“You’re staring.”
Taeyeon ducks her head back into her Charms book. “I’m not,” she mumbles unconvincingly, feeling her ears heat up.
Tiffany smiles at her and that smile only grows wider when Taeyeon pointedly refuses to look up from her book, busying herself with writing down notes she doesn’t fully comprehend.
They’re in the library and they’re supposed to be studying for an exam on the theory behind non-verbal spells but Taeyeon has spent the better part of an hour stealing glances and, sometimes, outright staring at a group of Slytherins and Hufflepuffs a few tables down. At one Slytherin in particular.
“You know, you could try telling her how you feel,” Tiffany says, twirling her pink quill between her fingertips. She can ace Charms in her sleep, she’s not all that worried about how much time they’re wasting. Taeyeon and her gigantic crush are more entertaining.
A tiny bit pathetic, but entertaining all the same.
Taeyeon glances up from her notes and gives Tiffany such a scandalized look, as if talking to the girl she’s liked for years was so out of the realm of possibility, she might as well have suggested she go fly to the moon on her broom.
“You’re a Gryffindor, Taeyeon. You’re meant to be brave.” Tiffany sighs when Taeyeon continues to ignore her, quill scratching noisily on her parchment. “Just tell her how you feel.”
“I’m working up to it.”
“You’ve been working up to it for two years.”
“Any day now, Fany.”
Taeyeon can feel the exasperation rolling off of her best friend in waves and she can’t say she blames her. They’ve been having different versions of the same conversation for the past couple of years and Taeyeon makes excuse after excuse every time.
It isn’t as if she’s a coward. She’s a Gryffindor through and through. Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Skrewts? No problem. Testing out Sunny’s insane Potions experiments? Sure, just keep Madame Pomfrey on standby. But actually talking to Jessica Jung? No way in bloody hell. She doesn’t really understand it herself either. All she knows is that every time she’s around the Slytherin, it feels as if her brain ceases to function.
She glances up briefly to steal another look at Jessica’s table and promptly spills her ink bottle all over her notes when she meets twinkling brown eyes.
“Taeyeon!”
Tiffany’s shriek draws the attention of everyone in the library and Taeyeon is suddenly, mercifully too busy to dwell on brown eyes and the way her heart is suddenly beating faster.
Taeyeon is still trying to scrub the ink stains from her wand when she leaves her detention with Madam Pince, scowling and mumbling under her breath. Really, the librarian was too harsh. As if it was solely Taeyeon’s fault she’d accidentally knocked over that bottle of ink.
Then again, how exactly would she explain that to Madam Pince?
You see, Madam Pince, Jessica Jung looked at me and you can’t really blame me for jerking my arm like that. I’m only human after all and bad things happen when humans look at goddesses directly.
Taeyeon snorts at the thought. Yeah, that would go over well. She’d be lucky if Madam Pince didn’t give her two more hours of detention.
But Jessica had looked at her, hadn’t she? Taeyeon’s steps falter as she recalls brown eyes and the slight upturn of lips directed her way.
There goes her heart again.
“Taeyeon?”
Great, not only is her heart racing – from a memory – she’s hearing things now.
Taeyeon sighs. Maybe Tiffany has a point for once. She should do something about this crush before it drives her insane.
“Taeyeon?”
She blinks. She’s sure she didn’t imagine that. She turns and comes face to face with Jessica Jung and it’s like her heart leaps into her throat.
The Slytherin is giving her a strange look, half amused and half wary.
“Jessica!” Taeyeon squeaks. She clears her throat, cheeks pink. Merlin, what is wrong with her? “What are you doing here?”
A sculpted eyebrow quirks up and Taeyeon can feel her cheeks heat up even more as she catches sight of the prefect badge pinned to the front of Jessica’s robes.
“Rounds?” she guesses weakly.
“Very astute of you, Taeyeon,” Jessica says with a teasing smile.
Taeyeon finds herself smiling back but quickly looks away, biting on her lower lip because she feels the beginning of what Sunny calls her ‘dopey-ass’ grin, the one that always gets her a Tickling Charm from her friends.
“You always do that.”
She blinks and looks back at Jessica. There’s a pensive look on her face and it throws Taeyeon off. Wasn’t she smiling just a second ago?
“Do what?”
Jessica shakes her head and all the warmth in her eyes from her earlier teasing is gone.
“Forget it.”
There’s a pause, during which Taeyeon is mentally scrambling to figure out what she did that changed the mood so drastically.
Jessica shifts, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “You should go back to your dorm, Taeyeon. Curfew’s about to start.” Her voice is clipped and impersonal and Taeyeon is reminded that Jessica’s nickname around the school is the Ice Princess of Slytherin.
She’s never liked that nickname.
“Yeah, I should go do that,” she agrees but stays where she is, staring at Jessica. She wants to apologize but the words get stuck in her throat and she’s not even sure what she should be apologizing for.
Jessica stares right back, unblinking. The moment stretches and Taeyeon thinks maybe this is when she’s going to be turned into a block of stone. Mortals, goddesses, never a good combination.
Finally, Jessica sighs and there is a shift in the air.
“I have to go do my rounds. Goodnight, Taeyeon.”
It sounds as if she might actually mean it. The flint in those eyes has faded and though she isn’t smiling, there’s a certain softness that makes Taeyeon want to sigh in relief. Whatever just passed between them, the crisis has been averted.
“Goodnight.”
Gryffindor’s first Quidditch game of the season is coming up and though Taeyeon wants nothing more than to obsess over that brief encounter in the hallway for the next two weeks, she has certain duties as Gryffindor Quidditch Team Captain that keep her from doing so. Duties that bring her to the Quidditch pitch at an ungodly hour in the morning on a weekend.
Not to practice, no. Gryffindor’s turn at the pitch wouldn’t be until tomorrow.
Taeyeon is here to spy.
Of course, she uses ‘spy’ in the loosest form of the word as when she’d gotten down to the pitch, Suho, Ravenclaw’s Team Captain, had given her a wave and even flown down to exchange a few words with her while the rest of his team started with warm-ups.
She fully expects him to be in the stands tomorrow too.
Ravenclaw is looking good this year, she thinks with some unease, watching the blurs high up in the air. Gryffindor will have some stiff competition for the Cup this year. She wonders if she’ll be able to lead them to that victory or if she’s going to squander Yunho’s legacy.
Someone takes the seat beside her and Taeyeon is brought out of her musings before they take a turn for the gloomier. She turns and breath rushes out of her.
With the sun on the early legs of its journey across the sky, it’s just at the right angle to cast a halo around Jessica’s head and not for the first time, Taeyeon wonders if there’s some ounce of truth to her ridiculous theories about Jessica being descended from gods.
Maybe this is a dream. Maybe Sunny had dosed her with one of her stupid potions and this is some sort of hallucination.
“-yeon? Taeyeon?”
She blinks and looks around. She’s surprised to see herself still at the Quidditch pitch and not in her bed. No, this isn’t a dream or a hallucination and yes, that really is Jessica sitting next to her. Except now she’s looking at her as if she’s grown two heads.
She looks away quickly, ears turning red. “Sorry. I was – ” she makes some vague gesture with her hands and hopes that would be enough of an explanation. Why does she always forget the ability to form words around Jessica?
Surprisingly, Jessica laughs. “It’s okay, I do that – ” she makes the same gesture. “ – too, sometimes. A lot of the time, really.”
It’s as if the weird thing that passed between them the other night didn’t happen. A part of Taeyeon wants to ask why but a larger part of her doesn’t want to look this gift horse in the mouth.
“What are you doing here?” she asks instead. As far as she knows, Quidditch isn’t Jessica’s thing. Come to think of it, neither is waking up early.
“Krystal broke her arm last week,” Jessica explains, her eyes on one of the Chasers. “She’s all healed up now but she’s not supposed to put too much strain on it.”
Taeyeon makes a hum of acknowledgement, smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. This is why she doesn’t like Jessica’s nickname of ‘Ice Princess,’ because she’s anything but.
She remembers third year Transfiguration and how patient Jessica had been in demonstrating the assignment for the day to her. Jessica, who’d finished early and could have spent the rest of the class dozing off. Jessica, who’d given her such a brilliant smile when she’d finally nailed it.
Jessica is warm and Taeyeon can feel it even on this chilly November morning.
The sun has risen higher in the sky and the Ravenclaws are finally winding down with their practice. She’s learned nothing about Ravenclaw’s tactics but she has learned how Jessica spent her summer. (With her family, in Spain.)
A comfortable lull in conversation had settled between them while they watch the Ravenclaw Quidditch team pack up.
Of course, she has to ruin it somehow, thoughts turning to that night.
“What did you mean?”
“Hmm?”
Taeyeon takes a deep breath. “You said I ‘always do that.’ Do what?”
There’s a long, drawn out silence between them and Taeyeon starts to think that Jessica’s not going to answer her. Or that she’s somehow fallen asleep.
“You look away,” Jessica says quietly.
Taeyeon stares, uncomprehending.
“It’s a stupid thing to be upset over but you always look away from me. I mean...” she lets out a laugh but there’s no cheer in it. “I know I’m not ugly, Taeyeon.”
So why?
The silent question hangs in the air between them as Taeyeon’s mind races.
Jessica shakes her head, eyes cast downwards. “Like I said, it’s stupid and we should –”
“I like you.” Taeyeon says quickly because one more second Jessica looks like that is a second too long. Gryffindors are nothing if not foolhardy. “I’ve liked you for a long time and sometimes, it gets too...” Taeyeon trails off and exhales heavily. She doesn’t have words to describe the feelings that well up inside her when Jessica looks at her.
She meets Jessica’s gaze even though she can feel heat crawl up from her neck all over her face. She’s sure she must resemble her house colors by now.
“Well, you’re going to have to find some way to control it,” Jessica tells her steadily.
Taeyeon feels her heart drop into her stomach and a lump settle in her throat as she looks away.
Right. Of course. What had she been thinking?
Mortals, goddesses. Gryffindors, Slytherins.
They don’t mix.
There’s a sigh and a hand covers hers.
“I mean, it’s going to be very strange if you can’t look at me when you take me to Hogsmeade next weekend.”
Taeyeon can feel her heart start to race as the words and the weight of the hand on hers register. Did she just…? She looks back at Jessica and the smile she gets feels like she’s been hit with a Warming Charm all over.
“What?” she asks because she needs to be sure.
Jessica rolls her eyes and mutters something that sounds like “Gryffindors” before leaning in and pressing her lips against Taeyeon’s.
It’s short and sweet and makes her heart beat faster than ten Pepper-Up Potions.
“Did that get the point across?” Jessica asks her archly.
Taeyeon takes in pink cheeks and her ‘dopey-ass’ grin grows even bigger.
“You know us Gryffindors. All brawn and no brains.” She leans in closer, lips brushing against Jessica’s. “You’re going to have to run that by me again.”
Bonus:
Krystal’s eyes narrow as she catches sight of the scarf her sister is wearing. It’s not anything weird – it’s mid-November, after all. What’s bothering Krystal are the stripes of red and gold.
Krystal is a Ravenclaw.
And last she checked, Jessica is a Slytherin.
“I can’t believe you would turn your back on me like this,” she says flatly over breakfast the day of Ravenclaw’s game versus Gryffindor.
Jessica rolls her eyes but doesn’t tear her gaze from where the Gryffindor team is eating. It's disgusting and putting Krystal off of her food.
“Donghae is carrying the banners that say ‘Krystal is the Greatest’ to the Pitch for me.”
Krystal continues to stab into her omelette. Her own sister. Her flesh and blood. Sporting the enemy’s colors.
She’s never known such betrayal.
“They’re enchanted to shoot fireworks every time you score.”
She pauses in contemplation.
“It was a very complicated spell. I spent a whole week on it.”
Krystal nods and offers her apple to her sister. That’ll do.