My Universe (OPEN)

[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

"Yes, Yrene, I know… I'll have her call you this evening, Inshallah," Yara told her younger sister over the phone in Arabic. Even at ten years old, she was sure that Yrene understood that there was no holding Yasmin to anything when she ended up distracted with something else—not that Yara herself had lived a life free of distractions. Her university studies were taking up the majority of her time, although she supposed that was sort of the point of being in London as a student. It wasn't that she regretted it, but she did wish that she had more free time to spend with Yasmin, especially when they were so far away from home.

It didn't always feel like it. The time difference between London and Cairo wasn't bad at all, unlike some of the other international students with whom Yara attended classes. She was lucky in that way; plus, she was trying to get more involved with student life outside of her degree and her online friends. That was hard, though, especially when she found herself walking around London in search of a new K-pop album that seemed to have sold out in mere minutes. Then again, it wasn't her fault that she couldn't queue for it like some of the people she knew on the internet. Someone had mentioned that one of the Korean grocery stores, of all places, might have it in stock, and so she had decided to drag herself over there after class to look for it.

If she didn't find it this time, she was tempted to ask Yasmin if she had a spell for that. It wasn't likely, but it would have been awfully helpful, Yara considered, looking around to make sure that she was still going in the right direction.

[lancelot ray linley]

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There weren’t too many nights where Lance wasn’t eating or sleeping at the recording studio, so for the first time in months he was actually adventuring out to find food and general living supplies for his apartment. The one that Barbara had so kindly bankrolled for he and Georgie as recompense for pretending she was dead for six years and then coming back like nothing happened. Since then, he had refused to talk to her. He was constantly double checking with the landlord that the apartment’s rent was being paid, afraid that she would suddenly up and disappear again without a trace, bringing her money with her. It honestly wasn’t even about the money anymore either. All he wanted was for Georgie to have somewhere to live after graduating, and this place was already taken care of. On a more positive note, not having to pay the rent had allowed him to save money, which was something he had always assumed would be a bit of a struggle right out of school. In the summer prior to his sixth year, right before Barbara made her grand re-entrance into their lives, he had started looking at low-rent areas within Diagon and figured out that there were programs in place for those that needed loans and the likes. The orphanage had said they didn’t have a problem with him staying for a few extra months after graduation too, at least until he had enough saved to make rent. Obviously that hadn’t happened in the end and he had instead run off with a band before returning to England and joining Bête Noire, but it had certainly looked like it would have been his future at one point or another.

At the end of the day, he didn’t spend much time in the flat, but with Georgie graduating soon he needed to get it prepared for her being there fulltime instead of just during the holiday breaks. Even if he wasn’t around much due to work and touring, the place needed to be made up for her. Paper products and general cleaning supplies tended to be cheaper at a Korean grocery store he had discovered about a year prior, not to mention their wide selection of sweets and other treats that he couldn’t even find in the international stores. So that was where he currently was, a grocery cart stacked to the brim with paper towels, two 24-pack pallets of instant ramen for the studio kitchen because that was basically all he ate while they were recording, and an assortment of normal food that would last him two weeks, give or take. That was also assuming he wouldn’t forget about it. More money was wasted on spoiled food then he cared to admit, so the non-perishables definitely had a place in his heart these days.

Moving his overstocked cart down an aisle with very little visual of what was in front of him as he pushed it, he felt and heard it scrape up against the shelf to his right. Just trying to readjust the cart (which had a wonky front wheel) to get it back on track was a feat like no other, and took more than the little upper body strength that he had. Putting his weight into it, it seemed to get the wheel back in place and move forward again, but the shelf he had bumped into had caught his attention. He had wandered into a media aisle of sorts, and while he had seen the racks of magazines and books on the other side, all in Korean of course, he hadn’t spotted the ones loaded in CDs. Physical media was so integral to the music industry still, despite what muggle magazines and websites seemed to think, and Lance was always trying to seek out new stores that had CDs or records in them. He never would have guessed that a grocery store would be one. Even if the albums looked to be k-pop, which he had zero experience with, he was instantly interested and started picking them up one by one to see how much they cost.

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

Once she had entered the store, Yara checked with one of its employees about the album that she was looking for. She didn't want to bother going all the way in there to look for it only to find out that they didn't have it, so it made sense to confirm that they still had it. The employee told her that they thought that it was still in stock and directed her to the relevant aisle. Yara thanked them and headed down that aisle, noticing quickly that a blonde young man with his shopping trolley full of items was also looking at the K-pop albums.

Even from a short distance behind him, Yara glanced over to see what he was most interested in. He appeared to be looking through all of them, though Yara wasn't sure if it was because he was looking for something or because he was simply browsing the selection. It was true that K-pop albums were visually pretty interesting to look at. They weren't the usual CDs just shoved into plastic cases and wrapped in thin sheets of even more plastic. No, most of them were packaged in larger decorative boxes with all sorts of other things inside—photocards, posters, even entire photobooks of the artists related to whatever the concept was for the album in question.

Spotting the album that she'd been searching for, a purple and yellow box with a photograph of the girl group splashed across the front of it, Yara's eyes lit up. "Hi," she said to the young man announce her presence, moving around the side of his trolley with her laptop bag still hanging at her side. "Could you please hand me SPARKLE's new album? That purple and yellow one next to the blue one with the giant music note on the front of it? It's a bit to your right?" she asked him, mentioning the color and general location of it for clarification.

lancelot ray linley

[lancelot ray linley]

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While browsing the music section, Lance realized that he truly didn't understand how impressive the packages actually were. Any vinyls he bought from second-hand stores were scratched to hell and full of personality from their previous owners. He loved the authentic feel that they gave off, from every skip, scratch, and pop. But these things in front of him...they were on a different level. They made standard CD packaging look like a joke. He couldn't tell if the actual discs were in jewel cases inside their fancy boxes or if that was the actual disc holder. The weight they had as he picked one up told him that there was more than just a CD inside too. The sliding sound as something went from one end of the box to the other with an audible clunk piqued his interest even more. Were they lithographs? Or maybe a lyrics booklet? There wasn't any indication on the outer plastic-wrap of what the contents of the one in his hands contained, except a bright neon green sticker with lettering he couldn't read in tbh upper corner. It was all so fascinating!

Lance spent the next couple of minutes looking at various album boxes as he was instantly engrossed in how this whole thing was done. He discovered the actual CDs a little further down but immediately returned to the big ones because of how interesting he found them to be. Each one was different from the next and only a handful seemed to have an L-card or something on the back that indicated what was inside. It seemed like postcard type items were fairly commonplace and some even had posters inside. Which was interesting considering that posters faired a lot better in tubes. The creases in band posters he had were still there almost 2 years later. Lance thought that was part of the charm though, having always seen movies where teens had them up in their rooms, but never actually having the ability to experience that himself. While he was on the tail end of that now, the music industry sort of necessitated and encouraged the addition of other artist posters on his walls. He didn't know if k-pop groups belonged there yet though...

“Howdy,” Lance responded instinctively and lamely to the girl that had suddenly walked up on him and started talking to him. She was asking if he could hand her one of the albums, a purple and yellow one next to a giant music note that was blue but had sparkles and was somewhere to his right. His hand immediately took hold of a red album though he knew that wasn’t correct at all. The directions had been clear but his brain hadn’t been able to keep up with the order that they were in. How on earth did he manage to play music? “I apologize, was it the purple or yellow one?” It definitely wasn’t the blue. At least he didn’t think it was.

yara leila el fayed ● 496 ● Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

When the young man greeted her with a "Howdy," Yara thought for certain that he was joking around with her at first. She couldn't believe that someone had actually just greeted her in that way—and especially not in a Korean grocery store in London. Being greeted in Korean, even by a white guy, would have been a little bit more expected, because at least it would have made sense in the context of where they were. Yara was almost sure that nobody actually greeted people with "howdy" except for cowboys in old American movies, but as the young man spoke, she could tell that he wasn't faking the accent. That was almost more surprising, though he apologized and asked her if it had been the purple one that she wanted or the yellow one.

"Oh, it's the purple and yellow one," Yara emphasized a little, realizing that she must have caught him off guard. At least he was nice about it, she thought. "It's next to the one with the music note on the front?" She was basically repeating exactly what she had said before, but it happened. "I don't actually know what it's called in English," she admitted a little sheepishly, trying to give him more of a visual for what he needed to be looking for as a point of reference, "but it's the thing that looks like two notes with the line between them at the top? Only, it's the purple and yellow one next to the one that has that on it. There's a photo of the entire group on the front, too. The one with the girl with the blue hair?"

lancelot ray linley

[lancelot ray linley]

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The purple and the yellow one. So his brain was working correctly after all, despite picking up an album that had a red cover. If he had any ounce of knowledge about the Korean language, he’d probably know which one said SPARKLE on it. Or if he just looked closer, because the purple and yellow one did actually say that. That was when he actually felt stupid. Everything firing in his head at the same time had bumbled that up royally. Replacing the red album where he had picked it up from (which was decently far from the correct album), he followed the girl’s description and directions and wrapped his fingers around the right one. And pulled. A second tug on it made him realize that the thing was jammed into the shelving unit, each oversized k-pop album bulging in its cellophane wrapping, their individual thickness making it nigh impossible to remove from the safety of the slot they sat in.

“Tough, ain’t ya,” Lance gritted through his teeth as he used both hands to finally pry it from its confinement in the shelf. One hand had to be used as a counterweight to push back against the stack, the other to free it. The true culprit was the anti-theft device that was stuck to the album behind the one he had removed, the censor bulging on the front of the box, its restraints pulling in on all sides of the cardboard. That copy was absolutely ruined. No-maj loved attaching all manners of security to their products that it truly baffled him at times.

“They any good?” he asked as he handed over the album. He had limited knowledge on certain genres of music, having dropped himself completely into blues and rock and roll. That didn’t mean he wasn’t interested in figuring out k-pop though. One of the receptionists at the recording studio was apparently in a Korean tv show, and Lance figured he could always ask her for input since she was halfway into both the acting and music industry. There had to be a starting point somewhere for musicians.

yara leila el fayed ● 351 ● Goat by French For Rabbits

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

The young man in the aisle of the store with her—apparently an American, at that—didn't seem to be the world's biggest K-pop fan, but at least he could follow verbal instructions well enough once she had clarified what it was that she was looking for. It seemed like an easy task, and it really should have been. The second time, though, what held the guy up wasn't entirely his fault: The box was stuck, enough so that the young man had to resort to using both hands to pull it off the shelf.

No wonder it wasn't sold out, Yara thought, watching in horror as the album behind the one that the young man had grabbed for her was wrecked. That would be a huge disappointment for someone else, she considered as she was handed the very SPARKLE album she'd been after.

"They any good?"

"Thanks," Yara said quickly, not wanting to distract from his question. "And yeah, they're really good," she answered, trying not to go into full fangirl mode around a stranger as she took in the fact that she was actually holding the album in her hands. "They're sort of the next big thing in K-pop." SPARKLE had potential, enough to collaborate with big-name Western artists. "My friends on Twitter won't believe that I have a copy," she added with a laugh. "One of them has a theory that SPARKLE are so popular because Eunae looks like a young Jessica Jung, but…" That was debatable, Yara felt, but it had made for some entertaining conversations in their group chat.

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[lancelot ray linley]

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While listening to K-pop was a complete mystery to Lance, he knew that there was a booming global industry for it. It had been that way for at least a decade now. This sort of stuff didn’t exist in any of the magical music stores, unfortunately, though modernization was starting to take effect in a few of them. The driving forces behind the younger heads of labels was part of it, and the increasing popularity of multiple superstars. How could you not put their records on the shelves? He assumed that this was a similar sort of thing. SPARKLE was essentially Camila Calderón. Or something like that. The singer was actually already a sensation, but that was the only way he could easily put it together in his head.

The girl had continued to talk throughout this, explaining that one of the members looked just like another person that he didn’t know about. Someone was clearly more than a fan. Lance nodded his head despite not knowing anything about what she was saying, his gaze drifting back to the battered box that had been behind the one he’d handed over. If the girl was a big fan and talking them up this much, it probably wouldn’t hurt to buy it. Especially if this was the way that music was going to be going forward. He was always trying to expand his musical horizons as much as possible, and this was an area that he was lacking knowledge in.

Grabbing the album that was dented and bent from the security lock, Lance flipped it around to check the price. Within budget, which was good. “So it’s got like, a CD in it? Sort of a big box just for that…” The back had pictures of the girls in the group, as well as what he assumed was a list of contents, all in Korean. Really all he wanted was to listen to the music, so pulling it up on his phone probably wouldn’t be the most difficult thing in the world. That brought back the problem of not even knowing what the name of the songs or album were though…

yara leila el fayed ● 359 ● Arros by Black Hill, heklAa

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

The young man didn't seem to be a SPARKLE fan, but it didn't hit Yara that he was totally clueless about K-pop until he asked her about what it even was that she had just had him grab off the shelf for her. He picked up the dented box, asked her if it had "like, a CD" in it, and Yara—trying hard to keep a straight face—nodded her head.

"Sort of a big box just for that…"

It was true that the music was probably the main draw for most fans, but it wasn't just the CD in there. Otherwise, K-pop artists might as well have gone with those regular, plastic cases that most CDs came in. Yara wasn't sure that there would have been as much of a point in buying the physical CD then; it was the total package that made it really worth it. Besides, it was an experience.

"Each K-pop album usually has more than just the CD in the box," Yara began to explain. "This one has photocards"—but trying to figure out a way to explain that without sounding weird to a complete stranger offline was more difficult than she expected—"so like collectible cards with photos of the members, and then, um, a photobook, postcards, stickers…" If he wasn't even a K-pop fan anyway, Yara realized, boring him with the details wasn't going to make him into one. He must have gotten the picture.

lancelot ray linley

[lancelot ray linley]

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Lance felt like he could safely assume that some of the photo art on the back of the box was probably the same as the postcards or photocards on the inside. Trying to visualize what made a photocard different than a postcard was sort of difficult until the girl explained that they were sort of like collectible cards. "Like baseball cards!" Lance exclaimed immediately, completely forgetting that he was in England still where such a thing was quite literally impossible to find outside of select hobby shops. He knew because he'd tried to find some after graduating. To say that it was an experience was only the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully the photocards were on a hardier stock than normal sports cards though, because the size of the dent on the box definitely meant something inside had to take the brunt of it all. If he had to guess, probably the mentioned photobook. At least the CD sounded to be intact, and a tiny shake of the box didn't yield anything broken sounding inside.

"So this is a common thing for K-pop releases?" he asked as he started to look at the rest of the CD section. A few looked like they could be similar, but not to the same size as the ones each of them now held. "I'm sort of in the music industry, but can't say we generate any sales on CDs." Weirdly enough, vinyl was still rocking hard in the magical community, and while it had grown in popularity once again with the no-maj, it had never gone away on his side of the world. Apparently record players were dumbed down just enough for even the most stubborn of purebloods to enjoy despite being non-magical, their analog technology not complicating spells cast on them in the same manner that a phone trying to play music wirelessly would now. It was quite fascinating to be completely honest.

yara leila el fayed ● 321 ● Fairy-Tale About Love by Alizbar

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

"Like baseball cards!" the young man shouted out. Baseball wasn't overwhelmingly popular in Egypt—or in England. It was definitely an American favorite, but Yara understood his point. It was like a baseball card, only with a K-pop idol and not a baseball player.

"Yeah, like that," Yara agreed, "or Pokémon trading cards." Those were sort of before their time, for the most part, with the exception of when people had gotten really into them again because they were "retro", apparently buying as many from stores as they could in search of valuable ones. Mostly, the internet just had various Pokémon memes.

"So this is a common thing for K-pop releases?" After his question, the young man actually said that he was "sort of in the music industry" himself, and Yara didn't know if he was just trying to make himself seem more important than he really was or if he was telling the truth. He didn't seem to be anybody particularly famous, but he also wasn't dropping names left and right as though attempting to impress her with his music or whatever it was he did in the industry. Maybe he was in country music or something? She didn't know.

Yara nodded, hoping that the American stranger didn't think that she was totally out of her mind. "Oh, yeah, this is totally normal for K-pop." CDs were sort of outdated in most other genres, with the popularity of streaming services, but they were still nice to have. "I don't know how much money they actually make," she admitted, something that she would definitely need to Google to check, "but these are like gold for fans. Just search any of these groups on social media."

lancelot ray linley

[lancelot ray linley]

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Poke-what? There was definitely a limit to some of his knowledge, and while Lance liked to think that he knew a lot of no-maj stuff, there were still limits to that. He enjoyed sports and music and that was basically it. Being stuck in a magical orphanage and then a magical school had certainly reduced his world view a little bit. Now he was interested in these Poke-things, especially if they were cards that could be traded. Lance simply nodded his head, trying to feign like he knew what she was talking about. It was more than likely an even trade, having brought up baseball cards in a country that only occasionally hosted games every couple of years. While cool, that didn’t make the UK a haven for baseball.

He had seemingly guessed correctly about the giant box format CDs, getting confirmation on it from the no-maj girl. It was sort of funny that she brought up the tidbit about money from physical sales. There was constant discussion about the physical media sales of artists at the record label, and Lance was constantly intrigued by the arguments being presented by both sides. Streaming was obviously the king these days, but getting magical folks on board with technology was only just starting. Obviously young people knew how to do it and labels could eventually add their catalogs in for the older crowd as well. It was going to take a while for everyone to be on board though, and creating records and CDs was basically the only thing they could do still for those that actively rejected the fast approaching technological age of magic. Personally, he enjoyed all of it. There were pros and cons to both physical and streaming, and wishing one to kill the other would be horrible for the industry.

“I guess they’re like, special editions, right?” he asked. So many questions today, but he was interested in the business model for sure. Western audiences would probably pay premium dollar for items that had to be imported. Just looking at the price comparisons between the k-pop boxes and the regular CDs told him that. “If I wanted to dive into the genre, out of all of these right here-” Lance motioned with his hands over the entire section, “-where should I start?”

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

Maybe Yara spent too much time on the internet around other K-pop fans, but it was entertaining to hear the young man describe what they were looking at as "special editions". Not all of the albums were particularly special or limited in quantity. It was just normal for them to come jam-packed with extras like that. And he hadn't even seen what the concert merchandise looked like! The light sticks weren't just like glow sticks; they were practically works of art.

"If I wanted to dive into the genre, out of all of these right here"—a tough question when he was gesturing at the entire section of K-pop albums—"where should I start?"

Without missing a beat, Yara answered. "BTS!" That was just the obvious response. "Everyone knows BTS." BTS had become about as mainstream as it was possible for a K-pop group to be. They'd had hit after hit on the radio, some of them with Western artists. He had to know who they were, at the very least. That was, like, basic music knowledge anymore. "If you don't want to buy every album, Map of the Soul: 7 is a classic. It's from 2020, so it's a bit old, but the songs are great."

lancelot ray linley

[lancelot ray linley]

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It had been apparent since the start of their conversation that the girl knew a lot about the Korean music industry and k-pop in general, so getting into questions about specific bands and how he could start listening to them seemed like a fairly good idea to inquire about. When she immediately answered with the group called BTS, Lance realized that he had heard of them before, though it had been a number of years since they’d broken into the scene. His thoughts were confirmed when she added that one of their albums from 2020 was a classic. Calling anything from this decade a ‘classic’ was sort of funny, though they definitely had the notoriety he supposed. A quick glance around the albums, boxes and CDs alike, there didn’t seem to be any from BTS but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Just by looking at the album they’d been discussing thus far, there were very little indicators that it was from the group SPARKLE, except for the name being on the spine. Considering they were all front-facing on the shelf, there almost never would have been a way for him to know that’s what she’d been talking about earlier.

“Yeah I think I’ve heard of them before,” Lance responded. “Don’t think it would be fair to say I’ve listened to any of their work, but I know they were insanely popular for a while a few years back.” Probably around when he had started at Hogwarts. Obviously at that point, students weren’t allowed any electronic devices into the castle, but there were always people talking. And occasionally someone figured out how to get a CD player to bypass. Analog devices were sometimes free of whatever charms were cast over the school, especially when the educators deemed them okay. Literally nothing else could be done with one aside from listening to music, and one was more likely to run out of battery power than makeshift it into something that could break the Statute of Secrecy. “Are any of these from them?” he inquired, turning back to the shelf.

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[yara leila el fayed]

May 14, 2026

The young man with whom she had been conversing about K-pop said that he thought he'd heard of BTS after she brought them up. He added that he hadn't listened to their music, but he knew that they had been popular. That was better, Yara thought, than having him scoff at the album because it was by BTS. She had received that reaction from people before, and not just about BTS. It was as though some people thought that K-pop stars were robots who were all trained to look and sound and dance in exactly the same way, even though that wasn't true.

Honestly, the young man didn't really look like someone who would have an interest in K-pop. Then again, Yara guessed that she probably didn't look like someone who would have an interest in K-pop, either, but she was. She wasn't offended that he hadn't listened to BTS before; he was interested in learning more about them, at least.

"Are any of these from them?"

"Yeah," Yara nodded as she looked at the selection of albums available on the shelf, able to visually identify which ones were BTS albums and which ones weren't. "Let's see…" she mused. "They have a few. How many would you like to buy? Or do you want a description of each of them before you commit to them?" She wasn't sure if he would just purchase all of them or not.

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