duelling for sugar quills (park sunghoon/reader) - ch.1
pairing: park sunghoon x reader word count: 2.6k genre: hogwarts!au a/n: i haven't used tumblr or published anything in like 3+ years so i'm rusty and idk what's trendy now. anyway i also posted this on ao3 (sunghoonz), so i'm curious to see what platform is more ~popular~ these days. god i feel old.
you and sunghoon are both sixth-year students at hogwarts—but in all other regards, you're complete opposites. you're a hufflepuff. sunghoon's a slytherin. you're a muggle-born. sunghoon's a pure-blood.
well, thank merlin that you two hate each other—mostly.
-
sunghoon's stomach drops the second he steps into the prefects' cabin.
of course. of course it's her. sunghoon shouldn't be surprised. jang wonyoung is the brightest student in her year, as well as the most popular now-fifth-year. really, it was a given that she would be chosen as one of slytherin's new prefects.
it's just an unfortunate coincidence that she had been sunghoon's girlfriend until the end of last school year.
while all of the other prefects greet him, including his fellow sixth-year kim minjeong and their other newest member, nikimura rishi (or as he prefers to be called, niki), wonyoung doesn't even spare a glance at him. she just faces the front of the cabin, arms crossed, eyes unmoving.
"how was your summer?" minjeong asks, giving him a warm hug. it's a welcome distraction from wonyoung.
"pretty good," sunghoon replies. "my family and i visited our home in korea."
she whistles. "i'm so jealous! my mom made me stay home and study for our n.e.w.t.s all summer. she wasn't happy that i got a 'poor' in history of magic and divination. and a 'troll' in arithmancy and muggle studies, but let's not talk about those."
"that's not too bad," he chuckles, combing one hand through his black hair. "i failed astronomy, divination, and muggle studies. i think i got a 'troll' in ancient runes, too."
"oh, well." minjeong shrugs. "i passed all the classes i want to do my n.e.w.t.s in, so i don't care about my o.w.l.s anymore. i just want to—"
she's cut off by the door sliding open, revealing a gaggle of rather loud (as expected) and rather angry (unusual) hufflepuffs. out of the four, sunghoon recognizes only two: sixth-years sung hanbin and you.
his heart flutters a little when he sees you, in a way that's different from how it does when he lays eyes on wonyoung. you got prettier over the summer, he notices. your hair is just as shiny as ever, but definitely a little longer, and you seem to have gotten tanner. you're still sporting muggle clothes, a pair of shorts that show off your legs and a cropped halter top that exposes a thin strip of bare skin on your midriff. your wand hangs out of your back pocket, flouting the professors' reminders to "never put your wand there unless you want to break it". you dress unlike anyone else sunghoon's ever encountered, and he's still not sure if he likes it or not. but you sure are intriguing.
his eyes dart over to wonyoung without thinking. now she's turned around, staring at the gathering of hufflepuffs with an unrepressed glare on her face. she's fixated on your laughing form with gritted teeth and clenched fists. sunghoon winces, quickly dropping his eyes before anyone can notice.
maybe she's right to be upset. he remembers all the times she'd accused him of flirting with you, although sunghoon never did. the most that had ever happened between the two of you was that sunghoon found you attractive.
that, and the kiss you'd shared in an empty classroom late one night during your fourth-year. sunghoon had asked for your help in charms. he'd done so on occasion since you were second-years, when flitwick had requested that you help him with learning reducio and engorgio. sunghoon had always found you to be another obnoxious hufflepuff, but he discovered that it was easy to be comfortable around you. there was no sign of judgement as you guided him carefully through the incantations and wand movements. from then on, whenever he needed help with charms, he would ask you. and in return, you would sometimes ask him to tutor you in potions, although you seemed to prefer someone else, like your best friend, hanbin, for help.
that always bothered sunghoon. he didn't know why.
the kiss had happened spontaneously. sunghoon doesn't remember who kissed who first, or how, or why. all he remembers is the feeling of your soft lips against his, the explosions like fireworks in his chest, how he'd gripped his robes in his fists because he didn't know how to, or if, he could touch you. it was a short, chaste kiss, the innocent type shared by two teenagers who clearly didn't know how to kiss, heavy breathing and awkward stiffness and nervous giggles. the type of kiss that happens only once in your life, the first time. because it was sunghoon's first kiss.
not that anyone else knew. you and sunghoon swore that that was a secret each of you would take to your graves. perhaps his better judgement, he trusted you. he certainly never told anyone—not his family, not his friends, and never wonyoung. he was more than content to let her believe that their first kiss was his, because the two of you would never, ever do that again.
"late as always, (y/l/n), sung," slytherin head boy, seventh-year kim hongjoong, scoffs at the hufflepuffs as they saunter past.
"can it," hanbin warns. "it's not even the beginning of term yet."
you and hanbin escort who sunghoon realizes must be the two new fifth-year prefects over to where hufflepuff head boy and girl, lee taeyoung and kwon eunbi, are sitting, and immediately start engaging in a hushed, intense conversation. from where sunghoon is sitting, he can only see taeyong and eunbi's faces. and the two of them do not look happy.
sunghoon wonders what that must be about, but his train of thought and the hufflepuffs' conversation are quickly interrupted by gryffindor head girl, park jihyo, clapping her hands together.
"welcome to another school year!" even without an amplifying charm, jihyo's voice carries throughout the entire cabin. "let's get this meeting started, yeah?"
the prefects' meeting passes without much excitement. sunghoon finds himself nodding off around the thirty-minute mark, but a swift kick to the shin from minjeong, as reliable as ever, brings him back to reality. even the house meeting between the slytherin prefects goes in one ear and out the other, mostly because sunghoon spends all of his effort on trying to ignore wonyoung sitting across from him.
finally, hongjoon dismisses them and sunghoon leaps up from his seat, eager to escape the tension building between him and wonyoung. however, as he's speed-walking towards the door, you and hanbin stroll up to him.
"hey, park," hanbin greets him. both of you are wearing matching poorly-contained, shit-eating smirks that sunghoon really doesn't like.
"tell sim i said sorry, yeah?" you raise your eyebrows. "i hope that one of your friends has figured out prior incantatem already."
with that, you stroll past him and out of the prefects' cabin. sunghoon sighs, shoulders slumping, as he follows behind a little more slowly. there goes his wish of having a peaceful hogwarts express ride.
it's not hard for sunghoon to begin piecing together what happened. as he slides open the door to his friends' compartment, he catches jake ranting about "that muggle bitch", waving his arms about wildly with a half-eaten jelly slug clutched in one fist.
sunghoon raises his eyebrows at jake. "i guess this has something to do with why (y/l/n) told me to say 'sorry' to you?"
"she silencio'd me!" jake cries indignantly, pure rage painted across his features.
sunghoon glances across from him at jay and heeseung, whose expressions are somewhere between indignant at you and amused by jake.
"he told her that muggle-borns need to know their place," jay supplies helpfully.
"oh." sunghoon swipes a chocolate frog off of the table between them and slides in next to jake. he can tell that jake is a bit disappointed by his response, but he doesn't really care.
"i wanna get her back." jake changes the subject, crossing his arms across his chest and leaning back.
"a duel?" heeseung asks. jake shakes his head. while all of them are competent duellers, you and hanbin are easily two of the best in hogwarts. maybe the two best duellers in hogwarts. in your first year, you'd managed to persuade flitwick into restarting the duelling club. after that, you'd racked up so many wins between you that a bigger blackboard had to be brought in to accommodate the sheer amount of tally marks hufflepuff was acquiring. in fact, sunghoon's pretty sure that the only person you or hanbin have ever lost to is the other.
"she used a nonverbal silencio, remember?" jay points out. "none of us can do nonverbal spells yet."
sunghoon chews on his chocolate frog thoughtfully. "we're supposed to learn those this year, though. so maybe we can—"
"by the time we do, she'll have moved onto wandless spells or something," jake grumbles, cutting him off. "let's face it. we can't beat her in a duel."
"maybe not," sunghoon acquiesces. "but if we have potions with her, we could sabotage her cauldron...?"
"or blatch her again," jay suggests.
"perhaps," jake muses. "we've already done those things, though. i want to try something new."
sunghoon remembers those two incidents clearly. jay, their residents potions ace, had secretly added bulbadox powder to your cure for boils their first year, causing a "delightfully blue" explosion that had led to a ten-point deduction from hufflepuff. and their third year, heeseung had blatched you while you were pulling a starfish-and-stick, letting you fall meters to a broken ribcage and collarbone. madam hooch had somehow missed the foul, so slytherin was never penalized and heeseung's name became the talk of the town. feeling a small amount of guilt by association, sunghoon had visited you in the hospital wing late one night with flowers, but you'd yelled at him to leave you alone.
the rest of the train ride passes without much incident. content to leave his plans of revenge for later, jake falls asleep quickly on sunghoon's shoulder, snoring loudly into his ear. jay and heeseung follow suit, leaning against one another and filling the compartment with snuffles more deafening than a thunderbird's roar. as a prefect, sunghoon has no such luxury. every few hours, he has to rise, gently push jake's head to the other side (which manages to never wake him up, despite his head inexplicably finding sunghoon's shoulder again the second he sits back down), and sneak out into the corridor to do his patrols. he's lucky that minjeong is always waiting for him and they can chat as they walk up and down the halls together. it helps the time pass by faster and makes it a whole lot less uncomfortable whenever they cross paths with wonyoung and niki.
eventually, the train grinds to a screeching halt and hogsmeade station. smacking their lips, stretching, and yawning, sunghoon's friends slowly rise to their feet. with a quick "see you later", sunghoon ducks out of the compartment once again to fulfill his duty of guiding the younger students to their places.
as he's comforting a teary first-year who confesses that she's feeling homesick, he hears professor flitwick's squeaky voice rising amongst the din. even though he can't see him, the crowd parts for him so that sunghoon can trace his trail through the students.
"jake sim! (y/n) (y/l/n)! with me, now!"
he does not sound pleased. sunghoon catches minjeong's eye over the gaggle of first-years and they exchange ominous glances. oh, well. sunghoon just hopes that they don't get expelled before the term even begins.
you and jake appear in the entrance to the great hall right as sunghoon is sitting down after helping some second-years find their places and mcgonagall is standing to approach the lectern. sunghoon glances behind her; flitwick is already back in his seat, chatting with longbottom as if nothing ever happened. meanwhile, you and jake could not be wearing more different expressions—jake is perfectly jovial, whistling a cheerful tune with a smirk on his face and his hands stuffed into his pockets, while you look like you're doing everything within your will to restrain yourself from reaching to the left and strangling him. you two split apart without acknowledging one another and jake saunters over to his friends with nary a care in the world.
"what happened?" jay whispers loudly as sunghoon scoots to the side and pats the spot that he'd saved.
"nothing too bad." jake shrugs as he takes a seat. "flitwick took twenty house points from both of us. told (y/l/n) that if she did anything like that again, he'd take away her prefect badge. told me that if i spoke that way again, i'd be in midnight detention for the rest of the school year."
sunghoon groans. "you lost us twenty house points already?"
jake shrugs. "we'll earn them back in slughorn's class, easy."
"shut up!" to his right, minjeong lands a hard elbow to sunghoon's ribcage that makes him nearly yelp. however, she gets her point across, and sunghoon turns to face where headmistress mcgonagall is making her typical start-of-term feast. his eyes stray over to the professors standing behind her. slughorn... flitwick... longbottom... scamander... trelawney... rowle...
sunghoon frowns. on the far right, beside sinistra, is a hunched-over, older man in ragged robes that he's never seen before. his hair and beard are long and scraggly, black mixed with gray, and an unpleasant sneer stretches from ear-to-ear across his pale, gaunt face. despite his posture, he manages to tower over the other professors. by the looks of it, he'd be nearing hagrid's height if he stood straight up.
there's something about him that sunghoon doesn't like. he can't place his finger on it, but whenever he looks at the man, he begins to feel queasy. glancing around at the other students, it's clear that they've begun to notice him too, exchanging uneasy whispers. some of the first-years in the front visibly recoil when they notice him leering at them.
for better or for worse, they don't have to wonder who he is for long.
"as many of you may have noticed, professor brindlemore is no longer teaching with us," mcgonagall announces. "she has decided to return to her work with the ministry of magic. taking her place as professor of defense against the dark arts is professor moriatty. would you like to introduce yourself...?"
moriatty glides over to the lectern with too much grace for his spindly, stooped-over frame as heeseung whispers to jay, jake, and sunghoon.
"he's our new dada teacher?" his voice is filled with a mix of fear and concern.
"we're never getting our n.e.w.t.," jay groans, head hanging low in defeat.
"look at (y/l/n)." jake points over to the hufflepuff table. it's not hard to spot you—you're already gesticulating wildly to everyone in your vicinity, talking animatedly. "she's positively fuming."
"makes sense," sunghoon sighs. "best dueller in our year and all."
"he better not be worse than brindlemore," heeseung grumbles. "some of us want to become aurors, you know."
"you got an 'e' in it last year, yeah?" sunghoon comforts him. "i reckon you'll be fine, even if moriatty is shite."
heeseung just huffs, shaking his head. even though sunghoon isn't planning to become an auror, he feels just as much unease. but he resolves it by peeking at the hufflepuff table again, where you've seemed to calm down, no doubt with hanbin's help. if anything, sunghoon reassures himself, he'll just ask you for help.
just as he's always done.
