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Jeno spends the morning of the first Quidditch match of the year staring at Mark Lee. He’s turned away from him, sat at the Gryffindor table, and his hair’s been cut over the summer. It was blonde and frizzy last year but he’s returned to a blue-ish shade of black he hasn’t had since he was fourteen. Jeno studies Mark’s shorn nape, wondering how it’d feel beneath his fingers, eyes travelling to the back of his neck, where the skin is healing from sunburn, and down to the slope of his shoulders, filling out his robes that were once a tad too loose.
Next to him, Donghyuck is arguing with Jaemin about the match, having shoved himself in between them ten minutes ago, his red and gold tie slung around his neck. He doesn’t notice Jaemin periodically dunking the tip of it into a glass of water. Jeno ignores them—though his ears perk at Donghyuck’s starstruck ‘Renjun spoke to me this morning’ and then immediately retreat when he continues with ‘He said Hope you get hit by a Bludger today, Donghyuck, good luck!’—and rolls his shoulders. A mug of coffee materialises next to his plate of English breakfast, the liquid still swirling around from the chocolate syrup that’d been poured in by Pip, a kitchen elf with a soft spot for Jeno, just the way he likes it. He lifts it up to his mouth, and contemplates whether he should go up to Mark.
He doesn’t have to. Mark comes up to him.
“Looking forward to today, Jeno?” he opens with, mouth wide in a grin that could be interpreted as taunting on anyone else.
But on Mark it’s a gentle crackling fire, and Jeno—he swallows a half-chewed piece of sausage before letting himself speak and thanks the spirit of Salazar Slytherin that it doesn’t get trapped in his throat. He won’t let himself become flustered around Mark this year. No, this year he’s finally winning Mark over. “Looking forward to kicking your ass, yeah.”
Mark scoffs, still smiling. “Sure, dude. By the way, I’ve been meaning to give you something but I forgot to bring it to breakfast. Could you meet me after the match?”
Donghyuck’s head appears next to Jeno, and he drawls, “Our frigid captain is finally trying to get some. Never thought I’d see the day,” (“Shut the fuck up, Donghyuck,” Mark retorts, wringing his hands, “It’s not like that.”) and Jeno shoves him away, Donghyuck’s protests muffled beneath his palm.
“Okay, five by the Lake?” Don’t turn red don’t turn red don’t turn red, Jeno screams at himself.
“See you then,” Mark says, before he’s whisked away by some of his teammates.
“I’ve been meaning to give you something but I forgot to bring it to breakfast,” Donghyuck imitates when Mark is gone, sitting up straight and stiff like Mark does. Jaemin snickers. “Wow, what a line.”
Gryffindor vs Slytherin, usually a vicious and prolonged game, is over within twenty minutes, with Donghyuck getting the Quaffle past Jisung and into the hooped goal posts a total of ten times, and: Jeno is good but Mark is always better. He catches the Snitch from right under Jeno’s nose after Donghyuck’s tenth goal.
“Good game!” Jeno can hear Mark shout to his teammates, to which Donghyuck grumbles, “Shit game more like, I was ready for war.”
“It was pretty boring,” Jeno comments to the Slytherin next to him as he undoes his shoelaces.
Siyeon rolls her eyes, swinging her Beater’s bat over her shoulder. “And tell me, where you when Mark Lee caught the Snitch?”
Jeno sticks his tongue out at her and doesn’t respond. If Siyeon knew he was thinking about kissing Mark underneath the beech tree by the Black Lake when the Snitch flew past him, she wouldn’t hesitate to feed his guts to whatever lurked beneath the water.
Mark is already waiting for Jeno at the Lake by the time he arrives. He’s leaning against the trunk of the beech tree, legs crossed over each other, eyes closed. He looks like a painting, the beginnings of sunset dusting his face. Jeno feels it coming. That yearning clawing its way through his chest, a thirst like he’d walked through a desert for a month without a sip of water and the mere touch of Mark’s skin would feel like salvation.
He almost turns back to the castle.
“Jeno!” Mark calls out. “Come sit by me.”
So Jeno goes and sits by him. “You’re not cold?” he asks, gesturing at Mark’s t-shirt, ADIDAS emblazoned across the front.
Mark shakes his head, though he rubs at the gooseflesh on his arm when a breeze passes them.
Jeno shrugs off his cardigan and lays it over Mark’s shoulders, and before Mark can get in a word, he says, “So what was it you wanted to give me? Donghyuck says it was just an excuse.”
“Donghyuck’s dumb,” Mark says. Jeno can’t tell if it’s just the light, but his cheeks are the faintest pink. Mark rummages through the pocket of his pants, and pulls something out. His palm unfurls. In the centre of it, “It was the first Snitch you ever caught. Found it in the bottom of one of my trunks.”
“I—you had that?” Does he know? That Jeno lost his balance trying to catch that Snitch because he’d made eye contact with Mark? That it was his face he saw last when he was hit by one of Johnny Seo’s rogue Bludgers, his fingertips grasping at the golden wings?
“Yeah,” Mark says, looking sheepish. It springs up from his hand, whizzing over to Jeno, around and around his head until it makes him dizzy.
“So,” Jeno blurts out.
“So.”
“Do you have somewhere to be?”
“Nah,” Mark says. The side of his mouth pulls up. “I do have a paper for Ancient Runes that I’m avoiding.” Jeno laughs in understanding, and barely holds back the squeak that bubbles up his throat when Mark tacks on, “But I’d rather be here with you.”
They talk until it gets too cold to talk, and then they walk side by side up to the castle, huddled close to each other for warmth (later, when Jeno relays the story over pancakes, Chenle will butt in and say, “Congrats on your date!” loud enough that he’s sure even the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest heard him.)
They reach the stairwell in the Entrance Hall. Jeno opens his mouth to bid Mark goodnight until—“Oh my God, marry me, Mark,” comes a shout. There’s a skidding as Yukhei slides down the bannister of the stairs, landing with an echoing thump and immediately latching his body onto Mark. They’d look comical, Yukhei’s oversized frame hanging off Mark’s small lithe one, if Jeno wasn’t seeing green. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re beautiful?” Yukhei breathes into Mark’s ear.
Mark pulls a face, elbowing him aside. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell of whiskey?”
“Mmm, Jungwoo stole it from Professor Bones’ stores.” Yukhei doesn’t even notice Jeno’s there, stroking Mark’s head with a sort of roughness a child would a puppy. “Ugh, I just can’t stop looking at you. Were you always so hot? I feel like I wanna, I dunno, eat you.”
Mark blanches, letting out a wheeze or a giggle or something in between. Something in Jeno’s brain finally clicks, and he steps forward, to Mark’s visible relief. “We should get him to bed,” he says, wiping a clammy hand against his trousers.
It’s a joint effort, getting Yukhei to stay put and quiet in his dorm room but they do it. Mark walks Jeno back to the Fat Lady so he can make the trek to the Slytherin dorms, using the back of his hand to rub away the slobbery kiss Yukhei had left on his cheek.
“Are you okay?” Jeno asks, hands on either side of entrance when the portrait swings open. The Fat Lady clears her throat.
Mark shrugs. “Yeah, it’s fine, I’m used to it. It’s not his fault.” He’s still wearing Jeno’s cardigan, and Jeno’s stomach goes all flippy floppy, forgetting he should ask for it back.
He needs to say something. This is his year, his last chance to confess before they graduate and go their separate ways. Veela blood or not, there won’t be another Mark Lee for a thousand years. “It’s not your fault either,” Jeno says instead, wincing as it leaves him.
It wasn’t the response Mark had been expecting, Jeno can tell, but Jeno doesn’t anticipate the brilliant smile Mark flashes at him. “Goodnight, Jeno,” is all he says.
Jeno leans against the Fat Lady when she closes shut, taking a deep shuddery breath that sounds an awful lot like “I’m in love with him, holy shit,” and only bolts down the corridor after she yells, “I will tell him if you don’t leave, Slytherin boy!” The Snitch zips after him.
Mark Lee transferred from Ilvermorny at age thirteen into Hogwarts’ second year class. He was sorted into Gryffindor in a private meeting in the Headmaster’s office. No one knew about his Veela heritage for half the year, and Mark never advertised it despite all the commotion surrounding his arrival:
There was Taeyong, a Ravenclaw senior, falling down a flight of stairs when Mark hugged him; Yoonho trying to spike Mark’s pumpkin soup with a love potion; Hina starting a Mark Lee fanclub in the Hufflepuff Basement, fueled by secret intel given to her by Donghyuck and Jaemin; and even Renjun turning into a tomato whenever he had to work with Mark in Potions.
And there was Jeno:
The first time he met Mark properly was outside the Gamekeeper’s hut in their third year. Jeno had been running through the pumpkin patch, chasing after his Chinese Fireball model. The dragon was small but fast and he named it Naruto after the Muggle anime Ten (a half-blood Hufflepuff who’d tutored him in second-year Transfiguration) had played for him at his house over the summer.
He’d unthinkingly slammed into Mark when Naruto crawled up Mark’s robes, enticing these hiccupy bursts of laughter from Mark that made Jeno’s chest burst with adoration. That—that was a new feeling.
“I’m soooo sorry,” Jeno said as he scrambled back, his voice high and scratchy, just on the precipice of puberty. “Donghyuck Lee gave it to me. Now I think he might’ve been pulling my leg.”
Naruto poked out of Mark’s collar, and Mark laughed again, lifting the dragon into his arms. It puffed a breath of hot air into Mark’s face, before settling down into the crook of his elbow, much like a cat. “It’s adorable,” Mark said. He looked up. “You’re Jeno, right?”
Jeno looked down, at his muddy shoes. “Yes. Um, I never thanked you for—for the flowers you sent to the Hospital Wing last year.”
“Oh.” Mark’s eyes widened, like he’d been caught. “That was nothing. Just felt bad you got hurt, is all.”
Jeno grinned, chest puffing up a little. “Still caught the Snitch, didn’t I? There was nothing to feel bad for.”
There was a beat. Then Mark shoved Naruto towards Jeno and blurted out, “Jeno, my mom is a Veela,” and Naruto, startled awake, breathed fire onto Jeno’s robes.
Later in the Hospital Wing, the matron tended to the mild burn on Jeno’s arm, and Jeno turned to Mark. He said, “That makes a lot of sense actually.”
Mark look pained. “Would you like flowers?”
“Maybe a new scarf?”
(Thanks to Donghyuck, the whole school knew about Mark by lunch the following day.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to return Naruto,” Jeno told Donghyuck, laying the green and silver scarf Mark bought him over his lap. Mark was nowhere to be seen in the Great Hall, but he’d stopped by the Slytherin Dungeon to pass the package along to the first person he saw. It was Jaemin, who unfortunately for Jeno, was also the first person to clock that the flowers he’d received last year were from Mark too. Jeno didn’t hear the end of it for the next year.
Donghyuck pouted. “Just wanted you to understand my struggle.”
“What?”
“I’ve got my own Chinese Fireball,” Donghyuck explained. He turned to Ravenclaw’s table, winking at Renjun, who barely glanced up before he covered his face from view with a copy of the Daily Prophet.)
Jeno has never been able to procure a Patronus, nor does he know of anyone in Hogwarts who’s done so yet (except for Renjun, but Renjun can do everything.) He and Jaemin have stayed up in the Slytherin common room past curfew numerous times, their wands held close to their bodies, repeating Expecto patronum in loud whispers to no avail.
So when a lioness leaps onto his bed one rainy Saturday morning, leaving silvery dust in its wake, Jeno drops his book and shrieks. Within a second, Jaemin is there, pulling away his canopy, and when he sees the animal, he shrieks too.
She stops moving, sitting back on her hind legs, but without giving them a chance to recover, she opens her mouth, and out comes Mark’s voice: “I still haven’t got the hang of this but uh, Jeno, if you’re seeing this, could you meet me in the library after lunch? I want to give your cardigan back. And,” the lioness harrumphs, waiting for Mark to continue speaking, “if you want to, maybe we could study together?”
Jaemin snorts, falling against Jeno’s quilt. “Bloody hell, that’s romantic.”
Jeno ignores him, wondering if Mark would hear him if he replied to his Patronus or if he’d just look stupid. He opts instead to reach out and touch the lion. She feels as solid as she does wispy, and she dissolves beneath his fingers, seeping out of the sides of his bed like she was never there.
“I’m going to shower,” Jeno says immediately, throwing off his covers.
“It’s only ten!” Jaemin yells.
“Whatever!” Jeno yells back, grabbing his towel.
“Make sure it’s a cold one, loverboy!”
Jeno doesn’t see Mark at lunch in the Great Hall so he wraps him up a sandwich, knotting the string into a tiny bow, and sneaks it into the library, where Mark is hunched over a study carrel, a stack of Runes books next to his head. Jeno’s cardigan is folded neatly over the back of his chair.
“Almost done?” Jeno leans over Mark’s study carrel, chin resting on the partition.
Mark flops against the other side. His cheek is squished into the wood, mouth puffing out. “Barely started. How are you not already drowning in NEWTs? I’m dying, man.”
Jeno shrugs. He drops the sandwich onto the centre of Mark’s scroll. “I am dying, but I’m just good at hiding it. Plus,” he wiggles his eyebrows, “It helps when you have Ravenclaw connections.”
Mark rolls his eyes, poking at the sandwich with his quill. “What’s this?”
“It’s not a Dungbomb, Mark,” Jeno says, “Just a sandwich. Swear on my life.”
“Hm, why should I trust a Slytherin?”
“Swear on your life?”
Something flashes across Mark’s face, before he jokes, “My life means that much to you?”
“That’s why I got you the sandwich,” Jeno says, barely holding himself back from audibly sucking in a breath.
“Thank you, Jeno,” Mark replies, sincerely this time. “I’m always missing meal time, food’s all cleared up by the time I get there.”
“Tell me the next time you’re late. I can get into the kitchens,” Jeno divulges, steepling his fingers.
“Of course you can,” Mark says drily.
“You can send me a Patronus.” Jeno smirks as Mark’s head snaps up, as though he wasn’t expecting Jeno to bring it up. “It’s neat, do you think you could show me the ropes?”
“Right now?” Mark is shutting his book, ears red.
“It’s a date,” Jeno says, pushing himself off onto his heels.
“It’s a date,” Jeno echoes, falling back onto his bed. “I told him it was a date and he laughed in my face.”
Donghyuck laughs in his face too, from where he’s sprawled across Jaemin’s bed. Jaemin at least seems sympathetic, his hand soothingly carding through Jeno’s hair.
“Why are you here again?” Jeno directs at Donghyuck, giving him the stink-eye.
Donghyuck shrugs. “The Sorting Hat made me an honorary Slytherin when it let me choose, just sayin’.” He’s been just sayin’ this since first year, to the point where the Head of Slytherin tried to drag Donghyuck to the Headmaster’s office to be re-sorted so he’d stop trying to slither into their dorms and sleep in Jeno’s bed. The Sorting Hat wouldn’t budge—I cannot stamp out a flame that has already been lit, it had said. That ended up becoming a line Donghyuck was also partial to quoting to get out of detention.
“Maybe I should just give up,” Jeno sighs.
“Come again,” Donghyuck says, moving onto his stomach. “That doesn’t sound like the sleazeball we all know and love.”
“I don’t want to get into Mark’s pants—okay, maybe eventually—I just want to like,” Jeno pulls Jaemin closer to him, burying his face in his shoulder, “hold his hand. And go to Hogsmeade together, and kiss him in Madam Puddifoot’s on Valentine’s Day and—”
“Wow,” Jaemin cuts him off.
Donghyuck’s jaw is on the floor, rolling across the obsidian black tiling.
Jeno sits up. “What? Is that weird?”
“It’s not weird, it’s just that—” Jaemin starts to say.
“All of us had a crush on Mark at some point. You’re just the only one who never got over it,” Donghyuck says, slowly and reverently.
Jeno feels his face heating up. “Oh.”
He clearly likes you back, Jaemin had told him, the heel of his palm digging into this one knot in Jeno’s shoulder. He’d held his wand all wrong when practicing the Patronus charm with Mark because he was nervous, and it hit him hours later. But he’s too used to people only liking him for his Veela charm. You have to make it clear you like him for him.
Jaemin was right.
Only Jeno is deaf to the voice of reason unless it’s screaming in his ears, clawing at his feet and begging him to listen. And Jaemin would never.
So:
“Have you ever like,” Jeno blurts out. Mark’s hand is on Jeno’s wrist, the other on his waist, guiding him into the right stance. His warm breath leaves a trail of goosebumps along Jeno’s neck, and it’s all Jeno can do not to turn around and press their mouths together. “Used your, you know, Veela charm to seduce someone?”
Mark pulls away like he’d been burnt. “What?”
“I—” Jeno stutters, “Forget I asked that.”
“And why,” Mark hisses, “did you ask that?” When he’s angry at Jeno, Jaemin becomes ice cold, eyes dark and lifeless, but Mark is fire, cheeks burning up and teeth bared. Like a Veela.
Jeno almost drops to his knees. To apologise, to profess his undying love for Mark, anything, and Mark knows it, his eyebrow raised, waiting.
But Jeno isn’t a Gryffindor. He isn’t brave. He drags his eyes away from Mark’s beautiful, deathly face and runs.
“If you disappear into your robes any more, I’m afraid we might lose you forever,” Jaemin comments. He laughs, eyes flitting between Jeno and the Gryffindor table, where Donghyuck has finally decided to grace his actual house with his presence. He’s next to Mark, stuffing his face with chocolate chip pancakes. Mark barely touches his plate.
“That’s the point,” Jeno says, “Fuck, I should’ve just stayed in bed. Why’d I let you drag me here?”
“So you can go up to the Gryffindor table, tell Mark you wanna talk, apologise and live happily ever after,” Jaemin says. He cuts up a piece of bacon and waves it underneath Jeno’s nose.
Jeno shakes his head. “I think you’re missing a few steps there. Like the part where I tell him I’ve been in love with him for ages and can we get married and he says ‘Oh, Jeno, I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me—’”
“At least have your coffee, Jeno. It’ll go cold and that weird house elf is going to come to our dorm room again and cry over his master not taking care of himself. You know what, I’ll probably join him.”
Jeno looks at Mark. Mark is looking at the ceiling. “I told Mark I’d take him down to the kitchens. I’ve never even taken you down to the kitchens.”
Jaemin takes the opportunity to shove a spoonful of porridge into Jeno’s open mouth. “Just apologise.”
It’s nearing curfew when Jeno gets a visit from Mark’s lioness. (“I know it’s kinda lame to name your Patronus, but I called her Marceline,” Mark had told him. “You know? Like the Adventure Time character?”
Jeno didn’t know. In fact, outside of whatever Ten shows him, he knows next to nothing about Muggle culture. But he’d nodded and said, “Do you remember that Chinese Fireball model I once had? Its name was Naruto.”
Mark grinned, a hand covering his mouth. “Sick.”)
Jeno is in the empty Great Hall, writing a paper for Defence Against the Dark Arts that he’s been putting off for a week. He’d been kicked out of the library an hour ago but he wasn’t ready to return to the Slytherin Dungeon. Now he’s avoiding Mark and Jaemin, and by extension, Donghyuck (Donghyuck however was oblivious to the fact, and kept Jeno company in the library, absentmindedly practicing his Transfiguration on Jeno’s hair as he talked about his day, how cute the freckles Renjun had made appear on his face were, and pointedly not Mark. It’d taken him twenty minutes to change it back to chestnut brown. Jeno was afraid he’d have to walk into class tomorrow with a hot pink quiff, but secretly he was grateful that Donghyuck had stuck around.)
Marceline startles him into a coughing fit, jumping onto the Ravenclaw table where Jeno is sat, a gentle roar rumbling in her chest to get his attention. Jeno holds his abdomen, trying to catch his breath. She grows restless and paws at his arm, going right through him, until he wheezes, “Give me a second, you overgrown pest.”
She tilts her head, and Jeno can almost see Mark’s hurt pout in her silver eyes.
“I’m not apologising,” Jeno says. His eyes widen. “I mean, I am. Going to apologise. Just not for calling you a pest. But maybe that too, if you really want me to. Uh, Mark, are you in there?”
There’s no response. Just Jeno and Marceline and the ghost of Bloody Baron lurking nearby. Then there’s a growl, deep in Marceline’s stomach, and oh. Jeno understands.
“Meet me outside the Great Hall in five?” He reaches out to stroke Marceline’s head, and she spills out from his fingertips like last time. He watches her leave, sucking out the light in the Great Hall, and starts gathering his things.
Mark is waiting for him by the entrance. A tight smile and a hi and anything Jeno was going to say gets clogged in his throat. He reaches out for Mark’s hand to lead the way and then remembers he probably shouldn't do that either so they stand there in awkward limbo for a good ten seconds, before Jeno can speak again. “Um,” he says, “We have to go down to the Hufflepuff Basement.”
“You know where that is?” Mark asks. The blank look on his face is replaced with a mildly impressed one and Jeno exhales in relief.
“Yeah, I—uh, dated a Hufflepuff last year,” he explains, wishing he didn’t have to bring it up.
Mark hums. “Naeun Lee?” Jeno must’ve seemed surprised because he continues with a shrug, “You think no one ever noticed you two sucking face in the Three Broomsticks every weekend?”
“Point taken,” Jeno says. That was really all there was to it; snogging, snogging on dates, more snogging. He can’t even remember who got bored first.
They’re in the corridor leading to the kitchens now, and Jeno directs them to a painting of a fruit bowl. He reaches up to tickle the pear, turning back to watch Mark awe over it squirming and giggling. Before long, the pear transforms into a doorknob that opens up to the kitchens, large and homely with its high ceilings and constant sound, the chatter of elves and the clanging of pots and pans.
“Master Jeno!” Pip appears at his side in an instant. He’s got a hand on his hip. “You haven’t come by in a while.”
“I’ve been eating well,” Jeno laughs, “Haven’t needed any midnight snacks.”
“With all due respect, master, I know that means you haven’t been eating well at all. You’re awfully skinny.”
Behind Jeno, Mark snorts.
Pip’s ears perk. “Who’s this?”
Jeno steps aside to reveal Mark. Mark gives Pip a tiny wave. “This is Mark Lee, my—my—friend.”
There’s a moment—it lasts an inhale—where Jeno wonders how a house elf might react to Veela blood, before Pip is complaining, “Do none of your friends eat?” Mark exhales.
“Mark’s been poking at his breakfast for three days,” Jeno says, hoping to hurry Pip along. They’re already out well past curfew. “That’s why I brought him here. It’s an emergency.”
Pip’s eyes bulge and his tiny body straightens, springing into action. “Please, take a seat here, Master Mark, I will bring you a feast.”
“Oh, there’s no need, I only wanted a—okay, you’re gone.” Mark plops down onto a creaky wooden chair next to the wall, and Jeno stands beside him, face pressed against the cool stone, sleepy. Mark tilts his head back, looking up at Jeno. “How’d you know I haven’t been eating?”
“I was just—” Guessing, Jeno wants to say. “Honestly, I was watching you,” he mumbles instead. “I was worried about you.”
Jeno’s hand hangs loosely by his side, and Mark squeezes it. “Thank you for bringing me here. I didn’t want you to think I was, I dunno, using you when we haven’t really been talking. But I was really hungry,” he adds, sheepishly.
“About that, I wanted to apolo—”
“It’s okay,” Mark says, taking Jeno’s hand again. He interlocks their fingers. Swallows the key. “I learnt something about you that day. And I forgive you.”
“What’s that?”
A table pops up in front of them, and a chair knocks against the backs of Jeno’s knees, causing him to fall atop it. “Bon appetit!” Pip exclaims, before leaving them again.
“Merlin’s beard,” Mark breathes. “He wasn’t kidding about a feast.”
Jeno laughs, elbowing Mark as he grabs a fork. “Well, dig in then.”
It’s two in the morning when they sneak through the castle to return to their respective dorms, bellies full and throats tired from all the talking they’d done, about their futures (Mark wants to be a Healer, Jeno wants to play Quidditch professionally), their family and friends, whether aliens exist, and everything in between. They hadn’t talked about what Jaemin calls the Jeno Has No Filter Incident, but when Mark escorts Jeno right up to the entrance of the Slytherin Dungeon, he kisses Jeno’s cheek, so he’s pretty sure all is forgiven.
What Jeno thinks he should be doing: taking things with Mark slow.
What everyone else thinks Jeno should be doing: asking Mark to be his boyfriend, goddamit (Jaemin’s words, not his.)
But as usual, Jeno and logical advice mix like oil and water. He bides his time, trying to concoct a grand romantic gesture that will make it clear to Mark how much he likes him (he buys flowers at Hogsmeade but they wilt within a metre of the Slytherin Dungeon; he writes a song, but Donghyuck likens it to the sound of a baby Mandrake; hell, he even tries to cook.) In that time, they hang out more than ever. With midterms approaching, he and Mark spend hours cooped up in the library, with cauldron cakes and steaming coffee Pip apparates to them. Sometimes Donghyuck or Jaemin join them, though Jeno puts an end to that when they start kneeing him a little too hard under the desk and Mark’s green tea almost spills onto Quintessence: A Quest (“Do you usually play footsie with those two?” Mark’d asked, eyebrows raised. Jeno shook his head, nose nearly buried in his book.)
That is until Mark shows up in the Slytherin common room at midnight a week after midterms. Jaemin trails behind him, and with an apologetic thumb’s up Jeno’s way, disappears into their room.
Jeno had been practicing the Patronus charm. He’s been getting the hang of it recently, actually able to form the skeleton of what appeared to be a doe, but he wanted to fully master the Patronus before he showed Mark.
“Why haven’t you asked me out yet?” Mark spits, before Jeno can even say hello. His doe stops short, and Mark looks at it briefly before turning back to Jeno. The double take he does makes Jeno snicker. “Wait—is that a Patronus?”
“Nah, it’s a ghost,” Jeno says, standing up from the sofa.
“Oh, okay,” Mark accepts. “So, why haven’t you—”
“It’s a Patronus, dumbass,” Jeno cuts him off. “My Patronus.”
“Holy shit, you did it,” Mark marvels. He squints, tilting his head. “I can’t tell what it is.”
“A doe,” Jeno tells him. It’s prancing around them again, happy.
“So Marceline could eat your Patronus?”
“I’d like to see her try,” Jeno taunts, twirling his wand in his hand. Mark moves closer, until Jeno can see the crackling fire reflected in his eyes. “I named her Princess Bubblegum.”
To think, Jeno had almost set the kitchens on fire in the name of romance, when all it took was the words Princess Bubblegum for Mark to grab his face and kiss him on the mouth (he’ll have to ask Ten if they can watch this Adventure Time show during the summer. Or maybe—maybe he’ll ask Mark.)
Mark pulls back after a second, takes one look at Jeno’s shell-shocked face, and then kisses him again, with more tongue and less teeth. Jeno’s wand clatters to the ground, Princess Bubblegum vanishing into the flames, and he shoves Mark onto the couch, clambering on top of him.
“I like you so much,” Mark murmurs into Jeno’s mouth, his voice wet and muffled. He leans back, grimacing. “I’m sorry, is that weird?”
Jeno’s lips are already on Mark’s neck. “Maybe, but,” he scrapes his teeth along the underside of Mark’s chin, and Mark hiccups, “I like you too.”
“I know,” is Mark’s answering groan.
Jeno sits up. He looks Mark in the eye and squashes down the monster that scrambles up his throat. I’m the deer, he’s the lion, he tells it. “You know?” It comes out squeakier than he intended, like he’s thirteen again.
Mark nods. “I know. Because when I was mad at you for asking that dumb question—” (“Sorry!”) “—that was pure, unadulterated Veela me. I can’t spurt scaly wings and throw fireballs like a full Veela but in that state, I guess you could say my power is impossible to resist.”
“And I—”
“Resisted.”
“I walked away because I was a coward, not because I resisted you or whatever,” Jeno protests, head hung low.
“No,” Mark says, brushing away Jeno’s bangs. He lifts his chin up, making Jeno look at him again. “Maybe that’s what you thought you were doing but that was the moment I knew that you—” His cheeks colour. “You know.”
“Like you?” Jeno grins.
Mark huffs, lips stretched over his teeth. “Yeah, that.”
“So why’d you give me the silent treatment?”
“‘Cause I was still pissed off, idiot,” Mark says, smacking Jeno’s stomach. “And just for the record, I haven’t used my charm on anyone like that.”
“I’m just saying, if I was a Veela.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “Why did I decide to date a Slytherin.”
“We’re dating?” Jeno smirks, a hand edging under the hem of Mark’s robes. Mark slaps it away.
“I thought me bursting in here and yelling ‘Why haven’t you asked me out yet?’ made that clear.”
“I still haven’t asked you out yet.”
Thirty seconds of silence, Jeno’s hand making it all the way to Mark’s belly button before Mark drags it back out, and Jaemin opening his door to check on them and screaming, “That bitch Donghyuck owes me three Firewhiskeys for getting you two together before him!” (“You’re a fucking lightweight, Nana, have fun!” Jeno yells back.)
“Mark Lee?”
“Yes?”
“Will you go out with me?”
Mark leans up to kiss him, smiling as he does so.
