The book landed on the table with a force that caused both its contents and those sitting at it to jump. Namjoon let out an indignant yelp as his quills tumbled to the floor and Jimin just managed to save the ink bottle before it doused their homework beyond recognition. Both frowned up at hoseok, who stood before them panting in triumph.

“Here, look what I found!” he dropped into one of the chairs and opened the heavy book, flipping rapidly through the yellowed pages. “It’s very old and handwritten to boot! Half the pages aren’t even readable anymore. They were moving that suit of armo r-- you know the one just round the corner from Charms class? -- And this was stuck under the foot. Must have been used to balance it, since the right leg is about three inches shorter than the left. Anyway, I snagged it before anyone else noticed and I looked through it and found this....”

Having tuned out halfway through hoseok's ramble, Jimin was shocked anew when the book landed in the middle of his parchment, sending a few loose paper drifting. Baffled at what could have excited hoseok enough to interrupt their work, he leaned over the book and squinted at the scrawled writing.

Most of the title was badly smeared, leaving ‘Protection B----’ set toward the left of page. Only the top of the following paragraph was legible, the rest blurred as though splattered with water.

‘This spell protects you against your worst enemy by making that enemy unable to bring harm to you. It is the most powerful and effective protection spell of this nature. It wor---’ that was it. The spell itself was completely intact, if a little hard on the eyes. Jimin frowned and read through the first paragraph again, squinting harder the see if he could pick any words out of the blurred ink.

“Hmm, figure you’d get all excited over some stupid old book.” namjoon said and dropped his rescued quills back on the table. Hoseok looked like he wanted to stick his tongue out at him but it was beneath him to do so. Namjoon had a similar look; only he would have added a raspberry noise for effect. Hoseok narrowed his eyes and imagined making a rude gesture. Jimin interrupted this unusual staring contest by nudging namjoon.

“Here, read this.” He slid the book toward his friend. Namjoon leaned over it, forehead lightly brushing Jimin's. Hoseok fidgeted slightly in hus seat as namjoon scanned the page. After a while, his reddish eyebrows jumped in surprise.

“Huh.”

“Oh, is that all you have to say?”

“Huh,” he said again, challenging hoseok through his bangs. Jimin sighed helplessly. The two had been picking at each other since just a few months after summer vacation. There wasn’t anything nasty about it, more like playful teasing, but it got annoying to witness.

“It looks interesting,” Jimin said, “But what would we use it for?”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “For you, nit! Just imagine if You-Know-Who couldn’t hurt you?”

“I already had a protection spell like that,” Jimin muttered, uncomfortable with the memory. “He found a way around that.”

namjoon looked startled and ashamed at his comment. “Well, well...another one can’t hurt!”

“I wasn’t suggesting actually using it.” hoseok emphasized, “I thought we should show it to the teachers first.”

“Why bother with that? We could get all this stuff --” He waved at the page. “-- ourselves. The Professors would just dither about it ‘til there’s no point anymore!”

“But we don’t know exactly how it works or what the dangers are!” hoseok said, “For all we know, it could turn Harry into a wart on You-Know-Who’s neck! Can’t hurt him there for sure, and wouldn’t that be a lovely thing to explain to Professor Dumbledore later?”

Jimin raised an eyebrow at the idea of becoming a wart. He glanced over the page again, noticing that namjoon was right---they could get all of the ingredients on their own. Hmm...have to wait a couple weeks until the stars were the right alignment, but that would give them time to collect everything. He frowned. Did he really want to try this? Of course, any extra protection against the Dark Lord would be worth the effort. But Hoseok was right, maybe...

“Maybe if we tried it with someone else.” Jimin interrupted whatever comeback Namjoon was working on. His friends turned to blink at him. “I mean, someone not super important and do it here at Hogwarts. If something goes wrong, well then, the Professors could fix it.”

They watched him for moment, then looked at each other, eyes communicating in a way that had begun to make Jimin feel horribly left out. Apparently, they reached some kind of an agreement, because Hoseok nodded and Namjoon asked;

“Who?”

Jimin frowned. “Um...someone who hates me, but not enough to kill me if something goes wrong.”

“Snape?” Namjoon suggested.

“Oh heavens, no!” said Hoseok, affronted at the very idea. “He may be a jerk, but he’s still a teacher. Besides, even if it did work, we’d be years paying for it”

“Hoseok's right,” Harry said, “It has to be a student.”

Suddenly, Namjoon's eyes light up. “Jungkook.” He grinned. “No, just think about it! He hates Jimin, but he’s a student and if the spell works, then he won’t let his dad touch Jimin.”

“And if the spell doesn’t work?”

“We hope for the best.”

“Ruddy good plan there.”

“Shut up. So, Jimin?”

Jimin frowned, turning it over in his head a few times. It would be nice to get Jungkook off his back and since his Dad’s buddies with Voldemort---well, that would be an added bonus. He thought for a breath longer then decided.

“Alright, I’ll do it. Let's just do our best now ”

Jeon Jungkook prided himself on many things. His good looks, wealth, magical talent, but most of all, he prided his ability to cause suffering and annoyance to one Park Jimin. The fact that Jimin seemed to have an equal talent in regard to Jungkook himself only worked to goad him. For after all, he was a Jungkook and Jungkook’s were nothing if not vindictive.

Of course, many of his attempts at revenge tended to backfire rather spectacularly, but that was beside the point.

An essential part of park Jimin-torture meant being keenly aware of what he and his reject friends were up to. The sudden absence of leaves on several of Professor Sprout’s rare plants; the now-half-empty bottle of powdered Centaur’s hoof from Potions class; and the muttering insistence of Flich that someone was prowling the halls at night again, had not gone unnoticed by Jungkook. It all added up quickly in his mind and had Jimin stamped all over it. He wondered whether to get involved or not.

Jungkook did some quick mental calculations and decided that after that incident with the frogs and cherry pie, he and Jimin were on the same level in the humiliation department. Jimin was past due for the next plunge into shame. As long as he didn’t take Jungkook with him.

Ignoring a vague sense of foreboding, Jungkook rearranged his schedule to include eavesdropping.

_______________________________

“Now we just have to get Jungkook in the right spot...”

“Actually, that’s the easy part.” When the two boys stared at her with identically blank expressions, Hoseok rolled his eyes. “Really you two. After all this time I would have thought you learned something.”

Enlightenment refused to dawn. With the sigh of one dwelling amidst shocking stupidity, he motioned the two to follow him.

They continued to remain clueless as Hoseok lead them through one hallway into the next. Around this corner, past that portrait, dodging a Hufflepuff here and a ghost there. Jimin and namjoon were just beginning to wonder if he’d lost whatever sense he had, when Hoseok suddenly grabbed them, hauled them behind a half-open door, and announced in an overly loud dramatic ‘whisper’:

“SO! We’ll do it in the south tower on the second floor where there’s an old classroom in the back. Two o’clock should be the perfect time. Right?”

In response to his glare, the boys belatedly and loudly agreed . Somewhere down to their left came a faint noise, a barely stifled “Ha!”, and then rapid footsteps scurrying away. They waited until the footsteps vanished before going back into the hall.

“Wha--how did you--?” namjoon demanded, eyes wide. Hoseok smiled.

“Come on, did you really think Jeon Jungkook hadn't noticed what we’ve been doing? The boy is obsessed! Of course he’d be looking for a chance to foil our plans,” he flipped his hair, “One must simply find the right mouse to catch the snake.” here the dramatic hoseok