Chapter Text
Jisung has always loved to think, to imagine, to learn.
At age three, a tiny Jisung, round faced and wide eyed, asks his mother where the stars go during the day. His eyes widen with awe as his mother explains that the stars are always there but very far away, each one a sun like the one that burned in their sky. Jisung’s questions trip over each other in his excitement to learn more. What are stars made of? Why are they so hot? How big are they? How many are there? Jisung’s mother, with the help of the internet, tries her best to answer his questions, but Jisung is left unsatisfied. That night, Jisung stares out his window at the twinkling lights shining in the velvety blackness, and wonders.
At age four, Jisung eagerly listens as his mother explains the alphabet to him. It’s fascinating how these random squiggles and lines can become sounds and ideas. By the end of the week, Jisung is reading short sentences. A few days after that, Jisung tugs the evening newspaper out of his father’s hands and proudly reads the first page aloud. Jisung’s parents stare at each other, eyes wide.
At age five, Jisung starts kindergarten and doesn’t understand why the nice teacher is so impressed that he can write his own name.
“I can write other things too,” he proclaims proudly.
“That’s wonderful, Jisung!” she beams, clapping her hands together, but her gaze is already distracted. Jisung frowns. He wants the nice teacher to know that he can write.
“Look,” he says, gripping the brand-new pencil in his tiny hand.
Jisung Park likes to write big words.
Tongue between his teeth, Jisung crosses out big, replacing it with gigantic, considerable, lengthy.
Jisung looks up, hoping to see the teacher smiling proudly at him, the way his parents always do when he shows them a new word he discovered or tells them about the book he’s just finished reading..
Instead, the young woman is staring, slack jawed at the page.
At age six, Jisung transfers to a different school, a special school.
“Why do I have to go there?” Jisung asks as his parents show him photographs of an imposing stone building.
“Well, Sungie, you like to learn things, don’t you?” asks his mother, already knowing the answer.
Jisung nods eagerly.
“Have you been learning anything in school?”
Jisung shakes his head with a pout. He already knows everything that his classmates struggle to grasp. School is torturously boring, and he recently got in trouble for telling his class about negative integers while his teacher was trying to teach them to count to twenty.
“This school will teach you things you don’t know yet,” his father explains. “They let students work according to their own pace, so you can learn as fast as you like.”
Jisung’s soft cheeks puff out from the strength of his smile.
At age seven, Jisung reads a book about a little girl, very smart just like him, who can make things move with only her mind. He stares at his bookshelf, considering. Scientifically, he knows it isn’t possible, and yet…
As Jisung stares, focusing, one of the books begins to tremble, then shift, then slip silently off the shelf and drift lazily toward the ceiling.
At age eleven, Jisung gets a letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.