#70: Disapparitions

[exolliarmus]

►username: anonymous
►prompt #: 70
►title: Disapparitions
►pairings: Xiumin/Luhan
►rating: PG-13
►word count: 8900
►warnings: Mentions of mental illness (PTSD), deaths of unnamed minor characters
►summary: Luhan’s a washed-up accountant returning to London. Minseok is homeless. Two lonely people, with no destinations but too many memories, find each other on the Knight Bus.
►author's notes: In their beautiful prompt, my dear prompter asked for slight angst, and I swear the angst is only slight!! Events from HP!canon are referenced, but no canon characters are mentioned. For clarity's sake, Luhan and Minseok would be in the year above Harry Potter (i.e. they are in Second Year when the events of Philosopher’s Stone occur, etc.). Hope you enjoy!


Groggy with Portkey-sickness, Luhan stands at the base of the drop-off hill and peers down a quiet rural road that eventually leads to London. The unfamiliarity of a country that he once loved makes the frigid air bite more painfully than the past ten winters of sub-zero commutes on Beijing's Muggle transport system. His fellow Portkey passengers are meeting relatives at the roadside, wands out to illuminate the dark night, or Apparating away with their luggage. Luhan recalls a faint memory of Apparition lessons in Hogwarts' Great Hall and reciting with his classmates the Three D's of Apparition: deliberation, determination, and destination. But here he is now, just outside of a London that he hasn't seen in ten years, with what is closer to an obligation rather than a determination to start anew and absolutely no idea of his destination.

Quashing the nausea lurching in his belly, Luhan wraps his coat tighter around himself and raises a shivering hand into the air. For a few spine-chilling minutes, Luhan waits, hand outstretched over the deserted road as panic begins to rise. What if the service has been discontinued? Should he raise just his wand hand or his wand as well? What exactly has changed in this country over the past ten years?

Then a loud bang tears open the night, followed by the screech of tyres braking inches from his feet, and Luhan is blinded by the sudden headlights of the Knight Bus. He blinks, adjusting to the light as the towering purple vehicle teeters over him. The door hisses open and a figure steps out, silhouetted by the glow from the bus's candle-lit interior.

"Welcome to the Knight Bus," the man announces, flinging his arms wide, his purple conductor's hat almost tipping off his head from the movement. "I am Park Chanyeol, your excellent conductor for this evening. Thank you, kind sir, for flagging down this emergency transport service, but I'd like to take a moment to remind you that this is--" Chanyeol leans back into the bus and hollers to the unseen passengers, "FOR EMERGENCY TRANSPORT ONLY!"

Shivering on the roadside, Luhan wishes he had the money and a UK sim card to call for a taxi. The bus's dancing candlelight catches his eye, and Luhan realises he's been living in Beijing's Muggle community for so long that he's forgotten the wizarding world's almost barbaric insistence on using archaic technology.

Chanyeol turns back to him, clapping his hands together and wearing an earnest grin. "So, good sir, what would your destination be today?"

"Erm, I'm looking for somewhere to stay the night. Preferably--"

"I repeat, we are for emergency transport only!" Chanyeol yells. "Not accommodation! This ain't a bloody bed-and-breakfast, for Merlin's sake!"

"No, you misunderstand me," Luhan huffs, waving his numb fingers in front of the rambling man to get his attention. "I need transport to accommodation."

Chanyeol blinks. "Oh, why didn't you say so, then? But just between you and me..." He cups a hand over his mouth as if to relay a secret, then says in a near shout, "Some low-lifes have been abusing this esteemed service, so very sorry about jumping to conclusions, sir." Settling back, he continues, "Now, sounds like you'd be seeking out the Leaky Cauldron."

Luhan was hoping for somewhere a little more Muggle than what seems to be the only wizarding inn in all of London, but he's too cold and tired to argue.

"That'll be eleven sickles, if you please," Chanyeol says. "But just thirteen gets you hot chocolate and another two--"

"Just a ticket for me, thanks," Luhan says, fumbling over the British wizarding coins.

Chanyeol takes his luggage, the apparent complexity of the telescopic handle confounding the bus conductor until Luhan retracts it for him. As he suspected, the candles in the wall brackets offer no heating, and the bus is little warmer than outdoors. Luhan is greeted by the sight of the bus driver slumped over the steering wheel, his head buried in his arms.

"Jongin, this gentleman's heading to the Leaky Cauldron," Chanyeol says. Receiving no reply apart from a soft snore, Chanyeol shakes the driver's arm and repeats himself.

Brown fringe hanging low over his face, Jongin lifts his head, heavy-lidded eyes judging Luhan through a film of sleep.

"We're pretty full tonight, so you'll have to go upstairs," Chanyeol says, lugging Luhan's suitcase.

Jongin mutters, "If you're going up, tell that free-loading bastard this is the last night I let him use my bus as a homeless shelter. I can do charity, but he's pushing it."

"I've told him at least twelve dozen times tonight, Jongin."

"Once more wouldn't hurt," Jongin says, throwing the bus into gear and stomping on the accelerator, sending the vehicle lurching forward and throwing the beds with their sleeping passengers against the back wall. Luhan swallows his nausea and stumbles after Chanyeol to the bus's third level.

The top deck is unoccupied apart from one passenger curled on a bed in the far corner, his back facing them.

"He's scaring all the customers away," Chanyeol complains, stowing Luhan's luggage. "Oi, free-loader!" Chanyeol shouts. "Driver says after tonight, you're banned!"

They're flung to the side as the bus makes a hairpin turn, but the homeless man doesn't stir.

"I know you heard me, Minseok," Chanyeol says, returning downstairs after telling Luhan to call him if he needs anything.

But Luhan is no longer listening. He can't hear anything except his heart pounding faster than the bus tearing down the streets of Britain as he takes faltering steps towards that bed in the back corner, towards a figure whose sleeping form is looking more and more familiar.

"Minseok?" Luhan whispers.

Under the worn fabric of a heavy black cloak, a body begins to shift. Luhan falters at the foot of the bed, mind blank. The man unfurls his body to a sitting position, and as he lifts his head, Luhan's next breath comes out too loudly, like something near a sob. But there's nothing in the man's eyes, harsh and cold, as unfamiliar as the wind over a once intimately known landscape weathered by ten missing years that has left full cheeks sunken, soft hair spiked with grime, and vitality tempered to less than apathy.

The old trepidation rises in Luhan, and he makes to step back, but then Minseok says, "Fancy seeing you here," and smiles, that same broken half-smile, and even though the expression doesn't reach his eyes, the memories flood Luhan as if that smile is holding his head under the waters of a Pensieve where the world still sparkles silver.

***

It was during Luhan's first Quidditch match as Gryffindor Chaser, distracted by Minseok perched on a broom and flipping back his hair to reveal a gleaming sheen of sweat, that Luhan pledged to befriend Minseok.

They were both second years and despite Minseok's tendency to linger at the back of groups, hidden in oversized robes that swamped his small frame, Luhan couldn't help but notice the boy from the moment they alighted from the boats to Hogwarts Castle. Standing in the splendour of the Great Hall with the night sky twinkling on the ornate ceiling, Luhan only had eyes for the collected boy who stepped forward to the name Kim Minseok and sat on the stool with precision. Minseok was still on Luhan's mind when his own turn came, and the Sorting Hat muttered about how Slytherin would never do for Luhan before announcing, "GRYFFINDOR!". Luhan smiled at the applause from a faceless crowd as he headed to Gryffindor's table, but his gaze fell back on the boy clapping politely on the far end of the Hall who, like all the other students, was staring at Luhan. Their eyes locked. Minseok blinked, and it must have meant nothing.

They never seemed to have an opportunity to talk. If ever the Gryffindors and Slytherins had class together, house animosity kept the students segregated. Sometimes, Luhan passed Minseok in the hallways or on the moving staircases and it would be so easy to reach out a hand to Minseok's shoulder and interrupt the boy's steadfast motion, but Minseok was always alone and Luhan figured that he preferred it that way.

But Minseok on the pitch brought a whole new dimension. With his emerald Quidditch uniform hugging his deceptively fit body, the way Minseok swung back his Beater bat demanded attention, and Luhan knew the spectators filling the podiums were all concentrating on the second-year Beater. Luhan watched the wooden bat connect with the Bludger, admiring the grit of Minseok's teeth and the way his eyebrows furrowed as he smashed the ball. And then his field of vision was obscured by a rapidly growing black shape and, before Luhan could scream, the Bludger slammed into the centre of his chest and he tumbled off his broom, falling thirty metres before passing out halfway to the ground.

He came to in the hospital wing, starched white sheets scratching his chin and the metal frames of the beds swimming in his blurred vision.

"Bleurgh," Luhan groaned.

He tried to sit up but his torso ached and wobbled like jelly.

"You should take it easy. You broke seven ribs."

At that soft voice, Luhan's head whipped around quick enough to crick his neck. Sitting beside his bed was Minseok, the sharp corners of his eyes lending a haughtiness to his serene face.

"Sorry about that," Minseok said, mouth cracking into a little smirk. "You were staring right at me, so I thought for sure you'd see the Bludger coming and dodge it. I didn't mean to knock you out so badly."

Luhan wanted to reply that it was his own fault for spacing out, but his chest was so tight that breathing became difficult and all that escaped him was a wheeze.

Minseok's smile fell and he said, hurrying away, "I'll get the matron."

When the nurse bustled in, Minseok did not return but, to keep his mind off the painful stirrings of realigning bones, Luhan was already formulating a plan to properly reply to the Slytherin boy.

A few days later, healed up and eating breakfast over the Gryffindor table, Luhan conveyed his strategy to his two friends. Jongdae burst into laughter, half-chewed scrambled eggs visible in his mouth, and Yixing gave Jongdae a pointed look.

Jongdae washed down his food with pumpkin juice and grinned. "Is that why you always sit on that side of the table? So you can stare at the Slytherins?" He cackled. "Dude, you totally have a crush on him."

"Honestly, Jongdae, do you have to be so loud?" Luhan hissed, face burning up as he glanced to either side, but the other yawning Gryffindors weren't concerned with the banter of a few second years. "And it's not a crush! He just looks like he could use a friend."

Jongdae shrugged. "He's just another Slytherin prick. Probably the most arrogant one of the bunch -- won't even talk to his own house. Bet he's some Muggle-hating pure blood."

His last sentence hung uncomfortably between them. Both Yixing and Luhan had witnessed a bunch of third-year Slytherins yell at Jongdae, "Dirty mudblood!" before yanking the headphones off his head and bewitching his Walkman so that it scampered away as Jongdae chased after it. His two friends had watched helpless as the Slytherins jeered until the humiliation got to Jongdae and he drew his wand and screamed unintelligibly, electricity exploding from his wand, leaving the Slytherins with second-degree burns. Jongdae was a known prankster, and the staff hadn't believed his aggressive protests of ignorance, giving him detention for a week. Luhan had always regretted staying silent -- as a Gryffindor, shouldn't he be brave? But Yixing had patted his back and assured him that sometimes bravery had to be learnt.

"If Minseok turns out to be like that, I'll ditch him in a heartbeat," Luhan said, but even as Jongdae laughed, Luhan wasn't sure he was telling the truth.

In class, waiting for their Potions professor to arrive, Luhan gripped the desk and went over the plan in his head: as they left class, Jongdae would begin wildly dancing (a common spectacle often accompanied by surprisingly beautiful singing), knocking Minseok's books and cauldron out of his hands, and Luhan would swoop in to the rescue, helping Minseok collect his things and thanking him for visiting him in the hospital wing. Luhan would sustain conversation until they reached the moving staircases and then bid Minseok farewell, able to call him a friend. Infallible.

Luhan was dazedly smiling to himself when someone placed their cauldron on the bench next to his and said in a quiet voice, "Can I sit here?"

Luhan looked up at Minseok's perfect arched brows and squawked.

Minseok continued, "My usual partner is cutting class. You normally work in a group of three, don't you? Could I pair with you for today?"

Luhan couldn't be more thankful that Jongdae was sitting on the other side of Yixing because he was certain that whatever exclamation was on the tip of Jongdae's tongue would have embarrassed Luhan for eternity if Yixing hadn't restrained their excitable friend.

"I'd love to work with you," Luhan blurted, then winced at his own over-eagerness.

Minseok smiled and began setting up his workspace, lining up his ingredients and tools and placing his knife perfectly along the diagonal of his cutting board. With the help of the Slytherin boy's meticulousness, Luhan made his most successful potion yet, a dark, shimmering Sleeping Draught.

As they left class chatting about international Quidditch teams, his plan seemed back on track and, when they reached the moving staircases, Luhan gave his brightest smile.

"Well, Gryffindor Tower's this way. See you in class again Thursday?"

Minseok hmmed, looking away, and Luhan's heart skipped a beat. Had he come on too strong?

What he didn't expect was for Minseok to cock his head and say, "Actually, I was planning to go to the library before dinner to work on our Transfiguration assignment. You want to study with me? I think we work pretty well together."

After classes ended that day, they were only in the library for a short while because Luhan couldn't keep his voice down about Quidditch. They ended up taking their books into the courtyard instead.

"Do you follow any other sports?" Luhan asked as Minseok made notes from a massive old tome. "Me, I'm obsessed with football."

Minseok looked up, curiosity on his face. "Oh, you have Muggle parents?"

Luhan became acutely aware of the green and silver trim on Minseok's uniform and Jongdae's warning rang in his mind.

He fidgeted. "No, no, my dad's a pure blood actually. Just that... My mum's also a witch, but she used to live in Beijing, and wizards live pretty much like Muggles over there. It's near impossible to be employed in a wizarding job even if you've gone to a wizarding school, and to go to wizarding school you need to have money pouring out of your ears. Mum moved to London and met my dad, but she still likes Muggle things, you know, televisions, radios... Those kinds of silly things." He giggled nervously.

"I love football too," Minseok said. "It's my mother who's a witch; dad's Muggle. I never thought I'd meet someone here who also likes football."

A smirk pulled up the corner of Minseok's mouth so the point of his right canine was visible, but the expression was not unkind. Luhan felt a rush of affection for Minseok's lopsided grin and he said, "I never thought I'd meet someone like you too."

***

"Minseok," Luhan breathes.

The bus jolts and Luhan topples onto the bed opposite his old schoolmate. He sits on the edge of it as the beds roll with the bus's movements, as if he and Minseok are on two ships passing in a raging ocean. "I thought I'd never see you again."

Minseok bares his teeth, that sarcastic mirthless smile. "I could say the same about you."

"It's been so long." Luhan's hands twitch by his side, aching to reach out. "Since before the war."

"War has a knack for tearing people apart."

"I... I heard it was devastating."

"Oh? You heard did you?" Minseok says bitterly. "So there was a way to avoid living it?"

"We left the country. I was in Beijing. I didn't want to go, but--"

"Trust me, Luhan, if you'd lived through the war, you would have wanted to go. Running away was a good choice. After all, what's the worst that happened to you in the last ten years?"

Luhan grips the edge of the bed. "I never stopped wanting to return to London. When my workplace retrenched me, I came back here. They say the economy's picking up post-war..." Luhan looks at Minseok's dirty robes and lived-in jeans, his eyes settling on the broken soles of his boots. "But I suppose things are tough here too."

Minseok leans back and looks at Luhan through his lashes, a pained expression wringing his face for a moment before his neutral mask slides back on.

"I wouldn't say spending three years in Azkaban is too tough. If you ignore the Dementors and the cold and the screaming, there isn't a thing to worry about."

Luhan tries to grasp this information. "You were in Azkaban? Imprisoned in Azkaban? But--"

"Guess you were wrong, Luhan," Minseok says. "I did become a dark wizard after all."

***

Minseok's eyes didn't leave his parchment, but there was a measured weight in his voice as he asked, "How can you trust me?"

It was nearing the winter of their third year at Hogwarts and their usual study spot in the courtyard was getting too chilly. Instead, they were in the library, surrounded by the dusty sweet smell of old books and sacrificing raucous conversation for warmth.

Luhan looked up from his essay, smiling and blinking a few times. "Sorry?"

Minseok straightened the barbs of his quill. "With this whole Chamber of Secrets thing... Most other houses have been keeping their distance from Slytherin students. Aren't you worried I might, you know, turn out to be a dark wizard?"

Luhan laughed, then clapped his hand over his mouth, glancing over his shoulder to check that the librarian wasn't waiting to throw him out. "Minseok, not everyone thinks all Slytherins become dark wizards. I know you're not going to go dark. You're my best friend. Of course I trust you."

Minseok grinned but the two boys shut up when the librarian's vulture-like presence emerged from behind a shelf. She squinted suspiciously but moved past, and they shared a fit of low chuckles.

Over the Christmas break, Luhan visited the inner-city terrace where Minseok's family lived. When Minseok told Luhan that his father was a Muggle History teacher and his mother a high-profile barrister who defended clients before the Wizengamot, Luhan expected a stuffy and severe home environment. Instead, Minseok's father was a laid back man who asked his wife about magic just so he could make dad jokes with the information. Although almost as organisation-conscious as her son, Minseok's mother was a caring woman who fussed over Luhan continuously. Minseok and Luhan spent their days playing games in arcades, fighting in the snow, or watching cartoons on the television.

"Aren't you boys too old for this?" his mother asked after returning from work one evening to find them sitting in front of the TV.

"Never," Minseok's father answered for them, and the two boys leapt up and mimed a battle scene that turned into mock wrestling over the sofa, Minseok's mother telling them to keep it down for the neighbours as she hid a smile.

In the summer before their fourth year, it was Minseok's turn to visit Luhan. They played football in Luhan's yard until his parents returned home from work and called the boys inside for dinner. With his father's job as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries taboo, they talked instead about the international Muggle affairs Luhan's mother wrote about for her column in the Quibbler.

"You have Internet in your home, Minseok?" she asked. "Fascinating invention. Wizards who ignore it are losing out."

Luhan lived outside of the city, but one day they took a bus even further out to the rolling green hills where properties stretched too far for their owners to see the edge of their lands. They trekked to the most uninhabited location they could find before mounting their brooms and competing to see who could pull the best tricks. Luhan attempted a triple somersault, but on the third roll, his broom slipped out from under him and shot off into the distance. Luckily, he wasn't too far off the ground and tumbled onto thick spongy grass, but that moment of falling, watching the ground surge towards his face, had shaken him, and when Minseok dismounted by his side, Luhan was still lying in the dirt, body trembling.

"Luhan! Are you hurt?" Minseok's hands were delicate on his shoulder, his legs, settling on Luhan's open palm.

The touch thrilled him. Luhan quickly clambered to his feet and laughed, a little shaky. "I'm fine." He suspected he'd sprained his arm, if not dislocated something, but it wasn't anything his dad couldn't fix. "Come on, we have to find my broom or my parents will kill me."

As they fell into step next to each other, Minseok intertwined their fingers together and Luhan's heart was having trouble returning to its regular rhythm.

By the time they retrieved his broomstick from the tree it was entangled in, the sun had set and the last bus had left an hour ago. Luhan considered flying to the nearest house and borrowing a Muggle's telephone to call his parents, but Minseok told him not to worry.

"We can take the Knight Bus," Minseok said. "A lot of Mum's clients use it when they've had their wands snapped. You just have to stick out your wand hand..."

Luhan yelped when the bus appeared with a shotgun clap, and even Minseok leapt backwards in surprise. Soon, the boys were sitting cross-legged on a bed, laughing as they tried to keep their hot chocolate from spilling as the bus lurched towards home.

At the end of the happiest summer of Luhan's life, they crossed the barrier to platform nine and three-quarters together.

"Luhan!"

Jongdae was waving from further down the platform, Yixing smiling beside him. Luhan swivelled his trolley and was about to charge towards them when he noticed Minseok edging in the opposite direction.

Minseok gave him a gentle shove. "Go on. I'll see you at Hogwarts."

"You don't want to join them?" Luhan asked.

"They haven't seen you all summer. It would be better if I sat by myself than intrude on you three."

"What? Minseok, I'm not going to leave you alone, you dolt." Luhan tugged his friend by the arm. "Come on. The only reason Jongdae seems scary is the amount of noise he makes, but deep down the guy's all heart."

As they approached, Jongdae's grin slid into a smirk and he waggled his eyebrows at Luhan until Luhan enveloped him in a bear hug and whispered in his ear, "Pull anything funny and I won't help you with homework for the rest of the year."

Jongdae whined for a moment, then brightened again. "Try your worst. I know Yixing's got my back."

Yixing gave Luhan a knowing smile. Later, in the Gryffindor dormitory, they would discuss the summer in hushed voices, sitting against the window between their beds, moonlight on their backs. Luhan would tell Yixing everything. Or almost everything, because the lurching he sometimes felt when he looked at Minseok couldn't be put into words.

But for now, Yixing struck up a conversation with Minseok as he helped him load his trunk into their compartment's luggage rack and Jongdae chattered to Luhan about the concerts he'd been to over the holidays. When the trolley lady came around, they splurged on sweets, and the boys tried to outdo one another with proclamations of the weirdest Every Flavour Bean they'd ever tasted. Minseok didn't speak much, but his relaxed expression and Yixing's persistence in including him in the conversation filled Luhan with a bubbly relief that his friends were getting along.

It was short-lived. As night fell, the Hogwarts Express ground to a halt, the clanking of the pistons dying out so that the only sound left was the thrumming rain. The train lights flickered, then blacked out.

Yixing peered through the rain-splattered window to the murky night. "This isn't Hogsmeade station."

"Duh," Jongdae said, scrabbling over Yixing to get a look out the window. "Did this old tin can finally conk out?"

As Jongdae touched his palm to the glass, tendrils of frost crept across the pane. He pulled his hand back, hissing.

A chill descended on all of them, leaving goosebumps on their skin and stirring their bones. Fingers brushed Luhan's own and, in the darkness, Minseok shifted closer, bumping against his shoulder. Luhan grasped Minseok's hand, the cold sweat on their palms gluing them together. The compartment door creaked open and a glacial wave of despair flooded in. Hopelessness, loss, and a terrible aching pain in his heart. It overwhelmed Luhan and, blind in the night, he felt himself falling through nothing.

Fingernails bit into his hand. Minseok. Here, now. Warmth sliced through the anguish and Luhan clutched Minseok's hand until the blood throbbed in the tips of his fingers and he held on until the Dementor withdrew and the lights of the Hogwarts Express flickered back on.

Opposite, Yixing was pallid and shaking. For once, the upturned corners of Jongdae's mouth were wiped off his face and he was solemn and silent, head bowed. Hidden in the folds of their robes, Minseok didn't let go of Luhan's hand.

"What was that?" Luhan murmured.

"Dementor," Minseok answered.

He rifled through the confectionery left on the seat and found a Chocolate Frog.

"Here." He handed it to Yixing, whose expression remained blank and terrified for a good half a minute before he registered Minseok. "It'll make you feel better."

Yixing slowly took a bite of the chocolate as Minseok passed frogs to Jongdae and Luhan before taking one for himself, finally releasing Luhan's hand to open the packaging.

"Whenever Mum has to visit Azkaban, she brings at least five bars of chocolate." Minseok's voice was even, but Luhan noticed his hands trembling as he lifted the frog to his mouth. "She's the strongest person I know, and yet Dementors still get to her."

Minseok turned to him, the ghost of a smile on his lips as he chewed, and Luhan realised he'd been staring. Looking down, he ate his chocolate, and the sweetness of it on his tongue melted away the lingering sadness as Minseok pressed his warming body against his side.

With the Dementors stationed around the school that year, Luhan got into the habit of carrying chocolate and nibbling whenever he needed to quell his nerves. On Halloween night, with the Fat Lady's portrait slashed and a killer reportedly on the loose, Luhan was breaking off pieces of chocolate in his pocket and letting the fragments dissolve in his mouth.

The Gryffindors were shepherded into the Great Hall and joined soon after by the rest of the school. Luhan was grabbed from behind and he yelped, turning to face an anxious Minseok.

"Are you all right? I heard there was an incident at Gryffindor Tower." Minseok gave a cursory glance towards Yixing and Jongdae, then looked back at Luhan.

"No one was hurt, I don't think," Luhan said. "We're all fine."

They were silenced by the professors announcing the situation and magicking sleeping bags for everyone. They each grabbed one, Jongdae and Yixing ready to sleep right where they were in the centre of the Hall, but Minseok hesitated.

"Is something the matter?" Luhan asked.

"It's a little, um... It's a little cold here," Minseok said, bundling the fluffy sleeping bag in his arms. "Sorry. Good night."

He hurried away and Luhan watched him go.

"Dude," Jongdae said from the floor, "if you don't go after him yourself, I'll bewitch your bloody shoes."

Yixing gave an encouraging smile and Luhan ran after Minseok, dragging his sleeping bag behind him. Minseok had stationed himself at the edge of the room, lining up the side of his sleeping bag so that it was exactly parallel with the wall. He stood back, evaluated it, shifted it again, and repeated this a few times before Luhan dropped his sleeping bag over Minseok's feet. The shorter boy stepped aside so Luhan could climb in.

"You've lined it up perfectly, I promise," Luhan said.

Minseok looked doubtful. Luhan, still fully dressed in his sleeping bag, rummaged in his pocket and drew out a chunk of chocolate, raising his arm towards Minseok who smiled down at him and took it. Minseok removed his shoes, aligned them with the floor tiles, and tucked himself carefully into his sleeping bag.

Lying flat on his back with his hands clasped neatly on his chest, Minseok murmured, "Does it sound crazy if I say that I'm too scared to sleep in the middle of the room?

"You're not crazy," Luhan laughed. "You're just a little nervous, that's all."

The professors turned off the lights and shushed the stray murmurs. In the silence, Luhan listened to Minseok's breathing: smooth, measured, precise. Material rustled and Minseok, in his previously perfectly positioned sleeping bag, wriggled to curl against Luhan, their bodies as close as could be with two cushioning layers between them.

Minseok pushed his front against Luhan's back, tucked his chin over Luhan's shoulder, and whispered, breath warm on Luhan's neck, "I'm not nervous. I'm terrified."

***

"I should have been there for you."

Minseok scoffs. "Don't flatter yourself, Luhan. What happened to me was inevitable. When you've got nothing, trading Acromantula eggs is lucrative enough to convince anyone that money is in dark items. Besides, if you'd really cared, you would have at least tried to keep in contact. It's not like you didn't know there was a war going on here. It might not have occurred to you in your humdrum Muggle life, but people die in war. Did it ever even cross your mind that Yixing and Jongdae might not have survived it?"

Luhan leaps up, but the bus's wild motion throws him back onto the bed. "No... You can't mean..."

Shrugging, Minseok smooths out the sheets on his bed. "I wouldn't know. It's not like I could get them to sign my graduation book after I dropped out of school."

"You dropped out of Hogwarts?"

"It seems that Slytherin ambition wasn't enough to get me through the N.E.W.T.s. All that house did was turn me to the dark side." He glances up, and Luhan sees that past the hurt there is something like a plea. "Bet you hate me for that."

"Hate you?" Luhan almost laughs as his eyes start to sting. "All this time, and you still think I could hate you?"

***

"You know," Jongdae smirked, "our head boy may have a pretty face, but he's a terrible kisser."

Jongdae was sprawled on a couch in the Gryffindor common room, his legs resting on the shoulders of Yixing, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, writing his Herbology paper.

Sitting on the sofa opposite, Luhan looked up from his textbook to stick out his tongue. "Is there anyone in this school who you haven't made out with yet?"

"Excuse you, Luhan, but if you actually paid attention, you'd know that I've only got my eye on the grade above so that next year, when they're gone, I can target everyone else."

Luhan mimed vomiting all over the rug.

"I'm sure Junmyeon's a nice person," Yixing said. "Some people haven't had as much experience as you, Jongdae. You might have been the first person he's ever kissed."

Jongdae cackled. "Ah, Yixing, it's adorable that you assume everyone's as chaste as you. Luhan and I know better, right?"

At Jongdae's exaggerated wink, Luhan blushed and covered his face with his textbook.

Jongdae crowed, "Don't tell me you and Minseok still haven't gotten together yet?"

Leaping to his feet, Luhan's eyes swept over the curious stares of the younger students in the room and he squealed, "Jongdae, why are you always so loud?"

"Come on, Luhan, we're in sixth year now and you still haven't made a move?"

"I'm not having this conversation with you." Cheeks burning, Luhan gathered his books and stormed away.

When he was out of earshot, Yixing murmured, "Don't tease him about it, Jongdae."

"Aw, but it's so funny to see him flustered." Jongdae slid off the couch to sit next to Yixing on the ground. "But you know, I think we're kind of lucky. I make out with everyone and you're happy making out with no one, but at the end of the day both of us know we're not in love. Whereas Luhan, our dear sweet friend Luhan, spends each day falling more and more in love with Minseok and he doesn't even know it."

But Luhan couldn't stop thinking about what had happened two weeks ago when, on the way to Charms class, Minseok had made a detour to the bathroom, Luhan accompanying him as usual.

Luhan was checking the regrowth of his dyed hair in the mirror and complaining about how they would be receiving their Charms assignment marks back when Minseok grabbed him by the arm, the books tumbling out of Luhan's grasp as his shoes slid on the tiles. Minseok pulled him into a cubicle and pushed Luhan against the wall, pinning him in place. Before Luhan could gasp, Minseok crashed their mouths together so hard that Luhan felt more of their skulls colliding than the softness of Minseok's lips. With Minseok's body pressed flush against his, Luhan could feel both their pounding heartbeats, thundering louder than the sounds of wetness reverberating on the bathroom tiles. He let Minseok kiss him against the cubicle wall, let his mouth work around his own as his tongue traversed his teeth, flicked against the roof of his mouth. Luhan drank in Minseok's taste, relished it. He hadn't realised how much he'd wanted this. A moan fluttered on Luhan's lips as he shifted his legs to accommodate Minseok's thigh between them, and for a moment Minseok pressed harder, got impossibly closer. Luhan was burning up, so aflame with desire he thought his skin might set alight.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, Minseok withdrew, slipping out of the bathroom before Luhan's eyes could flutter open. Luhan stumbled out of the cubicle to find Minseok gone, leaving only Luhan's books scattered on the wet floor.

When his legs had stopped shaking, Luhan went to class, ducking his head at the teacher's berating of his lateness and taking his usual seat beside Minseok. It felt like a Golden Snitch was darting inside his chest, metal wings beating against his rib cage, and he snuck a glance at Minseok, but his friend's expression was neutral, eyes staring straight ahead and hands folded over his assignment results. For the rest of the day, Minseok avoided Luhan, and Luhan was terrified that he'd somehow messed up and lost Minseok completely.

But the next morning, Minseok smiled that same familiar smile and Luhan laughed in relief and appreciation for his best friend.

Still, the memory of that kiss lingered and he sometimes found his gaze slipping from the professor's demonstrations to instead admire the bowed shape of Minseok's slightly parted lips. He thought about telling Yixing about it as they sat sipping cocoa on the windowsill between their beds, the space seeming so much smaller now than it had in first year. What does it mean, he wanted to ask, if your best friend kisses you but never mentions it again? But there was a kind of pleasure in holding secrets, so Luhan simply enjoyed giggling at Yixing's musings about whether finding a Veela would settle questions about his asexuality.

He briefly entertained the idea of asking Jongdae, then imagined Jongdae screaming about it and giving him make out tips loud enough for the whole school to hear. Luhan almost shrieked at the prospect. No, he couldn't ask his other two friends for advice, but despite how much he wanted Minseok to hold him against a wall by the mouth again, he treasured their friendship more.

One weekend trip to Hogsmeade, Luhan and Minseok sat in their favourite café together, watching the other students pack into the Three Broomsticks across the road.

"I'd take coffee over Butterbeer any time," Luhan said, pouring a heap of sugar into his mug.

Minseok gazed around the cozy store interior. "It would be nice to run a coffee shop one day."

"I thought you were set on working your way into the Wizengamot?"

Having witnessed the struggles his mother encountered defending clients before the Wizengamot, Minseok was passionately deadset on entering the legal system himself, but with the goal of having the authority to straighten out the laws that his mother worked so hard to disentangle.

Minseok smiled into his coffee. "Of course, but it would still be nice to have my own café."

Golden afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the window, and when Minseok looked up, his irises were illuminated deep brown and Luhan realised that he was in love with his best friend. They each had a hand resting on the wooden tabletop, mere centimetres between their fingers, and Luhan slid his hand to close that gap, managed to slot his fingers between Minseok's for a few exhilarating seconds before Minseok drew away, gaze slipping away out the window.

Light-headed with the revelation, Luhan was quiet for the rest of the trip. When they returned to Hogwarts, amidst the rush of students, Minseok pulled him into a cramped storeroom, squeezing in between shelves crammed with spare quills and parchment. The Snitch in Luhan's chest was back, fluttering more furiously than ever.

This time, Minseok hesitated, his breath warm on Luhan's lower lip, before he cupped Luhan's face and kissed him hard. Minseok's hands were roaming, exploring Luhan's body like the tongue in his mouth, and even through his clothes, Luhan's skin tingled under the touch. Inevitably, Minseok broke away and they snuck back to their respective dormitories without another word.

Over the summer, Minseok, ambitious as any Slytherin, was consumed with preparations for the N.E.W.T.s. He was determined to obtain the ridiculously high exam results required to be accepted for training in Magical Law and hardly communicated with Luhan save for a couple of owls during the Quidditch and football seasons.

When school resumed, Luhan was prepared to give Minseok space to study. But Minseok seemed to have other ideas, pulling him into empty classrooms to make out with him against a desk, or locking them both in the broom cupboard after a Quidditch match where their hot sticky bodies were given no room to breathe as they exchanged sweat and saliva.

And even though, whenever they were around other people, Minseok would act like those rushed, heated kisses had never happened, the serene comfort of his company, whether they were studying in the library or laughing together in class, made Luhan certain that what they had, whatever it was, was beautiful. Minseok was shy and private, and while Luhan would have climbed to the top of the Astronomy Tower to proclaim his love for all the school to hear, he understood that Minseok's feelings were something that he kept close and quiet. Doubt that Minseok reciprocated the intensity of his love still fluttered, but seeing his friend smile at his jokes was all Luhan needed to know that, whether or not there was love behind Minseok's physical expressions, their friendship was as strong as ever.

In a flurry of studies, winter break rolled around again for the final time. On the Hogwarts Express back to London, in a compartment filled with his three friends' laughter and comfortable conversation, Luhan almost wished that his school days would never end.

The train pulled into King's Cross and they reached up to pull their trunks out of the luggage racks. Minseok bumped his shoulder into Luhan's and said under his breath, "Stay back for a second."

Minseok fiddled with his trunk, wondering where his wallet was out loud for the other two to hear. Luhan couldn't help thinking that he knew Minseok too well to buy that excuse.

"You two head off first," Luhan said to Yixing and Jongdae, who were waiting at the compartment door. "See you in a month. Good luck with your musical, Jongdae."

They both laughed, and in the years to come, Luhan would hold onto that picture of his two friends, their smiles easy, surrounded by the warmth of the Hogwarts Express.

Luhan half expected Minseok to pounce him the moment they were alone, but when he turned to him, Minseok was sitting with his hands between his thighs, leg shaking, but a smile tugging up the corner of his mouth.

"Thanks for putting up with me, Luhan," Minseok said. "I've been a pretty slack friend this year, and I might forget to write to you over the winter, but... Um... I really appreciate you sticking with me. So if I forget to write this winter, please don't hate me."

Luhan clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Minseok, I could never hate you."

They disembarked, Minseok throwing his trunk onto a trolley and rushing down the platform to catch his connecting train. As Luhan looked for a spare trolley, he caught sight of Minseok's back and something overwhelmed him, made him burst out, "Minseok!"

Luhan hefted his luggage and chased after his friend, who was almost at the platform exit. Luhan's scrawny arms couldn't haul his baggage fast enough so he ditched it and ran to Minseok, wrenching the side of the trolley around so Minseok spiraled into him.

Luhan caught him by the shoulders and Minseok's wide eyes were all Luhan could see. Luhan placed a hand on Minseok's cheek and smiled at the warmth, admiring how the shape of his face fit into his palm as Minseok blinked under Luhan's cold fingers.

Blushing at his own words, Luhan whispered, "I opposite of hate you," and kissed him.

This time it was Luhan who ran, dashing through the crowding students back to where he'd dropped his trunk, scooping it up and running out of the station. He was burning up with embarrassment, but a delirious happiness was animating his body. His heart pounded louder than the sound of his trunk beating behind him as he dragged it down the stairs and into the carpark where his parents' car was waiting.

Whatever happened to him and Minseok after winter break, Luhan was certain it would be for the better. But that was his mistake: assuming that there would be an after.

***

"I told you, Minseok," Luhan says, "I could never hate you."

Minseok turns away to readjust the pillows as the bus takes a particularly sharp turn and the beds are slammed against the wall.

Lifting himself back into a sitting position, Luhan musters the courage to ask, "But what happened? I thought you were going to study law..."

Minseok fluffs the pillow with something more like a punch. "Well, I guess it was a little too tough to get the N.E.W.T.s for Magical Law after I saw Death Eaters kill my parents in my own home."

The bus's motion is not helping Luhan's spinning head. "What?"

Minseok pulls his pack towards him. "Look, it's good to know you aren't another dead body, but I've had enough conversation. If you're not going to get off this bus, I will, and I'd prefer to put off sleeping in Hyde Park for another night."

There is no way Luhan will run away again. He stumbles to Minseok's bed and the worn-out mattress dips under their weight, tipping them towards each other.

Minseok shrinks away and, despite the violent bus movements, Luhan tries to maintain space between them. "Minseok, I cannot even begin to comprehend what hell you've been through. Your parents... Your parents were incredible people. They didn't deserve it. You didn't deserve it."

Minseok places two fists on Luhan's chest, but there is no force behind the shove. "Please, stop talking."

Luhan wraps Minseok's fists in his hands. "I should have been there for you, Minseok. I didn't want to go, I really didn't. I never even made it home that day winter break began. My parents were so terrified of the war, they drove straight to the airport and we took the plane with Muggles to Beijing. I wouldn't stop begging them to let me contact you, but the owls were being watched and it was too dangerous for both our families. But they promised I could call you on the Muggle telephone when we got to Beijing and I did, and it rang and rang... I never imagined that something so tragic could have happened. All I could think was that you hated me, that what happened on the platform had pushed us to breaking and that you wanted nothing to do with me again."

Minseok half-heartedly tries to pull away, and Luhan lets him, but their fingertips latch together, keeping them connected.

"I know you're hurting," Luhan says, "and there's no way I will ever fully understand what you must have gone through in the past ten years, but I'm here now and, if you want me to, I will help you shoulder whatever burdens you've been carrying alone. If you want me to leave, I'll leave, but if you've ever needed anyone... I'm here now."

Minseok closes his eyes, and Luhan fears that the hope he's seen in Minseok's face has just been wishful thinking, but he waits, holding his breath until Minseok takes a shuddering inhalation and starts talking, voice low and shaky with emotion.

"They tortured her before they killed her," he murmurs. "They came in the night. I heard the screams from my room and I made it halfway down the staircase before I heard someone cast the Cruciatus Curse. The two Death Eaters were right there, in the foyer, torturing my mother. They had my dad in a Body Bind and when I think of him now, I can only remember his face in that moment, petrified with tears soaking his face. I could have killed those fuckers, Luhan. I could have Stunned them from between the staircase banisters but I just watched as they tortured my mum and dad, laughing behind those awful masks."

He pauses under the weight of the guilt he has borne for ten years, then continues.

"I ran when they killed them. Legged it back to my room, smashed open the window and flew out on my broom. That was my first night on the street. I went back to the house after a couple of days to pick up clothes, money. The Ministry must have sent people to clean up the place because the bodies were gone. I Apparated into the backyard a few weeks later and a new family had moved in, like mine had never existed. I had enough money to stay at cheap hostels for a while, but returning to Hogwarts seemed like the best option. I thought I could find home again. But... I can't look at green lights anymore. I saw some first year practicing Verdimillious and had a panic attack. After that... Well, let's just say I spent more time in the Hospital Wing than going to class. I kept seeing them coming for me. I saw them setting the whole school alight to burn me out. So I ran. Money doesn't last long on the street and the black market was booming. Traded illegal goods throughout the war and kept at it until they caught me. I did three years in Azkaban, in the same forsaken place as my parents' murderers. And now here I am, sentence done and dusted, more fucking paranoid than ever.

"Wizards don't believe in prison welfare. They don't believe in counselling. I thought I hated people's company, Luhan, but missing you made me wish I had someone to talk to."

Minseok gives something between a laugh and a sob and finally looks back at Luhan, grimacing with eyes rimmed red. "I missed you, okay? And when the last thing you left me with was... was what happened on the platform, it was too much to go back to a Hogwarts devoid of that. Ten years thinking how my life could have been different if you'd been there for me, and now you turn up out of nowhere, offering... What are you offering?"

Luhan is near tears, his heart screaming in sympathy, but he still smiles as he reaches out a tentative hand to Minseok, who winces but doesn't retreat as Luhan brushes a finger over Minseok's dark lashes, catching a teardrop on his thumb like a sliver of memory.

"Let's see," Luhan says, straining to keep his voice light. "I've got a diploma in finance and about enough money for six months' rent..."

Minseok rolls his eyes. "That's not what I meant."

"I'm offering to be part of your life again."

"Luhan, I've just told you how much of a fuck-up I've become and you still assume I'm the same person? Look at me, I'd rob you in your sleep."

"I don't think you're the same person. We've both changed. This time, I'm not going to run away."

Minseok adjusts the zips on his backpack and says quietly, "I won't rob you."

"I'll hold you to it."

When Minseok laughs this time, it has a glimmer of his bright, youthful self, of care and passion. Luhan leans in slowly and, when Minseok doesn't retreat, kisses him.

As Minseok pushes him to the bed, Chanyeol chooses that moment to ascend the stairs, cheerfully announcing the Leaky Cauldron as their next stop before shrieking, "No fornicating in the vehicle! Jongin, stop this bus immediately!"

***

~ Epilogue - One Year Later ~

Pulling his woollen coat tighter over his work suit, Luhan stops outside the café, leaning on the curtained door displaying its 'closed' sign to scrub the snow off the soles of his shoes. London has the same kind of wet, grubby snow as Beijing - no romance and good for nothing but holding up traffic.

As he's about to enter the café, he hears a loud, unmistakable voice whine, "Just WHERE is that good-for-nothing pen-pusher?"

Luhan throws open the door and storms through the darkened café into the brightly lit kitchen, screeching, "JONGDAE?"

And there is the man himself, older but with those same mischievous curls at the ends of his lips and the same rambunctious laughter. Beside him is Yixing, who sighs, "Must you always ruin surprises, Jongdae?" before greeting Luhan with that beautiful, kind smile and open arms.

Luhan rushes into them, pulling both of his high school friends into a tight embrace, giggling to hide the tears welling in his eyes.

"What is this?"

Luhan releases his friends and behind them is Minseok, brandishing the dishes he'd been washing in sopping wet rubber-gloved hands.

"You were supposed to call me before you got here!" Minseok's eyebrows are furrowed in exaggerated anguish.

"I wanted to surprise you," Luhan grins, pecking him on the cheek.

Grimacing, Minseok brushes him off. "I was the one with the surprise!"

Jongdae gives sarcastic applause. "This is adorable. I am so glad I set you two up in high school."

"You!" Luhan smacks him on the shoulder. "You're just as annoying as ever."

"That's what theatre does to you, baby," Jongdae smirks.

After school ended, Jongdae stayed out of the war and pursued Muggle theatre, while Yixing began training as a Healer, accelerating through positions in St Mungo's Hospital. Last week, working on a production nearby, Jongdae wandered into Minseok's café and recognised him behind the counter instantly.

"So I organised this reunion as a surprise for you, Luhan," Minseok grumbles. "But you ruined my meticulous planning."

"No, it's not ruined! I'm..."

Minseok grins. "It's all right, Luhan, foolproof surprise parties aren't one of my obsessions."

Luhan goes a little quiet and Yixing says, "Minseok told me about his anxiety, Luhan. I've recommended him a psychiatrist I know who specialises in people with PTSD from the Second Wizarding War."

Luhan takes a nervous glance at Minseok. "Um, thanks a lot, but the wizarding medical system hasn't exactly been a great help..."

"I'm going to give it a go," Minseok says. "I can't keep waking you up in the middle of the night with my screaming, can I?"

Luhan can endure the heartache of watching Minseok suffer night terrors as long as it means Minseok is by his side, but at this new declaration, Minseok is standing determined with all the confidence of his youth, and Luhan couldn't be prouder.

The tears really fall this time, and Jongdae gives a celebratory whoop before engulfing Luhan in a hug, and in this warm kitchen in a café co-owned by himself and Minseok, surrounded by people who he could never stop loving, Luhan realises that he has finally found home.