Two days earlier

"Hello?" she called out knocking on the door," Are you kidding me? I'm a regular customer!"

She called out again, gaining attention of no one, not that there was anyone to even talk to. Haera continued to stare inside the dark store, her eyes turning into slits as she glared at her pack of tattoo inks propped on the shelf. This was her favourite tattoo supply store, the best in town yet today out of all days they decided to close just when she was low on ink. 

No ink meant no customers which meant no money. Being a school nurse didn't exactly pay fantastically and income was even worse due to school holidays. On top of that, no matter how much she loved her job as a tattoo artist, the pay roll wasn't regular since customers didn't come all the time. Haera was barely managing to pay her bills, surviving on the cheapest instant noodles. 

But no matter what, she was never going to ask her parents for money. Sure they had enough to buy her a mansion but her pride was way bigger than any mansion in the world to want to stoop so low to her disapproving parents for help. She had so proudly left home, kissing her medical school and parental wealth goodbye to venture into the world of tattooing. She hoped to keep it that way and prove to her parents that you can lead a happy life doing what you love the most.

But staring into the closed shop, Haera began to doubt if that was truly the case. Coming to the realisation that the door wasn't going to magically open, she turned around to walk back to the bus stop. 

After reaching the bus, she got out her phone and began searching for any other tattoo supply stores nearby. Lo and behold there was one just two minutes away from her current location. That was slightly weird as her normal store took about fifteen minutes to reach yet there was a shop closer which she had never known the existence of. It probably wasn't a good shop but it didn't hurt to visit due to how close it was, so she began her quick journey to there. 

The shop was nothing she thought. Haera was expecting to come across an old run-down store with broken windows and lights and dust collecting on the products. But instead it looked brand new. The windows were so clean it almost looked like it wasn't really there and the interior was brightly lit. She stepped inside, the bell over the door chiming as she opened it. The smell of the shop was sweet, if you closed your eyes you would definitely have mistook it to be a candle store. 

Noticing her usual tattoo inks up on the shelf, she cheered as she grabbed a few packets.

"Ahh welcome! How may I help?" said a softly spoken voice that came out almost as a whisper. 

Haera looked around trying to locate the voice, the cash register desk was in the corner. Behind it stood a smiling old woman whose back was slightly crooked. Her warm smile emphasised the lines around the corners of her lips. Haera greeted her back.

As Haera got closer, she noticed how the rim of her ears were decorated with many golden hoops with a larger one hanging on her lobes. As Haera placed her purchases on the desk, the elderly woman extended out her arms to grab them. She noticed the blurry tattoos which painted her thin arms, Haera smiled wondering how awesome the woman must have looked in her youthful days. 

"I've never even known about your shop even though its closer to me than the one I go to regularly."

The old woman gently laughed as she bagged the items in a black plastic bag. 

"That's a shame because I'm closing the shop soon."

"Oh no! I wish I knew of you sooner."

She turned away from Haera and slowly bent down to reach for something, "I will give you this for free as a gift for visiting me."

It was a small bottle of tattoo ink. "I will pay for it since you are closing."

The woman laughed again, "Don't be silly! This is a gift. The best ink in my humble opinion. I used to use it on all my customers back in the days. Now my hands are too shaky to use them."

She demonstrated by straightening her palm which trembled.

That evening, Haera's tattoo shop was empty and business was slow. She took that time to tattoo her forearm with the gift ink.

She drew a sun to complete her nature themed tattoo sleeve. She began with a circle turning the edges of the sun into petals of flowers instead of the typical triangles. An hour later she proudly looked at her finished sleeve, happy to have finished it off with her own work.

Present day

"You better not tell anyone at school, especially not the principal," threatened Haera, pointing at Hoseok and Seokjin with her red manicured fingers.

"But I'm really bad at lying," said Hoseok.

"Keeping the truth from revealing doesn't always require lying. Just keep me out of centre of topics."

Hoseok frantically nodded, eyes wide from the shock which still remained strongly present.

"So, what happens now?" asked Seokjin, awkwardly looking between his friend and the strange woman in front of her whom he still hadn't processed was Haera. 

"Well, I guess you're my customers," she said, shrugging, "Even you?"

She looked at Seokjin who raised his brow before nodding. Was it that hard to believe he would want a tattoo? The quiet introverted literature teacher who always dressed in his preppy shirt and jumper? The man who always followed the rules even if there was no one around to commend him of his behaviour?

They followed her into her office where there was a long black leather bed like in hospitals. First was going to be Seokjin as Hoseok's nerves were still high.

"Was Jaebum one of your customers?" asked Seokjin.

Haera sighed, looking at him as she pulled a chair to sit besides him. "Unfortunately yes, I had no idea he was underaged. His fake ID was very convincing and he claimed he doesn't have parents to even have them shout at him."

Seokjin frowned as Haera cringed, looking down with shame.

"I know, it's as bad as it sounds. I promise you that working in your school has made me less careless. In fact I've been borderline paranoid that someone from school will find out the truth. And I guess my paranoia wasn't for nothing," she said looking at him then Hoseok.

"You don't need to worry about me, I'm not one to gossip. I'm just going to have to keep an eye on him," he looked at Hoseok who was jittering again, bouncing his leg whilst staring at the walls with wide eyes.

Haera sighed, "Alright let's start."

On his exposed upper arm she was going to tattoo a geometrical hourglass. Usually she didn't ask her customers what the meaning was behind their choice since the most popular response was that they just 'liked it'. However, she was genuinely curious why Seokjin had made his choice.

"Does this have any meaning to you?" she asked as she began outlining.

"I don't want to go too deep into it but basically it's to remind me that time isn't eternal and I shouldn't think everything will be there forever therefore I shouldn't take things for granted. Something like that."

After that night, Haera prayed to never bump into anyone else from school. After a few days spent with slight anxiety of being recognised on the streets with her tattoos, she began to relax a little as that fear hadn't come true. 

One day she was walking home with her bags of groceries from one of her many late-night shopping. Her soju bottles clicked with one another as she walked down the badly-lit streets. 

As she walked up the steep stony steps, Haera felt an unnerving presence behind her, as if she was being followed. Trusting her instincts, she turned around to see a black shadow holding a stick at the bottom of the steps. 

"Fuck," she whispered as it dawned on her that she was now going to have to run up the endless stairs with heavy grocery bags.

She took in a deep breath and began to run up, trying her best to utilise her long legs by jumping up two steps at a time. She knew the shadow was following and she didn't dare turn back to confirm that.

My tattoo hasn't even healed and I'm going to die. Shit! Shit! Shit!

Once Haera finally ran up the last set of steps, she looked back. The shadow was now dangerously close but the odd thing was unlike her frantic self, it was walking strangely slow. It wasn't possible for the shadow to have reached this dangerously close whilst maintaining the slow pace. But if it had run, how comes Haera didn't hear the slightest bit of rustle?

But she had no time to think any longer. She had a life to live and she didn't want to die surrounded by her soju bottles and junk food. That would definitely not want her parents to claim her body.

Her flat was to the left it was a densely populated area and if she screamed someone was surely going to hear. But for some odd reason her legs ran towards the right, she didn't want to go that way. She would never choose that direction even if she wasn't getting chased by some darkly hooded evil entity. 

Haera knew perfectly well that going this way wasn't her choice. How do you explain that your legs decided to have a mind of its own? She felt like something or someone else was controlling her.

As she expected, she was approaching a dead end. She couldn't turn back because the shadow was right behind her. Her legs weakened and she dropped to the ground

"Please don't kill me!" she begged, trying to find a face underneath the hooded cloak. The fact that she couldn't see one was made the situation even scary. She felt eyes on her even though she couldn't see them.

"What do you want? You've successfully terrified the living soul out of me so can I go now? she said trying to sound casual as possible. But the shadow maintained it's silence.

It slowly raised it's stick, fearing that she was going to get hit, Haera held up her arms to protect herself and shut her eyes. Too scared to notice, orange light began to spark from her hands, slowly developing into a spitting fire that danced before her palms.

Feeling the sudden heat on her hands, she opened her eyes and began screaming. Haera began frantically waggling her arms, slicing and chopping the air to put out the flames. 

"Why the fuck did you burn me? Are you crazy!" she screamed at the shadow whilst slapping her hands at the brick wall behind her. Not even that stopped the flames.

The shadow laughed as it retreated the stick. "If you actually calmed down you will realise that you aren't burning."

The voice was soft-spoken, like a whisper but Haera still managed to hear. So she stopped to stare at her palms. They were right, her skin wasn't black or peeling, it was perfectly fine. In fact, there was a slight gap between he flames and her palms, like it was floating. When she moved her fingers, the intensity and size of the fires changed, as if she was in control. Eventually it disappeared, darkening her surrounding.

"Kang Haera, you are the chosen one."

"I'm going to Hogwarts?!" she screamed without a second thought, "Wait...how do you know my name? And why do you sound awfully familiar? But...am I really going to Hogwarts?"

Finally the hood was pulled down to reveal the face of the smiling tattooed old woman.

"Wait, what is going on?" Haera pinched her cheeks, wondering if it was just a dream.

Without saying anymore, the old woman turned and walked away. Bright white light instantly blinded Haera, causing her to cover her eyes. When it began to dim, she opened her eyes to see she was all alone in the empty street.

A/N: *Cue Magic by Selena Gomez (Disney Era) Oh oh oh it's magic, you knoowwww. 

Haera is officially the chosen one. Not all superheros wear capes, some are just regular people who eat junk food and are drowning in debt lol. Anyways this is quite a long chapter so thank you for bearing with me. 

Finally I feel the plot is feeling some real progress. I was thinking waaaay too long and hard about what kind of magical power Haera was going to have. Right, lets pray she don't burn down the country or something.