jisung was not one to go out very often, especially on friday nights. he much prefered to stay home with you and play board games or watch movies until you fell asleep after pretending you were not even starting to feel tired. fridays were too crowded anyway. everyone was off from work or school for two days and had to make the most out of their first night of freedom. if jisung could avoid going out, he would.
however, minho had insisted.
"no you have to come. the table is already reserved anyway. everyone is coming and so will you" had he half screamed over the phone as jisung pouted and looked over to you on the other side of the couch.
so, much to his own disappointment, jisung was getting ready when you got back home from work. the pile of clothes scattered around your shared bedroom was enough proof. he never knew what to wear, always scared of being too dressed up or too casual.
he had heard you come home and jisung got out of the bathroom to greet you. he had picked a simple button down and black pants. "safe choice. great choice. incredible even." you thought as he kissed your temple and asked how your day went.
while you told him about the client you had had over the phone at exactly 5:01PM despite being scheduled until 5:00, jisung walked to the vanity placed right in front of the bed. he stared at his reflection and straightened his appearance. gently, his fingers brushed his jaw. the pad of his thumb rubbed his bottom lip and he tipped his head to the side. you couldn't tear your eyes away from him, stumbling over your words.
he looked way too good. jisung played with his hair, made sure the way his bangs were parted was flattering ( and, by god, was it flattering ) and grabbed his perfume before spraying some over his wrist. he rubbed the perfume on his other wrist and then put some on his neck.
you had enough. in one swift movement, you dropped all of your stuff on the bed before walking over to him. jisung jumped a little when your reflection suddenly appeared next to his. the moment he turned his face towards yours, you grabbed it with both hands and crashed your lips right against his.
jisung tried to keep a moan of surprise in his throat but could not help letting it out as he kissed you back. his hands dropped to your waist and he brought you impossibly closer to his chest.
you kissed him silly. after a short while, you had to part to breathe and jisung stared at you in both a daze and disbelief. his hair was all over the place and the first buttons of his shirt suddenly undone. interesting, you did not remember doing that.
you cleared your throat and avoided his gaze as you fastened the buttons and let jisung come back from his high.
"you look good." you said "have fun tonight."
again, jisung was convinced he would have had more fun at home.
prompt. #19 — when they let the enemy go from ficscafe’s scenario event
description. in which you found yourself alone with han jisung again; still fighting the same battle, but this time on two different sides.
pairings. gryffindor!han jisung x slytherin!gender-neutral reader
genre. hogwarts!au, angst, a pinch of fluff, LOVERS TO ENEMIES >:)
warnings. betrayal, mc doesn’t have a happy childhood (not written in detail but hinted), mentions of dead parents, mentions of death and killing.
word count. 2.8k
notes. events here occur within the timelines of order of the phoenix and half blood prince. i also altered canon a bit to make this fic possible.
The hall leading up to the Room of Requirement was dead quiet, just the way anyone would expect it to be in the dead of the night. The moon’s rays beamed through the enormous windows, illuminating the floor you walked on. A gust of wind swept through the hall, sending shivers down your spine as it touched your exposed skin. It made you unsure if your quivers were from the sudden drop of temperature, or the shrill nervousness as you headed to your destination.
You were still halfway down the empty corridor when the arched door began to show itself on the once-barren stone wall. The wooden door further revealed itself with every step you took closer. And by the time you were right in front of it, it had grown back to its full size—like the door had always been there.
There was a moment of hesitance before you pushed the door open. The rough wood felt familiar beneath your touch, taking you back to the last time you stood before it—over a year ago, when things had been so different.
Even with Dumbledore gone and the pink abomination that was Dolores Umbridge in his place, Hogwarts’s halls still had the traces of warmth and coziness that it once had. Boisterous laughter of those who made a hobby out of bending Umbridge’s rules would still echo down the hallways. All efforts made to make the pranks possible always became worth it at the sight of her pink fuming face. At the time, it had been so relieving to see all four houses unite against one single common enemy.
The tides turned when news of the Dark Lord’s return started circulating around again—this time with more concrete evidence when he appeared at the heart of the Ministry of Magic along with a few of his loyal followers.
Now, the halls of Hogwarts were cold, dull, and quiet. Even in the day, you observed that the number of students hanging around at the hallways gradually lessened as the year progressed. The only ones left were tight-knit established bunches, but even they didn’t appear as joyful as they used to. The inter-house interactions that you’ve gotten used to in the past year barely happened outside the walls of the classrooms.
You snapped yourself out of your own reverie. You were getting too lost in your thoughts, too distracted, too soft. If you dwelled on it any longer, the task you had on hand would only become more and more unbearable.
The door budged easily when you pushed it open. You half-expected to see the same familiar room you used before. But the hall before you was far larger than the training room. If anything, it carried little to no resemblance at all. The warm fireplace was nowhere to be seen; neither the mirrors on the walls nor the two enormous knight statues. The ceiling was so far up all you could see was a blanket of darkness overhead. Beyond you, the hall appeared never-ending—stretching out endlessly in the other directions that you couldn’t quite see where the other three walls were.
It wasn’t your first time visiting the Room of Hidden Things—it might’ve been your third in that week alone—but you still haven’t gotten used to seeing it instead of the training room. You were immediately greeted by stacks upon stacks of various objects that seemed both scattered yet arranged. The piles were tall, but you could still see its peaks if you tilted your neck. You cautiously walked down the path that mazed through the room, careful not to accidentally nudge anything as you did the nights before.
The object you sought sat right where you left it, obscured from plain sight beneath a veil of black and blue. You tugged the sheet off with ease.
The first thing you noticed was the unlocked notch of the cabinet—a sign that someone had opened it between the last time you used it and now. You felt yourself go cold, the feeling of paranoia that you’ve been found out comes back and this time, it stays in the form of panic and doubt. Your breaths came quicker, oxygen entering your system in abnormal intervals that made your head feel light. Your mind was clouded in thoughts—when, where, how?
Either way, it was too late now—both for you to back out and for them to evade the impending doom looming over them.
“Is that the reason why you started getting distant in the past year, _____?”
You see your hand visibly shake upon hearing the familiar voice that echoed the room. You had your wand at the ready, pointing it at the black wooden doors of the Vanishing Cabinet in front of you. The words you needed to utter to activate it were at the tip of your tongue, but they died down in the presence of the other person in the room. You couldn’t bring yourself to say it. At least, not while he was around.
You didn’t have to turn to recognize who the question came from. His voice was something you would recognize anywhere. Having heard it so much in the year prior, it was almost impossible not to.
His footsteps drew closer, thumping on the marble floor and echoing all around you. You tried your best to remain calm, even when your heart was threatening to leap out of your ribcage. He stepped out of the shadows before stopping a few crates away from you. His face was illuminated by the light at the tip of his wand.
“You have no business here, Han Jisung.”
There was a tinge of coldness in both your voices that would lead anyone into thinking you’ve both been sworn enemies right from the start. But you recalled how his was once warm as it uttered witty jokes at the back of the class, as it whispered sweet nothings in your ear that slowly chipped away at every wall you raised around you.
You remembered being the only Slytherin around—getting mixed glances of both disgust and fear whenever you moved around the Room of Requirement. Jisung had been the only one who approached you and took you under his wing throughout the days you spent training in Dumbledore’s Army. Though you’ve already mastered half of the spells they were teaching around, you had trouble with one in particular.
“The Patronus charm is easy,” Jisung once said.
It wasn’t to you, at least. That fact alone said a lot about your childhood.
He pointed the wand he held at the marble floor in front of you before chanting the spell—Expecto Patronum. Bluish rays of light shot out of the wand’s tip, dancing in the air around the both of you until it began to take shape. A furry thing, nothing more than two feet, began to prance around in the direction Jisung pointed his wand. The little thing circled around you, stopping in front of you with its cheerful face before it finally disappeared.
Your face might’ve given away your amusement because Jisung was smirking when you looked back at him. “Your Patronus is a wombat?” you asked.
“Quokka, actually,” he corrected, and so began the hours of endless training just to get you to produce a Patronus.
You gave up on it eventually, settling with the thought that you’d never be able to produce one until you had a happy memory to keep in mind. Jisung took it upon himself to help you with that.
And so began the ploy to purposely piss off Dolores Umbridge on a day to day basis, because seeing her pissed off had always been so amusing to you and to everyone else whose days were ruined by her mere presence. Jisung never gave her, nor the other mischievous folks of the other houses, a break. He was a nuisance at best; giving the Gryffindor prefects daily headaches and costing the entire House 10 points every time he got caught.
Somewhere along the way, his charm got to you in ways you didn’t expect. You were in a constant state of denial for the longest time; convincing yourself that what you smelled was nothing but soap when you caught the familiar scent of Jisung’s cologne when you brewed Amortentia in class. You denied it every time you would feel your heart leap to your throat whenever he got too close. Denied it until the day he stole a kiss under your nose before he bid you farewell the day before Christmas break.
The moment left you dumbstruck; glued to the same spot on the floor and blinking at the space before you, even long after Jisung walked away. But you don’t let him out the doors of the Room of Requirement, muttering a spell under your breath that kept the wooden doors locked until you released them yourself.
He finally turned to you when he realized he couldn’t pull them open, not even bothering to undo the spell with an Alohomora as he knew you were a much stronger wizard than he was. He was met by a glare and a pointed wand.
“Go on, hex me,” he taunted playfully, but the quiver in his tone told you he wasn’t too confident in his words.
You didn’t.
Instead, you took the flurry of emotions rushing within you from the moment before—and maybe from all the other moments prior—and channeled them into the wand you held before you. And you casted your first successful Patronus that night, a tall stallion that headed straight to Jisung before you dismissed it with a flick of your wrist. You could still remember how brightly he smiled at you afterwards.
Things have changed so drastically that you couldn’t believe it had only been a year ago since then. But some things remained the same; like the location of the room you both stood in—7th floor, west wing of Hogwarts Castle, and your fate—seemingly intertwined with the rest of your family no matter how hard you tried to escape it. Being born into a family with a history of meddling with the Dark Arts, it almost seemed like you were destined to be on evil’s side in the Second Wizarding War. The throbbing mark on your arm made sure you remembered it clearly.
You kept your eyes focused on the cabinet. As the clock ticked with every second that passed, you envisioned the people at the other end preparing outside the Vanishing Cabinet’s twin back at Knockturn Alley—awaiting your signal. With one spell, the Death Eaters on the other end would be able to enter Hogwarts and carry out their plans to spread chaos and destruction. To kill the Headmaster as they had long planned.
You didn’t know if dragging the deed helped any side at this point. But you couldn’t chant the spell while Jisung was still around. He’d be dead the second they burst through the cabinet’s doors and discovered him there.
“Get out! I don’t want you here!”
You whipped your hand, sending a burst of magic straight at Jisung’s direction. He was quicker than he used to, avoiding your attack at the last second before immediately conjuring a counter spell to disarm you. You were quick to deflect it, sending a few things toppling at another aisle.
Jisung took cover behind a row of stacked objects, missing yet another hex from you. “How could you betray all of us like this?”
“It wasn’t my choice to make!” you answered, illuminating the dark room with a single ray of light to spot where Jisung hid.
You caught sight of his silhouette dashing across the next aisle and you cast another spell in his direction. With heightened senses, he evaded it easily again. Jisung turned to you, attempting another disarming spell. He misses—barely—hitting the pile beside you and sending it falling into the aisle where you stood. You moved out of the way just in time.
“You can choose not to let them in and you can choose not to do this,” Jisung shouted back, keeping his own wand up but not casting a spell—a weakness in his fighting that you always noticed. He always allowed a moment of vulnerability. A mistake like this on the battlefield would be fatal.
Yet you decided not to use it against him.
You lowered your own wand, allowing him to round back to the same aisle you stood on. “They’ll kill me if I don’t,” you said. The thought alone made you quiver, and you were once again reminded of your task. You glanced back at the Vanishing Cabinet behind you. You only needed a moment to utter the chant that allowed the Death Eaters passage and you’d be over and done with your heavy task. The rest was up to them and you could pretend that you hadn’t done anything to contribute to the madness.
But you knew Jisung wouldn’t be able to leave the Room of Requirement alive. Stubborn as he was, he’d stand his ground even if it meant certain death.
“Family won’t kill family,” he reasoned out and it almost made you burst out in laughter.
“Like you would know how family dynamics worked when both your parents are dead?”
Jisung visibly flinched, stilling as he was once again reminded of the cruel truth. He was more dumbfounded when he heard those words from you—especially you. But your expression remained stone cold, hiding every bit of remorse just to make sure it was enough to shake him off for good. You told yourself it was for his own good but you were sure that the hurt in his eyes wasn’t something you would easily forget.
The shift in Jisung’s voice told you that your words struck a nerve. “Even if my parents were alive, at least they wouldn’t kill me for choosing not to do something,” he answered, but it was obvious who already won the argument.
“But they aren’t, right?” You wanted to bite your own tongue. It’s for his own good. “Just get out. Warn Dumbledore, warn everyone, whatever. It’s the least you could do.”
Finally, he took tentative steps backwards—away from you and in the direction of the exit. “I don’t want to face you on the battlefield,” he muttered.
You and I both, you wanted to reply. But giving him a sliver of hope that you had a bit of your humanity left behind would only make it harder for him to leave—at least without taking him with you. “You don’t have a choice now, do you?”
He made it to the wall where the exit was but he didn’t make the move to open the door just yet. “Do me one thing before I go.” The least you could do was hear him out, so you did. “Erase yourself from my head. Make it seem like you were just another Slytherin who betrayed the school for the Dark Lord.”
You locked your jaw, teeth gritting against one another. His request was a lot to process—both making you sad and furious at the same time. You feel the familiar sting of tears beginning to form. Had the room been properly illuminated, Jisung would’ve clearly seen how teary-eyed you were getting.
“Han.”
The word felt foreign in your lips and you realized that you never called him by his last name alone until tonight. Calling him by a nickname didn’t feel all the more comfortable either.
“What? It’s the truth,” he replied. The coldness in his voice remained now and it was enough indication that he was down to his last straw with you.
He was right, though. It was the truth. You were just another one of the many other pureblood Slytherins tasked by their families to do unforgivable deeds for the Dark Lord, even when they refused to. Either their own lives or their entire clan’s were put on the line—all in the mercy of head Death Eaters that tried to keep every family in check and on their side.
It was something you wished Jisung understood. But arguing with him now felt like pushing a brick stone wall.
He only got snarkier when you didn’t reply. “You can’t be selfish now,” he said, leaning against the far wall of the Room of Requirement before he continued, “Go on, hex me.”
A flash of déjà vu crossed your mind. The same place and the same taunt, only at a different time and a different state of mind. This time, you obliged.
You allowed yourself a moment of weakness, letting a tear fall down the side of your cheek as you muttered an apology. He wouldn’t remember it anyway. Jisung’s face softened for a fleeting moment when he saw you wipe a tear with the back of your hand—maybe out of concern or maybe out of confusion.
But before he could say or do anything you had already flicked your wrist, casting the Memory Charm designated to make him forget you.
“And you’re really cute when i kick you off the bed.”
It was 8:37 am and you were too tired to squabble with Jisung. Whenever he woke up before you,he’d always comment on your bed head. It made your curly hair look like a mess but he found it adorable.
“You being so sleepy makes you all more endearing y’know?It makes me wanna snuggle you.”
You wanted to tell him to stop being a coward and cuddle with you,but all you could do was hug Jisung’s waist and nuzzle your nose into his chest as he wrapped his arms around you.The comfortable silence had you falling back asleep instantly.
