Chapter Text
The Great Hall, once full of life and clamor, had fallen into an unnatural, crushing silence.
Not a silence of peace.
Not even the stunned hush that follows a catastrophe.
It was a silence so dense, so sharp, it buzzed in the back of every throat, vibrated under every set of ribs.
A silence like a wire drawn tight enough to cut.
Jin-Woo stood at its center.
Still.
Silent.
Breathing so slowly it was barely perceptible.
The shadows at his feet did not stir.
The folds of his dark coat hung in perfect stillness.
Even the flickering torches seemed reluctant to let their flames wander too close.
All around him, the humans hesitated.
Students pressed themselves back against the tables and stone walls, as if distance alone might save them from whatever this man was.
The professors stood taut and wary, hands gripping their wands in white-knuckled fists.
The Ministry officials—those few self-important men in their embroidered robes—looked between each other with growing, naked fear.
They had shouted before.
Had barked orders like hounds snapping at a tiger.
But now, facing the sheer weight of the intruder’s existence—
Their courage faltered.
Still, pride is a stubborn thing.
And fear, when cornered, often lashes out.
One of the officials—a tall man with thinning hair and a sharp nose—stepped forward with a jerky, brittle motion.
He puffed out his chest, grasped his wand tighter, and barked:
“Identify yourself!”
The words cracked like a whip in the silence.
Too loud.
Too forced.
A plea disguised as a command.
Jin-Woo did not move.
He did not blink.
He did not even acknowledge the voice.
Another Ministry wizard, red-faced and sweating, found his voice as well.
“You will surrender your weaponry immediately! This is an official—”
The man’s shout died mid-sentence, as Jin-Woo shifted ever so slightly—barely a tilt of his head, a breath inhaled deeper.
The officials stiffened as if they had been slapped.
“Reveal yourself!”
“Take off the armor!”
“Show us your face!”
“Who are you?!”
The demands overlapped, desperate, frantic, shrill.
They were not used to being ignored.
They did not know how to comprehend an authority greater than their own.
And Jin-Woo...
Jin-Woo remained utterly, completely unmoved.
Not through arrogance.
Not through cruelty.
Simply through the vast, undeniable truth:
They did not matter.
The magic in the room grew thick.
Tangled.
Frantic.
The Ministry’s collective fear twisted into something uglier.
Pride curdled into rage.
A tremor ran through the hall—small at first, almost invisible.
A young wizard, little more than a boy draped in green robes, stumbled forward a half-step.
His wand twitched.
The muscles in his face spasmed, caught between terror and anger.
And then—without permission, without planning—
he fired.
A flash of red light tore through the stillness.
A Stunning Spell.
Wild. Sloppy.
Cast from a place of panic, not strength.
Time seemed to stretch thin.
The spell arced toward Jin-Woo—
—and the air between them tightened, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
The Stunning Spell split the air like a whipcrack.
A searing ribbon of red light.
Fast.
Deadly enough to knock any normal wizard unconscious for hours.
Deadly enough for a human.
But not for him.
Jin-Woo moved.
Not with haste.
Not with panic.
A simple shift of weight.
A half-step to the side.
A tilt of his head, as casual as brushing away a falling leaf.
The spell missed him by less than an inch.
It sailed past, harmless, scattering sparks against the stones.
For a moment, no one breathed.
The young wizard who had fired—his wand arm dropped a fraction, horror spreading over his features.
The other Ministry officials hesitated—
—and then, as if on cue, chaos erupted.
Spells fired from every direction.
Jets of green, blue, gold—curses, hexes, binding charms—all hurtling toward the figure standing alone.
Professor Moody was among them, his magical eye whirling madly, his face twisted in suspicion and fear.
He barked a spell Jin-Woo didn’t recognize—a chain of magic meant to trap and bind.
It did not matter.
Jin-Woo moved through the attack like a phantom.
He was not running.
He was not dodging like a man avoiding blows.
He drifted through the magic.
Each movement was precise, effortless, inevitable.
Spells missed him by fractions of hairbreadths, skimming past the hem of his coat, lighting the stones where he had been a breath ago.
He didn’t even lift his hands to defend himself.
Didn’t summon a shield.
Didn’t raise a shadow.
Just a slight tilt of his body here—
A step back there—
A lean that felt more like a dance than a defense.
It was elegant in its lethality.
A being moving in a world that could no longer touch him.
And through it all—
Jin-Woo’s face barely changed.
His expression hovered between mild disinterest and faint, slow-burning contempt.
One dark eyebrow arched—just a hair—as if mildly curious how long these pitiful mortals intended to keep embarrassing themselves.
Behind him, Igris remained motionless.
Still and silent.
Sword lowered.
Watching.
Waiting.
There was no flicker of tension in the knight’s stance.
No need to intervene.
Because nothing could harm his master.
Not here.
Not now.
Not by their hands.
The wizards kept firing.
Their panic grew.
Their magic cracked and howled.
And Jin-Woo moved among it like the sea around stones—unhurried, unstoppable, untouchable.
Another moment—
Two—
And then—
“ENOUGH!"
The word rolled through the Great Hall like thunder, so heavy it seemed to shake the enchanted ceiling.
The spells faltered mid-flight.
Wands dropped.
Silence slammed back into the room like a door against a storm.
Dumbledore stood at the center, wand lowered but thrumming with magic.
His face was grave, his eyes sharp and ancient.
There was power in the old wizard yet—but even he, even now, stood not as a challenger…
…but as one who knew he faced something beyond reckoning.
The fighting stopped.
But the tension only tightened.
Because the Shadow Monarch had not moved.
And his judgment had not yet fallen.
The spells had stopped.
But the damage was already done.
Not to Jin-Woo.
Never to Jin-Woo.
The damage had torn through the atmosphere instead, leaving cracks in the very faith these wizards had in their own strength.
Now they stood still, their wands heavy in their hands, their faces pale and drawn, breathing too fast.
Waiting.
Dreading.
Dumbledore took a step forward.
Measured. Controlled.
His ancient face was set in calm lines, but his blue eyes were sharp, calculating every ripple of danger in the air.
Even he—Albus Dumbledore, greatest wizard of his age—moved with the caution of a man approaching the edge of a cliff he could not see the bottom of.
“This… has gone far enough,” he said, voice low, carrying easily across the frozen hall.
No spellwork.
No shouting.
Just authority, worn smooth by centuries.
Still, Jin-Woo did not move.
He watched.
Silent.
Unflinching.
Uninterested.
The Ministry officials, regathering what scraps of pride they had left, surged forward again.
Their faces were ugly with fear.
Their voices cracked with outrage.
“Who are you?!”
“Why did the Goblet react to your knight?!”
“Explain yourself at once!”
“Remove the armor! Show the face bound to that name!”
The demands crashed together like waves against a wall.
And Jin-Woo—
—Jin-Woo simply blinked.
Slowly.
Once.
A human gesture, almost.
Except there was no humanity in it.
Only boredom.
Igris shifted—not in fear, not in defense.
Simply straightening his stance beside his master.
A knight at his king’s side.
A shadow unmoved by mortal storms.
Jin-Woo exhaled through his nose—a quiet, soft thing, almost a sigh.
The kind of sound one makes when confronted by something tiresome.
And then—only then—did he speak.
His voice was low.
Steady.
Cold enough to make the enchanted flames gutter.
“I do not know your ‘Harry Potter.’”
His words fell into the silence like stones into deep water.
Rippling outward. Sinking deep.
He shifted his gaze—barely—toward Igris.
The knight, who stood as he had always stood: proud, unbroken, claimed.
And his next words were a declaration.
A carving of truth into the bones of the world.
“This is Igris.”
“My knight.”
“My soldier.”
The Ministry exploded into noise.
Shouts.
Demands.
Threats.
The goblet flickered weakly on its pedestal, forgotten.
Students shrank further back.
Teachers exchanged quick, worried glances.
But Jin-Woo—
He didn’t even flinch.
He didn't care.
Not for their anger.
Not for their rules.
Not for their ancient ceremonies or their empty threats.
Igris was his.
Had always been his.
And no one—no one—was going to take him away.
The Great Hall fractured under the weight of panic.
No longer silent.
No longer sacred.
It buzzed now—sharp, frantic energy sparking from wall to wall, rattling the ancient stones, clinging to the rafters.
Noise broke against the enchanted ceiling, a rising storm of voices without coherence.
The Ministry officials—those proud enforcers of law and order—had lost their composure entirely.
Their faces, once flushed with self-importance, were now white with fear, their mouths working frantically to form orders that came too late.
Their wands shook in their hands.
Their badges glinted uselessly in the firelight.
The words they hurled into the heavy air were cracked and ugly:
“Seize him!”
“Bind the armor!”
“Disarm him now—quickly!”
“Detain the intruder—before he—!”
Panic sharpened every syllable.
Authority had long since fled.
And Jin-Woo did not move.
Not a twitch of his fingers.
Not a ripple of cloth.
Not the slightest shift in the shadows coiling at his feet.
He stood at the center of their unraveling world—
A stone in a river of chaos.
An immovable truth in the face of crumbling illusion.
Every breath drawn in that hall was tight with terror.
The students crowded against the stone walls, faces pale, clutching each other’s sleeves and shoulders with the wide-eyed desperation of those who know instinctively—
They are witnessing something no spell can undo.
Some whispered prayers.
Some simply stared, mouths open in silent, horrified awe.
The professors, the supposed masters of magic, were no better.
McGonagall’s lips pressed into a bloodless line.
Snape’s black gaze flicked between Jin-Woo and the Ministry, calculating odds he did not like.
Even Moody’s wand trembled a fraction, the magical eye spinning wildly in its socket.
Yet none raised their hands again.
They dared not.
Because somewhere in their bones—even the most stubborn of them felt it:
To strike would not mean battle.
It would mean execution.
And at the center of it all—
radiating silence so thick it felt like drowning—
stood Jin-Woo.
The torchlight bent around him, the flames shivering in unseen wind.
His shadow pooled at his boots, deeper, darker than mere absence of light—
a presence in itself, like a vast black ocean pressing just beneath the surface.
Nothing touched him.
Nothing dared.
Next to him, like a reflection cast in darker glass, stood Igris.
The knight's red-plumed helm caught what little light remained, casting him as a silent sentinel—unwavering, unbending.
He made no move to reach for his blade.
He had no need.
Because his king had not fallen.
And his king never would.
The Ministry's shouting fell apart.
Anger disintegrated into confusion.
Confusion dissolved into fear.
The wall of noise crumbled, leaving only broken fragments.
Breathless.
Shuddering.
Small.
At the staff table, Dumbledore watched in profound, haunted silence.
Not with fear for himself—
but with the grim recognition that something older, deeper, and more inevitable had stepped into their world tonight.
Something they were not meant to control.
Jin-Woo’s gaze swept lazily across the hall.
Slow.
Measuring.
Unimpressed.
He said nothing.
He issued no threats.
He made no promises.
He simply stood.
And in his stillness, he spoke a truth louder than any spell or decree:
This knight is mine.
He will remain mine.
And no power here can change that.
The Ministry stammered.
Dumbledore frowned, calculating impossible paths.
Students and teachers shrank into their seats, hands pressed to lips, hearts pounding too fast.
The very walls of the Great Hall seemed to lean back, as if recoiling from the sheer, suffocating reality they had summoned.
And Jin-Woo waited.
Patient.
Absolute.
A living monument to the power that no council, no ministry, no headmaster could command.
A king unbowed.
Unbroken.
Unreachable.