then twist his fingers in tight, pull Chanyeol down and - Baekhyun clears his throat, cutting off that train of thought and pulling his hand back to his body. “I like it this way.”

Chanyeol blinks, eyes widening slightly before a pleased grin takes over his face. Baekhyun grins back at him, and everything that’s been stabbing at his mind like tiny needles fades away.

“Is anyone even listening to me?” Jongdae whines, looking between them. Baekhyun flushes and finally tears his eyes away from the boy across from him, blinking up at Jongdae innocently.

“I was hanging on your every word.”

“Leave the lying to the Slytherins, Byun. You’re shit at it,” Jongdae sniffs. Baekhyun knows he’s not really offended, but there’s something knowing in his gaze as he looks between him and Chanyeol curiously. “Hm, I promised Sehun I’d proofread a paper of his this morning anyways, so I’ll leave you two alone to find some other poor sap to ignore.”

“Dae,” Baekhyun tries to smother a laugh. “We weren’t ignoring -“

“A waste of my breath!” Jongdae declares, gathering his things and ruffling Baekhyun’s hair on his way back to the Slytherin table.

“Such a pain in my ass,” Baekhyun grumbles under his breath, finally letting the smile he’d been holding back slip out as he watches Jongdae plop down at the Slytherin table between Minseok and Sehun, stretching his arm to wrap around Sehun’s broad shoulders. Chanyeol smiles, too, and for a moment, everything feels normal again.

“Yeah, but you love him, though,” Chanyeol says.

“I don’t need you to point out my shortcomings to me.”

Chanyeol laughs, head tipped back and nose scrunched up, shoulders shaking with it, and yeah. Baekhyun is in love love.

“You’ll win today, won’t you?” Chanyeol asks with a tilt of his head, like a floppy-haired puppy. Curse Baekhyun’s swelling heart.

“Don’t I always?” Baekhyun smirks. Since he joined the Gryffindor team their fourth year, his house had never lost a match. It was a fact he didn’t take all the credit for, but definitely took a lot of pride in.

“Sure, but it’s just…” Chanyeol fiddles with the end of his tie, eyes dropping. “Lately you haven’t really been yourself, Baek.”

And just like that, all the little needles are stabbing his brain again.

“I feel good today,” Baekhyun says, and it’s not even that much of a lie. “Much better, I promise.”

Chanyeol raises his eyes slowly, taking in every inch of Baekhyun. He tries not to squirm under the intense gaze.

“I guess you do look a little less tired today.”

“I feel like I could take on a hundred Slytherin Beaters all at once. It’s gonna be a good game, I can feel it.” Baekhyun puts every ounce of convincing in his words that he can, though he’s not entirely sure if it’s Chanyeol or himself that he’s trying to convince at this point. Whatever the case, it seems to work, as Chanyeol’s bright smile breaks through to the surface once again.

How the hell is Baekhyun supposed to think about Quidditch when Chanyeol has a smile like that?

Unfortunately, though, he has to. He pushes his plate away, says a quick goodbye to Chanyeol, and heads down to the pitch to meet up with his team for some warm-up drills and a pre-game talk from their captain, a kid a few years younger than Baekhyun named Jungkook who was, despite his age, easily the best player on the team. Baekhyun could admit that he was also probably a big part of their team’s awesome winning streak.

As Chanyeol stands as well to return to his own table, he reaches out and stops Baekhyun with a hand over his.

“Be careful out there, Baek. You might have a good feeling about today, but I’m not sure I do.”

Baekhyun freezes, blood running ice cold, even as Chanyeol’s touch burns his skin like a wildfire. His hand is so much bigger, which Baekhyun has always known, but never paid specific attention to until now. It’s a little rough from Herbology, which he takes as an elective. Tanner and broader than Baekhyun’s. Covers his slighter, paler hand almost completely.

Swallowing hard and flashing his best smile, Baekhyun assures Chanyeol for what feels like the millionth time that everything is going to be okay.

He’ll say it however many times he has to until one of them actually believes it.

“He seems to be playing as well as ever,” Kyungsoo notes with a hum, dismissing Chanyeol’s latest concerns about Baekhyun.

Chanyeol can’t deny it though, watching the Gryffindor zipping past again and again, nothing but a blur of crimson and gold. Baekhyun is playing just as amazingly as he always does, one of the fastest and most deadly accurate Chasers at the whole school.

Chanyeol always loved coming to Baekhyun’s matches, no matter if it was rainy and freezing, or lasted eighteen hours straight. It was all worth it to see Baekhyun on his broom, smaller and more agile than nearly anyone else in the school. There was a grace that he flew with that made him stand out, made him hypnotizing to watch because in the blink of an eye that gracefulness could transform into a wicked power.

He and Kyungsoo are huddled together on the Gryffindor side of the stands, their usual spot close to the front to get a good view. He thinks he catches Baekhyun glancing their direction every so often, eyes scanning, and tries to raise his hand to wave, but then a Quaffle sails past and Baekhyun is thrown back into action.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Chanyeol admits as Baekhyun makes another impressive shot that flies past the Slytherin Keeper’s ear and through the hoop. “I don’t know what I was so worried about,” he continues once the cheering has died down.

“I don’t think you’re wrong to be worried.”

Chanyeol snaps his head down to look at his friend. “What? You just said he’s playing fine?”

“He is,” Kyungsoo agrees. “But something just feels… I don’t know.” He breaks off sounding frustrated. Kyungsoo hated not knowing things, the damn Ravenclaw.

Funny, Chanyeol doesn’t know what it is either.

Dark, he wants to say. Something feels dark, and it’s not just the swirling thunderstorm clouds that loom overhead. Just sitting there, but no rain falling.

Chanyeol tries to push all of his nerves aside and focus on the match in front of him. Gryffindor is doing incredibly well, crushing Slytherin in terms of goals scored. No surprise there, since the Gryffindor keeper, a broad-shoulder guy named Shownu, is nearly impossible to get a Quaffle past. Chanyeol remembers Baekhyun bragging about him when he first joined the team, just this year, but took to the sport like a natural. He certainly seems brag-worthy to Chanyeol, making dangerous dips and dives all over the place to stop Quaffles from getting past him.

It’s also not surprising because Baekhyun is one of the top scorers in the league. Just this game, he’s already racked up twelve goals, while Slytherin have only managed to score four.

“Looks like it’s all gonna come down to the Snitch.”

Chanyeol nods at Kyungsoo, but can’t tear his eyes away from the Bludger heading right for Baekhyun’s back. He wants to scream, Behind you! Turn around!, but he knows the other boy wouldn’t be able to hear him anyways. He sucks in a sharp breath as it closes in and then -

Chanyeol exhales.

Jeon Jungkook, a fifth year Beater, manages to knock it away before it can collide with Baekhyun. Chanyeol does a silent prayer to whatever deity created Jungkook and put him on this planet.

“Close one,” he mutters under his breath. Too close. Something in the air feels electric, wrong.

“But he still scored again,” Kyungsoo points out. Baekhyun’s flown around the back of the Slytherin hoop to sink one in from the back.

“It’s gonna be a tight game,” one of Baekhyun’s Gryffindor friends, Junmyeon says excitedly beside him, leaning closer to the railing as the activity on the pitch heats up. Taemin from the Slytherin team managed to almost knock Jackson Wang from his broom, smiling prettily at him as he flew away, leaving Jackson cursing and dangling by his fingers, trying to pull himself back up.

Getting drawn further and further into the game, Chanyeol is finally able to distract himself from the paranoia prickling at his mind. Slytherin manages to score a few more goals off of them, but luckily Baekhyun and Jackson manage to get almost every one of them back.

Suddenly, Slytherin’s Seeker, Min Yoongi, apparently spotting the Snitch, goes into a sharp dive upwards. Gryffindor’s Seeker, Mark Lee follows closely behind, but Chanyeol knows exactly how this is going to play out. It seems like everyone in the stands realizes what’s going to happen, too, as everyone begins to buzz with chatter, counting fingers or doing the math in their head.

Yoongi will catch the Snitch - Yoongi always catches the Snitch.

As the score stands right now, when Yoongi catches the Snitch and earns his team 150 points, they’ll be tied.

Gryffindor needs to score one more goal before Yoongi gets that Snitch.

Chanyeol grins to himself, patting Kyungsoo on the back and leaning close to be heard over the excited chatter of the crowd. “I’m gonna head down now so I can be there waiting when they win.”

Because as reliable as Min Yoongi was catching Snitches, Baekhyun was just as dependable with a Quaffle in his hand and a goal in front of him. Chanyeol had no doubt, the second he saw Baekhyun’s eyes glint with the realization of what he needed to do, that he was going to do it.

Carefully pushing his way through the crowd, he headed down the bleachers to meet the team on the sideline of the pitch.

Baekhyun’s thigh muscles ache where they clench around his broom, palms slippery on the handle. He can taste the sweat pooling salty on his upper lip, tips of his bangs dripping down the bridge of his nose.

He feels good. Better than he has in weeks - feels alive and in control.

Park Jihyo passes him the Quaffle, landing solid in his arms, and he has to make this goal if they’re going to defeat Slytherin. They’re all counting on him, his entire team and half the crowd cheering his name.

Slytherin’s Keeper is nothing to write home about, probably half the size of Shownu and half the speed, as well. As long as Baekhyun can avoid getting knocked off his broom (which he’s confident Jungkook will keep from happening), he can win this game.

He locks his ankles together behind him, holds the Quaffle securely under his arm, and takes off towards the goal.

The wind and a few Bludgers whistle past his ears, but he's got a one-track mind, everything else fading into the background until there’s only him, the Quaffle, and the Keeper standing in his way.

Closing in quick, Baekhyun feints right, then pulls sharply up, hanging nearly upside down over the top of the goal. He clutches the Quaffle tightly, pushing all of his remaining strength into his arms, and shoots.

It goes through, barely a second before the announcer shouts that Min Yoongi has caught the Snitch.

Gryffindor has won the match.

A familiar rush of euphoria that only comes with moments like these floods Baekhyun’s veins, mouth falling open in a cheer and fist pumping victoriously in the air. Slowly, the rest of the world slowly bleeds back into his senses, the way it always does. This is right around the time he starts to hear the shouting coming from the bleachers, feels his teammates crowding around him, slapping him on the back as they all return to the ground to celebrate, rolling around the pitch like a gang of unruly children.

Except this time, the silence doesn’t stop.

Because no one is making a sound. In fact, Baekhyun realizes, slowly glancing around the stands in confusion, no one is even looking at him. Why aren’t they watching him? Did they even see him score? What the hell is everyone looking at that’s so damn interesting?

Baekhyun follows their line of sight behind him, towards the Slytherin stands, and his stomach lurches like he's just caught a Bludger to the gut.

Another banner has been flung over the side of the railing to cover the Slytherin house banner. This one isn’t emerald green with a grinning silver serpent on it, it’s stark white with nothing on it but those words, those two cursed fucking words, dripping like they were written with fresh blood.

Like the word he found written on his locker.

BLOOD TRAITOR

Suddenly, Baekhyun’s own face is staring back at him, projected just above the banner so that there’s no question about who the blood traitor is. Every head slowly swivels around to face him, and Baekhyun wanted their attention, but not like this.

Not like this.

There are varying expressions of shock, pity, confusion, and horror flashing across the faces around him. The Slytherins themselves look most confused and upset at all. It’s been years that they’ve been building back up the reputation of their house, and Baekhyun hopes no one will blame the entire house for this. Wants to tell them he understands they aren’t all the same.

But Baekhyun can’t say anything. Can’t move. Can barely breathe.

The projected image of his face starts spilling blood from every orifice on his face, his eyes and ears and nose, and Baekhyun thinks it’s just an illusion until he feels it. Tickling a path down his cheeks, and lifts a hand to touch. His fingers come away sticky and crimson red.

Baekhyun thinks he might be sick.

“Baekhyun!” Jungkook is at his side the second he shakes himself out of the shock. “Let’s go people, let’s get him to the ground!” The captain commands, and then there are his teammates hands all around finally, but they’re not patting him on the back in congratulations this time.

Every time Baekhyun blinks, he sees the blood dripping off his eyelashes right in front of his eyes. Every time he breathes, he can taste the coppery bite on his breath.

The first person he sees when he finally touches the ground, stumbling on wobbly feet until he falls into familiar arms, is Jongdae.

“I’m s-sorry,” Baekhyun splutters, clutching onto his friend’s robes, trying to secure himself to anything. “You were right, Dae, ‘m sorry, should’ve been more careful.”

“Shh, it’s okay, Baek. Shit, it’s okay. Here, let me see you.” Jongdae talks to Baekhyun in a soft, soothing voice that he doesn’t think he’s ever heard from his friend before. Maybe once, when they were kids and Baekhyun got bitten by a Billywig in his backyard. Jongdae lets Baekhyun cling onto him while the other students run around frantically, looking for professors and medical staff.

“I’m still pretty, right?” Baekhyun jokes. Jongdae laughs, a little wet, dabbing at Baekhyun’s cheeks with his Slytherin scarf. It’s now stained red with Baekhyun’s blood all over it. “People are gonna think you’re a Gryffindor now,” he points out. Jongdae sticks out his tongue.

“I’m literally burning this thing the second this is all over.”

Baekhyun laughs this time, but it sticks in his throat, and when he coughs into his hands, his palms are drenched in red.

“Shit, it’s a good thing I came down early,” Jongdae rambles, scrambling for something to say, trying to distract them both. “Chanyeol and I were both so sure you’d score that last goal, we wanted to be here when you got down. It was a beaut, by the way, I did manage to catch it before -“

“Chanyeol?” Baekhyun croaks, suddenly hyperaware of everything going on around him once again, scanning the immediate area for a tall head of brown hair.

“Hm? Oh yeah, he was just with me, I don’t know where he - Oh no.”

Baekhyun cranes his neck to look over Jongdae’s shoulder and finds Chanyeol, standing stock-still in the crowd of madness, looming nearly a head over everyone else. Face set like stone. Eyes blazing more hot and wild than Fiendfyre. Baekhyun has never seen an expression like this on the Hufflepuff’s face before in his life. Usually, Chanyeol is nothing but sunny smiles and quirky laughs that rumble and squeak.

Now, he looks like he could bring this whole school to its knees.

Baekhyun swallows hard.

“What the hell is he doing?”

Chanyeol’s just towering there, staring up at the banner, glaring towards the Slytherin bleachers like he can turn it to ash just with his gaze (which Baekhyun wouldn’t even be surprised by at this point). Baekhyun’s question is answered when Chanyeol raises his wand towards the stands and shouts a booming, “Mobili Corpus!”

Baekhyun doesn’t understand what’s happening, has never even heard that spell before, but then two figures in black hoods are suddenly lifting up from the Slytherin stands into the air, following the path of Chanyeol’s wand. Baekhyun hadn't even noticed them before, too distracted by the banner and the blood, and from the looks of it, no one else noticed them either.

No one except Chanyeol.

Baekhyun would totally be swooning right now if he wasn’t pretty sure he was about to pass out.

With a harsh downward flick of his wand, both figures are flung towards the ground, plummeting hard to their knees. There’s a resonating thudding sound, echoing throughout the stands like a clap of thunder, and everyone goes quiet, staring at Chanyeol and the two figures kneeling before him.

“It stopped,” Jongdae breathes, relieved. Baekhyun turns to him, confused, and Jongdae lowers his scarf from Baekhyun’s face. He raises a hand to touch his own upper lip, right under his nose, and finds the bleeding has, in fact, stopped.

Thanks to Chanyeol. Now might be a more appropriate time to swoon.

“How dare you,” Chanyeol growls low in his throat, and it sends shivers down Baekhyun’s spine. “Who the hell do you think you are, huh? What gives you the right to -“

“We don’t have to sit here and listen to anything you have to say, Mudblood,” one of the figures spits, staggering to his knees. There are a few gasps from the crowd, at the word and at the sight of the hood being pulled off the figure’s face. Baekhyun recognizes him. A seventh year Slytherin he’s passed in the hallways countless times before, never knowing. Never suspecting.

And then, Chanyeol does the most attractive, most Muggle thing Baekhyun has ever seen in his entire life.

He lowers his wand, takes a measured step forward, and punches the Slytherin boy right in the face. With his fist!

“Woah, baby.” Jongdae whistles low, impressed. Baekhyun seconds that sentiment. And thirds and fourths and fifths it, because wow. Chanyeol just punched a kid in the face for him! Maybe even broke his nose, from the cracking sound and stream of blood now running down the boy’s face.

“Mister Park, that is quite enough, I think.” The Headmistress says, coming up behind Chanyeol and putting a firm hand on his shoulder. “The three of you, come with me.” Her expression is hard as marble, while Professor Longbottom pulls the other figure to their feet, grasping the unmasked Slytherin’s arm in his hand. Surprisingly, when he pulls the mask off the other person, it’s not another seventh year Slytherin underneath, but a Ravenclaw.

But even with the Headmistress right behind him, Chanyeol isn’t finished yet.

“If either of you ever so much as breathe in his direction ever again I’ll do so many Unforgivable things to you, the Ministry won’t know what to do with me,” Chanyeol promises darkly.

Holy shit. This is quickly going from Baekhyun’s worst day ever to his best.

“I said enough, Mister Park.” McGonagall says sternly, but when she turns to Baekhyun, her eyes soften. “Escort your friend to the infirmary please, Mister Kim?” She addresses Jongdae, who nods his head quickly. With Jongdae’s arm around his shoulder, Baekhyun allows himself to be led away, but can’t help sparing another glance back at Chanyeol: all tall and strong, blazing fury. All for Baekhyun.

“Um, okay, not to be gay or anything but was Chanyeol just super hot right now, or am I crazy?” Jongdae mutters under his breath. Baekhyun laughs breathlessly, feels like it’s the first real inhale he’s taken in weeks.

“Yeah, yeah he was.”

“You mean it in a gay way, don’t you?”

“Yes I do.”

Jongdae sighs and squeezes his shoulder. “About time you figured it out. Now let’s hurry and get Madam Pomfrey to fix you up all nice and pretty again so you can give your hero a nice ‘thank you’ gift.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively and Baekhyun blushes, face heating up, but another kind of warmth pooling somewhere in the space between his ribs.

Baekhyun’s hero.

“There aren’t many families like Mister Byun’s left these days, you know that, don’t you?”

Chanyeol nods in response to McGonagall’s question, a little surprised by it. He thought she’d start tearing into him the second he walked into her office and sat down, but it looks like after dealing with the other two students, she’s all out of steam. She just looks tired now, older, more like her own age, wrinkles and bags under her eyes heavier in the low candlelight. Her gaze is faraway, like she’s somewhere else right now, living in a dark memory.

“It’s been a great many years since I’ve had to deal with something like this at Hogwarts. A great many…” She presses her fingertips together in front of her, lips twisting thoughtfully. “Pureblood families used to be much more common, back when wizarding society was more strictly segregated from that of Muggles. Over the years since the Great War, however, mindsets have changed, and mingling with those who don’t have the same blood as us became a more common practice. But there are still some Pureblood families left, and a lot of them don’t agree with the direction our society has been heading in.”

“They don’t think I belong here.” Chanyeol knows all of this already. It’s been a fact of life he’s had to deal with since he was eleven years old and first arrived at Hogwarts. Most people couldn’t have cared less that he was a Muggleborn, but there were always those few who looked at him funny or whispered behind his back.

Not Baekhyun, though. Never Baekhyun. It’s hard to imagine someone as carefree as his friend coming from a world that cared so much about something so stupid, like bloodlines.

“You do belong here, Chanyeol,” McGonagall says with a tone of finality. “You belong here just as much as any other student at Hogwarts. It is your home and I will be the first person to stand up and set straight anyone who says differently.”

Chanyeol’s lips lift into a half-grin at the determined look at McGonagall’s face. “Thank you, Headmistress.”

“That being said,” McGonagall sighs, “as much as I’m sure that you can stand up for yourself, Mister Park, there needs to be a punishment for such violence on school grounds.”

“It wasn’t even half as bad as what they did to Baekhyun!”

“I understand,” she sighs again, looking more troubled. “We had a member of the Ministry come by to administer a dose of Veritaserum to both boys. They told us all about the torment they’ve been putting Mister Byun through these past weeks.”

Chanyeol feels his blood run cold. “These past - Weeks?”

McGonagall eyes him carefully. “He didn’t tell you.”

“No,” Chanyeol shakes his head miserably. “He didn’t - He kept it from me for weeks? What did they do to him?”

“I don’t consider it my place to say any more on the subject, I’m afraid. But Mister Park, don’t be too upset with your friend. It seems he only kept it from you to protect you.”

The truth hits Chanyeol like a train.

“Because it’s my fault.”

Baekhyun was a target because of Chanyeol. Because he’s a pureblood and Chanyeol is a Muggleborn and that makes him a blood traitor. Even knowing that being friends with Chanyeol was putting such a huge target on his back, getting harassed and threatened, Baekhyun still never left his side. He put himself at risk to be Chanyeol’s friend, and Chanyeol, he doesn’t - he doesn’t deserve -

“You are not to blame for the sick and archaic ideas of those individuals, do you hear me?” McGonagall says hotly, startling Chanyeol out of his own thoughts.

“I - Um, yes, Headmistress?”

“Is that a question or an answer?”

“An answer? An answer. It was an answer.”

The corner of McGonagall’s lips lift into a half-smile. Chanyeol kind of wants to hug her right now.

“You’re a good friend, Mister Park, and a fierce defender of those you love. Mister Byun is very lucky to have you.”

Chanyeol opens his mouth to politely thank her again, when her words suddenly sink it. She said that Chanyeol loved Baekhyun, and he - He didn’t even think twice about it? There was no instinctive correction on his tongue; he didn’t feel like blushing or denying it, or even ignoring it altogether.

It felt good. It felt right. Chanyeol wanted to hold onto that moment for the rest of his life.

“Now, onto the more unpleasant business…”

Whatever McGonagall said next was mostly lost on Chanyeol, as something bursting with color and life starting to take root in his chest, right between his ribs. Everything he’s ever felt when it came to Baekhyun makes complete sense now, like he’s looking back at something that used to be fuzzy with a new pair of glasses that make it all so clear.

That instinctive draw he felt to Baekhyun the first time he saw him, bouncing eagerly in his seat on the boats with the rest of the first years, eyes alight as he dipped his hand into the water and splashed a young Jongdae in the face. Everyone else had been nervously fidgeting, nearly silent in their wonder and awe, intimidated by the huge castle looming before them. But not Baekhyun. Baekhyun had been fearless.

It explained the butterflies he felt in his stomach that day in Charms class when he finally gathered up enough courage to ask Baekhyun to be his partner for an assignment. And the next. And every assignment after that until Chanyeol couldn’t even remember what his life had been like without Baekhyun’s bubbly laughter always in the corner of his mind.

These past weeks - these past hours - made so much sense now. The worry and fear that had been eating away at his insides like a parasite the moment he noticed that something was wrong with Baekhyun. That instinct to take care of him, to protect him and make sure he never had a reason to lose sleep again. That fury, the absolute burning fucking fury he felt on the Quidditch pitch today, seeing that banner. Those words. Baekhyun’s face.

Seeing Baekhyun hurt, and afraid - fuck. It was easily the worst moment of Chanyeol’s entire life.

He has to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down, hoping that McGonagall doesn’t notice how worked up he’s getting and thinks he’s still paying attention to her.

It all makes sense now.

Chanyeol is in love with Baekhyun.

“Is that all understood, Mister Park?” McGonagall blinks at him from behind her glasses, eyebrow raised. Chanyeol nods quickly, remembering something about a two week suspension from classes and extracurriculars, and excuses himself. “Do get that hand of yours checked out at the infirmary!” McGonagall calls after him.

The infirmary, perfect. That’s where Baekhyun is, isn’t it? But that was such a long time ago, feels like years at this point. Was he even there, or was he back in his room now, fast asleep? Chanyeol hopes he’s getting some rest, but also if he doesn’t see him right now immediately he’s possibly going to lost his mind. He's standing in the hall, debating where to go next, when an owl flies in the window, landing on windowsill beside him.

Chanyeol’s heart swoops when he realizes he recognizes that owl.

“Hello, Eden.” Chanyeol holds out his hand to the snowy white owl. “Is that for me, hm?”

Eden hoots once and hops over closer to him, allowing him to reach up and untie a scroll from her leg.

“Thanks, girl.” He digs into his pockets and shrugs sheepishly. “Sorry, I don’t have any treats on me right now, but I promise extra next time I see you.”

If Chanyeol didn’t know better, he’d swear the owl rolls her eyes at him before taking off once again. He’d expect no less attitude from Baekhyun’s pet.

He unrolls the small scroll and leans into the moonlight to see the writing better.

Meet me back at the scene of the crime (if McGonagall hasn’t already shipped you off to Azkaban, that is).

-B

Chanyeol huffs out a laugh, amused at Baekhyun’s theatrics. At least he knows where he needs to go now.

Baekhyun waits for him on the Quidditch pitch.

He doesn’t know how long it’ll take, but he knows Chanyeol will come (if he isn’t actually being shipped off to Azkaban, that is). It’s eerily still and silent, standing here in this exact spot that was an arena of chaos only few hours prior. He raises a hand to touch his cheek, feeling the phantom blood dripping down his face, but finds his fingers dry. He hears his own panicked shouts, his teammates, Jongdae’s echoing in his ears.

He walks over to the spot where Chanyeol threw those masked figures to the ground so hard there are still impressions from their knees left in the ground, and all the ghosts in his head go perfectly quiet. Pressing one of his toes into the indent, Baekhyun feels how far down the Earth sinks and a shiver runs up his spine.

Chanyeol did that.

Chanyeol did that for him.

He’s so entranced by the sight, he doesn’t even hear the figure approaching him from behind.

“I owe your owl extra treats.” Baekhyun whips around at the sound of the voice, heart pounding blood in his ears, hands jumping for his wand. Chanyeol throws his hands up in innocent surrender, speaking in a low, calming voice. “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t forget.” And then, eyebrows furrowed in concern, “Are you okay, Baek?”

Taking a deep breath, Baekhyun eases his wand back into his pocket, crossing his arms over his chest, making sure his expression gives away nothing.

“I’m fine. Madam Pomfrey said there was no real internal damage done, just had to replace some blood that I lost. What about you? What did McGonagall say?”

“That’s good.” Baekhyun sees Chanyeol visibly exhale, as if he’d been holding a big breath in until he was sure Baekhyun was okay. “I got two weeks suspension from class and extracurriculars. Not too bad, eh?” Chanyeol grins hesitantly, and Baekhyun feels the rage bubbling up inside him until he’s vibrating with it.

“You idiot!” He’s on Chanyeol so fast, the taller boy barely has time to react before Baekhyun is throwing himself at his chest, fists pounding and pounding against him. “It could have been so much worse! What the hell were you thinking? No, you weren’t thinking, that’s the problem! When did you get so reckless? That’s supposed to be my job, not yours. Not you, Yeollie.” Baekhyun doesn’t stop punching him through his entire tirade, fists flying in a blur, but he knows he’s not really hurting Chanyeol. His dainty hands look almost comically small and ineffective against Chanyeol’s broad chest, but he can’t stop himself.

He was scared. He was so fucking scared.

“It’s alright, I’m okay. Everyone’s okay - Shit, please, no, don’t cry, Baek. Come here.”

Baekhyun hadn’t even realized he started crying, but he doesn’t protest when Chanyeol’s arms wrap around him and pull him in, crushing him to his chest and stopping his attack. Baekhyun never considered himself someone who depended on other people too much, but when Chanyeol holds him close and silently offers to let Baekhyun lean on him, he lets himself free-fall into him.

“I’m sorry, Baek. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Why?” Baekhyun sniffles, head tucked under Chanyeol’s chin so the other boy thankfully can’t see his red nose and teary eyes. “Why are you sorry, Chanyeol?”

“I - I don’t know, but you’re crying and it’s really breaking my heart here, so I’m just trying to say whatever will get you to stop.”

A wet laugh bursts from Baekhyun’s lips, and he can’t see it, but he’s pretty sure Chanyeol has cracked a smile now, too.

“Say you’re sorry for acting like a reckless Gryffindor and nearly getting yourself expelled for me.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Baekhyun pouts, tilting his head up to look at Chanyeol. He’s surprised to find his best friend already looking down at him, serene smile on his face.

“Because I’m not going to lie to you.” Chanyeol shrugs, his arms sliding down from Baekhyun’s shoulders to wrap around his waist instead. “Someone was hurting you and I stopped them. I won’t say I’m sorry for that, no matter what the circumstances were.”

Baekhyun’s breath catches sharply in his chest. It’s all at once exactly something that Baekhyun would expect a bleeding-heart Hufflepuff like Chanyeol to say, and yet also, something that catches him completely off-guard. Maybe it’s the vulnerability on Chanyeol’s face, the raw honesty in his voice. The fact that Baekhyun knows he’s not just saying that because the words sound pretty and will make Baekhyun feel good. He’s saying it because it’s true. He honestly couldn’t care less what happens to him, as long as he’s keeping Baekhyun safe.

His heart couldn’t get any bigger right now if it tried.

“Then apologize for something else,” Baekhyun whispers. There’s something exposed in his voice now, too, and Chanyeol notices it.

“What?” He breathes.

“Say you’re sorry for making me fall in love with you.”

He’s taking a risk here, he knows. He and Chanyeol have never discussed anything about romantic feelings at all before, and then to just come right out with the L-word? Risky. But it just feels right in this moment, and he thinks the risk just might pay off.

Baekhyun tilts his head ever so slightly to the side, a little thrill going through him when Chanyeol’s eyes go wide as saucers. He doesn’t look disgusted, Baekhyun notices, eyelids lowering as he rises onto his toes and boldly presses even closer. He looks a little panicked, maybe, surprised, sure. But not upset.

In fact, he looks happy.

“Can’t do that,” Chanyeol finally whispers back, a little smile forming. Both of his hands come up to cup Baekhyun’s face, and while he misses the secure feeling of them around his waist, he melts at the tender way Chanyeol thumbs away the remaining tear-stains on his cheeks. “Baekhyun, I lo- mph!”

The rest of his confession is lost between their lips.

Baekhyun may have gotten a little overexcited.

“Sorry!” He gasps, pulling back with a blush already staining his cheeks. It’s torture, dragging himself away from the soft, warm plushness of Chanyeol’s lips. He only had them for a split second, and he can already feel himself becoming rapidly obsessed. “Sorry, I totally cut you off! You can feel free to finish, if you even still want to, I mean. This is so - I’m sorry, Yeollie, I didn’t mean to - You’re laughing.” Baekhyun breaks off, lips falling into a pout, but he can’t help the way his cheeks tug up into a smile. Watching Chanyeol laugh does that to him. “Stop laughing at me!”

“Oh, Baek,” Chanyeol gasps, squeezing his hips in what’s probably meant to be a comforting gesture, but just makes Baekhyun want to burst into flames. “Sorry, I wasn’t laughing at - Okay, actually yes, I was laughing at you - ow! Don’t pinch me! You’re just cute, Baek!”

“Cute?” Baekhyun eyes him warily.

Chanyeol nods, ducking down to press a kiss to his forehead. “The cutest.”

“Hmph. Thank you.”

“And also, I love you, too.”

“Good.”

“You can feel completely free to kiss me again now.”

“Actually, I’d say it’s your turn this time.”

Chanyeol slides a hand into the back of Baekhyun’s hair, grinning down at him.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he teases, and before Baekhyun can even think of a retort, Chanyeol ducks down to capture his lips in a honeydew-sweet kiss. Baekhyun accepts the kiss a little dazed, still not sure if this is his real life, if this is really Park Chanyeol who’s holding him so tenderly and kissing him so softly like that. “You gonna kiss me back, or do I have to do all the work?” Chanyeol pulls away to whisper against his lips, and Baekhyun can feel his smirk.

Well, fuck that.

Baekhyun fists both hands in the front of Chanyeol’s sweater and becomes a very active participant in the kissing, tugging Chanyeol down further so he can press their bodies even closer. There isn’t an inch of space between their chests, and Baekhyun licks eagerly at the seam of Chanyeol’s mouth so that they’re intertwined even more. He feels like a man possessed, like he’s been Imperioed to never want anything more than Chanyeol’s lips and body on his for the rest of his life, but he knows it’s only his own desires making him feel that way.

Desires he didn’t even know he had until he saw Chanyeol punch someone in the face for him.

Baekhyun pulls back with a sharp inhale, ignoring Chanyeol’s confused face and grabbing for his hands. “Your knuckle, is it okay?” Chanyeol winces when Baekhyun runs his thumb over the purpling flesh of his hand, though he tries to hide it. “Why didn’t you go to the infirmary, you idiot!” Baekhyun chastises lightly, smacking Chanyeol’s chest.

“I was going to!”

“Well why didn’t you?”

Chanyeol shrugs.

“I got your owl. Decided I’d rather see you, instead.”

Baekhyun absolutely does not blush over that.

“Idiot,” he mutters again, looking down at the bruised skin and hoping his hair hides his flaming cheeks. Chanyeol’s smug grin tells him that it doesn’t. “Let me see. I can do some basic healing on it, but you should really go to the infirmary in the morning.”

“Thanks, Nurse Byun.” Chanyeol waggles his eyebrows.

“Or I could just turn all your fingers into worms,” Baekhyun warns, holding his wand over the digits threateningly. Chanyeol laughs and shakes his head, resting their foreheads together while Baekhyun works. It’s a little distracting, Chanyeol’s hair tickling his forehead, warm breath grazing Baekhyun’s cheeks, but he manages to focus long enough to get the swelling down and the skin close to it’s normal hue. Chanyeol flexes his fingers, eyebrows raising.

“I’m impressed.”

Minor emergency taken care of, Baekhyun winds his arms around Chanyeol’s neck and pulls them flush together, licking his lips slowly and purposefully. Now that Chanyeol is okay, Baekhyun has every intention of getting right back to where they were before.

Maybe even getting further than they were before.

“I can do all sorts of impressive things. You wanna see more?”

Chanyeol groans, fingertips dipping under the hem of Baekhyun’s sweater and lightly brushing the bare skin of his hips. “Yes, please,” he requests so low and raspy that Baekhyun couldn’t turn him down if he wanted to.

Baekhyun kisses him again, slow and unhurried. He slides his hands up the front of Chanyeol’s sweater, fingertips dancing teasingly up the hard planes of his stomach and chest until he reaches his collarbones, then he presses his fingernails lightly against the skin and scratches all the way back down the path he made. Chanyeol shivers, muscles in his stomach trembling, a surprised and broken noise falling from his lips when Baekhyun scratches lightly at the skin just above the waist of his pants.

“Fuck, Baek,” Chanyeol groans breaking the kiss. “Should’ve known you’d be a tease.”

“Who? Me?” Baekhyun blinks up at him, fingertips hooked into the front of Chanyeol’s pants.

Chanyeol huffs a laugh, thumbs pressing dimples into either side of Baekhyun’s spine. “The innocent look doesn’t suit you.”

Baekhyun purposefully widens his eyes, cocking his head to the side and batting his eyelashes. “Doesn’t it, though?”

He’s pulled into another toe-curling kiss, this time their hips just barely brushing against each other’s, and Baekhyun feels hot hot hot all over his body.

“Everything suits you,” Chanyeol admits when he pulls away, cupping Baekhyun’s cheeks and looking him over like he wants to memorize every inch of his face. “Merlin, how are you this pretty? Were you always this pretty?”

“I was, actually, but thanks for finally noticing,” Baekhyun quips to try and hide how absolutely devastating Chanyeol’s praises are to his self-control.

The look Chanyeol gives him at that is so fond, so full of years and years of adoring and caring that they’ve built up together, so warm and loving that Baekhyun stops breathing for a few seconds. And now, thanks to that look, Baekhyun doesn’t think he can ever let Chanyeol leave his side again. He’ll have to use a Sticking Charm and attach himself right onto the taller boy, he’ll convert to Hufflepuff and change his entire class schedule and then he’ll never have to be apart from Chanyeol. Even after school ends, he’ll move in with Chanyeol and his parents, or maybe they can move in just the two of them? He’ll get a job near wherever Chanyeol will be, and will have lunch with him and kiss him when he comes home every day. And they’ll grow older and older, and they’ll make each other laugh so much that the wrinkles by their eyes will go on for miles, but Baekhyun will always think Chanyeol is as terribly handsome as he is right now, fresh-blooded and screaming heart with arms like home.

“I’m gonna stay with you forever,” he whispers, voicing only a fraction of his thoughts, but he needed to say something, needed to somehow let Chanyeol know how he was feeling.

Chanyeol kisses his nose and his cheek and the skin right next to his eye.

“That’s good.” His arms wind tightly around Baekhyun’s waist. “Because I never want to let you go.”

This time when they kiss, it feels different than the rest. It feels like a promise. Deep and thorough, Chanyeol’s tongue slipping into Baekhyun’s mouth and tangling with his, Baekhyun’s nails digging into Chanyeol’s shoulder blades, a hundred moving parts suddenly falling perfectly into place.

Baekhyun hasn't kissed that many people in his life, but fuck, Chanyeol sure is fucking good at it, isn’t he? Like, overwhelmingly good. Powerful, but soft. Takes what he wants, but lets Baekhyun take what he needs. Holds Baekhyun tightly like he really does never want to let him go, but tender as if he’s fragile like glass. Baekhyun loves it, isn’t even embarrassed by how obviously greedy he is for more of it, whining and scrambling to hold Chanyeol as close as he possibly can.

Chanyeol is the only person Baekhyun wants to kiss for the rest of his life.

He feels so stupid thinking about all the years he spent not kissing Chanyeol. They could have been making out in hidden corridors while they skipped classes, sneaking into each others dorms and kissing under the covers quietly while they tried not to wake anyone up, and Merlin, the Congratulations Kisses that Baekhyun could have been getting on the sidelines after every Quidditch match! Such a waste.

They have a lot of time to make up for.

”Shit, Baek, oh, wow.” Chanyeol sucks in a harsh breath when Baekhyun slips a hand between their bodies, pressing the palm of his hand against the front of Chanyeol’s pants. He’s half-hard already and Baekhyun can’t help but be ridiculously pleased at that, the way he can feel the firmness and the heat through the material of his trousers. It makes him suddenly very aware of how uncomfortably tight his own pants are starting to get.

Fuck, but he just wants to keep touching Chanyeol, to kiss every inch of his broad, taut body, wants Chanyeol against him and over him and inside him -

Oh.

Oh.

Now there’s an idea.

Baekhyun breaks their kiss with a sharp inhale, remembering that they’re currently still standing in the middle of the very public Quidditch pitch with their hands up each other’s shirts and tents in their pants. Literally anyone could walk out and see them right now. He spares a quick glance over his shoulder, a plan forming in his head.

“Chanyeol.” He grabs both of the Hufflepuff’s hands, looking very earnestly into his eyes.

“Hm?”

“I -” Baekhyun swallows hard, the words sticking in his throat. Why is this so hard? It was so obvious in his head just a few seconds ago, but saying the words out loud is a lot more nerve-wracking than he expected. Chanyeol stroked his knuckles with his thumbs, clearly noticing Baekhyun’s nervousness, and the action is so sweet, so soothing and supportive that the rest of the words just come tumbling out of him. “I want you to fuck me in the locker room.”

“I - I want you to fuck me in the locker room.”

Chanyeol blinks. Blinks again. Once more and squeezes his eyes shut nice and tight before opening them again and making sure Baekhyun is still there. That this is really happening.

That he really said that.

“Oh. Oh wow.”

Baekhyun’s face suddenly flushes bright pink, a nervous laugh bursting from his lips.

“Sorry! Sorry, that was so forward. That was too fast, right? I freaked you out, I’m sorry, we don’t have to - I’m perfectly happy to just keep doing exactly what we’re doing. Seriously, I love what we’re doing now, we don’t have to do any more.”

“No!” Chanyeol exclaims, holding onto Baekhyun’s hands tight when he feels the smaller boy start to pull away. “No, wait, let me just - let me process for a second, okay? Today has been a lot.”

‘A lot’ was one hell of an understatement.

It’s like Baekhyun has just unraveled and rewoven Chanyeol’s entire life up until this point in a mere eight hours flat, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

So why was he even hesitating? What did he need a moment to think about? He loves Baekhyun, and Baekhyun loves him, and every cell in his body is screaming at him that yes, he should get even closer, as close as possible to the beautiful boy glistening dewy in the moonlight in front of him.

Except -

“I - I never have. Before. I don’t want you to expect too much and be disappointed or anything. And I definitely don’t want to hurt you on accident or anything.”

Chanyeol’s ears are burning by the end of his confession. Baekhyun’s mouth opens in a surprised and understanding ‘o’, not saying anything, but not stepping away either. Finally, a beatific smile spreads across his face, rounding his lips and tugging at the apples of his cheeks.

“Neither have I! We can figure it out together, can’t we? But only if you want to,” Baekhyun is quick to add.

And the funny thing - not even funny at all, because it actually makes Chanyeol’s heart hurt with how much it feels for the boy in front of him, like someone’s plugged a tire inflator into it and keeps pumping it full of air when it’s far past its limit already - is that Chanyeol knows that Baekhyun is telling the truth. He would never, never in a million years ask something of Chanyeol that might make him even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

Even if Baekhyun wants it.

Even if Baekhyun really, really, wants it.

Even if he wants it so bad that he’s trembling in Chanyeol’s arms, shaking like a leaf in the wind every time his fingertips brush over a new patch of Baekhyun’s sensitive skin.

“Okay,” Chanyeol swallows down all of his insecurities, because he does want this, too (wants it even more because he knows how much Baekhyun wants it). “I want to. Let’s give it a try.”

Even though Chanyeol knows exactly where the Quidditch locker rooms are located, he lets Baekhyun tow him along by the wrist, turning back to look at him every few steps with quick grin and bright eyes. He feels jittery with nerves and anticipation, and can’t help but smile back when Baekhyun giggles and Chanyeol knows he feels the same giddy nervousness as him.

How could he have ever thought this would be weird? It’s him and it’s Baekhyun and from the moment they met, there’s always been an easiness between them that made every complex problem in the universe seem so simple and arbitrary. Something infinite and untouchable about them together.

The air is still as stale and heavy as it was the last time Chanyeol was here, but he barely notices it this time, since most of the air he’s breathing the second they walk in the door is the air the Baekhyun breathes into his mouth, swapped back and forth between them on an endless loop. Baekhyun had backed himself against the door as soon as it swung shut behind them, hauling Chanyeol in with tight fists in his shirt. Chanyeol caught himself with hands planted on either side of Baekhyun’s head on the door, and the other boy hummed happily, tilting his chin up further to catch Chanyeol’s lips in a frantic, too-much-teeth kiss.

There must have been some amazing feat of human kindness that Chanyeol committed in his past life to deserve this, he thinks. To be able to stand here now with Baekhyun’s greedy hands, dainty fingers, carding roughly through his hair and sliding inside his shirt, skating across his skin and tracing the divots of his muscled abdomen (Baekhyun may be the athlete at Hogwarts, but Chanyeol has spent many summers playing on his hometown’s football team, and it shows - if he does say so himself).

And the sounds. Merlin, the sounds that Baekhyun makes shouldn’t even be legal. He’s always been a loud person, a vocal person, but this is something Chanyeol never even had the presence of mind to imagine about his best friend.

Every touch, every bump of their bodies, ever slide of their tongues; Baekhyun makes another delicious sound.

A whine, a moan, a whimper, a curse, again and again so that there’s never a beat of silence between them. Every inch of air filled with the unique sound of them.

They pull apart, barely an inch, trading air, catching breath, when Chanyeol asks, “Are you ready?”

Baekhyun doesn’t hesitate, impish grin curling his lips.

“I can’t believe you already made me wait this long.”

There’s a little bit of planning, some maneuvering that goes into figuring out how they’re going to make this work and make it as painless as possible for Baekhyun’s first time. With anyone else it would have be terribly awkward and totally ruined the mood, but not with Baekhyun. With the ever-bright Gryffindor, it feels more like a little adventure. Like they’re preparing for something great (which they are).

“Here,” Baekhyun waves to one of the benches sitting lengthwise between a row of lockers. “You sit in the middle, like this, so that I have room to put my knees on either side of you. We’ll do it with me on top, okay?”

They’d already tried to find a good position standing up, but the cold metal and pieces that jut out of the lockers hurt Baekhyun’s spine too much, and the bench was to narrow for him to lay across it and accommodate Chanyeol between his legs, too. Chanyeol didn’t want Baekhyun to have to do all the work, he wanted to take care of him and make his muscles melt like liquid gold, wanted to let Baekhyun lay back and let Chanyeol show every brand of devotion to his body.

But they were a little low on options here, and something about hearing Baekhyun’s sugary breathless voice saying me on top had Chanyeol’s blood running like lava through his veins.

“However you want it, Baek. I just want this to be good for you.”

Baekhyun swoops in with a quick kiss and a lightning smile, and it’s dizzying to Chanyeol that the kissing is something they can just do now.

“It’ll be good no matter what, as long as it’s you and me, Yeollie.”

Expression so open, so honest and trusting that it pumps that last bit of air into Chanyeol’s heart and it finally bursts, splattering sticky and red all over the both of them.

“I really fucking love you.”

Chanyeol isn’t one to usually curse, and Baekhyun laughs delightedly, eyelashes fluttering like the feeling in Chanyeol’s ribcage.

“Show me how much.”

It’s easy. Just like everything between them has always been; just like falling in love with his best friend was; just like Baekhyun’s smile and the way their hands fit together and the hours spent together curled up in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, trying not too laugh too loudly because it was late and Baekhyun’s housemates would rat him out for being there if they woke any of them up again.

Chanyeol’s never had his fingers inside someone else before, but he likes to think he’s doing this the best he can. He casts a quick lubricating spell, Baekhyun lifting himself up over his lap and allowing Chanyeol access to reach around behind him and carefully drag his fingers through the wetness now coating his hole. He traces the rim a few times, waiting to feel the tension lessen, before pushing one finger past the ring of muscle.

The first one goes in easily, with a wet slide, and Chanyeol lets out a relieved breath when Baekhyun doesn’t shatter in his arms. This is fine. He won’t hurt him. It’s a testament to how much Baekhyun trusts him that he’s even letting Chanyeol do this, knowing full well that he’s never done it before. Believing that Chanyeol won’t hurt him. Putting himself in Chanyeol’s hands fully.

With this thought in mind, and Baekhyun’s face buried in his neck, breathing deep as Chanyeol slides a second finger in, he’s determined to make every second of this as enjoyable for Baekhyun as he can. Doesn’t want this to just be a means to an end so he can get his dick inside the other boy as quickly as possible. Baekhyun tenses in his arms with a confused sort of whine at the odd new feeling.

“Sorry,” he kisses Baekhyun’s shoulder. “Is it okay?”

“Don’t apologize,” Baekhyun huffs a laugh. “It’s… Not bad. Kinda weird. It’s fine, just keep going.”

“How can I make it better?”

Baekhyun pulls his face out of his neck, giving him a thoughtful look.

“You could take your shirt off?” He finally suggests, with a wicked grin. “Might give me a good distraction, don’t you think?”

Chanyeol laughs, relieved to see Baekhyun is still in good spirits.

“And how do you suggest I do that?” He wiggles his fingers inside Baekhyun to make his point, but stops when the other boy suddenly gasps sharply.

“Oh-ho, shit, shit!”

“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I - “

“Do it. Again.”

Baekhyun’s teeth are clenched together tightly, and if Chanyeol didn’t know any better, he’d think he was in pain.

But then he realizes.

Baekhyun is trying not to come.

Chanyeol has to physically restrain himself from doing a victorious fist pump. He can do this, he can make this good. He just has to do exactly what he just did again.

Gripping one of Baekhyun’s soft thighs in one hand to hold him still, Chanyeol curls both of his fingers together in various directions, listening to Baekhyun’s breathing and trying to find that same place he’d hit before. Finally, he stretches them just right and feels his fingertips brush a spot that feels different than the rest.

“O-Ooooh.” Baekhyun’s thigh muscles twitch under his hand. “That’s it. There. Again, there, please, Chanyeol.”

Like he needs to be told.

Chanyeol feels drunk off of it, this sudden power that he holds right at the tips of his fingers, the ability to make Baekhyun tremble and scream with pleasure, writhing in his lap. He doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t ever want to stop making Baekhyun feel good until he finally hears it, breaking through the fog of his brain:

“Yeollie, fuh-uck, you gotta - gotta - stop!” Baekhyun’s words break on something too close to a sob for Chanyeol’s liking and he immediately pulls his fingers out, ignoring the lewd sound and Baekhyun’s small whine of discomfort.

“Did I hurt you?”

Chanyeol brings his clean hand up to cup Baekhyun’s cheek, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

Fuck, he’d been doing so well. Fuck, fuck, fuck…

“You didn’t hurt me.” Baekhyun’s nose scrunches up happily as he tilts his head further into Chanyeol’s palm. “I just didn’t wanna come before I actually got you inside me.”

Oh. Nice. Mental high five.

They shuffle back into position again after Chanyeol has to stand up to tug off his pants (and Baekhyun cheekily tugs his shirt over his head, as well). They don’t jump into it right away, just sitting together for a few moments and calming their breathing, sticky foreheads pressed together.

Baekhyun starts it back up again, though if you asked him, he’d probably say Chanyeol was the one who got impatient. Either way, the sitting together turns into pecks on the lips, turns into tongues sliding against each other, turns into Baekhyun grinding his hips down so that their hard-ons slide together and make them release twin moans into each other’s mouths.

Baekhyun bites down hard on his bottom lip and does the same thing again, squeezing his knees around Chanyeol’s waist and pressing them even closer together so that the heads of their cocks press into each other’s stomachs, leaking slits dragging wet over smooth planes of skin. Looking down at the mess they’re painting across each other’s abdomens in between searing kisses is enough to make Chanyeol feel dangerously close. His skin feels hot and tight all over, like he’s being held together by a single threadbare seam.

“Shit, Chanyeol.” Baekhyun breathes, sounding almost reverent, and Chanyeol realizes he’s staring down at the flushed red head of his cock. For the first time, Chanyeol feels a little bit embarrassed, shifting awkwardly under his best friend’s heated gaze.

“What?”

“I mean, I thought I was gay before this moment, but now?” He very deliberately licks his lips, looking back up, right into Chanyeol’s eyes, and Chanyeol feels lighting course up his spine. “Holy shit, I’m gay. I’ve never actually seen another guy’s dick up close before, is it normal to like it so much? Because I think I really like yours.”

“Baek,” Chanyeol whines, embarrassed now for a whole different reason.

“Hm?” Baekhyun plants another teasing kiss to his lips, grinning up at him from beneath lowered lashes. The seductive little shit.

Chanyeol would be lying if he said he didn’t love it.

“You can’t just say stuff like that!”

“Oh? You don’t want me to talk anymore?”

Sex without the sound of Baekhyun’s voice sounds about as appealing as tying a cement block to his feet and diving into the Great Lake.

“I didn’t say that,” Chanyeol grumbles a bit more petulantly than he intended. Baekhyun’s laughter bubbles bright and easy, tipping his head back and holding onto Chanyeol’s shoulders to keep himself upright.

Chanyeol’s never had sex before, but this is exactly how he thinks it should be. How he hopes it’ll always be. Just him and the most important, most beautiful and fearless and brilliant person he’s ever met in his life, laughing and kissing and letting each other learn every inch of their bodies by touch alone.

They kiss a few more times because Chanyeol loves Baekhyun so much and his lips are very soft and pink, so he can’t very well help himself. Baekhyun doesn’t protest, humming happily and pressing pleasant vibrations again Chanyeol’s lips and his heartstrings.

With shaky breaths, Baekhyun finally raises himself up on his knees and hovers over Chanyeol’s lap, a tantalizing few centimeters over where Chanyeol holds himself in place.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Chanyeol soothes him with soft kisses across his cheeks, his chin, his lips, everywhere he can reach, and a hand stroking his side. “Just relax, baby.”

Baekhyun makes a surprised sound, choking out a little laugh.

“‘Baby,’ huh? I like that.” He smiles down at Chanyeol and it’s like the sun decided to shine right there in the middle of the night in this musty Quidditch locker room.

With one last deep breath, his hands gripping Chanyeol’s shoulders so hard it feels like his nails might break the skin, Baekhyun lowers himself down into Chanyeol’s lap. He takes his cock slowly, sliding onto it inch by inch, stopping to breathe or adjust his angle every few seconds. Chanyeol sits as still as he possibly can, toes curling, forehead beading with sweat at the effort it takes not to buck his hips into the smooth, tight heat of Baekhyun around him.

But he manages. For Baekhyun, he can manage anything.

“Alright, Baek?” Chanyeol asks from behind loosely grit teeth. If he focuses on Baekhyun instead, talks to him a little, maybe it’ll distract them both (Baekhyun, from the pain of the stretch, and Chanyeol from the fact that he’s about ten seconds away from totally losing his mind). “I know it hurts right now, but you’re doing such a good job. I’ll make it up to you, I promise, baby.”

“Mmmm.” Baekhyun hums in acknowledgment, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. “’S not a bad kind of hurt, y’know? I - I think I like it?”

“We can stop if you don’t.”

“No, I like it.” Baekhyun says more decisively. He opens his eyes then, and Chanyeol can see that they’re alight with want. “We’re not stopping.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Chanyeol kisses him again, lips lingering close as Baekhyun seats himself fully on Chanyeol’s cock.

Before this moment, it could be said that Chanyeol didn’t really understand the big deal about sex. He was a teenage boy with a healthy libido, sure, but he never got the whole obsession with it. Could it really be good enough to turn people into complete idiots for it? To get people addicted? To make them completely lose all control over themselves?

Well, he can safely say that he knows the answer to all of that now: Yes.

It’s really that good.

There is literally not a single rational thought in his mind right now, and he doesn’t remember giving any of the sounds leaving his mouth permission to do so, but he doesn't even care because it feels so good. Baekhyun is squeezed like a vice around his cock, hotter than Chanyeol could have ever imagined and so fucking smooth. There’s a gasp, a tiny whimper above him, and then Baekhyun is clutching at his back, curling into him and burying his face in his throat.

”Oh, oh it’s so much, oh fuck, Chanyeol I can feel you so fucking deep.”

Fuck if Baekhyun’s desperate babbling isn’t the thing that nearly pushes Chanyeol right over the edge.

“Shhhh,” Chanyeol rubs circles between the trembling boy’s shoulder blades. “It’s okay, I got you. Feel so fuckin’ good, Baek, I got you.”

Baekhyun’s voice breaks on something between a sob and Chanyeol’s name, muffled into the skin of his neck. Then, there are fingers suddenly gripping his hair, not hard enough to really hurt, just a sharp little sting. Not that Chanyeol would mind if it hurt anyways. He wouldn’t stop Baekhyun from doing a single damn thing to him.

“Gonna move. Can I move?” Baekhyun asks, warm breath tickling the underside of Chanyeol’s jaw.

“Yeah. Yeah, go ahead if you’re ready.”

Chanyeol presses a quick kiss to the crown of Baekhyun’s head, earning himself a soft hum.

“Can we stay like this?”

Chanyeol hides a small smile in Baekhyun’s soft hair, wrapping his arms around the smaller boy’s waist. Now that Baekhyun’s suggested it, he can’t imagine their first time being any other way than holding each other as close as possible, just like this.

“‘Course we can. We can do anything you want.”

“I love you, Chanyeol.”

“Love you more.”

“Impossible.”

“Oh yeah?” Chanyeol grins even though he knows Baekhyun can’t see it. “Show me how much, then.”

Baekhyun laughs when Chanyeol echoes his own challenge from earlier back at him.

And then, Baekhyun shows him.

In terms of technical skill, Chanyeol knows they’re probably not very good at this, but to him, every second is perfect. They’re a little too overzealous, a little too desperate, keep losing time with each other when they get lost in their own pleasure. But Baekhyun just scrunches up his nose and laughs when he nearly falls off Chanyeol’s lap, and his fingers are still wound through Chanyeol’s hair, and they keep kissing each other on the random patches of skin that they can reach and it’s perfect. Really, really perfect.

And really, really going to be over all too soon.

Again, something he’d probably be embarrassed about if he were with anyone but Baekhyun, but they’re both young and it’s their first time and they’re in fucking love. Chanyeol knows this won’t be the last time, so he doesn’t try too hard to stop when he feels himself getting close again. He knows Baekhyun is right on the edge too, from the way his thighs quiver where they’re squeezed tight around his waist, the slack-mouthed way he starts to kiss, little gasps spilling past his lips.

He plants his feet firmly on the ground, fingers digging in tighter to the delicate skin of Baekhyun’s waist and the thought of there being bruises there the next day pleases him to no end. This is not the end, he reminds himself, as he starts thrusting up into Baekhyun’s heat harder, with more reckless abandon than before. This is only the beginning.

Baekhyun goes practically limp in his hold, something in him snapping at the same time Chanyeol does. His face buried so deep in Chanyeol’s neck, he thinks he must be suffocating himself down there, Baekhyun clings onto Chanyeol as if he’s his only lifeline, the larger boy pounding into him and reducing him to a sobbing mess.

“Good, so good, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol grunts out between thrusts.

“I - I’m - I - “

“Yeah, yeah it’s okay. I got you.”

“Chan - Chanyeol,” Baekhyun wails, something primal and unhinged, unlike anything Chanyeol has ever heard before. And he did that, holy shit.

It only takes a few more thrusts and sweet encouragements from Chanyeol before Baekhyun is begging, literally begging, Chanyeol to touch him, please, just fucking touch him. Chanyeol obliges, releasing Baekhyun’s hip with one hand (pleased to see dark marks already forming) and wrapping it around his leaking cock. Baekhyun sobs in relief, and it only takes a few quick tugs for the small boy to shake apart in his arms, coming all over his own stomach and Chanyeol’s hand.

As his orgasm takes him, Baekhyun fists his fingers tightly in Chanyeol’s hair and pulls his head back, exposing the line of his neck for Baekhyun to sink his teeth into. It’s that precarious knife’s-edge of pleasure and pain that pushes Chanyeol over the edge, too, hips jerking erratically as he spills deep within his best friend.

The boy he loves.

“Yeah. I definitely like the long hair.” Baekhyun breathes into his shoulder as they’re both coming down from their highs, smoothing his fingers over the back of Chanyeol’s head, soothing his stinging scalp.

“I’ll be bald by thirty if we keep at it like this,” Chanyeol jokes. Baekhyun sits back and arches an eyebrow.

“What do you mean ‘if’?”

Chanyeol gathers Baekhyun in his arms again, making sure his head is pressed right against his heart.

“You better still love me when I’m bald, Byun.”

We’ll keep at it like this forever.

“No promises, Park. We’ll just have to play it by ear.”

I’d love you no matter what.

Before they prepare to sneak back into the castle, Chanyeol asks about it.

Baekhyun doesn’t want to say, hesitates with the words sticking like honey to the back of his throat, because everything is so nice now and he doesn’t want to taint these memories of their first time with such horribleness. But Chanyeol deserves to know the truth, and Baekhyun knows that if this - them - is going to work, there can’t be any big secrets like this between them anymore.

He tells Chanyeol everything - the shadows that stalked him, the strange mishaps that befell him, the near-drowning incident in the boy’s washroom that day before Divination Class.

(”So that’s why your robes were wet,” Chanyeol realizes with a sick look of understanding. The thought of Baekhyun so alone and afraid, while he was just a corridor away, completely unaware makes his skin itch in all the wrong places.

”It was my own fault,” Baekhyun tries to reassure him, head resting on his shoulder as they sat on the floor leaning against the lockers. ”Jongdae warned me, I should have been more careful.”

”None of this was your fault, Baek. None of it.”

”It wasn’t yours either.”)

Eventually, when the moon is high enough in the sky that Fang can be heard howling at it from down by Hagrid’s hut, they pull themselves off the ground, dusting dirt from their pants, straightening out each other’s sex-ruffled hair with pink cheeks and fond smiles, and head for a secret tunnel that an older student told Baekhyun about before he graduated that leads back to the castle. They part at a fork in the tunnel that leads them to their respective dorms.

”Goodnight, Baek.”

”Night, Yeollie. I love you. Holy shit, I’ll never get tired of saying that! I love you.”

”You absolute dork. I love you, too.”

Baekhyun falls asleep the second his head hits the pillow, finally resting peacefully for the first time in weeks.

(Chanyeol, on the other side of the castle, has never had more trouble falling asleep, lips still tingling and heart still beating like he’s just run a marathon, grinning up at the ceiling like a fool doped up on love.)

*

“Well, you look like you’re feeling much better today.”

Baekhyun glances up at the sound of the teasing voice, pulled out of his happy little bubble of existence where it was just him and Chanyeol. The Hufflepuff was stuck to his side from the moment he walked into the Great Hall for breakfast, hovering nervously in a way that Baekhyun couldn’t help but find endlessly endearing. Whether he was fretting over how Baekhyun was feeling after the attack yesterday, or after what they’d done last night, or a mixture of both, Baekhyun wasn’t sure, but he sure as hell wasn’t complaining when Chanyeol insisted on spoon-feeding him his breakfast.

People were looking. Again, Baekhyun didn’t know if it was because of what happened at the Quidditch game yesterday, or because he’d acquired a fashionable new accessory in the form of one gorgeous Park Chanyeol hanging off his arm, but no one bothered him, and that was good enough.

Well, no one except for Junmyeon.

The older Gryffindor is grinning pointedly between him and Chanyeol, and Baekhyun wonders not for the first time how such a devious little shit became their house’s Prefect. (It’s probably because, at the end of it all, he’s a good leader to them all, but that was neither here nor there. Devious little shit.)

“What do you waaaaant?” Baekhyun whines, annoyed at being distracted from his very important business of gazing into Chanyeol’s eyes.

Junmyeon laughs, ruffling Baekhyun’s hair affectionately.

“Don’t be a brat,” he chastises lightly, then in a lower, more serious tone: “Really, I am glad to see you looking better.”

Baekhyun blushes, reaching up to try and finger comb his hair back into place. Of course Junmyeon had noticed him acting off these past few weeks, he was always looking out for them all. Baekhyun just hoped he didn’t blame himself for not being able to stop everything that happened, because truly, that was no one’s fault but the attackers themselves.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get all sappy on me. Can I go back to my breakfast now?”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Baekhyun feels Chanyeol’s warm puff of laughter against the back of his neck, and oh, the things he wishes they could do right now.

“Don’t be jealous. From what Jongdae’s told me, I hear Sehun would be more than happy to give you some breakfast, grandpa,” Baekhyun teases back, satisfied to get the upper hand again when Junmyeon’s face turns roughly the color of Chanyeol’s tomato juice (which Baekhyun insists is a disgusting breakfast drink, to which Chanyeol replies that it’s ‘good for him’).

He waits patiently as Junmyeon fumbles with his words for a few moments, stealing glances over at the Slytherin table, with all the grace of a first year on a broom with no flying practice.

“That’s - You’re - That’s not the point!”

Chanyeol’s hand drops to Baekhyun’s thigh, humming amusedly at the display. Baekhyun bites the inside of his cheek, warmth trickling through him.

Junmyeon takes a few more deep breaths, before a terribly uncomfortable expression replaces the flustered one. Baekhyun dreads his next words before he even says them.

“The Headmistress wanted me to ask you to see her in her office.”

“Why?”

He knows why.

“Your parents are here.”

“His parents?” Chanyeol finally speaks up, sounding a little nervous. Not that Baekhyun can blame him.

Junmyeon nods, deep red hair falling into his eyes. It always suited his house robes quite well, Baekhyun thought.

“The school had to call them to let them know everything that happened. Apparently they left last night as soon as they heard and got here early this morning.”

“They did?” Baekhyun asks, fondness for his parents overshadowing his nerves for the moment.

They love him. Of course they do, they’re his parents.

But also -

The first place Baekhyun ever heard the words blood traitor was when it came from their own lips.

Did they come so quickly after hearing what happened because they were worried, or because they were disappointed in him?

He shakes that thought out of his mind quickly. His parents certainly aren’t perfect, they have their traditional ideals and their faults, but they aren’t monsters. He doesn’t think so, anyways…

“I’ll come with you.”

“Huh?” Baekhyun breaks off his train of thought, looking up at Chanyeol in surprise. And there it is again - that same burning Fiendfyre Baekhyun saw in his eyes at the Quidditch game yesterday, when his only objective was to protect Baekhyun.

And already, here he was. Ready to do it again.

“You don’t have to - “

“But I will.” Chanyeol cuts him off decisively. His lips curl into a faint grin. “Besides, I’ve never met your parents before. This should be fun.”

Junmyeon snorts, making his presence known again.

“Meeting the parents already, Park? Good luck.” He clicks his tongue, giving Baekhyun’s hair another ruffle for good measure, before walking back down to the other end of the table to join his seventh year friends.

Devious little shit.

Fingers press harder into his thigh, just a quick squeeze, before Chanyeol is climbing to his feet and offering Baekhyun his hand.

“Not scared, are you, Byun? That wouldn’t be very Gryffindor of you.” Chanyeol’s half-smirk and wildfire eyes spark something within Baekhyun, as well.

He takes Chanyeol’s hand, intertwining their fingers together, and the answer is clear to him.

“Nothing to be afraid of.”

Not as long as Chanyeol was here with him.

*

As happy as he was that Baekhyun wasn’t feeling scared, Chanyeol himself was terrified.

He hid it well, making sure to put up a good front for his boyfriend (boyfriend? Was Baekhyun his boyfriend now? Maybe they should table that conversation until after Chanyeol met his parents.), but in reality, Chanyeol likened the feeling in the pit of his stomach right now to how he assumed people felt before walking into a lion’s den.

He couldn’t get Professor McGonagall’s words from yesterday out of his head.

…there aren’t many families like Mister Byun’s left these days…

…there are still some Pureblood families left, and a lot of them don’t agree with the direction our society has been heading in…

Were Baekhyun’s parents like that? Were they going to hate him? Would they forbid Baekhyun from seeing him ever again?

That would probably be the worst possible thing they could do to him.

Chanyeol liked to think that whoever raised someone as incredible as Baekhyun had to be at least somewhat decent, but still… Why had he never met Baekhyun’s parents before? Baekhyun spent a week at Chanyeol’s house every summer, with him and his perfect Muggle family, and still, not once had Chanyeol even seen Baekhyun’s parents before, except in the one photo that Baekhyun kept of them above his bunk.

His mother was stunning, and clearly where he got most of his features from - Icy, white-blonde hair and piercing eyes. But there was a bit of his father, as well, in the stubborn way that he sometimes set his jaw.

Did Baekhyun keep Chanyeol from meeting his parents… to protect him? Because he knew they wouldn’t like him?

It’s too late to think about all of that now, because with a final squeeze of his hand, Baekhyun is letting go and pushing open the door to the Headmistress’s office.

“Oh, mon bébé!”

Chanyeol sees nothing but a flash of white hair and crystalline blue robes before Baekhyun is being swept up into his mother’s arms, engulfed by her wiry arms and the heavy floral scent of her perfume.

“What did zey do to you, my sweet boy?” She pulls back just enough to grab Baekhyun by the cheeks, poking and prodding him to check for visible injuries. Chanyeol has to fight off a laugh at the horrified look on Baekhyun’s face.

”Maman,” Baekhyun whines exasperatedly, adopting a thick French accent to match his mother’s own, catching Chanyeol completely by surprise.

He often forgets Baekhyun’s mixed lineage, which is easy to do when the boy himself represents neither of them, except for in name. Chanyeol knew that Baekhyun’s mother was French, but it was one thing to know it, and another to hear it so plainly. There are things you can tell people, and things that you just need to see for yourself. Chanyeol is thankful he gets to finally experience Baekhyun’s parents firsthand.

Across the room, standing at a stiff, almost polite distance is who Chanyeol recognizes to be Baekhyun’s father. His pure Japanese wizarding blood runs deep, further back than Baekhyun’s mother’s. It’s easy to see, just in the way he holds himself in his charcoal grey robes, that this a man well acquainted with nobility and power. Chanyeol finds himself unable to even look at him for long.

But that’s okay, since watching Baekhyun try valiantly to wipe his mother’s wine-red lipstick stains from his cheeks is much more entertaining. (As is hearing the tiny wisps of French that slip into his speech when he whines at her, and yeah, Chanyeol wishes he had known Baekhyun spoke French a long, long time ago.)

“I’ll give you all the room, then,” McGonagall says, smiling lightly and patting Chanyeol on the shoulder on her way out. “You have nothing to fear,” she whispers, and Chanyeol is inclined to believe her, feeling a little more calm.

That is, until hawkish blue eyes are staring right into his soul.

“And who ees this?”

Chanyeol swallows hard, steeling every nerve inside him and holding out his hand to the woman who birthed the most precious person in his life.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Byun. I’m Park Chanyeol.”

There’s a gruff sound from his father, a grunt of disapproval or familiarity at his name, maybe. He prays it’s the latter. Mrs. Byun releases Baekhyun completely, arms falling to her sides.

“Park Chanyeol.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Byun hums to herself thoughtfully, looking him over from head to toe, eyes scanning like a bird of prey. Chanyeol has probably been holding out his hand for way longer than is socially acceptable at this point, but putting it down feels like giving up, and he’s going to hold strong. For Baekhyun.

Finally, after what must have been the longest thirty seconds of Chanyeol’s short life, her ruby lips curl into a smile, putting her dainty hand into Chanyeol’s. It doesn’t feel that dissimilar to Baekhyun’s hand in his, long, delicate fingers and cool skin, and that thought comforts him as he politely shakes her hand.

“We have heard so much about you, it ees nice to have a face for the name. Isn’t it nice, dear?” She turns to Mr. Byun, who, to the naked eye, does’t look like he’s moved a single muscle, except to slide his gaze over to Chanyeol.

It gives away nothing, and Chanyeol has never been so nervous in his life.

”Appa…” Baekhyun says quietly under his breath. Mr. Byun blinks over to his son, and there’s finally a visible emotion in his eyes.

Adoration.

Chanyeol has no idea what Baekhyun ever possibly had to be nervous about, when the way his parents look at him is so obviously full of unconditional love, it practically oozes out of them.

(Chanyeol can relate to looking at Baekhyun with this expression - he’s working on patenting it.)

“He’s the one who caught the guys that attacked me.” Baekhyun gestures to Chanyeol, and the fondness in his eyes is almost embarrassing to be seen in front of his parents, but Chanyeol is so smitten he doesn’t even care. “Chanyeol saved me.”

”Oh,” Mrs. Byun clasps her hands together over her chest.

Mr. Byun regards Chanyeol carefully, once again.

“You did?” His voice is higher and smoother than Chanyeol expected it to be.

“Uh, I mean, I don’t know if I would use the word ‘saved’, but I. Um. Yes.” Chanyeol ends his rambling quickly when he realizes that Mr. Byun is clearly not the type of person to put up with more words than he has to.

“Hm.”

“But I - I’m also the reason they attacked him in the first place,” Chanyeol admits in a rush. He can’t help it, can’t bear to face Baekhyun’s parents and not tell them the whole truth. The guilt would eat him alive.

“Yeollie,” Baekhyun starts, but Mr. Byun stops him with a raised hand. There’s a quiet anger simmering just beneath the surface now, and Chanyeol deserves this. He knows he does.

“Explain.”

“Maybe you already know this about me, I don’t know if Baekhyun has told you before, but. I’m a Muggleborn. It’s not something I’ve ever been ashamed of my whole life, until it put Baekhyun in danger. The reason he was being targeted was because of his friendship with me. Because he’s a pureblood and they didn’t - They thought I wasn’t good enough - I’m just, I’m really sorry. I wish I could say that if I knew what was going on, I would have stayed away from Baekhyun for his own good, but to be completely honest with you, I don’t think I possibly could have. So maybe being friends with your son was selfish of me, or maybe all of this was inevitable no matter what. But either way, I’m sorry he was ever in danger.”

Chanyeol wants to hang his head, but he forces himself to not break Mr. Byun’s gaze. No one says anything for a long while.

“That’s bullshit, Chanyeol!” Baekhyun’s outburst breaks the tense silence, causing his father to raise an eyebrow.

“Baek - “

“No!” Baekhyun crosses the room to grab Chanyeol by the front of his robes, jerking him around despite their size difference. “No, I’m not just gonna sit here and listen to you say all that bad stuff about yourself just so you can make my parents like you. Don’t you dare put yourself down or blame yourself just to make them feel better about themselves!”

“Baekhyun!” His mother says sharply, but Baekhyun ignores it, full attention focused on Chanyeol.

“You don’t get to just put all this on yourself because you were born the way you were. If you do it to yourself, all it does is give guys like that an excuse to do the exact same thing to you, idiot!”

It’s staggering, seeing this side of Baekhyun so close up. This fearless, natural-born fighter.

“Yeah, but - “

“No ‘buts!’ This wasn’t your fault. Not even a little bit.” He turns to his parents, wielding his tirade on them now. “You both hear that? Chanyeol didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a Muggleborn and he’s my hero and if you think that makes me a blood traitor, then I don’t care!”

With one of his hands still fisted in Chanyeol’s robes, Baekhyun places himself immovably by Chanyeol’s side. It’s a statement, if Chanyeol ever saw one. A statement that he’s with Chanyeol, on his side, no matter what his parents say.

Without any words at all, it’s probably the most profound thing anyone’s said to Chanyeol in his life. Baekhyun was crafty like that.

“Oh, mon chaton.” Mrs. Byun trembles slightly, reaching for her son before dropping her hand, and looking to her husband. “What have we done?”

Mr. Byun, who is apparently not an actual statue, finally proves it by walking over to his wife’s side, putting a protective arm around her shoulders.

“You really think so low of your own parents, Baekhyun.”

“I’ve heard you say it,” Baekhyun bites back. “When I was a kid and I didn’t even know what it meant, I heard you whispering it to each other. Blood traitor, like it was some curse word. You cut off people who were like family to us for it!”

“We did no such thing!” Mr. Byun’s voice thunders in the small room, echoing louder than Chanyeol thought possible from the stoic man. “They left us of their own will, Baekhyun. You were only a child, how could you possibly understand?”

“It’s not like you ever explained it to me.” Baekhyun takes a half step closer to Chanyeol, like he’s bracing for whatever his parents are going to reveal next. Chanyeol puts a comforting hand on the small of his back, just out of his parents’ sight.

“I’m so sorry, mon cher. You are right, we should have told you zee truth a long time ago. But we did not want you to think us cowards.”

As if the word ‘coward’ has a physical effect on him, Mr. Byun’s entire posture tightens at it.

“Cowards? Wha- Why would I…?”

“The other pureblood families, the ones who don’t speak with us anymore, made that decision themselves. They wanted us to adapt to the shift in society and start introducing things from Muggle culture into our lives.” Mr. Byun explains. “We are from old families and traditions, set in our ways. We didn’t want to change the way we did things, we were…skeptical of things we didn’t understand. As a result, we were left behind. Just another piece of our families’ history.”

“But you - you said it,” Baekhyun tries again weakly, but it’s clear he believes his parents. Chanyeol can’t blame him. He does, too.

“We spoke in our anger and bitterness,” Mrs. Byun admits. “Eet ees a very ugly word, and we were wrong to ever use it.”

“So… So you don’t think I’m a blood traitor?”

At the sound of Baekhyun’s voice, much smaller and more unsure than Chanyeol has ever heard it, his mother surges forward to collect him in her arms again.

“Non bien sur, of course not!”

And just like that, with those three little words (in two different languages), all of the tension bleeds from the room. Mr. Byun lets out a long, quiet breath, staring up at the ceiling for a few moments, before wrapping a solid arm around both Mrs. Byun and Baekhyun at once. There’s a blend of muffled sniffled sounds coming from Baekhyun and Mrs. Byun, frail and blonde and clutching at each other with all they have, while Mr. Byun holds them all together like an iron wall around them.

Chanyeol wants to be that for Baekhyun, he thinks. His immovable protector, to take his father’s place when he grows too old to hide in his arms anymore, Chanyeol will be there.

As if he’s thinking it so loudly his thoughts are overheard, Mr. Byun meets Chanyeol’s gaze over the tops of blonde heads and gives Chanyeol a single, appreciative nod.

Accepting.

And if Chanyeol wasn’t sure of it before, he’s certain now.

He and Baekhyun are going to be just fine.

The Byuns don’t head back home right away, staying and chatting for another hour. Chanyeol keeps expecting McGonagall to show back up, politely requesting that they stop monopolizing her office, but she never does. Mrs. Byun is quick and clever, Chanyeol learns, seeing so much of Baekhyun’s own witty banter and mischievous glint in her eyes. On the other hand, Mr. Byun is insightful, and seems to remember everything about people. It’s obvious how much he cares about his family, and Chanyeol is honored to even be sitting here with them all like this.

At one point, it slips out.

Baekhyun makes a joke about how much time he and Chanyeol spend together and how often they annoy their houses when they stay up late together in the common room, joking and laughing way past curfew.

“If they thought we were bad before, imagine how much they’re all going to hate us now that we’re dating!”

Dating.

Not even the awkwardness that filled the office, or the horrified look on Baekhyun’s face could dull the thrill that went through him in that moment.

Dating. They were dating. It was official.

He could call Baekhyun his boyfriend now.

Mrs. Byun had burst into delighted laughter, clutching onto her husband’s arm to keep her small frame from toppling out of her chair, while Mr. Byun fixed Chanyeol with a warning look that would probably haunt him until he was at least fifty years old. But that was the extent of it. The morning continued on as if nothing had changed at all.

And wasn’t that the beauty of falling in love with your best friend? Things really didn’t change.

Eventually, Baekhyun and Chanyeol remember that they have classes to attend today. Baekhyun hugs both of his parents tightly, coming away with his mother’s lipstick on his temple and probably some bruises from how hard his father gripped him. Chanyeol even got a farewell handshake from Mr. Byun, and a delicate, flowery hug from Mrs. Byun.

"Tu prends soin de lui,” she says in lieu of a goodbye, pressing her lips to Chanyeol’s cheek before she and her husband are sweeping out the door in a graceful flutter of grays and blondes and blues.

“That…Went well.” Baekhyun says slowly, face cracking into a bigger grin than Chanyeol has ever seen. It’s like it’s seeping out of him, the happiness glowing through every crack. It’s unearthly and Chanyeol wants to look at him forever.

Doing what he’s been wanting to do all morning long, Chanyeol wraps his arms around Baekhyun’s waist and tugs him a little closer, pleased to see the instinctive way that Baekhyun already tips his head back to accept his kiss. Their lips press together once quickly, then a second time, longer, sweet. Lingering.

“What did your mother say to me?” Chanyeol remembers to ask as they’re descending the spiral staircase out of the Headmistresses office. “At the end, what did that mean?”

Fingers intertwined, Baekhyun pulls Chanyeol down the corridor towards the Great Hall, other hand tracing the old brick walls as the sounds of their schoolmates get louder and louder.

“Hm? Oh that.”

“What was it? Was it bad?”

Baekhyun looks back at him over his shoulder as they cross the threshold and sound and activity explode around them. He leans closer to be heard over the noise, lips almost pressed to Chanyeol’s ear, ignoring the fact that everyone at Hogwarts can see them right now.

“She said ‘you take care of him’.”

“Oh.” Chanyeol stands there blinking dumbly, feeling like he’s just been handed the most important task of his entire life. (He has.)

“Oh,” Baekhyun imitates him, a fond grin teasing at his lips. Jongdae is standing at the end of the Ravenclaw table, talking Kyungsoo’s ear off, and when they spot the pair, he waves them over excitedly. Before Baekhyun can go, Chanyeol tugs his hand to keep him firmly in place.

He needs to say this first, before they join their friends.

“I’m going to,” Chanyeol promises. Baekhyun’s eyes widen a fraction, then he takes Chanyeol’s hand in both of his and holds it to his chest, to his heart, expression peaceful.

“I know. And I’m going to take care of you, too.”

“Deal,” Chanyeol darts in to press a quick kiss to the center of Baekhyun’s forehead, as if solidifying the agreement.

“Forever?”

Baekhyun tilts his head up, and there it is. In his eyes.

Magic.

“Forever.” And it’s as good a promise as any.