Jungkook~
My wand feels heavier than usual today. Not because it's cursed or anything, but because everything's riding on this. My pride, my house, maybe even something else I can't quite name.
The crowd is deafening, scattered across magically floating stands and platforms. Ravenclaws are waving blue banners, cheering loud enough to knock down the Astronomy Tower. I spot Y/N up there, squeezed between Lima and a bouncing Taehyung who's already eating half a bag of roasted chocolate frogs.
She doesn't look happy.
Her eyes are flicking between me and someone else. I don't have to guess who.
Jimin stands a few feet from me on the opposite side of the starting platform, dressed in that smug Slytherin green like he was born to ruin my life. He twirls his wand with practiced ease, lips tugging into that annoying half-smirk. His gaze drifts past me, right to where I know Y/N is sitting.
I clench my jaw.
"Contestants!" booms McGonagall's voice, magically amplified. "The final level consists of three stages. Only one winner may emerge. You may not harm each other directly. You may use magic to advance, defend, or strategize. Are we clear?"
Jimin gives a lazy salute. I nod, tightening my grip on my wand.
Professor Flitwick gestures to the arena. "First stage: The Illusion Forest."
The ground beneath us shimmers, and suddenly we're standing in the middle of an enchanted woodland. The sky above is dark, fog curls around our feet, and the trees keep moving. Literally shifting position like chess pieces from hell.
"Begin!" Flitwick calls.
I charge forward, dodging a whip-like vine that snaps near my ankle. I cast, "Lumos Maxima!" and a blinding light blasts through the mist, exposing a clear path. I dash through before the trees close in again.
I hear footsteps not far behind me. Then a spell whizzes past my shoulder, not harmful—just distracting.
"Careful, Jeon. Wouldn't want to trip," Jimin calls from somewhere behind the trees.
"Not gonna lose to a flirt with a wand," I mutter and cast Protego, blocking another spell from the right. I push through the trees until I see the exit gate ahead—guarded by a massive illusion of a three-headed beast.
I raise my wand and yell, "Expecto Patronum!"
My patronus—a swift falcon—swoops out and distracts the beast long enough for me to dart through the gate.
First stage: cleared.
⸻
Second stage: The Puzzle Bridge.
Floating tiles stretch across a bottomless ravine. Some are real. Some are fake. The rules are brutal—step on the wrong one, and you're teleported back to the start. Lovely.
I begin jumping across tiles, solving the rune patterns etched into them as fast as I can. My brain is firing faster than it ever has, but Jimin's right behind me, gliding across as if he's not even trying.
"You're good," he says. "But not unbeatable."
"You wish."
Suddenly, the tile under me flashes red.
Oh no.
A heartbeat later, I'm zapped back to the first tile.
"Damn it!" I growl.
Jimin's nearly at the end, but one wrong calculation and he gets reset. Come on, come on—
I narrow my eyes at the rune pattern. A Slytherin would go for the shortcut. So the trap must be hidden in the obvious path.
I take a longer route, slowing down, checking each rune carefully. When I finally leap onto the last tile and it glows blue, relief floods my chest.
Second stage: passed.
And Jimin's right beside me.
Of course he is.
⸻
Final stage: The Duel of Wits.
We're teleported back to a dueling platform in the middle of the audience. Wind howls around us, but we're standing on opposite ends now. It's not about brute strength. It's about magical intellect—trickery, precision, nerve.
The flags are raised. The round begins.
We circle each other slowly.
Jimin makes the first move—"Obscuro!" A blindfold charm zooms toward me.
"Aegis!" I shout, countering it with a mirror shield. It deflects back toward him, but he twirls away with a laugh.
"Feisty."
I grind my teeth. "Focused."
He sends a barrage of hexes my way. I parry them one by one, until the last one nearly clips my shoulder.
Then I see it. An opening. I dive low, cast a freezing charm on the floor under his feet. Jimin slips, just for a second.
I don't hesitate. "Petrificus Totalus!"
His body locks mid-air and lands hard on the platform with a thud. He groans because his head doesn't freeze like the rest of his body. The sight is really satisfying for me. But before I finish it for good, The Slytherin has to say something that freezes me too.
"I might've lost the tournament," he says, looking back at me now, voice calm and fucking smug. "But I definitely won her heart."
I stop breathing.
"...The hell you mean by that?"
Jimin tilts his head and glances up at the stands. At her. At Y/N.
His eyes sparkle with something vicious. "I can tell by how eager she was when I kissed her."
I don't think.
I don't breathe.
I react.
My fist connects with his face hard and fast, the sound of the hit cracking through the arena louder than any spell I've cast today.
Gasps erupt from every direction, but none hit me harder than the one I hear from Y/N. Like I just shattered something between us.
But it's already broken.
"I told you she's fucking off limits, hyung!" I bark, ready to punch again, but a hand grabs my wrist.
Y/N.
"Jungkook—it's done! You won! Stop it—!"
"You kissed him?!" It comes out more like a statement than a question.
Her eyes widen, like she didn't expect me to say it out loud. She flinches, and that alone confirms it.
She looks at Jimin, like he's the one who betrayed her. "You promised!"
"So it's true..." My voice breaks just slightly, and it makes everything worse.
Y/N turns to me again, eyes glossy, hands shaking. "Jungkook, I can explain—"
I yank my arm back, stepping away like her touch burns.
She's crying now, really crying, saying my name over and over like that's gonna fix anything. Her words are trembling, falling apart as fast as I am.
Then the flags flare up in blue.
"Winner: Jungkook of Ravenclaw!"
The stands explode in cheers.
But I don't even hear any of it.
I'm staring at Jimin's frozen form and guilty face. And then at Y/N, whose crying and pleading to talk to me.
All I feel is... tired.
I won.
So why does my chest feel like I lost something? Maybe because the fact that my best friend is lying behind my back?
My throat tightens as I shake my head, breath catching like I can't pull in enough air.
"You two deserve each other."
And that's the last thing I say...
Before everything fades to black.