𝐀 𝐇𝐎𝐆𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒' 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐘 (𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙮 𝙆𝙞𝙙𝙨 𝘼𝙐)

𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐑

"... so this is how Jisung almost broke his leg, Minho is the long lost nephew of Lord Voldemort and Changbin made friends with a giant Horned Serpent", concluded Chan, biting his own portion of pork pie.

Yeji, sitting right beside him, shook her head quickly as if to clear her mind from all the information she'd just received. "So this is what you've been up to?" she asked in disbelief, staring blankly in front of her. She looked like she might accidentally punch someone.

"Yeji, look" now it was Hyunjin talking. "I know you are angry and offended and what not, but look at it the bright way: we made it out alive, and Binnie and Bartholomew are close friends now!"

"Bartholomew?" Seungmin looked confused.

"It's how they've renamed the Serpent babe" lazily replied Y/n, taking a sip of his soft drink.

Felix (Chan noticed) was looking at them suspiciously from the other side of the table. "You'll have to explain what this babe bullshit is all about-", he started threateningly, but never got around an answer.

The girl, in fact, sensing the questioning incoming, immediately decided to acknowledge the presence of the last two missing guys, who had just set foot into the Hall and were now looking around as if searching for something. "Oh, would you look at that!" she said quickly, to avoid the others' attention to linger too much on Felix's words. "Looks like we're now all here finally!"

And in fact, just as she finished talking, the two boys (who in the meantime had had time to find out for themselves where their friends were sitting) arrived. "Uh, we were looking for you guys" stated Minho, letting himself fall beside Seungmin, "had no idea you'd choose the Ravenclaw table".

His consideration (Chan had to admit) was not completely out of place: although allowed, it was not usual for people of different Houses to sit at a table together ̶  and their group, besides, was so diverse that the other students who had started entering the Hall for dinner had already sent them rather inquiring gazes (one Ravenclaw, for example, had immediately ran towards Jeongin. Chan did not know who he was, but he simply assumed he was one of his friends, who had obviously got very worried at the Ravenclaw missing for over a day and wanted to check on him. The Head Boy had actually been about to invite him to sit down with them, but Jeongin had waved him off before Chan could do anything: the youngster had probably put all the explaining off for later ̶  which, at the end of the day, had been the smartest decision).

As soon as he heard the Slytherin's words, Changbin got up as if he was about to go fight the elder. "Are you implying something with-", he started, but Jeongin held him by the shoulders and prevented the innocent joke of the Slytherin to become something much more serious.

"Oof" Jisung, who had sat himself right next to his best friend, was already eyeing the various dishes the usual silver trays were full of. "I am starving! Good thing there's still food left. Have you guys all already eaten?", he then asked, looking around the small group that had gathered on one far end of the dining table.

"Yeah", confirmed Woojin. "We were actually waiting for you. Are you tired?", he then asked, referring to Minho.

The Slytherin smiled. "Not anymore".

"This is good" commented Jeongin. "But now that we're all here, there was something we particularly were interested in knowing..." Chan's trained eyes followed his gaze (that imperceptibly landed on Y/n), and didn't miss the sudden smirk Felix had now plastered on his face: it looked like the two were now totally at peace with each other. "Seungmin? Anything you'd like to say about it?"

The Slytherin decided to play it off coolly, and masked the slight blush on his cheeks with a nonchalant "I have no idea what you're talking about".