Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Author’s Note

My dear readers,

I missed you. It feels strange not sharing anything for a while, but I didn’t actually take a break to study. I still give my tests in the morning, and then the rest of the day is me filling my diary with doodles, half-written theories, and random designs. That hasn’t changed. I'm sort of a backbencher with good marks.

The reason I took this gap is because 'The Hendeka Games' needed a lot of research. “Hendeka” means eleven in Greek, and this book is about eleven wizarding schools coming together to compete. J.K. Rowling only gave us eight schools, and even then some of them barely have any information. One of them, the Russian school, doesn’t even have a single detail except its location. Which meant I had to build three whole schools myself—deciding the countries, their cultures, the way their buildings would look, their style of magic, even their backstories. And then brainstorm fr revealed schools too.

I’ve been reading a lot. Everything I could find about the schools that exist, plus folklore, mythical creatures, and traditions from the countries where the new schools will be. I want them to feel real, not random or awkward. Their buildings have to reflect where they come from—some are palaces, some forts, some hidden inside natural landscapes like caves or waterfalls. I’m also designing the competitions they’ll face, making sure they’re not just magical fights but challenges that come from the culture of each school.

Uniforms are another big part. And because some of you don’t always want to rely on raw imagination, I’ll be doing my best to try and sketch concept designs for the uniforms too. (I want to be a fashion designer anyway) I’ll also tweak the uniforms of the canon schools a little if I can—because let’s be real, they deserve more love.

Basically, I’ve been researching all day, every day, to make this a good and worthy experience for you all. I want you to feel like you’re walking through these schools with me, not just reading names.

You can share any information regarding this if you can, I'll be grateful.

My exams will be over this Friday, and if everything goes well, the first chapter of The Hendeka Games will be out this Saturday. See you soon.

—Love
Aabity

Chapter Text

30 June.

They’d barely cleared the Muggle crowds at King’s Cross when the portkey tugged—an impatient fishhook behind the navel—and the station fell away in a rush of steel and soot and summer voices. They spun, five shadows knotted together, and landed with a thump that kicked pollen from the air.

Silvanius was already steady on his feet. Darien too. Sebastian caught his balance with a practiced shift of the heel; Adrien’s hand found Sebastian’s sleeve and squeezed once, easy as breathing.

Draco, last to arrive, blinked hard, breath caught high in his chest.

Warm light soaked through a canopy of leaves. Not London. Not even England.

Vines draped from pale stone trellises like green silk. The forest beyond them was a gentler, older sort—ash and plane and cypress—stitched with birdsong and the hum of summer insects. Wild thyme and something sweetly resinous— pine? —heated in the sun until the air tasted like honeyed herbs. Far off, water spoke to itself in several different voices, quick and silver.

Draco’s vision steadied. He looked up through the loose latticework of vine-leaves and saw a sky so clear it felt new-minted.

A hand clapped between his shoulder blades. “Welcome to Château Valmbre, ” Darien said, voice low with a warmth he rarely let anyone hear. “The Malfoire estates.”

The word hung there, richer than gold. Malfoire.

Draco swallowed. Sebastian’s elbow nudged Adrien’s as they pushed aside a sway of vines; their laughter made a soft pocket of ordinary inside the unreal.

“Ten galleons says you knew the landing wouldn’t be this smooth,” Adrien teased Sebastian, brushing a leaf from his own shoulder. “You didn’t even wobble.”

“I’d never wobble in front of you,” Sebastian replied, deadpan, then ruined it with a grin that made Adrien’s eyes go softer than the sunlight. “Besides, Darien stumbled . That’s more interesting—”

“That is not—” Darien began, then gave up and smiled sideways at Silvanius, who lifted one shoulder like he’d been born here and the land had never once argued.

They stepped out of the green shade and the world opened.

The pathway was a ribbon of white stone that looked as if it had been combed straight by centuries. Each slab was hand-cut, edges chamfered smooth, the joins seeded with creeping thyme so that every footstep released a breath of perfume. Narrow strings of pale quartz stitched the stones together in patterns—a compass rose here, a spray of laurel there—so that sunlight caught and scattered in tiny points, like shaken sugar.

On either side, the earth fell away into low parterres embroidered with box hedge and pale gravel, green geometry flowing outward: circles within ovals, long tapis verts arrowing toward distant fountains. Beyond, tall allées lined with plane trees met overhead in a green vault.

They had taken perhaps ten steps when hooves sounded. Not the clatter of Diagon Alley’s carts. This was heavier, grander, a rhythm that spoke of fields and parades and space.

No one but Draco even flinched.

The carriage slid into view like a conjuration. Gold and white, sun picking out every leaf and scroll in its carving. Four big white Shire horses leaned into the traces with the calm pride of creatures who know they are admired; their harness flashed with polished buckles, and along their manes there were delicate filigreed clips of matte gold that caught in the light like stars floating in milk. The bridle rosettes were enamel—tiny heraldic cats worked in black and pearl; Draco’s breath snagged at that detail though he couldn’t have said why.

The driver touched two fingers to his brow. The footman, in navy livery with a high collar and brass buttons stamped with the same cat, moved with crisp efficiency. Sebastian offered Adrien his hand as if it were a dance, not a step, and Adrien took it with a small, private smile that loosened the tight knot behind Draco’s ribs.

Love, unhurried, right there in the sun.

“Show-off,” Adrien murmured, but he didn’t let go immediately when he’d climbed in; his thumb brushed the back of Sebastian’s hand before he settled. Sebastian’s ears went faintly pink as he followed him up.

Darien stood aside and gestured Silvanius in next with an old-fashioned courtesy that made Silvanius’ mouth flicker, half-amused, half-pleased. Then Darien’s palm was at Draco’s elbow, firm, certain. Draco let himself be steered, grateful, and stepped up.

Inside, the air was cooler, honeyed with the scent of cedar and a whisper of enchantment. The carriage had been lined in cream brocade woven with very pale vines—just a suggestion of pattern that appeared and vanished as the light moved. 

Seats were deep and forgiving, upholstered in soft dove-grey velvet with gold piping along the seams. There was a small cabinet built into one wall, its glass faceted; inside, crystal flutes winked alongside squat little silver cups and a carafe of something amber. A narrow rack held folded throws of light wool in case the mistral rose. 

Overhead, the ceiling had been hand-painted with a faded fresco of swallows; as Draco watched, one of them turned its painted head. Warded for comfort, warded for safety. Humming, but politely—no more than the memory of a chord.

The door shut with a clean click. Outside, leather tightened, the driver spoke, and the horses stepped off, fast but steady. Wheels hissed over the stone; the suspension charmed away every jolt until the movement felt like being borne on someone’s shoulders.

Shock circled Draco in small, tight loops. He swallowed, throat dry. He had almost worn his plain black suit. At the last moment, Silvanius had said, No— wear the green velvet, the one from your birthday —and Draco had obeyed without thinking. Now the green felt right in a way that made his skin prickle. Silvanius’ midnight-blue jacket caught shards of light, silver embroidery like frost at the cuffs. Darien’s warm beige looked exactly like him: understated, immaculate, the cut too precise to be anything but intentional, both from his birthday party too.

Draco’s palms were damp. The window framed the world like a painting that kept changing. Gardens unrolled—ordered and extravagant both. 

Fan-shaped fountains leapt from stone basins and fell in thin veils, throwing prismatic ghosts across the gravel.

The white pathway widened into a broad esplanade, then split, one branch arrowing toward an orangerie where glossy leaves shone and orange globes burned, the other toward a long flat mirror of water that doubled the sky.

The first rank of soldiers appeared, already at attention. Navy blue coats, high collars, gloved hands resting on polished wands that rode at the hip in leather sheaths like sabers. They bowed as the carriage passed between them—one fluid motion, a blade sliding into its scabbard—then held. Row after row, a corridor of bodies and discipline. Sun glanced off brass and braid; eyes remained forward, impersonal. 

Draco’s stomach swooped. He could see everything from the window; he could also see himself reflected faintly in the glass—green velvet, throat a little too tight, hair evening itself nervously. 

He had no idea what was going on, not truly, not concretely. But some older part of him rose to meet it the way the horses met the weight of the carriage— with acceptance, with the logic of muscle and bone.

He thought of his parents. Of how they would have sat, how they would have allowed the carriage to carry them without appearing impressed. He straightened by a fraction and fixed his hands lightly together, one wrist resting on the other, fingers easy, not clenched.

From somewhere in the quiet of his mind, the words he’d devoured in third year for no reason at all resurfaced, as if a book had opened itself.

Do not descend before your elder unless bid.
Right foot first onto ancestral stone.
In France, incline the head; in Britain, bend at the waist.
Gloves on for the bow; off for the clasp.
Speak only after your name is announced; never above the steward’s voice.
Address the intendant as Monsieur l’Intendant, the marshal as Monsieur le Maréchal.
Keep to the left of the allée; the right is for senior guests.
When passing under the family standard, do not walk with your hands in your pockets.
Offer your wand hilt-down to show peace; never place it on a table uninvited.
If greeted in Occitan, answer in Occitan if you can; otherwise, in French—never in English first.
At fountains, pause—the land is older than you.
The youngest follows two steps behind the heir; three, if a parent is present.

His heart was beating too fast. He took a breath and let the words order him, line him up like the hedges outside. Darien’s knee brushed his, a quiet anchor. Across from them, Sebastian and Adrien had fallen into an easy murmur—Adrien poking lightly at the window latch charm, Sebastian pretending not to see and then adjusting it anyway.

The carriage curved along the grand allée; the horses’ manes were moving clouds, their ears pricked. On either side, gardeners with rolled-up sleeves pretended not to look up. A pair of white peacocks stepped from the shade and then reconsidered with imperial disdain. The façade of the château lifted ahead, pale stone glowing in the late afternoon: tall windows shuttered in dove grey, vast balconies laced so finely they looked like frost caught on air, a central pediment carved with garlands.

They slowed. The soldiers held their bow. The fountain nearest the steps rose higher, as if it had taken a breath at their approach.

Draco’s pulse thundered in his ears.

The carriage stopped. The footman sprang down and opened the door. Heat and lavender and the smallest taste of sea-salt—somewhere to the south, perhaps—came in on a single soft wind.

Darien stood first—of course he did—and then moved aside, a wordless signal that had weight behind it: we step down together. Sebastian and Adrien slipped out with practiced grace. Silvanius followed, measured, precise.

Draco set his hand to the cool frame of the door. He took a breath that felt like it had been on its way to him since he was born. 

He could imagine a different life—the one that would have taught him the exact angle of his chin here, the way to set his shoulders so that the crest above the doors recognized him. 

That life had not happened. Fate had sent him elsewhere. He had learned other lessons.

He would still step as if he belonged.

He set his right foot down.

The moment his sole kissed the white stone, something met him—nothing so dramatic as a spell, nothing anyone else might have seen. It was a pressure and a release, a hand pressed lightly over his heart from the inside. The air changed temperature; the light seemed to tilt. It felt like walking into a room where someone had been saying your name and finally paused because you’d arrived.

He did not look up. He knew there were people on the steps—more navy, this time with sashes; an older man with a ledger and an eagle’s gaze; a woman in grey with a tray of small keys; servants with silver badges pinned at heart-level. He let them be a chorus without faces.

He looked at the grass at the edge of the stone—the exact green of new leaves in April, trimmed to a consistency doctors envy. He looked at his boots, brown and well-polished, one heel picking up a grain of white dust. He felt the way the ground massed under him, the careful layers under the path—the bed of sand, the crushed shell, the old bones of this place running deeper than water.

It did not feel like a first step. It felt like the next one in a long line of steps he’d been taking for centuries without knowing where they were headed. He could have sworn he heard, very faintly, the shiver of a bell from inside the house, answering him. Or maybe it was the swallows in the painted ceiling, finally free and calling to their own.

Darien’s voice, calm, just over his shoulder: “Ready?”

Draco nodded once, still looking down, letting the strange, aching familiarity settle. The soldiers were still and the fountains spoke and the sun laid a hand on the back of his neck like a blessing he hadn’t expected.

“All right,” He hadn’t yet dared raise his eyes toward the high façade of Château Valmbre, when the great doors of carved oak swung outward and the silence of soldiers broke—not with sound, but with color and motion.

They poured out.

The family.

Not grim like the portraits in the English manor halls Draco knew, but alive . A sweep of silk gowns in soft summer shades—pearls threaded in pale hair, emerald pins catching sunlight, embroidery that shifted faintly with magic. Crowns —some thin and delicate circlets, others heavier, layered with precious stones—glinted atop heads that carried them with ease, or else with a kind of laughing indifference.

The young men came too, bright-faced in sharp suits trimmed with gold, crowns balanced a little crooked, elegance worn but not rehearsed. They looked like they belonged to the land itself—sunlit, wide smiles, unafraid of the world’s gaze. Their movements were light, unpracticed, as if nobody had yet crushed the joy from them.

Draco kept his head down. Each step measured. The weight of royal protocols pressed against his ribs like an invisible hand. Right foot first, eyes lowered, three paces behind the heir. He focused on the ground—the polished stone, the trim of grass against the edge. He would not embarrass them. He would not embarrass himself.

But beside him, Silvanius had already noticed. His older brother slowed his long, certain stride. For a heartbeat he stood still on the pathway, waiting. Darien too stopped, seamless in his movement, falling back until Draco’s lowered head drew level with theirs. Draco, so focused on his steps, didn’t notice, didn’t realize his brothers had flanked him deliberately, quietly forming a wall of solidarity.

Together, side by side, they reached the foot of the steps. 

The door loomed—taller than any at Hogwarts, higher than even Malfoy Manor’s marble arches. The silence around them thickened. It was not empty silence, but full, vibrating, the kind that made every small sound—the shift of leather, the flick of a bird’s wing—echo like thunder.

Draco stared at the ground. His breath caught shallow.

Steps.

Then—warmth. A hand, aged and sure, found his chin. Cool fingers, gentle, pressed beneath his jaw and tilted his face upward with the inevitability of tide pulling moon.

Grey eyes— his —met silver.

She stood before him, light hair still thick and shining, twisted loosely into a side bun that framed her face. The Queen’s crown rested above her brow—not gaudy, but refined, jewels softened by their setting. Her skin carried fine lines of time, but beauty had not departed her; it had deepened, rooted her like an oak. Her gown was pale green, simple and silken, the color of early spring leaves.

“Do you know what dragons symbolize, Mon dieu…?” Her voice was low, melodic, touched with the cadences of old France. Her thumb brushed his jaw as if memorizing it. “ Power, wisdom, and fire. But more than that—dragons never bow their heads.”

The words struck him harder than a spell. His breath locked. He stood frozen, stunned, staring at her as if he had never truly been seen before.

Her gaze shifted, studying him properly now. Not quick, not polite— truly looking. The kind of look that peeled back all the layers until only truth remained. For the briefest fraction, her eyes stilled, as though she were caught in a reflection she had not expected to find.

Then—almost as if to break her own spell—she looked away, glanced at the sky arched blue above them, then down at the stones at their feet, as though weighing all of time in one moment. A breath left her, half a huff, half a laugh, shaking her head in something like disbelief. Fondness softened her voice when it returned:

“Mon Dieu… you look so very much like him . The great Founder of our House. Draconis Hades, himself. It is as though the blood remembered its own face.”

Draco could only stare, mind reeling. He opened his mouth, scrambling through royal protocol, through the correct titles, the right honorific. “Your Maje—”

Her eyebrow arched, sharp and teasing, silencing him before the word could even finish.

“Never.” Her tone was both playful and iron. “I will not tolerate any of my grandchildren calling me that. To you, I am only Grandmère. Nothing else. Do you understand me?”

Draco’s throat tightened. His lips parted but no words came. She didn’t wait. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss, feather-light, to his cheek, the press of years and longing condensed in that single gesture. Then her arms wrapped around him, not with formal restraint but with fierce, familiar warmth—an embrace that spoke of years missed , of a love that had always been there waiting, even if he had never known it.

It shook him. 

More than the ranks of soldiers. More than the crowns and silks and sunlight.

From behind, a voice, deep and steady: “He’ll need time.”

Alaric. Draco recognized him immediately, though here Alaric looked brighter somehow, his own crown catching light at the edge. The man he had met before, firm and unwavering, now softened in expression. He stepped forward, clapped Draco’s back with a firm, steadying hand.

Support. Quiet, unspoken.

Draco inhaled, trying to find breath through the whirlwind, and only then realized his head was still tilted upward, no longer bowed.

And his grandmother—the Queen—was smiling.

Draco was still reeling from the warmth of his grandmother’s embrace, her crown glinting softly above her pale green gown, when instinct guided him back toward manners. He reached for her hand, pale and fine-boned, and bent his head just enough to press a reverent kiss to the back of it.

A proper bow, polished, the kind drilled into him since childhood.

The Queen chuckled—low and fond, with that note of amused disbelief. “Ah,” she said, her silver eyes softening, “Lucius surely made you like this.” Her tone was not cruel, only wry, touched with affection, as though she knew exactly whose rigid shadow he had walked under.

Draco flushed faintly, lips parting, but before he could answer another voice came, smooth as silk.

“My turn, I believe.”

She stepped from the cluster of silks and crowns, tall, statuesque, her presence like a dark river cutting through light. Her hair was astonishing—jet black, richer than a raven’s wing, wavy and thick, spilling in a waterfall over one shoulder until it reached the line of her knees. Against that darkness, her gown shone: violet satin overlaid with gauzy panels of gold, embroidery catching fire in the sun. She moved like she had been born to command a hall, but her smile when she looked at Draco was startlingly gentle.

“I am Éloïde Malfoire,” she said, her French lilt melodic. “Alaric’s wife.” Her hazel eyes glowed warmly as she leaned down and pressed her lips lightly to Draco’s forehead. “Mon beau garçon… you are beautiful .”

The words struck him unprepared, but his body remembered its training; he caught her hand with a faint bow and brushed his lips against her knuckles. His grandmother’s fond laugh echoed again, as if she enjoyed watching him wrestle between the stiff old codes and this avalanche of unexpected affection.

Then chaos.

“ Enfin! ”

Two identical figures bounded forward, their white-blonde hair almost blinding in the sunlight. They were young, older than Draco perhaps by three or four years, with the sort of unstudied charm that made every step seem like a stage. Their suits were perfectly matched—cream jackets with gold stitching, pale blue cravats tossed carelessly, crowns tipped at jaunty angles.

Too casual. Too bold.

“ Finally! ” the first twin—Julius—exclaimed, his grin wide enough to split his face. “We’ve finally met the dragon! ”

“The dragon!” echoed Edmund, mock-theatrical, circling Draco in an appraising arc as though he were some exotic creature displayed at court.

Darien’s jaw tightened. Silvanius rolled his eyes.

But before anyone could interject, Edmund—eyes gleaming with mischief—unsheathed a short ceremonial sword from his side. A gleaming rapier, polished and razor-thin, its hilt wrought in gold filigree.

“Catch!”

The blade spun through the air, a line of silver cutting sunlight. Gasps rippled across the steps. Darien’s eyes flew wide in horror.

Draco’s chest seized—then some sort of muscle memory roared up through his panic.

His hand shot out. Fingers wrapped cleanly around the grip, blade halted mid-spin with a neat, decisive snap of control. The sword vibrated once in his palm, then stilled.

Stunned silence followed.

Draco blinked, chest heaving once, twice, the world narrowing to the feel of leather-bound hilt against his palm. 

For a half-beat, he wondered how—but then he remembered. Hours, weeks, endless summers his father had forced him into fencing lessons with private instructors. The balance of rapier to wrist, the precision of grip, the exact way to extend an arm so that the blade seemed like an extension of itself.

Those lessons he had loathed—those very same now steadied him.

Or maybe it was something else.

He lifted the sword upright, hand sure despite the thrum in his veins, point angled just so in salute. Not clumsy. Not afraid. And tucked one hand in his pocket.

The twins burst into twin roars of laughter, clapping hands together, gleeful as children who had just seen a trick performed.

“Oh, he’s perfect!” Julius crowed, throwing his head back.

“ The dragon, indeed! ” Edmund echoed, bowing with exaggerated flourish.

Darien exhaled sharply beside Draco, still half-ready to intervene, but his gaze now lingered on his younger brother with a flicker of pride. A smile stretched across his lips. Silvanius’ eyes softened minutely, though his jaw remained taut. That was dangerous.

Draco, sword still in hand, stood frozen between shock and instinct, not sure whether he ought to scold, defend, or laugh—yet somehow holding himself with a neatness even he hadn’t known he possessed.

And the court had seen it. Every pair of eyes on those steps.

They led Draco in with all the ceremony of an heir returning, the echo of their footsteps swallowed by high ceilings and marble floors. The palace gleamed in white and gold, curtains of heavy fabric spilling down like rivers, portraits with sharp-eyed ancestors peering down at them, and art pieces in every corner — sculptures, painted urns, a place made to impress.

Grandmère paused to embrace Silvanius and Darien, kissing them both warmly, and Draco could feel himself softening with each smile she gave. And then Draco noticed the girl.

She stepped forward, every line of her posture precise. Black wavy hair tumbled down one shoulder, so long it brushed against her grey gown, and her pale skin made the silver in her eyes almost glow. A crown sat easily on her head, as if it had always belonged there. Her gown was curious—frilled short bodice like a frock, falling into a long layered skirt beneath, something between girlish and regal.

She extended her hand without hesitation. Draco clasped it, surprised at the firmness of her grip.

“Mathilda Alaric Malfoire,” 

“Draco Lucius Malfoy,” he replied with equal poise.

Her gaze flicked briefly to his suit, the velvet green catching in the sunlight. “Nice suit.”

“Thank you,” Draco said evenly.

Then, as if it were the most normal thing, she asked: “Do you study astronomy?”

The collective groan that followed came from nearly everyone. Julius and Edmund made the loudest noises of protest, one even muttering, “Not again—” Silvanius pressed his lips thin, Sebastian rolled his eyes, and even Alaric looked resigned. Only Grandmère and Adrien smiled knowingly, indulgent.

Draco tilted his chin, something sparking in him as if her question were a duel challenge. “Of course I do.”

Mathilda’s eyes narrowed slightly, sharp with interest. “Really? Most people only pretend to care when I ask.”

“My very name is based on a constellation,” Draco said, smirking faintly.

“Oh?” she leaned in, she knew that already, of course.

“Yes,” Draco replied smoothly. “Though it always makes introductions awkward. Imagine telling someone ‘I’m Draco’ and the first default thing they answer with is, ‘Oh, like the constellation,’ .”

Mathilda blinked, then laughed— actually laughed —a startled, unpracticed sound that made Julius and Edmund whip their heads around in disbelief.

Draco allowed himself a smug little smile. “What? Was that funny, or are you laughing because you’ve realised my name makes me technically older than Orion himself ?”

She covered her mouth, still laughing. “ For God’s sake .”

But the laughter only sharpened her curiosity. She adjusted her crown and asked quickly, “All right then—tell me, what do you make of the missing constellations from the early French charts? The ones no astronomer seems to agree about?”

Draco didn’t miss a beat. “They weren’t missing. They were erased.”

Her brows lifted. “Erased?”

“Yes,” Draco said firmly, enjoying the way the whole room suddenly leaned closer despite themselves. “Wizarding families used to bind themselves to constellations. They believed it gave them power over seasons, solstice magic, even fate itself. But when rival lines tried to claim the same stars, there was blood. And when blood comes, records vanish.”

Mathilda’s eyes went wide, the silver in them practically glowing. “That… actually makes sense.”

“Of course it does,” Draco replied smoothly.

She pressed again, unable to stop herself. “Then what about Aldebaran? People keep saying it has ties to pureblood families—”

“It does,” Draco interrupted. “But not because of its brightness. It’s because it marks the eye of the bull—an animal sacrificed in ancient rituals during the founding of families like ours.”

There was a stunned silence. Mathilda looked at him as if she’d just stumbled on treasure. Mathilda inhaled sharply, her mask slipping completely now, excitement spilling into her expression. “You’re—brilliant.”

Behind them, Éloïde finally stepped in with a gentle smile, sliding between the two of them like someone breaking up a duel. “If we don’t move to the drawing room soon, I fear the entire palace will drown in star maps and theories.”

“Let it,” Mathilda muttered under her breath, still staring at Draco with unabashed fascination.

Draco only smirked, enjoying the rare sensation of being seen not for weakness, nor mistake—but for knowledge. For once, the Malfoy name didn’t feel heavy on him. It felt like something written in the stars.

Draco noticed it first when they passed through one of the long galleries on their way to dinner.

Back at home in Wiltshire, the Malfoy crest was always the same: a single pale rose, a serpent curled around its stem, thorn and fang inseparable. But here, in Château Valmbre, the crest was different. Every banner, every carving on doorframes, even the massive stained glass in the stairwell carried the image of a snow leopard. Sleek, white with faint rosettes, strong and poised, eyes a piercing grey that followed him wherever he turned.

There were still-life portraits of the beast hung along the walls, some in oil paints, some in charcoal, some so old the canvas itself seemed yellowed and fragile. Draco slowed, staring at one in particular where the leopard sat on a cliff of ice, tail curling around its paws. The way the animal’s eyes were painted—it felt alive, as though it were watching him in return.

And as he stared, something stirred in him. A charge beneath his skin. A whisper in his chest. Not frightening, not hostile—welcoming.

It was like déjà vu of a life he hadn’t lived. A homecoming he couldn’t remember.

Draco shook his head quickly and forced himself to keep walking. Hallucinations, he told himself. It’s been a long day, that’s all. But still, every step through the palace felt charged, like the marble itself recognized him.

…

Dinner had been a blur of china plates and flickering chandeliers, voices overlapping—Éloïde laughing gently at her twins’ antics, Julius and Edmund arguing over fencing moves at the table, Mathilda sneaking questions about Draco’s astronomy theories whenever no one was listening, and Grandmère occasionally raising her hand to silence the chaos with a single look.

By the time the last dish was cleared, Draco felt both dizzy and full in ways that weren’t entirely about food.

Grandmère Victore finally rose, her silk gown whispering against the marble floor. She smiled warmly at them all. “You must be tired, children. You’ve had a long day of travel. The housekeepers have prepared your rooms.”

Silvanius let out a dramatic sigh of relief, already half-rising from his chair as he reached for his jacket. “Finally,” he muttered under his breath, making Adrien laugh softly.

But Draco froze when Victore turned her silver eyes to him. “And for you, mon cher,” she said kindly, “your chambers are ready. Third floor—family’s wing. Third corridor. You’ll find everything prepared.”

Draco clenched his hand beneath the table, nails pressing into his palm. His stomach twisted. A strange flicker of unease flashed across his face before he could hide it. The thought of walking down an unfamiliar corridor, sleeping alone in some room lined with portraits of ancestors he didn’t know—it made his chest tighten.

Darien, who’d been watching carefully, leaned forward. He waited politely for Grandmère to finish before speaking.

“Grandmère,” he said lightly, though his eyes were serious, “perhaps Draco should sleep in my room for now. He’s new here, and it will take time for him to adjust. Once he’s comfortable, he can move into his own chambers.”

Draco nodded quickly, almost too quickly. “Yes. That would be better.”

Darien smirked faintly, hiding his relief. “See? Settled.”

Across the table, Julius elbowed Edmund, grinning wickedly.

“Sleeping with big brother, are you?”

“How cute,” Edmund chimed in. “Shall we tuck you in too, little dragon?”

Draco’s ears went pink as he scowled. 

Mathilda, of course, only leaned her chin into her hand and smiled slyly. “Aw… cutie .”

Draco’s scowl deepened, though his heart was beating far too fast.

Silvanius, noticing his discomfort, spoke gently. “Draco, you’re welcome in my room as well, if you’d prefer. It’s closer to yours, and I don’t mind sharing.”

Now Draco felt trapped between choices. Darien was watching him with barely restrained laughter, as if amused by Draco’s immediate clinging. Silvanius was offering calmly, without pressure, his steady gaze a comfort of its own.

Draco shifted in his seat, caught between them, his hand tightening around his napkin. “I—well—”

Grandmère’s amused voice cut through before he could choose. “Mon dieu. He has been here a single evening and already you two are so protective. Truly, he must be the treasure of this family.”

Draco’s cheeks warmed. He looked down quickly, but inside… inside that strange energy flickered again, the same as when he looked at the snow leopard crest. Welcoming. Claiming. As though the palace itself whispered: You belong here.

…

The first night, Draco sat on the edge of the spare bed in Darien’s room, hands folded tight, listening to the soft hiss-scrape of a sharpening stone.

Darien sat by the window, sleeves rolled, a small spread of arrowheads and fletchings laid out with military neatness. He tested a tip with his thumb, then spoke without looking up. “I’ve got work in Germany tomorrow,” he said. “Property matters. I’ll have to leave in the morning, see it through, sign a few things. And travel by the train. Some magical signature issues.”

Draco’s face fell before he could stop it. “Oh.”

Darien glanced up, caught the look, and set the arrow aside. He wiped his hands, crossed the room, and sat beside Draco so their shoulders touched. “Not forever,” he said, voice warm. “A day. Or two, Maybe less.”

“That’s not forever,” Draco muttered, staring at his shoes, “but it’s not here.”

A quiet knock; the latch turned. Silvanius slipped in, moving like a shadow. A guitar was slung over his shoulder by a worn strap.

Draco blinked. “You… took that out? Here? At Valambre?” His voice lifted with real surprise. “You hid it back at the Manor. And at Hogwarts. No one knew.”

Silvanius eased the door shut. “Here I don’t have to hide it.” His mouth tugged in the smallest smile. “I even play for the family sometimes. They don’t mind such things.”

“You play—” Draco sat up straighter, a spark in his eyes. “For everyone?”

“For anyone who will listen.” Silvanius came over and sank onto the end of Darien’s bed, setting the guitar across his knees with careful hands.

Draco turned to Darien. “How long have you known he plays?”

Darien’s mouth crooked. “Since before we knew we were brothers.” He bumped Draco’s shoulder with his. “I bought him his first guitar to make the boy speak to me.”

Silvanius rolled his eyes softly. “I did speak.”

“Three words a week,” Darien said dryly. “I needed more than grunts.”

Draco’s chest pinched in that sulky way he hated. He looked from one to the other—comfortable, practiced, easy—and felt left outside a door he didn’t know existed. “So you two had… all this… without me.”

Darien chuckled and reached to hook an arm around Draco, but Draco twisted out of the half-hug, heat crawling up his neck. “Don’t.”

“Touchy,” Darien said, amused, not unkind.

Draco turned on Silvanius instead. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why only at the end of the term?”

Silvanius’s fingers ghosted over the strings, drawing a soft, unformed sound. He met Draco’s eyes. “Because it’s a Muggle instrument,” he said simply. “I thought you’d think it was… bad .” He looked down at the guitar, then back up. “But I decided to risk it anyway. And I’m glad you were open to it.”

The words landed hard. Draco looked away. It stung—how his older brothers measured their steps around him, how they checked the air for storm before speaking. Maybe that was why people didn’t tell him things. Maybe he’d made himself sharp enough to cut their hands.

“I wouldn’t have said it was bad,” Draco said, softer. “I—would’ve asked you to play behind a closed door. That’s different.”

Darien huffed a small laugh. “Progress.”

Silvanius tipped his head. “Do you want me to play now?”

Draco’s mouth moved before his pride could get in the way. “Yes.”

Silvanius nodded and adjusted the tuning pegs. The room shifted around the quiet, the candlelight and the night breeze making a small world of four walls and three brothers. He set his fingers and let a simple melody fall into the space—nothing grand, nothing to show off. Warm, low, steady. The kind of song that made tight muscles loosen without permission.

Draco listened, jaw unclenching. He didn’t know the tune. He didn’t need to. It felt like walking down a corridor and finding a light left on for you.

When the last note faded, he swallowed. “It sounds… good in here.”

“Stone helps,” Silvanius said. “And the wood of the window frame. It carries well.”

Darien leaned back on his palms, watching Draco rather than the guitar. “You looked ready to climb out the window when I said ‘Germany.’”

“I didn’t,” Draco said on reflex.

“You did,” Darien said, easy. “And that’s fine.”

There was a small silence. Draco picked at a loose thread on the bedcover. “How long, exactly?”

“Back by the day after tomorrow,” Darien promised. “Evening, if the trains behave. If not, I’ll make them behave.”

Draco snorted despite himself. “You can’t bully a train.”

“I can bully the stationmaster,” Darien said, straight-faced. “Close enough.”

Silvanius’s mouth quirked. “He can.”

Draco stared at his hands. The guilt crept back, thin and mean. “I don’t like the idea of you leaving. That’s all.”

“I know,” Darien said. “That’s why I said it out loud.” He nudged Draco’s knee. “I wanted you to have time to be annoyed about it.”

“I’m not annoyed,” Draco said. “I’m—” He cut himself off, then forced the word out. “Nervous.”

Silvanius shifted the guitar aside, listening without moving too much, as if sound would scare the honesty away.

Darien’s voice went gentle. “New place. New people.” He tipped his head. “It’s a lot.”

Draco’s throat tightened. “Yes.”

Darien squeezed his shoulder. “So. Plan. I’ll go, and I’ll come back. Si will be here. You’ll send me a message if anything feels wrong.”

“It won’t,” Draco said quickly, then, lower, “but I will.”

Darien’s tone shifted—older-brother, no nonsense. “Si, don’t leave him alone tomorrow.”

Silvanius’s answer was immediate. “Obviously.”

“I don’t need a guard,” Draco said, indignant.

“Good,” Darien said. “You don’t have one. You have a brother who plays guitar and knows the way to breakfast.”

Silvanius added, dry: “And the names of the maids who sneak extra pastries.”

That cracked the corner of Draco’s mouth. “You were going to keep that to yourself, weren’t you?”

Silvanius looked almost sincere. “Of course.”

Darien laughed. He stood, ruffled Draco’s hair on purpose, and dodged the swat that followed. “Sleep,” he said. “Both of you. I’ll wake you before I go.”

Draco watched him gather the arrows, the order returning to Darien’s hands—tips capped, fletching checked, work tucked away like thoughts put back on their shelves. The room felt different now—not larger, not smaller. Just… held.

Silvanius squeezed Draco’s shoulder once, with an assuring look, “I’ll be here.” and then bumped his shoulder into Darien’s and rushed out of the room, making Darien chuckle, rubbing his shoulder.

Darien paused. “Draco.”

Draco looked up.

“I’m glad you asked Si to play,” Darien said. “I hoped you would.”

Draco didn’t know what to do with that, so he said nothing. He only nodded, small.

…

…

Darien left just after breakfast, slipping out with the sort of quiet efficiency that made leaving look like iron work. He wore all black—robes the colour of coal, black gloves, black boots—only his crossbow slung across his back to break the darkness. He greeted everyone with an easy nod, met a few polite words at the door, hugged both his brothers, and was gone before Draco had time to settle the uneasy knot in his stomach.

Draco felt oddly exposed. Darien’s leaving made the house feel bigger and emptier; it also made him feel small. Silvanius, by contrast, belonged here in a way that made Draco freeze a little—he moved like someone who knew every corridor and every servant by name. He was part of Valambre in the same easy way the tapestries were part of the walls.

Silvanius was already dressing when Draco blinked back into the morning light. Draco froze properly when he saw the crown perched on Silvanius’s head. It was not an ostentatious thing—delicate metalwork, pale gems—but seeing it on Si made Draco’s throat go tight.

“Why are you wearing that?” Draco managed, voice thin. He sounded as if he’d been caught at something.

Silvanius glanced up, casual. “Mornings. It’s what we do here,” he said. “I missed a couple of days; I thought it was time to put it back on.”

Draco stammered. “But—why? Since when? I mean—”

Silvanius smiled, amused. “Since Julius, Edmund, Mathilda, Annaliese all wear theirs. It’s part of morning dress.” He let the words hang there, like he expected Draco to be satisfied.

Draco blinked, baffled. “But they— they’re the king’s children—”

Silvanius laughed, soft and slightly incredulous. “Alaric isn’t the king, Draco. Victore is the queen, and while Grandmère is alive, there will be no king. Even if someone were king, we’d still be princes. Titles don’t magically change your inheritance.” He tapped his crown lightly. “Darien has one too.”

Something small and hot flared inside Draco— want . 

He stared at the crown as if it were a bright, impossible thing. His expression must have been obvious because Silvanius reached across and squished his cheeks, the motion half brotherly, half teasing.

“Ugh—stop that,” Draco snapped, swatting Silvanius’s hand away, but his voice had none of its usual bite. The image of the crown lodged behind his eyes like a small promise.

“Ask Grandmère,” Silvanius said, sliding off the bed and brushing his hair back with a careful hand. “You’re a prince too, you know. Don’t look so scandalised.”

Draco blinked, then sat up straighter as if a light had switched on. “Really? I—me? A prince?” His face brightened, hopeful and a little ridiculous, like a child who’s been given permission to touch a forbidden toy.

Silvanius smirked. “You act more like a princess half the time,” he said dryly, but there was no malice—only that quiet, teasing affection that made Draco want to both shove him and laugh.

Draco ignored the barb entirely, too busy with the rush of it. “You think they have one for me? Here?”

“They probably do,” Silvanius said, shrugging. “Somewhere in the cupboards, labelled ‘Draco’s things’ or hidden under Julius’s ridiculous collection of swords. Ask Grandmère. She’ll love it.” 

Draco sat back, chest tight with something like joy and disbelief. The house seemed a little less vast, the corridors a little less foreign. Darien might be gone for the day, but there was a crown somewhere in this place with his name on it, and Silvanius—familiar, steady—had just told him to claim it.

After breakfast the house hummed like a living thing, servants moving in practiced patterns and sunlight cutting long banners into the marble. Silvanius said quietly that he would spend the morning in the library; Draco, unable to think of anything else to do that did not involve hiding in his room or reading every portrait’s face, followed.

They walked through corridors that smelled of beeswax and old paper, through doorways carved with the snow-leopard crest until the library yawned open before them like a cavern made for reading. 

It was so, so large that Draco’s breath hitched. It made the Manor’s book-room look like a cupboard; it made Hogwarts’ library—whose stacks were legendary—feel snug in comparison. Shelves climbed and climbed until they blurred into shadow; mezzanines and staircases looped like iron vines; the ceiling towered so high that small lamps hung down on long chains to tangle with the rafters.

Silvanius smiled at his wonder as if he’d expected it. “This is only one wing,” he said, as they stepped inside. “There are four more like this. Each wing has its own specialities.” His voice was soft, content. “This one keeps runes and history mostly. My corner is in the back, where the light is flat and the dust settles slow.”

Draco’s mind did a quick, eager flip. Granger would die here, he thought with an inward, private grin. Hermione Granger would run a finger along every spine until she’d read them all; she would faint and then organize the catalog. The thought made him grin in a way that felt almost like permission to be small and excited. He wished he could have some photographs to bully her with.

Silvanius led him to a little alcove carved near a high window. A single wide-chair sat there, cushions worn in the exact shape of the occupant’s body. Silvanius set down a small stack of books—ancient handbooks of runic alphabets, dust-slim volumes of regional histories—and slid into the chair as if it were a place he had lived in. “Mine,” he said simply, tapping the armrest. “Don’t steal my spot.”

Draco wandered away from the corner like a moth. The shelves were endless: leather spines stamped in faded gold; vellum wraps that smelled faintly of lavender and smoke; some bindings so ornate they seemed to be wearing their own armor. He’d been told—Silvanius had said it, half-proud, half-quietly—that Valambre kept original, extended, ancient and sacred versions of almost every book one could imagine. Original, extended, ancient, sacred. He felt the words like a key.

Stairs climbed up to galleries; stairs climbed down to shadowed levels; ladders leaned against outer stacks with ropes and hooks for reaching higher ledges. Every step echoed history. Draco kept his fingers trailing along the spines, reading titles half to himself. He found herbals so old the script looked like vines; chronicles bound in green silk; maps with oceans drawn in copper ink. The ceiling arched and arched until his neck ached from looking up.

Then something arrested him: a slab-thick volume tucked into a low shelf, its shadowed spine whispering like a secret. It looked familiar—like a name lost and remade. The title on the worn leather called to him, not in words, but in the pull at the center of the chest that sometimes came before important things. It was The Tales of Beetle and Bard —but different. Larger. Older-seeming. It hummed with a faint, gentle glow that skated along the air like a moth’s wing in moonlight.

Draco frowned, curious and a little guilty, and eased the book out. As soon as his hands left the empty place where the volume had been, a soft golden bloom of light settled into the gap—a small lantern of reminder that this shelf wanted its book returned to the exact spot when finished. The glow blinked like a polite eye and then dimmed, leaving the shelf to wait.

He cradled the book and felt its weight: considerable, dense with pages that had been read and read again. The cover had two layers—an outer, sensible leather and an inner lacquered leaf that when peeled back revealed another cover beneath. Draco, half-acting on impulse, forced the outer cover open. The inner page was a title page like a doorway.

Le fils de la mort

The words sat on the paper where the ink had settled into the fibres centuries ago. Draco’s mouth parted. He turned the page gently. Under the title, in a script that leaned toward Latin curls, lay the author’s name: 

Aelius Marcellus, scriptor . 

Underneath, there was a date—not a neat modern number but a notation in an old calendar, and a short line that read, in old French-latin hybrid: Composé en l’âge quand les dieux romains marchoyaient encore parmi les hommes — written in the age when the Roman gods still walked among men.

Draco felt the air thin. He ran his fingers along the letters, each stroke a small bridge across time. Le fils de la mort. The translation came, quiet and heavy: 

The Son of Death.  

It felt at once mythic and immediate, like an object called back from the bones of earlier stories.

He slid down a flight of narrow steps that wrapped around a column, the book held to his chest. The library’s scale made him small; the book made him large. He thought of the snow-leopard crests in the house—how the painted eyes had felt like they were watching him—and some echo of that déjà vu tickled at the back of his skull. Maybe the palace remembered certain bloodlines the way some legends remembered names. Maybe everything here was remembering him.

He found Silvanius in his corner exactly where he’d left him, sleeves rolled, a small pile of reference tomes open with neat markers. Silvanius glanced up and his quiet face brightened the tiniest degree when he saw the book.

“You found it,” Silvanius said, more like an observation than a question. He reached out, palms hovering over the cover as if to bless it. “Careful with that one. Grandmere likes it.”

Draco sat opposite him, the chair cold from someone else’s shape. “It’s… older than I thought.” His voice was small. “Look—” He slipped the book across the small table between them.

Silvanius accepted it with both hands, eyes scanning the title and the note beneath like a man checking a wound. “Le fils de la mort,” he said slowly. “Aelius Marcellus. That attribution… If the inner colophon is authentic, then this copy claims an origin far older than the versions we know in the common room. The note says—” He read, his lips moving, “ composé en l’âge quand les dieux romains marchoyaient encore. I’ve heard of copies like this in Valambre, but not in this wing.”

Draco’s heart thumped. “It’s true? All the stories from older times?”

Silvanius closed the book and tapped it gently. “Valambre keeps lots of variants. Original drafts, families’ annotations, sacred recensions that never saw print in common markets.” He looked up at Draco. “You should know—these volumes are alive in a way. They keep memory. You handle them with care, and they sometimes open doors you didn’t plan on going through.”

A small thrill ran through Draco, the kind that tasted like the first page of a new book. He felt both the weight of the book in his hands and the strange lift in his chest that had started since they arrived at the château—the sense that things here remembered him. 

Draco opened the first page, leaned back in the chair and began reading.

In the elder time, before the histories were set into neat rows and before men learned to bury memory in stone, three mighty gods forged things that were not for mortals to hold. Theness of those things was plain and terrible: each a token of a god’s office, each a key to the hunger of the world.

Phanēs, who is named among some as the First-Breath and among others as the Bright Seed — the god who gave life and beating to the bone — made a stone like a living heart. It burned red as a young sun and it drank blood and mended flesh. Men called it, in the old tongue, Zoēphóros: the Life-Bearer. A ruby in colour, it shone as if lit from within. It gave back breath. It called names from silence. It was not mercy; it was law dressed as mercy.
Zoēphóros was small enough to be held; it weighed as if the world were in your palm.

Krátos, lord of force and of the clenched will, wrought next a rod of exacting make — not a wand of whim, but a sceptre that commanded the very yielding of things. The craftsmen of the peaks called it Dunamíon, the Rod of Might. To it came the right to move mountains and to bend lesser wills. It was the master-word made iron. With it, the hand that held it could make storms obey, doors open, armies break as flint.

Dunamíon hummed with the promise of control.

Thanatos, who keeps the gate and carries the end, wrought last and most strange. He made a mantle of shadow that swallowed sight and stole presence, a cloak that rendered wearer as unmade to the eye and ear. They named it Skíaphōros, the Shadow-Mantle. It was lighter than feathers, colder than graves. With it, a man could walk in the world as a ghost among the living.

These three gifts were not laid at the feet of men. They were entrusted to sons — to offspring formed at the edge of divinity and earth, each son a mirror of his sire’s attribute. The gods sent them down to rule among men; to teach, to bind, to guard. In time the sons took upon themselves family-names, and their lineages planted seed across continents. Through the east and west and south and over the wide seas, they sat and sired and became houses of name and thing.

Krátos’ son started calling himself Wald, And ironically, Phanēs’ settled for Gaunt.

Yet the son sent of Death — Hadrian Thanatos — bent to neither hearth nor wife. Love was not a lodging he would take. He took the road of hunger.

He was young and dangerous, beautiful as a winter lightning. Black hair fell about a face the sun feared to touch; his eyes were green as a blade of new leaf. There are verses that say beauty is a lie; in him beauty was the promise of ruin. He was swift and cunning, and his desire had no shore.

Where other sons planted houses, he moved like a season of war. He tracked the sons of Phanēs and Krátos with a swift tooth. For the things they bore he killed them — quick, clean, unshriven. One by one they fell, and the weapons of their fathers were plucked from dead hands. With each claim he grew; with each claim he took dominion.

The age of Hadrian’s ascent was many in one: the bread of men grew bitter, then scarce; laws were burned and remade overnight; priests learned to count coats of arms and not prayers. Gods themselves bowed, whether by awe or by the cunning of his gathered instruments. He would not be called merely conqueror: men whispered dictator; others dared to say tyrant. Where he walked, the sun felt smaller.

He sat upon power like a crown of bones. He bred legions the likes of which the old songs shudder at. He bound weather and season to his voice. In the capitals he took for himself altars and changed their rites. He made oaths that unmade oaths. Once he had all three hallowings, none could stand against his will.

Terrors multiplied. The world leaned toward an end. Rivers ran thin; fields became maps of grief. The very memory of what had come to be was a fever in men; they forgot names of their own fathers. So deep a madness fell upon the age that it threatened to make the world itself unliveable.

Of the combats worthy to be sung, the meeting between Hadrian and the Northern half-god called Þórr (called Thor among those who cross the seas) is told in a manner that makes chests tighten. Thor came like a thunder that walks. The battle between the son of Death and the thunder-god was like two storms colliding. Thunder answered green fire. Hadrian bore away from that battle a great wound: a scar that ran like lightning itself — a green, burning rent from the side of his forehead down to the jaw. It looked as if the earth had cut him and the wound forever glowed green. Yet though his brow bore that thunder-scar, Hadrian stood last among the living where many should have made claim. He had won.

He ruled the world like a tyrant, a conqueror who wore the crown of shadows, a dictator who made even gods bend their heads in silent fear. The age of his reign was too violent, too unearthly for men to remember—it was struck from the mind of mortals by Draconis, son of Hades himself. Born of the underworld, Draconis carried the sword of judgment, and in every way stood in opposition to Hadrian Thanatos, son of Death. They were like the sun and the moon, forever circling one another, never meant to meet, yet unable to resist the gravity that pulled them closer.

Draconis came not as an enemy, but as a counterweight to Hadrian’s hunger, as light rises to temper night. Where Hadrian consumed, Draconis gave. Where Hadrian destroyed, Draconis healed. Yet the closer they drew, the more their fates tangled. Some say it was not just battle that bound them, but love—love as dangerous as it was inevitable, for how could the son of death and the son of the underworld never belong to each other? Draconis gave his kind heart to Hadrian, forgetting his duty, forgetting the oath he swore to the gods, forgetting even his own soul.

And Hadrian—terrible, ruthless Hadrian—made Draconis his hidden treasure. To the world he was merciless, but in the silence between wars, he held Draconis like a secret he dared not lose. Yet when the moment came, when the world trembled and the choice rose stark and cruel—love or power—Hadrian chose the crown. He killed Draconis with his own hands, more brutally than he had killed any other, tearing apart the only light that had ever touched him.

But legends argue. Some whisper that it was not murder but sacrifice—that Draconis, knowing his destiny, let Hadrian’s blade fall without resistance, and with his dying breath fulfilled his duty: to end the apocalypse and scatter the gathering darkness. Others say Hadrian himself could not bear it, that his hands shook at the thought of striking the one he loved, and so he turned the cursed dagger inward, driving it into his own heart to save Draconis from the burden of killing him.

No one knows which tale is true. Only that when the dust cleared, the age of shadow ended, and both sons—the son of Death and the son of the Underworld—were gone.

Thus the last of that dark reign closed not with triumph but with emptiness. Draconis Hādēs, who would not behold the thing he wrought, used what small craft and terrible love he possessed to remove the mark of those days from the common memory. He folded the age out of men’s minds as one might fold a map, hiding the lines and names, leaving only whispers in certain houses and the knowledge of a few chosen orders: that once there had been a time when gods bowed and one son made war upon both gods and men.

So it is written and so it is said in many tongues: that power makes men monstrous, that love may lift or break a man, and that when a thing reaches too far, the memory of it must be buried if the living are to live.

Short sentences remain true as stone.

Men forgot.

But the scars and the songs did not entirely vanish.

They sleep in the corners of old books. They hide beneath crests. They watch with green and patient eyes.

Chapter Text

Draco shut the book mid-way with a sharp snap. His pale fingers trembled against the heavy cover as if he feared the parchment itself might bleed into him. He didn’t dare flip another page.

“Hadrian Thanatos… green eyes, black hair… and thunder scars?” Draco whispered under his breath, as if saying the name aloud would summon the figure into the very room. His throat tightened, breath uneven, heart racing like he had just run down all the endless stairs of the library.

He shut his eyes and shook his head violently, as though trying to fling the image away. 

Ridiculous. 

Just words. 

Just stories. 

Just myths…

The echo of his own thoughts was broken by the lively sound of footsteps. Julius and Edmund burst into the library, their voices carrying mischief and energy that didn’t belong in a place lined with sacred tomes.

“There they are!” Julius grinned, tossing his silvery bangs dramatically as if they’d caught the culprits red-handed.

“The Dragon in a library?” Edmund sighed, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “The scandal of it.”

Both of them snorted into laughter, leaning against each other, their laughter bubbling until it bounced off the tall stone walls.

Even Silvanius, tucked into his corner of scrolls and runes, let out a quiet chuckle as he closed his books and papers neatly. Draco looked between them, still feeling the ghost of the myth pressing against his ribs, but the warmth of their banter tugged at him nonetheless.

“Come on, hurry!” Julius clapped his hands together, the sound echoing. “Father will soon be back from the court.”

“And we’re going to play,” Edmund added with a mischievous gleam.

Draco blinked once. Then again. He stared at them as if they had both grown horns. “Play?” he repeated, almost horrified.

PLAY?

“Yes,” Julius said simply, shrugging like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“With swords,” Edmund clarified, as if that made the notion perfectly reasonable.

“Combat,” Julius added proudly. “Every evening. It’s tradition.”

Draco’s jaw parted slightly. Combat? For fun? His mind went wild with absurd images: proper princes and heirs, dueling in the gardens before supper like children chasing after broomsticks. Surely they weren’t serious—

“Silvanius, bring your sword,” Julius commanded lightly, already turning to the door.

But then Julius halted mid-step, his gaze landing on Draco. His eyes narrowed with sudden realization.

“Wait.” He gestured dramatically toward Draco. “He hasn’t got one.”

There was a moment of silence as if the library itself held its breath.

Edmund gasped as if it were a tragedy. “Right! What shall we do? He can’t just watch.”

“Unacceptable,” Julius said firmly, crossing his arms.

“We’ll have to give him one of yours,” Edmund suggested.

“Impossible!” Julius immediately shook his head, scandalized. “My swords are mine. Each of them knows me.”

He leaned forward, finger raised, and recited in a very serious voice:

“‘The sword chooses its master, and once it has chosen, no hand but its own shall wield it true.’” He smirked at Draco, clearly pleased with himself for quoting what sounded like an age-old law.

“That’s what Grandmère says,” Edmund added in agreement, nodding sagely.

“And so my swords,” Julius declared dramatically, “are not his swords.”

The twins exchanged a glance, and then, at the very same time, their eyes lit up with the same spark of mischief. 

“The Undercrofts,” Julius whispered, eyes widening with delight.

“Yes,” Edmund breathed, grinning wickedly. “And the garderobes.”

“Old swords,” Julius explained, pacing now like a commander unveiling a grand plan. “Swords whose masters are long gone, lying in wait for someone new.”
“Dusty, ancient, half-forgotten blades,” Edmund chimed in with relish. “And perhaps, one of them will choose him.”

Draco sat frozen in his chair, blinking owlishly at the bizarre exchange. Their enthusiasm rolled over him like a wave, leaving him baffled, still reeling from the book he had just read, and now confronted with this .

He opened his mouth, but no sound came. He shut it again.

Beside him, Silvanius pressed a hand to his lips, clearly struggling to hold back a laugh. His eyes softened in that familiar, fond way, like he couldn’t help but be amused at Draco’s bewilderment— like watching a kitten shoved into a storm.

Draco crossed his arms tightly over his chest, cheeks faintly pink, muttering under his breath, “This family is utterly mad.”

But despite himself, a small flicker of anticipation curled in his stomach.

Silvanius frowned, his voice quiet but steady. “Shouldn’t you at least ask Aunt Elodie first?”

Julius and Edmund exchanged a glance, then both shrugged as if the thought hadn’t even occurred.

“No need,” Edmund said briskly. “We just need Draco to come with us.”

“Exactly,” Julius added, already tugging at Draco’s sleeve. “We’ll be late to combat if we waste time. What’s the point of running across the whole palace to hunt for elders? We’ll just check the garderobes, undercrofts, and cellars ourselves.”

Silvanius sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “You should still ask someone—”

But Julius was already dismissing him with a wave. “What could possibly happen?”

Before Silvanius could reply, Draco’s eyes widened. With sudden desperation, he reached for Silvanius’s hand, his fingers clutching tightly as though asking him to agree.

Silvanius stopped for a heartbeat at the unexpected touch, then allowed himself to be pulled along, his brother’s pleading face leaving him little choice.

He followed, shoulders tense, telling himself he was only humoring them. Still, the thought pressed in the back of his mind: Irresponsible, reckless… but surely, nothing will happen.

Fixing his glasses once more, Silvanius stepped into stride beside Draco.

“Undercroft first,” Julius declared with the confidence of a king, pushing Edmund lightly on the shoulder as they walked.

“You always say undercroft first,” Edmund shot back, swatting his brother’s hand away. “But logically, the cellars would hold the oldest relics. Think , Julius. Stone keeps cold better than the undercrofts do.”

“Oh please,” Julius scoffed, shoving him again. “That’s just because you’re scared of the dark undercroft. Admit it.”

“I am not scared!” Edmund huffed, stepping neatly aside before Julius could bump him again. His dodge was so casual, so expected, it almost looked rehearsed.

“You dodged.” Julius smirked.

“Because I knew you’d try it.”

“You always know.”

“Because you’re painfully predictable.”

They both grinned smugly, circling each other in their little argument, shoulders bumping and shoves exchanged, never missing a step in the direction they were headed.

Draco trailed a few steps behind them, beside Silvanius, his eyes fixed on the twins. He had never seen such ease. The rhythm of it, the unspoken anticipation. The way Julius and Edmund knew each other’s next move as if they were reading a script only they had written.

They had grown up together. They knew each other like the back of their hands.

If I had grown up with my brothers…

Would I have known Darien like that? Known when he was about to smile? When he was hiding something? Would I have been able to predict Silvanius’ silences before they even fell?

All those years he never thought about it. Never knew he wanted it. And now… now that he had them, he couldn’t imagine losing them, couldn’t  imagine going back to that bleak, empty life…

A life where I don’t have Darien.

Where I don’t have Silvanius…

Draco’s chest ached with the thought. Almost instinctively, he held onto Silvanius’ arm a little tighter. Just for a second, he leaned his head lightly against his brother’s shoulder, letting the warmth settle him before he straightened quickly, feigning nonchalance.

Silvanius only huffed a laugh, clearly seeing through the act. He bent down and pressed a brief kiss into Draco’s hair.

Draco immediately jerked his head up, glaring. “Don’t.”

Silvanius smirked teasingly, fixing his glasses again.

The twins hadn’t noticed, too busy snapping at each other.

By the time they reached the undercroft, Julius practically flung the heavy doors open with a flourish of spells, while Edmund muttered corrections under his breath. The smell of age and stone poured out, heavy and dark.

“See?” Julius grinned, proud. “Undercroft first.”

“Fine,” Edmund rolled his eyes, “but if we come out empty-handed, we’re doing it my way.”

Draco barely had time to react before both brothers grabbed his wrists and pulled him inside, their laughter echoing against the damp stone walls. 

Silvanius, tethered to Draco by default, walked forward as well with a resigned sigh. He thought grimly to himself: of course. Julius and Edmund had been smart enough to realize asking him for permission would lead nowhere. Better to simply kidnap the dragon.

The heavy iron doors of the undercroft groaned as Julius and Edmund shoved them further open. Dust rolled out like a wave, the smell of old stone and metal following. They were halfway through pushing them closed again when—

Smack!

“Honestly, Edmund!” Mathilda’s hand slapped his away from the door so hard he flinched. She stepped right inside with a huff, skirts brushing the dusty floor. “Were you trying to bury me under these heavy doors?”

Edmund blinked, incredulous. “Bury you? Outside the door? You weren’t even—” he cut himself off, throwing his hands up. “Why are you stalking us anyway? Not very ladylike , Mathilda.”

Mathilda’s arms crossed, her glare sharp enough to slice him in two. Edmund froze mid-step.

“…Right,” he muttered quickly, backtracking, “not stalking, of course. Just… passing by.”

Julius burst out laughing. “Oh, Edmund, you’re pathetic.”

Mathilda’s head snapped to him. One single glare.

Julius’ laughter stopped instantly. He lifted both hands in surrender, a grin twitching at his lips. “Désolé, désolé!” He pressed a finger to his lips, miming silence like a guilty child.

Silvanius smirked openly at both twins’ swift defeat. “You two always crumble so quickly.” He tilted his head at Mathilda, far more at ease. “What are you doing here, though? Don’t tell me you actually came to the undercroft on purpose.”

Mathilda sniffed, brushing her curls back. “Please. Do you think I have any interest in following a group of sweaty boys sneaking around? Hardly .”

“Then?” Silvanius pressed, one brow raised.

“I’m looking for Annaliese,” Mathilda said simply, exasperation in her voice. “She was supposed to bring Luca back last night. Instead, she came home this morning. Sebastian is stomping through the halls in his ‘dad mode’ looking for her—”

That broke them. Julius, Edmund, and even Silvanius all snorted. Draco blinked at them, unsure what was funny, though the image of Sebastian in a ‘dad mode’ did strike him as odd.

Mathilda carried on, ignoring the laughter. “Anyway, Annaliese is hiding somewhere from him now, while Luca and Adrien are happily lounging with Grandmère.” She shook her head. “Typical.”

She planted her hands on her hips, looking at the boys as though she’d caught them red-handed. “But you lot —why are you sneaking into the undercrofts instead of preparing for combat?”

Julius and Edmund shared a quick look, then, perfectly in sync, turned to point at Draco.

“He doesn’t have a sword,” Julius said with a dramatic sigh.

“So,” Edmund picked up smoothly, “we’re finding him one.”

“One whose master’s been dead for a hundred years or more.” Julius’ eyes sparkled mischievously.

Mathilda blinked once, then grinned slowly, pulling the crown from her head with both hands. “Now that is interesting.”

She walked to the side table by the door and set her crown down with unusual care. Before Julius or Edmund could complain, she marched back, plucked their crowns right off their heads despite their squawks of protest, and carried those over too.

“Mathilda!” Julius whined. “You could’ve at least asked.”

“You’d have said no.”

“I still could’ve pretended to agree!”

Edmund was no better. “Do you even know how much that hurts?!”

Mathilda rolled her eyes, ignoring them entirely, before turning toward Silvanius expectantly.

Silvanius slipped his own crown from his head and handed it to her. She gave him a smile, then stacked all four neatly on the table.

When she turned back, her eyes landed on Draco—whose blond head was bare. She tilted her head, then let out a soft, “ Ohhh… ” like something had just clicked in her memory.

“That reminds me,” she said with a smile, “Grandmère wants to see you later, Draco. Something about your crown.”

Draco’s eyes widened, lighting up. “My crown?” His voice was almost a whisper, hopeful and thrilled.

Mathilda nodded firmly, still smiling at his expression.

Draco beamed, his excitement so pure it made Silvanius chuckle quietly and reach over to adjust his little brother’s collar like it was nothing.

Mathilda rolled her sleeves up with an air of ceremony, stepping in front of the group like a commander. “Now,” she declared, eyes gleaming, “let’s find a nice sword for our cousin.”

Her confidence faltered for a moment, though, when Draco turned around fully and took in the undercroft. His breath hitched.

The space stretched vast and endless, as though the library he’d just been in had been mirrored underground. Stacks of relics, armor, books, paintings, and weapon racks layered over each other like an avalanche of history. Gold gleamed in some corners, dark iron in others. The air was thick with dust and the faint hum of old magic. There was barely space to walk between the chaos of centuries.

Draco swallowed hard, eyes wide as saucers. “Merlin’s beard…” he whispered under his breath.

Julius clapped him on the back, grinning like a boy about to dive into mischief. “Welcome to the treasure trove, little cousin.”

Edmund smirked, already stepping ahead with a spark of excitement in his eyes. “Now let’s see which blade dares to choose you.”

Everyone rolled up their sleeves like soldiers preparing for war. Even Mathilda, who sniffed at the dust as though it dared touch her, tucked her gown carefully and looked at Silvanius.

“Pen,” she said, holding out her hand.

He blinked. “Pen?”

“Yes, pen. You always have one in your pocket.”

He sighed, but true enough, he pulled a sleek silver pen from his inner coat pocket and handed it over.

Mathilda gathered her thick hair with practiced ease, twisting it in one hand, then stabbed the pen through in one motion, tucking it all into a perfect bun. It sat neatly, firm and elegant, not a strand loose.

Draco stared, wide-eyed. That was so cool.

Mathilda flipped the ends of her now-nonexistent hair smugly, as if she still had flowing locks to toss. Julius groaned.

“Oh, don’t look so proud of yourself,” Julius muttered, already clambering over a pile of helmets and shields.

“She looks ridiculous,” Edmund said, muffled as he tugged on an oversized breastplate he’d unearthed. The thing was far too big, hanging off his shoulders like he was a child pretending to be a knight. “How do I look?”

“Like a drowned goose,” Mathilda said sweetly.

“More like a turtle trying to walk,” Julius snorted.

Draco laughed before he could stop himself, covering his mouth quickly. Edmund glared, then tried to wriggle out of the breastplate with much clanking and muttering.

Julius pulled out a helmet with horns curving up like a ram’s. He shoved it onto his head. “Now this is regal.”

“No, that is ridiculous,” Mathilda retorted immediately.

“You’re ridiculous,” Julius said, then puffed out his chest, wobbling his head so the horns swayed. “Bow to your horned king!”

Even Silvanius chuckled under his breath, though he tried to look like he wasn’t amused.

“I suppose,” he said, adjusting his glasses as he peered around the heaps, “if you truly want something untouched, we should check the end of the undercroft. This part gets disturbed all the time. But the further back you go, the more likely something has been left alone for centuries.”

That made them all pause. Julius lifted his horned head. Edmund finally managed to wrestle free of the breastplate with a clang. Mathilda adjusted her bun.

“Fair point,” Edmund said, a little breathless.

“Fine, to the end then,” Julius agreed.

So they began their hike deeper into the undercroft, weaving between piles of relics. Dust rose with every step, and the flickering sconces on the walls cast long shadows.

Draco stuck close behind Silvanius, his hand brushing his sleeve now and then. He could still feel the thrill of laughter in his chest from their antics.

It was then Julius slowed, falling in step beside him. His grey eyes glittered with mischief.

“Cousin,” he whispered, leaning down so only Draco could hear, “want to play a game?”

Draco tilted his head, curious.

“We disappear,” Julius said, grin widening. “Hide. Let’s see how the others react.”

Draco blinked, hesitated for half a heartbeat. Then his lips tugged upward in the same mischievous grin. He nodded.

“Good lad,” Julius whispered. He straightened, then pressed a small, clinking tool into Draco’s palm. “Here. When I hide, you throw this. Hard. Make a noise, and when everyone’s focused on me being gone, Then hide yourself.”

Draco gripped the tool tightly, nodding with excitement.

Ahead, Silvanius was saying to Mathilda, “I told them we shouldn’t have come. They dragged Draco into this nonsense—”

“Oh, hush,” Edmund cut in with a grin, “it’s fun!”

Julius ducked away from them silently, slipping into a dark corner behind a mound of crates and old spears. He gave Draco a quick thumbs-up before vanishing completely.

Draco’s heart thudded. He waited—waited until Julius was swallowed by the shadows. Then he threw the tool with all his strength.

CLANG!

The noise ricocheted off the stones, sharp and loud. He was a pleasant actor. Draco spun around at once, widening his eyes. “What was that?!” he gasped, feigning alarm.

Silvanius’ head snapped toward the sound, glasses sliding down his nose. “Draco!” He rushed to his side, shielding him slightly.

Edmund frowned. “Wait—where’s Julius?”

There was a pause. His eyes darted around the room. “Julius?” His voice pitched higher. “Julius!”

No answer.

“Julius, stop it!” Edmund’s voice cracked. Panic washed over his face, his eyes growing wet. He shoved through piles, calling louder and louder. “JULIUS! JULIUS!”

Mathilda’s face went pale. She threw herself into searching, skirts gathering dust as she yanked open crates and shoved aside relics. “Julius! Answer us this instant!”

Even Silvanius abandoned his calm, moving quickly from one heap to another, his voice sharper, “Julius?”

Edmund was trembling now, his breath hiccuping as he shoved a rusted shield aside. “No, no, no, no… Julius!!”

Draco felt the chaos whirl around him like a storm. His heart pounded—not with fear, but with guilt and exhilaration. He slipped quietly away, back behind Silvanius, into the shadow of a small cupboard. It was barely big enough, but he squeezed in, shut the door, and pressed a hand over his mouth to muffle his guilty laugh.

Outside, the storm only grew worse.

“JULIUS!” Edmund screamed, voice cracking with desperation. His hands shook as he tore

Draco’s shoulders shook inside the cupboard, torn between laughter and the growing guilt in his chest.

Silvaniu ssearched around in alarm.

And then—he looked beside him.

The space was empty.

Draco was gone.

For a moment his lungs forgot how to work. His fingers twitched against his robes, clutching at nothing, his spectacles slipping down the bridge of his nose. He spun so fast the hem of his cloak snapped against the marble.

“Draco?”

The name left him too sharp, too cracked. He barked it again, louder this time, the composure unraveling. His heart struck hard against his ribs. “Draco!”

“Draco! ANSWER ME!”

Edmund and the others paused, wide-eyed. They had never seen Silvanius like this—never seen the calm, cold brother undone, hair falling in his eyes, voice hoarse with panic, glass lenses fogged as though even his sight had turned against him.

“Cousin Draco? Julius!” Edmund called

And still, no Draco.

Silvanius’ voice cut through the undercroft like a whip. “If this is a joke—” his tone cracked with fury, sharp and shaking, “—it isn’t a very good one!”

The force of it made Draco’s stomach lurch. His throat went dry. His fingers trembled where they rested against the inside of the cupboard door.

He hadn’t thought Silvanius could sound like that—angry and terrified all at once, as though his very soul had been torn open. Draco gulped hard, already planning to crawl out and admit defeat. His chest hurt from guilt.

He turned his head—

And froze.

Right there, in the suffocating darkness of the cupboard, another face stared back at him. Pale, wide-eyed, already watching him as though it had been there all along. A woman.

Draco screamed. The sound ripped itself out of him so violently he thought his throat might split.

The door was yanked open at once, flooding the cupboard with light, and Draco tumbled out onto the dusty floor— gasping, trembling —while a woman fell forward beside him, also panting, her scream echoing his. Long, straight, white-blonde hair spilled over her shoulders, catching the faint lantern glow of the undercroft.

“Annaliese!” Mathilda cried, relief and fury laced together.

At the same moment, Julius stumbled out of his own hiding place down the row, looking dazed. Edmund spun around, eyes still wet, and tired to punch him square in the face. Julius dodged smoothly—too used to Edmund’s wrath—but gave him a sheepish look, guilt painted across his features.

Edmund swiped at his cheeks, furious with himself for crying, but Julius’ attempt to brush away his tears was slapped aside. “Don’t touch me!” Edmund snapped, then kicked him hard in the calf, swearing at him in rapid-fire French.

“Idiot! Crétin! Tu crois que c’est drôle?! Tu—”

Mathilda stormed up before Edmund could land another hit, and she punched Julius hard in the arm, her small fist making him wince. “Imbécile!”

Then her attention snapped to Draco and the woman still gasping on the floor. Her hands planted firmly on her hips, she narrowed her eyes into a glare sharp enough to make Draco shrink.

“What the hell, sœur ?” she snapped in French, crouching down to haul the trembling woman— Annaliese —up by the arm.

Draco stayed where he was on the ground, his heart hammering, dust clinging to his sleeves. His eyes darted upward, waiting, for Silvanius to hold out a hand too, would pull him up the way he always did.

But the hand never came.

Silvanius stood over him, his face pale, his glasses catching the glow. His chest still heaved from panic, but his gaze had turned to ice. Cold, cutting, distant. He looked down at Draco as though he had never been so disappointed in his life.

Draco’s lips parted, his voice breaking, “S-Silv—”

“Get up,” Silvanius said flatly, already stepping aside, his cloak brushing past Draco without another glance.

The coldness stung worse than a slap. Draco wished, with every fiber of himself, that he had never agreed to Julius’ wretched prank.

Draco pushed himself up in a burst of adrenaline, flipping back onto his feet before he even realized what he was doing. The rush carried him straight toward Silvanius in a blur, heart slamming in his chest.

Darien wasn’t here. Darien wasn’t in the country. If Silvanius got angry too—if Silvanius turned away—what would he do?

Behind him, four jaws dropped in unison.

“ Heavens —” Julius breathed.

“Was that—was that a backflip ?!” Edmund crowed, already whistling low.

“Smooth, cousin,” Julius said, lips twitching into a grin despite himself. “Ten out of ten.”

Edmund cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Encore!”

Even Mathilda and Annaliese, still recovering, blinked at Draco with wide eyes, both of them muttering in sync, “...hot.” Then immediately rolling eyes at each other for agreeing on anything.

But Draco didn’t hear them. Didn’t care . His whole focus was Silvanius.

He caught up, tugging at his arm, his voice spilling in broken, hurried pleas. “Silvanius, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—it was Julius, I swear —I only—please, don’t— don’t be mad , I didn’t—”

Silvanius stopped, turned just enough to glare at Julius. The look alone could have frozen fire. Then he exhaled sharply through his nose and said, clipped, “Edmund. Find the sword. Quickly. I’m not wasting my entire evening in here.”

Edmund, still wide-eyed from the flip, blinked at the sudden order. “Right, right—on it,” he mumbled, already darting forward with Julius trailing behind, their heads together, rummaging deeper into the endless clutter.

Mathilda folded her arms, narrowing her gaze at Annaliese. “What exactly were you doing hiding in a cupboard?”

Annaliese pursed her lips, brushing dust from her dress. “Sebastian. He’s been in full dad mode since I returned. I just needed to breathe.” She waved her hand. “I slipped into the undercroft to hide, then I heard voices—yours—and thought if I made a sound, I’d be found, so I ducked into the first place I could. Then I sat there for god knows how long, waiting for all of you to leave.”

Her hazel eyes flicked toward Draco and widened again. “Then this stranger with sharp cheekbones decides to lounge in beside me as though it’s an evening routine—my heart nearly stopped. I thought one of our ancestors’ ghosts came back to hunt me.”

Mathilda pressed her lips together to stop a laugh. “Serves you right.”

But Draco wasn’t laughing. He reached again for Silvanius’ sleeve, his voice cracking, softer now, “Silvanius… please .”

Silvanius stopped just long enough for Draco’s heart to leap—then wrenched his arm free in a single, sharp motion.

“Don’t,” he bit out. His tone was low, cold enough to sting.

The rejection was a slap, sharp and final. Draco stilled, his eyes burning hot before he could stop it, blinking rapidly as tears threatened to spill. He hadn’t felt this small in years.

Silvanius didn’t even look back. He moved ahead of Julius and Edmund, brushing past Mathilda and Annaliese with an ease that told the entire group he was finished with this nonsense.

And Draco—Draco had never regretted anything so much as that stupid prank.

Draco wiped his face quickly before anyone could see, then fell into step with the others. He kept silent, though his chest still ached, until Annaliese drifted back to him, her voice soft.

“It’s alright,” she murmured, smiling gently. “I’m Annaliese Alaric Malfoire—the eldest. A healer. Turning twenty soon.”

Draco blinked at her, forcing a small smile, grateful for her kindness. “Draco… Malfoy,” he answered quietly, indulging in the small talk, letting her calm presence steady him as if nothing had happened at all.

Then—

“I see something!” Mathilda’s voice rang out, triumphant. Everyone rushed toward her, where she stood before a massive cement rack, built into the stone wall.

It was overflowing—swords stacked in careless rows, rust creeping along their edges. Daggers with crooked hilts. Shields dented beyond recognition. A spiked flail, its chain broken. Crossbows missing strings. Whips. A spear with a jagged, crystal-shaped tip. Even a strange gauntlet, its fingers ending in sharp steel claws.

“Enfin!” Julius dove forward, already tossing aside bent steel in search of treasure. Edmund joined him, grinning. “If we don’t find a sword here, we might as well give up the quest entirely.”

Silvanius, more patient, sifted through the mess. His sharp eyes caught a shimmer at the bottom of a heap—a thin, glittering thread. He picked it up, feeling something stir faintly in his fingertips. His brow furrowed, but after a moment, he tucked it away into his pocket. He would figure it out later.

“Here,” Julius said, pulling out a relatively straight longsword and handing it to Draco. “Not pretty, but it won’t fall apart.”

Draco took it, testing the weight. The steel was heavy but serviceable. Usable. Still, it felt strange in his hand. Wrong, somehow.

He didn’t have long to dwell on it. Silvanius’ hand paused on something else. He shifted a stray piece of armor aside, revealing—

A handle. Large. Dull. Blade long gone. From where the steel should have met the grip stretched a golden sun, ruby at its center, its rays like tentacles curling outward. The craftsmanship was unlike anything else in the undercroft.

“Wow,” Mathilda breathed, eyes wide.

The others gathered instantly.

“It’s beautiful ,” Annaliese said softly, brushing dust away from the ruby. “But useless without a blade.”

Silvanius nodded curtly. “Agreed. Still—it’s giving off something. Strange. We’ll take it back for examination.”

Mathilda hummed her agreement. Julius and Edmund, already intrigued, leaned in eagerly.

“I’ve got it,” Julius said, reaching down—then immediately grunting when it wouldn’t budge. “What—”

Edmund laughed, pushing him aside to try himself. He too tugged hard, only for his face to twist. “It’s stuck—like stone—!” His eyes widened. “It’s too heavy—”

Silvanius bent down next, testing it once. He stopped almost immediately, scoffing faintly as if the failure didn’t bother him, though his lips tightened.

“Glued to the ground,” Mathilda declared to save face for them all.

Then Annaliese turned, smiling warmly at Draco. “You haven’t seen it yet. Come—”

Draco stepped forward hesitantly, brushing beside Silvanius. He looked down at the golden sun and—

His breath hitched.

The world tilted.

Laughter—familiar, but blurred, echoing in his ears.

Green fire. 

The strike of steel. 

A voice—low, urgent— “ Hadrian? ”

Draco staggered, the images flashing too fast, too broken. He could hear shouts, voices drowned in echoes—

“Not him—!”

“The—protect the —!”

“Stand your ground!”

His stomach twisted violently, nausea rising like a wave.

“Draco—!” Silvanius’ voice cut sharp through the fog, his hand instantly steadying Draco by the shoulder.

Draco gasped, bracing himself with one palm against the rack. His head spun, the blurred images still dissolving in his vision.

“Too long in the undercroft,” Annaliese murmured, pressing her hand lightly to his forehead, already slipping into healer’s instinct. “We should leave before all of us get sick.”

“Oui,” Mathilda agreed.

Edmund, undeterred, grabbed Julius by the arm. “But imagine how heavy this thing would be with a blade—! It must have been wielded by a giant!”

“Or a god ,” Julius muttered, still staring in awe.

Silvanius’ eyes, however, stayed on Draco—sharp, suspicious. He had seen the way Draco changed the moment his gaze touched the weapon. He didn’t like it.

“Enough,” Silvanius said firmly, voice cold. “Don’t touch it again. Not either of you. If it’s cursed— or worse —we’re done playing games.”

Julius and Edmund froze, exchanging wary glances, then stepped back.

“Pick any other sword for him,” Silvanius ordered flatly. “We’re leaving.”

They all scattered again, digging through the rack for something worth keeping. Julius and Edmund tossed aside rusty blades, arguing about which hilt was sturdier. Mathilda was turning over a chest plate with a hole punched clean through it.

Annaliese sighed softly, muttering about how careless men were with weapons, even dead ones.

Silvanius, methodical as ever, crouched low and pulled free a small case of arrows tucked into the shadows. The heads gleamed sharp and black—obsidian, cut clean, deadly. His eyes softened. Darien. Without hesitation, he shrunk the bundle with a flick and slid it into his coat pocket. He said nothing.

But Draco hadn’t moved.

He stood where the broken sun-hilt lay, staring. His breath was shallow.

The flashes hadn’t stopped. If anything, they grew stronger.

Thunder cracking. Lightning tearing a sky he didn’t know.

Steel clashing, crimson spraying.

His own voice, tender but urgent—“I’ll find you again, I promise.”

Another, whispering against his ear, desperate—“Don’t leave me—”

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t his . But it crawled inside him, clawed at his ribs. His chest ached with promises he never made.
With love he never confessed. With desperation that didn’t belong to Draco Malfoy—yet it consumed him.

His hand moved before his mind caught up. Slowly. Shaking. Reaching.

“Draco—” Julius’ voice cut in sharply. His head whipped around. “Don’t touch it! You hear me? Don’t—”

But Draco didn’t stop.

Behind them, a faint call echoed through the stone halls. French, accented, rough.

“Enfants? Êtes-vous ici?” Sebastian.

Everyone’s heads snapped toward the sound, panic flaring.

Everyone—except Draco.

“Draco, enough!” Silvanius barked, his hand shooting out instinctively. For one wild second he thought he could stop him—

But Draco’s fingers closed under the sun.

The moment his hand curled around it, the world exploded .

A blinding light tore through the undercroft, so bright it burned through their eyelids. It wasn’t a glow—it was a storm of brilliance, gold and white roaring outward. The ruby at the hilt flared like fire, and from it came a wave, heavy and violent, slamming into them all.

“—AH!” Mathilda screamed as she was thrown against a rack.

“Hell—!” Julius hit the ground hard, skidding across the stones.

Edmund coughed, rolling onto his side.

Annaliese shielded her eyes with both hands, heart pounding.

Silvanius staggered but held his ground the longest, his coat snapping in the wind of the energy—until at last he was shoved back too, boots grinding against the floor.

“DRACO!” His voice was lost to the roar.

And Draco—

Draco was standing at the center of it.

When the light dimmed at last, every breath in the room stilled.

The sword was no longer broken.

No rust, no ruin. The hilt gleamed, the golden sun whole and brilliant, each ray sharp and alive with light. The ruby burned with a deep, living red.

And the blade— oh, the blade —stretched long and flawless, silver like liquid moonlight, forged anew before their very eyes. It was whole. It was glorious. It was— reborn.

And it was in Draco’s hand.

Not heavy. Not unyielding. His arm didn’t even tremble. As though it belonged to him. As though it had been waiting for him. As though it was an extension of his arm

Julius scrambled up first, mouth hanging open. “Mon God… He—he lifted it.”

Edmund’s voice cracked. “That’s impossible—! None of us could even move it!”

Mathilda whispered, almost reverent, “ C’est magnifique… ”

Annaliese pressed a hand to her chest, staring wide-eyed. “It healed itself… in his grip…”

Silvanius’ eyes locked on Draco, wide and sharp, but behind them something flickered. Suspicion. Fear. And something else—something harder to name. He tried to breath. This wasn’t looking so good.

Draco himself just stared at the weapon in his grasp, chest heaving, lips parting in disbelief. His reflection stared back at him in the mirrored steel of the blade, but behind it—he swore he still saw the storm. The blood. The voices.

“I’ll find you again.”

“Don’t leave me.”

His knuckles whitened on the grip, his whole body trembling.

“I…” His voice broke. He swallowed, eyes darting to Silvanius. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to—”

But the sword glowed faintly in his hand still, as if it chose him.

…

Grimmauld Place was noisier than ever that summer.

Every Weasley had squeezed inside — Molly clucking about Charlie’s trunk, trying not to sniffle at the thought of him leaving for Romania again, Fred and George constantly making sarcastic remarks about the “ancient Black family dust” while being forced to scrub it anyway, Ginny and Ron complaining as they scraped grime off the stair rails, Arthur happily tinkering with a cursed teapot that nearly took his fingers off.

And in the middle of it all, Remus was scolding.

“Polyjuice potion!” His voice carried from the parlor, calm but edged with sharp disapproval. “Honestly, you three are barely sixteen! Do you realize how dangerous that was?”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione froze in place like children caught with their hands in a sweet jar. Hermione’s cheeks burned scarlet as Remus continued, pacing the length of the rug.

“Professor McGonagall told me, ” Remus went on, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you have any idea how mortified I was? I’ve defended you three for years, told her you were responsible, resourceful… and then she tells me about—” He gestured with both hands in exasperation.

Hermione buried her face in her hands. Ron muttered, “Sorry…”

“Harry, you could’ve poisoned yourself! Or worse!”

What surprised Harry wasn’t Remus’ lecture — it was Sirius.

Instead of smirking, or laughing it off, or telling them it was “brilliant rule-breaking,” Sirius sat slouched on the sofa with his arms crossed, nodding along like a second professor.

“Moony’s right,” Sirius said sharply. “You were reckless. Dumbledore should’ve made the punishment harsher. You can’t just go harassing Malfoy because you feel like it. That’s—” He waved a hand. “That’s not bravery, that’s childishness.”

Harry blinked at him. It was so unlike Sirius.

Hermione groaned into her palms. “Please stop…”

“Dinner’s in an hour!” Remus’ voice floated from the kitchen now. “Sirius, bath, before you sit down at my table.”

“Yes, yes,” Sirius called back, rolling his eyes. “Nag, nag, nag.”

He got up, but not before glowering at Harry again as though he’d been the one brewing polyjuice.

Harry, trying to prove himself useful, bent to move a heavy metal box shoved under a table. Sirius was still muttering, tossing ugly Black heirlooms into the bin with no care whatsoever.

“Ugh, this place is cursed to the core. Look at that—elf heads. Jewelry that screams at you if you touch it. I swear half these boggart cases have boggarts still in them. My bloody family never threw away anything. ”

Harry gritted his teeth, hefting the box. It was heavier than it looked.

“Careful with that,” Sirius muttered like a nagging mother hen. “And stop brooding. You should be grateful your punishment wasn’t worse. Dumbledore’s been soft with you, always has been. Don’t go poking at Malfoy all the time, neither one, I mean it. You’re asking for—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry muttered, distracted.

The box slipped.

CLANG!

It burst open against the floor. A broken weapon spilled out, scattering dust.

Everyone jumped at the noise.

“What’s this rubbish?” Sirius sneered immediately, leaning down. The sword was old, rusted beyond recognition, its handle huge and heavy. But the hilt caught the lamplight — carved in a perfect crescent moon, a diamond set in the middle where a blade once should have started.

“Typical Black junk,” Sirius spat. “Throw it out, Harry.”

“Right,” Harry nodded, bending to grab it.

But the instant his fingertips brushed the cold handle—

The room exploded with light.

A flare of blue and white so sharp it burned through their eyes, dazzling, pure. Everything on the table clattered to the floor, a gust of wind sweeping the room though no windows were open.

“Harry!” Hermione’s cry rang out from the kitchen.

“Blimey—!” Ron shouted, shielding his eyes.

Fred and George cursed in unison.

Molly screamed, “Arthur, the children!”

Harry’s scar seared with fire. His face burned like something had branded him, and flashes poured into his mind.

Shattered towers. A battlefield drowned in silver moonlight.

Blood dripping down a silver blade.

A voice low and promising—“Till death do us apart.”

Another, aching with loss—“Come back to me—”

Harry stumbled, gasping, eyes wide and blinded.

And when the light at last faded—

He was holding it.

Not rusted. Not broken.

Whole. Glorious. Alive.

The crescent moon gleamed bright, the diamond in its heart shining like a star. The blade stretched long and flawless, shimmering as though forged from moonlight itself. Blue light still clung to its edge, humming faintly, as if breathing.

The entire room was silent.

Ron’s jaw dropped. “Bloody hell—”

Hermione whispered, “Harry… the sword… ”

Arthur looked reverent. Molly looked terrified. Fred muttered, “Now that’s not junk.”

Sirius just stared, his face pale, his chest rising and falling fast.

And Harry himself—he could only stare at the weapon in his grip, trembling.

“I… I didn’t…” His voice shook. He swallowed, feeling the heat still burning on his cheek. “I didn’t mean to—”

But the sword didn’t care.

It glowed in his hand, alive, like it had been waiting for him. Too.

Chapter Text

The Château’s gardens spread wide and glowing under the afternoon sun, but the atmosphere was heavy.

The cousins stood in a row like guilty schoolchildren, Draco still clutching the now-glorious sword in his hands.

On the terrace, Grandmère sat straight-backed as always, her eyes sharp. Adrien was lounging with a small child perched happily in his lap, humming softly to distract them. Alaric sat beside him, but immediately stood when Élodie stepped out. He pulled out a chair for her like the gentleman he always was, and she settled gracefully at his side.

Sebastian remained standing just behind the line of children, arms folded, a silent, stern witness.

The silence stretched until Julius cleared his throat loudly. “Look, before you say anything—we didn’t mean anything bad. We just… we didn’t want Draco to feel left out.” He gestured at Draco with both hands, wide-eyed. “Everyone else has their training, their swords, their skills. He came all the way here, and—what were we supposed to do? He’s family. We wanted him to feel included.”

Edmund nodded so fast his hair flopped in his eyes. “It’s true! We weren’t… we weren’t trying to break rules or anything. Julius said if Draco didn’t have a sword, maybe he’d feel… I don’t know, like he didn’t belong here. That’s all we wanted to prevent. I swear it!”

Julius slapped a hand on his chest. “From the heart. Pure intentions.”

Mathilda sighed, rolling her eyes at the twins before stepping forward. “They’re right, for once. It wasn’t mischief, not this time.” Her eyes flicked toward Draco, softer.

Annaliese, who had been staring at the gravel as if it might swallow her, finally piped up. “And me—I was only hiding. From Uncle Sebastian.” She shot a sheepish glance up at him. “That’s all. I heard voices, and I panicked. Next thing I knew, I was dragged into… this entire disaster. I didn’t even want to be part of it.”

Grandmère’s lips tightened, but her gaze shifted to Élodie.

Élodie leaned forward, her eyes warm but troubled as they landed on Silvanius. “My dear,” she said softly. “Why didn’t you tell us? You’ve been raised here long enough to know—we have spares, many of them. Did you think we would deny Draco? That we would leave him out?”

Her voice caught just a hint, motherly and pained. “I raised you beside my children, Silvanius. You are another son to me. And a mother knows her child. I hadn’t expected this of you. To keep us in the dark.”

Silvanius’ head bowed instantly. His shoulders stiffened, guilt written in every line of his body. “I…” His voice cracked low, rough. “I should have told you. I knew it was wrong. But…” He glanced toward Draco, then quickly back down at the ground. “I—” He cut himself off, shaking his head, unable to finish.

Draco’s chest twisted painfully. He felt the weight of every word, every look. “It—it wasn’t Silvanius’ fault,” Draco blurted out, stepping forward. His voice was thin, desperate. “It was mine. I dragged him along, I wouldn’t let him say no. He didn’t want to, but I made him. Please—don’t blame him.”

Grandmère’s eyes flicked to Draco then, gentler but still stern. “Draco,” she said calmly, “Here, we do not call our elders by their names. It is disrespectful.” She motioned toward Silvanius with her chin. “You will address him properly—as Brother Silvanius. ”

Draco froze. His cheeks burned hot as every cousin stared at him, waiting. “B—B…” He fumbled, his tongue dry. “B–Brother Silvanius…”

The word stumbled out in a stammer, and Grandmère nodded, satisfied.

But behind her, Mathilda bit her lip hard to keep from laughing. Julius elbowed Edmund, who was already shaking with silent laughter. Annaliese pressed her sleeve to her mouth. Even Adrien, lounging with the child on his lap, let out the faintest chuckle, eyes twinkling.

Draco wished the earth would swallow him whole.

The gardens were hushed again after Grandmère’s correction. Draco still clutched the sword, its ruby gleaming under the sun, though he held it more like a guilty child caught stealing sweets than a warrior with a weapon.

Alaric’s voice broke the silence, smooth and firm. “Julius,” he said, fixing the boy with a look that carried both patience and authority. “Tell us exactly what happened. From the beginning.”

Julius nodded quickly, standing straighter. “Yes, Dad.” He drew a breath. “We were searching the undercroft, looking for weapons. Then we found a rack—and on it, this old broken sword. Silvanius thought it was interesting, so we tried to take it back with us.” He spread his hands, almost dramatically. “But none of us could pick it up. Not even a little. It wouldn’t budge.”

Mathilda stepped forward, arms crossed. “It wasn’t just heavy,” she added. “It was like it was glued to the surface. Completely stuck.”

Edmund nodded eagerly, hair bouncing. “And we were about to give up, really. We were leaving. But then Draco touched it. Just touched it! And suddenly—it glowed. So bright it blinded all of us. And then—” He flung his arms out. “—we were thrown back across the floor. When we got up, it wasn’t broken anymore. And Draco was standing there holding it like it had never been rusted at all.”

A murmur rippled through the adults.

Sebastian inclined his head slightly. “I can confirm that,” he said, his voice deep and steady. “I saw the blade with my own eyes—rebuilt, as if it had never been broken, Maman.”

Victore’s sharp gaze fixed on the sword in Draco’s hands. Élodie leaned closer in her chair, Alaric’s jaw tightened, and Adrien even stopped humming, the child in his lap forgotten for a moment.

The matriarch frowned deeply. “I have read about such a thing before…” Her voice trailed, her thoughts sifting through memory. “A sword of the sun. The description matches closely. And if it was resting in our undercrofts all this time…” She pressed her lips thin. “Perhaps I knew once. But I chose not to think on it.”

Her gaze returned to Draco, and then to the others. “You all know,” she said firmly, “that a sword chooses its master. This one has chosen.” Her eyes softened slightly, almost indulgent. “Destiny is not something to argue with. You children needn’t worry. Our Château does not harbor cursed relics anyway.”

The cousins exchanged glances, relief washing over their faces.

“And besides—” Victore’s stern voice cracked just enough to let humor through. “—it is not as if we can do anything when an old sword decides to show extreme favoritism toward its new master.”

A ripple of chuckles spread through them all, even Draco’s lips twitching faintly.

“But,” she added, sharp again, “next time, you will inform someone before sneaking into the undercrofts. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Grandmère,” the children chorused with sheepish smiles. Julius, ever the boldest, called out cheerfully, “Now may we play, Dad?”

Alaric’s expression eased into a smile. He rose to his feet, clapping his hands together. “Bring your swords then. All of you.” His eyes landed on Draco. “And you, Draco—congratulations. Your sword is magnificent.”

Draco flushed, looking down at the gleaming weapon in his grip. “Thank you… but I’ve never even touched a sword before. I can’t use it.”

“Rubbish!” Julius and Edmund blurted at once, in French, making the others laugh again.

Draco stammered, “I mean—I’ve learned fencing, of course. But that doesn’t mean I can fight the same with a sword—”

Mathilda immediately stepped forward, hands behind her back like a professor. “There are differences, yes. A rapier is slender and fast, while a sword like that is heavier, designed for power. But the footwork—nearly identical. Balance, stance, precision. Even the way you anticipate an opponent’s move. Fencing has given you more than you realize.”

She gave him a little smile, rare but encouraging

Draco still held the sword in his hand, but his arm trembled faintly. He looked pale, his lips pressed thin. He swallowed before speaking. “Yeah, but I don’t… I don’t feel right,” he admitted softly. “It’s as if the sword rebuilt itself with my energy. As if it took something from me. I feel drained. Empty . I just… want to sit down.”

Alaric’s brows knit together immediately, concern flashing in his eyes. He lowered his own weapon, stepping closer. “You feel weak? That’s no small matter, Draco. When a weapon takes from its master, it swears loyalty. Go sit down and rest.”

Silvanius was nearby. His hand tightened on the hilt of his own blade, his face stiff. He was still angry—angry at the prank, angry that Draco had touched something he told them not to touch. Draco turned slightly toward him, searching his cousin’s face.

“Silvanius…” Draco’s voice was quiet, apologetic. “Listen to me—”

But Silvanius turned his back. Mathilda had already returned with the polished training swords, placing them into her Julius’ hands. Silvanius took his without a word. He did not look at Draco. He lifted his blade, tested its weight, and stepped away. The silence between them was louder than any words.

Draco’s chest sank. With the sword heavy in his lap, he lowered himself beside Grandmère. She had taken the little boy from Adrien’s arms, Luca now settled warmly against her lap, his golden-brown hair shining in the light. Draco tried to smile, reaching out gently.

“You must be Luca,” he said softly. His fingers squished the child’s chubby cheeks, earning a small giggle. “You know my eldest brother, Darien, is your godfather? That makes me your god-uncle. And cousin too. I’m Draco.”

Luca’s big eyes blinked up at him. “D…Dracon,” the boy said with the absolute seriousness of a two-year-old.

Draco laughed quietly, his hand lingering on Luca’s soft cheek. Victore’s features softened at the sight, a true smile pulling at her lips. She gazed at both of them, her eyes so warm, a look which was reserved only for her youngest grandsons.

Meanwhile, Adrien and Sebastian had stepped onto the training ground with gleaming swords of their own, Eloide too moving to join them, her skirts swaying with each deliberate step. The clash of metal rang out faintly. But here, in the shade, there was only quiet—the three of them: Draco, Grandmère, and Luca.

Draco turned his head to her, remembering. “Mathilda said… you wanted to talk to me about the crown?”

Victore nodded slowly. “Yes, Draco. It is time.” She smoothed Luca’s hair with one hand and reached out to rest her other on Draco’s shoulder. “Your crown is not lost. It rests in our antique room with all such items, as it always has. It has been here long before you arrived.”

Draco’s throat tightened. “… Always? ”

“Always.” Her voice carried certainty, like stone. “You are not new to us, Draco. Your blood, your name, your place—these have lived here longer than you realize.”

Her palm moved gently to pat his pale hair. “You belong. Whether you believe it or not.”

Draco lowered his gaze, his lips pressing together. Luca leaned forward suddenly, pointing at Draco. “Drac-gon!”

That made Grandmère laugh softly, rich and kind. “Yes, little one. He is.” She turned back to Draco. “And one day, Luca will look to you as his elder. That is what it means to carry this name. The crown is not a trinket, Draco. It is a promise.”

Draco swallowed hard. “…Why is the Malfoire crest a snow leopard?”

Victore’s eyes glimmered. She sat straighter, her voice deepening as if she were reciting history. “It was the loyal companion of our founder, Draconis Hades. A beast as silent as snow and as merciless as winter . It walked beside him always, a shadow, a guardian. When he forged this house, he named the leopard as our emblem—power, patience, and quiet death.”

Draco’s breath caught. His eyes widened. “The first day I came here,” he whispered, “you said I looked like him. Like Draconis Hades…”

And then— like lightning —a memory surged. His jaw dropped.

“I read about him! In the book. About Hadrian Thanatos. There was a character in it— Draconis Hades . The Son of Death’s unrequited lover. I remember!”

Victore chuckled low in her throat, shaking her head. “No, Draco. Not a character. Not a story. He was real. The founder of our house. The blood that runs in you, runs from him.”

Draco’s lips parted. “But… the book—”

Her smile turned faintly amused. “The Château’s library holds barely any fiction at all. If it does, it is labeled boldly as such. You will not find fairy tales passed off as truth here. What you read was no invention. It was history.”

Draco’s heart thudded in his chest. His pale fingers tightened around the hilt of the glowing sword in his lap. The truth was heavier than the blade itself.

Victore’s voice lowered, steady as iron. “Do not ever mistake who you are, Draco. Blood remembers. Steel remembers. And now, so must you.”

…

The fire in the kitchen burned low. The smell of roasted meat and iron hung thick in the air.

Bellatrix leaned back in her chair, her torn robes clinging to her pale skin, streaked with blood. Her curls stuck wild against her cheeks. She laughed, loud and sharp, slamming her cup down.

“Six tonight! Maybe seven. I lost count after the boy. His face—oh, Cissy, you should have seen it! He begged. He prayed. It made me want to carve him slower.”

Narcissa sat across the table, hands pale on her fork. She did not answer. Her food was untouched. She stared down, willing herself to eat quickly, silently. Her sister’s laughter scraped against her skull.

Bellatrix tipped her head. “Oh, come now, don’t look so sour. This is the fun of it! This is what we were born for, Cissy.”

Before Narcissa could answer, the door swung open.

Amycus Carrow stomped in, sleeves rolled to his elbows, blood on his fingers, dripping down the sink. He shoved a house elf aside, spitting curses.

“Filthy creatures! Move faster! Dinner for me, for Alecto, and for Greyback. Master’s bedroom—east wing. Send it up hot, or I’ll slit your useless throats!”

The spoon slipped from Narcissa’s hand. It clattered on the stone floor.

Her breath froze. Then she rose, her chair screeching back and falling to the floor. “East wing?” Her voice was sharp, shaking. “ What did you say? ”

Amycus turned his piggish eyes toward her, sneering. “You deaf, woman? The master bedroom. East wing. Your boy’s room. Lovely spot.”

Narcissa’s pale face twisted. She stepped forward, fury flooding her veins. “You dare. You dare step into my son’s chambers?”

Amycus laughed, wet and cruel. “Your son? Your son’s gone, isn’t he? Off with the rest of the little brats. The room’s empty. And Greyback… Greyback’s fond of fine beds. ”

Narcissa’s wand was in her hand before she thought. Her voice cracked like thunder. “ CRUCIO! ”

Amycus screamed, falling to his knees, his hands clawing at the stones. His laughter broke into shrieks. Bellatrix clapped her hands together like a child, throwing her head back. “Yes! Yes, Cissy! Burn him! Break him! Oh, you do have fire in you after all!”

But Narcissa’s tears blurred her sight. Her voice broke as she snarled. “You filth! You dare foul my son’s bed—”

Amycus writhed, frothing at the mouth, still laughing through his screams. “It’s only a bed, Narcissa. Greyback likes the smell. He says the boy smells sweet.”

Bellatrix shrieked with manic glee. “Go on, sister! Show them! Show them what a Black witch truly is!”

Narcissa’s spell cut off. Her hand shook. She turned on her heel, skirts whipping, running from the kitchen, heart pounding.

Her footsteps echoed as she stormed through the halls, every portrait watching, whispering. She tore down the corridor, her breath ragged.

“Draco,” she whispered. “Draco, forgive your mother...”

At last—the door. The east wing. She shoved it open, wand raised.

And froze.

Greyback sprawled across Draco’s bed. His hulking form stretched over the silver sheets, his clawed hand clutching Draco’s pillow, pressing it to his nose. His yellow eyes rolled with pleasure.

“Ahhh,” he growled. “This one. This one smells ripe. This one I’ll bite first. Before the others.”

Alecto cackled from the corner, licking grease from her fingers. “He dreams of your boy, Narcissa. He dreams of the taste .”

Narcissa’s voice cracked, raw with rage. “ GET OUT! ”

Greyback turned his head lazily, grinning wide, teeth gleaming. “He’ll scream sweeter than the rest. Won’t he, mother ?”

Narcissa’s wand rose, her whole body trembling. Her vision burned red. “You touch one hair on my son, and I will carve your throat myself.”

Greyback laughed low, deep, the sound of hunger. He pressed Draco’s pillow closer, inhaling, his teeth snapping together. “I’ll keep this. Until he comes back. A keepsake. A promise.”

Narcissa’s tears broke free. She stood tall, wand steady though her voice shook.  “You will choke on it before that day comes.”

And the room filled with silence—thick, heavy, desperate.

A few hours later, the grand meeting table stood heavy with silence. At its head sat the Dark Lord. 

He looked younger than any Death Eater present, his hair black and glossy, his skin smooth, his frame lean with a strange elegance. He could have been Darien’s age, A little older—barely more than a boy in appearance. And yet his soul… his soul was older, darker, than them all, heavier than centuries, unbound by time. Immortality clung to him like perfume.

Time did not affect immortals.

Narcissa stood at the far end beside Lucius, her head bowed low, though her spine trembled beneath the weight of dread. Tom’s dark brown eyes glinted with threads of red when he smiled, cruel and sharp, slicing the silence.

“Lucius,” his voice was silk and blade, “ where is your son? ”

The hall stiffened. Every Death Eater kept their eyes nailed to the table.

Voldemort’s smile deepened. “Or should I ask… where are your sons ? For I hear… whispers. That the Malfoy line has bred more than one.”

Lucius’s throat worked. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. His lips parted, but no sound came.

“ Where ,” Tom asked again, this time soft, almost tender.

The pause stretched too long.

“ Crucio .”

Lucius collapsed with a choked cry, his body writhing against the marble floor. His fingers clawed helplessly at nothing, boots scraping as agony tore through him.

Not one Death Eater moved. They watched in perfect stillness, the way prey watches a predator feed.

Voldemort’s wand remained steady, his expression calm, almost amused, as if Lucius’s pain were music and he was simply listening.

“Where are they, Lucius?” he murmured, twisting the curse tighter.

Narcissa’s nails dug into her palms. Her mask cracked. She stumbled forward, dropping to her knees, pressing herself between her husband and the monster they served. Her blond hair fell loose around her shoulders as she raised her face, her voice breaking.

“Please—please, my Lord !” she cried, desperation stripping her of every ounce of Malfoy pride. “He does not know! He did not hide them from you. They were taken—” her words cracked under the weight of her sobs—“they were taken from us! His family took them away, forced them from our home. My husband—” she clutched Lucius’s shuddering body against her, shielding him with her own frame—“my husband wanted only for them to serve you! To serve you as he does! But his family— his cursed kin —stole them away from him!”

Her words echoed in the chamber, trembling with fear and raw courage.

The Death Eaters shifted in their seats, the sight of Narcissa Malfoy on her knees before them all—pleading, begging—burned into memory.

The Dark Lord lowered his wand slowly. The curse broke. Lucius lay panting at his wife’s knees, sweat-soaked, pale, humiliated.

Voldemort tilted his head, studying Narcissa with those red-lit eyes. The corner of his mouth curled into something cold and unreadable.

Chapter Text

Queen Victore had been but a girl of sixteen when she first became a mother. Married young to King Abraxas Malfoire—handsome, ambitious, twenty himself—she had barely stepped out of girlhood before being crowned a queen, before becoming a mother. Yet when she first held her child in her arms, none of that mattered. Prince Alaric was her joy, her golden dawn.

Two years later, in the spring of 1956, she found herself cradling another newborn son in the velvet-curtained chambers of Château Valmbre. Victore was only eighteen then, Abraxas twenty-two, both far too young to wear crowns, and yet they carried them with elegance.

The chamber smelled of lavender and firewood. White sunlight fell through lace curtains onto the young queen’s hair as she reclined against the bed pillows, her newborn wrapped in silver-embroidered linen.

Alaric, only three years old, clutched the side of the bed, his platinum-blond hair shining like a halo, his wide eyes eager.

“Careful, Alaric,” Victore said softly, though a smile played across her lips. “Come, sit here.”

Abraxas guided their elder son forward, his large hand warm on the little boy’s back. Alaric scrambled up onto the bed and sat very straight, as though already practicing for thrones and duties.

Victore placed the newborn in Alaric’s lap, steadying his small arms. The boy let out a squeak of delight.

“He’s… he’s so small!” Alaric’s voice was full of wonder. He brushed one finger across the baby’s cheek.

Victore kissed both their heads, her eyes shining. “His name is Lucius,” she whispered. “Do you know what that means, my darling?”

Alaric shook his head quickly.

“Lucien means light,” she explained. “And he is our light. Your little brother. Your friend for life.”

Alaric stared down at Lucius with solemn awe, then grinned. “Hello, Light.”

Abraxas, seated in a high-backed chair beside them, reached for Victore’s hand. His thumb brushed across her knuckles gently, rare softness in his strict features. He said nothing, but the pride in his eyes was clear.

At the edge of the chamber, the lady-healers bowed. “Your Majesties, may we take our leave?”

Abraxas straightened, his voice commanding but warm. “You may. And take with you the gold set aside. You served the Queen well.”

The women curtsied, their faces bright with gratitude, before slipping away.

That night, Château Valmbre glowed brighter than ever. The family was whole.

…

The two princes grew together like opposites.

Alaric—bright, bold, easy with his laughter.

Lucius—quiet, shy, pale as starlight.

They were taught at home, within the marble walls of the Château. Professors from Beauxbatons would arrive each morning in enchanted carriages, teaching the young princes charms, history, politics, even dueling.

Alaric excelled. He grasped every wand movement quickly, charmed the professors with his eagerness, picked up a sword as if he had been born with one in hand.

Lucius… did not.

…

Lucius was seven. His small hands trembled as he gripped the practice sword, its edge dulled by enchantments so no child could bleed. The wide courtyard rang with the sounds of steel as young nobles trained, but Lucius stood apart, pale, his lips pressed tight.

“Come, Lucius,” Alaric encouraged, holding his own sword at the ready. “Just swing it! Like this.”

He demonstrated, the blade flashing in sunlight. The tutor applauded.

Lucius raised his sword half-heartedly, then winced. “It’s too heavy,” he whispered.

“It isn’t,” Alaric said gently. “It only feels that way if you’re afraid.”

“I am afraid,” Lucius blurted, his throat tight. His sword slipped and clattered to the stones. The courtyard went quiet for a moment.

The tutor frowned but did not scold—he had seen children weep before steel before. “Try again, young prince.”

Lucius shook his head quickly, eyes filling with tears. “I don’t want to. I hate it.” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to fight.”

He covered his face with both hands, cheeks burning with shame. Alaric knelt beside him immediately, pulling the smaller boy against his chest.

“It’s all right, Lucien,” he murmured in his childlike voice. “Not everyone likes swords. You don’t have to.”

Victore, watching from the balcony, pressed a hand to her lips. Her heart ached for her younger son—his fragility, his fear. Abraxas, standing tall beside her, said nothing. But the shadow of disappointment crossed his stern face.

…

By the time Lucius turned ten, shadows had gathered in his heart.

He had begun to feel it—how his father’s eyes always lingered longer on Alaric, how the servants always praised the elder prince more loudly. How his tutors compared them, even when they tried not to.

Where Alaric shone, Lucius shrank. Where Alaric was confident, Lucius was hesitant.

And the resentment festered.

…

It was evening, the sky deep blue beyond the tall glass windows. Servants had just finished dressing the princes for a dinner with visiting lords.

Alaric stood tall in his silvery coat, his small golden crown polished and set upon his head. He looked every inch the future king.

Lucius sat slouched in his chair, scowling at the small circlet meant for him.

“Come, Lucius,” Abraxas said firmly. “Put it on.”

“I don’t want it,” Lucius muttered.

“You are a prince of House Malfoire. You will wear it.”

“I don’t want it!” The boy’s voice rose sharp, brittle. He seized the crown from the servant’s hands and hurled it across the chamber. The circlet clanged loudly against the marble, rolling to Abraxas’s feet.

The silence that followed was thick.

Victore’s eyes widened, her hand frozen against her throat.

“Lucius—” she began softly, but the boy cut her off.

“You don’t love me!” His small fists shook. “You only love Alaric! Everyone does. No one cares about me.” His chest heaved. “I’m always the weak one, the stupid one. You wish I was like him!”

Victore’s lips parted in pain.

Abraxas bent slowly, picked up the crown. He did not raise his voice, but his eyes were heavy, resigned. “Lucius. Enough.”

“I hate it here!” the boy cried, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I hate you!”

He turned to run, but Alaric was quicker. The elder prince caught his younger brother by the arm, dragging him back.

“Lucien—stop!” Alaric hissed, his own face stricken. He pulled Lucius against him, forcing him to meet his eyes. “Don’t say that. Don’t.”

Lucius struggled, then collapsed against him, sobbing into his brother’s shoulder.

Victore watched, her heart splitting. Abraxas stood still, the crown clutched tight in his hand, his jaw clenched. He did not shout. He never shouted. His silence was worse.

And in that silence, Lucius felt the chasm between himself and his father grow deeper still.

…

The long dining hall of Château Valmbre shimmered with candlelight. Golden goblets gleamed, silver cutlery lined up in perfect symmetry. The Malfoire family dined at their usual places—Abraxas at the head, Victore to his right, Alaric and Lucius opposite each other. Servants stood at the edges of the hall, silent as statues.

Lucius pushed his food around his plate, barely tasting it. He had been turning this thought in his mind for weeks now, and tonight, he would say it. His stomach twisted, but his stubborn pride burned hotter.

Why should I always be his shadow? If I leave this place, if I stand where no one knows Alaric, I can be the étoile . I can shine.

The words burst out of him without grace.

“I don’t want to study at home anymore.”

The clink of silver stopped. Even the servants froze.

Victore lowered her goblet slowly. “Lucius?”

He sat straighter, his pale hair gleaming in the firelight. His hands clenched in his lap to keep from trembling. “I want to go to school. A real school. With other children. Not just… this.” His voice wavered, then steadied with defiance. “I want to learn somewhere away from here.”

Abraxas set down his knife and fork with careful precision. His eyes, cool and sharp, fixed on his younger son. “And why is that?”

Lucius swallowed. His heart thundered, but he forced the words out. “Because I’m not Alaric. And I don’t want to be.”

A silence heavier than stone filled the chamber.

Victore’s lips parted in pain. Alaric froze, staring at his brother with wide eyes.

Lucius pressed on, stubborn, reckless. “Everyone looks at him. Everyone praises him. He’s perfect.” His throat tightened. “And I’m just the shadow. Always the other one.” His voice cracked, but his chin lifted. “If I go somewhere else, where no one knows you, no one knows Alaric, then I can prove myself. I can be someone. I want to be the center of attention.”

Alaric’s fork slipped, clattering against his plate. His face was stricken. “Lucien…” he whispered.

Victore’s hand tightened around her napkin. “You’re only ten years old. How can you speak this way?” Her voice was trembling now. “You want to leave your home? Your family?”

“Yes!” Lucius snapped, the word breaking like glass. “I want to leave. I want to see the world. I don’t want to sit here, watching Alaric do everything better. I want my own life.”

The boy’s small fists struck the table with surprising force, the sound echoing through the hall.

Abraxas leaned back in his chair, expression unreadable. The firelight carved deep shadows across his face. Finally, he spoke, his voice measured, grave.

“Lucius,” he said, “you did not choose to be born a prince. That was the fate given to you. And with it come duties, protections, restrictions.” He paused. “If you leave this Château, you will not be as safe as you are within these walls.”

“I don’t care,” Lucius muttered. His voice shook, but his eyes burned with determination.

Abraxas studied him for a long moment, then inclined his head, a rare flicker of respect. “If you still insist, then I will not cage you.” His words surprised even himself. “You wish for freedom—it is your right.”

Victore gasped. “Abraxas!” She turned to him, her eyes bright with panic. “How can you say this? He is only a child. A boy of ten. To send him away—”

“He does not want to be bound here,” Abraxas interrupted gently, though his voice carried steel. “And if we force him, he will only grow more bitter. Better he leave with blessing than with hatred.”

Victore pressed her hand to her lips, tears pricking her eyes. “But another country? Another school? How could I sleep at night knowing he is so far away?”

Across the table, Alaric shook his head quickly. His face was pale, his eyes wet. “No. No, he can’t leave. Lucien—please. Don’t go. I don’t want to be alone here. You’re my brother. Stay.”

Lucius’ gaze faltered at that—Alaric’s desperate plea, his trembling voice. For a moment, guilt pierced through his stubbornness. But then the fire inside roared louder.

He turned away. “I have to. I’ll never be anything here.”

The silence that followed was broken only by the crackle of torches.

At last, Abraxas spoke again. “If you must go, then not to Beauxbatons. That will not serve your purpose. Too near, too many ties.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You will go abroad. To a neutral land.”

Lucius glanced up, surprised.

“Britain has Hogwarts,” Abraxas continued. “It is one of the oldest institutions of magic. It accepts all bloodlines, but its traditions are as ancient as our own. There, you may find what you seek—fame, challenge, friends.”

“No,” Victore breathed, her hands trembling. “Not Britain. He is too young, Abraxas. You cannot—”

“I can,” Abraxas said firmly. Then, softer, his gaze flickered to Lucius. “And I will. Because I see now—he will not bend to this life if we force him. He must find his own path.”

Alaric shook his head, his voice small. “And what about me? What about us? If he leaves… I’ll have no one.”

Abraxas did not answer. Victore looked away, torn between her eldest son’s pain and her youngest’s stubborn will.

Lucius sat rigid, but inside, a thrill coursed through him. Hogwarts. A place where no one knows Alaric. No one knows Father or Mother. Only me. I’ll show them. I’ll shine .

…

Abraxas Malfoire was a man of quiet power. Though the Malfoires were French nobility, his influence extended beyond borders. In his youth, he had cultivated friendships in every great wizarding seat of power, from the French Ministry to Britain’s Wizengamot.

One such friendship had endured: Armando Dippet, then Headmaster of Hogwarts. They had met in international assemblies of magic—diplomatic circles where old houses and institutions bound themselves in quiet agreements.

Abraxas knew Dippet to be a man of tradition, one who valued heritage, legacy, and old magic. It was not difficult to pull on those ties. Letters were exchanged, sealed with wax bearing the Malfoire crest. Arrangements were made quietly, in the shadows of diplomacy.

By the end of summer 1965, Lucius Malfoire’s name was inked into the Hogwarts rolls. He would enter at eleven, as all British-born wizards did, though he was not British at all.

It was rare, but not unheard of. Abraxas’ word carried weight, and Dippet—eager to strengthen the old alliances between Hogwarts and continental families—welcomed the arrangement.

Lucius did not know all of this then. He only knew that the future lay waiting for him across the sea, away from the Château, away from Alaric’s brilliant shadow.

For the first time, he felt the taste of victory.

…

In 1966, the castle rose before him for the first time. Stone towers clawed into the mist, their shadows stretched long across the Black Lake. Lucius stood with his back straight, hair neatly cut at his nape, his robes pressed and sharp, every inch of him already curated for respect. His eyes—steel grey, unyielding—scanned the ancient walls with a hunger. 

He hadn’t come to belong. He had come to conquer.

When the Sorting Hat brushed his head, it didn’t hesitate. 

“Slytherin!” it barked before the brim had even grazed his blond hair. Lucius allowed himself the smallest of smirks as he slid into the table bathed in green and silver.

A girl followed shortly after. She moved like silk gliding across marble, pale hair tumbling in waves that were streaked with a daring jet black, eyes a crystalline blue that seemed to measure and disarm all at once. She sat beside him as if the space had been waiting for her.

“Narcissa Black , ” she said, voice smooth but edged with something sharp—like velvet concealing steel.

Lucius inclined his head, lips curving into what could almost be called a smile. “Lucius Malf—”

He stopped. The syllable dangled like a blade in the air. He thought better of it. Names carried weight, power. His would not stumble on its first step, “—oy”

He cleared his throat, finishing deliberately: “Lucius Malfoy.”

Narcissa’s lips softened into the faintest smile, the kind that knew more than it revealed.

“Lucius,” she repeated quietly. “As in light?”

Lucius turned to her, eyes unreadable. His answer came low, deliberate, his voice cutting like a shadow through the noise of the hall.

“No,” he said. “As in Lucifer.”

…

Victore woke up alone in her chambers with her heart thudding in her ears. It ached for her children. 

…

The corridors of Château Valmbre still carried the cool hush of dawn. The children spilled down the grand staircase one by one, fresh from their rooms—bathed, combed, dressed finely, but still heavy-eyed with sleep.

Julius yawned loudly, his golden crown perched crookedly on his head until he slipped it off and began spinning it on his finger like a football. “See? Balance,” he murmured with a grin.

Eloide was right behind him, already tidy and perfect, her braids gleaming in the light of the chandeliers. “Julius,” she scolded, voice crisp. “Stop spinning your crown. It’s disrespectful.”

Julius looked at her with mock innocence. “Yes, yes, I hear you.” He slipped the crown back onto his head—then, the very next heartbeat, slipped it off again and spun it faster.

Edmund snickered. “Pfft. That’s nothing. I can spin better than that.” He grabbed his own crown, balanced it on one finger, and began twirling it, wobbling and almost dropping it before catching it again. Julius laughed, bumping his shoulder into him. Eloide sighed deeply, already exasperated.

Mathilda trailed down with Annaliese, who was rubbing her eyes still, clinging to Mathilda’s arm. Both girls looked soft, neat, but clearly half-asleep still.

But Draco was different. He came down last, his pale hair damp and falling into his eyes, his robes immaculate, yet his gaze never lifted from the floor. He walked quietly, almost soundless, not once raising his head.

Last night, Draco had stood in the dimly lit hallway, hand hovering above the polished wood of Silvanius’ door. He hesitated before knocking. His voice came soft. “Silvanius? It’s me.”

“Come in,” Silvanius replied curtly from inside.

Draco opened the door carefully. Silvanius was at his desk, a thick book open in front of him, the firelight painting his face in warm golds. He did not look up when Draco stepped inside.

Draco’s eyes drifted to the corner. There was no spare bed. No sheets folded. No sign of anything prepared for him, though the housekeeper’s head had promised it would be arranged.

“Um,” Draco’s voice was hesitant, small. “They said they would… set up another bed here. I don’t see it.”

Silvanius turned a page. His tone was clipped, dismissive. “I told them not to. It would get crowded. You should sleep in the room prepared for you.”

Draco blinked, shoulders stiffening. “…But—”

“Draco,” Silvanius cut him off, not cruelly, but firmly. “Go sleep in your room. Goodnight.”

The words stung more than Draco expected. He lingered a second longer, waiting for Silvanius to soften—but the older boy’s eyes stayed on his book. Draco’s throat tightened. Quietly, he left, closing the door behind him.

The room set for him was beautiful—lavender curtains, carved furniture, velvet sheets, the kind of comfort most would envy. But it felt vast. Empty. Lonely.

Draco sat on the edge of the bed, lips pressed tight as he fought against the ache in his chest. He buried his face in his sleeve, brushing quickly at the corner of his eye before the tear could fall.

I miss you, Darien

He thought, curling beneath the covers. His heart ached with the weight of silence until sleep had finally pulled him under.

Now, in the present, that sadness clung to him. He sat a step behind the others, gaze lowered, face pale. His movements were small, reserved.

Luca’s patter of tiny feet broke the stillness. The toddler bolted from his room with wild brownish-gold hair, giggling as he nearly tripped on the stairs. “Grandmère! Grandmère!” he squealed, arms outstretched.

“Slow down, Luca!” Sebastian stumbled after him, still half-asleep, rubbing his eyes. But Luca only laughed louder, tumbling straight into Victore’s waiting arms.

Grandmère bent down gracefully, her long robes sweeping the floor as she gathered the boy up. “Ah, my darling,” she smiled, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Luca giggled and clutched at her necklace.

Adrien appeared last, walking with the same poise as always, freshly dressed, every bit as bright as Luca though older and more composed. He smiled faintly at the scene, straightening his collar.

The household was alive again, children gathering, laughter slipping through the air—yet still, Draco remained quiet, folded into himself.

And just then, the doors creaked open. A guard stepped forward, armor gleaming faintly in the morning light. He bowed low.

“Your Majesty,” he said to Victore, “the young Prince Darien has returned. He brings prisoners again. Do we have your permission to open the cells?”

Victore sighed—Luca warm on her hip, the child’s hand fisted in her necklace. “Yes,” she said, calm but tired. “Open the south cells. And give them water.”

Behind her, Eloide pressed two fingers to her brow and muttered, “This boy,” in a long-suffering way that made Julius snort.

The doors swung wide. Darien stepped through with a broad, easy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He wore a long black coat, rain-dark at the hem, the collar high; he had that unbothered, unhurried air that meant he’d run all night. With a small flick of his wrist, he sent the last shackled man stumbling toward the waiting guards.

“Gift-wrapped,” Darien said lightly, peeling off his black leather gloves one finger at a time. “You’re welcome.”

Eloide crossed her arms. “How many times have I told you to stop doing this, Darien?”

He flashed her an innocent look that was anything but. “Just this last time, Aunt.”

“You said that the last ten times.”

“I was rounding down.” He leaned in; she tried to keep her glare, failed, and pulled him into a hug anyway.

The room brightened around him. Silvanius, halfway down the steps, stopped, then took the last six stairs in three long strides. “You’re back,” he said, the relief slipping through his voice before he could hide it.

Darien caught him in a quick, firm embrace. “Morning, Si.”

“Morning,” Silvanius murmured, not letting go for a heartbeat longer than usual.

Julius and Edmund moved in like twin comets, each hooking an arm around Darien from either side in a brief collision of warmth and laughter.

“Brought us a story?” Julius asked.

“And a souvenir?” Edmund added.

“I brought you a reason to stop spinning those crowns,” Darien deadpanned, eyeing Julius’s finger-twirl. “Before Grandmère invents a new crime.”

Both twins instantly slapped their crowns back on their heads—then, when Victore glanced away, began spinning them again. Eloide’s sigh could have powered a windmill.

“Welcome home,” Annaliese said, stepping forward. She smoothed the sleeve of his coat with healer’s habit. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

“Sleep is for people without such cousins,” he replied, softer. “You all right?”

“Always,” Annaliese smiled.

Mathilda tipped her chin, analytical eyes skimming him like a checklist. “No obvious injuries. Boots scuffed. Bowstring burn on the fingers. I infer two ambushes and one storm.”

“Close,” Darien said, amused. “Three ambushes. No storm. I just missed everyone.”

Adrien came from the corridor, crisp and bright as morning itself. “Took you long enough,” he said, clasping Darien’s forearm. The grip spoke more than the words.

“Roads were chatty,” Darien replied.

He eased past them then, gentle but insistent, scanning until his gaze fixed on the only still surface in the room—Draco. Waiting for his turn. Quiet as a held breath.

“Draco,” Darien called, voice warm, threading through the noise without pushing it. He stepped closer, the crowd parting for him on instinct. “Good morning. How have you—”

Draco closed the space in a rush and wrapped his arms around him. No words. Just the full, desperate weight of a boy who’d held himself together all night and finally found the one person he could fall against.

Darien’s smile vanished. His eyes went flat and cold over Draco’s shoulder—soldier-cold, the way a lake ices in a blink. His palm came up between Draco’s shoulder blades, steady, protective.

“What happened?” he whispered into Draco’s ear, so quiet only Draco could hear it.

Draco shook his head once. He pulled back a little, trying for lightness and not quite managing it, though the tight line of his mouth eased. “Yesterday was a long day,” he said, and somehow his voice was almost steady. “I’m all right now.”

Darien held his gaze for a beat, reading more than hearing. Then he nodded, the ice in his eyes melting to something gentle. “Good,” he said softly. “Because I’m here.”

Behind them, life resumed its noisy shape:

The guards hauled the prisoners toward the south stairs. Victore shifted Luca to her other hip; the child patted her cheek and then waved gravely at Darien. “Hi, Da’en,” Luca announced.

Darien’s face softened. “Hi, Luca.” He wiggled gloveless fingers; Luca beamed.

Eloide touched Victore’s arm. “I’ll have the kitchens prepare breakfast.”

“Yeah, make it quicker,” Victore murmured, eyes lingering on Darien and Draco with quiet understanding.

Silvanius drifted closer, composed again, the slightest crease between his brows. “Breakfast,” he said to no one in particular, which for Silvanius meant I’m staying near.

Julius elbowed Edmund. “He didn’t even compliment my spin.”

“Your spin is mid ,” Edmund replied, haloing his crown on a fingertip.

“Is what?”

“Mid.”

Darien, without looking, plucked Edmund’s spinning crown out of the air and set it neatly on Edmund’s head. “There. Regal. Revolutionary.”

Edmund blinked, impressed despite himself. “Show me how you did that.”

“After we eat.”

Mathilda’s eyes flicked once more over Draco. “You look pale,” she said, matter-of-fact, not unkind. “Tea and sugar. Then you can tell me if the Leonis Minor cluster is truly miscataloged or if you were bluffing yesterday.”

Draco huffed, a small, real sound. “I never bluff about stars .”

“Good,” she said, satisfied.

Adrien clapped Darien’s shoulder. “We’ll debrief, then you’ll rest.”

“I’ll rest when he eats,” Darien said, nodding at Draco. The tone was light; the promise beneath it wasn’t.

He slid his glove into a pocket and tipped his head toward the corridor. “Come on,” he told the room at large. “If we don’t reach the table in ten seconds, Julius will start juggling cutlery.”

“I can juggle,” Julius protested.

“That’s the problem,” Eloide said, guiding him forward by the ear.

They moved as a river— crowns, laughter, soft murmurs —toward the promise of tea and toast. Darien fell into step beside Draco, not crowding him, just there. The kind of presence you could lean on without asking.

Draco’s shoulders loosened a fraction. Yesterday was a long day, he’d said.

Today would be better. Darien had come home.

Chapter Text

The narrow room at Grimmauld Place was still, dim light leaking through the gaps in the heavy curtains. Harry twisted in his sleep, face damp with sweat.

In his dream he was small again—eleven years old—his trainers too big, his fringe falling into his eyes. He stood in a cold, abandoned classroom at Hogwarts, the floor dusted white with chalk. Before him rose the tall, gilded frame of a mirror—its inscription shimmering strangely.

Only it wasn’t the Mirror of Erised.

At the top, etched into the frame, letters rearranged themselves into Sevitpac. The glass shimmered darkly, too deep, too alive. Harry’s reflection rippled, dissolved. And then—his parents.

James Potter, untidy hair falling into his eyes, and Lily, her green gaze burning, desperate. They weren’t smiling, not like in the photographs. They were pounding against the glass from inside, mouths moving fast.

“—Harry—listen—”

Harry pressed forward, heart hammering. He could hear them. He could hear English—clear words spilling from their mouths—but his mind couldn’t catch them. It was as if every syllable slid away the moment it reached his ears.

“—We— Are not —”

He clutched the frame, frantic. “Mum? Dad? I can’t hear you—say it again! Please —”

Their hands struck the glass, palms flat. The mirror pulsed like water. Harry thought for one wild second they would break through—reach him, drag him inside.

And then—footsteps.

From the shadows stepped Dumbledore, his long silver beard gleaming faintly. He looked calm, serene, eyes twinkling as if nothing was wrong.

“My boy,” he said gently, raising his wand.

“No— wait—don’t —” Harry cried.

But Dumbledore only smiled, gave a small wave of his wand. The letters Sevitpac blurred, melted into Erised.

The desperate figures of James and Lily flickered, stretched like candlelight—and then stiffened into still images. Their hands fell away. They no longer tried to speak, no longer reached for Harry. They only stood, smiling vaguely, like ghosts captured in a photograph.

Harry screamed, pounding the glass with his fists. “MUM! DAD! What were you trying to tell me—?!”

But it was gone. The urgency. The words. All of it buried under Dumbledore’s serene gaze and the hollow smiles of two parents frozen in time.

The dream shattered.

Harry woke up with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in the cramped bed at Grimmauld Place. His chest heaved, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. A sharp pain lanced through his scar, making him clutch at his head. Outside, the first grey wash of dawn crept over London.

“Harry?” Ron’s voice, groggy but alarmed, came from the next bed. He scrambled upright, eyes wide. “You all right, mate?” He leaned over, grabbing the water jug and pressing a glass into Harry’s shaking hands.

Harry gulped the water down, his breath shuddering.

“Was it—you know—one of those visions again?” Ron asked cautiously.

Harry shook his head, swallowing hard. “No. Not—Not that. It was a nightmare. About the day I first saw the Mirror of Erised.”

Ron frowned, confused. “The what mirror?”

Harry froze, glass trembling in his hand. “…The Mirror of Erised. Remember? First year. I showed you. I saw my parents, you saw yourself as Head Boy and holding the Quidditch Cup.”

Ron stared at him like he’d gone mad. “…Harry, what mirror? I don’t remember that. At all.”

The bottom dropped out of Harry’s stomach. His pulse hammered in his ears.

He shook his head quickly, trying to cover the panic. “It—it was the Room of Requirement. First year. I showed you the mirror, Ron. Don’t you remember? You laughed—you told me I was mental—”

Ron gave him a wary look, then flopped back onto his pillow. “You’ve had a nightmare, that’s all. We’ll talk when you’re sane again, all right?”

But Harry sat frozen, every breath caught in his chest.

Ron didn’t remember.

Not a flicker.

The mirror—the night—the image of his parents—all of it had been real. But now, somehow, it existed only in Harry’s mind.

And that was worse than the nightmare.

“Hey—RON. When we were eleven! Mirror of erised!”

“No — I don’t know any Mirror of Erised,” Ron muttered, eyes half-closed. He sounded cross and sleepy, like someone half convinced he was being bothered by a bad dream. “Erised—spelled backwards it’s ‘desire’, you know. Go to sleep, Harry.”
He patted Harry’s shoulder once, clumsy and consoling, then rolled over and closed his eyes. The dormitory breathed out, settling back into sleep.

Harry sat there for a long moment, glassy with the aftertaste of terror. Then, quietly, he slid out of bed.

He reached beneath the pallet where he’d hidden it and drew the sword into his palms. The hilt felt familiar — cold, solid, a crescent where blade met the guard. The moment his fingers closed around it, the metal answered. A pale light leaked from the crescent; grey smoke coiled up from his wrist and mingled with the gleam. The smoke didn’t sting. It moved like water and smoke at once, a soft breath that wound itself into the crescent and into the blade.

The glow settled into colors — purple first, then blue, like twilight over a calm sea. The luminescence moved along the hilt and calmed the tightness behind Harry’s eyes. His pulse slowed. The pounding in his head eased as if someone had pressed a cool palm to his temples. He inhaled. For the first time since waking, his breath evened.

It’s not frightening, he thought, oddly certain. Whatever this is, it understands me.

The glow felt… gentle. Protective. The sword’s light seemed to wash the grit of the nightmare away, leave the edges softer. Harry realized, as if a small fact had finally been allowed to land, that he had held this sword before sleeping — had fallen asleep with its hilt warm in his hand — and he felt a quiet, strange attachment growing.

Something in him pressed — an urgency to record, to pin the dream down before it blurred away the way nightmares do. He pushed himself toward the small chest of drawers in the corner, rummaged until he found a blue ballpoint pen and a strip of old parchment, mottled and thin. He tore half a page free with a little snap, the paper rough under his fingers, and sat on the edge of the bed to write.

His handwriting was urgent, the letters large and jittery:

Mum and Dad trying to tell me something — gibberish.
The mirror read “Mirror of Sevitpac.” Then Dumbledore came… and everything changed.
Ron doesn’t remember seeing the Mirror of Erised with me.
This mirror is supposed to show you your greatest desire.

He paused, pen hovering, the memory still raw — the hands at the glass, his parents’ mouths moving too fast, the strange, backwards word carved into the frame. He wrote it down exactly as he’d seen it: Sevitpac. Then he added, with a small, shaky scrawl at the bottom,

I heard words but couldn’t understand them. They were trying to tell me something.

When he set the pen down, the sword’s purple-blue light hummed softly in the dim room, like a small creature satisfied. Harry folded the note and slid it into the inside of his robe as if hiding a shard of glass he might need later. He laid the sword back beneath the bed, but not too far — close enough to find in a hurry.

He stood for one more breath, feeling the echo of the mirror in his bones, and then let himself fall onto the mattress. Outside, dawn was finding its way into the city; inside, the dormitories inhaled and the castle pushed quiet back over them. Harry closed his eyes, the paper warm against his chest, the sword’s memory a steady ember beneath the worry.

…

They came at dawn.

McGonagall. Snape. Sprout. Flitwick. Heads of House. Grave faces. Quiet shoes on old rugs.

Dumbledore stood as Dumbledore always did: a small, serene centre in a room of restless magic. He did not speak at first. He moved his hands over the old frames that hung along the walls—the previous headmasters’ portraits—and whispered a pattern of words, pulling at a lattice of little threads only he seemed to see. The portraits nodded and blinked. A brass dial clicked. A pale star-map carved into the floor spun once, twice, and the fire in the hearth tilted, sending one long beam of light to a seam in the back wall.

“Albus,” McGonagall said softly, the note in her voice asking for explanation. Snape’s dark eyes did not blink; one eyebrow lifted as if already suspicious. Sprout wiped her hands and watched like someone waiting for seeds to fall.

At Dumbledore’s touch, the seam opened like a mouth. Behind it was a deep room they had not seen in living memory: a low vault that smelled of old air and fine dust, carved shelves, hooks, and locks.

Time-turners hung there by ribbons—many of them—spinning slow as trapped moons. Mirrors lined the walls, some leaning, some mounted like eyes. There were trays of curious instruments and cases within cases. The Goblet of Fire sat where it always sat in the centre, but beside it— unexpected and sleeping —stood another chalice.

They levitated the Goblet of Hurricane together. Four wands, one weight. It hummed against their magic. They rose with it, step by step, out of the deep room. The stone sealed behind them with a click like a lock returning home.

The Goblet of Hurricane was silver and large, and full of menace. Around its rim a tiny mist swirled like trapped weather; it coiled and hissed as though holding storms in a vessel. They set it on a low table; it seemed to breathe.

“This goblet,” he said quietly, “has been untouched for more than a century.”

McGonagall’s jaw worked. “Untouched?” she echoed. “Albus, these things are dangerous.”

“Aye,” Snape said. His tone was a blade folded into silk. “Dangerous and old.”

“It has indeed not been touched for more than a century,” he said. His voice was low. “But the time has come. The Hendeka Games require champions. Warriors, the old language calls them. The Goblet of Hurricane will choose.”

McGonagall’s mouth tightened. “By what measure?”

“By the oldest one,” Dumbledore said. “By the storm inside the soul.”

Dumbledore put his hand above the goblet as if warming it. “It shares a kindred fire with the Sorting Hat,” he said. “Not a crude copy; a relative in craft. The Hat reads desire and placing; this goblet reads aptitude and marrow. It sees what a student is, and what they might be in times yet uncast. It knows things the student does not yet know of themselves. Because of that it is far keener, and far more perilous.”

“Far more perilous,” Snape repeated, his voice low. “It can pry where the Hat only listens.”

Dumbledore nodded. “It will not be summoned lightly. The core inside it is older than the school’s founding. It does not decide by whim; it turns over possibilities like a wind turning leaves. To call it, we must bring light to it—sunlight—and we must focus that light so it sees truly.”

“And if the truth is unkind?”

“Then we will be kinder,” Dumbledore said simply. “At the first ray of sunlight, we will channel it through the mirrors. Each mirror will catch a sliver and bend it. The goblet will drink the sunlight as if it were the sea. It will wake.”

They worked in silence. Flitwick charmed twelve small mirrors to hover. McGonagall arranged them in an oval—angles exact, edges aligned. Sprout cleaned each face with a flick; the glass shone like water. Snape drew the curtains to a measured slit.

They waited.

The first ray of sun cut the horizon.

Light crossed the sill, hit the first mirror, jumped to the second, split into the third. A ring of dawn spun in the air. The final beam speared the goblet’s heart.

The hurricane mist flared. Silver brightened. Something woke.

It began to glow from within. Not fire. Not lightning. A storm turned to light.

Shapes rose from the goblet and fell back again.

A sword. Clean and long.

A brain. Laced with lines like constellations.

A quill. Sharp as a needle.

A dragon. All bone and smoke.

Up. Down. Up. Down. As if tasting the world.

The air pressed on their ears. The desk shivered. Fawkes lifted his head and watched, very still.

Snape took one step back. The others did too. Instinct.

Then the goblet exhaled.

Black letters— obsidian-dark, edged like glass —shot upward in a spiral. Each sealed with a red Hogwarts crest. They came like a column of wind. Too many to count. Too fast to follow.

The force made their robes snap. McGonagall threw up an arm. Flitwick ducked. Sprout shielded her face. Snape’s hair blew back.

The letters poured out like a storm emptying itself. A hurricane of names, choices, fates. The room roared with paper.

And then—silence.

They lowered their hands. The last letter was gone.

No drift on the carpet. No scrap on the desk. The goblet stood quiet, its mist a thin, steady spiral.

McGonagall found her voice first. “Where did they—?”

“Where they were meant to go,” Dumbledore said. He did not smile. “To the ones who must read them.”

Snape’s gaze cut to him. “And if the ones are not ready?”

“No one ever is,” Dumbledore said, very softly. “That is why we teach.”

The hurricane mist turned once, small and sure, and held. Outside, the sun climbed. Inside, the headmasters’ portraits leaned forward, listening to a century break open.

…

Darien sat on the edge of his bed, the fire in the hearth burning low, the glow stretching across his long coat and the goldd of Draco’s new sword resting in his lap. His head was buried in his palms, fingers dragging through his blonde curls as if the weight of what he had just been told was too much to carry.

“So,” he said finally, his voice low but full of disbelief, “you’re telling me… that I leave for one day— one day —and all of that happened?”

In front of him stood Silvanius and Draco, shoulder to shoulder, both nodding like guilty children caught with jam-stained hands. Silvanius’ jaw was set, sharp and proud, though his eyes flickered nervously; Draco, by contrast, looked like a cat who’d already planned his next nap, all wide eyes and pouty lips.

Darien groaned louder, throwing his head back and muttering, “Merlin, why?” He reached out suddenly, caught Draco by the arm, and pulled him down to sit beside him on the bed. Draco gave no resistance—he almost collapsed into Darien’s side, letting his older brother’s arm loop around his shoulders.

“Are you feeling weak?” Darien asked at once, his tone shifting to worried softness. He squeezed Draco’s shoulder, tilting his head to study him. “Do you need a healer? You look pale—have you been eating well? Drinking enough water? Sleeping well?”

Draco hummed, leaning his head against Darien’s shoulder, basking in the fuss like a spoiled kitten.

“Mhm. Weak, and sad,” he murmured, nodding faintly, clearly relishing every ounce of the attention.

Darien frowned deeper, tilting Draco’s chin up with two fingers. “Why are you sad, hm? Did someone say something to you? Tell me, Draco, and I’ll handle the rest. No one is allowed to give you a hard time.”

Draco’s pout deepened, and he raised a finger— slowly, deliberately —pointing straight at Silvanius.

Silvanius froze. His grey eyes went wide, his lips parting as if to protest, hands shooting up in instinctive defense. “That is not —Darien, wait, listen to me—”

Darien’s sharp glare cut across the room like a blade. Silvanius’ voice withered in his throat. He lowered his hands, swallowing hard, shifting from foot to foot like a boy caught in the wrong corridor after curfew.

Darien turned back to Draco, his expression softening instantly. “What did Si do?” he asked gently, brushing a strand of Draco’s hair back from his temple.

Draco wasted no time. “When we were in the undercrofts,” he began, his tone hushed, as if confessing some terrible injustice, “searching for the sword… Julius convinced me to play a prank, so we hid. Julius’ siblings went all good after they  found him.” Draco sighed theatrically. “But Silvanius—Silvanius stopped talking to me.”

Silvanius’ jaw clenched. His hands fisted at his sides, but under Darien’s glare he stayed silent.

Draco leaned in closer to Darien, milking every drop of sympathy. “I was alone the whole day. Alone, Darien. And when I went to his room at night—because I didn’t want to sleep alone—he kicked me out.”

The words hung in the air like smoke.

Darien’s head snapped toward Silvanius, his arm tightening protectively around Draco. His voice thundered suddenly, his patience gone. “ Silvanius Hael Lucius Black Malfoy , What. Am. I. Hearing?”

Silvanius took a step back, stuttering for the first time in years. “I—Darien—it wasn’t—he’s twisting it—”

“ Twisting it? ” Darien’s voice sharp and furious. He stood, placing the sword carefully aside, his coat sweeping as he closed the distance between them. “I left him in your care. You’re the elder when I’m gone. I ask you to watch him for one day, and you—what? You can’t handle a single prank? A single prank , Silvanius?”

Silvanius’ composure cracked under Darien’s. He opened his mouth to argue but found himself stumbling over the words. “I—I only thought—he was being reckless—Darien, I didn’t—”

Darien stepped closer, his finger stabbing the air. “You didn’t what? Didn’t think of him? Didn’t see he was alone? Didn’t remember he’s still a little boy?” His tone was so betrayed and angry as if Silvanius had thrown a puppy on a railway track, “I thought better of you.”

Behind them, Draco shifted, looking around the room with mock innocence, as if he couldn’t possibly hear what was happening. Silvanius shot him a glance, silently begging him to step in, and clear his name.

But Draco didn’t budge. He stayed curled on the bed where Darien had left him, fiddling with the edge of his sleeve, his lips twitching with the faintest, satisfied smirk.

“Darien,” Silvanius tried again, his voice breaking slightly. “He’s not telling the whole—”

Darien cut him off, voice fierce. “Not a word more, Silvanius. I trusted you.”

Silvanius’ chest rose and fell sharply. For once, Silvanius was speechless.

Draco peeked up then, stretching languidly, and let out a small sigh as if he were the very picture of misery. He leaned back into the pillows, murmuring, “Don’t fight… I just wanted Si to like me again.”

Darien’s anger softened instantly. He turned back, sitting again at Draco’s side, wrapping him up in a hug. “He does like you. He loves you. You’re his little brother, Draco. But if he ever makes you feel alone again, you come to me, alright? I’ll scold him for you.”

Draco nodded, pressing his face into Darien’s shoulder, hiding the smug curve of his smile. Silvanius groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, defeated.

Darien kissed the top of Draco’s head, his voice low and certain. “You’re not alone. Not when I’m here.”

And Draco purred like the spoiled youngest he was becoming used to being, while Silvanius stood there, arms crossed tight against his chest, his jaw tense, refusing to look at either of them. He rolled his eyes hard, muttering, “You’re both ridiculous. I wasn’t being cruel, I was being sensible. He was being irresponsible, hiding in an undercroft that stretches for Merlin knows how many miles, packed with relics and half-decayed enchantments we don’t even understand.”

Darien raised a brow, but Silvanius didn’t stop. His words tumbled faster, sharper, carried by that nervous overthinking that always betrayed him.

“What if he had been buried under some pile of broken stones and they collapsed on him? Huh? What if he vanished—what if there was some antique magic woven into those walls, something designed to trap trespassers, something none of us could undo? What if he’d stepped through some cursed archway and disappeared thousands of years back in time, never to return?” His voice cracked faintly, but he pushed on. “What if he ended up locked in some endless loop of dark magic and we—”

He stopped suddenly. His throat worked around the words, and he turned sharply toward the window. His arms tightened even further, as if he could strangle the emotions out of himself. But it was too late—his breath shook, his lips pressed thin, and before he could stop it, his eyes watered. He scrubbed the back of his hand across his cheek quickly, muttering, almost too softly to hear, “I was so scared…”

Draco and Darien moved instantly, like one body. They both stood, closing the space between them, reaching for him at once.

“Si—” Darien’s voice was firm but gentle as his hand fell on his brother’s arm.

“Silvanius—” Draco’s voice was smaller, almost guilty, his hand tugging at Silvanius’ sleeve.

But Silvanius shrugged them off stubbornly, his face turned to the window, his shoulders rigid. “Leave me.”

They didn’t.

Darien caught him by the shoulders, turning him back around, while Draco latched on to his arm with that new bratty persistence of his. Silvanius squirmed once, twice, but their grip was iron— in strength and in love .

Finally, they dragged him back into the circle of their warmth, despite all his struggling.

Darien’s voice cut through, calm and commanding, but soft enough to soothe. “Draco. Don’t scare Silvanius like that again. Do you hear me?”

Draco’s head bobbed quickly, his voice small and earnest. “Sorry, Brother Silvanius. I didn’t mean to scare you. I won’t do it again.”

Darien chuckled at the exaggerated ‘Brother’ but shook his head to focus again.

Silvanius let out a shaky breath, barely stopping his lip from twitching, looking between them both, his eyes red-rimmed but softer now. He wanted to scold, to argue—but his heart was already giving in.

Darien tightened his hold, pulling both of them close. “Okay, now, no one is allowed to be mad at each other again. Not like this. We’re brothers. We don’t waste time being enemies. Understood ?”

Draco nodded immediately, eager. Silvanius swallowed hard, then gave the faintest, reluctant nod.

“Good,” Darien said, his voice dropping to that unshakable certainty that always held them together. “Then it’s settled.”

And just like that, their world steadied again—three brothers bound not by perfection, but by the fierce refusal to let go of each other.

Three obsidian black letters with red seals darted through the window, scratching Silvanius’ cheek with the sharp edge before dropping to the floor.

Chapter Text

Darien flicked his wand with swift precision, a quiet rush of silver light weaving across Silvanius’s cheek where three neat crimson lines bled from the strike. The scratches faded, leaving only a faint trace, though Darien’s jaw remained tight.

“Stay behind me,” he said sharply, and with another fluid movement, shoved both brothers back from the shattered window. His wand traced revealing runes into the air, the symbols glowing faint gold before fading into nothingness.

But there was no enemy. No curse, no phantom figure waiting.

Only the three obsidian-black envelopes lying stark on the floorboards, edges still faintly humming with the magic that had slashed Silvanius.

Darien crouched, narrowing his eyes as he picked them up. His fingers lingered on the golden inscriptions that shimmered faintly at the bottom of each.

“Names,” he muttered. “Our names.”

The first gleam read: Lord Darien Deus Lucius Rosenwald Black Malfoy.

Darien let out a dry snort, holding it up where the others could see. “They’re really stretching for grandeur this year.”

Silvanius leaned forward, smirking. “Deus? Rosenwald? Since when did you start hoarding names?”

But Draco had already snatched at the parchment, wide-eyed. “That— that’s your full name!?”

Darien raised a brow, unbothered. “Apparently.” He shrugged as if it were nothing, though the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed his amusement.

Silvanius quickly seized his own envelope, tearing it open with a spark of excitement, while Draco clutched his tight, his curiosity getting the better of him. But Darien had already taken it back and broken the wine red wax seal pressed with a hurricane emblem, and the letter inside unfolded with a faint ripple of enchanted wind.

The parchment glowed faintly as the ink wrote itself across the page:

To Lord Darien Deus Lucius Rosenwald Black Malfoy,

By decree of the Goblet of Hurricane, forged in storms and bound by oath, you have been chosen as one of the Warriors of the Hendeka Games, to represent Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the coming trials.

The Goblet has seen into the measure of your blood and your craft. It has judged your talents worthy of the storm. It has found steel where others are soft, and flame where others hold only ash.

As Warrior, your oath is to defend the honor of Hogwarts—not only in the games of spell and sword, but in the eyes of all wizarding nations gathered. Your name has been etched in the records of the Hendeka; it will not fade.

The Games test more than wandwork. They are the forge of body, mind, and spirit. This summer, you are commanded to polish your arts, for the categories of your trial shall include:

Archery, for the precision of eye and breath.

Duelling, for the clash of will and spell.

Martial Combat, where wandless discipline is tested in flesh and bone.

Beast Taming, for the mastery of fear and command.

Horse Riding, for grace and control in speed.

Quidditch, for the heart that soars above all.

Yet know this, Warrior: the Hendeka Games bend to no script. Other trials may rise unbidden—when chance, fate, or storm demand it. 

Stand ready.

The Games begin when the moons align with storm, and the world will watch.

In the name of the Goblet of Hurricane, and the Council of Eleven,
— Signed in storm and sealed in fire

The letter sealed itself with a final flicker of lightning-shaped script, humming faintly before the glow dimmed.

Darien exhaled through his nose, folding the parchment with deliberate calm. “Well. That’s dramatic.”

Draco was still staring. “You’re— you’re supposed to do all that? Over the summer?”

Darien smirked. “Archery, dueling, taming monsters, and riding broomsticks at breakneck speed. Sounds like a holiday to me.”

Silvanius arched a brow. “Holiday? That’s going to kill you.”

“Then I’ll die entertainingly.” Darien tucked the letter back into its envelope, though his eyes glimmered—half-amused, half-sharp, as though already weighing the trials ahead.

Silvanius had already torn the seal with less restraint than Darien. The obsidian envelope shivered as he pulled the parchment free; it unfurled in his hands like silk, letters weaving themselves in shimmering silver.

At the top, the salutation glowed brighter than the rest, like a crown set in script:

To Prince Silvanius Hael Lucius Black Malfoy,

The Goblet of Hurricane bows before your name, for it has judged you not merely as warrior, but as heir to the rare union of wit and bloodline. It has read the measure of your mind and found it a fortress of brilliance. It has seen your hand in art and steel alike, and calls you not only combatant, but Scholar of the Hendeka.

You honor us by stepping forward. The Council of Eleven declares it no small thing to welcome you to the Hendeka Games. The storm respects power when it is raw, but it reveres it more when sharpened with discipline. Yours is a talent to both command and inspire.

The arts you are called to polish are as follows:

Knowledge, for the Games are not won with strength alone, but with the mastery of ancient and hidden truths.

Music & Tradition, for harmony weaves through nations, and only those who can move hearts may sway storms.

Swordsmanship, for the song of steel is yours to command.

Monster Illusioner, where fear is woven into image, and truth bends to your will.

Chess, where wars are played before blood is spilled.

Duelling, to stand unbroken in the clash of wands.

Polo, for the grace of motion and strategy of speed.

Casino, for in the gamble of chance, true cunning is revealed.

The Goblet sees you as both tactician and sovereign of arts. Where others may strike, you may conquer. Where others may endure, you may command.

Hold fast to the name you bear, Prince Silvanius, for the Hendeka Games will test the scholar, the musician, the swordsman, and the sovereign within you.

In the name of the Goblet of Hurricane, and the Council of Eleven,
— Signed in storm and sealed in fire

The silver words faded into permanence as the letter sealed itself in his hands. Silvanius stared at it longer than he meant to, his jaw tight, though a faint gleam of pride flickered behind his calm.

Darien leaned over his shoulder with a crooked smirk. “Casino? They really do know you.”

Draco, clutching his own envelope still unopened, glanced between them with wide eyes. “They… called you a prince.”

Silvanius folded the letter, his voice even but tinged with satisfaction. “Well, they’re not wrong.”

Draco had been hugging his envelope to his chest, watching his brothers with round eyes and a little frown. Silvanius had been given brilliance and refinement, Darien was named warrior and leader—what if his letter said something ridiculous, something childish, something not worth their names?

“Open it,” Silvanius pressed, nudging his arm with the sharp insistence of an elder brother.

“Unless you’re too scared,” Darien teased, ruffling his hair.

Draco scowled, cheeks burning. “I’m not scared.” His fingers shook anyway as he tore the seal. The parchment slid out, smooth as breath, and as he looked down at the first line—his chest seized.

To the Son of the Underworld, Draconis Hades—

The ink burned against his sight, blacker than black, curling like smoke. 

His eyes widened like never before, blood roaring in his ears. Before he could even form words, the script swirled and shifted, as if embarrassed to be caught, blurring into new letters right beneath his brothers’ gaze:

To Prince Draco Abraxas Lucius Black Malfoy—

Darien leaned in, chuckling. “See? Prince. Nothing to be shy about.”

Draco didn’t answer. He just stared, silent, clutching the parchment tighter as his heart thudded in uneven beats. Then, with a little swallow, he continued reading.

To Prince Draco Abraxas Lucius Black Malfoy,

The Goblet of Hurricane has spoken.

 
You are invited not by chance, but by fire itself.

If you will it, you may walk away untouched—for compulsion is beneath the name you carry.

But if you choose to step forward, know this: the Games have seldom seen a flame as bright as yours. We do not command you.

We ask, with reverence.

The core that burns within you is unlike any the Goblet has tasted. It is not a flame of destruction, but of shaping, of rebirth, of will that bends iron into light. You are needed.

Should you join, the arts laid before you are these:

Swordsmanship, for the Goblet whispers there is none in these halls who holds a blade with your raw ferocity.

Transfiguration Duels, where matter obeys mind, and creation answers to command.

Quidditch, for speed and air belong to your instincts.

Astronomy, for stars bow to those who carry fire in their veins.

Knowledge, for wisdom tempers flame.

Chess, for wars are won in silence before they are sung in fire.

The Fire Games, for here, your truest strength lies—your magical core burns hotter than storm or steel. Fire is not your ally, but your very name.

Animal Summoning, for even beasts heed the voice of fire.

Relay Races, for even in the company of many, flame leads.

The Goblet of Hurricane does not merely invite you—it honors you.

Should you choose to rise, it will be not as participant, but as flame set loose upon the storm.

The Council of Eleven bows to you.

In the name of the Goblet of Hurricane, and the Council of Eleven,
— Signed in storm and sealed in fire

Draco scowled at the parchment as though it had insulted him.

“It’s stupid,” he muttered, folding it too harshly. “There’s definitely a mistake. The name wasn’t even mine—it blurred into mine after. How is that supposed to mean anything? And what even is all this?”

Darien leaned back on the bed, eyebrows raised. “Mistakes?” He shook his head. “No, little brother. Such ancient magics don’t falter. If it named you, it meant it. And Hogwarts letters must be arriving soon to explain. As far as I know, The Hendeka Council is a collective council of the 11 Big. Magical Schools from all around the world.”

Draco’s eyes widened in astonishment.

Silvanius, still holding his own letter, was scanning Draco’s again, eyes narrowed. He’d read it twice already, but each line itched at him differently. His had been lofty, full of respect, but Draco’s… Draco’s was strange. It bent around him, not like it was commanding, but like it was pleading.

Silvanius quietly folded it back, slipped it into the envelope, and tucked it into Draco’s robes himself. “I’ll study it later,” he murmured. “There’s more to this than we’re seeing.”

“But I’ve never even touched a sword!” Draco blurted, arms crossing like a sulking child.

Darien smirked, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “Then touch one now. The Goblet saw something in you, Draco. You don’t need to understand it yet. Just… accept you’ve been chosen.”

Draco didn’t reply, lips pressed tight, eyes darting anywhere but at them.

Behind all the letters, golden inscription glowed: Keep Safe, Changes shall be made.

…

The kitchen at Grimmauld Place had never felt so full, not even at Christmas. The long dining table was crowded elbow to elbow, parchment letters strewn across plates of half-eaten toast and cups of tea gone cold. The golden trio sat huddled at one end, while the Weasley children—minus Percy, who had excused himself with his usual stiff importance—were gathered in a jumble of red hair and banter. Around them, the Order of the Phoenix pressed in, standing shoulder to shoulder, reading over, murmuring, gasping.

Harry clutched his letter like it might vanish. His breath was still uneven as he read aloud the list again—

“Swordsmanship, duelling, horse riding, Quidditch, mind games, animal summoning, and—oh—relay races.”

Fred whistled low. “Blimey, Potter. They want you doing everything except washing the Goblet’s dishes.”

“Relay races,” George echoed with a grin. “At least you’ll have company.” He wiggled his own parchment for everyone to see.

Harry couldn’t help but laugh, the tension in his chest easing, even as Molly leaned across the table, eyes wide with horror.

“Swordsmanship? Harry, dear, this is madness, you’re barely—”

“Mum,” Ron interrupted, grinning as he spread his own parchment flat. “Look, I’ve got chess. Chess! Finally all those years of beating Fred and George are good for something.”

Hermione frowned, though she didn’t quite hide her smile. “Well, it is fitting. Chess and mind games. That’s very—”

“—brilliant of me?” Ron finished smugly.

“Occasionally,” Hermione allowed, though her eyes sparkled.

“And duelling!” Ron added, puffing out his chest. “Bet I’ll be the one to knock Malfoy flat—”

Charlie slapped his letter on the table, grinning ear to ear. “Beast taming, horse riding, Quidditch, Knowledge games, polo—look at that! Finally something worthwhile.” His voice was boyish with excitement. “I get to go back to Hogwarts.”

Molly made a strangled noise. “Beast taming? Polo? Do you even own a horse? Charlie, what if something happens—what if one of those creatures—”

“Mum,” Charlie laughed, ducking her hand as she tried to straighten his collar unnecessarily. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. This is—this is everything I’ve ever wanted!”

Sirius clapped him on the back so hard the plates rattled. “That’s the spirit! Finally—finally, we get some excitement worth cheering for! Harry, lad, swordsmanship—you’ll look dashing with a blade in your hand!”

Harry flushed scarlet, but Sirius only grinned wider.

At the far end, Ginny smirked as she folded her parchment. “Duelling, dance, performance arts, relay races, and Quidditch.”

“Dance?” Fred perked up instantly, exchanging a sly glance with George.

“Performance arts,” George repeated in mock solemnity. “Looks like we’ll be rivals, little sister.”

“Except we’ll win,” Fred added.

Ginny raised an eyebrow, leaning back smugly. “Except you won’t.”

The twins laughed, throwing their arms over her shoulders in identical gestures, chanting “Relay races, relay races!” until even Hermione cracked a smile.

“Everyone’s got relay races,” Harry said, shaking his head. “It’s like the Goblet’s got a sense of humor.”

Remus, however, was standing with arms folded, eyes shadowed with worry. “Dangerous arts, dangerous games. duelling, beast taming…” He trailed off, looking at Sirius, but Sirius only waved him off.

“Oh, don’t be such a damp rag, Moony. They’re young, they’re strong, they’re clever. They’ll manage.”

Molly wasn’t so easily swayed. She reached out again, fussing at Charlie’s sleeve, then Harry’s messy hair, then Ron’s tie, muttering under her breath, “Swordsmanship, duelling, horses—oh, I don’t like this at all—”

The room was noisy, bright, alive. Letters crinkled in eager hands, the weight of destiny settling on their shoulders—but for this morning, with the sunlight slanting in and laughter bubbling over toast and tea, it felt less like fear and more like the start of something unstoppable.

…

The kids spilled into the smallest upstairs room at Grimmauld, bringing the whole sun with them. Shoes thumped. Hinges whined. Someone’s cat yowled and vanished under the bed.

Bill ducked the doorframe last. He skimmed a parchment stamped with Gringotts seals, eyes narrowing, then—without a word—folded it twice and tucked it into his pocket.

“Later,” he told no one in particular.

Harry’s bed turned into seating for five. Ginny claimed the window ledge with a book; the twins sprawled on the rug, dismantling a Muggle torch just to see if it would still work when jinxed; Hermione curled into the desk chair with quill and notes like she hadn’t just told everyone to relax.

Charlie flopped onto Harry’s mattress, leaned back against the headboard like it was his throne, and patted the space beside him. Ron dropped down, knees knocking Charlie’s.

For a minute, the room was just breathing—quiet, warm, safe.

Then Charlie went casual. Too casual.

“Hey, Ron,” he said, picking a thread from the blanket. “Remember when Dad got bitten and we were at St. Mungo’s? After he got better—the little celebration? We saw the Malfoys. And… others who looked a lot like them.” He scratched his jaw. “Harry was being… well, Harry. Malfoy was being Malfoy. And then this boy—taller—stopped him. Long hair. Glasses. Black streaks in the blond. You know who that was?”

Ron snorted before the sentence was done. “Yeah. That guy’s a prince. Grew up in a palace. Stuck up as a broom handle.”

Charlie’s jaw actually dipped. “A prince?”

Not stuck up, he thought, and the thought was stubborn. Just… no-nonsense. Like a cliff decides where the sea stops.

Ron scratched his chin, warming to it. “You know the worst bit? He’s Malfoy’s brother.”

“A brother?!” Charlie nearly headbutted the headboard. He glanced at Harry—who was on the floor, sitting cross-legged, pretending not to listen—and back to Ron. “How do you even know all that?”

“Mid-year transfer,” Ron said, rolling his eyes like he’d been forced to memorize an enemy’s biography. “Same year as me, Harry, and Hermione. Shows up, acts like he owns the corridors, never smiles, ever.”

Hermione, without looking up, murmured, “He smiles sometimes.”

Ron dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper anyway. “He’s very, very smart. Like… outsmarts Hermione smart.”

Hermione lifted the rolled parchment from her lap and swatted the air in Ron’s general direction. “I heard that.”

“And he’s a year older than Malfoy,” Ron plowed on, undeterred. “So… seventeen? Name’s Silvanius.”

Charlie’s mouth said nothing. His eyes, however, turned dazed. He stared at the far wall, not seeing it.

The twins noticed immediately.

“Oh dear,” Fred murmured.

“Big dear ,” George agreed.

“Shut it,” Charlie said, cheeks going pink at the ears.

On the floor, Harry pressed his palms into the carpet until the fibers made little moons in his skin. Silvanius. Of course he remembered—St. Mungo’s hall, the pause in the air, the way that boy had simply decided the argument was over, and it… was.

He glanced at Hermione. Earlier, he’d asked her about his dream—the mirror that wasn’t a mirror, the letters wrong and right at the same time.

“The Mirror of Sevitpac,” he’d insisted. “My mum and dad were trying to tell me something, I could feel it—like words that wouldn’t turn into words.”

“Dreams are just brain-noise, Harry,” Hermione had said, gentle but firm. “Don’t live in them.” Then she’d bonked him on the head with a rolled timetable and pushed him toward the door. “Tea.”

Harry had tried to argue—I know the difference between nightmares and visions—but she’d just given him that look, the one that could tidy a room without moving a chair.

Now he slid a hand under the bedframe. His fingers found the new sword hilt by instinct. The crescent where blade met guard was cool, then warm, then calm. A faint glow, a breath of smoke at his palm—always the same: not frightening. Settling. Like a hand closing over his panic and tucking it away.

He let go.

If Hermione didn’t know, then someone else had to.

Silvanius Malfoy would know.

Harry looked up at Charlie and Ron still bickering—Charlie pretending not to fish for more details, Ron enjoying having them—and he made a quiet decision that had nothing to do with swords or letters or relay races.

He was going to find a way to talk to that prince.

…

Evening slid over the grounds like a shawl—soft, gold, then cool. Lanterns had been lit along the practice field; the smell of damp grass rose with each breath. The family gathered in easy circles, armour and habitals left to the side; tonight was for sparring, for skill and noise and the small, honest danger that made boys laugh and adults watch with tightened chests.

Darien did not let Draco hide. He hauled him out of the sitting room before he could make any feeble protest—by the arm, with that easy, older-brother pull that brooked no argument. Draco whined, then straightened when Darien gave him that look: the one that said he must stand like a prince, or at least try.

Grandmère did not pity him. She clapped, delighted and stern. “Show him how it’s done, Darien,” she called. Her voice carried like a bell; everyone brightened at the sight of Darien taking the helm.

The grounds hummed. Darien moved with a trained calm. Sebastian, too, was precise and fast; Julius and Edmund were eager and bright; Mathilda had a poised, practiced grace; Adrien showed the experience of someone accustomed to control. Alaric and Élodie—age and steadiness—exhaled small judgments that steadied the chaos. Silvanius and Sebastian sparred at one end, their blades a whisper that became a lesson for eyes.

“Watch them,” Darien said softly to Draco, indicating Silvanius and Sebastian. “Focus on their feet. Not the blade—watch how their shoulders move, their breathing. That’s the rhythm. Learn the rhythm before you try to break it.”

Draco tried. He blinked and tried harder. Their movements were too fast, a river too quick to map. He lagged, his blade catching sunlight in half-steps; their footwork blurred. He could barely follow.

Darien walked over, and for the first time his gaze fell full on Draco’s sword. The sun-hilt glittered in the dying light and Darien’s lips drew into a brief, approving line. “Grip it tight,” he advised, drifting close enough that Draco could feel the warmth from his coat. “Go with instinct. First, defend. Then—attack. Don’t think of saving your skin. Trust me, I won’t hurt my baby—baby brother who’s learning swordsmanship for the first time.”

He chuckled, soft and coaxing. He started slow, gentle—soft parries, measured thrusts. He let Draco find the pace, breath to breath. Darien was careful; his strikes were lessons, his counters patient. Draco’s stance steadied under that care.

Then the look came. Darien’s eyes sharpened. He smiled, and it was a small, dangerous thing. The spar turned. The teaching face dropped. The teacher became an opponent.

Darien accelerated. His blade drew lines in the air—arcs that cut the evening—fast footwork shifting weight like a shadow stepping from one stone to the next. He attacked with a flow that was both graceful and fierce: feint, step, snap forward, curl and retreat. Draco found himself rattled by speed and expertise. The smirk on Darien’s face peeled away.

Anger tightened in Draco like a second heartbeat. The boy had absorbed so much: the book knowledge, the hush of training, the tiny rehearsed motions that became instinct. Now, without warning, he met Darien blow for blow, and the force behind him surprised even himself. Where he had been tentative, he was suddenly all muscle and heat—driven by something that had nothing to do with lessons. Each swing bore the sharpness of something private, raw. He struck with the kind of force that launched wind, that made the ring of steel echo in the trees. Darien’s smirk evaporated into concentration.

This was no longer warm practice. Both boys danced to a new tempo—quick, fierce, electric.

Darien’s jaw set. He moved fluidly, and when he saw an opening, he did not hesitate. He flicked his wand, muttered a quick charm, and the earth along the edge of the clearing shuddered. A root answered him: a thick branch erupted, snatching from the soil like a hand. It shot forward to catch Draco’s feet. The idea was simple—trip him, force a stumble, teach him to keep his stance.

Draco’s muscles coiled. He saw the branch leap and, without thinking, found the air. He jumped—higher and purer than before—and landed with the blade still singing.

Darien’s next move was measured to take advantage of that arc. He thought the trick done. But Draco was already surging forward, anger hard in his eyes. He didn’t draw his wand. Instead he braced his feet and brought his right hand forward—no wand, raw magic, his palm open.

Fire ripped from him like a fist of living heat.

It was not a thin flash. It spilled, a cone of roaring light, a living tongue that arced toward Darien with a sound like a bell struck inside metal. The heat singed air and made the hairs along the family’s arms lift. For a heartbeat silence held—the world narrowing to flame and sword.

Before the fire could bite Darien, the gronds answered with water.

Silvanius moved—fast, not with the slow caution he so often wore, but with a force that belonged to someone who would not let family be hurt. He thrust his wand in a clean line, and a column of water exploded upward from the grass in a thunderclap, a scouring crest that swept the flame aside. It poured over them both, fierce and sudden, a wall of cold that doused anger and steam alike.

The blaze hissed and vanished. Steam wrapped around their boots and rose like short-lived ghosts. The crowd around the field inhaled at once; the hush of shock hung heavy.

Darien staggered from the shove. The ground was slick; his footing failed. He slipped, slid, tried to roll with it—too late. He hit the turf hard and there was a sharp, stunned intake from everyone.

Draco and Darien shook off water like dogs. Rain soaked their hair, ran down shirts, trickled from sleeves. They blinked, lungs burning, hands coming up to brush hair from their faces. The field smelled of wet earth, cold metal, the copper edge of danger.

When they cleared their eyes and they could see, the world had tilted. Darien was down—one knee splayed, one hand on the grass, breath quick and bright. Draco stood over him. The sun-sword end rested at Darien’s throat, silver pressing against warm skin. The blade’s tip was careful—razor’s whisper, but not a threat to spill.

Silence crashed. 

Even the leaves dared not stir. 

The movements of a moment before had left everyone unbalanced; a low, collective exhale swept the ranks.

Darien looked up at Draco with a slow, unreadable expression. Blood had warmed the air with many things. Draco’s chest heaved. Rain traced down his face and mingled with sweat; his lips parted and his eyes were wide, half triumphant, half terrified of what he had done.

“Draco.” Darien’s voice was low, but not angry. Not running now the second nature to temper. He could have pushed the sword forward; he didn’t. Instead his gaze held all the steadiness of a man who’d rather be hurt than make a child feel alone. “You’re breathing hard. Relax.”

Draco’s grip loosened almost imperceptibly—an answer, not yet a surrender. Silvanius stepped up beside them, face white where early rage had drained into concern. Hands trembled, wiping water from eyes, then from Darien’s cheek. Around them, Grandmère gave a sharp, startled breath and then, in a way that broke the pressure, started clapping—slow and firm—“Careful, boys. Careful.”

A laugh ran somewhere near the edge of the field: Julius and Edmund, breathless and rubbing their palms where swords had been gripped. Mathilda crossed the clearing, eyes bright and sharp, looking between them as if cataloguing wounds, not blaming. Adrien hurried inside, requesting tea for everyone from the kitchens.

Darien sat up slowly, the grass dark at his sleeve, and he did not flinch at the sword’s presence. He reached one hand up and, with a steadiness that made Draco's fingers finally relax, took the hilt by the flat of the blade and guided it back—gentle as a tide. The point slid from throat to side, and Darien allowed the sword to rest across his knees.

“That was brilliant,” he said, voice bright with pride, his lips stretched into an easy smile, “Dragon.”

…

They were dried, they were bathed. The water had washed the grit from their skin and the smell of soap clung to the hem of their clothes. But Draco moved like a ghost—present and not present at once. He walked and spoke, smiled when asked, but everything inside him hummed.

What happened there…was not me.

Wandless magic—me? I couldn’t be that powerful.

Potter does monstrous things and people expect it. If Potter did this, no one would have been surprised.

But Potter isn’t the one who lit a fire from his palm. It was me. Draco. Never enough.

What if I’d burned Darien?

What if—what if something happened and I couldn’t stop it?

This is uncharted.

This is a country with no maps.

I could go back. Back to being the Slytherin prince, he thought, and the shelter of that idea was almost sweet. Where everyone bowed and everyone stayed small. Where the crest neither stared nor asked questions. Where the tales of sons of death were just papers on a shelf. Where swords chose someone else. Where magic had boundaries I could understand.

How did I get stuck in this blood and family and snow-leopard crests that stare and stories that smell like old graves?

How did a sword pick me? How did people start to adore me for being me?

And now—wandless bursts of fire?

The thoughts rolled through him like distant thunder. Each one folded over the next until his chest felt crowded with their noise.

Then Silvanius’ hand closed softly on his elbow. The touch was small. The effect was everything.

“Relax, Draco,” Silvanius whispered—quiet, sure. “You are fine. Darien’s fine. Everyone’s fine. That’s all that matters.”

He squeezed once, as if to compress the panic into something manageable, then added, softer, practical: “This château brings things out of people. It happens. We’ll look. We’ll read. We’ll go to the library. If something’s wrong—if this is a wound on your magic—we’ll find it. If you’re just learning to form it… we’ll teach you to shape it.”

Silvanius’ voice pulled at the raw places inside Draco. It was steady, quiet, the kind of certainty that had the shape of a promise.

“And,” he said with a crooked, teasing lift, “if you’ve been hiding it all this time to outshine us at showtime—bravo. Grand scheme. Master plan. You could have told us.”

Draco let out a laugh that surprised him. It was small, but it broke up the dark inside. The thought of returning to the old life with its sharp edges faded like steam. How would I live without them? he realized, the question soft and sudden and impossible to answer.

They stepped down the stairs together—Darien at the lead, Silvanius tight at Draco’s elbow—and the house smelled of roast and lemon and something baking. Dinner was coming alive in the kitchens; maids carried steaming trays, and a tray of tea had been set in the sitting room just that minute.

Élodie’s voice floated down from the landing, bright and brisk. “Boys! Come faster—your tea’s getting cold and Grandmère is impatient!”

“Stop spinning your crown, Julius,” she added, then laughed at the twins who were trying anyway. “Like a football, honestly.”

Julius spun his crown anyway. Edmund mimicked him, and Mathilda tutted, amused.

Luca stumbled out on unsteady little legs, hair mussed and gold-brown in the dawn light. He toddled straight for Draco, giggling as he went. He caught at Draco’s trouser with both fists and, with all the concentration of a child, opened his palm with a delighted, “Whoosh!” Then he closed it again and did it twice more, delighted at the small sound his fingers made.

At first Draco didn’t understand. Then he remembered the flame that had leapt out of his own palm in the grounds—and his heart unclenched with a strange, hot tenderness. Luca had seen it. The child was copying it.

“Look!” Luca squealed with the proud certainty of small inventors. “Whoosh! Whoosh!” He beamed.

The room burst into chuckles.

Élodie crossed the room, sweeping Luca into her arms. “Oh, you little pyromaniac,” she teased, kissing his temple. “When did you pick up that trick?”

Grandmère’s eyes crinkled as she watched Draco. She lifted a hand in that tiny, formal way she had when approving or scolding in one breath. “My boys,” she said, fond and firm. “Come. Sit. The tea cools; the bread will grow lonely.”

Darien called out from the couch, the casual command of someone who always had a spare place. “Si, Draco—over here. I saved you two seats.” He patted the cushion beside him.

Silvanius and Draco moved at once, and Luca squirmed so Draco could scoop him into his lap. The child pressed his chubby palms against Draco’s and tried once more, “Whoosh.” He pouted when nothing happened.

“May I?” Silvanius asked, eyes soft. He drew his wand in a careful, looping motion. The incantation was a quiet string of syllables—no thunder, only a hush: lumina miniari. A tiny white flame—perfect, harmless, like a star the size of a sunflower seed—blinked into being and rested, warm but not burning, on Luca’s palm. It glowed a delicate pale white, and Luca’s eyes widened until they were moons.

“Whoosh!” he crowed, and the sound bounced around the room like a bell. He tried again and again, laughing when the flame obediently appeared in his hand each time.

“Too precise,” Mathilda observed with a smile, but her voice was gentle. “That was excellent, Si.”

Annaleise leaned forward from where she’d been passing cups of tea. “He will want to show Sebastian,” she said, smiling. “Sebastian will teach him to chase after it.”

“Only supervised,” Sebastian said from the doorway, looking less stern than usual. “And I’ll be the one doling out punishments for candle-stealing.” He winked at Luca and then at Draco.

Grandmère reached over and ruffled Luca’s curls. “There’s a spark in this child,” she murmured, meaning more than a trick of toys. “Careful with it, all.”

Adrien, sliding a cup into Draco’s hand, said lightly, “You did well tonight. All of you. The water spell was sharp—Silvanius, steady hands.”

Silvanius shrugged, but there was warmth there. “I’d rather douse flames than heal burns,” he replied, glancing at Draco with dry affection.

Darien propped his feet on the low table. “Was that intentional, Dray? Or just improvisation?” he asked, amusement and awe threaded together.

Draco flushed, the attention both unbearable and the best thing in the world. He glanced at Silvanius, who gave him a small, conspiratorial smile. “Improvisation,” Draco said, trying for indifference and failing spectacularly.

Alaric watched him with a mild, pleased smile. “Improvisation can be good,” he said. “When it ends with everyone breathing.” He caught Grandmère’s eye and they shared a look like old captains weathering a storm.

Eloide set a saucer on Draco’s knee. “And no more dangerous stunts, understood?” she teased, though the warmth in her voice said she believed in him.

“Agreed,” Draco murmured. He kissed Luca’s palm for show and the little boy squealed with delight, clapping his hands.

Julius and Edmund were whispering strategy, muttering about who could do the best trick with a crown and how they could weave it into a duel. Just like how back in Grimmauld, Fred and George were already plotting a relay race with flour and brooms. Ginny leaned against the window, watching them all with a small, proud smile.

Draco felt the softness of it all push out the last of the rawness inside him. The fear remained—like a folded bit of paper in his pocket—but the edges were not as sharp. He set Luca, feet swinging, on his knee and allowed himself to be pulled into the current of the room: warmth, jokes, scolds and small triumphs.

Silvanius leaned close and murmured, just for Draco, “Library tomorrow—spellwork, old grimoires. We’ll look. You won’t have to be afraid, not when we’re both reading until the stars fall out of the sky.”

Draco smiled properly then—a tiny, real curve—and Luca copied it with a gummy grin. The room hummed, tea warmed their palms, and the white flame on Luca’s hand flickered faithful as a little secret between them all.

Victore smiled and then recalled something, setting her cup down, “Also, We are holding our Draco’s coronation ceremony tomorrow night,”

Chapter Text

Draco sat perfectly still before the great gilded mirror, though his heart beat far too quickly for composure. Dozens of hands moved around him—servants straightening folds, brushing invisible specks away, fastening golden buttons that caught the candlelight.

He was dressed in an off-white suit, the kind that looked like it had stepped out of a century older—an ivory ruffled shirt, soft at the throat, layered beneath a fitted waistcoat embroidered richly in gold. Over it fell his long coat, so heavy and sweeping that it looked more like a cape, draping regally across the back of the chair.

Draco gulped as he stared at his own reflection. He barely recognised the boy staring back—his pale face framed by the finery, his hair neatly tamed into place, his posture sharpened by nerves rather than confidence.

On the couches nearby, Silvanius sat quietly, one leg crossed over the other, his face buried in a book as though nothing in the world could distract him. Darien, in contrast, leaned against the armrest, laughing softly with Annaliese, who was radiant in her gown, her gloved hands folded delicately in her lap.

The room was already heavy with perfume and polished wax when Mathilda entered. She wore her crown, the delicate jewels glinting with every flicker of the candle flames. Julius and Edmund followed close behind, both dressed with quiet elegance. They stopped at Draco’s chair, and their words came in a stream of warm compliments—on how well he looked, how proud the night must make him. Draco could only nod faintly, his mouth too dry for much more.

Outside, darkness cloaked the land, but the palace glowed like its own constellation. Candles lined every window, every archway, spilling golden warmth across the stone corridors. Even the night air seemed sweetened by beeswax and pine smoke.

The door opened again, and in came Grandmère, wrapped in her silken shawl, Alaric by her side, and Eloide trailing close behind. They did not waste a moment—this was the hour. Draco rose, his knees unsteady, and allowed himself to be led.

The coronation was held in the royal court, a place gilded with banners and shadowed by vaulted ceilings. Only the most important were gathered here—the high officials of the land, solemn ministers, and the priests of the Church in their heavy robes. The Malfoys arrived together: Julius, Edmund, Mathilda, Annaliese, Silvanius, and Darien. At the far hall, Adrian met Sebastian halfway. Sebastian held little Luca in his arms, the child restless against the fine fabric of his father’s coat.

When all were assembled, silence fell.

Draco stepped into the center, guided by the Archpriest. His cape of ivory trailed behind him, embroidered with golden threads that caught the light. He swallowed hard, feeling the weight of every eye in the hall.

Darien and Silvanius watched from the side, Silvanius with his book shut at last, Darien’s fingers tapping against his knee, both alert, both proud.

The Archpriest raised his hand, and silence fell.

“Under the blessing of God, Let it be known on this night, under witness of Heaven and Earth, under the eyes of the court, and under the memory of your forefathers, we crown and anoint the new Prince. Let it be remembered that Draco Abraxas Lucius Malfoire, youngest son to the second son of our late King Abraxas Malfoire and Queen Victore Malfoire, comes into his duty.”

The Archpriest gestured to him. “Kneel.”

Draco bent to one knee, cape spilling around him in a pool of ivory fabric.

The Archpriest dipped his fingers into the holy oil and pressed them gently to Draco’s forehead, murmuring Latin words:

“Unxit te Deus, princeps electus. May God anoint you, chosen prince. With this oil, you are marked as servant and son of this house. May your words bring peace, your hands strength, and your soul honor.”

Then came the ritual sword—not handed as a ruler’s weapon, but touched lightly to each shoulder.

“With this blade, you are marked as protector of your house and shield of your people.”

A velvet cushion was brought forward with the princely coronet, gleaming with gold arcs and set with white stones. Unlike the heavy crown of a king, it was slender, youthful, promising.

The Archpriest lifted it high. “This coronet is not the burden of rule, but the pledge of loyalty. Draco Abraxas Lucius Malfoire, do you accept the duties of a prince—to honor your blood, to serve your realm, and to stand in loyalty to the crown?”

Draco’s throat tightened. His answer came soft but steady, “I do.”

“Do you swear,” the Archpriest continued, “to protect the dignity of this house, to defend the weak, and to carry your name with humility?”

Draco’s gaze flicked, just for a second, to Grandmère. Her nod gave him courage, “I swear it.”

The Archpriest smiled faintly, then lowered the coronet onto his bowed head. “Then rise, Prince Draco Abraxas Lucius Malfoire.”

The hall filled with applause and cheers. Julius leaned toward Edmund, whispering with a grin, “Our cousin looks every inch the part.”

Darien smirked toward Silvanius. “I thought he’d faint.”

Silvanius chuckled softly. “He still might.”

Draco stood, cheeks warm, the coronet glinting under the chandeliers. He was guided to the seat of honor—not the throne, but a carved chair set just below Grandmère’s. He sat, feeling the hall breathe with him.

After the ceremony, he was led to the high balcony of the castle—the very place where rulers stood to address their people. The moon hung silver above, and below, the courtyard stretched out like a living ocean of faces.

Grandmère stepped forward first. Her voice carried gently but firmly over the cold air.

“Tonight, we crown Draco Malfoy as your prince. A new dawn for our house, a new promise for our people. Welcome him as you have always welcomed me, with loyalty, with love, with pride.”

The crowd roared alive, cheers shaking the night. Then, at her gesture, thousands of hands lifted lanterns into the sky.

Each lantern bore the snow leopard crest, and as the flames caught, they drifted upward, floating into the heavens. The night became a river of gold and silver, lantern after lantern filling the darkness until it seemed as though stars themselves had multiplied.

Draco gripped the railing, his breath catching. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”

Grandmère placed her hand lightly over his, “This is your beginning, Draco. Never forget it.”

His lips curved into the smallest of smiles, his chest heavy with awe.

The lanterns rose like a second sunrise—hundreds, then thousands, a tide of gold that swallowed the night. For a breath, Draco let himself be small under that light, enamoured, dizzy with the simple, stupid pleasure of it. The sky had never looked like this before. Not even in the paintings.

Then the pain began.

At first it was a dull pressure, an uncomfortable squeeze behind his eyes, as if the world had folded inward.

In a moment, it sharpened into something cruel and relentless: a hot, drum-throb that banged at his temples in time with his heartbeat. The light above him went ragged, the edges of every candle flaring into ghosts.

Sound softened to a distant, underwater hum. His scalp felt like it was being scraped by ice. His vision shimmered; the world tilted. He tasted metal.

His knees loosened. He forced his face into a straight, polite mask—there were too many eyes—and tightened both hands on the railing until his knuckles went white.

He excused himself in a voice that sounded far away to his own ears and moved away from the balcony where the crowd cheered.

Each step became an achievement; each breath a negotiation.

Sweat sprung at his temples, blonde hair flattened to his brow. His chest heaved; his breaths were short, jagged little things.

Then the ground betrayed him. He lurched once, tried to find balance, reached blindly for the wall—and the stone was not there.

The floor seemed to give; the world slipped from beneath his boots. He did not hit anything. Instead he fell—down, down—into a thick, perfect dark that swallowed sound and light alike.

Panic climbed his spine like an animal.

What is this?

Where are the steps?

Not now, not here. Breathe.

Don’t scream.

Don’t—

The thoughts were skewed, blown apart by the black. He shoved himself to his feet, palms scrabbling on cold air, lungs burning. The dark was a thing that wanted to hold him still.

A single pinprick of gold far away. His eye snagged it like a drowning man’s hand. It pulsed alone in the dark, small and stubborn. He ran toward it because his body remembered something the mind had forgotten—because there was something inside that tugged him forward even when the rest of him wanted to curl and hide.

The pinprick became a glow, then a small halo on the stone. He reached it at last and found, cradled on the ground, a pendant.

It was not a cheap trinket.

The metal felt like memory.

The pendant’s frame was an intricate dance of vines and filigree—tiny leaves and curling tendrils braided around the circle, almost like an ancient wreath. Inside the ring, the face of the charm split into a balanced, yin-yang composition: one half held a sun, its rays uneven, spiked and curling at the ends like tiny flames, the center a tight, whorled eye; the other half held a crescent moon, hollowed and delicate, within which nestled a small star and the cross-like mark of an unknown sigil. 

The motifs were rendered with devotion—miniature filigree, serrated rays, an inner texture that captured light and held it. A chain, gold and bright, threaded through a loop at the top like a whisper meant to be worn.

The pendant shimmered in the dimness—no noisy flash, just a slow, knowing gleam, as if the metal itself sighed with recognition.

Something in Draco’s body moved before he did. It was not decision; it was instinct as old as bone. 

The chain brushed cold against the nape of his neck, and his fingers closed around it. He slid it over his head as if he had always done it. The instant the metal lay against his skin a warmth spread out, a soft, certain heat that crawled into his ribs and steadied his pulse. The pendant glowed against his chest in a small, patient halo. 

Tears caught suddenly at the corners of his eyes and slipped down—hot, shameful tracks—because a hollow in him that he hadn’t known was empty roared with a longing so sharp it broke him open.

I belong somewhere. 

I belong to something. 

Why don’t I know where? 

The thought was raw and enormous and made the darkness feel somehow more real.

The pendant didn’t merely glow; it pulled, a delicate tug toward something beyond. The gold light threaded out like a compass needle and led him forward until his palms brushed thick velvet.

Wine-red curtains. They were absurdly heavy, heavy enough to make him hesitate—but the moment his fingers closed on the fabric, 

The air changed. 

A gust, eager as if the universe itself had been waiting, whipped the drapes aside. The curtains tore open with a force that felt orchestrated, a staging of destiny. The smell of old paint and dust and something faintly metallic filled his nose.

The portrait behind the curtains was larger than life. The pendant on his chest flared, throwing bursts of light onto the canvas, making the painted gilt skin of the frame glow like a mouth opening. Draco staggered backward until the soles of his shoes scraped marble. His heart thudded so hard he thought it might leave his body.

The painting—God—was of….him?

Not him now, but a version carved from legends: longer hair, platinum blonde falling in slow, luxurious waves over the brow; an off-white suit that hung like woven moonlight and was embroidered in gold so bright it looked molten; a crown of gold resting heavy and inevitable on his head; an expression that was all command, authority, power and quiet kindness, as if the face had practiced ruling in the mirror for years before living it.

The same pendant Draco wore now, hung around his neck, glinting bright like stars.

In the subject’s right hand sat the Sun Sword—the same blade that had somehow mended itself into his palm in the undercroft—its blade bright and final, the hilt a familiar sunburst mirrored now in paint. Around the throne prowled a snow leopard—white fur gleaming with a sheen like frost, head noble and dangerous, gaze carved into a permanent challenge. 

The animal’s posture was pride and, threat made stone.

Dangerous and Loyal.

Draco’s legs failed. He dropped to his knees, breath collapsing out of him in a harsh, short sob. The pendant at his throat throbbed against his skin; the glow seemed to steady him, even as terror set the edges of his vision to fire.

On the painting’s frame a gilded plaque bore the name. He crawled forward as if the canvas itself might be the only tether he had left to the world. His fingers found the cool gold and slid over carved letters until they met the inscription—simple, dreadful in its certainty:

EMPEROR DRACONIS HADES. AGE XVIII

Below it, in smaller, noble script, a phrase in Latin curled like a vow:

‘Donec Lunam et Stellas Vincam’

He read it again, lips moving because the sound made the syllables true: Donec lunam et stellas vincam. 

Till I conquer the moon and the stars.

The words landed inside him like stones. The image and the name collided with all the things that had begun to gather around him in the last days—the snow leopard crests, the book with the old tales, the sword that chose him, the whispered name the Goblet had offered like a benediction. Each link tightened like a noose of heritage and fate.

His throat felt raw. He pressed his forehead to the frame and let the truth rise and break him apart.

This is not possible. 

This cannot be mine. 

I’m Draco—Draco Malfoy—young, half-ready. Not emperor. Not a legend. Not a name that towers above all others. 

And yet…it is me. 

It is my face. 

It is my hands in the paint. 

It is the sword I held that chose me once, and again here in oil and gold. 

How—why—what blood runs through these veins?

Grief arrived like winter. 

It was not sorrow for a loss he had suffered but for a life that had been carved from him before he was old enough to protest. The loneliness that had sat under his ribs—an ache he’d learned to hide with sarcasm and haughty looks—now roared, enormous, impossible to smother. He felt orphaned to himself, as if some other story had always been written for him and he’d only just stumbled into the wrong chapter.

Tears blurred the gilt letters; he couldn’t read for a second, only feel the cold metal under his fingertips and the impossible truth of the painting’s eyes. The portrait’s painted gaze found him with the same slow, indifferent certainty as the crown atop that painted head.

Who Am I?

Am I You?

He wanted to laugh—mad, bright laughter to shatter the scene. He wanted to run and sprint back into the noisy courtyard and pretend none of this had happened. He wanted someone—Darien, Silvanius, Grandmère—to be with him right now to say, 

No. It’s a trick. It’s an old painting, a joke, some illusion. It’s not you.

Instead, only the pendant warmed his throat with its steady, human pulse. It was as if something ancient had whispered, 

Here. Remember.

His breath came back in small, ragged pulls. 

The room—a secret mouth of the château—felt impossibly alone and perfectly tailored to the moment a life discovers its shadow. His fingers tightened on the frame until the gold bit the tips; he felt his heartbeat against the pendant, and a deep, complicated farewell to the life he thought he had been living.

He stayed on his knees, trembling, staring up at the painted emperor who wore his face and carried the sword, and wore this pendant. The Latin phrase hung in his mind, heavy and clarion: 

Donec lunam et stellas vincam. Till I conquer the moon and the stars.

Some part of him—terrified, new, hungry—heard the words and wondered what it would cost to answer.

…

He had been tired earlier—tired in a way that settled under the ribs and would not be shooed away with tea or stubborn thought. He’d gone to bed early, fingers worrying at the handle of the moon-sword until the metal hummed tiny comforts against his palm. Sleep took him with the sword half in his hand and the other half wrapped in the soft dark of the room.

But when the dream came, it came smooth and uncanny: not the usual tumble of nonsense but a presence that felt like a room closed around his skull. 

He knew he was sleeping; he knew that this was a dream. 

That knowledge sat in him lucid and terrible. He blinked and could not wake. A cool, ghostly insistence held him down, as if the dream were a body and he had sunk into its ribs.

He stood—he was standing—in a chamber of white stone bigger than any classroom and impossibly still. The light was spare, pearled, as though the room were made of beaten moonlight. White silk curtains hung in columns, moving no more than the memory of a breeze. The air smelled faintly of honey and old wax. The whole thing felt like looking through a snowy photograph that was only just beginning to breathe.

Two figures were there already. One leaned against the pale wall with a casual strength—dark, messy hair, olive skin, shoulders that seemed to take the place of shade itself. He watched the other with an intent that made the stone waver, whilst the other sat before a mirror, platinum hair falling in soft waves, fingers combing, the motion delicate and oddly domestic. He wore loose white silk; the fabric slipped across his shoulders like water. His neck was pale and marked: dark, bruised smudges—love bites—along the milky skin. 

Harry felt his face heat and his throat tighten in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

The leaning man moved. He wore black robes that drank the light. He stepped out of shadow and toward the mirror, and when his face turned—Harry stopped as if his bones had been clamped.

It was a face Harry knew to the marrow and yet not at all: the lines were his, the cut of jaw and the tilt of mouth, but the temper was wrong. 

This version of the face carried a slow, satisfied cruelty, a grin that tasted of something triumphant and terrible. A great lightning-scar ran down one side of the head, fearsome and jagged, but didn’t ruin his face at all, and it glowed green at its edges—green like the best of eyes, green that pulsed with meaning. 

Darkness seemed to peel off him in waves, not making him less real but somehow older, heavier.

Harry’s lungs forgot the work of breathing for a second. He moved forward without deciding to. The dream let him; or it forced him; he could not tell.

The man in black did not see him. 

Harry’s chest ached as he slid a hand through the phantom’s shoulder and passed cleanly through him. The skin was an image; the weight was not there. 

The dream was cruelly precise: he could feel the clothes, smell the hair, but no pressure. The man’s face did not change. 

He reached the other, wrapped a strong arm around the platinum-haired person’s shoulders and rested his chin on his neck. A laugh—soft, rare, clear as glass—bubbled out in the chamber. It was a laugh Harry would have bet everything on: Draco Malfoy laughing, impossibly tender.

Harry’s entire body heated and cooled at once. 

This is impossible, his mind told itself. This is only a dream. He willed himself to wake. He willed his eyes open wider, willed his bed and the moon fainting through curtain slats and the weight of the moon-sword. 

Nothing answered his command; the dream was a lock and he had no key.

The platinum-haired figure—Draco—wriggled a little in the other’s arms, a half-protest that sounded like a thing between a giggle and a groan. “Hadrian,” Draco murmured, the name slipping soft and intimate. He reached up and tugged at his own hair, cheeks flushed a careless, rose color. “Stop,” he said, breathless, “You’re ridiculous.”

The man with the green-glowing scar only smiled, slow and pleased. “You make it easy,” he said—Harry heard the voice and did not recognize the cadence and yet it felt faintly like his own if it were sharpened by hunger. 

He tucked a stray curl behind Draco’s ear and kissed the pale skin there again, slow and near. Draco squirmed and tried to push away, protesting with laughter. “Hadrian—don’t be embarrassing.” He wriggled from the hold, feigning annoyance, but his hands stayed at the other’s sleeves.

Harry could not move. 

Every instinct that had ever protected him—from running to striking to shouting—felt thick and distant, like moving through thick robes. He wanted to leave. He wanted to tear free of whatever was shaping this scene and wake hungry and relieved in his own bed. But he was a spectator, and the dream kept him in place.

The man who was both his face and his voice—who for a breath Harry thought might be himself in some impossible otherworld—cocked his head and said, gently, with the casual cruelty of someone who had always had power: “You look beautiful, my love.” Those words slid under Harry’s skin like cold water. He felt them in places he had never noticed were tender.

Draco, cheeks the color of marshmallow and lips still trembling from kisses, sighed with an almost comic grievance. “We married yesterday, you great man—stop clinging.” He made a face and tried to wriggle free again, mock-annoyed and oddly pleased by the persistence.

The man—Hadrian, Draco had called him—laughed, soft and private. “We did. And you said, ‘Till death do us apart’,” He leaned forward and kissed Draco again; this time it was deeper, not rough but filling, the kind that announced ownership and comfort in a single line.

Harry’s heart thudded as if it would shatter. Draco, the name felt like an accusation on his tongue. 

He had imagined Draco furious, vicious, teasing—never tender like this in someone’s arms, never curling up like a cat. 

The sight of Draco laughing and flushed made Harry’s stomach constrict with a jealousy so intense it physically hurt, painful little thing.

Draco squinted up at Hadrian, hands lifting his hair so the other could tease at the pale bites. “You’re being ridiculous,” he said again, though his voice wobbled with something that might have been affection. “You always—” He didn’t finish. He rose and pretended to sob. “I suppose I should be grateful.”

“Grateful,” Hadrian echoed, voice low as a vow. He brushed his fingers along the line of Draco’s jaw. “For being mine?”

“For being yours,” Draco tossed back, and the easy give between them sounded like the most dangerous thing in the chamber.

Hadrian’s hand glowed. Harry’s breath snagged. Magic—clean, bright—pooled at the base of his palm and bloomed into a small, warm light that unfolded under the fingers: the pendant. Its frame caught the room and made the tiny gold vines leap in the reflection. The sun and moon within its face turned slowly, like a wheel that was never out of tune. He recognized it instantly—not because he had seen it before in waking life but because the way it moved and breathed felt like things he had only felt when the world itself shifted.

Hadrian teased the chain through his fingers, small smile crooked. “Our marriage gift,” he said, as if it were the most ordinary sentence in the world. “I loved you yesterday, and I love you today, And I’ll love you tomorrow, ‘Till death do us apart’.”

Draco’s cheeks flamed hotter. He lifted his hair with a shy, theatrical motion and let Hadrian ring the pendant over his throat. The charm came to rest over the marks on Draco’s skin, warm and bright against the dark bruises. 

Draco’s fingers closed on it, as if to anchor it, and when it settled the pendant flickered and hummed a tiny note, like a singing bowl.

“Hadrian,” Draco breathed, breathless, “you make it very hard to be grumpy.” He leaned in and kissed the other man, quick and luminous, like a sealed promise.

Harry’s breath went cold. In the dream he felt the world tilt; memory and prophecy braided and something ancient tapped at the back of his head. 

He had known rivalry. 

He had known hatred and a strange, begrudging respect for Draco’s sharpness. 

But he had not known this—Draco allowed, softened, answered to another’s hands the way a flower answers rain.

His mind, at last, shoved at the edges of the dream and tried to claw out. Wake. Wake. Wake. He flexed his fingers and the sheet, the rope of reality, but the dream’s body held him as if he were one more thing propped on an altar. His efforts were base and useless. He felt the panic rise, something electric and searing, and then the man—Hadrian—turned and looked directly at the place where Harry stood.

Those eyes were green and terrible and curious. The grin that had first made Harry pause became a knowing thing now, slow as a spider’s smile. It felt like recognition and like a peel at the skin of the world.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Hadrian said softly—not to Draco but through the dream, through the air, to Harry like a thing pressed to the ear. “This is for us.”

Harry’s throat closed. He had a voice, small and ragged. “I am—asleep—” he tried to say, and the sound was swallowed.

Draco laughed, unaware of the private visitor, and said, “Then let me be selfish and keep you.”

Hadrian brushed back Draco’s hair and whispered, “You always have kept me.” He bent to kiss Draco again; the kiss was deeper and slower, a kind of sealing.

The pendant rested warm around Draco’s throat, the little sun and moon turning as if in silent agreement. Harry watched every detail—how the pendant’s light etched gold into Draco’s chest, how Hadrian’s fingers flexed like someone who understood the architecture of control. The scene burned in him in such sharp strokes that he felt tremors of nausea.

He shoved at the dream with everything he had left. 

Sleep is no gentle thing to be awoken; it is a fortress. 

He tried to call his name, to force the name that tethered him to flesh—“Harry!”—but the walls ate it. He tried to prick his own skin, to wake with pain, but the dream conspired and made even pain thin.

Hadrian’s voice drifted close then, intimate as breath. “You don’t belong to just the past, Harry. Not anymore.” The name slid like a blade and it carried no accusation, only a promise that made Harry’s bones feel suddenly small.

Harry tried to push forward anyway, to wake, to tear through the glass. He could say nothing except the useless word no that the dream took and folded into the chamber like another silk curtain. The scene continued with the private tenderness of two people who had chosen each other; Hadrian’s hand rested at the pendant, and Draco’s laugh—small and incredulous—seemed to stitch the world together where it would otherwise fray.

“Yesterday,” Draco said at last to the other man, a sleepy grin splitting his face, “we drank the moon in the old garden and you said the vows and then you fell asleep on the roses.”

“I remember,” Hadrian murmured, smiling in memory. “You smelled of warm roses and honey. You vowed in a voice like a bell.”

Draco huffed a laugh. “It’s shameful I can’t remember half of it.”

“You remember the important bits,” Hadrian teased. “And now you have this.” He tapped the pendant with a fond finger. “A promise that the nights will remember.”

It was like knives. Harry pressed his palms over his ears though the sounds came from nowhere, because the dream’s insistence was a ring he could not duck. 

This isn’t real. This is not real. 

He mouthed the line until his lips stung. The dream was patient. The dream was endless.

Finally—Hadrian’s head turned in what felt like an impossible, deliberate slow motion. He stared straight into the place Harry stood. The smile that touched his lips was small but absolute. “We married yesterday,” he said softly, as if reciting a private litany. “Come morning we will be awake and we will laugh about roses and the cup that spilled. But for now…you and I—” He looked not at Draco but slightly past him, the way a man might look at a portrait that is not yet painted. “—we are home.”

Harry’s chest convulsed. He felt like something small and fragile lodged in the throat of the world. He tried to open his eyes and found them heavy as if filled with lead. He tried to call his own name like a lifeline but the dream muttered a different language and the ropes frayed.

Draco arched his head and said, like a confession and a dare together, “Hadrian, what will you do when the palace wakes and the snow-leopard looks at me and remembers?”

Hadrian’s fingers tightened on the pendant. “I will teach it to bow only to us,” he said, and when he smiled then it was a private, sovereign thing.

Harry’s whole world narrowed to that smile. He pressed until the dream cut him no sliver of mercy, and the chamber simply held him—soft as a hand, small as breath. A last, desperate thought flared through him: If I wake and this was true—what then? 

But the dream did not answer. It only wrapped about him and, like a thing with teeth, held.

So he watched. He watched while the two of them—lovers—kissed and laughed and folded small memories into each other’s hands. He watched as the pendant lay against Draco’s throat and hummed and turned the world toward a place where the moon was not only a planet but a promise.

And when at last a voice—faint as a bell and close like a hand—slid through the hush and whispered, “Sleep well, Harry,” the sound was not kindness. 

It was a door shutting.

He woke choking, mouth dry and the moon-sword cold in his hand, and for a long moment the room was a foreign country and his skin felt too small for his bones.

…

Draco’s chest rose and fell sharply, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, silk sheets tangled around his body like chains. His breath rasped out of him in uneven gasps, heart hammering so loud it seemed to echo in the silence of his room.

It was just a dream… just a dream.

The words ran circles in his mind, desperate, pleading. His palms pressed to his face, fingers trembling as he dragged them down. He turned his head, scanning the darkened room with wide, frantic eyes—the familiar canopy overhead, the moonlight spilling faintly through tall windows, the golden embroidery on his night curtains. Nothing strange. Nothing out of place.

I’m in bed… I’m in my room. I must have come back. I changed into these…

He tugged at the soft silk nightshirt clinging damp to his skin. His chest heaved as the tension drained slowly from his body. He let his head fall back against the pillows, hand covering his heart, trying to steady the wild beat that refused to calm.

“Just a nightmare,” he whispered into the stillness, voice hoarse. “Only a nightmare…”

But then—

The cool brush of metal against his palm.

His hand froze mid-motion. A sick chill ran through him as his fingertips traced the unmistakable edge of something hanging heavy against his chest. Slowly, almost unwillingly, his gaze dropped.

The pendant.

Golden. Gleaming. The very same as in the dream. Solid. Real.

Draco’s breath caught—then broke into a ragged, almost pained exhale. His blood turned to ice in his veins, and his mouth went dry.

“No…” His voice cracked, barely audible, shaking. “No, no, no…”

He fumbled at the chain, tugged it, hoping it would vanish, hoping he was still dreaming. But it didn’t. The weight pressed firm and unyielding against his skin, burning into him with every frantic beat of his heart.

His throat tightened, tears prickling sharp in the corners of his eyes.

So it wasn’t just a dream. The fall. The portrait. The inscription. Draconis Hades.

His chest constricted until it hurt. He shook his head, strands of damp hair falling across his eyes.

“Why me?” His whisper cracked into the darkness, pleading with no one, with nothing. “Why am I seeing this? Who—what—am I?”

The silence offered no answer. Only the warm glow of the dawn across his trembling hands, the solid, terrifying truth of the pendant biting against his skin.

“Leave me alone…Draconis Hades—You absolute fucker—”

Chapter Text

Victore sat very still in the dim of her chamber, a shawl over her shoulders though the room was warm.

The candles had been trimmed low and the housekeeper who lingered at the far doorway had retreated when she signaled. Her hands folded on her lap, and for a long moment she let the sounds of the night gather—the distant laughter from the feast, the muffled hum of the kitchens, the soft breathing of a castle that thought itself safe.

Her mind would not be still.

It ran over the evening in sharp, uneasily bright flashes: the coronation, the way Draco’s jaw had trembled as the coronet was set, how the crowd had lifted lanterns that filled the sky like a second dawn; the sun-sword’s sudden devotion to his hand; the odd, humming charge she had felt when he stood on the balcony—something fierce and new like summer lightning; the stove-hot burst of flame in the practice-grounds; Silvanius’ quick reflexes with water; Darien’s familiarity with Earth. Part of her chest swelled with that old, undeniable pride—this is blood, this is Malfoire courage—and another part of the chest tightened with elder worry.

The rawness of power frightened her as much as it warmed her. He was a child and yet magnets that had not been made for children were drawing at him.

She rose from her chair with the quiet authority of someone who has long moved through rooms that remember her footfall.

“Le fils de la mort,” she said softly, and someone near the hearth answered with a bow and the small procession of hands that brought what she asked for. The volume was heavy in her palm; the cover was dull black leather, the gold letters worn in places where generations had handled it. She set it on her knee and opened it as if opening a door in the castle itself.

The chapter she wanted—‘Gladius Solaris et Lunaris’—lay where she remembered.

The page smelled faint of old glue and cedar. She read, at first more to steady herself than for new information, but the text pulled her, patient and inevitable. She read aloud to the shadows, because some truths are kinder when spoken.

…

ORDO STELLARIS

In times when gods still walked the earth and the firmament was not distant but close and hot as breath, men looked up and found their rulers among the stars. The ancients spoke of a system—the Ordo Stellaris—that stitched heaven and hell to earth. Each constellation in that order was not merely a shape of lights but a council of beings: gods who agreed, gods who argued, gods who forged their designs into the world.

From those unions the gods formed descendants, chosen and shaped—incarnations—whom they sent down to rule in their name. These sons and daughters were not merely children; they carried in their blood the will of the gods.

Constellations grouped themselves by shared morals and shared purpose. Where temperance or wrath, mercy or hunger held sway, like-minded gods joined to form a constellation.

Friendships among the gods became alliances among the stars, and alliances birthed policy; policy called forth incarnations that embodied the alliance’s intent. For a while the skies ordered and the earth obeyed.

But order breeds dissent. A Great Celestial War tore across the Ordo Stellaris, and the alliances broke and reforged until there were two great factions: Partis Blanc and Partis Noir.

Partis Blanc gathered those whose aims held to protection, stewardship, and a certain quiet will; Partis Noir called to those of hunger, dominion, and the hunger to remake the world in their own shape.

Of all the constellations, none cast a longer shadow across the ages than the underworld’s pair.

The god of the underrealm and the goddess who walked beside him—Hades and Persephone—were once regarded as the leaders of Partis Noir. 

They were power and patience, night and the place where night kept its counsel. It was therefore a shock when they turned their faces away from the partisan fury of Partis Noir and crossed the threshold into Partis Blanc. They betrayed the councils that had raised them; they altered the balance. In their defection they became the leaders and heart of the rising white constellation.

Partis Blanc, under Hades and Persephone’s leadership, shaped from their will a single, powerful incarnation: Draconis Hades.

He was called, by the conspirators of the court, the Son of the Underworld—an incarnation meant to end the reign of the black factions and to close the wound they threatened to rip across the earth. 

For balance the white chose one spear; they made one king of storm and shadow whose purpose was to end the black rise. Draconis Hades would be the sand to Partis Noir’s fire.

Partis Noir did not submit. They forged in response. From the furious and ordered union of their own stars they raised not one but three incarnations to respond to the white. From Thanatos, Phanes, and Zeus—names that spoke of death, of life, of power—were born embodiments designed to answer Partis Blanc with force. These three became the axes around which Partis Noir turned.

Of the three, the most dangerous was Hadrian Thanatos. Ambitious, young and vicious, he did not uphold alliance the way a careful general would. 

Instead he broke it. 

Where the conspirators of his party had expected obedience and shared dominion, Hadrian’s hunger was private and vast. He massacred allies to take what he could and did not pause. He murdered partners in the night and took their hollows; he weaponized the very pacts that had made him. His thirst for power grew until he crowned himself dictator among the incarnations. The world bent, in that hour, under his foot. Men and gods alike learned his cruelty and the name Hadrian Thanatos came to mean the season when law grew teeth.

Thus it was: the ages were marked by the long enmity—Hadrian Thanatos of Partis Noir against Draconis Hades of Partis Blanc. The two incarnations faced each other in many fields: in stately courts where words should have been enough, in secret councils where plots were planted, and in battles that bent the weather and shook cities from their foundations. 

It was a war not only of armies but of epochs; the very tide of memory in men’s minds changed with each blow.

There are those who say that Hadrian’s violence was the exact thing the black constellations had wished to create—a monster to unmake the white.

There are others who say he went farther than any could have wished, that he became a thing no god could fully own.

Victore laid a hand over the last words she had read. Her fingers pressed into the page as if they might hold it there like a living thing. The story soothed and cut her at once—so much in it that explained the shiver she had felt when Draco’s sword repaired itself; so much that might explain the way the name Hades had sat in that ancient book like a wound.

For a long time she sat, eyes closed, feeling the weight of both pride and terror. She was proud that a Malfoire house-blood might carry such power. She feared what it pulled with it: the old names, the old enmities, the habit of war that could wake in a boy whose hands did not yet tremble with cold. 

He is young, she thought, and yet he stands where kings have stood. 

Her loneliness came up, brief and bitter—Abraxas not there to read these pages with a hand at hers, the voice that had once argued and soothed gone. She straightened, the old stoicism folding into place.

She would do for the living what memory could not do for the dead. 

She would watch. She would read. She would guard. If Draconis Hades was a legend that called itself into the life of her grandson, then she would meet that summons with every thing she had: books, counsel, elders, and the slow, stubborn kindness of an old heart.

She turned the page again, eyes narrowing as the book’s ink braided past the names she already knew. Victore had read the old chapter once; now she read it as a guardian, searching for the line that would tell her whether this was a miracle or doom.

There were neutral constellations too — those that would not take sides in the great split between Partis Blanc and Partis Noir. They kept to their own work. One of those neutral orders made things: weapons, arms, and relics for gods and incarnations alike. Its name among the ancients was Stellaris Officina — the Star-Workshop — a web of smiths and forges that sat outside politics and made what every god eventually needed: tools to shape the world.

When the two great factions hardened, both sides still turned to Officina Stellaris for arms. The white and the black wanted things made well; gods have pride in the hands that make their instruments.

After Partis Blanc and Partis Noir had formed, the workshop made great gifts for both.

Partis Blanc asked the master smith to make a single sword of justice. The smith — a quiet, careful man whose given name was Aureste Ferron — hammered long into one blade. He called it Solaris Gladius. The white constellation bestowed that sword on their chosen incarnation before sending him down: Draconis Hades took the Solaris Gladius as his mark and his companion. It was a blade of light and will, forged to answer the white’s law.

Not long after, Partis Noir had their own blade made in the same workshop: Lunaris Gladius. It was given to Hadrian Thanatos. Lunaris was a sword of subtler hue, moon-sharp, and it suited Hadrian’s hunger. From the moment he took Lunaris, Hadrian’s power sharpened. He grew stronger, faster, more fearsome.

No one knew exactly why he changed so. Later, the truth came out in pieces: Partis Noir had not left the smith untroubled. They had forced a trick, a dark hand upon the maker. Aureste Ferron’s memories were touched and cursed; his mind muffled. They bound him with spells so that when he made the swords, he would make holes hidden inside the metal — secret chambers of linkages that only the black saw. 

In other words, Partis Noir had rigged the making.

There was another rule the ancients discovered early: any deity, incarnation, or being who reached too greedily into the affairs of the earth, who used their power to twist men and land without care, would be punished by the universe itself. 

The punishment took a form all the old scholars feared, and called Nigra.

Nigra was not a simple curse. It was pictured as a black smoke, a shadow that crept to the chest and gathered about the heart. When a being used dark arts without measure, Nigra swelled. It wrapped about the heart until the pulse slowed and the will began to close like a fist. Those who took too much, who let their hands stain the world, would find the black folding their hearts shut, until nothing remained but a husk.

Hadrian Thanatos, the chronicles recorded, began to fill with Nigra. The very magic that made him monstrous fed the smoke. He burned with a hunger that Nigra answered by pressing in. But Nigra was not easily cleansed. The book said bluntly: only a hand of purest intention could wash it away. Only one who carried a light not stained by design or hunger could lift the black and open a heart again.

Here the histories described the grim cunning of Partis Noir. They had sewn a second measure into their plan. If Nigra gathered in Hadrian — if his heart darkened and strangled him — then the black party would be undone by the very law the universe kept. They would lose a weapon of terror without a ready cure. The solution they conceived was cruel and cold.

They twined the swords.

They linked the swords.

Because of the tampering at Aureste Ferron’s hand, Solaris and Lunaris were not just blades; they could be bound. In the hidden chambers the black had placed a design so the two blades would work as a circuit. When Draconis Hades and Hadrian Thanatos bore the swords together, the Lunaris Gladius would draw Nigra from Hadrian’s heart. But it would not simply release it into the air. The link forced that dark smoke to pass, strangely and horribly, through Draconis Hades’ power — through Solaris Gladius and through the incarnation himself. In effect, Lunaris cleansed Hadrian’s Nigra by using Draconis as the channel.

The result was double-edged. Whenever the two swords were raised together, Hadrian’s Nigra diminished and he grew weaker in the ways that gave him dreadful strength; his worst compulsions ebbed. But the process did not come free. The link made both swords feed upon Draconis Hades’ own inner fire — his life, his power, his vital core. In every meeting where the blades were yoked, Draconis gave a measure of himself. The swords took from him: energy, heat, the rawness that made his pyromancy sing. Over time, the giving wore at him. He became the white’s weapon that steadied the black’s terror, the lamp that burned to keep a darker lamp bright.

So the old, terrible balance formed: Lunaris kept Hadrian’s Nigra from killing him outright, but it did so by stealing and eating at Draconis’ strength. Partis Noir had not made a simple tool; they had contrived a slow machine of advantage. Hadrian grew powerful while he needed it, but each shared duel fed the two blades on Draconis’ flame. The white’s chosen incarnation protected the world from instant apocalypse — and he paid for it in a slow, private drain.

The book’s language was not kind. It was practical and cold, because the ancients wrote to remember and warn: the weapons that bind can save, and the bindings can enslave. The Officina Stellaris had made that work of iron and fate, and the gods who ordered the making had used it as both cure and harness.

The chapter closed with a quiet note of warning rather than triumph. It said, in fewer words than she wanted to hear, that some victories were paid in lives that did not belong to the victor. It reminded the reader that the old laws balanced themselves without pity.

Victore pressed her hand over the words until the heat of the page warmed her palm. In the quiet of her chamber the truth became a living thing. 

She understood then what the old histories had hidden in their clean lines: that Draconis Hades might be the world’s salvation and also its sacrificial lamb.

…

Last month, a thing had vanished from Draco’s table—the son of death. It had gone in a blink; he had not searched for it. Time dulled the edge of that loss until it felt like a small, odd bruise: curious, painful, probably gone for good. A month folded over it, and life had moved forward in the castle’s unhurried way.

Now, months later, he sat in the library beside Silvanius. The great room smelled of old paper and candlewax, of leather and dust and the quiet heat of many quiet minds at work. Light pooled between stacks; corners kept secrets. Silvanius had a book closed on his knee, glasses perched at the tip of his nose. He snapped the book shut with the soft, final sound of someone who had read enough for the moment and who had the patience to leave answers to the next sitting.

“Go get some fresh air,” Silvanius said almost before Draco could form words. His voice was even, the tone he used when issuing small laws that could not be argued. “You’ve been here long enough to grow roots.”

Draco’s throat felt dry. He didn’t want to leave—he wanted to press and pull at the thought that had lodged itself under his ribs—but he did want to know if the fire inside him was a fluke or a new, dangerous truth. He asked the question in a voice that tried to be casual and failed.

“Si—are you sure my… my magic is okay? Why are these—these bursts happening? Why me?”

Silvanius removed his glasses, set them aside on the table with the reverence of a man putting down a small instrument, and looked at Draco properly. He folded his hands together like he was gathering the right words.

“Trust me.” The words were steady. “Nothing is wrong—yet.” He paused, choosing the gentlest honesty. “You show signs people used to see in child pyromancers. Those signs can look dramatic; they can seem frightening. The problem is—pyromancy is so rare nowadays that no one has recorded a child since at least a century. You understand what that means: we have patterns, but not living ones to copy. Your signs are blooming later than one would expect; most pyromancers show early patterns, when they’re very small. You’re not small in this thing.”

Draco swallowed. The library hummed around them.

Silvanius tapped his journal with a careful finger. “When a wizard moves—when they go into a new place—his magical core can sometimes react to the elemental cores of the land. Castles like Valambre have their own bones, their own weather. That is the simplest way to put it. Most of the time nothing happens. Rarely—very rarely—the cores harmonize poorly, or they sing to one another. This can cause flashes, unplanned surges, things that look like bursts. It might be nothing. Or it might be the start of something that needs tending.”

His voice did not frighten. It weighed facts like scales. He spoke as if the library itself agreed with every careful word. “If it happens again, we’ll treat it as serious. We’ll teach you to tame it—control, channel, unmake the reach before the reach makes you. I’ve written all I could think of in my notes. I’ve dated the entries. We’ll begin with small, safe exercises. You don’t need to be stressed; it’s a thing to learn the way you learn any skill. I will help.”

It was the kind of explanation that carried both science and a brother’s comfort. Draco felt something inside him unclench. I’m not alone.

He inhaled so sharply his ribs clicked. “You really mean it?” he whispered.

Silvanius gave the smallest smile—the one that made his eyes soften. “I do. Now go. Fresh air, then find Darien. I’ll be along when I finish a few notes.” He squeezed Draco’s hand as if to press the promise into flesh. “And you don’t have to say thank you. You don’t thank family for doing what they should.”

Draco’s smile came small and bright; he nodded. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll be back.”

Silvanius bent over his papers again, muttering the names of texts and making the careful notation of a man who was used to making order from worry. Draco rose and left the library with a lighter step than when he had come in. The castle felt larger outside the stacks—air and sky instead of shelves—yet his heartbeat still echoed the memory of the knock inside him.

A guard bowed when Draco passed into the corridor. “Prince Draco Malfoire,” he said with the formal ring that the castle’s servants used, respectful and practiced. “Prince Darien and Prince Julius are in the palace cellars, your honor.”

Draco’s mouth tightened. Darien and Julius—both down in the cellars. He blinked, then nodded once. “Take me there.” His voice was careful, like a blade never fully sheathed.

The guard inclined his head and led him through marble passages that leaned inward, the air growing cooler, the light from torches long and shaky. The march into the castle’s lower veins was always a strangling sort of quiet; sound congealed against the thick walls. They passed old doors, barrels with faded marks, a well with a lip of green wet around it. Smells shifted: from fire and polished banister to damp stone, old iron, and the faint metallic tang.

At the cellar threshold the guard stopped and bowed again. “They are inside, Your Highness,” he said. “I will remain outside.” He did not even wait for permission; his role was to show the way, not to enter the place where prisoners or business slept. 

Draco stood for one pale, suspended second in the cool dark and felt his throat thump against skin. 

What are they doing in cellars? 

The question pushed hot as a coal. He had imagined hunting for Darien in the gardens, maybe finding him sparring or with papers—never in the cellars. The word prisoners had not been said aloud, yet something about the guard’s silence bent the edges of the answer into place.

He stepped forward.

Stone swallowed his footfalls. The lantern’s small cone of light skittered across rough-hewn walls, catching patches of mold and old, carved runes half-crumbled by time. The air was thick; the castle’s heartbeat down here was a slow, wet pulse. As he moved deeper, a new sound uncoiled itself from the darkness—a raw sound that did not belong to the house’s ordinary hum.

At first it was a shape of noise: a ragged inhale, a thud, a single bitter cry. Then it rose, filled with cruelty and pleading so sharp it made his ears ache—voices that tore, then frayed into screams. The sound was not far; it hugged the stone and darted like a trapped animal. It hit him like cold water.

Draco froze, His chest tightened. The hair along his arms lifted. No. The single, private thought unclipped itself and hammered inside. It cannot be what it sounds like.

“Darien!” he called, voice small against the stone but sharpened with command. His shout made the echoes bounce like thrown stones. “Darien! Julius!” His voice cracked on the second name; he swallowed it down and called again, louder, harder, because fear and responsibility braided into one demand.

Silence answered, then the noise—a cry, closer, and a cough that tasted of iron. Footsteps scraped, hurried and unsteady, coming from down the corridor. Torches flared as people moved in the dim, shapes appearing and receding like ghosts. Draco’s hand tightened on the lantern as if he might squeeze himself into steadiness.

They came down the steps together—Darien first, shoulders broad, hands folded behind his back. His smile when he saw Draco was small and not cheerful; it didn’t touch his eyes.

“You shouldn’t be in the cellars,” Darien said flatly, before Draco could speak. The words were an order, soft-edged but absolute.

Draco’s mouth opened. “But—”

Darien cut him off with a single, cool look, then turned his head and said to Julius, “I’ve got this. Take him out. I’ll cover until you’re gone.” There was no impatience in the words; there was a patience sharpened by experience.

Julius nodded immediately. He reached for Draco’s arm with a practiced gentleness and began to walk him back up the corridor. Draco hung back for a heartbeat, voice tripping into the dark. “Darien—are you… are you doing something dangerous?” he called, the question half demand, half plead.

Julius kept walking as if the stones themselves could not hurry his pace. Over his shoulder he answered instead, quietly, “Yes.” He did not elaborate. “Come on.”

“But—what about—” Draco started again, then made to step back. “Brother—are you in danger?”

Julius’s hand tightened on Draco’s sleeve. He didn’t look amused; he didn’t smile. “Your brother is the danger,” he said simply.

The words landed like ice. Draco stared at him, speech caught, then let himself be pulled along. Julius’s grip was firm but not cruel; he moved with the kind of controlled calm that somehow made the cellar feel farther away with each step. They left the damp stone behind and the air grew lighter the nearer they reached the stairwell. When the bright hall swallowed them, Julius finally let go and faced Draco.

Draco crossed his arms, stubborn and suddenly small. “What were you doing in there?” he demanded.

Julius’s expression hardened in a way that shut down jokes. For a second the man who loved pranks was gone; what remained was someone who’d seen too much. “We were interrogating the captives Darien brought back from Germany last month,” Julius said. “More like Darien’s interrogating, and I’m keeping watch.”

Draco blinked, trying to put the pieces together. “Keeping watch? Why would you—” He tried to make it a joke and it collapsed immediately. “You’re a law student—so, in case?” he finished, voice thin.

Julius’s lips pressed tight. He let out a long, weary sigh. “Yes. ‘In case.’ That’s what I tell myself.” He gave a humorless little smile. “And yes—the law student thing is not a joke. If anyone’s going to stop a murder, I’d rather it be a man who knows what a proper confession looks like, not someone who thinks a broken spine is an apology.”

Draco managed an awkward laugh. “Even jokingly, Darien wouldn’t—” He stopped because Julius didn’t laugh back.

“Do you really think that?” Julius asked, and there was a hurt edge under the bluntness now. He leaned against the wall, palms flat. “It’s sweet how you look up to your brothers, Draco. It’s good. But it’s not fair to let you hold false narratives about them.” He raised his hand as if to soften the blow. “There’s a reason I keep watch. There’s a reason Edmund isn’t left alone down there—Edmund gets sick. He cries at sights he can’t unsee.”

Draco’s face drained. “What do you mean?” His voice had that small tremor of someone trying not to be terrified.

Julius folded his arms, eyes darkening with things he’d seen too often. “Darien—he can be cruel,” he said bluntly. “When it comes to torture, I have never met anyone like him. He doesn’t like relying on magic for it—he uses his hands. He learned to break a man slow enough so the man can hear himself pleading. He likes to watch the begging stop.”

The world tipped for Draco. He stared, mouth open. “That’s… that’s not—he’s my brother.” The sentence sounded like a plea, not a defense.

“It’s true,” Julius said, gently but without flinch. “Grandmère says Helmine was much the same. But her death made Darien worse.” He paused as though those words tasted of iron. “The year after Helmine died—the year after she was murdered inside their own home, Schloss Rosenwald, on Darien’s sixteenth birthday—everything changed.”

Draco’s throat clenched. “Helmine… she—” He fumbled for the name’s place in the family history, too ashamed he hadn’t asked before.

Julius went on, voice low. “She was killed there. Darien held her. He watched her bleed out in his arms. After that he—” Julius stopped, groping for phrasing that would not make him sound like a villain. “He never came back the same. He began to lose the line between punishment and murder. If he thought someone deserved death for what they did—he simply took it. He began to believe murder could be moral if the target was wicked.”

Draco stared at the floor. The light in the corridor made his face pale. “He… killed people here? In these cellars?”

“Yes,” Julius said. The single word was flat and heavy. “He took five lives in these cellars that summer. Five. Grandmère had to step in. She brought him to Château Valambre and banned him from leaving.” Julius’s eyes were far away. “He was taken away from Durmstrang, because—” He swallowed. “Durmstrang teaches dark things and Grandmère thought if Darien studied there in that state it would only make him worse. So she made the hard choice.”

Draco’s hands shook. “Durmstrang…”

“For a time,” Julius said. “But she pulled him. Darien—he had mental things after that. He got worse. Anger, outbursts. Magical outbursts. Sometimes he couldn’t tell where compassion stopped and vengeance began. He would lash out. He hurt people. He never hurt us, but—” Julius’s voice broke like a branch. “He hurt Silvanius once during one of those outbursts. A stray vase—crashed on Si’s head. Si was trying to calm him and got clobbered. Darien was terrified after that. He locked himself away and refused to come out. Those were very dark days.”

Draco’s head spun as if he’d been struck. He tried to picture Darien holding someone’s dying hand, and it made no sense against the brother who corrected his broom stance. “But Darien—he—” Draco began, hopelessly clutching at memories that smelled of warm wood and quidditch fields.

Julius’s face softened with a cruel tenderness. “He’s brave and fierce and he loves like a wildfire. But he is also dangerous. Loving him doesn’t make the truth less true. You have to know that. We love him and we fear him both at once.”

Silence grew heavy between them. Draco’s legs felt hollow; he wrapped his arms tighter around himself, as if to hold together the pieces inside. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?” he whispered. “Why did I get only the nice parts—the triumphs and jokes and crowns?”

“Because we like to keep the dark parts behind us,” Julius said, voice soft. “Because we wanted you to grow into a life that wasn’t just fear. But it’s not healthy to hide everything. So I’m telling you.” He looked at Draco with something that resembled apology. “We don’t have to keep secrets forever. Not if you are ready to hear them.”

Draco wanted to weep and to strike and to sprint back down the stairs and into the cellar and throw himself at Darien’s shoulder and demand an explanation. Instead he stood frozen, grief and anger and a strange kind of betrayal mingling in his blood. “Did—did Grandmère stop him?” he asked.

“She did what she had to.” Julius’s jaw tightened. “She sent for healers—Edmund apprenticed to a master healer in France took the work of his hands seriously, and Silvanius researched all day, all night luntil he could find a way to keep Darien from unmaking himself. Silvanius is just Silvanius…He thinking begins, where we stop. God knows I have seen him swallowed by libraries and so much knowledge. He is the youngest scholar you can find around who can you your most wanted answers…He has worked with French ministry and unspeakable organizations. They worked together. Edmund was the mind healer; he treated the wounds Darien carried in his head. Si kept the spells that might flare. It was a team—because one person couldn’t hold him alone.”

Draco’s eyes filled. “What…What was that about Si getting hurt?” he said, voice barely a breath.

“Once,” Julius said. “A stray hit him in the head. It was the closest thing to killing we almost had among us. Darien saw what he’d done and it—he froze. For days he would not eat. He stayed in one room and muttered until his voice broke.” Julius’s hand tightened into a fist. “We survived it by surviving it together. But we never forgot.”

Draco’s composure broke a little. Tears slipped down his face before he could stop them.

Julius stepped nearer and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder in a gesture that had no pretense. “Trust yourself first,” he said. “You can love him and be cautious. You can be loyal and not blind. We keep watch not because we don’t trust family, but because some people—sometimes those we love—need to be watched for their own good.”

Draco blinked, trying to steady himself. “Will Darien… Could he hurt me? I don’t believe so…” The question was naked and terrible.

“No,” Julius said, firmly. “Not you. Not like that. Darien, when he’s right, sees you. He’s protective of you in ways he rarely shows others. He cares about family more than you could think. Can you promise me something, Dragon?”

Draco’s breath caught. “Anything.”

“Promise me you won’t slip into cellars alone,” Julius said. “Promise me you won’t seek him out where the men he tortures are kept. Promise me you’ll come to me, Edmund or to Si if you’re worried. We will explain things in time, but not like this—alone in shadow.”

Draco nodded, throat tight. “I promise,” he whispered.

Julius let out a small, exhausted laugh and pulled him into a quick, brotherly squeeze. “Good. Now go get some air. Do not march down into prisons. The world is not a story we can edit as we go.”

They stood like that for a moment—an awkward, fragile peace. Julius’s face was tired and kind. Draco’s heart thudded with a new rhythm: love for a brother, yes, but now threaded with a wary alarm he could not unlearn.

Julius’s last words as they turned the corner were softer, a promise and a warning in one: “We’ll keep you safe, Draco. But you must learn to see all sides of the people you love. That is how you survive—and how you help them, too.”

Julius had only just disappeared down the stone steps to the cellar when Draco remained standing still in the broad gardens of Château Valambre, the last of the evening light falling across the tall hedges and fountains. The scent of roses hung in the air, and Draco’s pale hands twisted behind his back as he traced the flagstones with his eyes.

It wasn’t long before Silvanius emerged from the marble colonnade, his stride easy, golden hair catching faint glimmers of sun. He raised a hand, waving in that casual way of his.

“Draco,” Silvanius called, taking long steps forward, a half-smile forming on his lips.

But before Draco could reply, the sky cracked with a sound of beating wings. Two owls darted across the horizon, streaking toward them like messengers from heaven, and swooped down with perfect grace. Each settled—one atop Draco’s head, the other on Silvanius’s—letters clamped tightly in their beaks.

For a single breath, both brothers froze. Draco blinked up, cross-eyed, at the owl sitting smugly above him. Silvanius tilted his head in the exact same way, confusion written across his usually composed face.

Then they both burst out laughing, collapsing against each other for balance.

“God—your face,” Silvanius choked out, tugging the letter from his owl.

“You looked no better,” Draco retorted, finally managing to grab his own envelope. The owls gave offended hoots before lifting off into the purple sky.

The wax seal gleamed: the coat of arms of Hogwarts.

With quick fingers, they tore the envelopes open, parchment unfolding with a familiar weight.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Mr. Malfoy,

We are pleased to inform you that you are invited to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the upcoming school year.

This year, however, term shall begin on the first of August, rather than the usual first of September. The reason for this change is most extraordinary. You may already have heard of the Goblet of Hurricane, through which the wizarding world has learned of the ancient Hendeka Games.

The Hendeka Council is an esteemed alliance of the eleven greatest wizarding schools across the globe, who every century gather together in one host institution to strengthen magical ties and honour tradition. The eleven schools represented are as follows:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Britain)

Beauxbatons Academy of Magic (France)

Durmstrang Institute (Germany)

Koldovstoretz School of Magic (Russia)

Uagadou School of Magic (Africa)

Castelobruxo Academy of Magic (Brazil)

Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (United States of America)

Lóngmén Xuétáng Academy of the Dragon Gate (China)

Ankhura House of Life and Power (Egypt)

Mahoutokoro School of Magic (Japan)

Suryanagar Vidyashram of Enchantments (India)

Because our international guests follow varying academic calendars, Hogwarts must prepare early, both in welcome and in representation.

It is the highest honour that Hogwarts has been chosen as this century’s host of the Hendeka Games.

To ensure our students present themselves as one united school, the Hogwarts House system will be temporarily diminished for the year. Students are not to represent Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw individually—but rather to stand united as one: Hogwarts.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Magic has commissioned and provided new uniforms for every student at Hogwarts, free of charge, to represent the very best of the Great British wizardry. These uniforms will arrive alongside this letter and are to be worn at all official assemblies, lessons, and events during the Games. We trust that you will wear your new uniform with pride and rise to the honor of representing our school before the wizarding world.

Your book list for this year is shortened and attached to the letter. Please note that lessons will focus greatly on practical applications of magic, suited to the challenges and traditions of the Hendeka Games.

The Hogwarts Express will depart from King’s Cross Station, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, at eleven o’clock in the morning on the first of August.

We look forward to welcoming you back to Hogwarts for this historic occasion.

Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress

Draco’s eyes widened. He reread the words, his lips silently tracing suspended House system. His hand tightened on the parchment as he looked at the heavy envelope again.

“Silvanius…” he muttered.

Silvanius had already shaken the envelope, and with a papery rustle, a smaller one slipped out. Something heavy and shrunken thudded to the ground. With a flick of magic, the package swelled and stretched until it was the size of a neatly folded chest box.

They exchanged a quick glance—half wary, half eager—before untying the cord.

Inside, pressed and perfect, lay the new Hogwarts uniform.

Draco could see the crisp white shirt gleaming as though starched with spells, the silk tie in deep brown trimmed with bronze shimmer, and a set of rich, dark robes embroidered with a subtle golden crest of Hogwarts—not lion, serpent, eagle, or badger, but the school’s coat-of-arms whole. All four houses in the crest.

Silvanius held up the shirt slightly, not unpacking yet, just watching: tailored, immaculate, nothing like their usual school clothes. Draco’s hand found the tie again, fingers running along the fabric.

“They’ve—changed everything,” Draco whispered.

“Not just changed,” Silvanius said quietly, his blue eyes alight. “They’ve unified.”

For a moment, they both stood in the sunlight, holding the weight of this new Hogwarts in their hands. Then, without another word, they broke into identical grins and bolted for the château doors, uniforms clutched to their chests, eager to explore it whole.

…

The Black family dining room had never known such chaos.

It started with the sound of wings—at least half a dozen owls swooping in through the open window, scattering feathers and dust over the long table where Molly was setting down plates. They swooped and dipped, dropping letters into laps and onto heads, one smacking Fred right in the face.

“Oi!” Fred exclaimed, rubbing his nose as George snatched the letter off his head.

“Special delivery,” George said in mock pomp, holding up the parchment.

“From Hogwarts!” Ginny squealed, grabbing hers so fast she nearly toppled her pumpkin juice.

In seconds, the room was filled with the sound of ripping wax seals and gasps of surprise.

Harry’s green eyes went round as saucers as he unfolded his parchment, “They—they want us back on August first! Not September first! I—Merlin, I love magic!” he exclaimed for the third time, bouncing slightly in his chair.

Someone dropped a teacup. Someone else whooped. Ron and Harry bounced in a way that made chairs wobble. Fred and George were already two steps into a new business model: “International Skiving Snackboxes at the Hendeka!” they shouted, and then argued over which country would prefer which flavour of Fizzing Whizbees.

Sirius flopped onto a chair like a man who had been waiting his whole life for this exact moment and who would not be denied a meltdown now that it had finally arrived. “Why didn’t I get a letter?” he whined to Remus, pouting like a child. “I didn’t agree to be a sensible grown-up! Moony—don’t make me stay put, you owl! Come back!” He demanded to the owl who was already flying out of the window.

Remus rolled his eyes and handed Sirius a mug, patient as the moon itself. “Sirius, you are a grown man. You don’t get letters to go back to Hogwarts. You are very good at nostalgia and very bad at staying out of trouble and having common sense.”

Sirius made a wounded sound. “I want to teach Quidditch.” He placed his hands on his cheeks dramatically. “I’ll wear sensible robes. I’ll be proper. I’ll—” He broke off, sniffing theatrically. “James would have loved this. He would have loved this.”

Hermione, for once, had actually pushed her stack of books aside. The letter trembled in her hand as she caught sight of the extra packet. Her mouth parted when she pulled the bundle free and unfolded the uniform.

“Oh my goodness—this fabric—these seams—this must’ve been charmed tailoring—” she breathed, already half-forgetting her own neatness. And then, astonishingly, she actually let out a squeal.

“Business opportunity, brother,” Fred whispered loudly to George, who nodded with exaggerated seriousness.

“New customers. Eleven countries, all crammed into one school.”

“The international market awaits Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes!” George announced, clasping Fred’s hand.

Ron gawked at them. “You’re thinking of pranks—now?!”

“When are we not?” the twins chorused smugly.

At the end of the table, Charlie had already half-stripped. He tugged on the crisp white shirt and the waistcoat, rolling his broad shoulders with a satisfied grin.

“Look at this tailoring—fits like a dragonhide glove!” He flexed his arms proudly, ignoring Molly’s exasperated squawk.

“Oh for goodness’ sake, Charlie, you’ll crease it before term even begins!”

“Better creased on me than folded in a box,” Charlie winked. He tossed the trench coat and capelet aside, admiring the cut of the waistcoat in the mirror.

Remus, meanwhile, was unfolding his parchment slowly, carefully, his brows knitting. His fingers traced the familiar seal, his face unusually still.

“They’re not skirts,” Ginny exclaimed like it was a revelation. “They’re trousers!”

“They’re not like the boys’,” Hermione said, eyes shining. “They’re loose and ruffled—see?” She pulled one leg through and did a little twirl, making mental notes as she went. “Pockets—practical. Feminine cut. Movement. Function. This will be brilliant for fieldwork. Also—Hendeka. I need to catalogue every known competition type; I will start with the historical precedent—”

“Hermione,” Ron said, beaming like a fool as he and Harry shouted to each other about Quidditch strategies and relay races. “Less cataloguing, more—” He leapt and the room went louder.

And Sirius—oh, Sirius had gone completely off the rails. He had read Harry’s letter over his shoulder, and his grey eyes were alight like a boy again.

“Moony, Remus, listen—listen to this! Hogwarts is hosting! The Hendeka Games! Eleven schools!” He grabbed Remus by the sleeve and shook him. “They’ll have uniforms, and parades, and tournaments and—Merlin’s pants—I want to go back! I want to go back to Hogwarts!”

“You’re nearly forty, Sirius,” Remus said flatly, tugging his sleeve back.

“You’re never too old to relive glory days!” Sirius whined, throwing himself onto the couch dramatically. “Remus, you’re such a killjoy. I’m telling you, James would’ve loved this—he’d have run headfirst into every single one of those Games—” His voice broke suddenly, and the smirk slid away. Sirius’s face crumpled. He tilted his head up toward the ceiling and shouted, his voice cracking, “You would’ve loved this, you bastard!”

The room went still for a heartbeat. Harry’s throat tightened. Quietly, he slipped down onto the sofa beside his godfather. Sirius’s arm went around him immediately, pulling him close as his voice wavered.

“I knew him better than anyone,” Sirius muttered, half-choked, half-childish. “Ten years, Harry. He was my brother.”

Harry swallowed, his own voice unsteady. “He was my dad.”

“That’s not fair—I knew him longer,” Sirius shot back stubbornly, his cheeks wet now.

Harry glared through his own tears. “Doesn’t matter, I’m his son!”

“But I win—I knew him for ten years, you only had one!” Sirius snapped, pointing at Harry like a child in a playground spat.

Harry scoffed in disbelief, then suddenly burst out laughing, the ridiculousness of it cracking through his chest. Sirius laughed too, still wet-eyed, holding him tight.

Across the table, Remus shook his head with long-suffering patience. “Both of you are impossible.”

Fred and George were already scribbling potential export plans on napkins. “Imagine a line of Skiving Snackboxes with multilingual instructions,” Fred said. “We could do themed boxes for each school.”

“We could open a stall at the Games!” George added, eyes glittering. “Imagine Beauxbatons kids buying a box called ‘Little Prankster’s Picnic’—they’ll write home about it!”

Molly, hovering with a tea tray and half-emptied worry, paced a careful arc between jubilation and maternal panic. “Charlie, you must not play rookie near dragons—do you hear me? Harry, do not attempt anything brave without telling me. Remus—Remus, are you certain this is safe?” she asked, clutching at the nearest adult.

At that exact, unrepeatable beat, an envelope with the thick brown crest of Hogwarts slid across the table toward Remus. He picked it up, eyebrows lifting. The room went to a hush of expectation the way a tide holds a breath before it crashes.

Remus slit the envelope open with the careful flick of someone who has handled far worse than paper. He read once, twice—and then his face changed like dawn. The warmth crept into his eyes and a small, stunned smile unfurled.

“Sirius,” he said, voice soft but thrilled. “Guess what?”

Sirius sat up like a man who hadn’t been breathing properly. “Moony,” he begged, “what did it say? Tell me—I will hyperventilate wondering.”

Remus laughed, a bright, disbelieving sound. He read the letter aloud for everyone, because telling is better than keeping joys that big to oneself.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

Dear Professor Remus John Lupin,

We are most pleased to invite you to return to Hogwarts as Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts for the coming school year. The Board, the Governors, and I would be honoured to have you join us in this vital post.

You will, no doubt, be aware that Hogwarts has the immense privilege of hosting the Hendeka Games this year. With representatives from the world’s foremost magical schools arriving in August, the school’s needs will be many and varied. Given the diversity of visiting creatures and students, I am confident that your expertise with a wide range of beings will be invaluable. I should stress that in this context, werewolves are to be regarded as barely a concern, as the presence of so many other creatures and carefully arranged supervision will make handling such matters routine.

To ease any practical difficulties, Professor Severus Snape has graciously agreed to provide an ample supply of wolfsbane to be administered under your direction each full moon. You will find that measures have been thoughtfully put in place so you may teach and protect without undue interruption.

We ask that you return to the school for the early term on 1 August, both to assist with preparations and to begin instruction with our returning students. We enclose the schedule of preliminary staff meetings and the adjusted syllabus for the Hendeka year.

We would be most grateful if you would accept this post. Hogwarts both needs and welcomes your steadiness and compassion.

Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore.

Silence hung for the blink of an instant. Then the room erupted into a crush of hugs and exclamations. Molly’s teacup rattled as she clasped Remus to her like a child. “Oh, thank god,” she breathed, face wet with relief. “You’ll be there—an elder—when the children go back. That will make me sleep in peace.”

Remus’s smile widened and he was suddenly blushing under the delight. “I—well—yes. I’ll go back. I’ll teach. I didn’t expect… I mean, I had thought—” He stopped, and the Order’s table dissolved into grateful chatter.

“Moony—this is brilliant,” said Harry, leaping up and throwing his arms around Remus. “We’ll have the best DADA teacher!”

Fred and George crowded in, grinning, hats askew. “Mate, think of the potential for prank education. Curriculum suggestions?” Fred asked with mock solemnity.

Hermione clapped excitedly, mind already turning into lists. “The Hendeka Games syllabus will include regional defensive spells—oh, and we should have seminars on handling foreign curses. I’ll draft the reading list.”

Charlie, who had been showing off his new waistcoat, gave Remus a grin that made him look younger. “You’ll teach the young ones about temperament, right? If a dragon tries to burn a student, they should know how to counter.”

Remus laughed properly then, a soft, easy sound that filled the room with an honest warmth. “Yes, yes—I can teach that,” he said. “And perhaps how not to provoke dragons,” he added with a wink to Charlie.

Molly squeezed Remus’s hand again, relief plain as day. “They’ll be safer with you at Hogwarts,” she said. “All that supervision. And—Severus providing wolfsbane—bless him,” she added, thinking of the practicalities and letting out a contented sigh.

Remus’s eyes, however, were on Sirius and then on Harry; he was thinking of practicalities too, but in another way—how to make the children feel safer and more capable. He let the room’s noise wash around him like a tide and felt unexpectedly steady.

Sirius, who had been sitting in a puddle of melodrama, suddenly straightened with a wicked sparkle. “Moony—now that you’re going back—are you allowed to bring a pet? Perhaps a cute innocent black dog?” he asked, hopeful like a small boy.

Remus’ eyes widened.

Sirius sniffed, offended and immensely pleased with himself all at once. “I will not be told to sit down.” He made a theatrical show of collapsing into Remus’ lap and then pretended to sob melodramatically. “Moony! You’re not going without me, are you? I’ll—” He hiccupped. “—I’ll pester Dumbledore into letting me teach practical joking 101! Or Quidditch!”

I have sketched out the concept design for the new uniforms, so I am attaching them below:

The male uniform

And here's the female uniform, I abandoned the skirts since they needed to be practical for duels and combats, but still wanted to keep the feminine touch:




Also I made a pen doodle of how Draco's pendant is supposed to look like:

Chapter Text

The kitchen held its breath the way an animal holds breath before it runs.

It was a soundless thing: waiting, taut, so fragile that the tick of a clock seemed obscene. 

A few minutes earlier, the door had opened and Kingsley Shacklebolt had strode in—broad-shouldered, his cloak a dark sweep—and he had not called.

He put a rolled copy of the Daily Prophet on the table and slapped it down with a palm that carried the weight of official thunder.

Sirius came running, panting, one hand pressed to the doorframe.

He had tears already at the corners of his eyes; the years had thinned him and thrown lines at his mouth that the rest of them had learned to hide from in their memories.

He froze, gasping, as Kingsley leaned in and—softly, but with the kind of force that was heard across a chapel—whispered to him.

“You are a free man…” Kingsley said.

It was a whisper and it thundered. 

In that charged quiet it landed like a verdict, like air pushing through a cracked window. The kitchen—full of the Order and children, of Dumbledore and McGonagall in cloaks that caught the candlelight—went utterly, impossibly still. The sound of breath was suddenly enormous.

Sirius collapsed to his knees.

He buried his face in his hands the way a man buries himself to hide the shape of what’s happened to him: ugly, private, terrible. 

He did not want eyes on him—he had wanted that for years in Azkaban, not now—but his body would not be contained. The years that had been written across him—stone walls, cold water, false headlines—rattled loose all at once. 

The betrayal, the silence, the name that had damned him for decades—the word traitor—unwound like a rope.

Remus did not hesitate. 

He slid to his knees beside Sirius and pulled him up into his arms. He wrapped his arms around the man he loved and who had been called a monster, and held him like a shelter. 

Remus’ lips found Sirius’ head in a kiss that had nothing shy about it; he pressed him, steadying, fingers rubbing long slow circles down Sirius’ back. Never coy, never embarrassed, Remus let the comfort be large and plainly shown.

Around them, people diverted their faces. 

Loyalty made privacy of its own. 

They turned their bodies to the walls, to the windows, folded hands that trembled into tight fists. But Harry did not turn away. He moved, small and immediate, and sat on the floor at Sirius’ other side, close enough to feel the heat from those two men. He couldn’t not be there. He needed the gravity of them; he needed to be part of the moment that remade his godfather’s life.

Kingsley cleared his throat and—after a second for all of them to steady—he began to lay out what was on the paper he had slammed down. He read in a voice that had the hard, official tone of someone who had to keep facts raw and whole.

“Peter Pettigrew came out of hiding,” Kingsley said. “He was arrested today. He has given a statement admitting involvement in the murder of James and Lily Potter. He admitted framing Sirius Black as the traitor. He admits—” Kingsley’s voice caught, but he steadied it— “he admits complicity in the Dark Lord’s resurrection activities.”

The room shifted like a ship. Some faces went white. Others looked as if blood had rushed to them and then gone cold.

Kingsley continued quietly, “He was taken to awaiting cells to be sent to Azkaban. He made a final statement in which he cleared Sirius Black before his death, as a minor atonement of his sins. Several hours later, he was found dead in his cell—he had apparently taken his own life, by choking himself through his handcuffs,”

The words did not shatter the room so much as rearrange it. Vindication struck like metal that did not ring clean: it rang with a sound that was equal parts justice and hollow loss. Sirius’ body shook with sobs; the cry that came from Harry was not just for what had been taken from his godfather but for the parents he had never truly known. That grief braided into the raw relief, heavy and complicated.

The Ministry’s humiliation followed hard on Kingsley’s heels. “There will be inquiries and apologies,” he said, folding the fresh papers. “Ministry will correct the record. Public apologies will be issued. We are… embarrassed at how this was handled.” He did not mince the word: embarrassed—a cold, rotten thing for the years of life and reputation it could not refill.

At that moment a sound like a cloak in wind cut the charged air: Severus Snape apparated. He landed at the edge of the kitchen in his usual, precise movement—robes sharp, face colder than the room deserved. His eyes flicked over the scene and, for a second, his mouth gave the smallest of sneers at the spectacle of Sirius’ breakdown. He rolled his eyes in what could be read as disdain and impatience as if grief were a melodrama that bored him.

But Snape’s face was a study in controlled reaction. 

He said nothing aloud. 

He stood a moment, then bowed his head punctiliously because decency, in some men, was automatic. 

Kingsley unfolded more copies of Pettigrew’s statement and the kitchen listened as if the very hearing of it were sacrament. Peter’s admission—his voice on paper—was filthy with the smallness of the man: cowardice, hunger, the habit of small betrayals that had grown into monstrous consequence. 

He admitted the animagus life in which he hid as a rat, the long years of skulking at the Potters’ hearth, the betrayal and the simmer of fear that had led him to the Dark Lord’s service. He explained too that, in the end, his cowardice could not answer what he had done; his hand closed in the cell.

When Kingsley read the final line—that before his death Pettigrew had cleared Sirius—Sirius made a sound like a laugh and a sob all at once. He leaned into Remus and sobbed, but then he began to laugh, the sound raw and ragged, a release that had been withheld for two decades. 

It sounded like a dam cracking.

Harry slid up into the hug; his young body pressed into Sirius’ side and he cried aloud, not only for his parents but for the stolen years for Sirius—the weeks, the months, the long fraying of life labeled as crime. 

The room was full of people whose eyes were wet and faces hollow with wonder and pity. Tonks’ hands hovered at Remus, uncertain whether to touch. Molly had pressed a hand to her mouth and her eyes were enormous. 

Charlie looked almost stunned, like someone who had seen a wild animal approach an old wound and lick it with strange gentleness.

Sirius, finally, breathed out. The laughter underneath the sobs turned shakily brighter. “I need to— send a letter,” he said, voice trembling but brightening. “To… to—” He dropped his face back against Remus’ shoulder and then pushed himself upright with a jerk that made everyone’s stomachs lurch.

Remus managed a tired smile and helped Sirius to his feet. 

“You should…” he said. 

Nymphadora—the soft, bright Tonks—smiled through tears. “Definitely, They would like to know,” she said, immediate and fierce. The warmth in the room folded them like a small beating heart.

Sirius moved away to do what he needed: to tell the people who still considered him family, to tell those who cared, who would like to know, who should have been just as much involved in these celebrations, to speak to those who hadn’t doubted and to write the first honest lines of the life that had been stolen. 

Before he left the circle of the kitchen he pulled Harry to him in a hug so tight it felt like rescue. “You’re safe,” he whispered in Harry’s hair. “We’re all here.”

Harry’s tears wet Sirius’ shirt and he nodded fiercely.

Molly and Bill crossed the kitchen toward Remus while the rest of them helped Sirius straighten himself. Their voices were small and urgent. “Remus—a letter…” Molly began, “is it the same person who—who saved Arthur? The one who made that medicine?” Her fingers worried at the edge of her apron, worry and gratitude braided on her face.

Remus closed his eyes for a heart-beat and nodded, slow. 

He heard the unspoken: the friend who had been careful in the dark, the genius who moved like a ghost to stitch a life back together, “Yes,” he said, the one-syllable answer a folded thing. 

Molly wanted to thank; she wanted to scream a thank you to the unseen angel who had kept them from worse. But she could not.

Molly’s whole face softened; she reached for his hand. “I want to thank them,” she breathed.

Remus pulled his fingers back with a sad, tired smile. “You can’t,” he said. “Not now. For their own good, they must stay hidden. We must hope the time will come when it is safe to name them.” The weight of secrecy lay on him like a mantle. He had learned over years of war that gratitude sometimes had to be quiet so the brave could remain so.

Snape’s gaze slid over the cluster of faces and landed, briefly and coldly, on Remus. He kept his emotions wrapped in steel and said nothing. In the recesses of his mind a rodent thought about enemies and safety and an odd calculation. 

Darien Malfoy cannot be allowed to be caught, the thought passed, sharp and private—this was for safety, not mercy. 

Snape’s face did not change; he had no softness for Malfoy, but he did for The Malfoy Brothers, understood the necessity of certain concealments, of certain dangerous players kept from the public eye lest a worse tide flow. He gave the ghost of a nod to Remus—an acknowledgment that for once respect, however small, was due.

Remus felt something gentle tug at the edges of his mind—a sensation he had learned to guard for years—and without announcing it he raised his mental shields. They were an old, reflexive protection, barely noticed until they were needed. The movement was so quick it was a blink. For an instant his eyes found Dumbledore’s across the room.

Albus looked as if he had sat down and leaned his elbows on the rim of the world and watched the chaos of it. 

He did not look surprised. 

He gave a little twinkling smile, the sort of smile that seemed made of soft light and old patience, and looked away as if to say: I’m watching everything.

Remus felt that small, buoyant chill like an ice hand at the small of his back; he clamped his jaw tight for a second and smiled back a tight, calm smile that told no one the whole truth—only that he would hold the place steady.

The kitchen’s murmurs found a rhythm. People spoke in small, gauzy noises. Some went to fetch paper and ink so Sirius could set the first outraged, simple facts of his life straight. Others tended the children, who needed breathing space and pats and the kind of small comforts adults could hand out like sweets.

Later, when the sharpness had eased into a raw ache that all of them carried like a new scar, they learned that the Ministry truly had begun to tidy its mistakes—outward apologies and the careful mechanical contrition of committees. 

It felt insufficient. 

It also felt necessary. For Sirius, for Harry, for Remus—whose daily life had been one long, low fight against quiet despair—the apologies were a small thing. They would be met with tears and a bitter little laugh and a long, exhausted relief. But if these mistakes had been corrected earlier, a child would not have had to grow up in a cupboard, a man would not have to lose his age in a dark, damp, cold cell whose guards tried to suck out his soul, and another man would not have had to fight his own demons each night.

Sirius left the kitchen at last with Remus and Tonks at his side, steady as a small convoy. Before he walked out, he turned back and gave Harry one more hug that wrapped around the boy like shelter. “You look after Moony,” he said, voice rough. “And I’ll bring the post—letters about everything. We’ll right all the stupid wrongs.”

For a breath the years felt meaningless, and then a different kind of work began: the repair of what had been broken, the tending of wounds that did not have an easy salve. 

They would do it together; they would not pretend the lost years could be returned. They would try, instead, to make the next years count.

And in the quiet that followed—soft as a new snow—Remus let himself breathe for the first time in a long, long while. He kept his shields up for the moment; the world was not yet safe enough to let them down.

…

Whilst the morning at Château Valambre was one of those mornings that felt heavy with things unsaid, where every smile carried an undercurrent of ache, and every touch lingered longer than usual. 

Eloide moved with quiet purpose through the kitchens, her pale hands guiding servants with gentle insistence. She fussed over small things—bread wrapped properly, fruit polished, pastries packed so the boys would not feel hungry on their journey back. 

She insisted again and again, half to herself, half to the staff, that they must take food with them, as if clinging to the act of nurturing them was the only way to soften the blow of their departure. Her voice was steady, but her eyes betrayed her.

Victore was smiling too, sitting with all her grandchildren in one place, but in her eyes, too, there was a lingering bittersweetness—the faint mist of a grandmother’s sorrow at seeing her brood scatter back to the wider world.

In the gardens, the family had gathered like a living portrait of both love and impending absence. 

The air smelled faintly of roses and damp earth, the sun catching on the silver edges of the marble fountains. 

Adrien had not left their side all morning. His usual brightness flickered with shadows, but every time Draco, Silvanius, or Darien looked at him, he forced a smile, his amber eyes alight again. He kept repeating himself, as if repetition could anchor them here longer: Stay safe. Write often. Take care. Don’t forget this place is home. His voice trembled but never broke.

Little Luca, only two and already sharp, had sensed the change in the air. He clung stubbornly to Draco’s leg, tiny hands like anchors, his round cheeks puffed in a pout. He kept making the same gesture—opening his fists with a soft “whoosh!”—pretending to summon flame. He knew that always made Draco laugh, and he wanted to make him laugh now, to chase away that heaviness. Draco smiled, but the smile was sad, weighted. He lifted Luca into his lap, holding him close.

“I’ll miss you so, so much,” Draco whispered, pressing his forehead to the boy’s.

Luca blinked up with big eyes, stumbling over words, “Where… Dacon goin’?”

“To school,” Draco smiled.

“Stay,” Luca whined in his baby voice, holding his tiny hand to Draco’s cheek.

Silvanius snorted softly. “Traitor,” he teased the child, adjusting his spectacles. “I was the one at your side every day and yet you cling to him.”

Darien raised his brows. “And I here, gentlemen, am supposed to be the godfather.”

Mathilda laughed from her chair, her bright voice trying to dissolve the ache that lingered. Annaliese didn’t look up from her book, but her lips twitched faintly at their banter. Julius and Edmund, mischievous as always, lunged to snatch Luca from Draco’s lap. 

The boy smacked at their hands furiously with his chubby little fists, his pout deepening. “No!” he declared with surprising force.

But Darien—calm, practiced—extended his arms. “Come here, Luca.”

For once, Luca allowed it, shuffling into his godfather’s arms, though he still cast a stubborn look over Darien’s shoulder toward Draco.

It was then Sebastian appeared, as silently as if he had walked out of the shadows themselves. Clad in his usual black, immaculate as ever, he broke the heaviness with a soft, deliberate voice:

“Look who I brought.”

From behind him, Narcissa stepped forward.

Time froze. 

Draco’s breath caught in his chest before he even understood what he was seeing. 

Then he was on his feet, heart leaping, legs moving before his mind could process. Narcissa rushed past Sebastian, skirts brushing the grass, and fell into her son’s arms. She embraced Draco as if she could stitch him back into her bones, trembling with the force of her relief. Her voice broke as she whispered, over and over, “My Draco… my Draco…”

Draco clutched her back just as fiercely, his chest heaving, eyes stinging.

Darien stood frozen, stunned at the sight, until Silvanius touched his shoulder, pulling him gently into motion. They too stepped forward, embracing their mother in turn. Silvanius held her with quiet steadiness, while Darien’s grip trembled, his throat tight with things he could not say.

Eloide approached then, her eyes misted, and folded her sister-in-law into her arms. Victore, ever tender, followed, and even Alaric placed a hand gently on Narcissa’s head, his eyes softening with brotherly affection, “Sister.”

Adrien gave her a side hug, his composure cracked by worry, “How are you?” he asked, his voice low.

Narcissa’s eyes shone as she met each of them, gratitude spilling unspoken from every look. Then she turned to Sebastian. Her voice was quiet but trembling with sincerity: “Thank you.”

Sebastian’s mouth softened in something like a smile.

….

Narcissa had returned to her chamber in Malfoy Manor the night before, only to find Lucius seated stiffly in the rocking chair, his eyes sharp, his jaw set. Standing beside him, Sebastian Malfoire—dark, unyielding—had raised one finger to his lips to signal her silence.

Then, cool as shadow, he had turned to Lucius. “I’m taking her away, brother.”

Lucius had said nothing, only met Narcissa’s eyes. The unspoken plea, the urgency in that silent look, told her all she needed. Return quickly.

Sebastian’s hand had closed around her wrist, and before she could blink, they were gone, slipping through the manor’s wards like smoke. “Curse breakers,” Sebastian muttered, almost to himself, his magic unraveling protections that should have been impenetrable.

…

Now, in the gardens of Château Valambre, Narcissa held Draco once more. She pressed her lips to his temple, murmuring, “Stay strong. Stay safe. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Draco choked out, though his voice cracked.

She had half a cup of tea, Only half.

And then it was over. 

Too soon. 

She stepped back to Sebastian’s side, her hand finding his as if to keep herself steady. “Take me back before anyone notices,” she said softly.

Sebastian sighed, the sound heavy with reluctance. He twisted the Malfoire ring on his finger, and the portkey activated. Light wrapped around them, and then they were gone.

The garden was too quiet in the wake of their departure. Adrien stood close to the boys, but all three looked hollowed. Draco especially—his hand still lifted in the air, frozen in the motion of wanting to reach for his mother one last time, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

Sebastian was not a man of much softness. He did not waste words, and he did not scatter affection freely. But he had always known what people needed, and when. Today, he had given them this. And Adrien—watching his husband, proud and aching—felt his heart swell.

Sebastian wasn’t the most affectionate man. But he didn’t need to be. He knew exactly when affection mattered most. 

And today, Adrien thought, he had given them a miracle.

…

The end of summer always carried a kind of restless hum, and today was no different—except heavier, more bittersweet. Adrien was crouched by the corner, carefully strapping Draco and Darien’s brooms into their travel cases. He had played Quidditch with them endlessly this summer, his easy laughter and sharp instructions carrying over the fields like second nature. Draco had learned so much from him—the angles, the timing, the way to anticipate an opponent before they even thought of moving.

Draco, fiddling with a pair of gloves, glanced up at him, curiosity getting the better of him.

“You know,” Draco began, suspiciously casual, “you’ve taught me more tricks on a broom this summer than even my House team captain managed in four years.”

Adrien chuckled, settling onto the edge of the bed. “Ah? Is that so?”

“Where did you learn so much about Quidditch?”

Adrien glanced up, brows arching. A laugh burst out of him—free, rich, unguarded. He sat down on the edge of the bed, brushing his hands against his trousers, eyes dancing. “Oh, mon petit, you truly don’t know?”

Silvanius, who had been bent over his papers, snapped them shut with a soft thwack. He adjusted his spectacles and fixed Draco with an incredulous look. “You asked that question?” His voice carried the disbelief of someone who thought the answer was obvious.

Darien’s grin widened as he slid over beside Draco on the bed, his elbows propped lazily on his knees. “Tell me, baby brother, you do follow international Quidditch, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Draco shot back indignantly. “I’ve listened to every World Cup broadcast since I could walk.”

Darien’s grin turned downright mischievous. “Then you’ve heard of Adrien Camus…of Du ciel—”

He tossed the name out like bait.

Draco lit up instantly. “Of course I’ve heard of him! Adrien Camus, Star chaser of the French National League—” He stopped dead, words catching in his throat. His eyes darted toward his uncle sitting there, smirking far too knowingly. “Wait. Wait. No.”

Adrien leaned back on his palms with an infuriatingly casual shrug. “My last name before marriage was Camus, little one.”

Draco froze. Completely froze. His mouth hung open, his eyes glassy and blank, like every cog in his brain had ground to a halt. He just… sat there. Staring at the wall.

Five whole minutes.

Not a blink. Not a breath. Just utter, wall-eyed disbelief.

Darien slapped his knee, shaking with laughter. Silvanius actually snorted, which was rare enough to warrant a second glance. And Adrien himself leaned over, poking Draco’s stiff cheek.

“You alright there, nephew?” Adrien teased, his French accent lilting.

Draco finally gasped, clutching his head. “YOU MEAN TO TELL ME—” he shrieked so loudly that Luca probably heard him from the nursery..“You mean to say—” he whirled on Adrien, pointing an accusing finger. “I’ve been playing Quidditch all summer with Adrien Camus—the Adrien Camus—and no one thought to mention this?!”

Adrien burst into laughter again, hiding his face in his hands.

Draco threw both arms into the air. “And here I thought I was just getting a few lessons from my charming uncle—BUT NO—I’ve been getting training from an international legend! And wait—” he paused, looking horrified, “—you’re my uncle?! My uncle is Adrien Camus?! How am I ever supposed to get over this? Potter would be so JEALOUS—but wait, how did you meet Uncle Seb? He’s a prince, a curse-breaking master—and you are—Merlin help me—you are Adrien Camus. No wonder you two are so different. How did you even—how do these worlds even—how does that—” He threw himself back on the bed with a dramatic groan. “Impossible!”

Darien practically fell backwards onto the mattress, cackling. “This is better than I imagined.”

Silvanius pushed his papers aside, his composure cracking into a rare grin. “Honestly, Draco. I thought you’d figured it out weeks ago.”

Adrien’s cheeks had turned faintly pink as he bit his lip, clearly trying not to hide his face.

Darien chuckled, elbowing Draco. “Oh, you should have seen how they met. Funniest day of my life.”

Draco sat up immediately. “You were there?!”

“Oh, yes.” Darien’s grin widened, eyes glinting. “I must’ve been about twelve. I wanted to see a Quidditch match so badly. I begged everyone. Helmine dropped me off at the Château, Silvanius wasn’t into Quidditch, Uncle Alaric had court duties, Aunt Eloide was busy with Beauxbatons… so who did Grandmere send with me? Of course. Uncle Sebastian.”

“Sebastian?” Draco said faintly. “At a Quidditch match?”

Darien clutched his stomach laughing. “Exactly. He looked so utterly miserable—black velvet coat, scowl carved into his face. But I didn’t care, I was talking his ear off about chasers and strategies and goals. I must’ve driven him mad.”

Adrien was already covering his face, chuckling.

“And then,” Darien continued, eyes gleaming, “when the match ended, I got stubborn. I told him I wasn’t leaving until I got the star chaser’s autograph.” He grinned wickedly. “Guess who the star was that night?”

Draco whipped his head toward Adrien, eyes huge. Adrien grinned proudly.

“He tried,” Darien said gleefully. “He really did. He waited in the crowd with me, but the fans were insane. Shouting, waving banners, nearly trampling each other. Finally, Prince Sebastian Malfoire—had to use his authority just to ask for the player.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Draco whispered.

Adrien took over, still red in the face but smiling. “So I come out of the locker rooms—bright-eyed, happy, sweaty, grinning from ear to ear. I’d just won the cup. And then I see him—this tall, terrifying man, all black, glaring like he’s about to hex the world. He shoves a paper at me, stuttering, of all things. Absolutely mortified. Couldn’t even meet my eyes.” Adrien shook his head fondly. “I thought he was just some ridiculous fanboy with questionable fashion sense.”

“Fanboy!” Darien wheezed, practically rolling on the bed.

Adrien spread his hands. “What else was I supposed to think?”, Adrien sighed, dramatically reenacting. “I took the parchment, signed my name with a flourish… and I added my number. I winked at him and said, ‘Call me back, darling.’”

Draco’s jaw dropped to the floor.

Silvanius chuckled so loudly he had to take off his glasses to wipe his eyes.

“You flirted with Uncle Sebastian?!” Draco’s voice cracked.

Adrien laughed helplessly. “I did! And I walked back into the changing room feeling very pleased with myself, until the other players started staring at me like I’d sprouted antlers. That’s when someone explained to me exactly who the man I’d just winked at was.”

“The prince,” Darien said smugly. “The royal highness of our very own house.”

Adrien covered his face with both hands, shaking his head. “I thought I’d die of embarrassment.” Then, lowering his hands, Adrien leaned close, smirking wickedly. “And yet, later that night… I got a call.”

The room went quiet for a moment, the boys absorbing the weight beneath Adrien’s laughter. Draco, still staring, whispered, “Sebastian… called you?”

Adrien’s blush deepened. “He did. And the rest, as they say is… history.”

Draco fell back against his pillows with a loud groan. “Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable. My uncles are a curse-breaking prince and an international Quidditch star. How does anyone compete with that?”

Darien smirked, Silvanius chuckled, and Adrien only reached over to ruffle Draco’s hair. “You don’t compete, mon petit,” he said warmly. “You make your own story.”

Draco muttered from under his arm, “Still unbelievable.”

And Adrien only laughed harder.

…

They stood on the platform like a small, tight island in a sea of people and noise—trunks at their feet, broom handles tucked beside packs, silk collars still soft with the smell of Chateau Valambre. 

The air tasted of rain and coal and the metallic tang of rails. Everything sounded too loud for Draco: the high chime of the station clock, the muffled bark of an announcer, a child crying somewhere, the slap and shuffle of tourists. All of it pushed at him like hands trying to pry a thing loose.

Adrien and Sebastian had come to see them off in person. The farewells at the château had already soaked him through—small jokes that hid shaking voices—but now the real moment pressed in. People edged close with polite smiles and pressed small, hot words into Draco’s hands: Write. Be careful. Don’t forget us. They were brief and furious with love.

He thought of everything he was leaving behind and his chest ached with the exquisite cruelty of it. 

Mathilda’s astronomy obsession—how she would talk to him about constellations until she fell asleep; Julius’ endless knack for mischief; Edmund’s soft tears and sudden protective pouts; Annaliese’s calm jokes, the way she made the air feel steady; Luca’s small, fierce hand clamping Draco’s ankle until he promised to come back; Grandmère’s calm, old-fashioned ways that smelled of lavender and iron; Eloide’s mothering. 

He would miss swordplay evenings with Uncle Alaric,and everyone else; he would miss Adrien—Adrien Camus. Mind you—who had somehow always known where to stand on a pitch, brighten a room with his charming laughters, and who, impossibly, was family. 

A strange little warmth bloomed in his chest. He would miss Sebastian too—toughness softened at the edges, an adult who could still give the correct squeeze to a shoulder.

He turned and murmured, the words nearly lost in the crowd, “Thanks… for bringing Mum.”

“It will be alright, Dragon…trust us, we will get them out,” Sebastian’s grip on his shoulder was a small, rare softening. “Study well,” he said quietly. “Make their, and your name, worth a room.”

Draco swallowed. He wished, fiercely, that he could see his father once—just once. The empty place that was his father’s absence ached like a missing tooth. Then Darien stepped up behind him, taller, steady as an oak in small motion. He put a hand on Draco’s shoulder, gentle and sure.

“Come on,” Darien said. “Let’s go through to the platform. The train’s almost here.”

For a beat Draco saw, in Darien’s careful, older-brother way of folding him small, the shape of a father.

He recalled when late at night in the library, Mathilda’s voice was soft and wondering, as she had told him, “Older brothers are like fathers sometimes—only quieter. They teach you how to stand when you don’t yet know how to walk tall. They hold your fears for you until you can hold them yourself.”

The thought lodged under his ribs—true and a little terrifying. He felt suddenly small and brave at once.

They threaded through the press of people. On the ticker above, the station announced in tinny voice: International Council Express to Hogwarts—due in fifteen minutes. All passengers please stand clear. The lights blinked, and a hush fell like a curtain for a second as the platform swelled with expectation.

Then Draco saw the crowd. Not just the usual scattered faces but a tide of familiar ones and strange new ones—red heads clustered like a small sun: Weasleys, noisy and bright.

He blinked and his heart did a jolting flip: Professor Lupin stood there, lean and worn in a way that made Draco think of old books and soft coffee. 

Next to Lupin, a wiry, messy-haired boy with a lightning-scar and startlingly green eyes stood—Potter. Draco’s breath snagged.

Le fils de la mort. Le fils de la mort. Le fils de la mort. Le fils de la mort. Images and names colliding: Hadrian Thanatos, green eyes like hell in the form of heaven.

The old book’s words clicked behind his teeth like a warning. The memory of the portrait, the pendant, the sun sword—everything he’d tried to lock away—breathed hot and immediate in that one single moment. He felt the world tilt, as if the book were tugging a thread inside him.

He forced himself not to stare, but Potter’s green eyes found his with a slow, strong intensity—eyes that looked like they could read the inside of someone and still ask questions. 

For a second Draco felt exposed; it was as if those green eyes had seen a portrait in him and were trying to remember whether the painting had always been there.

He forced his head away, hard as a child looking from the window when something dangerous passes on the street. 

He could not hold the gaze; the green ones were looking straight through him, as if seeing something under every layer he’d learned to wear., cheeks flushing, and told himself to forget the old legend, to breathe. 

He told himself, 

This is a train platform. Not a prophecy hall. 

He reminded himself of the rules he’d made: One foot in front of the other. Be a son. Be a prince. Be a student. Don’t be a legend—yet.

He scanned the crowd more deliberately. Granger, book in hand, Weasley and Weaslette beside her, cheeks bright. Diggory—handsome and polite—talking to someone with purple hair with a chuckle. 

Professor Lupin’s expression was warm; beside him a tall man with the kind of shoulder-length black hair that moved in a lazy curtain, formed curles, reminded him of the pictures he had seen of Mum’s sisters, a formal robe, an eye brow piercing that glinted from further away, and a presence that scraped at a memory. Draco swore he had seen this man before and yet he looked to unfamiliar. It hit him then—The prisoner of Azkaban, mum’s cousin, Sirius Black—free, standing there like he had walked back from some dark story and into sunlight. 

Draco remembered the papers from yesterday morning—Pettigrew, the verdicts, the long-settled injustices—and a strange mix of relief and unease rippled across his stomach.

Darien followed his line of sight and stiffened for a breath; Silvanius, who watched everything with the steadiness, stayed calm and gave an almost invisible nod. 

Across the scramble of students Draco spotted others — Luna among the Weasleys, moon-eyed and odd as always, and she saw them and waved like a comet. She moved with a small strut toward them and threw them a bright, conspiratorial grin. Darien returned the wave with the practiced ease of someone who could always be counted on to look unruffled. Luna reached them, and — in the way that made strangers feel like old friends — she gave each hand a little, serious shake before she pivoted toward Silvanius. She was already launching into something odd and delighted, voice lilting low and quick, “Did you feel the line of stars shift last night? I thought the comet might have read me a letter.” Silvanius, smile slightly puzzled, indulged her while Draco tried to steady his heartbeat.

A sudden thump on the back of his head yanked him from complicated thoughts and he turned to find Pansy Parkinson smirking into his face. She flung both arms round him without ceremony, breath warm and scented with something floral. “You missed me so much,” she cooed, voice all syrup and challenge. 

Draco tried to wriggle free at once and failed — because underneath the annoyance the gesture had warmth to it; he had missed her, too. He let one arm find her back, awkward and glad, and the two of them gave the station a show of ease that felt both practiced and brittle.

Theodore, not missing the moment, clapped a book gently on Draco’s head. “No letters? You know I like reading correspondence,” he teased, eyes bright with mischief. Draco snatched the book and grinned, rubbing the spot theatrically. “You mean you were waiting,” he returned, amusement in his voice. The exchange landed easy — old companions, the sort who could mock one another and mean it like bread and butter.

Blaise glided up as if time itself had taught him languid steps; he waved, half-lidded, “Summer was adequate,” he said with the perfect bored tone that had the group laugh. Vincent and Gregory trailed behind with a packet of chocolates and offered them around with grunts and little proud bows; Crabbe pressed one into Draco’s hand as if it were a gift of serious diplomacy.

Pansy slipped forward again, this time cooing at Darien as if at a piece of beautiful sculpture. “And how have you been, beautiful?” she purred. 

Darien’s smile took on a dangerous, lazy shimmer. “Better than you deserve to know,” he said, amused, and the way it was said — “Yes, I do, in fact, look very, very beautiful.” — made Pansy’s laughter bubble like quicksilver.

Draco’s attention pulled sharp to the other side of the platform. Professors clustered there had a weight that stretched across the station like an invisible rope.

His jaw dropped again, teachers never rode back with them. Professor Snape — long black robes immaculate, gaze like polished obsidian — stood with Professor McGonagall, her square jaw softened in the rarest of smiles. 

Miss Sprout was a yellow whirl of welcome, cheeks flushed as she embraced returning, already graduated students and asked about their harvesting methods and their tinkering in herbological pots. Professor Flitwick flitted from group to group, delighted, arms small and a-tingle with excitement. Older students drifted toward McGonagall for the sturdier, more practical greetings; Slytherins made a show of bowing crisply to Snape and then scattering, trying not to bother him.

It felt — to Draco, who had always loved the small architecture of ritual — like the station had been rebuilt into a careful theatre for the year. Heads turned; eyes searched faces for the same reason anyone seeks shores after being at sea: to know where they belong.

With the certainty of something inevitable, Draco moved.

“Professor Snape!” he called, hurrying, shoes sparking on the platform stones. He had never been able to wait for permission when something wanted to be said. He kept his stride even though inside his chest a small, fierce drumbeat had started. He reached Snape, heels skidding to a stop, and dropped the practiced attention that was half respect, half habit.

“Professor,” he said, voice clipped with nerves. Then, because everything in him tended toward names, toward the anchor of family, he added, softer and unbidden, “godfather.”

Snape’s expression was unreadable for the briefest moment — that rapid, lethal stillness that belonged to him as much as a shadow. Then, in a motion as small as a closing of a book, the corner of his mouth twitched. It was not warmth as others would understand it. It was something like permission. “Draco,” he said, the single syllable a stone set down steady. “You look… compsed.” And that was his way of saying, You looke better, healthier, and he expected a lot from him.

Draco swallowed. “Thank you,” he heard himself say. The word felt too small and too large at once.

Snape’s gaze flicked past him, measuring the crowd and landing on the person who had held Draco’s attention earlier — the green-eyed boy — then slid back. “Keep your head,” Snape said, low and dry, as if the line had always been his to offer. “There is much you will be asked to contain this year. Dress it, don’t deny it.”

The instruction wrapped around Draco like an old cloak — restrictive, but made to fit. 

Snape’s hand — brief, practical — brushed the top of Draco’s shoulder. The contact was an anchor more eloquent than many speeches. Draco felt, absurdly, like a child again, and the sensation made tears prickle at the back of his eyes. He straightened and voice steadier, “I will, Professor. I—” He stopped because there was a long list of things he wanted to say — of fears, of questions, of the book and the portrait and the pendant — and none of them were suited for a platform with friends and faces circling like gulls.

Snape inclined his head, stolid. “Good. Then you will be ready.” 

He turned away in that precise, efficient way of his. “McGonagall,” he said to the headmistress across the way in a tone that both acknowledged her and rejoined the station’s tide. She answered with that strict, small smile and an admonishment disguised as warmth: “The Games require our best.”

Around them voices rose—old friends catching up, students boasting of magical summers, distant laughter like ribbon being unspooled. Draco, feeling ten different things all at once—awe, a battered kind of joy, a soft ache at all he’d left behind and all he was about to step into—let himself breathe it in. He had come to this place imagining lines and rules and safety. 

Now, amid the faces and the press of bodies and the small, ordinary acts of people greeting one another, he felt the world shift: terrible, beautiful, frightening, thrilling.

He turned, and for a breath the green eyes found him again across the crowd. Harry Potter— the boy who had a thousand worlds in his jaw and a history— looked once and then broke away, face folding into its own maze of feelings. Draco looked down at his own hands and thought of the book on his shelf and the name inscribed in gold on a frame that carried his face like a prophecy.

Somewhere near, Darien laughed at some small thing with Silvanius and Luna. Pansy tugged his sleeve and whispered something unrepeatable and fond in his ear. Theo handed him back a book with an emphatic thump. Blaise waved. The station roared on.

And then, the train arrived.

Chapter Text

The whistle cut through the air, sharp and long, and everyone on the platform turned.

The train slid into view like something out of another century — not scarlet and homely like the Hogwarts Express, but dark and commanding. Its body gleamed jet black, polished so carefully it caught every shard of light from the station roof. Silver letters carved into the front engine caught their eyes: HENDEKA. Even the name seemed heavier, stranger, as though it belonged to something larger than all of them.

The bell above King’s Cross rang, echoing through the rafters, and the teachers moved in one fluid motion. They split between the two doors of the final railcar — McGonagall and Snape taking the front entrance, Flitwick and Sprout the back. Snape flicked his wand once, and the students yelped as they were snapped into sharp lines, bags banging against their sides. The orderliness was nothing like the usual chaos at Platform 9 ¾.

“Inside. Now,” Snape’s voice cut across them, smooth and merciless.

The first trickle of students pushed forward, and gasps followed almost at once. The inside was bigger than it had any right to be. Not cozy compartments, no rattling little cabins where one could hide away — but vast, long rows stretching endlessly. Benches on either side of the railcar, long thin tables dividing every two benches that faced each other, wide enough to hold two Great Halls of Hogwarts. The sheer space of it made some of them hesitate.

Cho’s voice broke the awe. “Merlin, it’s… it’s like we’re in a palace, not a train.”

“I love magic….” Harry breathed, he jw dropping open, Cedric grinned at him, adjusting his bag over his shoulder. “You say that now, but wait till we’ve been on it five hours. You’ll be begging for a cabin.”

Neville, stumbling along with Trevor’s box tucked carefully under his arm, muttered, “I just hope… they let us keep plants inside. Feels like a place that wouldn’t like dirt on the floors.”

Hermione gave Ron a look as he was already trying to climb over the bench. “Ron, honestly, wait until we’re told where to sit—”

“I am waiting!” Ron said, already half-tangled with his trunk.

And then Luna drifted by, humming as if she were gliding instead of walking. She tilted her head, peered at Silvanius as he stepped into the row ahead of her, and declared, “You smell faintly of moonstone dust. Did you eat stars in your tea this morning?”

Silvanius startled, lips twitching into the smallest chuckle he tried to swallow down. But in doing so he bumped straight into someone’s back. 

Charlie Weasley, turning sharply, nearly dropped the crate he carried.

“Sorry!” Charlie blurted, red rushing up his face as he spun. Whatever else was on his tongue didn’t come out, he stopped mid-breath, because the man behind him had just slipped off his glasses and was rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Silvanius’ profile was calm, unbothered, the sweep of dark hair falling across his brow. He glanced up once, his eyes catching Charlie’s before dropping back to his lenses.

“It was my fault,” Silvanius said, voice quiet, careful. “No need to apologize.” He slid his glasses back on with elegant precision.

Charlie’s ears went redder still. “R-right, yes—of course. Hello—”

Before the air could thicken further, McGonagall’s voice cut like a whip. “Settle down! All of you. Why are you loitering in the aisle as if this were the common room? Find a place and sit!”

The crowd scrambled, groans and shuffling filling the air as students dropped into the first benches they saw. Snape stepped smoothly beside McGonagall, his arms crossed, eyes narrowing as if daring anyone to test his patience further.

All the students scrambled and ran to the first places they saw empty. Draco followed Darien and Silvanius down one bench. They sat together, Silvanius already pulling a book free from his bag, posture perfect as he crossed one leg over the other like he’d planned to spend the entire ride in silence. Darien stretched lazily beside Draco, arms folded with the ease of someone who never felt rushed.

Then Draco glanced up.

Directly across from them sat Harry Potter. Wide-eyed, staring like someone had knocked the wind from him. Beside him, Charlie Weasley, equally wide-eyed, clearly still flustered. Between them, looking far too pleased, sat Pansy Parkinson, smirk curling like smoke.

“Well,” Pansy purred, smoothing her skirt, “the world is being very kind to me today.” She batted her lashes at Darien first. “Darling, I’ve missed that face.”

Darien rolled his eyes and leaned back. “Tragic. I’ve survived just fine.”

She turned her lashes on Silvanius next, who didn’t even blink. He simply opened his book, adjusted the page carefully, and proceeded to ignore her with surgical precision.

Pansy’s smirk widened. She turned finally to Draco, lashes fluttering, expecting the usual sharp retort. But Draco wasn’t looking at her. His eyes had fallen on the thin strip of table between them, stubbornly fixed there, because looking up meant looking straight into Potter’s green eyes. Fresh, bright, raw green.

Freshly pickled toad

Something in his mind supplied suddenly, absurdly, and the image was so sharp, so ridiculous, that he snorted. He clapped a hand to his face at once, shoulders shaking as he tried to stifle the laugh.

Pansy leaned in immediately. “What’s so funny?”

Draco pressed his palm harder to his mouth, ears burning. “Nothing,” he mumbled through his hand, but his eyes flicked once — against his own will — to the boy opposite, whose green gaze was already caught on him.

Then McGonagall’s voice rose — solid, clear, and impossible to ignore.

“Settle, please. Everyone!” she called, and the rustle ebbed into a quiet that felt like attention itself. She waved a hand and enchanted parchments rose from her bag, floating in a neat column in front of her. She put on her glasses and read, each word deliberate.

“This year will be very different from others,” she began. “Lessons will be shortened. There will be no out-of-class assignments except where explicitly stated. We will form student activity clubs to foster cooperation and skill. All students will share a single common room for the duration of the Games. We do this to make space for our guests, and to show the world what Hogwarts can be when we stand as one.”

A low murmur rippled through the carriage. Draco’s fingers tightened around the edge of the bench. Harry leaned forward, eyes bright. Hermione’s hands were already folded, analyzing. Ron gave an eager, confused grin.

McGonagall continued, page turning soft as a bell, “Our graduates—workers, trainees, Interns, masters, champions, professionals—are returning to teach or learn beside us. This is an unparalleled chance. The castle has been renovated in parts. Quidditch teams and school subjects will both see adjustments so they can compete at a higher international level.”

“Are house points still a thing?” a voice called — Hermione’s, sharp with practical worry. Around her, students craned to hear.

McGonagall glanced at her, then smiled tightly. “For this year, the House system will be suspended for the purpose of the Hendeka Games. You will represent Hogwarts. House competitions will return in full after the Games. That is not to say house spirit is forbidden; it is merely channelled differently while guests are here.”

A chorus of small exclamations — excitement, disappointment, conversation — rose and died. Pansy clapped delightedly; Draco shifted as if to hide a small smile.

McGonagall’s voice turned firmer. “Every subject will have two teachers from now on, given the increased number of students and the complexity of the curriculum. We will place protective tags on all wands. These tags will prevent offensive spells from being cast outside supervised matches and designated practice. They will not stop study, charm practice, or non-harmful demonstrations. They are, strictly, a safety measure.”

Fred and George exchanged a look and immediately whispered frantic ideas to each other about how to make “safe” prank goods. Ron whooped and a dozen other boys muttered conspiratorial plans.

“Professor McGonagall,” Hermione raised her hand before anyone realized, “who will monitor these tags? Will teachers be able to override them in emergencies? And how will this affect legitimate research into defensive magic?”

McGonagall inclined her head. “Excellent questions. Ministry officials and our senior staff will oversee the tagging system. Teachers will be given temporary authorization codes for emergency overrides. Any research requiring the bypass of tags will be conducted under strict supervision in a controlled environment. That should keep curiosity and safety in balance.”

Silvanius spoke in his gentle, measured way. “And the practical training? For example — if a student’s been chosen for a field like duelling or swords, will they be given extended practice times?”

“Indeed,” McGonagall answered. “Students will be placed with expert trainers in their chosen arts. Time in drills will be allotted. We expect dedication and discipline. There will be no excuse for not showing up.”

“Does this mean fewer essays?” Ron piped up, hopeful.

“No essays unless essential,” McGonagall said dryly, and half the carriage cheered whilst Hermione pretended not to notice her own pleased twitch.

McGonagall cleared her throat and her tone softened, gaining the carriage’s full attention again. “Fighting with any visiting school students is strictly prohibited. It will not be tolerated among you either. We represent Hogwarts. You will display Unity, Discipline, Respect, Faith, and Tolerance. Remember those five words.”

A silence settled around the five words as if they were reliquaries. Students repeated them softly, some serious, some joking, but the tone was different now — weighty, solemn.

“Any questions before I move on?” McGonagall asked.

A dozen hands shot up. Cho asked about the shared common room logistics. “How will we organize sleeping arrangements? Will we still have dormitories?”

“You will. The common room will be communal for social hours. Dormitories remain separate and secure by gender, but unfortunately, not by year,s due to the diversity of ages present here and the fact that there are graduates too. Nothing intrusive will change overnight,” McGonagall reassured her.

Cedric Diggory, standing nearby and already receiving a round of applause from older students, called out mildly, “What about practical examinations? Will they still count toward O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s this year?”

“Practical exams will count,” McGonagall said. “The Ministry has agreed to adjust the formats where necessary, but competence is required. The Hendeka Games are part competition, part demonstration. They will be considered in final assessments where appropriate.”

A ripple of excitement at the words “Hendeka Games” swept through the carriage like electricity. Harry’s shoulders straightened. He glanced at Hermione, who was already thinking about syllabi; she mouthed, fieldwork.

McGonagall’s expression turned proud and a little weary as she reached the next part. “Now, the Prefects.” She let the title hang for a breath and the carriage filled with expectation. “Prefects this year have been chosen primarily for physical strength and leadership capability. We chose this criterion because of the increased student body and the practical demands of maintaining order with so many guests. So we only have boys,”

Hermione and Ginny both had instant hard looks; Hermione’s hand flew up.

“Professor McGonagall—no girls? Why are there no girl prefects this year?” she demanded. Ginny’s face mirrored the question with a quick, hot flush.

McGonagall’s gaze was unflinching. “As I said, the demands this year are exceptional. Prefects must physically manage large groups and assist in moving equipment and students during events. It is a temporary measure based on the logistical needs of the Hendeka Games, not on ability. We will be appointing female students as club representatives and senior liaisons who will have authority in different, equally important areas. Your talents will be used. We do not diminish them.”

Hermione looked sharp but not satisfied; she nodded slowly, collecting the explanation, which did not quite warm her. Ginny’s mouth pressed into a line; later she would help lead one of the clubs McGonagall had mentioned.

McGonagall took a breath and announced the prefects, each name ringing through the carriage.

“Cedric Diggory —now returning back to Hogwarts, I’m proud to announce, is an auror trainee now. One of our champions from the triwizard tournament too, Welcome him back with a huge round of applause,” The students clapped; Cedric, modest, tipped his head.

“Harry Potter.” A surprised, resounding shout rose. Harry’s mouth fell open; his eyes shone. He had always wanted prefect-ship. Ron’s grin split his face; Hermione clapped so hard her hands stung. “Another one of our ‘unfortunate’ Triwizard champions, I sincerely, hope you can stay out of trouble this year, Mr. Potter,”

“Potters chasing trouble. Classic.” Snape sneered,  It was dry, barbed, impossible to miss.

McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose but did not answer the barb. “Everyone knows Mr. Potter,” she said briskly. “No further introduction necessary.” The carriage tossed between laughter and a hush.

McGonagall continued quickly, “Charlie Weasley—One of our model students, A Quidditch star during hsi days at Hogwarts, Is now in the dangerous profession of dragon-taming—returns as a prefect for a second time. Darien Malfoy— formerly a Durmstrang student— has proven his worth in many disciplines and has been chosen as another prefect. Blaise Zabini—steady, resourceful, a leader in his own right—will be serving as a prefect, too. Roger Davies—former Quidditch captain of Ravenclaw— is also a prefect. That is the list.”

Applause rippled. Some faces were shocked, some pleased. Draco’s chest flickered—pride, not entirely his, warmed him.

“Blaise?” someone murmured, curious.

“Blaise Zabini is calm and capable,” McGonagall supplied when a ripple of student curiosity rose. “A composed thinker, often underestimated, he demonstrates reliability and diplomatic skill. He will not be a flashy prefect, but a steady one—a quality we value now.”

Harry, still reeling, turned his head to the other side of the railcar, callign out to Hermione, with a stunned, “I’m a prefect?!” His voice was small with stunned pride.

Hermione’s response was immediate and delighted. “You deserve it, Harry!” she hissed happily. Ron punched his own table, howled with laughter; Harry laughed with them, cheeks bright.

The carriage filled with follow-up chatter. Neville asked how prefect responsibilities would be shared now; McGonagall explained they would divide tasks into rotations. Cho asked if the prefects would help co-ordinate visiting delegations. Cedric, already standing tall with auror training habit, answered modestly: “Yes. We’ll handle crowd control, liaison duties, and safety procedures.” He sounded calm and capable; people trusted his tone.

Pansy piped up irreverently, “So the girls won’t be prefects and the boys will be lifting tables? How romantic.” A snicker rippled through the Slytherins. Pansy’s smirk leaned across the aisle to Malfoy; she tossed flirtation his way. Darien rolled his eyes, half smiling.

Hermione stood, determined. “Professor, will female students at least be considered for future prefect positions when the Games finish? I mean—this shouldn’t be precedent.”

“We will return to a normal selection process after the Hendeka Games,” McGonagall sighed, and assured her again. “This is an arrangement for a specific year and specific needs. Your achievements will be recognized and rewarded in other ways during this time.”

Silvanius, who had been quietly checking his schedule, looked up and asked in his gentle voice, “Professor, will the selection for arts experts include outside masters, or will it be internal staff only?”

“Both,” McGonagall said. “We will welcome foreign masters and visiting professionals. Where appropriate, local staff will co-teach with visiting experts so our students may learn from the best.”

A hundred small conversations unfurled: whispers about training hours, debates over which clubs to join, cries of delight when the idea of no homework sunk in for a chorus of the carriage. Luna, somewhere near the window, whispered another odd observation about the stars aligning with the carriage’s black paint and Silvanius actually smiled out loud this time, despite himself; Charlie turned and apologized again for earlier collisions, cheeks still warm, and Silvanius waved it away with soft politeness.

Snape, standing a little apart beside McGonagall now, folded his arms. He allowed a rare small inclination of head when McGonagall finished, as if to acknowledge an order executed cleanly. His presence made some students quieter; his glare carried a subtle warning.

McGonagall lowered her speech and ended with the note that hung over everything like a lantern. “We will attempt to balance excellence and safety. There will be mistakes. There will be learning. You will be tested in ways different from before. I remind you—Unity, Discipline, Respect, Faith, and Tolerance. These are the backbone of Hogwarts this year.”

The train rattled gently along the tracks, the hum of voices filling the vast railcar like the ocean before a storm. 

McGonagall’s voice had only just faded, her long list of rules and announcements still lingering in the air like a spell that no one quite knew how to react to. Some students whispered excitedly about shortened lessons, others muttered about new uniforms and no house banners, but on one particular bench, tension was building like a string pulled too taut.

Harry Potter sat stiffly by the window, his arm pressed against the cool glass, his gaze fixed—not on the blurred landscape rushing past—but on the pale figure opposite him. Draco Malfoy.

And Draco, of course, wasn’t looking back. His face was angled firmly to the window on his side, jaw tight, grey eyes half-glazed with a determination that screamed ignore him, ignore him, ignore him. 

For Harry, that stung. It wasn’t Malfoy—not the Malfoy who would’ve had something cutting, something sharp, always ready for him. This silence, this avoidance, felt wrong. 

Empty.

So Harry made a decision. 

If Malfoy wouldn’t speak first, he’d make him.

He stretched out his foot deliberately, pressing his shoe down onto Draco’s under the table.

The reaction was immediate. Draco jolted like a cat who’d just had its tail stepped on. His head snapped toward Harry, silver eyes blazing.

“For Merlin’s sake, Potter! STOP dirtying my shoes!” Draco hissed, words tumbling out so quickly he barely took a breath. “Are you that daft? Can’t even keep track of where your feet are going? Chop them off, why don’t you, and feed them to one of your beloved hippogriffs—at least then they’ll serve some actual purpose!”

The insult went on and on, Draco’s voice spitting fire with each word. By the time he finished, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, cheeks flushed pink, grey eyes glittering.

And Harry… Harry just sat there, blinking once, then slowly nodding, a pleased little tug at the corner of his lips. 

He wasn’t hurt, wasn’t offended—he was thrilled. 

Because this was Malfoy. His Malfoy. The boy who spat venom just to keep from choking on his own pride.

Harry almost smiled, but held it back. Barely.

Draco, of course, noticed the twitch of his lip and immediately stomped on Harry’s foot under the table. Hard. Harry’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t give Draco the satisfaction. He only let his smirk finally bloom.

“Thought you were going to avoid me forever,” Harry murmured, low enough that only Draco could hear. “As nice as that would be, I’ve gotten used to your daily dose of absolute nonsense.”

Draco’s flush deepened to a furious red. He glared harder, as if his stare alone could incinerate Harry. And then—because glaring wasn’t enough—he stomped on Harry’s other foot. Even harder.

Harry hissed a little, but the smirk never left his face. Draco wanted to scream.

Across the bench, Darien was watching with a dark glower in Harry’s direction, every inch the protective elder brother, while Silvanius only closed his book slowly, folding his hands over it, his expression calm but unreadable. He glanced between the two boys like he was cataloguing every detail, every word left unsaid.

Beside Harry, Charlie Weasley had been trying very hard to mind his own business—until now. He shot Harry a meaningful look, eyebrows raised high. A silent plea. 

Stop it. Now. Majority is Authority.

Since there were 4 Slytherins and 2 Gryffindors, Charlie didn’t usually care for “majority rules” or the ridiculous weight of Slytherin numbers—but he wasn’t about to let Harry start a fight that could ruin his love life even before it began. The thought alone made his ears burn red, and he immediately turned away, pretending he wasn’t thinking of it at all.

Pansy Parkinson, on the other hand, was not pretending. She leaned back against the bench with a satisfied sigh, letting her eyes slide lazily to the redheaded man beside her. She gave a sharp whistle, eyeing Charlie up and down shamelessly.

“You,” she announced, tapping her manicured finger against her chin, “are the most non-Weasley looking Weasley I’ve ever seen.”

Charlie blinked, startled. Pansy grinned wider. “And you should be grateful, Since I’m no racist—-You’ve officially made it onto my Hot Boy List. Quite the honor, given your surname.”

Harry nearly choked at that, but Charlie didn’t blush, didn’t flinch. He only gave her a dry, bored look, “Thrilling,” he muttered. and turned back to the table.

Silvanius, watching carefully, felt his own cheeks warm. 

He wasn’t stupid. 

He knew. 

Charlie’s attraction wasn’t something easily hidden—and Silvanius wasn’t immune to noticing. The way Charlie kept his composure under Pansy’s flirty declaration, which only made the faint blush creep up his own neck, though he quickly ducked his gaze back to his closed book.

Meanwhile, Harry decided he wasn’t done stirring things up. 

He leaned forward, tapping Pansy on the shoulder making her turn reluctantly toward him.. “What about me?” he asked with mock curiosity, his eyes glinting.  “Am I on your Hot Boy List?”

Draco’s head snapped up so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash. His glare was murderous, silently screaming Don’t you dare, Pansy.

Pansy met that glare with a little smirk, her eyes glittering with amusement. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, considering.

“Well,” she drawled, “being on my list despite being you—” she flicked her eyes to Harry’s scar pointedly, “—might just be the Chosen One’s greatest achievement.”

Harry gave a mock bow in his seat, smirking like he’d just won a duel. Draco groaned loudly, dragging a hand down his face and muttering under his breath.

Harry leaned back, victory clear in every line of his body, before turning back to the blond opposite him.

Draco, desperate to distract himself, yanked a diary from his bag and flipped it open, pulling a pen from his pocket. But the second he glanced up, there was Harry—leaning forward, eyes pointed right at the pages like he had every right in the world to see.

Draco snapped the book shut so hard it made a sharp crack. “Do you literally have any manners at all, Potter?” he snapped, eyes narrowing. “Or do you just shove your insufferable face wherever it doesn’t belong? Honestly, it’s bad enough to look at you without you trying to pry into things that aren’t yours. Get. Your. Ugly. Face. Away.”

Harry, entirely unfazed, only grinned. “But I’m on your best friend’s Hot Boy List,” he said simply, as if that excused everything.

Draco’s face went scarlet. “Get. Off. your mighty horse, Potter,” he hissed.

Harry tilted his head, all false obedience, and nodded once. “Of course. Anything for you.”

The words were mocking, the smile smug. But somewhere under it, Harry’s chest ached with a strange, unspoken warmth. 

And Draco—though he’d never admit it—noted how Potter’s green eyes lingered just a fraction too long, how the smirk curled into something softer if you stared hard enough. He sat stiffly, arms crossed so tight his knuckles turned white, eyes back to stubbornly being on the window. Potter, of course, was relentless. He nudged Draco’s shoe once more beneath the table, smirk tugging at his lips, and when Draco shot him a glare that could have killed a lesser boy, Harry only leaned back, eyes glinting.

Darien pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling hard. He had promised Sirius he’d give Potter a chance.

Darien dragged a hand down his face, breathing out slowly. 

He had promised Sirius he would try with Harry. 

Just one chance. But how could he? 

Because every time his eyes fell on the boy across the table, all Darien could see was his baby brother curled up in bed after the that incident, tie clenched in his trembling hand, shoulders shaking with sobs. 

The sound of it haunted him. His heart ached.

How could he forgive that? 

If only Harry Potter wasn’t Sirius’ son in everything but blood. If only this wasn’t so complicated.

He wished he didn’t have to see Sirius’ fond smile when he looked at Harry. He wished it didn’t matter. He wished Sirius didn’t matter.

But it did. And so, with a deep sigh, Darien finally turned toward Harry.

Harry froze, his smirk vanishing in an instant. The laughter in his eyes faltered as he met Darien’s gaze, green meeting grey. 

He knew. 

He knew exactly what Darien meant, and shame hit him square in the chest. He cursed himself silently. He’d been doing it for months now—every day since the incident. He had been let off so easily by Dumbledore. Too easily. He knew his punishment—losing Hogsmeade weekends, missing Quidditch—was nothing compared to the pain he’d caused and the thought of it sickened him.

He opened his mouth, but Darien cut him off, voice even, heavy.

“Isn’t it time you apologize correctly?”

The words landed like a blow. Draco’s head snapped around from the window, eyes darting between Darien and Harry. His fists clenched where they rested against his arms. He didn’t want this dragged up again. 

He wanted to pretend it had been a nightmare, that it hadn’t left him gutted.

But Harry took a breath and turned to him. His voice was steadier than he felt.

Harry turned, finally, to Draco.

“I know I was let off easy,” he said, voice low but carrying. “I know what I did was… unforgivable. Rival or not, enemy or not—it should never have been done to anyone.”

Draco’s throat went tight. He wanted to shout, to throw a hex, anything but sit there with his brothers watching him hear this.

Harry pressed on. His voice cracked but didn’t falter. “I’m embarrassed for what I did. I’ve wanted to apologize for a long time. Not because your brother told me to, but because it’s been… stuck in me. I even tried on your birthday. You were drunk, and I—”

Draco’s eyes snapped wide. “What the fuck?” he barked, half-standing, fists gripping the edge of the table. His heart was racing, humiliation crashing through him in waves.

Harry raised his hands quickly, surrender plain in his face. “I just meant—I was trying to apologize! Nothing else!”

Silvanius’ gaze sharpened, quiet but piercing. Pansy leaned forward, mouth open. Darien’s jaw was taut. Charlie’s freckles seemed to pale as he gawked at the exchange. And from the railcar just beside theirs, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Cedric, Cho—all of them were watching, the silence between compartments humming.

Pansy leaned forward with a predator’s grin, eyes flicking between Harry and Draco like it was a stage play. And Darien… Darien’s hand hovered near his wand, protective, aching, caught in the middle.

Draco fell back into his seat, shoulders stiff, his voice a low growl. “You’re insufferable.” He crossed his arms tighter, staring hard at the blur of countryside.

Harry leaned forward on his elbows, undeterred. “Come on. Stop ignoring me now.”

Draco sneered, “What are you doing? We are not friends!”

“Please?” Harry tried again, softer this time. “I’m admitting it—I was wrong. Really wrong. Forgive me now?”

Draco’s jaw clenched tighter. His silence only spurred Harry on.

“Come on,” he said, leaning slightly across the table, voice almost playful. “Stop ignoring me now.”

Draco’s jaw flexed, but he stayed fixed on the blur of green fields.

Harry suddenly stood, leaning across the thin table, daring into Draco’s space. His hand came down on Draco’s shoulder, warm and steady. “I mean it.” 

Draco let out a gasp, eyes widening.

Darien’s eyes widened in alarm. He clapped a firm hand on Harry’s shoulder and shoved him back into his seat. “I didn’t tell you to climb all over my brother,” he said, voice icy.

Harry let out a sigh, leaning back but not backing down. His voice hardened. “You’ve said plenty of things, too. You made fun of Ron’s family. Called Hermione a mudblood. Bullied half the school. Mocked muggleborns. Even laughed about my parents—-my dead parents….”

Draco’s hands clenched so hard his knuckles ached. His ears burned red, shame crawling up his neck. Why the hell did Potter have to say this here? In front of Silvanius? In front of both his brothers? He felt stripped, exposed.

Silvanius exhaled sharply, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he’d heard enough. 

“Unbelievable,” he muttered, choosing to stay out of it. Darien shook his head in quiet disbelief. Charlie swallowed hard, eyes darting, visibly uncomfortable.

Pansy, however, rose gracefully, leaning across the table until her perfectly manicured hand rested on Draco’s tense shoulder. “Don’t let him guilt-trip you, darling,” she purred. “Potter’s just trying to worm his way in.”

Harry rolled his eyes, tugging at Pansy’s sleeve with two fingers like she was something distasteful. “Sit down, Parkinson.”

She shot him a withering look but let herself be pulled back into place.

Then Harry leaned forward again, eyes locked on Draco. “But—” his voice softened, warm, almost desperate. “I forgive you for all of it. Every word. Every insult. Please forgive me too. We can turn over a new leaf.”

He extended his hand across the table.

The entire bench seemed to hold its breath.

Draco stared at the hand like it was a snake ready to bite him. His face flushed scarlet. “Cut the crap, Potter. Shut up with this ‘turning over a new leaf’ nonsense.”

But Harry didn’t pull his hand back. His palm stayed open, steady and waiting.

Draco’s lips pressed into a thin line. With a sharp breath of frustration, he slapped Harry’s hand away—but Harry shoved it closer.

Draco groaned, leaned forward, and grabbed the hand in a crushing shake. “Fine. There. Happy?”

Harry’s grin spread slow and victorious. “Ecstatic.”

“Now leave me alone.” Draco yanked his hand back, glaring daggers, but Harry only leaned back in his seat, smirk curling, eyes glinting with mischief.

“Okay, Though I do rather like the sound of you begging me to shut up.”

Draco’s flush deepened. “Potter! Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

Harry nodded immediately, placing a mocking finger on his lips.

And just like that, Draco knew this wasn’t over. Not even close.

Meanwhile, Charlie’s ears burned as Silvanius turned slightly, slipping his glasses off to rub at the bridge of his nose, lashes lowering. The simple motion made Charlie’s throat dry. He was glad for the noise at their table, because the last thing he wanted was anyone noticing the color rising to his cheeks. And his heart, trying to beat out of his chest.

Silvanius glanced up once, catching him staring, and Charlie quickly looked away, fumbling with the hem of his sleeve. Silvanius’ lips curved, just faintly, before he returned to his book.

Pansy noticed, of course, smirking knowingly, but she kept her mouth shut—this time. Oh poor Daphne, would be heartbroken.

Darien, watching it all, only sighed again, leaning back, fingers pressed to his temple. A bored prince in a storm of fools.

And yet, he thought, maybe, just maybe, Sirius had been right.

…

At the far ends of the carriage the changing rooms—small, curtained alcoves that opened into the great bench rows—were full of rustle and laughter as students swapped casual clothes for the new uniform. White shirts slid on. Rich brown ties were knotted with fiddly concentration. Waistcoats were adjusted, trench coats shrugged into place. The simple, coordinated set made even the rougher boys look like they had been polished.

Draco had been stubborn about leaving his diary tucked away, but even he had given in. Now he sat buttoned up in the white shirt and brown tie, waistcoat cinched to the shape of his chest; the trench coat was on the hook, waiting. The cut suited him—too well. The waistcoat’s gold embroidery threw flecks of light whenever he moved. He looked contained and very dangerous. Pansy, across the aisle, made a small appreciative sound and whispered, “Divine.” She was not subtle.

Harry emerged from a curtained alcove with his coat buttoned neatly over the trench. The brown tie lay straight; the trench fell around him like an armour that had somehow softened. He moved with the nervous, awkward confidence of someone who had learned to stand tall and mean it. He passed by the thin table and didn’t look away from Draco.

Darien and Charlie were later to comply. Both had sauntered out in nothing more than shirt and trousers and the prefect badges already pinned to their chests, as if uniforms were accessories and they were choosing not to wear today. McGonagall, who had walked up the carriage with a small army of supervising staff, stopped midsweep and looked at them.

Her silence was worse than any lecture.

“Both of you—now,” she said, her voice cool as glass knives. “Full uniform. Trench coats included.”

Darien and Charlie exchanged a look, identical eye rolls, twin sighs of defeat, and pulled on their coats in sync.
“Tragic,” Darien muttered.
“Positively heartbreaking,” Charlie added.
The faintest twitch in McGonagall’s lips betrayed amusement before she turned away.

Charlie, buttoning his cuffs, glanced at Darien.
“Hey, by the way… do you remember me? I came to Durmstrang once, brought dragons for an event. Brand new tamer then—my first assignment, actually.”

Darien froze, head tilting. Then his eyes widened in a flash of recognition.
“Ohhh,” he drew out, shaking Charlie’s hand firmly. “I didn’t recall your face, but I remember. Thought you looked like one of those other Weasleys who studied there. But yes—we even went archery together, didn’t we?”

Charlie’s grin widened. “Exactly that.”

“I’m terrible at remembering faces. I recall you had a little longer hair then.”

Charlie laughed. “Yeah, Thought you were a Rosenwald. Surprising to find you were a Malfoy.”

Darien’s mouth softened. “Long story—great aunt’s name. Adopted her surname for a time.”

Charlie nodded, immediate warmth in his expression. “Well, whether Rosenwald or Malfoy, you are the same.”

Silvanius, quietly immaculate, fidgeted with his waistcoat chain as if it required philosophical consideration. He clipped one end, then the other, hands precise and unhurried.

“That chain sits perfectly,” Charlie observed, glancing at him with an awkward fondness that made Silvanius look up, a faint pink at his ears.

Harry buttoned his coat with a satisfied grin and tugged his trench over his shoulders like it belonged to him; the new cut made the green in his eyes seem sharper. He turned, caught sight of Draco, and his face changed—softened with something like approval.

Harry leaned closer, tone lighter than the weight he’d carried all afternoon. “You look… really nice.”

Draco froze, fork midair. His eyes cut toward Harry in a lethal glare, the scoffed, “Is this an attempt to derail me with compliments, Potter, or have you finally found taste?”

Harry shifted, mischievous. “Both.” Harry smiled, unfazed. “Is that cake as good as it looks?”

“No,” Draco snapped instantly.

Harry nodded gravely, then reached out, pinched a piece from the side of the cake, and popped it into his mouth, “Mmm. Tasty.”

Draco’s jaw dropped, outrage choking him. Harry’s fingers inched toward the plate again—this time Draco’s fork came down hard, smacking them.

“Ouch!” Harry yelped dramatically, cradling his hand like it was broken

“Come on, one bite? I’ll be polite.” Harry leaned forward conspiratorially, glaring back and gripping his hand.

“No.” Draco’s voice was flat. “Nor one. Nor a single bite. Back off. Stop acting like we are old pals!”

“In twenty years we will be!” Harry grinned making Pansy laugh and clap his shoulder like they were old pals. Draco glared at them both.

“Everything fitting all right?” Flitwick  asked from by the door, bright as ever.

“It’s almost scandalous how flattering these are,” Blaise said, lounging and checking the trench coat lining. “They’ve gotten the cut better than most tailoring houses manage.”

“Ministry money does wonders,” someone muttered, and a ripple of laughter swept the bench.

And just then—the screech of brakes, the train jerking to a halt. The golden horizon spilled into twilight.

They had arrived.

…

The evening air was cool when they stepped off the train, carrying with it the sharp scent of pine from the Forbidden Forest and the faint mist rolling across the Black Lake. The sky had gone deep rose and violet, the last streaks of the sun fading like spilled paint.

And then there were colors. So many colors.

The courtyard was suddenly alive with them—skin like all shades of earth, hair in fiery braids, soft curls, dark silks, pale glints; uniforms bright with trims of silver, blue, green, crimson, even gold; jewelry flashing at throats and wrists; satchels embroidered, scarves tied in styles Harry had never seen before. Faces unfamiliar, voices tumbling in accents from across the world, and yet all of them heading different ways.

The teachers and school supervisors cut through the crowd, sharp and commanding, calling their own students into groups. The Hogwarts lot was swept aside, led not to the Great Hall but toward two high towers glowing faintly in torchlight.

McGonagall stepped forward at the base of the stone steps, her voice carrying clear and strong.

“These will serve as your dormitories for the year. Boys in the first tower, girls in the second. The rooms are large, the beds already laid. You must adjust with them—no complaints, no fuss. Each bed bears your name carved at the foot. There will be no changes.”

A ripple of unease ran through the students. McGonagall’s eyes narrowed, and it quieted.

“House-elves will serve dinner in the dormitory lobbies tonight. Prefects—see that no fights happen. We meet in the Great Hall tomorrow morning.”

And with that, she swept away with the other professors, leaving behind only the thrum of voices and the strange weight of silence.

For a moment, everyone just stood—lost, restless, uncertain. Then Cedric Diggory’s voice rang out, calm but steady, “Lines. Boys here, girls there.”

Darien straightened beside him, adding his own firm tone. “Keep it orderly. You’ll find your beds quicker.”

Charlie clapped his hands once, guiding a cluster of nervous younger ones. Anthony Goldstein raised his voice to repeat the instructions to the back.

Harry and Blaise blinked out of their bored stances, jolting into motion, rushing to herd stragglers behind their seniors. Cedric slipped into the girls’ line to check they were settling in without fuss.

At the rear, Oliver Wood trudged along with Marcus Flint. Both looked oddly out of place among so many fresh faces. “Why didn’t we get made prefects?” Oliver muttered. “We’re built for it.”

Flint gave a short grunt of agreement. “House system’s gone, isn’t it? If they made three former Slytherins and three former Gryffindors prefects, half the school would have had thrown a fit.”

Oliver nodded, resigned. Then his grin returned. “Still. One more year of Quidditch. Worth it.”

Inside, the tower was a maze of staircases and heavy wooden doors leading into sprawling rooms.

When Harry stepped into one, his jaw fell open, “They gave us—bunk beds?”

The rows stretched out endlessly, stacked beds lined neatly with fresh bedding. At the foot of each, a name had been carved in bold, gleaming letters.

The room quickly filled with shouts of recognition.

“Oi! Nott, your bed’s over here!”

“Who’s Tom Fenchly?! found yours by the window!”

“Neville, bottom bunk—lucky!”

Darien wandered into Room Five, spotting his name carved deep into the wood of a lower bunk. He sat down, running a hand across it. Above him, Cedric’s name gleamed at the top bunk. To his right—Silvanius, bottom bunk. 

A smile tugged at his lips. It felt right.

The bunk above Silvanius bore Charlie’s name. Even better. And on his left—Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint, side by side. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.

Draco entered behind him, pale hair catching the torchlight. His eyes scanned until they landed on his own bed, neatly placed beside Silvanius and Charlie’s bunks. Satisfaction flickered through his expression; it was a good arrangement. Comfortable. Safe.

Until—

“Charlie!” Harry’s voice rang out, too pleased. “We’re close! Look!”

Both Draco's and Harry’s eyes snapped at the beds at once, landing on the name carved above Draco’s bed.

HARRY POTTER.

Draco’s stomach sank. His head fell back against the wall, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Harry blinked wide eyes, too. Draco groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Chapter Text

The torches in the boys’ tower had long gone out, leaving only the pale moonlight slanting through the high windows. The bunk beds creaked softly when anyone turned. Room Five smelled faintly of wood polish and damp wool.

Draco lay on his back, eyes wide open, glaring at the canopy of the bunk above. His wand was clenched in his hand, his silencing charm whispering out for the twentieth time that night.

“Silencio.”

The spell shimmered and sank into the posts of his bunk—then spread like water to the whole structure. The world went muffled for half a heartbeat…and then came back with the same faint rustle of blankets, the same soft thump-thump-thump of someone rolling above him.

“Merlin’s bloody beard,” Draco muttered into his pillow, dragging it over his head. He tried again, focusing harder, but the result was the same: the spell clung to the entire bed, not just the bottom bunk.

“Brilliant,” he muttered under his breath. “Absolutely bloody brilliant.”

Another creak. The pillow nearly ripped in Draco’s fists. 

He lay still for a moment, jaw tight, willing himself to ignore the sound. But then the mattress above him groaned again as Potter shifted again, tossing to the other side.

That was it.

With a low, vicious sound, Draco drew back one long leg and kicked the underside of the upper mattress.

Thump!

Potter startled awake with a shout, grabbed for his glasses with one hand and his wand with the other, heart hammering like he was back in a fight for his life.

The second kick landed just as he jammed the glasses onto his face.

Thump!

Harry blinked down through the slats at the pale blur below, recognized the shock of blond hair, and let out a long, shaky breath.

“Merlin’s—” He dropped his wand back on the pillow and pressed the heel of his palm to his face. “It’s just you.”

He let himself flop back onto the mattress like a man saved from drowning.

“Who else, you half-witted bulldozer,” Draco groaned, dragging the pillow over his face.

“Merlin’s beard,” he muttered to himself. “For a second I thought—never mind.” He sank into the mattress with a long breath that almost sounded like a laugh, “What’s wrong with you?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

“What’s wrong with me?” Draco snapped, shoving the pillow aside to glare upward into the dark. “Stop rolling around like a blasted bulldozer and let me sleep!”

Harry gave a soft huff of air, more sigh than laugh. “Sorry. I just—” He hesitated, and Draco could feel the hesitation. “I got insomniac after… the graveyard. The nightmares didn’t really stop. And then Umbridge… then Dumbledore leaving… it just—”

Draco’s eyes widened. His heart kicked against his ribs. Was Potter seriously—seriously—about to spill his sob story at two in the bloody morning?

He cut in, voice sharp and tight. “Shove your sob story up your arse, Potter, and let me sleep!”

Above, Harry let out a small, tired breath, the kind that didn’t even have the energy to argue. “Right. I’ll try not to move so much….you git.” He turned onto his side, the bunk creaking once as he settled.

Draco lay there a while longer, staring at the slanted stripe of moonlight across the floorboards. The room creaked with the night’s chill. He shifted, pulling the blanket a little higher over his shoulder.

He told himself he’d done the sensible thing. He wasn’t Potter’s confessor. He didn’t need to hear about whatever horrors had given the Boy Who Lived insomnia.

Still… there was a tiny, annoying pinch of guilt in his chest. The sort of pinch he hated. It wasn’t as if Potter had meant to keep him awake.

But Malfoys didn’t apologize at two in the morning. Or even in the evening for that matter.

Draco shifted under his blanket with an irritated huff and forced his eyes closed.

…

The next morning, Room Five sounded like a fish market at full swing. Boys were talking over each other, trunks were slamming shut, and someone was arguing about missing socks.

Draco cracked one eye open, annoyed already, and saw Potter awake and sitting at the edge of his bunk. His hair was sticking up in every direction, and he looked grim, talking in a low voice to Ron Weasley, who was perched on the next bed over.

…

Harry rubbed a hand down his face, still feeling the weight of the dream clinging to his chest, “I saw the mirror again, Ron,” he said quietly. “Dumbledore, too. Same as last time.”

Ron sighed, running a hand through his own tangle of red hair. “You sure it’s not just… y’know, random? A dream?”

Harry gave him a flat look. “Yes, I am. You don’t believe me?”

Ron hesitated, then nodded. “I do. Of course, I believe you. I just… wish it wasn’t always so dark with you, mate.”

Harry looked down at his hands. “Hermione won’t believe it. She never does. Unless she’s read about it somewhere first. To her, if it’s not in a book, it doesn’t exist.”

Ron reached out and patted his back, solid and warm. “So what’re we gonna do?”

Harry’s gaze drifted past the crowd of boys milling around the room, falling on the tall, composed figure of Silvanius Malfoy, tightening the buttons of his waistcoat. “I need to talk to Silvanius,” he said, voice low. “I need to get him alone somehow. He always knows more than Hermione.”

“But mate…” Ron winced, “Why would Malfoy help you?”

“Even if he won’t. I can’t just give up.”

…

Soon they were all dressed in the new uniforms, the brown coats and pale shirts lending them a strange sense of unity despite the many schools. Outside in the courtyard, the morning was crisp and bright.

Cedric stood at the front of the boys’ line, voice calm but iron-firm. “Form up. Lines. Two rows. Let’s keep it moving.”

When a group of chattering students didn’t listen, his expression hardened. The sweet-natured Hufflepuff vanished; the young Auror-in-training appeared. 

“I said lines,” he repeated, and without another word, he manhandled two of the boys into their place by the shoulders.

The effect was immediate. The rest fell into order quickly. That made Cho Chang in the girls’ row laugh.

They crossed the courtyard in orderly rows, sunlight striking the windows high above. Silvanius greeted Luna as they passed, but his words trailed off when he noticed her attention elsewhere.

The dreamy-eyed Ravenclaw was peeking over Pansy Parkinson’s shoulder, watching Ginny Weasley carefully painting Padma’s nails as they walked.

A small, amused smile played at the corners of Luna’s mouth. Without a word, she plucked the nail polish bottle from Pansy’s hand, slipped it into her pocket, and with a soft murmur of charm drew tiny silver stars on Pansy’s own freshly painted nails.

The effect was immediate. Daphne, Parvati, Lavender, and a few other girls squealed in delight, crowding in to see.

Silvanius blinked at the scene, then sighed softly and shook his head, deciding that Luna was occupied enough having girls' time.

On the other hand, the dormitory was nearly empty now. Most of the boys had already dashed out after their friends, their hurried footsteps still echoing faintly down the stone stairs. The few left behind were tugging at their ties in front of the mirrors, frantically adjusting collars before sprinting off to catch up with the rest of the student body.

Harry was still on his knees by his trunk, muttering under his breath. He banged the lid shut for the third time with a dull thump, then yanked it open again and began rummaging furiously.

“Where is it—where is that stupid badge—” he growled, tossing a pair of socks over his shoulder.

A few steps away, In the bathroom, Draco stood in front of a tall mirror, frowning at his own reflection. His snowy-blond hair had a natural wave to it that insisted on falling forward. He tried for the fifth time to smooth it back, only for the front strand to fall out rebelliously again. He reached for a jar of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion on the counter—then caught sight of the label. His face twisted.

“Absolutely not. I’d rather shave it off than use Potter’s bloody product, and fund his vault.”

He threw the jar back down with a soft clink and, after a long glare at his reflection, let the wavy bangs fall over his forehead for the day.

“Bloody perfect,” he muttered, followed by a few sharp curse words directed at his hair, “Fuck it.” Then he paused, looked at himself again, and with an air of Malfoy propriety muttered, “Improper.”

He turned on the tap, splashed a little water into his mouth, and rinsed it out as if to wash away the bad words.

By the time he stepped out of the washroom, Potter was clumsily fastening his newly found prefect badge onto the fine trench coat. Draco’s lips curved in a sharp, amused sneer. He slipped the silver Malfoy family ring onto his right hand, beside the thinner purity ring, adjusted it once, and strode for the door.

“Hey, wait!” Harry called, slamming the trunk shut and hurrying after him. “We can walk together. You’re alone anyway.”

Draco didn’t even slow down. “I am not Granger or Weasley, Potter.” Then Draco stopped and shuddered at his own words as if it physically pained him.

Harry rolled his eyes and caught up in two long strides. “Merlin, are you capable of saying one nice word in a day?”

Draco came to a sudden halt, turned his head slightly, and flashed a dry, sarcastic smile. He shook his head once, “No,” And then picked up his pace again, the tails of his coat flaring slightly behind him.

Harry fell in beside him, grumbling, “You’re such a—such a bitch sometimes.”

“Oh, and you,” Draco shot back with a glance, “are a half-witted bulldozer who ruins other people’s sleep.”

They were still bickering like children as they crossed the courtyard. Their boots clicked on the cobblestones, the autumn air crisp around them. Harry gestured accusingly, Draco pointed right back, the argument rising in volume.

“Half-witted bulldozer—really? That’s the best you’ve got?” Harry said incredulously.

“More than enough for you,” Draco replied coolly.

Harry threw up a hand. “You just can’t stand being wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” Draco said, chin lifting.

They were so busy glaring and pointing fingers at each other that neither noticed the tall figure striding toward them from the side until they nearly collided. The three stopped abruptly, standing almost chest to chest.

The newcomer was dressed in a black, high-collared military-cut jacket fastened neatly all the way to the top. Intricate gold embroidery traced the cuffs and epaulettes, catching the morning light. A pair of black gloves was tucked casually into one hand. Black trousers, perfectly tailored, fell in straight, clean lines to polished black shoes. His dark hair was slightly tousled, giving him a look both aristocratic and untamed. His hazel eyes—sharp, almost wolfish—glinted as they took in the two boys before him.

He shifted his gaze from Harry to Draco, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. His eyes moved slowly, appraisingly, sliding from Draco’s head down to the polished black shoes and then back up with an almost lazy deliberation.

He let out a low, appreciative whistle.

“What a good day,” he said, voice smooth as velvet, “to have eyes…”

Harry stiffened immediately, his jaw clenching. “You wouldn’t want to lose them then, would you?”

The boy laughed softly, rolled his eyes at Harry’s words, and held out his hand to Draco instead.
“Nikolai Wolfgard, from Russia,” he said with easy charm. “Can I have your name, darling?”

Draco’s expression was as cold as ice. Without a word, he stepped past the outstretched hand and walked straight into the Great Hall.

Nikolai chuckled under his breath and turned his attention back to Harry, holding the same hand out again. “Nikolai Wolfgard.”

Harry shook it with a blank, unimpressed look. “Harry Potter.”

For the first time in years, hearing his own name produced no flicker of recognition in the other boy’s eyes. Nikolai only smiled in that same teasing way and gave a small nod.

“I’m a prefect,” Harry said flatly. “Can’t have students being late. That’s why I said that, Don’t ever stop students in the corridors again.”

“Ah,” Nikolai replied lightly with a shrug. “Duty calls.”

Harry turned and strode off quickly toward the hall, not looking back. Nikolai lingered for a heartbeat, then followed at a more leisurely pace, his eyes roaming over the soaring stone arches and shadowed vaults of Hogwarts’ gothic architecture. It was so different from the grandeur of Russia, and he seemed to savor the contrast.

The Great Hall was vaster than Harry had ever seen it. 

For a moment, he forgot himself—his mouth parted slightly in sheer awe at the sight. The enchanted ceiling arched high overhead, the morning sky spilling pale gold light down on the room. Instead of the familiar four long tables, there were twelve, each longer than the old ones, stretching almost from one end of the hall to the other. The flags of many schools hung down the walls, their colors rippling softly in the draft.

Harry caught himself gaping and quickly shut his mouth, squaring his shoulders. His eyes darted through the crowd, searching for the familiar. He spotted the distinctive pale head of Draco Malfoy first, then took the lead to search for the bright ginger of Ron’s hair beside it. Relief flickered across his face as he made his way through the sea of new students and squeezed in between them.

The hum of voices in the vast space was like the ocean—dozens of accents, dozens of languages, all blending into one restless tide under the vaulted ceiling as Hogwarts prepared to host the Hendeka Games.

The Hall was a riot of banners and uniforms — maroon uniforms and brown furs of Durmstrang, the snowy blue-silvers of Beauxbatons, the deep royal blues and golds of Mahoutokoro, Bright greens and yellows of Castelobruxo, Hogwarts’ own rich brown shades, Koldovstoretz black and gold, China’s red and gold, Uagadou’s earthy shades, Ankhura’s white and gold and many many other uniforms. 

The long tables had been rearranged to form a single wide aisle down the middle for the delegations to enter.

Darien was halfway through his soup when a voice with a thick, rolling German accent cut through the buzz:

“Darien! Rosenwald!…Darien!”

He stopped, spoon halfway to his mouth. A grin broke across his face; he set the spoon down and twisted around in his seat.

“Oh mien—” Darien laughed, pushing back his chair. “Hold on, you lot— give me a second.”

Before Draco could ask what on earth was going on, Darien was already standing, waving to a group of Durmstrang students at the far table. They were waving both arms, beckoning. Viktor Krum was right in the front, practically bouncing in place.

Darien turned back to his brother and the others.

“I’ll be over there. Haven’t seen them in ages,” he said, the smile not leaving his face. “Don’t wait up.”

He slipped out from between Silvanius and Charlie. The Durmstrang table erupted as he crossed over; chairs screeched, hands clapped his shoulders, and Krum grabbed him in a bear hug that almost lifted him off his feet.

‘“Dar’ien! You still alive?” Krum boomed.

“Survived so far,” Darien shot back, laughing as more of the old Durmstrang team crowded around. “You’ve all gotten broader. What are they feeding you now?”

They laughed, some shouting answers in thick accents. The sight of Darien lost in their circle made Silvanius huff a small, amused breath.

He shook his head as if to say typical, and the corners of his mouth twitched in what almost counted as a smile.

Charlie noticed, and for some reason that little glint of humor made the tips of his ears turn red. With Darien gone from between them, Charlie shifted a little closer to Silvanius, pretending to reach for the bread basket.

Across the table, Draco sat stiffly, realizing with growing irritation that he was now directly opposite the Golden Trio.

He clenched his jaw and deliberately turned his gaze to the other tables.

The sight of the Beauxbatons blue uniforms drew his eyes— and then froze him.

Among the pale blue coats and silver fastenings was a head of very familiar white-blond hair. The chair the boy was sitting on screeched as it was shoved back.

Two other boys with the same air — Julius and Edmund — were already getting to their feet, grinning.

Draco jerked upright so fast his own chair skidded back.

Silvanius, sensing his brother’s reaction, looked up sharply and then followed Draco’s gaze. His usually calm composure cracked into genuine surprise. He rose too, just as Julius and Edmund waved enthusiastically and came striding toward the Hogwarts table.

“Dray! Si!” Julius’s voice carried across the space, full of excitement.

The pair of them didn’t even slow down before they were hugging Draco in turn, then Silvanius — Edmund practically lifting Silvanius in a short, laughing squeeze.

“What are you— what are you doing here?” Draco demanded, still half stunned, as they all pulled apart.

“All of us are here!” Julius announced, eyes bright. “Mum’s here too, and Adrien, Annaliese, Sebastian— we couldn’t miss it!”

“Wait— what?” Silvanius blinked. “You don’t even attend Beauxbatons.”

“Technically we do,” Mathilda said as she caught up, smoothing down her pale blue sleeve and tucking a loose curl behind her ear. She looked every bit as startled-happy to be there.

“All our teachers and curriculum are Beauxbatons-standard. The Headmistress insisted we come as part of the delegation.”

“But—” Draco began.

“No buts,” Julius cut in with a laugh. “The moment we heard we’d get to see this all, we were already packing.”

Draco’s mouth opened, then closed. His usually cool composure faltered into something softer before he remembered himself and straightened his coat.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were staring, jaws nearly dropping. Ron leaned across to Harry, whispering— not quietly enough—

“You’ve got to be joking. There are more of them?”

From farther down the table came Fred’s dry snicker: “Oh good. Just what we needed. More of the same brand of arrogant gits.”

George added, grinning: “Think they come in sets of twelve?”

Draco’s sharp glare shot down the table like a hex. Silvanius, by contrast, didn’t so much as blink, merely resting one arm on the table and watching Julius and Edmund with mild fondness.

Mathilda laughed softly and gave Draco’s sleeve a friendly pat.

“We’ll be over there,” she said, tilting her head toward the blue-clad Beauxbatons table. “But we’re coming back for stories after the opening feast.”

Before Draco could respond, a clear, magically amplified voice rang through the Great Hall.

“Students and guests— please take your seats.”

The crowd quieted as the Headmaster of Hogwarts rose at the central podium.

Behind him, the long head table bore not the familiar Hogwarts professors but the heads of the visiting schools: stern-faced, robed or uniformed in their own colors — Beauxbatons’ elegant Madame Maxime, Durmstrang’s broad-shouldered master in deep red, and others from schools most Hogwarts students had only heard of.

Julius, Edmund, and Mathilda gave their cousins quick waves before hurrying back to their own table.

Ron watched them go and muttered to Harry,

“I really can’t believe there really, actually, are more of them. Were three and then two more not enough?”

Harry only shook his head, still watching Draco’s expression — an odd mix of annoyance, relief, and something that looked almost like excitement.

…

The Hall quieted as the tall silver candelabras floated a little higher, their flames steady despite the draught from the open doors.

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore stepped forward from the center of the high table. His half-moon spectacles glinted in the candlelight; his eyes twinkled as he raised both hands in greeting.

“Good morning my students!” His voice, magnified by the hall’s ancient magic, carried to every corner with a calm authority.
“
I welcome you all to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This year, the old stones of this castle have the honor of hosting the Legendary Hendeka Games. It is a great privilege to welcome not only our own students, but our friends and rivals from—”

He paused for effect, his smile widening.

“Durmstrang Institute, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, Mahoutokoro School of Magic, Longmen Xueteng of China, Ilvermorny School of Magic, Castelo Bruxo de foresta mistica, Koldovstoretz of Russia, Ankhura of Egypt, Suryanagar Vidyashram of India, and Uagadou School of Magic of Africa in Uganda.”

The names rippled across the hall like banners being unfurled. The delegations from each school applauded politely; some tables erupted in spirited cheers.

Dumbledore’s gaze moved fondly across the rows of students.

“I believe you have already heard the rules and arrangements for the Games from your own Headmasters or Vice-Headmasters. Therefore, we will go straight to the most immediate matter — the teaching staff. Some changes have been made at Hogwarts for this special year, and it is only proper that I introduce everyone to you.”

He gestured toward the teachers’ table.

“We shall begin with the basic subjects: Transfiguration will continue to be taught by our own Professor Minerva McGonagall, joined this year by the renowned designer and expert in advanced transfiguration, Mr. Michael Johnson. It is a great honor to have Mr. Johnson with us — I am certain his experience will inspire many.”

The Hogwarts students applauded; McGonagall gave a small, approving nod while Michael Johnson stood briefly, offering a courteous bow.

“For Defence Against the Dark Arts we are fortunate to have two masters of the craft: Professor Remus John Lupin,” Dumbledore smiled toward the gentle-eyed man, “and the ever-vigilant Professor Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody.”

Moody gave a stiff nod; his magical eye whirled as if scanning the entire hall. A few first-years shrank back slightly at the sight.

“Potions shall continue under the capable hands of Professor Severus Snape, who will be joined this year by an old friend of Hogwarts, Professor Horace Slughorn.”

Slughorn beamed and raised a hand in genial acknowledgment; Snape merely inclined his head, his black robes unmoving.

“Charms will be taught by our dear Professor Filius Flitwick. The second seat for Charms remains empty for now, as we have yet to find a teacher who meets the high standard we seek, but the search continues.”

“For Herbology, we are blessed to have our trusted Professor Pomona Sprout, as well as the master of the grand art of natural elements, Professor Tarquin Gilles. Professor Gilles will guide you in exploring the deeper harmony between nature and magic.”

Professor Sprout clapped her hands together cheerfully; Professor Gilles — a tall, ash-haired wizard with earth-stained fingers — bowed slightly in acknowledgment.

“For Quidditch and flying, you will still have our steadfast Madam Rolanda Hooch,”

Dumbledore continued, “and it gives me great pleasure to announce that she will be joined by your new coach — an innocent survivor of Azkaban, a man who has suffered yet endured — Professor Sirius Orion Black.”

The Gryffindors exploded with cheers and whistles; even a few students from other houses clapped warmly. Sirius grinned broadly and gave a mock-salute, earning more laughter and applause.

Dumbledore raised a calming hand. “Other subjects will continue under their respective teachers. This year, many of them will have assistants, but most have insisted on handling their own classes, as their subjects are smaller and quite particular.”

His voice gentled a little, but gained a solemn undercurrent.

“As we begin this historic year together, I ask every student — from Hogwarts and from every honored school represented here — to remember the values that make magic a blessing rather than a curse: Unity, Faith, Discipline, Tolerance, and Respect. You will have the chance to learn not only from your professors but also from masters and experts in various magical disciplines, as well as from the special trainers and coaches for the Games themselves. All such guests, as well as the faculty from the visiting schools, will be seated at the Twelfth Table at the end of the hall.  In the coming weeks, you will come to know them well.”

He spread his arms wide, and his eyes twinkled once more.

“For now, let us set aside worries of trials and rivalries. Today we eat as friends. Let the feast begin!”

The enchanted golden plates filled instantly with a lavish spread. The roar of chatter and laughter returned, louder than before, as hungry students reached for roast beef, steaming soups, warm breads, and shimmering pitchers of pumpkin juice.

Darien was still half-leaning over the Durmstrang table, sharing a story with Viktor Krum, while Silvanius calmly served himself a portion of roast potatoes as if the hall weren’t shaking with excitement.

Chapter Text

The hall was full of noise—cutlery clinking, students laughing, plates steaming with food from every corner of the world—but Draco’s attention snagged on the boy sitting across, further down the table. Blaise hadn’t touched his meal. His spoon hovered above the soup as if he’d forgotten what to do with it. His eyes weren’t on the table or the food or even the hall. They were somewhere far off, in a place none of them could see.

Theo noticed it too. 

For a heartbeat his brow furrowed, then smoothed again as if nothing had happened. He shifted in his seat, letting his elbow rest lazily on the table as he looked toward Draco. Their eyes met for a fleeting second, both of them reading the same thing in Blaise’s silence.

When Blaise suddenly stood, scraping his chair back, no one else at the table seemed to care—students were too busy with their food, with gawking at the foreign schools, with the chatter about the Games. 

But Theo’s eyes followed him. Draco’s too.

Blaise slipped out of the Hall without a word.

Theo stayed where he was for a moment, his voice too casual when he turned to Draco and said, “Fancy a walk?”

Draco didn’t even glance at him. He set his fork down, a faint, knowing smile ghosting his lips. “Why not,” he said, as if the suggestion meant nothing. He pushed his chair back and got up.

Across the table, Harry looked up from his plate, frowning. He’d been about to ask Draco something about the announcements, but now he watched him and Theo head for the door. He half-rose himself, but Ron tugged at his sleeve.

“Sit down,” Ron said, oblivious. “Have you tried the curry yet? It’s brilliant—spicy as hell. They’ve brought stuff from everywhere!”

Harry sighed, sinking back onto the bench, but his eyes didn’t leave Draco’s back as the blond disappeared through the big oak door, with another blonde.

…

The corridors outside were cool and quiet after the warmth of the Hall. The echo of footsteps on stone carried faintly down the long corridor. Draco and Theo hurried after Blaise, their pace brisk, almost unthinking. They caught up with him just as he pushed open the door to the nearest bathroom.

Theo reached out, fingers closing around Blaise’s arm, spinning him around before he could disappear inside. “What’s going on with you?” he asked, voice lower now, more serious.

Blaise’s eyes flicked to Theo’s hand on his arm, then to Draco approaching behind him. His face twisted into something sharp and defensive. “Nothing,” he said, trying to jerk free.

“Don’t lie,” Theo shot back, still holding on. “You’ve been quiet ever since we entered The Great Hall.”

Blaise’s lips pressed together in a thin line as he yanked his arm again, but Theo didn’t let go. He took a half-step forward instead, forcing Blaise to look at him.

Draco moved to the other side, leaning one shoulder casually against the wall so he blocked Blaise’s path into the bathroom. His voice was calm, but his grey eyes were fixed, piercing. “Cut the act, Zabini. What’s eating you?”

“Leave me alone,” Blaise snapped, and this time he ripped his arm free with more force. His hand shot up, fisting the collar of Draco’s uniform jacket, pulling him a fraction closer. “You don’t get it. Just—leave it.”

The sudden flare of anger hung between them. The torchlight caught something beneath Blaise’s cuff as his sleeve slipped back—just a glint of gold. A small beater’s bat charm dangling from the bracelet Draco had given him.

For a moment, all three of them looked at it.

The reminder of who they were—the same house, the same team, the same long, tangled history—cut through Blaise’s anger like a blade. His grip on Draco’s collar slackened. 

Draco exhaled sharply and brushed Blaise’s hand aside, his tone carrying a trace of dry humor as if to ease the tension. “Watch the collar. It’s tailored.”

Blaise didn’t answer. He tugged his sleeve down quickly, hiding the bracelet again, and moved past them to sit against the cool stone wall, inside the bathroom, shoulders dropping as if something heavy had settled there.

Theo and Draco exchanged a glance. No words were needed. They both moved, sitting down on either side of Blaise—their shoulders forming a quiet, protective circle around him.

For a long time, no one spoke. The silence wasn’t awkward. It was the kind of silence that said, we’re here.

At last, Theo tilted his head just enough to glance at Blaise. His voice was softer now. “You know you can trust us.”

Blaise didn’t look at him. His hands were clasped loosely in his lap, the knuckles pale. He stayed quiet a moment longer, as if measuring whether his voice would betray him if he spoke. Then, almost reluctantly, words came.

“I saw…” He faltered. “I saw Uagadou’s vice headmaster.”

Theo frowned, not quite understanding. “So?”

Blaise gave a short, bitter laugh, one without any humor in it. “It’s… my father.”

Draco blinked, taken aback, his usual sharp wit stumbling over the thought. “You’re having us on.”

Blaise shook his head. “I’m not.”

Theo stared, trying to piece the words together. “Your father… as in…”

Blaise’s eyes shifted down to the floor, as if the flagstones were easier to look at than their faces. “My mother’s first husband,” he said quietly. “The only one who lived long enough to be divorced.”

Draco and Theo both swallowed, the sound loud in the still corridor. Everyone knew the whispers about Blaise’s mother. Her husbands had a habit of dying young—accidents, illnesses, duels gone wrong. All but one. None of them ever brought it up, not even as a joke.

Draco found his voice first, though it came out a little unsteady. “So… you’re telling us you’re the son of Uagadou’s vice headmaster. That makes you—what, Blaise Zabini, heir of two fortunes?”

Blaise let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I don’t feel like an heir to anything.”

Theo’s brow furrowed. “Are you going to talk to him?”

Blaise’s fingers tightened in his lap, knuckles white now. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

There was a beat of silence.

He added, more quietly, “I think he recognized me.”

Draco and Theo looked at each other again, but this time neither of them had anything clever to say.

Blaise’s voice broke a little as he went on, softer, almost raw. “What am I even supposed to say to him? The last time we met I was five. I don’t even… I don’t even know what his voice sounds like anymore.”

The words hung there, and for a moment, the corridor felt hollow. Like something unseen had pulled all the air out of it.

What are you supposed to say to a man you’ve never called Dad?

To someone who was a shadow in the corner of your earliest memory, then gone.

To someone whose absence became a habit, the kind you stopped questioning because it hurt less that way.

Draco sat very still, his usual composure stripped away. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing—at softness—but something in Blaise’s voice, the way it cracked on the edges, made his throat tighten.

Theo finally spoke, his tone low, steady. “You don’t have to say anything tonight. You don’t have to say anything until you’re ready.”

Blaise huffed out a breath, part sigh, part bitter laugh. “Ready,” he echoed, shaking his head. “Do you think I’ll ever be ready for that?”

The three of them sat there a while longer. No words, no clever jibes, no laughter. Just three boys sitting on the cold stone floor, the shadows of torchlight flickering across their faces.

In that moment they weren’t heirs, or Slytherins, or Quidditch teammates. They were just boys, and one of them was staring at the impossible shape of the word father, trying to imagine how it would sound if he said it out loud.

The memory didn’t come in neat pieces. It came in a rush that made Draco’s chest feel hollow and too full at the same time.

One moment he was sitting on the cold bathroom floor beside Theo and Blaise, watching the older boy’s shoulders sag under a weight none of them could see, and the next he was three years old again, running barefoot down the long slope of a Wiltshire hill, the summer grass scratching his shins.

The sky was pale and high; the wind pushed against his little chest, so big it almost knocked him off balance. His bangs kept falling into his eyes, soft and silvery, and he puffed them away with small breaths as his hands reached for the river glinting like a ribbon of glass at the bottom of the hill.

He had run all the way back to the manor that day with his trousers damp and muddy, hair sticking to his forehead. Mother had laughed—he still remembered the sound, bright and round like the bells of the manor’s greenhouse—while Father had sighed, his voice sharp but oddly distant.

“Look at you,” Lucius had said, one long finger hooking under Draco’s chin to make him look up. “A Malfoy is never meant to come home like a stray dog from the fields.”

Draco had bit his lip so hard not to cry that the skin stayed sore for days. His mother’s hands were warm as she wiped the mud off his cheeks. Father’s voice was cool as he sent him off to wash. The memory of that strange mixture of shame and the desperate wish to make Father proud stayed with him like a thorn.

Another memory unfolded, of the same year, winter now.

He was three. The snow outside was thin, the air around the windows smelled of frost. Mother was kneeling in front of him, struggling to get his arm through a stiff new sweater. His small face peeked out of the collar at last, flushed and frowning, and he had asked, in that quick high child’s voice,

“Mama?  Why’s ather sho… sho cross all the time?”

Narcissa had only smiled that soft closed-mouth smile she wore whenever she was hiding something. “That’s how fathers are, my baby. Now, hand in—” She tugged at the sleeve, Draco immediately clenched his eyes closed, and as soon as his little fingers poked out he opened his eyes quickly and counted each one, whispering under his breath—“one, two, three, four, AND  FIVE!”—to make sure the sweater hadn’t stolen any.

He remembered the feel of her fingers smoothing down his hair. He remembered not really believing her answer.

He was five again, sitting cross-legged in the garden, the late-spring Wiltshire breeze soft and heavy with damp. A crup pup had followed him home; its forked tail was matted with mud. Draco had been giggling, feeling the sunlight on his neck.

“You’re a dirty thing,” he had whispered to the pup, “but when Father leaves, I’ll take you in. Mama will help you wash. She’s very nice. Gives sweets if you’re a good boy.”

The pup had closed its eyes, head heavy on Draco’s thigh.

And then the shadow of Lucius Malfoy fell over them both. The shout, the sharp grab at his arm, the way the crup was thrown out past the iron gate like a lump of nothing.

“Wash your hands. And go study,” Father had ordered.

Draco had nodded, throat too tight to speak, and had run, not daring to look back.

Seven. Sitting in the library with a thin, soft-paged book he’d taken from the Wilthshire wizards’ library, mouth moving over the strange words—“A Lover’s Complaint, by Shakespeare.”

Father’s hand had closed over the book before Draco even heard him come in. The sound of pages tearing still rang in his memory like a scream.

“Muggle filth. You will not fill your head with this rot.”

“I—I didn’t know, Father,” Draco had stammered, eyes wide with terror.

“Muggles burn our kind alive in their village squares, didn’t I tell you?!. Remember that.”
That night he had cried until his chest ached, while Mother stroked his hair and told him stories until he slept.

Nine. The trip to Italy. A boy with dark curls, younger than Draco, had shown him a toy broom, and for a few hours they’d been just boys running along a shore that smelled of salt.

Then the boy had said, with an innocent smile, that his parents were Muggles, but he was a wizard, wasn’t that….magical?.

Draco had felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. His father was coming down the path toward them.

“You—” Draco had blurted, his face going cold, “you’re a mudblood. You are filthy. You should die.”

The boy had gone away crying.

Lucius had rested a proud hand on Draco’s shoulder.

“I knew you were always my perfect son, Draco.”

Even now, the guilt and the strange burst of warm pride he’d felt in that moment burned side by side in his chest.

All kids want, he thought now, sitting against the cool tiles of the bathroom wall, all their soft, innocent hearts want is a bit of love, a bit of pride shining in someone’s eyes. And they’ll do anything—anything at all—to get it. To keep it.

They are like sponges. They drink in whatever is around them, even poison, if it comes with a smile.

And yet, there were the other memories.

His father’s hand closing around his own, firm and unshaking, in the Ministry hall when the crowd had jeered.

The way Lucius had stood in front of him, an unbending wall, when an older boy had tried to hex him on the street.

The way he had always, always stepped forward when Draco needed him, even if his voice was hard as iron.

He missed him.

The thought came as sharp and simple as a cut.

Draco exhaled and leaned his head back against the wall.

“I… I can’t say I had it easy,” he said finally, voice low. “I grew up scared of saying the wrong thing. Always trying to be what he wanted. But I loved my father. I still do. I miss him. He… he was the reason no one could walk all over me. The reason I could hold my head up. Even if he never said it soft.”

Theo’s face softened, the corners of his mouth twitching as if he was swallowing his own thoughts. His father had been his whole world—the man who had raised him alone, who had been father and friend in one.

Theo didn’t speak for a long time. His gaze stayed on his knees.

“I love my father too….he’s my everything, my father, my mother, my everything,” he said at last, voice rough. “I didn’t want him dragged into all this dark mess again. But I want him alive. That’s all.”

The three boys sat there, shoulders touching, silent again. It wasn’t comfort exactly. But it was a little less lonely.

They were sitting in silence, the air still thick from what had just passed between them. Right then, from the other side of the wall, a throat cleared—light, deliberate.

All three boys turned their heads toward the door.

Pansy.

She wasn’t even standing in the doorway; she was leaning against the wall just outside, arms crossed, a picture of nonchalance.

“As tragic as your lot’s sob-story is,” she said dryly, “it’s time for our first class, so get your arses up and follow me.”

Draco gave a short, startled laugh, nearly slipping on the wet tile. Theo jolted to his feet so fast he nearly tripped over Blaise’s trench coat. Blaise only rolled his eyes and stalked toward the door.

“How long,” Blaise asked in a slow, accusing tone, “have you been standing here?”

Pansy flicked a lock of hair behind her ear with the kind of haughty grace only she could pull off. “Ever since you three ran away like frightened first-years. I thought I’d give you time to wallow.”

Theo groaned. “You were there the whole time?”

“I even considered humming a tune to give you a dramatic background score,” she said, stepping aside so they could exit. “But I decided your melodrama didn’t deserve it.”

Draco chuckled despite himself. The boys exchanged glances, all of them covertly wiping the mist from the corners of their eyes before following her out.

Pansy, of course, noticed but pretended not to—except for the faintest quirk of her mouth.

Halfway down the corridor, she reached into her satchel and fished out two sandwiches. Without breaking stride, she tore them in halves, passing a piece to each of the three boys and keeping one for herself. None of them refused.

“What’s our first class?” Draco asked after taking a small mouthful of bread.

Pansy’s lips curled into a smirk. “Quidditch.”

All three boys brightened as if someone had cast Lumos right in their faces.

…

The whole Hogwarts student body was gathered at the Quidditch pitch. Across the field stood the students of Koldovstoretz, dark-cloaked and sharp-eyed, a solid, silent wall of the famous Russian school.

From among them, a tall boy broke into an easy run, boots crunching on the grass as he crossed the halfway line.

Nikolai Wolfgard again—lean, broad-shouldered, and wearing a grin.

He stopped just short of Draco, his gaze locking onto the blond with a kind of amused triumph. “Feels like destiny, doesn’t it?” he drawled. “We meet again… immediately after breakfast.”

He didn’t even bother to hide the way his eyes lingered on Draco as he spoke.

Pansy, standing a step behind Draco, gave a bark of laughter that earned her a pointed glance from Theo.

Harry, who had been standing a little ways off, frowned. The narrowing of his eyes was immediate, protective, and just a little territorial. He turned toward the man stepping onto the field with Madam Hooch.

“Professor Black,” Harry called out, raising his hand as if in class, “this boy from the other school is bothering us and trying to spy.”

Sirius Black paused, then straightened, a slow grin spreading over his face. Being called Professor Black had clearly made something unfurl in his chest. He slipped on his best authoritative expression and strode forward.

“Young man,” Sirius said, in a tone that carried across the pitch, “I’ll have to ask you to leave before I’m forced to start taking points off your school, before you’ve even earned them.”

Nikolai tilted his head, narrowed his eyes at Harry, then tucked his hands into his pockets. There was a half-second of silence where everyone wondered what he’d do.

Then, with a grin sharp enough to cut glass, he turned to Harry and spoke, “We have a common saying where I come from—‘Snitches get bitches.’”

The Koldovstoretz students laughed low and rough as Nikolai turned and strolled back to his side of the field without another glance.

Draco’s shoulders shook as he tried, and failed, to muffle his laughter behind his hand.

Harry turned to him sharply. “Cut it out,” he muttered, giving Draco’s shoulder a light shove.

Draco, losing the battle entirely, doubled over, choking out between breaths, “Snitches… get… bitches!”

Even Pansy snorted, trying to hide it behind her palm, while Theo just sighed and shook his head.

Madam Hooch’s whistle cut across the pitch like a sharp blade. It startled even the chatterboxes. A faint shimmer spread from the tip of her wand as she cast a Sonorous charm.

“Everyone, pay attention and stand straight!” her voice boomed, carrying all the way to the Koldovstoretz students at the other end.

The murmurs died. The Hogwarts students, still adjusting their brooms or gossiping in little knots, straightened.

“Listen carefully,” Madam Hooch barked. “All of you who have played Quidditch before, wish to continue, or would like to try out for the first time, move to the left. Those who are not interested in playing will take your school’s brooms and practice basic flying or play together. Nobody sits around like lazy lumps or hides behind a book—this is not your classroom. Physical exercise is as important as wandwork.”

Her eyes swept the field with such force that even a few of the Slytherins flinched. Within moments, a wave of students shuffled toward the left side of the pitch. A surprisingly large number trotted off to fetch brooms, leaving behind about sixty who were serious about trying for the new teams.

Sixty. Still not exactly a small crowd.

On a table dragged out to the edge of the pitch, Sirius Black sat down with a thick leather-bound register spread open before him. His legs were sprawled comfortably beneath the table as he flipped pages like a man thumbing through an old adventure novel.

“Merlin’s beard…” he muttered, scanning a record dated 1987. He peered over the top of the page at a red-haired man standing nearby. “Charlie Weasley.”

Charlie, already holding his broom, looked up with a faint smile.

“You still hold the record for scoring every possible goal as a chaser during your final year,” Sirius said, grinning.

Charlie rubbed the back of his neck. “Old times.”

“Old times or not,” Sirius said, leaning forward to pat Charlie on the shoulder, “you’re still going through trials like everyone else. We’ll see if you’ve gone soft on quidditch after all these years of dragon-chasing.”

Charlie chuckled. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Madam Hooch stepped forward again, her whistle glinting like a tiny blade at her throat. “Before we begin, there is an important change. This year’s tournament will use Uagadou’s format. Uagadou is the largest and oldest magical school in the world, and their style gives more students a chance to play and makes the game less reliant on a single seeker.”

A ripple of excited murmurs spread through the crowd. Heads turned, eyes brightened. Sirius stood, clapped his hands once, and the field went quiet.

“Right then, listen up,” he said, his grin returning. “Here’s how it works. There will be four goal-rings for each team—so, four keepers. Four beaters. Six chasers and two seekers.”

A collective gasp rose from the students.

“And you’re going to love this,” Sirius added, holding up a finger. “There won’t be just one snitch. There’ll be multiple snitches. Each snitch you catch earns your team fifty points. Each goal still earns ten points. Chasers score them, keepers keep the other team’s out, and beaters… well, well, well, you know what beaters do best.” He smirked, wriggling his eyebrow suggestively, making the students snort and laugh, but then they recalled what the main point was.

And for a heartbeat, no one spoke. Then the murmurs returned, louder, a buzz of disbelief and excitement. Several students exchanged looks that said, This changes everything.

Madam Hooch’s sharp tone cut through their awe. “Get your heads together. There may be more spots on the team, but only sixteen players will make it through the trials. Stop gaping and start practicing.”

That got a few nervous laughs, but it also got brooms into hands.

Sirius dragged his chair back and dropped into it with all the casualness of a man about to call names for a pub quiz. Madam Hooch stood beside him, her arms crossed.

“Let’s start with the seekers,” Sirius said, tapping his quill on the parchment. His voice rose so the nearest cluster of students could hear. “Harry Potter! Draco Malfoy! Cedric Diggory! Cho Chang! Helena Goldstein! Steel Smith!”

A ripple ran through the crowd as the six best seekers stepped forward, some confident, some not so much.

“There are six of you,” Sirius said, “but only two spots. Make me proud.”

Cedric raised a hand. “Professor—if I may. I’ll still try out as a seeker, of course, but these days I’ve been playing chaser with the Auror trainees. I’d rather try for a chaser spot this time, I think I would like that spot better.”

Sirius blinked, looked down at the register, and made a dramatic face as he struck Cedric’s name off the seeker list. “What a loss,” he said with a pout, then shrugged. “But whatever suits you, Cedric.”

Cedric smiled and stepped back.

Sirius looked at the remaining five. “All right. Best of luck. Get out there, practice. Trials will be on Wednesday morning, same time.”

The five nodded and hurried off toward the far side of the field, Harry tossing his broom from hand to hand as Draco smirked faintly at his side.

Next, Sirius’s eyes scanned the next name. His tone shifted, quieter but firm. “Darien Malfoy!”

Darien, who had been talking with Cedric—no doubt about this very decision—straightened. He exchanged a quick glance with his younger brothers. Draco’s head lifted from his broom, his expression sharp with curiosity.

Darien strode forward, his usual straight-faced calm in place. Sirius closed the register with a soft thump.

“Follow me,” Sirius said curtly.

There was a flicker of concern in Draco’s eyes as his brother followed Sirius Black off the pitch, vanishing behind one of the stone-walled corridors leading to the locker rooms.

The moment they were out of sight of the field, Darien shoved Sirius in the shoulder and gave his shin a sharp kick.

“You knew you were teaching at Hogwarts and didn’t bother to tell me?” he demanded.

Sirius burst into laughter, trying—and failing—to shield his shin with the register. “You utterly lack manners for a prince, Neffe.”

Darien rolled his eyes. “You lack basic decency for an uncle.”

Sirius, never one to let a moment slide, clutched at his chest in mock agony. “Beating your own uncle, who was with you through your hardest times…”

Darien snorted and stepped forward to wrap his arms around him in a brief, strong hug. Sirius’s grin softened as he hugged back, patting Darien’s back.

Their laughter echoed softly in the narrow hall.

“Er…” came a hesitant voice.

Both turned. Charlie Weasley was standing in the pathway, eyes wide, eyebrows halfway to his hairline. “What’s going on here?”

Sirius immediately raised his hands in mock surrender. “Coach student bonding.”

Darien just shook his head, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

…

The late sun slanted across the pitch, the grass shining gold. Far from the shouting students, a hill rose above the field, quiet and breezy. Charlie Weasley stood on its slope, pacing like a dragon in a too-small cage.

Cedric and Darien sat cross-legged on the grass a few feet away, watching him with mixed expressions—Darien cool and unreadable as always, Cedric with a faintly guilty, sheepish smile.

Charlie finally stopped, spun toward them, and pointed at Cedric.

“Why,” he demanded, “is he here?”

Cedric raised his hands, as if warding off a Bludger. “Now, that’s rude, Charles.”

Charlie’s ears went slightly red. “You know what I mean. This—this is not your business.”

Darien didn’t even blink. “I brought him.”

Cedric rubbed the back of his neck, looking for a second like the Hufflepuff boy he used to be instead of the seasoned Auror trainee. “Look, I know the whole thing. I’m just… here as a neutral input.”

Charlie blinked at him. “Neutral input?” He turned to Darien with an incredulous laugh. “Is Sirius betraying my side or are you betraying yours? Because there’s no neutral point in this, mate. Not in this war. You’re either in or out. I could ignore that, but that did not look like a casual talk. I can tell you both have been in contact and know each other more than you are letting on. What’s the meaning of this?”

Darien arched an eyebrow, his arms crossing over his chest. “What exactly are you going to do about it, Charlie? Snitch on us?”

The word snitch landed like a playful jab more than a threat. Charlie exhaled hard, shaking his head as if to clear it. He finally dropped to the grass beside them with a groan, his long legs folding awkwardly.

“Of course I won’t snitch,” he muttered. “Not unless it’s about to cost someone something.”

He dug into his back pocket and, to Cedric’s and Darien’s surprise, pulled out a slightly bent cigarette. With a flick of his wand and a soft spark, the tip glowed orange. Charlie took a slow drag and exhaled into the cool air.

Cedric blinked at him. Darien blinked at him. They exchanged a look.

Then, in perfect unison, both burst out laughing.

Charlie looked at them with mild annoyance. “What?”

Darien smirked. “Didn’t take you for the type.”

Cedric was grinning now, leaning forward on his knees. “Merlin’s beard, Charlie. Model student, Model student, Model student, said model student, setting the right example under their noses.” Cedric snorted, shaking his head, “This is the most rebellious thing I’ve ever seen you do.”

Charlie took another puff, giving them both a flat look. “You lot give me stress.”

Darien snorted, shaking his head. “You need better coping mechanisms.”

Cedric raised a brow at Charlie’s sulky expression, then shrugged lightly and said in that straightforward, unfiltered way of his, “By the way, Charlie… you can chill. Darien’s a part of the Order.”

That made Charlie freeze mid-drag. He lowered the cigarette, eyes widening. “Wait… what? Really?!”

Darien looked sideways at Cedric, a little amused but not denying it.

Charlie’s face broke into a relieved grin. “Bloody hell, you could’ve led with that!”

Before Darien could protest, Charlie had thrown an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a rough side hug, the cigarette still dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” Charlie said with genuine warmth. “For a second there, I thought I was going to have to tackle you off this hill.”

Darien smirked under his breath. “You’d have regretted it…cause I’d climb back and kick you down myself.”

Cedric laughed. “I’d have paid to see that.”

“Shut it, Diggory,” Charlie shot back, but his tone was good-natured now.

For a while they sat there in companionable silence, the breeze tugging at their cloaks, the distant sound of Madam Hooch’s whistle carrying over the field. Charlie stubbed out the cigarette in the grass beside him, leaning back on his palms.

Then Cedric cleared his throat.

The other two glanced at him.

“So…” Cedric said, as if he were bringing up something as mundane as the weather. “Are we friends?”

Darien blinked. Charlie snorted.

“That’s your big question?” Charlie asked, laughing under his breath.

Cedric shrugged, a little self-conscious but still earnest. “Well. We’ll fight together someday, we’re sitting on a hill, hiding from practice together. Feels like the right time to ask.”

Darien smirked faintly. “You’re ridiculous. And that was a nerdy thing to ask.”

Charlie gave a mock sigh. “Fine. We’re friends.”

Cedric smiled, “Good. I like knowing where I stand.”

Darien just shook his head, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth

…

After two and a half hours of Quidditch drills in the damp autumn air, the students trudged back up the sloping lawns toward the castle. Brooms were slung over shoulders; waistcoats were being tugged straight and coats buttoned back on against the chill.

The Entrance Hall smelled of wet grass and wind-swept leaves. There, waiting for them, was the enormous figure of Hagrid, his tangled beard still glistening with dew, and beside him the wiry, sharp-eyed Professor Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank.

“Right, everyone, settle down!” Professor Grubbly-Plank called over the shuffle of boots. “Your next lesson is Study of Magical Creatures. We’ll be heading into the forest. We’ll be joined by our friends from Castellobruxo.”

That brought a ripple of murmurs.

Professor Grubbly-Plank’s mouth twitched, as if she expected it. “Castellobruxo lies deep in the Amazon. Their students grow up surrounded by magical wildlife most of you wouldn’t last a minute with. They know how to handle it—half of them have probably had a venomous snidget for a pet. If you see one of them talking to a monkey—don’t laugh. For your own good.”

A few students couldn’t help it; the image set off some muffled snickers.

Professor Grubbly-Plank gave them a level look. “Suit yourselves. Just don’t come running to me when the monkey hexes your ears off.”

“Tha’s right,” Hagrid boomed, clapping his massive hands together so hard the echo bounced off the stone walls. “We’ll be studyin’ some o’ the creatures they’ve brought along—beasts from the Brazilian habitats. Rare stuff, some of it. Nothin’ too dangerous… well, not if yeh keep yer fingers to yerselves.”

That brought another ripple of nervous laughter.

Hagrid’s grin widened. “An’ in return, we’ll be showin’ ’em a few o’ the beasts from our own forests. Good for everyone, I say—learn a bit from each other. Now—wands ready, minds open, and no pokin’ the cages, right?”

The group began to shuffle forward toward the forest path, Castellobruxo students already gathering with their instructors, louder than Gryffindors.

Draco fell into step near Harry, casting him a sidelong glance, then elbowed him in the ribs.

Harry frowned. “What?”

Draco’s voice was pitched low, lazy and sharp at once. “You ought to climb into one of the cages yourself. We could present you to them as our very own golden gorilla. I bet they’d never know the difference.”

Harry gave him a slow, sarcastic smile. “Hilarious.”

But on Harry’s other side, Ron let out an unexpected snort, followed by a loud chuckle. Fred and George were already laughing, nearly doubling over.

“Good one,” Ron managed between laughs. “I’ll give you that, Malfoy.”

Harry turned on him with a glare. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

Ron straightened up at once, attempting to look serious, though his shoulders still shook. “Right—yes—on your side,” he muttered, pressing his lips together to hide a grin.

Harry turned back to Draco, his tone dry as sand. “Maybe we should go together—neighboring cages. Hogwarts can introduce its very own snakey little puppy. All bark. No bite.”

The corner of Draco’s mouth twitched in irritation. Without a word, he brought his boot down sharply on Harry’s foot.

Harry winced and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Ow! Very mature, Malfoy.”

Ron, Fred, and George broke into another round of snickers as the two kept walking, neither willing to give the other the last word.