Chapter Text
The Headmistress had told Nabi when she got to the castle that that there would be two other first-year exchange students from South Korea attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with her. Nabi had thought, in that moment, that it’d be nice to make friends with them. She was in an unfamiliar country, getting bowled over by an unfamiliar language. It had only been two days since she had landed in Scotland, and homesickness was already a constant ache in her gut.
It would’ve been nice to have friends her age who were in the same situation as her, wouldn't it?
But in the crush of excited first-years milling around her as they’re all ushered into the Great Hall, she can’t really get a good look at them. All that she can really see is that the two of them are around the same height, and that they seem to know one another already, judging from how tightly they’re holding hands.
Nabi doesn’t know that much English yet, but at one point during the confusing evening that follows, she understands that she’s supposed to go up to the stool sitting in the middle of the Great Hall and put on the hat. The hat immediately starts muttering a lot of words at Nabi that she doesn’t quite catch. When its brim cracks open, it’s “HUFFLEPUFF!” that the hat shouts out.
The other two exchange students are up much later than her. Nabi leans forward in her seat when it’s time for them to be sorted, kind of hoping that they might also land in this Hufflepuff house with her.
“Seo Jiwan!”
The clock ticks.
And then it keeps on ticking.
And then continues ticking as they all sit there, waiting for Seo Jiwan to be sorted. Nabi catches Headmistress Moor checking the time at the ten-minute mark. It’s a solid fifteen minutes before the hat yells, “GRYFFINDOR!”
Nabi never thought that a hat could sound exasperated, but this one certainly does.
A little while after, Professor Sallow calls out, “Yoon Sol!” Nabi is almost expecting another terribly long sorting for her as well, but Yoon Sol’s turns out to be the quickest one yet. The hat takes all of a split second before announcing, “GRYFFINDOR!”
And that’s it. Nabi glances at them every so often afterward from where she’s sitting at the Hufflepuff table, but honestly, it’s hard to tell the two of them apart from far away, especially when they stick so close to one another, even after they’ve all been sorted.
Nabi has bigger problems soon, anyhow. Like learning how to tap the stack of barrels to get into the Hufflepuff common room. And figuring out how to say spells, much less pronounce them in English the correct way. And finding her classes in this big and stupid castle. She’s wasted precious time trying to get past a trick staircase on the third floor one day, and she’s practically sprinting now to class. Nabi only slows down when she finds the right hallway, which is also when she looks up and sees one of the other two exchange students right in front of her. She spots the moment that the other girl recognizes Nabi as well.
Nabi’s just about to brace herself to say hi when a cry comes from right around the corner.
“Yoon Sol! Wait for me!”
That’s all the warning that anyone gets before Seo Jiwan barrels into Yoon Sol with so much enthusiasm that Yoon Sol lets out a little, “Oof!” The two of them lose their balance and careen into Nabi, who hadn’t been at all prepared to be plowed over that morning, thank you very much. All three of them end up collapsing onto the floor, like a row of dominoes.
That’s how Nabi meets Sol and Jiwan.
##
They have extracurricular English classes with Professor Sallow to get them up to speed with everyone else in the country. It’s at the far side of the castle, where there aren’t many extra classrooms, so all three of them are crammed into a broom-closet-turned-makeshift-homeroom later to study by themselves.
Which is all to say, it’s a lot of time to spend in a very small space. Nabi tries to sit very still while Sol blinks at the English books in front of them and Jiwan chats to them both a mile a minute.
Anyway, that’s how Nabi ends up learning a lot about Jiwan. In fifteen minutes, all in short succession, she finds out that:
1. Sol is Jiwan’s best friend.
2. Jiwan and Sol are from the same small town in South Korea.
3. Jiwan and Sol are both thirteen years old—same as Nabi!
4. Jiwan and Sol are both Muggle-born—not the same as Nabi.
5. Jiwan hated the beef tripe they were served at the welcome feast, but really liked the bread pudding.
6. It’s so rainy in England! Jiwan loves the rain, but Sol hates the rain.
7. Jiwan thinks that Sol would make a really, really, really great weatherperson if she wanted! Right? Doesn’t Nabi think so, too?
8. Jiwan hopes that all of their professors will be nice.
It’s much harder for Nabi to get a read on Seo-Jiwan’s-Best-Friend-In-The-Whole-World, Yoon Sol. Mostly this is because Sol is busy multi-tasking—she’s paying attention to Jiwan while actually making a valiant effort to study English at the same time—which leaves her a lot less time to talk herself. And she’s naturally much quieter than Jiwan, besides. A lot shyer at first. She has a face like a still lake, Nabi’s grandmother would say. Nabi always sees Sol show the most emotion in reaction to Jiwan: a smile here, a roll of the eyes there, a laugh in between.
Nevertheless, Nabi picks up this much about Sol in the span of a month:
1. Jiwan is Sol’s best friend.
2. Sol likes art.
3. Sol doesn’t like heights.
About midway through the first term, at the end of October, Headmistress Moor knocks on the door with some wonderful news: all of the magical international student visas have finally gone through. And then she introduces the fourth and final exchange student from South Korea to them, Oh Bitna.
Bitna promptly drops into a chair and says:
“My God! Somebody kill me before this English weather does! It’s rainy again!”
Nabi thinks that they will all get along just fine.
##
See, the thing is: Hogwarts is so much more fun with friends.
Suddenly, the entire castle spreads out before Nabi as though it’s all within reach. Literally. They make plans to visit each other’s dorms, and Jiwan schemes to sneak them into the Gryffindor common room with such joyful, playful guile that it makes Nabi think that she could’ve been better off in Slytherin. Now she can also catch Bitna’s eye in double Transfiguration with Ravenclaw, and now she can laugh with Sol and Jiwan in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And she doesn’t need to be afraid of sitting alone for meals at her house table anymore, not when she knows that she has friends somewhere in the Great Hall.
“You should just sit at the Ravenclaw table with me,” says Bitna. “No one will notice. Trust me.”
“I’m in yellow and black robes, Bitna. It’s not like people won’t notice,” Nabi says.
“Okay, fine. No one will care. Trust me!”
Nabi refuses, because she’s not a risk-taker. So she’d just sat down for dinner one day at her own table when Ava Davies, who’s been friendly towards her in Hufflepuff ever since the beginning, leans over and asks her if she had heard the news.
“Oh,” says Nabi, taken aback. “What?”
“Well, Sol and Jiwan were just admitted to the hospital wing. Oh Bitna is already there with them as well, I think? I know that you’re close with them, so—”
Without another word, Nabi jumps up and races to the hospital wing. By the time she bursts into it, she’s winded and scared stiff, having played out every single terrible scenario that could’ve happened in her head during the run there.
“What happened?” she asks, in between gasps, doubling over to catch her breath.
Her three friends look at one another. It’s only then Nabi notices that no-one actually looks… conspicuously… disfigured. Or bloody. Or maimed. Or dead. Or even... injured. Except for maybe Sol, who’s sitting upright in a hospital bed with her arm propped up in an awkward position.
“We had our first flying lesson this afternoon,” Jiwan says, and then all three of them start talking at once.
Nabi gradually pieces together the whole story from jumbled bits and pieces. It went something like this:
Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had flying lessons together in the afternoon, which was really exciting for the three of them—at least, at first. Their problems began when Jiwan got a particularly temperamental broom. It kept twitching when they were all practicing commands with their brooms. Then it kept bucking even after she had risen in the air.
Anyway, Sol saw the moment that Jiwan slipped off the broom, and ran over to catch her. So heroic! She got there just in time—except that Sol is just about as little as Jiwan, and with not much time to also brace herself for impact, Jiwan ended up falling on Sol's head and they both toppled over onto the ground in a crash of tangled robes and limbs. Madam Jackles immediately sent Sol to the infirmary after that, and then she also relented enough to allow Jiwan and Bitna to accompany her there.
“Wait,” says Nabi. “If Sol’s the one with the sprained arm, then why was Jiwan also admitted to the hospital wing?”
The other three glance at one another again.
“Emotional distress,” says Sol, finally.
Nabi blinks at them, blankly.
“Madam Lovelace was worried about me. I got a little freaked out when I saw that Sol was hurt,” admits Jiwan.
“A little?” shouts Bitna. “You almost tore off my head when I suggested that Sol only had a little sprain! You were hysterical! Look at this!”
In the end, Sol turns out to be wholly able, and is out of the hospital wing in a matter of hours. Madam Lovelace gives Sol a tiny vial of salve and tells her to apply it three times a day for four days. Jiwan commandeers it immediately, of course, and makes a big deal out of Sol’s get-well-again schedule for the next month or so. Which, as far as Nabi can tell, suits Sol perfectly.
A week later, it’s time for Hufflepuff’s first flying lesson.
That morning at breakfast, Sol and Jiwan stop by the Hufflepuff table to tell her, “Fighting!” In an act of kindness, Jiwan even leaves behind the vial of Sol’s leftover salve for her in case she needed it as well. Which, to be honest, doesn’t really quell Nabi’s nerves one bit.
By the time she gets to the training pitch, most of the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs in her year are already gathered around. Nabi joins them, rubbing her hands together anxiously in the chilly day to warm them. And then, in what seems like no time at all, Madam Jackles blows her whistle and they’re rising in the air.
Nabi’s not exactly a natural at it. The broom wobbles terrifically, teeters and lists dangerously to the left when Nabi is a few feet above the ground, and there’s one terrifying moment when it takes a sudden plunge and Nabi squeezes her eyes shut, her heart thudding in her chest.
But then everything comes to a halt. Nabi cracks one eye open and realizes that she’s actually hovering in mid-air. The wind tickles her hair, and her broom supports her just like that, as if she’s weightless.
It feels… good. It feels like freedom.
##
Nabi goes back home for summer break. She hugs her parents and settles back into her home routine for the next few months, sustained by frequent mail from her friends.
From Bitna:
Long essays about her summer, with an entire paragraph dedicated to how annoying being back in South Korea in the same house with her brother is.
From Jiwan:
A couple of sweet, rambly letters with lots of hearts that talks about everything and nothing at the same time. Chocolates attached in one of them.
From Sol:
Nothing, because Sol doesn’t have an owl.
At summer’s end, Nabi gets another owl post from Jiwan, telling Nabi that she’s excited to see her again soon. If she has the time, Nabi should meet up with them at Eeylops Owl Emporium in Diagon Alley on August 30 at 10AM. Sol’s been completely off the grid for two weeks in Antarctica on a vacation with her family, unreachable by any form of Muggle communication, so Jiwan’s going to try her best to convince Sol to get an owl first thing, so that they’ll all be able to get through to her in the future, no matter where she is! Wish her luck!
On the thirtieth of August, Nabi finds Eeylops Owl Emporium and walks into a dimly-lit store of chaos.
About a dozen owls have flown free, and the owlkeeper is running around back and forth trying to calm them down. Somebody is screaming. It might’ve been Bitna. Jiwan is half-huddled behind Sol, and Sol herself is backed up in a corner of the shop, fending them off from what looks like the world’s tiniest owl.
After they’ve located all of the owls and helped the owlkeeper restore them to their coops (with the owlkeeper apologizing profusely for the interruption, mopping sweat off of his forehead), Bitna is all indignation. “Let me get this straight. You went the entire past year writing to your mom and dad just a few times, but you can’t last a month without hearing from Sol? Actually, scratch that. Not even a month. Two weeks!”
“Duh,” is all that Jiwan says. Beside her, Sol smiles sheepishly, her arm still a willing hostage in Jiwan’s hold.
Sol gets the tiny brown owl that had attacked them, and they all decide to call him Bingsu. As far as Nabi knows, Sol doesn’t actually require his services that much that year—partly because Jiwan and Sol are already together off doing their own thing so often, anyway, quashing any need for the two of them to communicate by owl post.
In fact, Sol ends up mostly just using Bingsu to send the occasional letter to Nabi and Bitna during future breaks.
“Our Sol,” Bitna says to Nabi, when they’re back from winter break two days earlier than Sol and Jiwan. “Sometimes I wonder if she remembers that we exist when we’re not right next to her. Even then, it’s doubtful, isn’t it?”
“Maybe if we take some Polyjuice Potion and turn into Jiwan one day,” suggests Nabi, wry as she picks at a cauldron cake. It’s a big cake.
Bitna sighs heavily, settling back onto the couch arm on both elbows. They’re in the Hufflepuff dorm, lounging around in the common room. It’s still technically break, so the two of them are taking advantage of the more relaxed inter-House rules. Besides, Nabi’s Hufflepuff housemates are super nice about it.
“I’m telling you, Nabi-ah,” Bitna says. “We have to stick together, you and me. Let Jiwan and Sol have each other all they want. We can beat them at their own game. We don’t need them.”
“That means that you have to actually start waiting for me after double Potions, instead of running off to lunch right away.”
Which makes Bitna groan and hang her head. Nabi laughs at her reaction, which she had fully expected, and gives her half of the cake to share.
##
Nabi notices a pattern, in the latter half of their second year.
Bitna and Jiwan do. Nabi and Sol watch.
It’s always Bitna and Jiwan who are thinking up things for them to do next. Sol is pulled along by Jiwan, and, well, Nabi usually ends up following—at a safe distance sometimes, admittedly, like that time that they tried to catch a hopping frog by the lake that turned out to be of the self-exploding genus. Or that time that they tagged along to Dueling Club as first years and almost got caught in a crossfire of Stupefies.
It sits fine with her. Nabi is content sticking to the sidelines, especially when her friends have the frontlines covered so well.
The only thing that Jiwan, out of all people, really balks at doing is getting on a broomstick by herself again. The week after their second-year finals are over, they go to the training pitch with Bitna, who wants to try flying once more. Because, as she puts it, Jiwan had “totally ruined her opportunity to fly that first time by being so dramatic and falling during their flying lesson and making them all think that she had died.” Anyway, Bitna is determined to try and go for it.
Jiwan, though, demurs, and instead spends the whole time asking everyone within a ten-meter radius, “Don’t you think Sol’s hair would look cool windswept?”
“Your hair would look cool windswept,” Nabi says later, when she and Sol are in the stands, watching Jiwan and Bitna run around on the pitch. “Especially since you don’t have bangs anymore.”
Sol laughs. “Ah, Jiwan, she just likes saying these things.”
Nabi smiles with her, looking at Jiwan on the pitch. “Maybe she has a point, though.”
Jiwan had given Sol an enchanted sketchpad for Sol’s fourteenth birthday—the kind where your sketches come to life and move around on the page after you draw them, like in wizarding photographs—and Sol’s started carrying it around with her wherever she goes. Sol is sketching now, absently, her hand with the quill moving lightly across the page. It’s not the first time that Nabi’s caught Sol so lost in her own thoughts.
This, however, is the first time that Nabi’s sat near enough to Sol to see what she’s drawing, and she glances down.
It’s a portrait of Jiwan, which somehow doesn’t surprise Nabi one bit. The sketch is only half-done, so the outline of Jiwan’s shoulder keeps struggling to rise on the page, as if she’s trying to wave at them, but can’t. But the rest of the drawing is so alive that it makes Nabi hold her breath for a hot second, waiting for Jiwan-on-the-page to shout out something like, “Yoon Sol!” It just takes a moment before that for Nabi to really place her, because Jiwan is smiling in the sketch, though it’s not a smile that Nabi recognizes head-on. It’s the smile that Jiwan only gives Sol.
“You should show that to Jiwan. She’d love it.”
“Oh. No, that’s okay,” says Sol, quickly. She must realize just then that Nabi’s watching her draw, because she covers the sketch with a hastily-placed elbow.
“Why not?” Nabi asks.
Sol shrugs, a jerk of the shoulder that looks uncomfortable even to Nabi. “Jiwan? Jiwan would sooner jump into the Great Lake than sit still for long enough to look at some drawings.”
It’s a barefaced lie, and they both know it. Nabi looks back out at the pitch, where Jiwan’s successfully tackled Bitna to the ground and is raising her hand in the V-for-victory sign while laughing. The wind picks up. It’s a rare sunny day, the kind of day where you can look out at a green Quidditch pitch and see the whole wide horizon—or at least think it.
“Not if the drawings are yours,” she says. Sol says nothing, so Nabi continues, “You know, sometimes I think that your creativity is really wasted in Gryffindor.”
“Bitna keeps telling me the same thing,” says Sol, after a pause. She shakes her head. “She insists that I should have been sorted into Ravenclaw.”
Ravenclaw is also the house that Nabi would’ve thought would be the obvious fit for Sol, but she doesn’t voice it out loud. Bitna likely complains about it to Sol often enough, anyway. Just that thought makes Nabi smile at Sol. “She probably thinks that she was cheated by the Sorting Hat out of having a friend with her in her house.”
Sol smiles as well, though her eyes are on Jiwan.
The Ravenclaw Quidditch team trudges onto the pitch. It’s time for an actual training session, and they watch as the captain goes to clear the field. In the lull that follows, Nabi’s gaze falls back down to Sol’s sketchpad, where her sketch of Jiwan peeks out from behind the sleeve of Sol’s robes. The edge of the parchment paper flutters gently in the breeze.
“You really are talented, Sol.”
Sol is quiet for a moment. Then she says, “So are you. I’ve seen the origami that you make.”
Nabi is surprised that anyone had noticed—least of all Sol, who often doesn’t seem to notice anything that isn’t Jiwan-adjacent. It’s true that Nabi’s gotten into the habit of making Muggle paper cranes in her spare time. Mostly in her Hufflepuff dorm, after the lights are out and everyone in the castle is sleeping and the night is quiet enough to fold a hundred cranes into existence.
“Origami won’t get me anywhere in life,” she says.
“You never know,” says Sol.
Jiwan and Bitna are starting the climb up the stands to them. The wind carries over the faint traces of their conversation as they draw closer to where Nabi and Sol are.
“Do you have any idea where you want to go in the future?” asks Nabi, deciding to brace her hands against the stands and lean into the wind, as they wait for the other two to reach them. “If you could get noticed by one of the art masters, I hear the sky’s the limit. They could take you anywhere in Europe to learn.”
“Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” says Sol, getting to her feet.
Nabi thinks that she must’ve heard wrong over the sudden strong gust a second ago. “What did you say?”
“Ah. I said, we’re only fourteen,” says Sol.
And that’s all the time that she has to say anything else to Nabi right at that moment, because in another second Jiwan’s there and Sol is knocked back off her feet by her hug.
##
If she’s honest with herself, Nabi’s always been a tiny bit envious of what Sol and Jiwan have, because, well, who wouldn’t be? A best friend to automatically partner up with, in every class. A best friend to walk beside, when it’s dark and scary outside. A best friend to laugh with. A best friend to share the weirdest flavors of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans with. A best friend to always lean on. So safe. So uncomplicated.
But she finds herself re-thinking that about Sol and Jiwan in their third year, when everything starts getting all shaken up.
Maybe it’s because Jiwan’s English is better than the rest of theirs, but she shyly branches out first. Nabi catches more and more fifth-year boys coming up to Jiwan at the Gryffindor house table to chat during dinner. She even spots one Ravenclaw boy cutting in front of Sol to talk to Jiwan in the hallway one day. The boys still don’t dare to interrupt them when all four of the girls are together, though. Nabi thinks that they’re still too intimidated for that.
They’re all changing. They’re another year older, after all, aren’t they? Sol’s taller, much taller now. Jiwan talks just as much, but is more thoughtful about it now, more well-thought-out. And Bitna, who used to scoff the loudest at boys whenever they got up to their antics in the Great Hall, now blushes Bertie Bott's grapefruit pink when Theodore Nobbs, a sixth-year prefect, approaches her in the hall to ask if she could lend him her cauldron for his Potions class later. Even Nabi has started to watch other things this year: the set of a boy’s shoulders when he raises his wand, the arch of a boy’s Adam apple when he swallows at dinner.
It’s distracting. In the library, she ends up spending more time sneaking glances at Leo Song than doing the required reading for Arithmancy. He’s standing in the middle of a corridor in the library, right in a spot where a pool of sunlight from the great window spills perfectly onto his tousled hair. She thinks that he’s looking back at her, because he stands there for far longer than he needs in order to pick a book from the shelves.
At least Nabi’s not the only one spacing out.
“What do you think about tomorrow, Sol?”
“Hmm?”
“Hello?” Bitna waves a cautious hand in front of Sol’s face. Even Nabi had caught on ten minutes ago that Sol’s attention kept drifting to the entrance of the library, pretty much as soon as Sol had sat down with them in the library. Finally, Bitna resorts to drastic measures and snaps her fingers in front of Sol’s eyes. “Earth to Sol! Earth to Sol!”
Sol starts. “Oh. Sorry,” she says, and then, in a flurry of pages, begins flipping her textbook from the right chapter to the wrong chapter.
“What’s up?” asks Nabi, taking the opportunity to snap herself out of it and ignoring Bitna’s sigh while she’s at it. “Do you need to go somewhere?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.” Sol nods at the library doors, trying to look cool and collected, though her fiddly hands betray her. “Jiwan and I came here together, but Noah asked to pull Jiwan aside just as we were about to come inside. She’s out there with him right now. I was just checking to see how she is. It’s been a while now.”
Jiwan walks into the library a little bit later. For all that Sol had been preoccupied staring at the doors earlier, Nabi notices that she doesn’t say a word when Jiwan actually comes in. Sol just sits up a little straighter when she catches Jiwan’s eye and watches as Jiwan makes her way towards them, weaving around all of the other tables in the library.
No, as far as talking goes as soon as Jiwan is near enough to hear, it’s all Bitna.
“Sol just told us about your chat with Noah. Seriously! How are you so popular with the cutest boys in school? What’s your secret?” Bitna demands, pointing her quill at Jiwan. Jiwan shrugs, as she slides into the seat next to Sol’s. “Tell me now, or else I’ll—”
“Or else you’ll hex me with the Twitchy-Ears Hex that you perfected last week? The one that landed Poppy Wright in the hospital wing with the wrong twitchy body part?” asks Jiwan easily, taking out her Intermediate Transfiguration textbook from her schoolbag. Which makes Bitna splutter in outrage, while Sol smiles at Jiwan.
At least one thing probably won’t change, Nabi thinks, after Madam Toft’s swooped down at their table to shush them. The sun rises in the east, and Sol looks at Jiwan.
It’s not until spring term in their third year that she wonders if perhaps she’s missed seeing a key part of the whole picture.
They’re in Defense Against the Dark Arts that Monday. It’s another dreary, rainy morning—made all the drearier by the way that Sol’s seat is empty because she’s still on her extended weekend trip with the Hogwarts Art Club to London.
Nabi had been passing notes back and forth with Jiwan in class, which is how she sees the exact moment that Jiwan’s face pales when Professor Gaunt gets up and tells them that they’re going to have a practical lesson with a boggart that day. She also drops the paper crane that Nabi had managed to charm her way right before Professor Gaunt’s announcement. Nabi never does get her note back from Jiwan after that.
Jiwan keeps glancing shiftily at Nabi as they line up to face the cabinet that Professor Gaunt drags out from the back corner of the classroom. Nabi gives her an encouraging double thumbs up, pulling her back when Jiwan keeps trying to inch towards the back of the line.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be less scary if we face it one after the other,” Nabi whispers to her. Jiwan looks deeply unconvinced.
Once all of the students are gathered together in one corner of the room, Professor Gaunt claps his hands. At the sound, the cabinet rattles violently and teeters behind him.
“Alright! Ready, everybody? Remember: it’s Riddikulus!”
Without any more warning, he whips open the cabinet doors. It’s like he releases pell-mell itself. The next few minutes flash by quicker than Nabi can count. Boom! A nest of writhing snakes. Boom! A broomstick. Boom! A pool of blood. Boom! A rearing hippogriff. Boom! Boom! Boom!
And then Jiwan is up, jittery hands and all.
Boom. Nabi blinks, unaccustomed to the stillness as the dust clears. Jiwan’s boggart is a person. And it’s wearing… Muggle clothes? A Muggle T-shirt and jeans? Nabi can’t tell who it is because she can’t even see its face. Just its back. But something about it is very familiar, though Nabi can’t quite put a finger on it. A familiar shade of long, loose hair. A familiar height. A familiar straight posture.
Nabi frowns at it in alarm, as a suspicious inkling of what the boggart is begins to crystallize in her mind.
“Riddi—riddi—ridd—”
The class erupts into a wave of whispers, and then it clicks into place with an oh for Nabi.
The boggart is Sol.
The minute that Nabi figures it out, she spins around to look for Jiwan, who’s now frozen in place, her eyes wide and her wand dangling uselessly from her hand. Not that the boggart is even doing anything remotely scary. It’s just standing there, like a statue, showing them Sol’s back. It doesn’t even move.
But then Sol—no, wait, the boggart—takes a step away from Jiwan. Away from the crowd of students goggling at it. It doesn’t turn around.
Jiwan makes an odd noise, from the back of her throat. She is fully turned away from the boggart now, her shoulders shaking. The boggart continues walking away from her, towards the cabinet, faster and faster. But Nabi, heart in her throat as she pivots between the boggart and Jiwan, realizes that Jiwan probably doesn’t know that: her hands are covering her face as though she doesn’t want to see, her wand forgotten on the floor.
That’s when Professor Gaunt finally leaps in, shouting, “Riddikulus!” There’s a loud crack.
Jiwan hasn’t turned around ever since she first turned away. She doesn’t turn around now as she shoves aside some of the scattered desks and flees the classroom.
##
Nabi finds Jiwan huddled at the bottom of one of the trick staircases in the castle, near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
“Jiwan-ah,” she says, kneeling next to her and putting one hand on her knee.
“Sorry, Nabi,” Jiwan manages. “Is—is—” She tries again. “Is—”
“The boggart is gone,” Nabi says, as gently as she can.
Hearing that makes Jiwan cave in further on herself. “That was really silly, wasn’t it? I’m probably going to fail that class,” she says, trying to laugh through her tears. It comes out more like another sob, making Nabi’s heart clench again. Sol should be here to comfort Jiwan, not her. It’s always been Sol in this position, in the past.
Which reminds Nabi that she has a lot of questions. Like:
What’s going on?
Why did you back away when Professor Gaunt told us we’d be learning about boggarts today? Did you somehow already know what your boggart was going to be?
Is that why you were so worried?
Seeing Sol’s back is what you’re most afraid of? Out of everything in the whole world?
Instead, Nabi asks:
“It wasn’t silly. Are you okay?”
Jiwan nods, looking down at her knees. It’s a very small nod.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nabi says, hesitating.
Jiwan hears one of her unspoken questions. She starts answering it in a low, wobbly undertone and then just doesn’t stop, picking at a raggedy hem of her robes with her head lowered the whole time.
“Everything’s fine, Nabi. Don’t worry. It’s really great that Sol’s found what she wants to do in life, isn’t it? It’s really great. She’s not telling me stuff like she used to, but that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t care. I can tell whenever she's not telling me something, did you know? She does this nervous thing with her hands, and her voice changes, and she won’t look at me. We actually had a fight last week, right before she left for London, and—"
She hiccups, and drops her hold on her robes because her fingers are trembling too much. Nabi silently touches her shoulder.
“But everything will be okay. We always fight like this. We’ll just make up when she gets back.” Jiwan swipes at her eyes with an arm. “It’ll be fine,” she repeats. “I need to get my wand. It’s still in the classroom.”
“Okay,” says Nabi, helplessly. “Let’s go then. We can—”
“Don’t tell Sol about my boggart, okay?”
Nabi pauses again. Jiwan’s looked up, straight at Nabi.
“Don’t tell anyone. Not even Leo.”
She’s still wiping away tears. Nabi remembers that Jiwan sees much, much more than she lets on.
“I—”
“Because Sol doesn’t need to know. Promise you won’t tell Sol.”
Nabi promises.