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The year Minseok graduates from Hogwarts is a particularly busy one: Dumbledore is temporarily sacked, Umbridge takes over, Voldemort is revealed to have returned to power, and a good number of Minseok's yearmates immediately rethink their chosen career paths with all those eligible enlisting for Auror training.

It's all well and good for them -- only it isn't, his pure-blood friends insisted, not with a genocidal spector haunting the wizarding community once again -- but Minseok remains steadfast in his childhood decision to follow in his family's footsteps and work at his father's modest, muggle architecture firm. He may have spent seven school years in wizarding school, but he spent eleven years before that and the summers in-between doodling on blueprints and building scale-model houses with his father. Graduation hasn't changed anything. This Voldemort character hasn't either, even if he has been hearing horror stories about him since his first day at Hogwarts.

"How very Hufflepuff of you," Lu Han owls him a month after he returns to his hometown, "not surprised to see that stubborn streak showing." There's a photo attached of his fellow trainees, familiar faces dressed in billowing crimson dress robes and waving merrily at Minseok from within the frame.

Minseok can recognize a couple of his housemates in the background, and it's almost jarring how easily they've shed their old black and yellow for red. A few Ravenclaws stick out to him as well, along with the stray Slytherin standing awkwardly off to the side, but the majority are Gryffindors like Lu Han though, who all look right at home in the fore-front of things as always. Some people are just more suited for that sort of thing, Hogwarts has taught him with its carefully divided house lines and rivalries.

"If you're trying to guilt me into joining you, it's not going to work," he writes back, carefully keeping his ink from seeping through the parchment he's writing on and ruining the papers underneath containing the details of his first commission.

Lu Han sends him another photo of his circle of crimson-clad hero wannabes toasting at a London pub in response, but otherwise lets him off more gracefully than he would have if they were back at Hogwarts and forced to deal with each other on a daily basis. Instead, he asks all about how Minseok is readjusting to muggle life with the typical well-meaning curiosity of someone who's grown up taking floating plates of food and house elves for granted. It's only because they're friends -- best friends, Lu Han would insist with those creepy sparkly eyes and a tight grip on his shoulder -- that Minseok even bothers trying to make finally getting his driver's license and watching movies with his younger sister sound interesting.

That's Minseok's life for the longest time, living quietly in the muggle world while only keeping up with the going-ons of the wizarding community through his subscription to the Daily Prophet and Lu Han's letters. It's far more peaceful than whatever mess is going on in London, what with the Ministry changing leadership and new security scares happening everyday.

"Inferi! Can you believe it?" Lu Han rambles the one time he has enough free time to apparate back into Minseok's life. "There are people saying You-Know-Who is using inferi!"

"Wouldn't be a stretch. Didn't the history books say he's used giants and dementors before?" Minseok is only half-listening, hunched over his desk as he tries to figure out how to convince his latest clients that clearing out a plot of trees inhabited by an endangered species of bowtruckles would be a Bad Idea without actually mentioning said bowtruckles and breaching the statute of wizarding secrecy. "Last I remember, Potter was saying the same thing even if no one thought he was serious."

Lu Han's shoulders slump so much even Minseok has to notice it. "You're right. Fuck, what was that spell to hold them off again?"

"The Firestorm charm or the Fire Rope charm, if Moody or whoever we had sixth year wasn't shitting us."

It comes out automatically, as if Minseok was answering yet another professor back in a Hogwarts classroom in hopes of earning a few house points. But instead of congratulating him like back in their school days, Lu Han immediately goes quiet instead, and Minseok knows Lu Han's eyes are narrowing in on the back of his head based off of the chill that suddenly runs through his body.

"You were one of our year's top DADA students," Lu Han says, his voice uncharacteristically soft, "so what are you doing here when the wizarding world actually needs you in the field?"

Minseok sets down his pencil and turns around to look at Lu Han. There are wrinkles already forming on his face, dark circles under his eyes. Lu Han, who had always been full of life and energy back in the corridors of Hogwarts, looks so tired. He's always heard about how rigorous the Auror program could be -- of Lu Han's group, maybe only two or three would get through all three years of training, though if they were lucky enough the others could possibly have a shot at being hit-wizards instead -- but this is the first time he's seen the effects up close.

"I need you watching my back," Lu Han says. "Aren't Hufflepuffs all about loyalty?"

Several minutes pass before Minseok suddenly looks away, his face red. He turns back around and fumbles around his desk before finally pulling out several rolls of parchment and passing them over for Lu Han to read.

"I know magical architecture isn't a huge field anymore," he starts as he watches Lu Han open up one of the scrolls and start skimming the contents, "but even muggle architecture isn't all about just building houses anymore. We all want safe places."

Lu Han's eyes dart across the parchment, gradually widening the further he goes. "These are-- are you working with protection spells, Minseok?"

"Security spells," Minseok corrects him, his cheeks slightly red. "You say that the wizarding world needs help, but isn't You-Know-Who attacking muggles too?" Muggles like Minseok's family and neighbors and pretty much his entire hometown, who didn't have the benefit of either magic or knowledge at their disposal like their magical counterparts.

They both know it's true -- the latest report hadn't been about a witch or a wizard under attack, but rather of a Dark Mark over a muggle community center on the other side of the country. The damage had been bad enough that the muggles had to be told it was the result of a natural disaster rather than cold-blooded mass murder. But how many of those muggles would have survived if there had been even a basic warding spell over their doors, Minseok asked himself after reading the article. Even one or two would have been enough.

"Besides, even magical security systems are outdated," he continues, bolstered on by the memory, "did you see how easily that Moody impersonator got in our sixth year? Black got in a few times too, and I don't think dementors are going to cut it if they're even willing to go after the Chosen One."

Lu Han laughs, his jaw stretching far too wide -- but at least that means it's genuine. "As always, you're right, Minseokie. How you didn't end up in Ravenclaw, I'll never know."

He doesn't say another word about Minseok joining the force; instead, the two of them spend the rest of the night going over Minseok's notes. Lu Han happily hovers over Minseok's shoulder and informs him of the new security spells he's been learning about in his training while Minseok discusses how he's been trying to work such spells into the foundations of his father's latest projects, and it feels a lot like being back at school. Like when they'd been firsties and Lu Han had eagerly pointed out all the moving staircases and living portraits and soaked up Minseok's muggleborn perspective like a sponge, or when they'd been third years and Lu Han led him down the streets of Hogsmeade while listening to Minseok's recollections of his muggle hometown, or when they'd been fifth years and had spent the night before their career advice meetings in the library comparing similar magical and muggle occupations to settle their nerves.

There's something special about having one foot firmly in the muggle world and another in the wizarding one, which is probably why Minseok doesn't think he'll ever understand Voldemort's views even if he disregards the whole muggleborn thing. While being a wizard still feels like a dream every time he feels his wand warming his hand, his muggle heritage is something worth protecting as well.

That's a type of loyalty too. Minseok would know a little something about that.