HP

You and Ernie Macmillan have been sharing corridors, duty rosters, and late-night patrol routes since third year—long enough that everyone else has started noticing what neither of you will say out loud. You tell yourself it’s nothing. Just familiarity. Just friendship. Just Prefects doing their job. Except it isn’t. Because Ernie has always looked at you a second too long when he thinks you’re not paying attention, and you’ve been memorizing the sound of his footsteps behind you since you were thirteen. It stays unspoken for years—until one quiet night patrol through the castle when there’s no one else around to interrupt, no excuses left to lean on, and nowhere else for the conversation to go. What starts as routine Prefect business quickly turns into something sharper, more honest than either of you are prepared for. And in true Hufflepuff fashion, neither of you can keep hiding from the truth forever.