Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lanwynn Koes in July was not supposed to feel like this. The air hung warm and heavy with honeysuckle and mist, the leaves of the birch trees glistened with morning dew, and the bees moved from bloom to bloom as they always had. But Elowyn felt none of it. He had woken before the sun again, sweat-soaked and shaking from dreams he could not quite forget, even if part of him still tried to pretend they were fading. In one, Callum stood in the doorway of the dormitory, wand outstretched, and the green light bloomed around him like fire from a serpent’s mouth—striking his chest, his throat, his heart. Elowyn screamed in the dream but no sound came. The Castle did not seal them in this time. There was no magic left to save them. Only the smell of ash and blood, and Callum crumpling like a marionette with its strings cut. He had jolted upright in bed just before the imagined body hit the floor.

The dreams came differently each night—sometimes it was Peter who fell, or himself—but it always ended the same way: alone, breathless, and slick with sweat in the early dark. That aloneness clung to him more deeply than the sweat, more stubbornly than sleep. In the dream, there were no pendants buzzing, no arms reaching. And in the waking hours that followed, there was no comfort either. His heart no longer felt like it belonged to him entirely—he had quietly given it, piece by piece, to Callum and Peter, without fanfare or declaration, until he no longer knew how to carry it on his own. The emptiness of their absence was not silence but echo: everything in him rang with it.

The Koes hummed faintly beyond the window, but it did not soothe him. The low murmur of its breath—usually like lullabies or cradle songs—felt distant now, like voices in another room whose words he no longer understood. It had once been a comfort so deep it felt like memory itself: the rustle of the birches, the breath of the moss, the steady thrum of the An Daras like a heartbeat pulsing beneath the hill. But now, it felt severed, or worse, indifferent. The Koes had not spoken to him since his return—not through wind nor leaf nor dream—and though he would not say it aloud, Elowyn wasn’t sure he wanted it to. Not yet. Not when everything inside him was still so jagged and foreign. For the first time in his life, he felt unrooted in the place that had imbued him with its own magic. And that, more than anything else, made the silence of the trees feel like a betrayal.

He had dressed in silence, pulling on the same green jumper he had worn yesterday, and the day before that—not his own, but Callum’s. Beneath it, a shirt that belonged to Peter. He had found them tucked away in his trunk, folded hastily between robes and socks he hadn’t packed himself. A quiet kindness, a lifeline disguised as laundry. The jumper smelled faintly of the Castle still, of fireplace smoke and forest air, and if he pressed the collar to his nose, he swore he could smell Callum—an echo of peat smoke, damp earth, and pine needles warmed by sun—woven into the wool like a half-remembered song. In his most recent letters, both Callum and Peter had confessed to finding some of his things too—Peter a scarf, Callum a book—tucked into their own trunks by accident or fate. Elowyn did not believe in accidents.

Downstairs, Emrys was already in the kitchen, conjuring breakfast with small motions of his wand. The scent of fried bread and eggs filled the room. Thaddeus sat at the table, his tea steeping beside a folded copy of the Lanwynn Gazette, its front page dominated by a cheerful editorial on gooseberry yields and a reminder about the upcoming Midsummer gathering. The Gazette was edited—and mostly written—by Tryphena Jago, a lifelong spinster now in her sixties who lived with her aging parents in a slate-roofed cottage near the north orchard. Her writing was relentlessly chipper, deeply traditional, and rarely ventured beyond the sleepy bounds of the hamlet, half-read and forgotten. The air between them was soft and crackling, like the pause between lightning and thunder.

“Good morning, Dar Byghan,” Emrys said, as Elowyn entered, his voice gentled like down. “I hope you slept better.”

Elowyn gave no reply. He slid into his chair, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the pane of glass behind his fathers’ heads.

Thaddeus folded the paper and set it aside. “You should eat, Elowyn.”

“I find I’ve very little appetite these days,” he murmured, eyes still fixed on the windowpane. “But thank you, all the same.”

“You haven’t eaten properly in days,” Emrys said, setting a plate down before him. The eggs wobbled slightly with charm-warmth. Elowyn stared at them.

“You could try talking to us,” Thaddeus said, his voice measured, deliberate. “We know something happened, Elowyn. Something more than what you’ve told us. We were there, Elowyn. We saw the wreckage, and the blood. We want to help you, dear one."

Elowyn finally looked up. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have torn me away from the only people who make me feel like I can breathe again. You were there, and still you brought me here alone.”

The silence that followed was not thick or sudden. It was brittle and cracked. Emrys opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes shining with something that might have been sorrow or helplessness—Elowyn couldn’t tell, and didn’t care to. Thaddeus looked away first, his jaw tight, his fingers curling slightly on the table as though to still some instinct to reach across the distance Elowyn had placed between them. Neither of them spoke, and in their silence was the quiet confession Elowyn had already guessed: they hadn’t fought to keep him with Callum and Peter because they had known it was a battle they couldn’t win. Or worse, because they hadn’t believed it was one worth waging.

“We did what we thought was safest,” Thaddeus began.

“Safe,” Elowyn echoed, his voice thin and sharp. “You think this is safe? Do you honestly believe such a thing exists anymore? There is no safety—not at Hogwarts, not in this house, not anywhere in this war-sick world.” He touched his chest, where beneath the wool of Callum’s  jumper, the pendant rested cold. “I haven’t felt safe since the Hat put me in Slytherin. Not truly. Not in the way that quiets the breath or softens the shoulders. Except—except with them. With Peter and Callum. That was the only time I could feel the noise in my head still, and the thorns inside me ease. The only time I could believe I was more than a symbol or a mistake."

His voice broke slightly but he didn’t stop. “And you haven’t even taken me to see them. Not once in a week. After everything. After you promised we’d see each other all the time. And now I’m here and they’re there and I’m alone, again, and you call this safe.”

“You’re not being fair,” Emrys said softly, his voice trembling. “We didn’t want to send you back after Christmas. After what you told us—what we saw in your eyes. But you said you had to go. And we believed you.” He looked at him then, truly looked. “We sent the books, Elowyn. The field kit. We tried—”

“You did,” Elowyn interrupted, his tone bitter and restrained. “You tried. But then you stopped. And when the worst happened, you took me away from the only people who made it survivable.”

Thaddeus inhaled slowly and said, with the kind of distant composure he had perfected over years of business negotiations and wrangling the Ministry for the correct permits and permissions, "You’re overwrought, Elowyn. No one expects you to be rational after what you endured."

It was not cruel, not even cold. But it landed like a slap all the same. 

“No,” Elowyn continued, voice rising like a wave cresting. “You think I’m irrational because I’m grieving? Because I’m furious? I nearly watched Callum die—if the Castle hadn’t sealed off our dormitory, we’d all be dead. That’s what it came to. And still you brought me here—away from the only two people who feel like home. I just want to be with Callum and Peter. That’s all I’ve ever asked. And somehow you’re the ones who get to call it safety when you bring me home and lock me away from the only people who understand. I’m not being unfair. I’m being honest. You just don’t like what the truth sounds like.”

Thaddeus drew in another breath, more wearied than wounded now. “We know it was a trauma, Elowyn. We do. And we want to help you find your way through it. But we can’t convince Peter’s or Callum’s parents to let their sons leave home, not after what happened. They want them safe under their own roofs—just as we want you safe under ours.”

Elowyn turned on him—not with anger, but with something colder and deeper. “You don’t understand,” he said, his voice stripped of metaphor now. “You think I’m exaggerating—lost in some fever of childish grief. You think I’m being petulant by wanting my friends here with me. I nearly lost both of them. You nearly lost me. Merrick had begun the Killing Curse. Not threatened. Begun. I heard the first syllable on his breath and saw the sickly green gathering at its tip ready to spring forward and end Callum, my Callum. He would have killed him. He would have killed all of us. And he very nearly did—if the Castle hadn’t intervened.”

Thaddeus blinked, caught off-guard. “The Castle?”

“It moved,” Elowyn said, his voice eerily calm. “Not like the shifting staircases or the hidden doors and passageways. I mean it chose to act. It collapsed the doorway into stone—sealed it shut in the space between syllables. If it hadn’t, Callum would have died. The Killing Curse hit the wall. We felt it reverberating through the stone walls.”

Emrys’s brow furrowed. “You’re certain it wasn’t ward magic? Some automated defense, laid in the foundations?”

Elowyn shook his head once, slow and precise. “No. This was decision. The Castle intervened.”

The air in the room shifted—like the brief disorientation that follows Apparition. Thaddeus looked toward the fire, his jaw working silently, a thousand thoughts crowding behind his eyes but none making their way forward. It was not disbelief in his face, but something worse: the paralysis of knowing the world might be more sentient, more watchful, than the rules allowed.

“You speak of it,” he said finally, “as though it were alive.”

Elowyn met his gaze, unflinching. “It is. It’s as alive as An Dar. I feel it in the same way.”

The silence that followed was not strained, but reverent—like the stillness that lingers in a chapel after an unexpected truth has been spoken aloud. Emrys’s brow furrowed faintly, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening as he processed his son’s words. Thaddeus sat utterly still, as though any motion might crack the moment and let something fall from it that none of them could gather back.

They knew the Castle was ancient. They had both walked its halls in their youth, felt its shifting moods, witnessed the occasional creak of a stair or the nudge of a tapestry as though moved by more than wind. But this—this was different. To hear Elowyn speak of it not as a place, but as a presence—as a kin to An Dar—unsettled something in both of them. It changed the very grammar of the war. If the Castle had chosen to act, and had done so on behalf of their child—of these children—then what had once been background had become participant. And if that were true, what else might awaken before the end?

After a long while, Emrys’s voice pierced the quiet, gentler now, but edged with purpose. “I believe you should see Lowena. I think it might help. Not to fix anything—not to erase it—but just to give the weight somewhere to land besides your chest.”

Elowyn stood and pushed the plate away, barely disturbed.

“No,” he said sharply, before either of them could speak. “I don’t want to see her. I only want to see Callum and Peter. They are the only ones who understand. You’ve been saying this for weeks, as if I’ll suddenly wake up and feel like spilling my mind to someone I barely know. I’m not going.”

Emrys spoke gently. “Lowena is not a punishment. She’s helped others through—through very dark things.”

“I’m not others,” Elowyn snapped, eyes flashing. “She’s not going to say anything that changes what happened. Or bring them here. Or send me there.”

“It might help to speak with someone outside this house,” Thaddeus said. His voice wasn’t unkind, but it carried that maddening tone of reason Elowyn had come to despise. “Someone who can listen without being part of it.”

“Then perhaps you ought to go instead,” Elowyn said, his voice icy but precise. “You can tell her how brilliantly it’s gone, separating me from the only people who make the days bearable. Tell her how proud you are—locking your son in a house he didn’t choose, away from the other two pieces of his heart.”

Emrys reached for him instinctively, but Elowyn stepped back. “Please don’t.” His voice wavered, but he held his ground. “Not when you won’t even admit that this—being torn from them—is hurting me more than anything else.”

A silence followed that hurt more than shouting. Emrys’s hand dropped to the table, trembling slightly, his eyes still on the spot where Elowyn had stood moments before. There was no reprimand in his face, only aching tenderness and the helpless grief of a father watching a child unravel and knowing he could not stitch the pieces back together with love alone.

Thaddeus, ever composed, looked toward the far wall, jaw tense. For all his brilliance, for all his experience in business and delicate affairs, he seemed utterly at a loss. It was as though the rules he knew—those of power, persuasion, and poise—had abandoned him here, in the ungovernable terrain of his son’s pain.

Finally, Elowyn exhaled, long and low, and rubbed his temples. “Fine,” he said, quiet now, but with that terrible clarity he wore like armour. “I’ll go. Not because I believe it will help, and not because anything you’ve said has changed my mind. But because it offers the mercy of distance, however briefly—from this house, and from the ache of being looked at with love that still somehow misses the mark.”

He turned and strode toward the door, the pendant thrumming then—a soft pulse against his chest that told him Callum, or Peter, or both, were still there, still breathing. The echo of his own words trailed behind him like smoke, and he hated them even as he meant them. He had wanted to wound, and he had, and the taste it left in his mouth was ash. But the ache of their absence was so sharp, so relentless, that it seemed to hollow out anything good or gentle inside him. He stepped out into the bright green of morning, but carried a storm inside him all the same.

The path to Lowena Carnoweth’s cottage wound away from the clustered heart of the hamlet, past the last stone walls and gardens, beyond the final wisps of chimney smoke and laughter. Out here, the land softened into moor—open, untamed, ancient. The earth rose and dipped like a sleeping animal’s breath, covered in golden gorse and heather that swayed in the mild salt wind. Skylarks wheeled overhead. Somewhere distant, a sheep bleated. The sea shimmered in fragments through breaks in the hills.

Elowyn walked as if none of it mattered. His boots scuffed the packed earth path, but he barely noticed the sound. He passed the herb-laden gates, the tidy hedgerows, the small glimmers of magic woven into the thatching and stone, and they all felt like memories from someone else’s life. The greetings from neighbors—nods, murmurs, a wave from old Mister Penhallow bent double in his garden—pained him with their cheerfulness when all he felt was emptiness and sorrow. He did not wave back, only nodded so as not to cause a scandal.

He had once loved this path. As a child he’d run it properly dressed, of course—Thaddeus always insisted—but wild in spirit nonetheless, basket in hand, daring the bees and chasing the wind. Now, every footstep felt too loud. Too slow. The world pressed in around him, bright and fragrant and full of life, and he wanted none of it. His chest felt hollow except for the slight, rhythmic thrum of the pendant beneath his jumper. A pulse that wasn’t his own. One that said: we are still here.

He thought of what he’d said to his fathers. The shape of it sat heavy in his chest, not quite guilt, not yet regret, but something that scraped like a dull blade. He had meant it—every word—but the part of him that still wanted Emrys’s arms around him, and that still remembered the sound of Thaddeus’s laugh when he used to read aloud—that part hurt. And it hurt more that he couldn’t name what he wanted from them anymore, only what he didn’t.

Lowena’s cottage appeared as the path turned—a low, thatch-roofed house poised at the moor’s edge, its back to the vast, undulating sweep of grass and wildflowers that stretched into the horizon. Smoke curled from the chimney, not grey but faintly green, as though dried herbs had been thrown on the fire. A half dozen cats lounged in the sun-warmed dirt, across the flat stones, in the windowsill. One had tufted ears and an oddly intelligent stare—a Kneazle, surely—but none approached. They simply watched, their yellow eyes blinking in slow, synchronized rhythm.

Lowena was already seated on the porch in a weathered wicker chair, her feet bare and tucked beneath her skirt. Her hair was long and grey, bound loosely at the nape, and her face was lined in a way that looked less like age and more like time had marked her out of reverence. She did not rise. She simply looked at him and inclined her head, as one might to a bird that has landed of its own accord.

Elowyn approached without a word. She gestured to the empty chair beside her—a low wooden thing with a woven seat—and he sat, stiff-backed, arms folded. The silence between them was not awkward. It was vast and open, like the land itself.

The wind moved through the moor, rippling the heather and the grass like water. A bee stumbled drunkenly through a lavender bloom beside the steps. Somewhere overhead, a kestrel cried.

Lowena did not speak. She offered him nothing but presence.

He did not thank her for it, but he stayed. The pendant buzzed faintly beneath the wool of Callum’s jumper, and he lowered his hand to it, pressing his palm over the heartbeat that wasn’t his. He didn’t know if it was Callum or Peter or both, but he didn’t need to. They were thinking of him. And for now, that was enough.

The moors stretched before him like a story still waiting to be told. And for the first time in days, he felt the breath settle in his lungs without pain.

An hour passed. Perhaps two. Lowena had risen once to fetch tea and returned without comment, setting a gently steaming cup on the low table beside him. He left it untouched at first, staring past it as if it were a relic from another life. She said nothing; she asked nothing. Her presence remained as it had always been—quiet, kind,  and unwavering. There was a strength in it that did not announce itself. It simply was.

Eventually, without thinking, he reached for the cup and took a sip. The taste was strange—floral, yes, but threaded with something earthbound and unfamiliar. It settled warm and slow in his chest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew she had laced it with something gentle, something that opened rather than numbed. That was the way of her kind—those who tended the mind's weather, not with blunt force but with careful brews and ancient herb-lore passed down from the Koesborn before her. It was not a betrayal. It was a kind of tending. And slowly, something in him began to loosen.

When Elowyn finally spoke, his voice came rough-edged, like stone pulled from a riverbed. "I don’t much care for being here," he said at last, voice soft and fraying. "Everything is too still. Too far away from the only place that’s felt like it might still hold." He swallowed. "I just want to be where they are. With Callum and Peter. That’s all. It feels like that is what I’ve always wanted. I can’t remember the time before them now."

Lowena didn’t respond at once. She reached slowly for her own cup, lifted it to her lips, sipped, and returned it to the low table with the quiet deliberation of someone placing a stone on an altar.

"Pain carves out space inside us," she said at last, her voice low and even. "It doesn't ask permission. But sometimes...sometimes what we do with that hollow becomes sacred."

Elowyn’s eyes stayed fixed on the moor.

"They make it bearable," he murmured. "Not the pain. Everything. I don't feel like myself without them. I don’t even know who that is anymore."

Lowena hummed softly—not in amusement, but in understanding. "Then perhaps they are part of who you are now. That’s no small thing."

He was quiet for a long while. A cloud passed over the sun, casting a silvery wash across the landscape. One of the cats—black, lean, and long-tailed—leapt onto the low stone wall that separated Lowena’s garden from the moors beyond beside them and stretched luxuriously.

"You’ve known me since I was born," he said. "You know what I’m meant to be. Don’t you?"

"No one knows that," Lowena said gently. "But I know what you’ve already been. Brave. Kind. Honest, even when it cost you. And terribly, terribly tired."

That startled a breath from him—half laugh, and half sob.

She didn’t reach for him. Only added, "You don’t have to carry the whole sky on your shoulders, Elowyn. It will rise tomorrow whether you do or not."

He nodded slowly, the motion barely perceptible, and for the first time since the battle, the ache in his chest lessened—not vanished, but shifted, like a stone rolled slightly to the side. Enough to let in light.

The silence returned—not heavy now, but watchful. The kind that allows something hidden to lift its head without fear of being seen too soon. When Elowyn spoke again, it was as if the words had been walking toward him from a distance. "It was nearly him. Callum, I mean."

Lowena didn’t move.

"Merrick had his wand to him," Elowyn said, his voice nearly lost to the wind. "He spoke the words. And the light—it wasn’t the kind that wilts things or bruises the air. It was the one that means an ending. It was too bright…far too bright for something meant to bring an end.”

The words hung in the air between them. A cat leapt silently to the ground.

"I couldn’t reach him. Not in time. And I thought—just for a breath—that I would have to watch it happen. That I would survive it. And I knew…if I did and he didn't…something essential would come undone."

Lowena waited, giving him no interruption, or relief.

He pressed a hand to the pendant again. It thrummed once beneath his palm. "It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been me instead. I don’t think I would’ve minded."

Still she said nothing, but she looked at him with gentle eyes.

He let out a breath that shuddered on its way out, thin and cracked at the edges. "It didn’t happen," he said slowly, each word feeling like a stone being set down. "But death brushed us. Brushed him. And the place it touched—I don’t think it will ever stop burning."

The silence that followed felt suspended, thin as glass. And then the first tear slid down his cheek—unexpected and unwanted. Another followed and another until he was no longer holding the ache in his chest at bay, but letting it spill in silence, slow and salt-heavy.

"That’s what near-loss does," Lowena said softly. "It teaches us what we would give, and what we cannot bear to lose."

Elowyn blinked slowly. "Then I suppose I’ve learned it well."

The words hovered for a moment, then faded into quiet. He looked down at his hands in his lap, saw how tightly they had curled without his noticing. The tears still tracked down his cheeks, though he had stopped registering their fall.

"Then hold  it well," she replied.

Time passed—unmeasured, like a long-held breath. The sun moved behind a drifting cloud, and one of the cats leapt from the railing and padded away without sound. Lowena said nothing. She did not shift or clear her throat or fill the space with anything other than the gentle rhythm of her breath and the moor wind around them.

It was not silence that pressed. It was presence. And in it, Elowyn sat and wept until the trembling in his chest quieted to stillness.

When he rose at last, the sun had already begun to dip behind the hills, trailing gold across the moorland. The air had cooled, and the first stars blinked faintly into being above the violet edge of sky. The moon, nearly full, had risen pale and low, casting silver light along the heather. The world was beautiful—achingly so—and he barely noticed. He thanked her softly before stepping towards the path back home.

Lowena didn’t follow him. She only watched as he stepped off her porch and made his way down the path, the pendant pressed faintly against his chest with each step. The ache had eased, yes, but it not vanished. Not nearly. The pain remained, quiet now, like coals banked deep in the hearth. And though the shape of his anger had not changed, something in him had softened. He did not forgive his fathers—not yet—but he felt, dimly, the thread that still tied him to them, frayed though it was. For the first time, he wondered if they, too, were hurting in ways they could not say. And for now, that wondering was enough.

—

Kitchen Table, McCormack Farm, Offaly
July, 1997

El,

I read your letter out by the west field this morning, sitting on the fence post where the hawthorn grows crooked over the rise. Took me three times through before it settled. Not because I didn’t understand it—just because I did. All of it.

I felt the pendant buzz while you were with her. Didn’t know what it meant at first. Just felt it like a tap under the ribs. I reckon now it was you. Something in you opening. Or hurting. Or both.

Da's been putting me to work double lately. Says it helps to keep busy, though I think it’s more that he doesn’t know what to say. Mam’s quieter than usual, too. The house is full of things unsaid. They ask how I’m sleeping and I say fine. I don’t say that I wake up thinking I’ve heard your voice, or Ric’s laugh, and then nothing. Just the owls outside and the roof creaking.

I remember the light, El. Not the spell—I couldn’t see the spell, not really. But the way you looked at me when it happened. Like your soul tried to leave you to stop it. I think about that more than I think about what Merrick was going to do. That look. That moment. Your eyes wide with fear.

I keep seeing the Castle sealing the room like it knew. Like it knew we weren’t ready to die. Maybe it’s foolish to believe that, but I do.

Mam’s started drying elderflower for cordial when she’s not too tired. Brígh helps. Maebh’s always off scribbling things she won’t let anyone else read. I know they’d like you both. Brígh especially—she talks more than she thinks sometimes, but it’s never unkind. 

Mam’s belly is round now, enough that she has to lean back when she sits. She sighs a lot and makes jokes she doesn’t mean, and Da’s been hovering like a barn owl in a storm. He won’t talk about it, but he checks on her more than the cattle. The baby’s due soon, I think. Mam muttered something about hoping it doesn’t come during the Midsummer gathering.

I miss you. Both of you. I try not to say that too much, but it’s the truth of every morning and every night. This farm’s got its beauty, but it doesn’t hold the same without your voices in ears and without your hands near mine.

I’m still wearing your coat. It’s a bit small but it smells like lavender and wintergreen and something I can’t name that’s just...you. I’ve got Ric’s hat too. It’s too small, but it smells like him…all jokes and mischief. Having them helps. Makes you both feel less far away. I’ve got them on most mornings now. Makes chores quieter thinking you're with me. 

I don’t think our parents understand. Not really. I don’t blame them, but I can’t pretend either. I want to be with you and Ric. Not someday—now.

There’s been some odd folk passing through the edge of the land. Mam says it’s nothing—just new buyers for the summer herbs—but Da’s been checking the wards every night, and I’ve seen him stop tucking his wand away like usual—he wears it on his belt now, plain as day. None of them’ve done anything. But they don’t feel right. Just off somehow. Da agrees but says it’s best to sell them what they want and get them on their way.

Write back when you can. I’ll write tomorrow if I don’t hear from you.

Cal

—

July, 1997 Attic Room, 3rd Landing, Ainsley House

El,

I read your letter behind a pile of laundry that might be sentient. Hard to tell these days. There’s a pair of socks with teeth and a grudge I’m avoiding.

Thanks for writing. I mean it. I don’t always know how to say things, but you saying them helps. Callum would probably say it better. He always does. All weight and rainclouds and truths that feel like they’ve grown roots. You’re more like smoke. Or a spell that doesn’t need incanting. I’m not either of those. I’m just…Ric.

I felt the buzz, by the way. Was in the kitchen dodging Ronan’s new poetry and Maggie’s attempts at wandless magic (still mostly sparks and screaming). Yours always feels different. Softer somehow. Hurting. But close.

The house is full of noise and none of it’s mine. Mum’s taken in three more littles—two under five and the other with a stutter that breaks my ribs every time he tries to ask if I’m okay. I tell him I am fine and he nods like I’d saved his life. And, one time, he spilled juice on my trousers. So.

No one’s said a word about my birthday. Not a card. Not a cake. Not even one of Ben’s awful jokes wrapped in string. It’s next month, in case anyone’s wondering. I doubt they are.

I dream in green sometimes. Not the nice kind. Not trees. That other green—the one that leaves nothing behind. I wake up with my throat sore and my wand across my chest like it’s trying to protect me. Flora tried to sneak in once to leave me a cup of tea and I hexed the wall. She didn’t say anything. Just hugged me and left it on the floor.

I keep thinking if I’d done something different that night, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I know that’s rubbish. Doesn’t stop the thought from unpacking.

I’ve got your scarf, by the way. It’s the blue one with the little threads coming loose at the ends. Didn’t mean to nick it—just found it in my trunk after we got sent off. I haven’t worn it, don’t worry. But I keep it wrapped around my pillow like it might remember your voice. Cal’s gloves ended up here too. I look stupid in them. But they smell like damp stone and burnt toast. Him, basically.

I want to be with you. Both of you. I’d say that out loud if I thought anyone here would hear it. But this house has gone deaf to me. Too much noise and not enough space. I feel like a spare wand—polished, reliable, forgotten.

Anyway. Thanks for writing. Say hi to the moors. Tell the weird tree it owes me a birthday dance. Or at least a leaf.

Yours, 

Ric

—

Nightfall lay gently over Lanwynn Koes, a velvet hush broken only by the slow creak of ancient beams and the occasional rustle of wind pressing itself against the windowpanes. Elowyn sat on the edge of his bed in shadow, the letters from Callum and Peter spread out before him like relics—creases worn soft from reading, ink still faintly raised where the quill had pressed.

The room was neat as ever. There was a pair of boots tucked beneath the chest, and a cloak folded precisely at the foot of the bed. The oakwood desk bore no clutter, only a lamp, unlit, and a bowl of dried berries. Yet something about the space felt hollow, both familiar, but untethered—like the shell of something once living.

He touched Peter’s letter again, fingers resting on the words. Then Callum’s, where the ink seemed to weigh more. The parchment still held their hands somehow, he thought. As if the boys had pressed something of themselves into the paper—intention, emotion, and longing. It steadied him, even as it ached.

The pendant on his chest buzzed once—faint but certain. It pulsed like a quiet breath. He closed his eyes. Another tremor followed like a heartbeat.

He didn’t know which of them had touched theirs first, or if it even mattered. Perhaps all three had reached for them at once, without knowing, drawn by some silent current that wound beneath thought and fear and oceans of silence.

Elowyn curled onto his side, drawing the letters closer. Then his hand found the pendant, fingers brushing its worn surface. He didn’t need light to see it. He could feel the shape of it like a memory.

“Cal,” he whispered. Then, after a beat, quieter still: “Ric.”

Their names hung in the dark, soft and unadorned, neither spell nor incantation and yet more powerful than either. He pressed the pendant to his lips. The room gave no answer; it offered only silence, shaped by the hush of summer wind and the distant call of owls. He breathed in slowly, held it within aching lungs, and released it with deliberate care.

When sleep came, it was not peaceful—but it was bearable. The ache had not left him. But neither had they. And so, beneath a ceiling that had watched him since he was small, Elowyn Marwood-Travers slept—not alone...not entirely. His hand remained curled around the pendant, as though it might keep the distance from devouring him whole.

Chapter Text

Elowyn woke abruptly, breath catching in his throat, heart hammering wildly against his ribs. He had been dreaming—again—but this time the dream had shifted, darkened into something more potent than usual. Callum had been dying, as he had in so many of Elowyn’s nightmares since the Common Room battle, but this time he had not been in their dormitory. He had been elsewhere, surrounded by shadows, voices, and wandlight. There had been others there—figures Elowyn could not name, but who moved with malice. The dream had felt weighted, less like a vision conjured by fear and more like a memory borrowed from the present.

The silence of the night felt heavy, oppressive, yet it was not silence that had roused him—it was the pendant at his chest, vibrating urgently against his trembling fingers. Panic surged through him, hot and acidic. This was no gentle hum of connection or quiet pulse of reassurance; it was frantic, insistent, desperately alive beneath his touch.

He sat bolt upright, feeling the cold sweat tracing icy patterns down his spine. Zenobia, who had been curled at the foot of the bed, gave a startled mewl, eyes gleaming in the moonlit shadows. Elowyn’s fingers tightened instinctively around the pendant, gripping its cool metal edges until they bit painfully into his palm.

“Calm…calm down,” he whispered shakily to himself into the dark, trying—and failing—to slow the shuddering breaths that tore from him. He struggled to force clarity into his panicked mind. It was impossible to know who was in danger. Peter, whose father worked deep within the increasingly compromised Ministry, at first seemed the more obvious target. But then, with a sudden sickening twist in his gut, he remembered Callum. Callum, whose mother had fled the twisted grasp of the Notts, severing ties so bitterly it had rendered her an enemy of her own blood.

Elowyn lurched from the bed, knocking his covers to the floor in a tangled heap. Zenobia padded swiftly away, her tufted tail low with feline indignation. Elowyn hardly noticed. His breath rattled thinly in his chest, panic quickly blooming into terror. He had barely been holding himself together since the night in the Slytherin Common Room; fear still clung to him like dark threads tangled in his heart. His isolation from Peter and Callum felt more profound than ever, amplified cruelly by this sudden, unexplained danger. He was alone, desperately alone, and one of them was surely in peril.

He staggered out of his gabled room on the first floor and into the darkened corridor, the air sharp with honeysuckle and woodsmoke. Barefoot and still shaking, he descended the narrow stairwell that creaked faintly beneath his weight, every step an echo of urgency. The hallway curved past the sitting room and into the quiet kitchen, where pale moonlight spilled in through the windows, casting faint patterns on the stone floor. He moved quickly through the dark house, his wand left behind in his hurry. He clutched at the pendant with trembling fingers as if the connection could somehow become stronger, clearer. His fathers’ bedroom lay just beyond the kitchen—on the ground floor, tucked close to the rear of the house—and he ran toward it without hesitation, his pulse thundering in his ears. He felt raw, brittle, and ready to shatter.

“Papa! Daddy!” he shouted, his voice ringing out in frantic Cornish, echoing down the quiet hall like a desperate plea. He didn’t wait for a reply—he burst through the door into their bedroom, heart hammering, breath ragged. The room was dark save for the faint glow of moonlight through the curtains, and both men were deeply asleep, tangled under thick quilts, oblivious to the alarm their son carried like a storm in his chest.

“Please—wake up!” Elowyn cried, stumbling forward, the pendant clutched tightly in his hand. Emrys stirred first, brow furrowing before his eyes blinked open, confusion written plain across his face. Thaddeus groaned softly, pushing himself up on one elbow.

“Elowyn, love, what is it?” Emrys asked gently, his deep voice steady but tinged with anxiousness. Thaddeus blinked groggily beside him, eyes still adjusting to the light, worry beginning to register beneath the haze of sleep, his usually composed expression slowly tightening with concern.

“It’s my pendant,” Elowyn gasped, words tumbling out in a rush, trembling and uneven. “Something’s wrong—Peter or Callum—someone’s in danger! It’s vibrating…it only vibrates when they touch it!”

Emrys stood up and stepped forward quickly, laying gentle hands on Elowyn’s shoulders, trying to steady him. “These sorts of enchantments can sometimes falter, my love. They’re delicate magicks; perhaps it is merely malfunctioning.”

“No!” Elowyn shouted, pulling sharply away, voice cracking with desperation. “It’s real—I feel it! Someone’s touching it—someone’s scared. It’s urgent. I can’t ignore it. Please, believe me.”

His eyes pleaded desperately with his fathers, tears blurring his vision, his breaths shallow and ragged. For a moment, neither man spoke. Emrys rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to shake off the remnants of sleep and disbelief, while Thaddeus reached instinctively for the bedside lamp but hesitated—perhaps not wanting to break the fragile stillness with too much light.

“Elowyn,” Emrys said slowly, his voice heavy with the weight of waking and worry, “are you absolutely sure?”

“Yes!” Elowyn nearly shouted, voice raw. “It’s different this time. It’s not a malfunction. It’s not imagination. One of them is scared. One of them is in danger. I know it.”

Thaddeus let out a breath through his nose, quiet but sharp, and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright,” he said finally, voice thick but steadier now, “alright.”

Emrys glanced at him again—something wordless passing between them. Then he turned his full attention to Elowyn, his expression shifting into something firmer, more resolved. They both knew this wasn’t a dream. Their son had never looked so certain, or so afraid.

“Right then,” Thaddeus finally murmured firmly, gathering himself. “We’ll check. Emrys, go to the McCormacks, I'll Apparate to the Ainsleys. Quickly now.”

“I’m going with you,” Elowyn insisted fiercely, his voice sharp and brittle. “I've survived worse. I can't just wait here and do nothing.”

Thaddeus sat up straighter, the remnants of sleep evaporating as his brows drew together. As he spoke, he was already swinging his legs over the side of the bed and reaching for his clothes he'd laid out before he slept. “Absolutely not,” he said, firm in a way that left no ambiguity. “We don’t know what we’re walking into, and we’re not about to drag you into it. You’re still recovering—and you’re a child.”

Beside him, Emrys had thrown back the covers as well, already pulling on his trousers with grim efficiency. The quiet shuffle of fabric and creak of old floorboards underscored the tension in the room—both men preparing even as they protested, the habit of readiness long-ingrained.

“I’m not,” Elowyn snapped, the words louder than he intended. “I’ve already been dragged into it. The war doesn’t care how old I am. And if something’s happened to Callum—or Peter—I’m not staying behind. You can’t ask that of me.”

Emrys sighed, already weighing the argument. “You don’t know what danger we might be stepping into. What if whoever caused this is still nearby? What if it’s not over yet—what if we're walking into something far worse?”

“Then I’ll be with you,” Elowyn cut in, voice breaking. “But I won’t stay here while they bleed. I won’t sit in this house and wait to find out who’s been taken from me.”

There was a long pause. Thaddeus looked ready to protest again, but Emrys placed a hand gently on his arm, steadying him. Then, he turned to Elowyn, studying his son’s pale, stricken face—the way his jaw trembled even as he stood his ground.

Emrys hesitated only briefly before nodding, his eyes gentle but understanding the desperation in his son's stance. “Very well. Quickly—get dressed. We haven’t a moment to waste.”

Elowyn darted from the room without another word, heart pounding as he took the stairs two at a time back to his own. His fingers fumbled with buttons and buckles as he pulled on his boots and shrugged into the heavy wool cloak that hung on the back of his door. He snatched his wand from the desk, hands still shaking, and bolted back down the stairs with wild, unspoken prayers crowding his chest.

By the time he returned, Thaddeus was already in the front hall, wand in hand, jaw set, buckling his cloak with clipped, efficient movements. Emrys stood beside the old coat rack, slinging a worn leather satchel across his chest—his Healer’s field kit. Emrys's eyes met his, steady but drawn, the fear in them carefully braced behind purpose.

“Eastern edge,” Thaddeus muttered, already reaching for the latch, voice clipped with focus. He didn’t need to say more—they all knew the path, knew the wards, knew the way the world narrowed to a single point when the need was this sharp.

They left at a jog, boots striking the stone path that wound through the slumbering hamlet. The air was cold and clear, their breath misting before them in white puffs. Dark windows stared out like shuttered eyes. No one else was awake—no light, no motion, and no comfort.

Elowyn ran beside Emrys, clutching the pendant inside his cloak, counting each faltering thrum as though it were a dying heartbeat. No one spoke. There was only the wind in the hedgerows and the drum of footfalls on old earth.

They reached the boundary stone at the eastern edge—an ancient, lichen-covered marker wrapped in fading runes. Thaddeus reached it first. With a final look followed by a nod at his husband and son, he Disapparated, vanishing with a crack that echoed through the hedgerow.

Emrys reached out a hand. “Now, Dar Byghan,” he said, low and steady.

Elowyn grasped his father's arm, and with a lurch of sensation—wind, pressure, magic—Lanwynn Koes fell away.

The world snapped back into place around Elowyn with a violent jolt, the disorientation of Apparition leaving him dizzy, ears ringing, and the smell of earth and magic thick in his nose. His feet touched uneven ground, damp with dew and churned by bootprints, the wet grass brushing his ankles as he instinctively reached for Emrys’s arm to steady himself. They stood at the familiar Apparition point near the boundary of the McCormack farm—a place Callum had always said was full of warmth and rough laughter, and the sound of sheep calling from the lower fields. But tonight, that comforting scene he'd painted so often was gone. The land felt stripped bare, hollowed out by something vile. Even the stars above seemed distant and cold.

Emrys was already moving, wand drawn and his posture alert; his every step was a practiced measure of caution and readiness. Elowyn forced himself to follow despite the nausea still rolling in his gut. He had only been here once before, over the winter holidays, when Callum—earnest and insistent—had finally convinced his parents to let him bring his friends for tea. It had been a cold, pale afternoon, the kind where breath hung in the air and the fields lay silvered with frost. Brígh had shown off her fire charms beside the hearth while Malachy and Isolde offered steaming mugs of cider and made careful, quiet conversation with Emrys and Thaddeus. They had not known each other before Hogwarts brought their children together; it was an uneasy, curious meeting, bridged only by the warmth of shared food and Callum’s glowing pride in having his friend so near. That brief visit now felt impossibly distant.

Elowyn's breath caught on the air, the cold sharp in his throat. There was no wind, or birdsong, and no motion from the animals in the barn. A hollow stillness had settled over everything. The weathercock atop the barn stood motionless. Even the trees—ancient rowans and blackthorn—seemed frozen in place. Nature itself felt stifled, pressed down under the weight of what had transpired.

They advanced toward the farmhouse, and it became immediately, horribly clear that something was terribly wrong. Shattered glass littered the front path, glinting like ice in the moonlight. The wooden shutters on the east-facing windows had been blasted inward; one still hung by a single hinge, swinging gently. The porch bore scorch marks, one of the beams partially splintered as if struck by a Blasting Curse. Elowyn’s stomach twisted—he recognized these signs. This was no accident, and certainly no act of wild magic. This was a controlled, deliberate assault. The kind they had trained against in secret for months.

The front door was ajar, its brass knob scorched and blackened—a clear sign that the protective wards had failed, or been forcibly unraveled. Emrys moved to the side of the frame, casting a silent revealing charm before slipping inside, eyes narrowed. Elowyn followed, wand clutched tight in his hand, his senses sharp with dread. The moment he crossed the threshold, the air shifted. There was a residue clinging to the walls, thick with the bitter aftertaste of breached enchantments. 

Something lingered in the air—a residual tension in the walls, and a hum in the stone. Elowyn couldn’t name it, not precisely, but it thrummed against his skin like a faint echo of some great force recently spent. The wards here had been broken. He could feel it as surely as he felt the cold under his boots. Not unraveled cleanly or dispelled by permission, but cracked through by brute magical force. The sort of magic that left scars behind. Whatever protections the farmhouse had borne, however modest, they had been ripped asunder, neither silently nor gently.

Without speaking, both Emrys and Elowyn raised their wands and murmured, "Lumos." Twin blossoms of light flared to life, casting long shadows across the ruined walls and revealing the wreckage more starkly. Dust motes glittered in the air like ash suspended mid-fall. The house reeked of sulfur and scorched fabric and the once-homey warmth of the McCormack farmhouse had been gutted, replaced with the cold weight of violence.

Inside, the chaos was worse. A chair lay in pieces, its legs shattered into a hundred scorched slivers. A tapestry from Isolde’s family had been ripped from the wall and partially burned, its elegant embroidery charred beyond recognition. It had been a gift from her grandmother—one of the few relatives with whom Isolde had remained close after turning her back on the old bloodlines. The tapestry had been one of the only heirlooms she brought with her when she left her family estate, its presence in the farmhouse a quiet act of remembrance and resistance. Elowyn’s eyes landed on a framed photograph of the family—Callum as a young child sitting on Malachy’s lap while Isolde held the twins—now cracked and warped, half buried under debris. His chest constricted.

“Malachy!” Emrys’s voice rang out through the space, sharp and clear. “Isolde? Callum?”

No answer came. There was only the low creak of the roof beams and the faint tinkle of broken glass settling.

Elowyn moved toward the kitchen, the floor beneath him sticky in places—wine? No, not wine. Blood. His heart pounded as he pushed forward. Then he heard it—a soft, pained groan, almost imperceptible.

“In here!” Elowyn called, his voice rough. He shoved open the half-collapsed pantry door. The shelves had splintered, glass jars of preserves smashed and oozing their contents across the floor. Amid the mess lay Malachy McCormack, slumped on his side, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle, his face a mask of grey pain and barely-contained fury.

Emrys was beside him in a heartbeat, dropping to his knees and unfastening his satchel. “Cover me,” he said quickly, already casting diagnostic spells with deft flicks of his wand. Elowyn nodded and stepped into the doorway, wand raised, heart racing.

“He's been struck by the Cruciatus curse,” Emrys muttered under his breath after a moment, his voice dark. “He’s also been hit with dark curses, one of them meant to maim—possibly a Bone-Shiver Hex.”

Elowyn crouched beside Malachy, who was trying to lift his head but failed. His eyes fluttered open—bloodshot, dazed.

“Mr. McCormack. It’s me. Elowyn. Where are they? Where’s Callum?”

Recognition flickered slowly through the pain. “Elowyn?” Malachy rasped, trying to lift his head. "They came outta the trees—Apparated fast. Three, maybe more. All in black, masks n’ all. Said they were here for Isolde. Called her a traitor, said her blood’d been wasted. Said she’d turned her back on 'em, on what she was meant to be."

He coughed, and Elowyn’s gut twisted at the sound—wet and raw.

“Told her to run,” Malachy murmured, the words slurred but urgent. “Callum, the twins…all of ’em. She got ’em into the old passage—in the cellar. I dragged the shelf across it, made it look untouched. Told her not to look back.” He coughed again, a painful, gurgling sound. “Held the door. Tried to buy her time. Fought as long as I could. Didn’t stop ’til I went down.”

Emrys placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “You did enough. Rest. You’re safe now.”

Malachy shook his head weakly. "Ain’t safe, not yet. They’ll keep coming for her. She’s—she’s expectin’ again. Couldn’t chance Apparition, not with the little ones and another on the way. Too risky. Would’ve torn ’em apart."

Elowyn’s pendant throbbed against his chest again—faster now, a sudden quickening that startled him. His breath hitched. It wasn’t the frantic, erratic panic of earlier, but something steadier—deliberate. As though someone, somewhere, was touching it on purpose. Hope flared, uncertain but real. Maybe Callum was still hiding, alive, trying to reach him the only way he could. The pulse against his skin was not strong, but it was clear. And it was enough.

“We have to go,” he whispered.

Emrys nodded. “Let’s find the passageway.”

Elowyn surged to his feet, heart pounding, and looked around wildly. The pantry floor was solid stone—no sign of any passage. But Malachy, struggling to rise on one elbow despite Emrys’s protest, was already gesturing weakly toward the kitchen. “Cellar,” he croaked. “It’s down in the cellar—behind the crates…go. Hurry now.”

Emrys moved quickly to his side, trying to ease him back down. “You need to stay here,” he said firmly. “You’re barely—”

“I said go,” Malachy growled, his voice hoarse but fierce. “I’m right behind you.”

He tried to push himself upright, swaying where he knelt. Emrys shot a concerned glance at Elowyn, then moved to help Malachy steady himself. "Come on," he said, his voice tight with urgency but focused. "The cellar."

They moved quickly, Elowyn leading the way through the kitchen and down the narrow steps that led into the farm’s large cellar. The air was colder there, heavy with dust and the lingering iron tang of old tools and root vegetables. Shelves lined the walls, and crates stood stacked high in the corners. At first glance, nothing seemed out of place—until Elowyn spotted a smeared trail of blood arcing toward the back wall.

He rushed over, the trail of blood leading him straight to the back wall where the shelves had once stood. Now they lay blasted apart, blackened wood and shattered slats strewn across the cellar floor. The force of the spell that had torn them away had scorched the stone beneath, leaving an ugly mark. Amid the wreckage, half-concealed by a torn wool blanket, lay a trapdoor with a simple brass pull. Elowyn knelt, his hands shaking as he cleared the splinters and rubble away. The metal was warm beneath his fingers. He wrenched it open with effort; the hatch creaked, stiff with age and damp, revealing a narrow tunnel that descended sharply into packed earth and root-woven dark. A faint streak of blood led down into the shadows.

Emrys finished his final charm over Malachy, then pulled a small stoppered vial from his kit—a bright, bracing red. "Pepper-Up," he said quietly, pressing it into Malachy's hand. "It’s not recommended in your condition, but it'll give you enough to keep your feet. If you must follow, take it slowly."

Malachy gave a weak grunt of thanks and fumbled with the cork as Emrys rose and shouldered his satchel. Their eyes met. No words were needed.

“Now,” Emrys said, voice low and firm.

Elowyn dropped into the passage without hesitation, landing hard on the dirt floor, breath misting in the close, chilled air. Emrys followed, landing lightly behind him, his wand already lit to cut through the darkness ahead. It was pitch black, but the twin beams of pale light from their wands illuminated the narrow, root-choked tunnel before them, casting jagged shadows that danced across the uneven earthen walls. The air was tight with fear and earth and old magic. Elowyn pressed forward, guided only by the waning pulse of the pendant and the single thought burning through his mind: Please be alive. Please be safe. Please.

The tunnel narrowed before it widened again, dipping and rising with the contours of the old land it burrowed through. Elowyn ran with wandlight streaming ahead, the tunnel walls rushing past in sharp relief, slick with roots and moss. Behind him came Emrys, quiet and quick, each footstep a whisper of urgency. Farther behind, the uneven gait of Malachy pushed forward on sheer willpower, the effects of the Pepper-Up potion already fading as sweat dripped down his neck and his breathing grew rough.

They had gone nearly a mile when the tunnel angled upward, the packed soil giving way to fresher air. Elowyn felt it before he saw it—the scent of open space, damp leaf-mould, and the faintest edge of spellburn. There was something metallic in the air, a sharpness he recognized now as scorched magic.

The passage ended in a patch of bramble and old bark. Emrys brushed the branches aside with a quiet charm, revealing a low exit beneath an ancient hawthorn tree, cleverly masked by illusions. The roots twisted like fingers clutching the hidden opening. Elowyn ducked through first, breath caught in his throat.

The woods opened before them in a hush of moonlight and shadow, the silence so stark it felt like holding breath. And then—a flash—a whip of red light seared the air not fifty paces ahead. It cut sideways through the trees, leaving a burning streak against the night.

Another spell answered it—orange and jagged, fired from behind a stone outcropping just barely visible between the trunks. The night bloomed briefly with magic.

Elowyn froze only for a heartbeat. He saw them: three figures in black, wands raised, moving forward with the confidence of those who had rarely received resistance. They moved like wolves—calculated and feral. One fired a bolt at the base of a tree, sending bark and embers exploding outward. Another hurled a curse that pulsed black-blue, the ground beneath it cracking open.

Behind a large hawthorn tree came a smaller flash—Protego, bright and strained, flickering gold. A second shield burst outward, thinner, already failing. Then a third. The pattern was frantic but determined, a series of overlapping wards straining beneath the force of the assault. One cracked at the edges like glass under pressure, but it held—just barely. Through the shifting veil of light and smoke, Elowyn saw him.

Callum.

His skin was pale, nearly luminous in the shifting wandlight, and there was blood along his brow, a trembling line of red running toward his jaw. He wore only his boxers, having been pulled from sleep into battle without time to dress, and the bruises mottling his legs and arms made Elowyn’s chest tighten. The rawness of it, the vulnerability—barefoot, half-clothed, yet standing like a fortress—cut through him like a spell too deep to name. His shoulders were squared, his stance solid, though his left arm trembled slightly with the strain of keeping the shield up. He was still standing, a bulwark against the storm bearing down on them. 

Beside him stood Isolde—wounded but unyielding, her feet planted wide and her wand drawn steady, casting spell after spell with sharp, practiced flicks. The twins crouched behind them, wide-eyed and pressed close together, shielded not only by their mother’s frame but by the sheer force of will pouring from her. Blood darkened her side, seeping through her nightgown, but still she fought. Her face was tight with pain, her jaw clenched as if she might crack it under the pressure, but her eyes burned with fierce clarity. This was not a mother hiding. This was a woman defending everything she loved with every bit of strength she had within her.

Seeing Callum so strong yet so vulnerable made Elowyn’s breath catch in his throat, not with fear but with something older and fiercer—a protective ache so sharp it felt like magic in his bones. Elowyn began to stride forward his wand held ready. Emrys reached to hold him back—but Elowyn didn’t stop. He didn’t even hesitate. The pendant at his chest had gone quiet again, but he didn’t need it. He felt Callum—his magic, his terror, and his will. The air around Elowyn felt charged, pulsing with heat and instinct. His violet-ringed eyes shone in the dark. He raised his wand and ran in to the ongoing battle.

His voice rang out, clear and furious: "Incendio!"

The blaze that followed caught the underbrush like dry tinder, a wall of flame rising between attacker and defenders. One of the masked figures shouted in alarm, cloak catching, wand slashing to smother the fire. Another turned, startled, eyes barely visible through the mask—but Elowyn was already there. Another curse flew past him, searing the sleeve of his cloak. He dropped low, rolled into the clearing, and came up casting.

"Expulso! Stupefy! Obstringo! Protego Maxima!"

His magic answered his fury. The spells cracked like thunder, ricocheting off the trees. One Death Eater went down hard, hit square in the leg. Another staggered as Emrys joined the fray from the flank, quiet but lethal, his wandwork precise. A shockwave of magical force knocked the third off balance.

Callum’s shield flickered. He lowered it just long enough to fire off a retaliatory hex, his face drawn and grim. His eyes met Elowyn’s across the battlefield—wide, wild, and impossibly bright. That moment of connection was brief, but it burned through Elowyn like fire.

Elowyn pushed forward, feet barely touching ground. The third Death Eater cast a curse that cracked the air like a tree snapping, but Emrys countered it with a vertical sweep of his wand, redirecting it with a shimmer of defensive light.

But Elowyn was already lifting his wand again. Fury and love surged in his chest, impossible to separate. Another cry burst from him, raw and incandescent—"Incendio!"

This second blaze roared forth like a living thing, more than fire, more than spellwork. It leapt from his wand with a vengeance, curling through the underbrush and up the trunks of nearby trees, igniting everything it touched with the fierce brilliance of his rage. The Death Eaters reeled back, momentarily blinded by the conflagration. The flames danced with his fury, their heat licking at the night with a predator's hunger.

How dare they come here. How dare they touch his Callum.

The fire threw his shadow long across the forest floor, and in that moment, he looked older—taller—every inch the warrior the Koes had shaped beneath its roots. But even warriors cannot see everything. A flicker—too fast, too sharp—broke through the blaze, a curse arcing toward Elowyn from the far left, silent and serpentine.

Emrys was there. He stepped beside his son in a heartbeat, wand raised, a shield charm leaping into the air like a wall of glass and thunder. The curse struck the shield with a shriek of impact, flaring into a sunburst of white fire before dissolving in the air.

Elowyn startled, breath catching, only now seeing what might have ended him. Emrys didn’t speak—just gave a sharp nod, his face pale and set with iron. Then he turned back to the fray.

Elowyn’s knuckles tightened on his wand. There was no time to be afraid.

Isolde slumped lower against the tree, wand shaking. Blood darkened her side. She shifted to shield the twins more fully, drawing them in, refusing to cry out.

And then—from the edge of the trees—a raw, hoarse voice: "Behind you!"

Malachy stumbled from the dark, face streaked with sweat and dirt, wand raised. He cast a hex that slammed into the nearest Death Eater’s ribs, sending him sprawling. Another curse left his lips before he dropped to one knee, clutching his side.

The Death Eaters faltered. Two turned. With sharp cracks of displaced air, they Disapparated into the dark, vanishing between trees. The last tried to flee as well, limping—until Emrys hit him square in the back with a binding curse. The figure crashed forward, bound and motionless, before vanishing with a sharp, panicked pop.

And just like that, it was over.

The silence left in the wake of the Death Eaters was brief. Smoke curled in the underbrush. The acrid scent of burning wood clung to the clearing. The forest—scarred but not broken—began to breathe again. A breeze stirred the leaves overhead. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called.

Elowyn turned. Callum was already moving, wand limp at his side, dirt streaking his face, his hair matted with sweat and blood. He limped forward, eyes locked on Elowyn. They met in the middle—between ruin and firelight.

Neither said a word. They simply collided, arms wrapping around one another in a fierce, unyielding embrace. The urgency of it was nearly violent—the desperate clutch of boys who had stared down death and come out the other side. Callum gripped the back of Elowyn's neck, holding him as though he might disappear if he let go. Elowyn buried his face against Callum's shoulder, his breath sharp and shallow, the sound of someone relearning how to exist.

They pulled apart only a little, enough for Elowyn to lift his hands to Callum’s face. His palms were warm against the chill of Callum’s skin, his thumbs brushing dirt and ash from his cheeks. And then, without pause, without thought, Elowyn leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Callum’s lips—brief, trembling, and reverent. There was no calculation in it, no desire, only the instinctive need to mark the moment with something human. It was not about romance. It was about relief. It was about grief. It was about being alive. It was about being together again and safe.

They folded into each other once more, this time slower, the kind of embrace that swayed slightly with exhaustion. It was not about holding on now. It was about not collapsing. Elowyn felt Callum’s heartbeat against his ribs, and it steadied something in him that had been screaming since the moment the pendant had gone quiet.

When they broke apart, still holding on, their eyes met—gold and violet, ringed with fire and exhaustion. Then their foreheads met, resting lightly together as their eyes fell shut. For a long breath, they stayed like that—still, trembling, and whole. It was a moment suspended in time, a quiet reprieve from the chaos behind them and the uncertainty ahead. For the first time in a week, they felt safe—not just from the Death Eaters, but from the ache of separation and from the silence that had grown too loud between them.

Together, with their foreheads still touching and eyes closed, they felt the pendants at their chests tremble to life—a soft, insistent vibration that told them, unmistakably, that Peter was there, that he was reaching back through the magic they had made. Their eyes opened at once, meeting in startled, aching relief.

And then they whispered the same name:

"Peter."

Chapter Text

“We’ll go,” Callum said, voice low but steady, the stubborn edge in it sharpened by exhaustion. “We’ll take the Knight Bus if we have to. Don’t care who’s on it or where it stops. We’ll get to him. He needs us. I know he’s scared”

It carried more weight than it ought to have from a boy barely dressed and barefoot on the splintered farmhouse floor, his voice hoarse and shivering, his face flecked with dried blood at the temples. His fists were clenched, jaw tight, teeth clamped as though the words had cost him a rib. Elowyn stood beside him, one hand gripping Callum's hand tightly, the other drawn across his middle in the coolness of early morning. The coat Callum had borrowed from Elowyn hung tightly on his wide shoulders. They would not be separated again—not by reason, or fear, or anything short of death itself.

“We passed asking a while ago,” Elowyn murmured, eyes fixed not on Isolde but somewhere just beyond her shoulder, as though the answer might drift in with the smoke. “Now it’s only a matter of whether we vanish politely, or less so.”

The house still stank faintly of blood and scorched plaster, and though Emrys was crouched beside Malachy murmuring steady charms under his breath, the air thick with the old taste of fear, he had tried to see to Isolde first, but she’d waved him off with the composure only a Nott could wield, even bleeding. 'Tend to Malachy,' she’d said. 'He took more than I did.' And Emrys, knowing better than to argue with a woman whose voice still held steel even in pain, had obeyed. Brígh and Maebh were nestled on either side of her, silent and shell-shocked, their wide eyes tracking every raised voice, and every flicker of movement, as though the danger might reappear at any moment.

The rising sun had not yet broken the line of the horizon. The dawn bled through the soot-smeared windows, pale and thin as watered milk. Ash dusted the floor in places, tracked in by boots and bare feet alike, and the hearth sat cold and hollow behind a veil of smoke that had not yet entirely cleared.

Isolde sat upright on the scorched settee, cradling her side where the bandages, conjured in the woods, had begun to stain through . Brígh had curled more tightly into her side, while Maebh, though silent, kept one trembling hand wrapped in the fringe of her mother’s shawl. Isolde was pale—the palest Callum had ever seen her—but her eyes were keen and sharp as flint, her tone tempered like a blade honed on grief and hard years. Her voice trembled, but not from weakness, rather from fury held carefully in check. 

“You think Peter’s not safe?” she said, voice clipped and precise, each syllable honed like the edge of a silver knife. “Look around you. This house—our home—is in pieces. Your father can barely stand. I am bleeding. And still you stand there as if your urgency to see Peter outweighs all of it, as if the world hinges only on what you feel. I understand what it is to love someone so deeply you’d risk anything to be with them. But do not speak to me as though your pain is the only pain in this room.”

“No,” Callum snapped, “but—”

He stopped. The words caught and held. His breath came thin in his chest, and for the first time, truly, he saw it—the wreckage. The scorched wall blackened to bone. The ruined tapestry torn from the wall and unraveled. The cabinet cracked clean through. The cushion beneath his mother, ruined with blood. Brígh's eyes red-rimmed, and Maebh clinging like a wraith to her mother’s shawl. The smell of ash lingered surrounded by the silence of after.

It hit him all at once, the weight of it. They hadn’t just been attacked—they’d nearly been unmade. And he, so focused on reaching Peter, hadn’t looked properly. His jaw worked, but no sound followed.

Elowyn, sensing the shift, lifted his right hand and placed it gently against Callum’s bare forearm, thumb brushing in small, slow circles. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough.

“But what? You’ll climb aboard the Knight Bus in the middle of a war, half-dressed and barely healed, with barely enough wandwork to hold a Shield Charm steady and no idea who else might be riding with you? Truly? That is your grand strategy?” Her voice, though still elegant, wavered with incredulity. “You’ll risk your lives again before the blood has even dried? Be serious, Callum. Elowyn. Be. serious.”

There was a brittle silence. Even the wind outside the cracked window seemed to hold its breath. Callum didn’t answer, but his fist tightened around Elowyn’s hand, and his mouth set into a white, narrow line. Elowyn, still gripping Callum’s left hand, kept his right resting gently against Callum’s bare forearm, the contact steady and unwavering—a quiet anchor. The pendant at his throat pulsed again, sharp and steady. He knew, without needing to look, that Callum’s had vibrated too.

“We told you,” Elowyn said again, voice pitched low, like something pulled from the belly of the earth. “Not because it was convenient, but because it’s true. Apart, we unravel—thread by thread. The world doesn’t make sense without him. Not to us.”

“Don’t talk to me about whole,” Isolde whispered, each word enunciated with the sharp precision of someone clinging to dignity through the sheer force of will. She paused—winced—her free hand pressing more firmly against the bloodied bandage at her side, then continued, more slowly but no less fiercely. “Not while I’m holding my ribs in place and praying this child hasn’t been torn from me. You think I don’t understand? I gave up everything I was raised to be—for love. For your father, Callum. I know precisely what it means to choose someone with your whole soul. But I also know what it costs. And you must know—must truly understand—that love alone will not shield you from the world’s cruelty. It never has. It never will. Peter is safe. Your father is with him, Elowyn.”

That silenced them. Even the fire, just reignited in the grate, seemed to shrink in its cradle of stone. The weight of her words pressed down like damp wool, heavy and suffocating. Callum’s breathing slowed, and his gaze dropped to the ruined floorboards, to the blood staining the hem of the blanket wrapped around his mother. He wasn’t an idiot—neither of them were—but thinking clearly had become a luxury for quieter times. His thoughts were fractured, running in circles around fear and fury and the persistent throb in his chest. Elowyn’s thumb still moved in soothing arcs across his arm, but it couldn’t still the way his body buzzed.

Elowyn’s head bowed slightly. He too had heard the truth behind her words, heard the exhaustion beneath the admonishment along with the hurt braided in with love. And yet the insistence of the pendant’s pulse, steady and deep like a second heartbeat, made it almost impossible to think of anything else. It urged both of them forward, relentlessly, like the pull of a tide too ancient to question. Somewhere beyond this broken house, Peter waited afraid and without their presence.

Isolde’s breath hitched—not from pain, though there was that too—but from something older, more frayed. She shifted on the cushion, wincing sharply this time, her face briefly contorting with pain, and the smell of blood freshened in the air.

“You think love alone keeps people safe?” she asked, voice low. “Because if it did, we wouldn’t be here now. You wouldn’t be shaking and bleeding and threatening to run headlong into Rowena knows what just because you can’t stand to be apart a few hours longer.”

“That’s not fair,” Callum murmured.

“No, it isn’t,” she said, her gaze drifting around the ruined room—its walls blackened, furniture broken, her daughters still clinging silently to her side. “And neither’s any of this,” she added, more quietly now, as though the words were meant as much for herself as for them. “I wish it were.”

Elowyn opened his mouth, then closed it again. His hand trembled faintly in Callum’s. He could feel the pulse through both their fingers—steady, unrelenting. The pendants were alive with warning and longing both.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the low crackle of the fire and the faint rasp of Emrys’s wand as he continued his work. Then Malachy stirred, shifting against the cushions with the slow, stiff movements of a man still shaking off pain. His voice was little more than gravel scraped from the hearth.

“If Callum hadn’t been here…” he said. Then again, rasping, “If our boy hadn’t stood his ground, if he hadn’t fought like he did…”

Malachy’s voice wavered, but he pressed on. “They’d have taken her. They meant to. And it would’ve broken us.” He drew a slow breath. “If you hadn’t been here, lad… if Elowyn hadn’t given you that pendant...if he and his father hadn’t come—” He shook his head. “It would’ve been worse. ”

He turned his head slightly, eyes glassy but sharp, and fixed them both with a look that carried more weight than his words. “You both fought like men far older than your years. Like sons any family would be proud to claim. That’s all I’ll say.”

Callum looked down. Elowyn did too. For a breath—no more—their resolve wavered. It was there: the reality that if Callum had not stood beside his mother in the wood, wand in hand, everything might have been lost. That the thing they feared most—being separated—had, in its own twisted way, spared Callum something worse.

And deeper still, a thought neither dared to name aloud: that if they hadn’t spent half a year preparing to defend themselves—if they’d been sorted into any other House, any place where cruelty might have been less sharpened—they might not have lasted the first minute of the fight. Slytherin had taught them the shape of threat, and how to stand against it. They owed something, oddly, to the darkness they had braced against together.

A log cracked in the hearth. Outside, a crow called once from the fence post. But the moment passed.

“When we’re not with him,” Callum said quietly more to himself and Elowyn than to the adults, “I feel it something fierce. Every second. Like we’ve lost part of our own body.”

“I know,” Elowyn said softly, his eyes still on Callum, voice gentling into something private. “We’ll be alright. Not just yet—but we will. We’ll get to him.”

He squeezed Callum’s hand. “Not this way. Not now. She’s right.”

The words tasted bitter, but they were true. They’d lost this battle—not the war, not what bound the three of them—but this small, urgent push against the world. And Elowyn, for all his stubbornness, had enough of his fathers in him to recognize when insistence became cruelty.

“We’ll get to him,” he repeated, almost a vow. “Soon.”

His eyes didn’t leave Callum’s, and the words were meant for him more than anyone else—meant to name the thing pulsing between them that neither logic nor grief could quiet.

“I’m sorry, Mam,” Callum said at last, barely more than a whisper. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.”

Elowyn nodded faintly, still holding Callum's hand. “We’re sorry. Both of us.”

Isolde’s face softened. Despite the blood, despite the pain, something tender flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Thank you,” she said gently. “You are not wrong to want him near. And I promise you—we will make sure Peter is with you as soon as we can.”

The pendants flared again, their vibration not urgent but insistent, a pulse that echoed too deeply to be ignored. It was not just a reminder of Peter—it was a summons, a tether straining with the weight of separation.

Emrys straightened slowly, the faintest wince betraying the long night behind him. His eyes moved from Elowyn to Callum and back again, as though measuring something not just in posture or wounds, but in will and wear.

“I think,” he said, voice gentle but unmistakably firm, “that’s quite enough for now. You two—upstairs. Wash up. Callum, get dressed properly before you catch your death.”

He paused until both boys met his gaze. Elowyn gave a small, solemn nod. Callum, still pale and barefoot, managed a whisper of something like a grateful smile. They understood. It wasn’t the answer they wanted, but it was one they could hold—for now. Still gripping each other’s hands, they turned without another word and started for the stairs.

“We’ll speak about this again. Soon. Let me finish tending to your parents, Callum.”

Then, softer—almost to himself, though the boys would hear it clearly enough:

“We’ll see to it, we will. He’ll be with you soon enough. That’s a promise, not merely a comfort.”

—

The water from the basin was cold—the warming charms left un-renewed in the turmoil—but Callum didn’t flinch. He let it run through his fingers before cupping his hands and splashing his face. The blood had dried at his temple in a crusted arc. Elowyn, already at his side, dipped a corner of the towel in the basin and reached up without a word. He pressed the cloth gently to Callum’s face, wiping away the remnants of fear and fight with movements that were careful and reverent, as though he feared scrubbing too hard might unmake what was left.

Callum didn’t stop him, he simply turned to allow Elowyn to continue his ministrations. He didn’t speak, he only stood there, breath shallow and uneven, eyes fixed not on Elowyn—his movements, his face, and the steadiness of his hands. There was a quiet fierceness in the way Callum watched him, a reverence threaded through exhaustion. Elowyn had come for him. He had risked everything to reach him in the dark. He had convinced his father to come. It wasn’t just gratitude that swelled behind Callum’s ribs—it was recognition. He wasn’t sure what to name it, only that it reached deeper than friendship and settled in his bones like something that had always been meant to find its way back.

They hadn’t said much since coming upstairs. There hadn’t been a need. The weight of what had passed—Isolde’s words, Malachy’s rasped praise, and the brittle truth of nearly losing everything—lingered in the silence between them, but it was not a silence that hurt. It was a silence that held like a spell.

Elowyn handed him the towel. Callum took it without looking, but his hand brushed Elowyn’s fingers and lingered just a moment longer than he needed to. Neither of them pulled away. Instead, they stayed like that, fingers barely touching, eyes locked in a gaze neither rushed nor uncertain. For a moment, it felt as though time itself had stilled—just long enough to make space for something fragile and profound to take root. Callum’s breath slowed. Elowyn didn’t look away. And in that small space between contact and departure, something unspoken passed between them, not quite a promise, but a deep acknowledgment of all that had been endured, and all that still tethered them together.

“I didn’t see it,” Callum said, voice thick with the weight of everything he had not been able to say earlier, the emotions that had clawed and curled inside his chest finally cracking the surface. "The house. Her. Not until she made me look.”

“I know,” Elowyn said, his voice quiet but measured. He reached out, fingers brushing a lock of damp hair from Callum’s brow with the same reverence he might use to smooth a page in an ancient book. “You weren’t wrong. But it’s hard, sometimes, to feel everything that needs feeling all at once. The mind won’t bear it.”

Callum gave a small huff that might have been a laugh. “I’m not built like you. Words. Seeing things. I just—do and fight.”

Elowyn smiled faintly. “And we need that. We need you as you are. The world needs shields as much as it needs seers, Cal. Not all of us are meant to speak the truth aloud—some are meant to stand in front of it, to hold the line while others give it shape. You do that. You always have. And I am more because of it.” 

Callum took a step towards Elowyn, the towel bunched in his hands, and looked at Elowyn full. He didn’t speak, not at first—just stood there, gaze heavy with a thousand thoughts he could barely begin to name. Elowyn’s words echoed in his mind: shields and seers, the hollow ache of absence, the truth of being needed for exactly who and what he was. Something inside him, taut and wary for so long, began to ease. Not unravel, not fall apart—just ease, like a muscle unclenching for the first time in weeks.

He stepped forward again and embraced Elowyn wordlessly, the towel still clutched in one hand. His arms wrapped around Elowyn with a kind of urgency and reverence that needed no explanation. He didn’t press too tightly, didn’t speak—but the embrace said everything. Elowyn, unhesitating, returned it, arms sliding around Callum’s waist with a steadiness that felt like homecoming. They stood that way for a moment—silent, still, and sure—before parting just enough to meet each other’s gaze again.

Callum felt seen in a way that had nothing to do with scrutiny or praise. Elowyn wasn’t flattering him or trying to fix him—he was naming something true, something Callum himself had never put words to. It was like being handed a mirror that didn’t distort. He was enough, just as he was. And he wasn’t alone in the hollowness either. Elowyn felt it too—this emptiness when Peter wasn’t with them, when they weren’t with each other. Elowyn understand how that made the world feel like it had lost its meaning.

Even now, standing in the quiet with Elowyn in front of him, he could feel it still—that small gnawing gap where Peter should be. They were not yet whole but they were closer to it. They were wholer. And that was something. “I hope Peter is alright”

“He will be,” Elowyn said, pressing his pendant again to let Peter know they were there and they were safe.  He spoke the words not as comfort but as invocation. “They’ve given their word, and I’ve given mine. We’ll be with him before the sun sets.”

Callum snorted, a dry edge to it. "Aye, they’ve given their word before, haven’t they? And still—over a week gone, and this is the first we’ve laid eyes on each other."

Elowyn’s gaze drifted toward the pale wash of morning light on the floorboards. “It’s easier for them,” he said at last. “They have work, responsibilities—things that pull them away. But for me…being apart from you and Peter doesn’t just ache. It hollows me. Like I’m moving through the day with nothing inside.”

Callum stood there, bare feet on cool floorboards, the light from the window a pale wash across their faces. The silence returned, but this time it was full of breath and closeness and a kind of love already rooted deep, waiting quietly for the shape it might yet take. After a moment, Elowyn stepped back, his hand grazing Callum’s arm in parting. “I’ll get some clothes prepared for you,” he said, and slipped through the washroom’s doorway.

When Callum entered his bedroom a few minutes later, hair still damp from the shower, he found clean clothes already laid out on the bed—neatly folded, the jumper he liked best placed on top. Elowyn had thought of it—of course he had. Callum dressed quickly, the weariness settling into his limbs now that the urgency had passed. As he pulled on his jumper, he glanced at Elowyn, who sat quietly on the edge of the bed, shoulders rounded in fatigue, gaze distant and unfocused. He had been absentmindedly watching Callum dress with a kind of quiet reverence—as if the very act of seeing him safe and whole was something worth memorizing. His eyes, still shadowed from the long night, flickered only when Callum turned to catch them, and even then, he didn’t look away. There was no embarrassment in it—only a stillness, like a page waiting to be written on. The terror that had roused them so early was ebbing, and in its place came exhaustion. They were both losing steam, the night’s cost at last catching up to them.

Then came the crack—a single, sharp sound that echoed through the lower hall, made loud by an amplification charm to warn the farmhouse’s inhabitants of visitors coming to purchase from the farm. The crack needed no explanation; the magic was familiar and immediate in its meaning. Elowyn and Callum didn’t exchange a word. Elowyn simply reached out instinctively, threading his fingers through Callum’s, and together they moved, legs already in motion before thought had caught up. They bolted down the stairs, Elowyn’s boots and Callum’s bare feet thudding against wood, the fatigue of the morning forgotten for that one suspended moment of hope and fear twined together like breath held too long.

They reached what had once been the front door at the same time, though now it was nothing more than a jagged frame yawning open to the morning light. The door itself, shattered in the night’s violence, had not yet been repaired—Emrys still tending to Isolde and Malachy within. Just beyond the shimmer of the boundary ward stood a tall figure in dark robes, one hand on the shoulder of a boy whose chest heaved with effort.

It was Thaddeus. Beside him—hair wild, eyes wide, and face flushed with more emotion than he would ever willingly confess—stood Peter.

Peter paused upon seeing them—just for a heartbeat but long enough for it to matter. His feet didn’t move right away, though his whole body leaned forward, coiled with urgency. He had imagined this reunion so many times in the hollow stretch of nights without them, but now that it was here—now that they were whole and standing before him—his chest ached with too much feeling: Relief, disbelief, and the ache of almost-loss was all too loud inside him. He swallowed, blinked hard, and then bolted forward—feet finally obeying the pull of his heart, pounding across the damp stone path in uneven, desperate strides.

Callum and Elowyn stood still for a moment, shocked at seeing Peter. They had expected to fight for this—to plead, to argue, to make good on their threat of the Knight Bus if need be. But here he was, whole and wild-eyed, and something inside them gave way. The relief that flooded them was tidal, catching in their chests and stealing the breath from their lungs. 

They all met halfway down the path, not running so much as stumbling toward each other, drawn by something older than motion, older than thought—a force that pulled like tide toward shore. When they collided, it was not graceful, but it was perfect: a tangle of limbs and breath and desperate need. Elowyn and Callum encircled Peter without hesitation, drawing him into the space between them where he belonged. Peter’s arms wound around their backs, and theirs crossed behind his shoulders in a knot of limbs and fierce holding. Hands gripped fabric, hair, and skin wherever they could find purchase, the need to touch and anchor themselves overwhelming all else.

Their heads bowed together like An Trei before the altar stone north of An Dar, their breath rising as one—sweet and sharp with memory, like sacred smoke from the burning of Koeswood at Winter Solstice. It curled between them like a prayer spoken in the language of fire. Their hearts beat against their ribs like ceremonial drums, pounding out a hymn too primal for words—only touch, only breath, only the rhythm of being whole again. They had crossed the threshold of the everyday into the innermost ring of something older than speech, something sanctified. To speak would be to rupture the spell, to let daylight fall into a place not meant to be seen but felt—held in hush, in heartbeat, in the trembling pulse of reunion.

Peter’s face stayed buried in Callum’s shoulder, his arms clinging to both of them like a lifeline. His breath came in short, uneven pulls, his eyes shut tight as though to dam the flood within. Normally, he would have made a joke—something half-silly to pull them back from the edge—but not this time. The fear had lodged too deeply. He’d imagined this moment a hundred different ways over the past few hours, and in too many of them, one of the others—Callum, Elowyn, or both—hadn’t survived. So when his voice finally emerged, it was hoarse and small. “I thought—” He faltered. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you two again.”

“Only death will part us now,” Elowyn said softly, brushing the edge of Peter’s sleeve with his knuckles, then placing his hand at the back of Peter’s neck—not in comfort, but as one presses sacred clay to a brow on Solstice night, a mark laid with reverence, claiming, and love.

“Only death,” he whispered again—not as reassurance, but as supplication, a vow laid bare before the piece of An Dar he bore within him, before whom oaths had always rooted themselves in magic older than language.

They stood intertwined, arms and fingers knotted together with the kind of closeness born not from habit but from need—need stoked by sleepless nights, frantic pendants, and the unbearable silence of not knowing. For Peter, the need had clawed at him since the moment the pendant burst to life. He had woken alone, the pulsing pendant a cry he dared not ignore, and he had sat with that dread curling through him, knowing no one in his bustling home would hear it as he did. It had taken too long to rouse the house and convince his parents and Thaddeus to listen. But he had, and now he was here.

Peter was still pressed between them, breath hitching, arms clutching them both like they might vanish again. Neither Elowyn nor Callum moved to step back. Instead, they held fast, as if by holding on tightly enough, they could stitch the night back into something less horrific. The world had cracked and remade itself around their absence. Now, with Peter between them, it was beginning—just barely—to make sense again. Time moved around them, though not much of it passed—just a few minutes. The morning light inched higher across the lawn, softening the edges of shadow where the dew clung still and cold. Somewhere nearby, birds had begun their tentative chorus, their notes threading faintly through the silence. Yet even those sounds felt far away, as though the three of them stood wrapped in a spell of breath and stillness, a hush so complete that it swallowed everything but the steady rhythm of hearts finally reunited. They were together. They were whole again. And the earth, which had tilted sideways for far too long, seemed to right itself beneath their feet.

Chapter Text

The door to the sitting room hung askew on a single hinge, scorched at the edge and bowed in the middle where magic had torn through it like claws through skin. Inside, the wide hearth held a low, untended flame—its brightness deceptive, casting long, eerie shadows and giving little warmth. The room was bathed in an unnatural green glow, a wash of healing light woven and anchored by Emrys’s wand, its edges pulsing faintly where the magic still worked to hold pain at bay. The air was thick with smoke and nettle balm, and sharp with the scent of burnt wool and salt. Though the attack no longer raged, the house still crackled with the magical residue.

A plank creaked underfoot as the triad stepped into the ruins, hand in hand—Peter in the center, fingers clasped tight between Callum’s on his right and Elowyn’s on his left. They moved in unison, not with ceremony but with a kind of quiet gravity, as though any separation might break the spell that had brought them back together. In the fractured room they looked their years—no more, no less—three boys framed by the scorched wreckage of a home undone by war. The high beams above them were blackened and splintered with spellfire, and the once-warm sitting room lay in a wreck with a collapsed shelf that now lay half-buried in shattered porcelain. Near the corner, broken glass had gathered in sharp-edged piles, the remnants of a window blasted inward. 

Isolde still sat upon the settee, spine straight despite the weariness in her limbs, her shawl drawn even closer across her shoulders with her hands folded gently over the rise of her belly. Emrys knelt at her side, wand drawn but steady, murmuring a spell low in the back of his throat as he passed the tip in careful circles over the wound in her side. Brígh and Maebh had drifted to sleep, nestled on either side of their mother like mirror images, their small bodies curved protectively toward the gentle rise of her belly.

Malachy sat not far from the hearth, a conjured cushion beneath him and his back propped against a charred beam. He looked better than he had only an hour before—his color returned slightly, his breath more even—but the lines around his mouth spoke of pain and little sleep. His jaw was still bruised, his hair singed at the ends, and the ash on his face seemed to deepen the tiredness in his eyes. Yet when the boys entered, he looked up, and the set of his mouth softened. 

Thaddeus stood behind him, arms folded, his expression set in a line of controlled fury. There was no grief in his face—only a cold, calculated anger, the sort born of outrage that someone had dared to drag his husband and son into the war. His eyes swept the wreckage of the farmhouse not with sorrow, but with righteous indignation. The wards had failed. The family had been hunted. And now the cost lay smouldering all around them. He was already weighing contingencies, planning defenses—not just for the McCormacks, whom he barely knew, but for the ones seated here within the wreckage of broken glass and soot, the ones whose hands still trembled from earlier that morning—his son and husband.

The boys moved forward as one, not yet ready to let go. Callum’s shoulder brushed Peter’s. Peter’s grip was firm in Elowyn’s hand. Elowyn’s eyes never left his father. They sat—awkwardly at first, Peter tugging them both down by their joined hands until they settled near the hearth on a threadbare rug that had somehow survived the blasting curses used indiscriminately. The warmth that came off the glowing hearth was dry and thin, but it was warmth nonetheless.

Peter leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, eyes darting from speaker to speaker. His mouth remained shut, but the flicker in his jaw—tightening, releasing, and tightening again—betrayed the restlessness he didn’t voice. Every few moments, he looked at Elowyn and then at Callum and then back at Elowyn, as though checking and rechecking that they were still there and still whole. Peter leaned into Callum, their arms pressed along their lengths, and Elowyn’s hand rested on Peter’s thigh near his knee, grounding him with a quiet steadiness. Their presence wrapped around him like a ward, silent but certain. He was with them again. That was what mattered.

Callum sat stiller than either of them, his back drawn tight with tension, shoulders rigid despite the warmth pressed against him. The faint trembling in his fingers betrayed the effort it took to stay composed, and only when Peter's hand settled gently on his arm did some of that rigidity begin to ease. His body didn’t shift much, but the strain in his posture lessened, like something had just unclenched beneath the surface.

Elowyn leaned into Peter, their shoulders aligned, his other hand resting on Peter’s knee. He said nothing, but the weight of his presence was deliberate, anchoring. He watched his fathers with that same uncanny stillness he carried through most storms, his eyes dark and watchful—not with tears, but with something older. Something listening. Something gathering.

It was Emrys who broke the stillness. He rose slowly, pressing a cloth to Isolde’s wrist before speaking. “She’s stable. Your child’s stable too.”

Malachy huffed a breath that might have been a laugh or the ghost of one. “That’s…that’s good news. Better than I dared hope.”

Isolde gave him a tired glance, the barest flicker of a smile pulling at her mouth. “He hasn’t stopped kicking,” she murmured, cloasing her eyes as she rested a hand on her belly. “I’d be more elated if I weren’t too tired to keep my eyes open.”

It was Thaddeus who finally voiced what hovered above them all. “You can’t stay here.”

Malachy bristled, his voice low and hoarse. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do in my own home.”

“You call this a home still?” Thaddeus replied, not unkindly. “Half of it has been destroyed. The wards have been unmade entirely.”

“I’ll rebuild them,” Malachy snapped. “Stronger this time. I’ll double the perimeter, add trigger glyphs, and I’ll bind them all to blood if I must. I’ll patrol at night if it comes to it. This farm’s been in my family for seven generations. I won’t leave it for ash.”

Emrys crouched by the hearth, running a hand through the soot. “It’s not just about rebuilding wards, Malachy. They found you once. They’ll do it again. This wasn’t random.”

“It wasn’t,” Isolde said, voice tight but steady. “It was deliberate. And it wasn’t meant to end in this destruction.”

Malachy turned to her, brows drawn. “What do you mean?”

She exhaled through her nose, sharp and slow. “It was a retrieval attempt—not a raid. My family sent a message. Their primary intent wasn’t to destroy the farm. They wanted me. They thought they could take me back.”

“They didn’t make it far,” Malachy muttered, though his voice had lost its fire.

“They made it farther than they should have,” Thaddeus interjected, his tone sharp with the memory. “Nearly a mile through the hidden passage before Emrys and Elowyn found them. Had they arrived even minutes later, we might be speaking of the loss of your entire family, not simply damage.”

Isolde’s voice came quieter, but with a weight that hadn’t been there before. “Thaddeus is right. We were close—too close. They could’ve taken us all. Or worse.”

Emrys looked between them all. “Staying makes you a fixed target.”

Malachy turned away, pressing a hand to his temple. “Then we figh harder. We hold our ground. We don’t let them decide when we leave.”

Thaddeus’s voice was quieter now, each word measured and precise. “You barely held your ground once against only three Death Eaters. Do you believe they’ll let that go unanswered? Next time, you’ll be outnumbered. Too slow. Or she’ll be just far enough that you can’t reach her in time. And then it will be too late.”

Malachy grimaced, jaw working as he swallowed whatever retort first rose in his throat. “Doesn’t mean I like it,” he muttered. “But I’m not blind. We got lucky. That’s all it was. If you hadn’t shown when you did...” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I won’t gamble my family twice.”

Peter leaned back slightly then, shoulder brushing Callum’s. His face was hard to read, but Elowyn caught the way his thumb moved across Callum’s hand—a tiny, repeated circle, as if to draw him back from wherever he’d gone.

Silence pulsed in the room again. The green light of the hearth flickered against the ash-streaked walls.

“I have kin in Hogsmeade,” Malachy tried again, as if searching for footing. “They’ll have us at least for a time. There are patrols there. It’s better protected.”

“More scrutiny too,” Thaddeus said, his tone cool and deliberate. “The larger the crowd, the faster the gossip. Hogsmeade's protection is only as strong as one’s anonymity. The moment someone recognizes a name, or notices the wrong wand in the wrong hand, security becomes exposure.”

Emrys shifted his weight, glancing toward Thaddeus before speaking. No one spoke in the moments that followed his warning. The silence wasn’t empty—it was heavy, thoughtful, edged with the understanding of just how narrow the margin had been.

“There’s another option,” he said at last.

Everyone turned to him.

“Lanwynn Koes,” Emrys said. The name settled into the space like something ancient, not quite soft.

Malachy gave him a look that was more wary than surprised. “Your little hamlet in Cornwall?”

“It’s more than a hamlet,” Emrys replied. “It’s old magic—protected, and quiet. The wards are drawn from the land itself. No roads lead in. It’s not easy to find, and harder still to enter if you’re not welcome.”

“Exactly,” Malachy said. “I hear tell they don’t like outsiders that they don’t take kindly to strangers. I’ve heard the stories. Most wizards couldn’t find it on a map, let alone move into one of their cottages. You think they’ll just open their gates to us because you ask?”

“They might,” Emrys said, calm but certain. “If Elowyn and I speak for you.”

Isolde frowned. “And what happens if they don’t? Or if they do and we’re shunned in every lane and shop?”

“You’ll be safe,” Emrys said. “That’s more than I can say for anywhere else.”

“Safety isn’t nothing,” Malachy said, “but it’s not a life either. You think we’re going to be happy tucked away in the wild, looked at sideways by villagers who think we’re the problem before we’ve said a word?”

Thaddeus spoke then, voice low but measured. “The wizarding world talks a great deal about bloodlines and legacy and power. Lanwynn Koes has little interest in any of that. It remembers older things—stewardship and reciprocity. It doesn’t reject people for being strangers or even strange. I have made it my home for over two decades and though they’ll never see me as a true son of the Koes. They treat me well enough and with respect.”

“We could go to the Continent,” Isolde offered reluctantly. “Disappear into some quiet valley in the Pyrenees or take refuge in one of the older enclaves. There are places where no one knows our names—places still strong in magic but far from all this.”

“And look over our shoulders forever?” Malachy asked. “We’ve got children. That’s no life.”

Emrys nodded. “Lanwynn Koes isn’t easy. It isn’t soft. But it will hold you. And the Koes—” he glanced toward Elowyn—“will recognize you if you belong.”

“They’ll know I’m a Nott,” Isolde said.

“They’ll know more than that,” Elowyn said quietly. “They’ll see who you are now. I’m a Travers—though from the older line, not the one that clung to the Dark. Still, most don’t ask about the difference. They hear the name and assume the worst. But Koesfolk never have. They’ve known my family for generations beyond measure. What matters to them isn’t blood, it’s whether you show up when the fields need tending, or when the stones want mending. They look to what you care for. What you give back.”

Malachy exhaled slowly, his brow furrowed. “They sound more like farmers than most wizardfolk.”

Isolde’s voice was quieter, more thoughtful than skeptical. “They’d have to be to survive out there.”

“They are,” Elowyn said, with a faint tilt of his head. “And they choose who they trust slowly. But once they do, once An Dar knows you, they remember.”

“An Dar?” Isolde asked, glancing between them.

“It means ‘the Oak’ in the old tongue,” Callum answered before Elowyn could. “It’s short for An Dar Gwynn—the Sacred Oak at the heart of the Koes. Elowyn’s told me about it. Wrote about it too." 

Elowyn added, his voice soft but certain, “It was planted by a druid more than fifteen hundred years ago. The Grand Oak, An Dar Gwynn, is the heart of the Koes—not just its center, but its pulse. Magic clings to it like lichen on bark, layered by the hands and hearts of those who lived and tended there. It remembers what’s given, not what’s claimed. Everything that endures in the Koes begins with the Oak.”

Isolde blinked, her brow furrowing. “That’s not...that’s not the kind of magic I was taught. Oaks with memory? Places that choose you?”

Malachy let out a slow breath, glancing toward the ruined wall. “And you’re telling me this tree—this Oak—somehow knows who’s worth trusting?”

Malachy’s gaze dropped to the soot-blackened floor. “I don’t like it.”

Isolde shook her head, clearly unsettled. “It’s not the kind of magic I know. I was taught runes and incantations, wandwork and potioncraft. Nothing that listens to your footsteps or holds memory in its bark. I don’t think I quite like it myself”

“No one said you had to,” Thaddeus replied. “Only that it’s the best option you have.”

Malachy looked up at Callum. “What do you think, lad?”

Callum’s voice was even, though his jaw was tight. “I love you. I always will. But I’m staying with them. With Elowyn and Peter. They're where I belong.”

Peter leaned into Callum's side more firmly, silent but unyielding. From the other side, Elowyn watched him—not with indulgence, but with that quiet, settled affection he never named aloud. It glimmered in his eyes, a touch brighter at the edges, though his expression barely shifted.

Malachy exhaled through his nose, the sound heavy. “You're a good lad,” he said to Callum, rough-voiced. “Stubborn as your mother. And maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve been hanging on to scorched boards and cracked stone when I should be holding on to yous all.”

He looked at Isolde, and something gentler passed between them. She reached out, laying a hand over his, her eyes soft with memory. “I know what it is to leave the place that made you,” she said quietly. “But I also know what it is to choose something better. Something worth it.”

Malachy gave a short nod, the kind that looked like it hurt. “I know you do,” he said gruffly. “You left everything behind for me once. And now here I am, learning the same lesson—too late, maybe, but learning it still.”

Elowyn watched them quietly, his gaze softened not by pity but by something older and more knowing. “It’s never too late to choose rightly,” he said gently. “Lanwynn Koes doesn’t ask you to be pure. It asks you to be honest. And it remembers who stands with the land, not above it.”

Malachy was silent a long time. His gaze moved first to the soot-stained floor, then to his wife. A great deal passed in that glance—fear, reluctance, and weariness, but also the weight of trust. When she gave the barest nod, he turned back toward Emrys. Then he nodded—once, slow and tired.

“We’ll try it. If they’ll have us.”

Emrys inclined his head. “They will. I’ll vouch for you—as will Thaddeus. And Elowyn’s presence will carry more weight than you know.”

For a long breath, no one moved. Then Elowyn stood, and the other two followed. Peter rose a beat behind, brushing ash from his sleeve with a quiet frown, while Callum’s eyes stayed fixed on his parents a moment longer. Elowyn glanced once between them, and though he said nothing, the understanding passed easily between the three of them. There would be time later to speak. For now, there was work to be done.

Together, they crossed the room, stepping carefully around the broken stone and scattered glass. Near the wall, Brígh stirred in her sleep, her hand still clutching the soot-darkened ear of a stuffed rabbit. Maebh turned in toward her mother, one arm thrown over the curve of Isolde’s hip. Isolde said nothing, only reached for the rabbit gently and folded it against her side as Emrys conjured another crate. Thaddeus rolled up his sleeves.

Malachy braced his hand against the charred beam behind him and pushed himself up slowly, a low sound escaping him as he rose—half grunt, half breath. His legs trembled under his weight, and he staggered once, catching himself against the wall with a hiss of pain. For a long moment, he stood there, breath shallow, before he limped toward the settee where Isolde still sat. His progress was slow, uneven.

Isolde watched him approach and made no comment on his limp. When he reached her side, he extended a hand—not to help her, but to steady himself. She took it anyway, rising carefully, her free hand still cradling the rabbit she'd tucked beside her daughters. They stood for a moment, not quite touching beyond the brace of his hand at her elbow, but the closeness was there—visible and steady. And for a moment, standing there amid the ash and silence, they leaned into each other like a tree and its roots, neither strong alone, but steady together. In the stillness, the gold glow of the hearth began to fade, leaving behind only the warmth of motion and of hands reaching to lift what could be saved.

—

The sun had climbed past its zenith by the time Emrys and Elowyn reached the threshold of Lanwynn Koes. The moor rolled out behind them, golden and silent under a high summer sky, but the boundary stone—half-swallowed by grass and moss—remained cool beneath their palms. Elowyn felt the familiar tremor of the place just under his skin, a hum more felt than heard. The moor shimmered faintly, then parted, revealing the quiet lanes and thatched-roofed cottages of the hamlet beyond. They stepped forward as one, their cloaks brushing against the long heather.

Lanwynn Koes did not welcome with trumpets or banners, nor did it shout or sing its welcome. It breathed slowly and deeply, as though each gust of wind across the moor was a thought half-formed. It listened—not passively, but with intent, the way old trees listen to the footfalls of children beneath their boughs. It watched, not from windows or towers, but through rustling leaves and the shifting light of the Koes. The silence it offered was not emptiness, but a space made sacred by attention—a stillness that acknowledged something vital had come to its edge, and the land itself waited to hear what would be asked of it.

An Hel an Koes—The Hall of the Grove——stood as it always had, carved into the natural sweep of the land, its great roof formed by living branches woven thick with ivy and hung with rune-lanterns that glowed faintly even in daylight. Birds rustled in the canopy above, and a fox darted between the trees just beyond the hall’s reach. The place always felt as if it were waiting.

Emrys lifted his wand and stepped forward. With a practiced movement, he drew an arc in the air, and from the tip burst a pulse of deep golden light. It rang outward with the solemnity of a great bell struck in the deep. The sound was not heard so much as felt—low, sonorous, and full of memory—like stone humming beneath the weight of centuries. It rippled through the air and soil alike, ancient and unmistakable, the call that summoned the people of Lanwynn Koes to An Hel.

They waited, the silence stretching on until even the leaves above seemed restless, whispering faintly in anticipation. Then Emrys raised his wand again and sent the pulse a second time, its golden arc rippling outward like a bell struck beneath the skin of the world. Still no one came. Only the hush of the Koes held them.

A third time, he cast the signal. The light flared and faded, the earth seeming to exhale around them. Slowly—reluctantly—it began. Footsteps on moss. The rustle of robes. The Koesfolk answered the call, not in haste, but with solemn deliberation. The pulses expanded like ripples through the Koes, brushing against the rune-etched stones and old earth wards, shaking leaves from high branches. Only then did the first of the Koesfolk begin to arrive, slow and watchful, answering the summons with quiet steps and measured eyes. They came not like a crowd, but like roots responding to rain—gradual, cautious, and called by duty: A father with a child on his shoulders; A mother whispering to her sons; An elder who leaned too heavily on her walking stick but came all the same. They did not speak at first, as if speech would fracture whatever had been stirred in the stillness. There was an air of something sacred in the gathering.

Elowyn recognized many faces—Eira, standing tall near the entrance with her palms folded over her walking staff; Padrig, arms crossed, jaw tight beneath his beard; Meryn, keeper of the bees, their brow already furrowed with preemptive disapproval. Delwenn the weaver was there too, her hands still stained faintly with dye. Others clustered behind them—children clutching the hems of robes, old men with creased faces, mothers with garden-dirt under their nails. Their expressions were not hostile, but they were cautious and wary.

It was Emrys who stepped forward, cloak brushing the earth as he came to stand at the center of An Hel. The light through the boughs cast shifting patterns across his face, the gold of the canopy dappling his grey-streaked hair.

“My kin,” he began, his voice strong but low, the words spoken in Cornish as was custom when speaking before the Hall, “I ask your ear for a matter that cannot wait. A family has been harmed. Their home has been destroyed. They are not of the Koes, but they are kin in magic and need. I ask your hearing.”

A murmur stirred at that—low, not consent, but not refusal either…yet. There was a ripple of movement, like wind through long grass.

Eira’s voice was the first to rise, calm and crystalline. “We’ve opened our gates before, Mab Emrys. An’ what did it bring us but young ones who spoke too fast and listened too little? They stayed a season, an’ went off with our songs still half-woven in their ears.”

Padrig nodded sharply. “Aye, Hwester Eira the last lot brought naught but noise. Upset the stillness. Mocked the rites, they did. Said the stones were foolishness.”

“They did not plant, Mab Emrys” Meryn added, voice like beesmoke. “They did not tend. They did not stay. The Koes does not remember them.”

Emrys bowed his head, not in shame but acknowledgment. “These are not those you mention. This is a family undone by the war. A woman, near birthing. Three children and only one of Hogwarts age. Their wards failed. Their home was set alight. I saw the scorched beams myself. Elowyn and I stood alongside them as we drove off their attackers."

Eira’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Aye, and that’s well and good, Mab Emrys. But their need doesn’t make them right for us. We’ve let others in before, and it left wounds that haven’t yet healed. We were mocked, misunderstood. Some of us still carry the sting.”

Emrys turned his head slightly toward him. “I know who you mean, Tas Padrig, Kowsyas Meryn, Hwester Eira. Aye, that was more’n thirty years ago, and I remember it as clear as midsummer rain. But what you forget—what you’ve let slip, perhaps because it’s been so easy to forget—is that my Thaddeus, who came from outside the hedge and wood, was welcomed into this very fold not two decades past. He was no less an outsider, but he came with open hands and sharp eyes, and he’s done nothing but good by us. His shop has spared many of you the journey to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley, bringing wand-lore and small enchantments close to hand, right where they’re needed. You speak as though no outsider’s ever brought blessing—but you’ve all held charms from his shelves, worn cloaks he’s reinforced, and found ease in the little magics he made accessible. So tell me now—has no good come of it?”

“Aye,” admitted Padrig, his voice gruffer now, touched with rue. “I forgot meself for a moment. Thaddeus has brought much good, that he has.”

A murmur threaded its way through the Koesfolk, low and layered, as heads nodded and eyes flicked toward familiar corners of the hamlet where Thaddeus’s shop stood—slightly more refined than most, though still well-matched to the hamlet’s style—its door often left unlocked during daylight hours, operating on the honor system for those in need of charms or small enchantments when Thaddeus was away. They spoke in hushed agreement that though he was Muggleborn and came from beyond the moor, he had become a steadfast pillar of the community. Through quiet constancy and a readiness to provide what once required long journeys and coin, he had earned a place not by blood, but by his manner of being—steady, honest, and rooted now as any of them.

“And who will feed them while they find their feet?” came a voice from the back—old Owena, her cane tapping the floor once for emphasis. “Who will house them when our own stones barely hold? We’ve not had an easy year either.”

“They have hands, Mamm Owena. The father is a farmer born,” Emrys said. “And hearts. I’ve seen them. The mother is near her time of birthing—days, maybe less. She’s strong in her own right, trained in the old ways. She was born a Nott, that is true—but she turned her back on that house long ago. They cast her out for marrying a Muggleborn farmer, for loving without condition. She has made her own life, and rejected theirs.”

A hum of unease rippled through the Hall at the name.

“She’s a Nott,” said one voice near the rear, low but cutting.

“Aye,” came another, sharper still. “That’s a Dark name, Emrys. You can’t say it plain here and not expect the air to shift.”

“Dark blood brings dark trouble,” muttered an elder woman, arms folded tightly across her chest.

“And her children—what of them?” asked a younger man with weather-worn hands. “Do they bear the name? What grows from poisoned root?”

But then Delwenn, who had been silent, lifted her chin. “If we start countin’ names as curses, then what d’we make of the Travers line?” Her gaze turned pointed. “There’s more than a few among us with that woven through their threads. Emrys’s kin among ’em.”

The Hall stilled again, not in rejection, but reckoning. No one interrupted.

“She turned her back on the Notts,” Delwenn continued. “Married a man not of her house. Lived quiet. That speaks to me more than the ink on a birth scroll.”

“Very true,” Emrys said, his tone grave but edged with pride. “She’s rejected the Dark and even stood beside me only this morning, wand drawn, heart steady, facing down those who came to steal her from her children and bring ruin on them all. That’s the measure I took of her—not the name she was born to, but the choice she made when fire and shadow came calling. And more than that—my son vouches for them.”

At this, the Hall shifted. All eyes turned to Elowyn—not just because he spoke, but because something in the Koes seemed to lean with him. Because when one of your own stands for outsiders, you must decide again what “own” truly means.

He stepped forward slowly, the hush deepening. The light through the windows shifted, not with wind but with listening. It was as if the Hall itself leaned in. Where Emrys had spoken with clarity, Elowyn’s words came wrapped in quiet intensity, like wind stirring the soil to expose the roots beneath.

“We do not turn strangers away,” he said, “because we were never meant to be a fortress. We are not guarded by secrecy, but by care. We remember what is given. What is tended. Not what is claimed by name or blood.”

Delwenn frowned. “They are not Koesfolk. How do we know they will understand us? That they will not take what they learn and twist it, as others have?”

“Because they have already lost,” Elowyn replied. “Not through fault, but through violence. And those who have lost much often listen better than those who have never hungered. They understand silence. They understand rebuilding from ash.”

Another voice joined—an elderly man with a voice like weathered peat. “D’you think they know the rites, then? The old tongue? Will they speak with the stones, or just talk over ’em like the rest?”

Elowyn did not flinch. “Not yet. But they will. They’ll listen, because they must, and we—we will show them how. Slowly, gently, like we would any seedling set in new soil. And if they do not root, if they do not heed the rhythm of this place, then we will know. And they will go.”

Meryn shook their head. “Words are wind.”

“No,” Elowyn said, voice firmer now. “Words are roots. They bind us, if we let them. The McCormacks are not asking for dominion. The only ask for refuge. Giving refuge is not weakness—it is kinship, offered with both hands.”

There was a long silence. Then Eira spoke again, her tone gentled by shadowed memory. “An’ what if they’ve naught to give back? What if all they’ve got is need?”

“They will,” Elowyn said. “And if, in time, they falter—if they forget the rhythm of this place or the quiet it asks for—then the fault will rest with me. I’ll carry it, as I would my own. Because I asked this of you. Because I believe they are worth the asking.”

Emrys stepped forward then, his voice low but resolute. “And I say this to you all, as one who was born of the Koes and raised beneath its canopy: he will not bear it alone. My family will carry what must be carried. The debt, the labor, the weight—we will shoulder it together.”

That silenced the Hall. Even Padrig’s arms dropped. The canopy overhead stirred faintly as though the Grove itself had drawn breath.

The wind stirred through An Hel an Koes, rustling the ivy, whispering down from the Grand Oak’s distant crown. Somewhere, a rune-lantern pulsed and dimmed.

At last, Owena tapped her cane once more. “Then let it be so. But let the ritual be done properly. As it was in the days before.”

“Aye,” echoed Padrig, his tone more subdued. “Let it be done in the old way, so we do not forget who we are.”

“We’ll watch,” said Delwenn. “We’ll listen. But it must be done full and right.”

Others murmured their assent—some quietly, some with gruff resignation—but none in opposition. The Koes had heard. And so had they.

Emrys nodded, his voice softer now, with the cadence of the Koes deep in it. “Iss, it will be done proper. As it was, as it should be. It is no small thing, to give someone the right to walk beneath the Oak.”

And with that, the Hall began to shift—not dispersing, but preparing. The ritual of entrance would be held at the stone. And the Koes would watch—not to judge, but to remember. To witness whether these new names would take root in the old soil, or drift like wind across the moor.

Elowyn’s fingers brushed the carved groove of his pendant, and two faint pulses in succession answered him from two distant pendants echoing the same rhythm. Peter. Callum. They were waiting. They were near. And they had felt the shift in the air, even from afar.

—

Thaddeus arrived first, wand still warm from casting the last of the protective wards around the McCormack remnants. He held the edge of his coat close against the wind as two soft cracks split the air: one as he Apparated in with Peter and Callum, and another a heartbeat later as Emrys arrived with Elowyn. The Ainsley home sat nestled in a sagging row of stone cottages at the far edge of a narrow valley—more a maze of additions and magical patches than any one proper structure. Windowpanes rattled, laundry flapped on conjured lines overhead, and at least three voices screamed somewhere within.

Callum had insisted on coming. He hadn't liked letting Elowyn go off alone to the Koes, nor had Peter, though they had understood the necessity once Elowyn explained it. Elowyn had taken both of them aside earlier, his tone quiet but unyielding. I have to ask them myself, he had said. If the Koes is to be our home, I must be the one who opens the door.Callum hadn’t liked it, but he had nodded. And now, here he was, standing on Peter’s right, eyes already narrowing at the racket pouring from the Ainsleys’ windows.

Peter didn’t knock. He stepped up and pushed the door open.

“Oi!” came a shout from somewhere deep in the house. “Shut that, you’re letting the Flittermites in again!”

The front room was an explosion of color, motion, and sound. A baby cried from upstairs. A saucepan floated unsteadily over a fireplace in the corner. Books, cushions, and an upended jar of floo powder lay strewn across the floor. Two small children dashed past them, one chasing the other with a toothbrush held like a wand.

Peter sidestepped them and called, “Mum? Mum, it’s me—Peter!”

A voice floated down from the second floor. “Peter? Is that you? Have you eaten? You’re late! And—Merlin’s breath—where’s your brother?!”

“I dunno, I’ve just got back!” Peter shouted up. “But I’ve got guests!”

That summoned silence for a half-second. Then a crash. Then more shouting.

“Mum!” Peter called again, exasperated. “Mum, we need to talk. Properly.”

Eventually, Morwenna Ainsley emerged from the stairwell, her robes wrinkled, her braid half undone, a smudge of jam or soot across her cheek. She looked at Peter first, then at the others, blinking as though seeing them through fog.

“Oh,” she said, pushing hair behind her ears. Then her face lit up. “Callum, Elowyn—look at you two. Come here, loves.” She wrapped them each in a quick, fierce hug, tucking Elowyn’s long black hair behind his ear and giving Callum’s shoulder a firm squeeze. “You wrote when Peter was out cold—bless you again for that. Elowyn, I got your letter last week, Elowyn—sorry I haven’t written back. It’s kind of you to keep on, even though Peter’s up and about. I do like hearing about him through your eyes.” She stepped back with a tired smile.

Elowyn gave a small smile, his voice soft. “I’m glad my letters brought you some comfort.”

Thaddeus then cleared his throat gently. “We were hoping for a word, Mrs. Ainsley.”

“Yes, yes, come in. Sit down—but not on that, it’s got cat sick. Or baby sick. Honestly, could be both. Here, I’ll just—” she Vanished the offending cushion and summoned up a few clean chairs with a flick. “Mind the carpet. The twins knocked over one of their potion experiments earlier.”

She looked at Peter again. “You all right, love?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. We’re all right. We were at the McCormacks’—”

“Oh, it’s terrible, that,” she said, glancing over at Thaddeus with a nod. “You said he’d gone off with you, but I didn’t expect anything like this. I’ve been worried sick—but I knew you’d look after him. Are they all right?”

“As well as can be,” Emrys said gently. “It’s actually about that that we’ve come.”

Morwenna nodded vaguely and gestured for them to sit again, then turned to shout over her shoulder, “Brenna! Stop licking the rune stones! I don’t care if they taste like sweets!”

They barely got three words in before another child appeared with a scraped knee. Then a toddler needed changing. Then someone activated the Wards with a misplaced toy wand. Through it all, Morwenna moved like a conductor of a particularly deranged orchestra, waving her wand and muttering silencing charms while trying to listen to Emrys and Thaddeus explain that Peter might come to stay in Lanwynn Koes for a while.

“Right,” she said at last, dropping into a chair with a weary huff. “Lanwynn—that’s down in Cornwall, isn’t it? Peter’s talked about it. Sounds lovely. And quiet. I could use a bit of quiet myself, tell you that.”

Emrys inclined his head. “Yes, I’m from there. It is very quiet. We’ve received permission from the Koesfolk to welcome McCormacks and Peter as well. If you agree.”

Morwenna looked at Peter. Really looked at him. Her face softened.

“You’ve always been a bit different,” she said. “You were the quiet one—until you weren’t. Then it was stars and maps and all sorts of odd things. I don’t always follow it, but I know when something’s good for you.” She paused. “But I’ll need to speak with your father first. It’s not a small thing, letting you go.”

Peter swallowed and looked down.

Callum reached over, brushing his shoulder with quiet steadiness.

She nodded. “You want this?”

Peter nodded. “Yeah. I do. I…I belong with them.”

Morwenna didn’t speak right away. She looked at her son—really looked at him—and then over to Elowyn and Callum, standing quiet but solid at his side. Her eyes narrowed, not in disapproval, but in calculation.

“After what happened in that bloody Common Room,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “I said I wasn’t letting you out of my sight again.”

She sighed and rubbed her brow, then looked at him again, softer now.

“But you’re not hiding anymore. You’ve found something—or someone—that helps you stand up straight again. I’m not sure I understand it, but I won’t be the reason you lose it.”

Morwenna looked around the room—at the chaos, the noise, the sheer impossible hum of life—and sighed.

“All right, then. I’ll deal with your father later. I’m saying yes now because I need just one thing today to be easy. But you make sure you write. And don’t forget your siblings’ birthdays. And maybe write now and then about what you're all up to—just so I know you're not out getting yourselves blown up or turned into frogs or something equally daft..”

Peter blinked. “Wait—so that’s it? I can go?”

Morwenna gave him a tired, knowing look. “You’ve been moping about since beginning of summer holiday, love. This is the first time I’ve seen a proper light in you all summer.” She paused, then added more gently, “You belong with them. I’m losing you sooner than I expected—but it’s clear your place is with these boys, not buried under this beautiful madness.”

Peter looked dazed, blinking as if the air had gone thin. “I thought…I thought I’d have to fight for it.”

“You don’t,” she said simply, her voice soft but steady.

Elowyn moved to Peter’s side, placing a hand lightly on his back. “Thank you, Mrs. Ainsley. For trusting him. And us.”

Callum nodded, his voice low and earnest. “We’ll look after him. Like he’s one of ours.”

Morwenna gave them a watery smile. “I know you will."

As Peter turned toward the stairs, Jemima leaned against the doorway with a raised brow and a mischievous glint in her eye. “So this is how you get out of washing up? Join a triad and flee to Cornwall?”

“Shut up, Jemma,” Peter muttered—but he was smiling.

Nessa’s voice followed, dry and sharp from her perch on the staircase. “Don’t forget to write when you’re off in some big magical forest with your boyfriends or whatever.”

Peter laughed softly but glanced away, a flush rising to his cheeks. “They’re not my—” he began, but didn’t finish.

Elowyn, standing just behind him, felt something stir in his chest at the half-spoken words—an ache laced with quiet hope. He didn’t speak, but his gaze lingered on Peter’s profile.

Callum, unbothered, simply clapped Peter on the shoulder.

“I’ll write,” Peter said again, steadier this time. “Even if it’s just to send dramatic updates about magical livestock and who’s hexed who over breakfast.”

Then he hurried up the stairs to gather his things. Elowyn and Callum followed close behind, leaving Emrys and Thaddeus alone in the sitting room with Morwenna.

Thaddeus offered a faint smile, loosening his shoulders slightly. “Your household runs a rather…energetic rhythm.”

Morwenna snorted. “You’ve no idea. Most of the families 'round here work long hours, both parents if they can manage it. Not many Galleons to go around. So when someone needs their littles looked after, they knock on my door, and I can't quite say no, can I? They’re good folk—just stretched thin. Same as the rest of us.”

Thaddeus inclined his head politely. “It speaks well of you—and of the community you've helped hold together.”

Emrys gave a soft hum of agreement. “A place that looks after its young, even when it’s hard—that’s a place worth protecting. That’s the way of it in Lanwynn Koes, too.”

Morwenna opened her mouth to respond, but a sudden clatter interrupted her as a stack of wooden blocks collapsed somewhere behind the settee, followed by a triumphant toddler shout of "I did it!"

She rolled her eyes and muttered, "Every time I try to say something wise…" before rising to investigate the latest mischief.

Emrys leaned down to scoop up a runaway toy wand before it could roll under the settee. A crash sounded from the back room, followed by laughter and wailing in equal measure.

“I’ll just—” he said with practiced calm, and vanished down the hall to intervene.

Thaddeus, smiling faintly, remained where he was as the noise subsided. A moment later, the boys returned, Peter, his trunk hefted easily in Callum’s steady grip, a look of wonder still half-settled on his face. He lingered a moment to embrace Morwenna, who squeezed him tightly before waving him off with a fond flick of her fingers.

“Take care of my daft little star-gazer,” she murmured.

“Always,” Elowyn said softly.

And then, once they’d stepped to the Apparition point, with the faintest tug of air and magic, they were gone—into whatever came next.

—

The sun had just begun to bleed into the eastern moorland, soft rose and flame flickering over the gorse and heather. Mist clung low along the horizon, pooling in the hollows and dancing in the last warmth of the day. The wind held a hush to it—not silence, but reverence—as if the land itself were holding its breath. The scent of damp earth and gorse pollen lingered in the air, mingling with the faint tang of approaching twilight.

They arrived just beyond the boundary stone, drawn through the pull of a Portkey Thaddeus had crafted in quiet haste while Emrys and Elowyn had been speaking with the Koesfolk in An Hel an Koes. It was unassuming but practical—a rowan branch, broad enough to fit nine palms if pressed close together, the surface veined with faint, threadlike runes etched deep into the wood. It thrummed with subtle, deliberate magic. Apparition, especially for Isolde so far along in her pregancy, had been deemed far too dangerous by Emrys. The Portkey, unregistered and safely grounded in Thaddeus's precise workmanship, allowed them all to travel together in one measured jolt of displacement that left no trace behind.

They landed together with only the faintest ripple of displaced air, the remnants of the spell dissolving into mist as their boots touched the moss-softened earth. Before them stood the boundary stone, half-embedded in the earth like a sentinel keeping watch. It was taller than most men, its surface mottled with age and layered with a patchwork of silvery-green lichen. The stone’s grain shimmered faintly in the fading light. It jutted up from the mossy earth like a jagged tooth, grey and veined, hunched against the wind. For those who did not belong, it was a stone and nothing more—rough-hewn, weathered by centuries of rain and salt-laced wind. But for the Koesborn or those who had been welcomed, its surface shimmered faintly, inscribed with delicate silver runes that shifted and glowed when touched by those accepted by An Dar. 

Emrys stepped forward first, his cloak stirring behind him as the breeze shifted. He stood tall before the stone, facing them with the quiet weight of responsibility etched into every line of his posture. “This is the edge of Lanwynn Koes,” he said, his voice rich with something older than pride. “Once the ritual is complete, all shall be revealed.”

He turned to the McCormacks and Peter. He spoke gently. “The words must be spoken in Cornish. That is part of the old binding. But you deserve to know what you’re pledging.” He paused, his gaze resting briefly on each of them. “You’ll say that you come to Lanwynn Koes—whether in joy or in grief. That you will bring no harm, and commit no wrong. That you will guard the land, the hearth, and the memory of those who came before. And in the end, you promise to stand in love and kinship—for the Koes, for the Koesfolk, and for all that is still to be learned.”

He stepped back slightly and looked to Elowyn, whose expression had grown still. Elowyn's fingers curled subtly at his side, a flicker of sensation passing through him—not pain, not fear, but a pulse of knowing that thudded deep and old beneath his ribs.

He turned slowly to face the Koesfolk, voice quieter but unmistakable. “An Dar has stirred.” As he spoke, his eyes caught the dying light—deep blue rimmed with violet, and for a moment, the violet gleamed faintly, not with light reflected, but with something within. It was the glow that came only when the Grove stirred through him, subtle and strange, like the shimmer of spelllight seen from beneath still water.

A murmur rippled across the gathered villagers. Even those who had stood stone-faced before now leaned in. No one—no Koesborn with sense, at least—invoked the name of the Grand Oak lightly. Stories had long warned of those who did so falsely, and the price that followed.

Emrys said nothing. He simply inclined his head once.

Elowyn’s gaze lingered on Callum and Peter, soft and unreadable. The breeze tugged lightly at his robes, and for a moment he looked carved from stillness itself. Then he spoke—not loudly, but with the kind of gravity that made even the wind pause.

“They will not take part now,” he said, his voice low and clear. “Not because they are unwelcome. But because An Dar has stirred within me, and I know this: their welcome must be spoken apart. Not beneath the eyes of many, but in stillness, where the Koes may answer. I will speak the words with them alone, and when I do, it will be enough.”

To object when a Koesfolk claimed to feel An Dar stir within them was near to treason. After Elowyn spoke, a subtle hush fell across the gathering—less silence than a kind of stillness, reverent and wary. Among the Koesfolk, none shared Elowyn's bond to An Dar, none could not feel what he felt. But those born in Lanwynn Koes could sense the rightness or wrongness of those who invoked An Dar’s name, it came as a prickle at the base of the spine, or a weight in the chest like memory trying to surface. Heads dipped in quiet assent. A child reached instinctively for her mother's hand. No words were spoken, but the land itself seemed to lean forward, listening.

Turning back to the McCormacks, Emrys met their eyes, his expression solemn but kind, the last rays of sunset glancing off the worn planes of his face. The stone began to hum as he stepped forward once more, the low thrum vibrating gently through the soles of their boots. He moved with quiet certainty, the weight of tradition settling over his shoulders like a mantle. 

“You who come to Lanwynn Koes in need, will you speak the old words and bind your intent?”

Isolde exchanged a glance with Malachy. Maebh and Brígh huddled close. Malachy placed a steadying hand on Isolde’s arm, his other resting gently on the crown of Brígh’s head.

“We will,” Isolde said, her voice carrying a surprising clarity.

Emrys raised his wand and spoke in Cornish:

"Dhe Lanwynn Koes," Emrys intoned. "Ni a dheu." He waited for their echo. "Yn lowena," he added after a breath. "Po yn er."

Isolde echoed haltingly. Malachy followed, his accent heavy, uncertain. Even the girls whispered the words, their small voices earnest despite their youth.

"Na wreugh kamm," he said next. When they repeated it, he nodded and continued. "Na wreugh drog." Then, slower still, "Gwarhewgh an tir." Another pause. "An gloweth." He gave them time. "Ha’n tasow."

The stone flared silver. The runes rose into view beneath their hands as they each placed their palms against the stone. The light spread slowly, like water over silk.

"Yn unn fos a vernans," he began. "Ha kerensa." Then, in measured cadence: "Rag an Koes." "Rag an Re Koes." "Rag termyn dhyski."

With the final line spoken, the mist parted.

Lanwynn Koes revealed itself slowly, like something half-dreamed into waking: rooftops of thatch nestled in on the edge of the Koes, windows flickering with golden hearthlight, winding paths of moss-covered stone, and the faint sound of a distant waterfall or stream hidden in the trees. Wisps of cooking smoke drifted from chimneys. The air smelled of heather and warm bread. A raven wheeled high overhead and let out a croak that echoed gently across the hamlet.

Maebh and Brígh both gasped and then Brígh clutched Maebh’s hand, her small fingers tightening. Malachy said nothing at all, only stared, his jaw tight with unspoken emotion, as though a piece of him had come loose in his chest and didn’t quite know where to settle.

Isolde stepped forward a half pace, her gaze sweeping the hamlet. There was no glittering enchantment or polished grandeur here—only something older, woven through stone and soil, that hummed just beyond the edge of hearing. She folded her arms over the curve of her belly, not defensively, but as if cradling something delicate between them.

“I’d always been taught that our ways were the oldest,” she murmured, not quite to anyone. “But this…” Her voice trailed off, touched with wonder. “This feels like the world before we tried to wrestle it under control.”

“Welcome,” Emrys said simply. “This is your home, now.”

The McCormacks stepped forward into the village, cautious but upright.

Elowyn did not follow. He lingered where he stood, watching the McCormacks make their slow, reverent way forward. Peter and Callum both remained at his side, puzzled—Peter glanced back toward the runestone, then at the mist where the others had walked. There was no bend, no hedge, no rise in the earth to explain the disappearance, and yet the others had slowly vanished from view so naturally that they both stared intently trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“They’ve gone,” Peter murmured. “But where?”

Callum took a step, then paused, squinting at the mist and the path ahead. “It looks like they just…turned a corner,” he said, uncertain. “But there’s no bend.”

Elowyn’s gaze didn’t waver. “That’s the Koes,” he said simply. “It reveals itself in measure.”

He turned then, finally, to face them, the wind catching the hem of his robes, lifting the fine black strands of his hair. The dying light caught his features, and something in him seemed to glow from within—his eyes, dark blue rimmed in violet, shimmered faintly with that telltale light that only appeared when the Koes or the Castle stirred through him. In that golden hour glow, with his robes shifting like dusk-silk and the wind threading around them, Elowyn looked radiant—less boy, more myth given breath.

Peter blinked as though trying to see him clearly through more than mist, breath catching in his throat. Callum, ever quieter in his reverence, only watched—eyes tracing the contours of Elowyn’s face like one memorizing a constellation. Neither spoke, but awe moved in both of them, quiet and certain.

Elowyn stepped closer and took their hands in his—Callum's in his right, Peter’s in his left. He held them like something precious, not fragile, but chosen.

“You remember what Emrys said,” he murmured, his voice low and warm. “What the vow means. But I want you to hear it from me.” He paused, as though weighing something older than words. “You are not guests in my world. You are of it. You are mine, and I am yours. That is the only vow I need. The rest is for the Koes.”

Peter swallowed, then whispered, “And you’re ours.”

Callum nodded, his voice steadier. “Aye. Always.”

Elowyn closed his eyes just briefly, the weight and wonder of their words threading through him like magic older than spells.

“I would speak the words with you,” he said, voice steady, though something flickered behind his eyes. “Before the others underwent the ritual, I felt An Dar stir. Not just with welcome, but with knowing. This is not a place you will stay for a season or a spell. It will be your home for the rest of your days—your roots will grow here, even if you cannot see them yet.”

He hesitated, eyes falling briefly to their joined hands. “I thought you should know that before we begin. That this is not just a threshold. It’s a beginning that won’t be undone.”

Peter’s breath caught—uncertain, wide-eyed, but not afraid. Callum did not speak, but his grip on Elowyn’s hand firmed, his silence full of weight and steadiness.

Elowyn’s voice softened. “You’re not just joining the Koes. You’re stepping into my story—into what came before and everything that lies ahead. Our future begins here, all of us together.”

Callum and Peter both nodded reverently. Elowyn looked down at their joined hands, then slowly, deliberately, he lifted Peter’s and placed it gently atop Callum’s—layered like a seal over a bond already made. His fingers lingered for a breath, then released.

With his right hand now free, he reached for his wand. The rowan met his touch without flourish, but with a stillness that carried weight. Within, the kelpie core trembled—not in fear, but in the way wild things tremble before deep water, knowing it holds something older than memory. It sensed the gravity of this place, the ancient threads of the Koes winding through root and soil and vow. And though its nature was untamed, it did not rear or resist. It bowed, quietly, to the greater magic here. Elowyn’s own magic rose to meet it, not forceful, but full of purpose, and the current between them merged—wand and wielder woven together, not in command but in accord. The wand did not blaze, rather it yielded in reverent awe.

Then, wand raised, Elowyn turned to the threshold of the Koes’ boundary and began to speak the words that would open the Koes to his Callum and Peter.

“Dhe Lanwynn Koes,” he said. “Ni a dheu.”

Callum repeated after him, low and sure. Peter echoed, a beat slower.

“Yn lowena,” Elowyn continued. “Po yn er.”

Again, they followed, the syllables strange but steady.

“Na wreugh kamm.” A pause. “Na wreugh drog.” Another pause. “Gwarhewgh an tir.” He glanced at them. “An gloweth.” “Ha’n tasow.”

Elowyn gently placed their hands on the stone. The runes bloomed beneath their palms, brighter now, golden-white and strong.

“Yn unn fos a vernans,” Elowyn murmured. “Yn unn fos a vernans,” Callum and Peter repeated.

“Ha kerensa.” 

“Ha kerensa.”

“Rag an Koes.” 

“Rag an Koes.”

With each phrase, something pressed closer—not frightening, but vast. Callum felt it like a breath in the trees, a weight in the air that reminded him of standing on the edge of storm-blown cliffs back home. Peter's eyes darted once to Elowyn, then back to the stone, his hand steady though his voice trembled faintly.

“Rag an Re Koes.”

“Rag an Re Koes.”

“Rag termyn dhyski.”

“Rag termyn dhyski.”

The runes pulsed again, not just with light, but with a low resonance that hummed against their bones—something like recognition, or remembrance. It was as if the stone itself had opened its gaze, and seen them clearly for the first time. It pressed inward and outward at once, as though the very air had taken on weight and breath. When the last syllable fell from their lips, Elowyn felt it rise—not just through the stone, but through the marrow of the moment. It felt like a warm vibration beneath the skin of the world, pulsing faintly, echoing somewhere far off. There was a soft ripple of welcome that brushed against his ribs like the memory of an embrace, and something more ancient still: a claim, not spoken but felt.

He looked at them and said, with quiet finality, “Now it knows you. Now you may always return.”

A breath caught in Elowyn’s chest—neither relief nor triumph, but something like completion. It was a quiet thrum of rightness that moved through him, soft as the sigh of moss underfoot, and he closed his eyes for a moment to let it settle. An Dar had not spoken in words, but it had answered, and that answer now lived in the bones of the boys beside him.

Callum’s hand found Peter’s shoulder, a gesture both grounding and reverent. Peter glanced between them, then at the mist ahead, his usual grin softened by wonder, eyes reflecting a reverence he could not yet name. Something in him had settled, clicked into place. They both felt it—not as Elowyn did, but enough to know they stood on sacred soil, enough to know this vow had bound them not only to land, but to each other.

Elowyn reached out once more, taking Peter's hand in one of his and Callum's in the other. He stepped between them, the three of them forming a quiet line before the stone, bound by touch and something far deeper. With a gentle tug, he guided them forward, his pace unhurried, and his presence anchoring. They passed the threshold not with fanfare, but with quiet certainty—into the unseen path, into the breath of the Koes, and into the story that would now hold them. As they stepped forward, Elowyn brushed his shoulder lightly against Callum’s, Peter’s fingers tightening just briefly around his. None of them spoke. They didn’t need to. The vow had said enough—and the land, somehow, had listened. And somewhere far beyond the stone and mist, the Grand Oak held still in its ancient slumber, listening.

Chapter Text

The McCormack family had been given the southernmost cottage, a low stone house once belonging to a weaver who had gone to visit her sister in Tintagel and never returned. These things happened sometimes, even in Lanwynn Koes. Life carried people away on tides too quiet to notice until they’d vanished entirely. But the house had stood waiting, ivy crawling gently over the eaves and a single rusted horseshoe still nailed above the door. Its windows, long shuttered, opened again with a soft creak, like a breath held and finally released.

It had taken only a day to make it livable again, though the work left all involved bone-tired and quietly aching. Emrys and Thaddeus had worked together with Malachy and Isolde, restoring the hearthstones, renewing the roof beams, and coaxing warmth back into the walls. Even Emrys's spells seemed gentler in the Koes—as if the land itself had a hand in steadying his wand, smoothing the rough edges. Thaddeus, ever precise, repaired the outer threshold with a single murmured phrase and a flick of his wand that sent dust shimmering into gold. Isolde, pale and still bruised from the battle, conjured curtains from rough wool dyed gold, the color of summer fields. Malachy, though stiff with healing magic and weariness, planted new warding stakes at each corner of the plot, pressing each one deep into the earth with a solemn nod.

The Koesfolk had come, too. Not all at once, but in pairs or threes. They brought bread glazed with honey and wrapped in linen, jars of berry cordial, small bundles of lavender tied with thread, and even a charm woven broomstraw for luck. One old woman left a single feather on the threshold, a token of peace that needed some explanation. They did not stay long, nor did they offer many words, but they bowed their heads when they left, and that was welcome enough. They showed kindness wrapped in reserve and hospitality without spectacle—this was the way of Lanwynn Koes.

Elowyn woke just after dawn to the sound of breath. Slow, even, and steady. It filled the room like a lullaby played backwards, the way breath does when it is shared with those who know your rhythm by heart. His own breath matched it without effort. There was something sacred in the stillness of that hour, something that clung to the spaces between. The room itself felt subtly altered, as if it had always meant to hold more than one soul. It had—though Emrys never said it aloud—been expanded by magic the evening before, a quiet charm cast without fuss or fanfare. The bed had been charmed larger as well, subtly and sturdily. Elowyn had known at once what his father had done, and the silence of the spell had said more than any words of approval could have.

Callum lay nearest the window in nothing but his boxers, as usual, one arm curled beneath his head, the other outstretched where his fingers lay gently entwined with Elowyn's. His brow was relaxed, for once uncreased by worry. Peter was curled against Elowyn's back, knees tucked in tight, warm and humming faintly with the breath of sleep. His presence was a quiet anchor, a tether that held them all steady. Neither of them stirred when Elowyn sat up. He stayed that way a moment longer, listening to the hush.

The Koes was humming. Not as it had in his childhood, when it whispered through his dreams like a stream under frost, nor even as it had when it had awakened for the ritual. No, this was quieter—a pulse more than a song. As if the earth beneath the floorboards had remembered his name and was whispering it back to him, syllable by syllable. It resonated in the bones rather than the ears.

He closed his eyes and let it wash through him. Not all the way in. Not yet. But it was there. It was beginning.

A rustle beside him. "You’re staring off like you're trying to marry the wall," Peter murmured. His voice was hoarse with sleep, but fond. "Or did a fern propose and you’re weighing your options?"

Elowyn huffed a laugh, soft and genuine. "The fern made an impassioned case. Rather difficult to ignore, really."

Peter propped himself up on one elbow, hair a wild mess over his brow. "Alright," he muttered, squinting at the ceiling. "I take back every mean thing I’ve ever said about waking up early. This isn't awful."

He paused, then added with exaggerated nonchalance, "Not that I’d ever admit to missing you two or anything. That’d ruin my reputation."

His smirk was crooked, but there was a flicker of warmth behind it that said more than the words dared.

Elowyn turned toward him. Their eyes met and held. There was no need to answer. The silence between them was full.

Behind them, Callum stirred and stretched, his body unfolding from sleep with the languid grace of someone who had not dreamed of war or fire. He blinked blearily at the ceiling before sitting up in one slow, unhurried motion. His bare chest rose and fell with the rhythm of someone who had finally, finally slept without dread. There was color in his face again, soft and ruddy from warmth rather than fever.

"Morning," he said, his voice thick with sleep and home. Then, without a word, he leaned forward and pulled both boys into an embrace, one strong arm slung around each of them. It was not dramatic, not tight, but steady—the kind of embrace that said, without flourish, I’m glad you’re here. Elowyn leaned into it without hesitation, and Peter made a noise of protest that didn’t hide the way he tucked closer. Callum held them for a few long seconds before releasing them with a small grunt and reaching for his jumper like nothing had happened.

"Morning," Elowyn and Peter said together, and that made them all laugh—not loud, not wild, but enough to warm the room like sun on old stones.

They dressed without speaking much, each moving around the room in that gentle, half-conscious choreography that only those truly close can manage without effort. Callum wore his oldest jumper, sleeves rolled to his forearms, and Peter found his scarf still looped over Elowyn's bedpost. Elowyn moved through the room like he had lived with them always.

By the time they stepped out into the morning mist, the air smelled of woodsmoke and wet stone. The McCormacks were already awake, though no one had started breakfast. Brígh was attempting to charm a kettle to whistle a song and failing with good-natured curses in Irish. Maebh sat at the table writing notes on rune patterns in a small leather book, her hair pinned back with sprigs of rosemary. Isolde was walking the perimeter with her wand drawn low, murmuring blessings in a voice just above a whisper.

The boys joined quietly. Peter helped Brígh with the kettle, showing her how to tune the spell to pitch rather than tone. Callum gathered kindling and swept the doorway with a care that felt ritualistic. Elowyn, without quite knowing how, found himself pressing his palm to the lintel of the house—just once, just gently. The stone was warm. It recognized something in him.

That afternoon, they walked into the Koes.

The path shifted beneath their feet, as it always did. But this time it seemed, to Elowyn, slower, more winding. It doubled back on itself. It veered around trees that hadn't stood there yesterday. They passed a stream that sang in three tones instead of one, and stones that pulsed faintly beneath their feet. At one point it led them through a hollow circle of ferns that left Peter blinking, claiming he'd felt someone tug his sleeve though no one was near.

"It’s testing us," Elowyn said softly.

Callum glanced sideways. “The path?"

"The Koes. An Dar. It's watching."

Peter snorted, but not unkindly. "Well, if it wants to see how ridiculous we look stumbling through undergrowth, it’s getting quite the show."

Elowyn didn't reply. A slight smile ghosted at the corner of his mouth, and he cast Peter a glance—subtle, sidelong, and fond—before continuing forward without a word.

They walked longer than they expected. The path turned strange and winding, sometimes narrowing to a ribbon of moss between thick hedges, other times opening wide beneath sudden arches of hazel and ash. At one point, Peter declared they were walking in circles. Elowyn didn’t argue. The Koes was a place of memory, not measurement.

“It’s looping us,” Peter muttered. “Or trying to see how long it takes before one of us throws a tantrum and hexes a tree. My money’s on me, to be honest.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Callum said dryly, glancing at Peter. “Five Sickles says you last longer than you think.”

Peter sniffed. “I appreciate your confidence in my self-control.”

“I didn’t say I had confidence. I said I had five Sickles.”

Elowyn didn’t speak. He only kept walking, gaze distant but attentive.

Eventually, the path straightened without warning. The air changed—grew thinner, hushed. They passed beneath a bough heavy with lichen, and beyond it, the light changed.

Then, at last, the trees parted. The Grove opened, and there it was, An Dar. It stood as it always had, vast and rooted, its crown bursting with summer leaves so green they seemed unreal. Its bark shimmered faintly, not with light but with age. The light around it dimmed and brightened with the rhythm of a breath too slow to belong to any living creature. It was not the tallest tree in the world. It did not need to be. It simply was.

The boys stopped at the edge of the clearing. None of them spoke. For once, even Peter had no joke ready. They stepped forward as one.

Elowyn raised a hand. "Together," he said.

They each placed a palm to the bark. It was warm. The Koes around them went very still. Then it opened. Not like a door. Not like anything that could be seen. But something in the air unfolded. They were no longer only in themselves. They were in the memory of the Koes.

Elowyn saw the Koes younger, yes—but not as it had ever truly been. The trees were saplings and giants all at once, flickering with each blink of thought. An Dar was newly risen, its bark pale and unscarred, but each leaf shimmered with age beyond reckoning. Around it, the land breathed and shifted. Flowers bloomed and withered in moments. Trees rose, bore fruit, collapsed into rot, and sprouted anew. Snow blanketed the roots then melted into spring rain before he could draw breath. The sky turned from blue to gold to bruised violet. Seasons passed like wind.

Three figures moved around the tree—not always human, not always whole. They were sometimes boys, sometimes shadows, sometimes stars wrapped in cloaks. They sang spells with voices that sounded like birds, or bells, or breaking ice. One placed a hand on the earth and the moss grew fingers. Another laughed and the air filled with crows. A third wept into the bark and it swallowed his tears like wine. Elowyn felt dizzy, disoriented—but not frightened. Only reverent. The moment wasn’t linear. It was layered. Their lives folded into the roots, their deaths spun into the branches. He felt himself part of it, then apart again, then part once more. But when he tried to hold it, it twisted away, smoke through a sieve.

Peter saw the same clearing—but bent, stretched, as though viewed through water or time sped too fast. Trees blinked into fullness, burst into flame, crumbled, and returned as saplings. The stones surrounding An Dar melted into soil, rose again as standing stones, then disappeared beneath ivy. A village built itself on the edge of the grove, then fell away in dust. Crows wheeled and vanished. Storms passed in heartbeats. Time fractured and reformed.

Three figures stood in the midst of it, repeating something ritualistic—hands lifted, turning, pressing into bark. But the order never quite settled. Sometimes one was missing. Sometimes there were four. At other times there were legions. Their robes tattered and rewove themselves. Their hair turned white, then black, then grey again. Their features were never clear. What remained constant was the pattern—the reaching, the binding, the whispering to the wood. Peter saw golden light pass from their fingertips into An Dar, but the tree seemed too full to take it. Magic overflowed like sap and dripped into the earth. It was beautiful. It was futile. It was eternal. And it filled him with something like awe, and something else like fear.

Callum saw the clearing at dusk, but the light was wrong—caught between sunset and starlight, never quite choosing. Around An Dar, the forest shivered and changed. Where once were saplings now stood ancient oaks, only to be felled by wind and rise again in ash. Lanterns floated on invisible strings. Fungi bloomed and vanished. Stone rings crumbled into moss, then re-formed into fire pits. Time ticked irregularly, like a heart half asleep.

Only one figure remained beneath the tree. He was old, impossibly so. Not just in body, but in the way roots are old—slow and inevitable. His hands trembled where they rested on the bark. Behind him, where the altar now stood, there were not stones but impressions—spaces where something sacred had been taken, or buried, or both. The wind stirred, and leaves fell upward.

Callum could not see the man's face, but he knew it was not grief that kept him there. It was duty. Or perhaps the line between them had blurred. The man did not speak. He simply remained. As did the Grove. And Callum, for just a moment, felt himself age a thousand years in silence.

Not watching. Remembering.

Then it faded. The bark cooled beneath their hands. An Dar seemed to exhale. A breeze stirred the leaves above.

Peter was the first to speak. "Well," he said slowly, squinting up at the canopy as if it might offer notes, "that was like being dunked in a cauldron of someone else's dreams. Possibly while sleepwalking."

Callum let out a quiet breath. "I didn’t understand half of it."

"Only half? You’re doing better than me," Peter muttered, brushing phantom moss from his sleeve.

Elowyn tilted his head, eyes still on the bark. "It didn’t want us to understand. It just wanted us to see."

Peter glanced sideways at him. "So... vaguely threatening dream soup with a side of cosmic metaphor. Great. We’re absolutely fine."

They sat beneath An Dar until the light began to shift, backs against its vast roots, the silence between them no longer heavy, but full of unspoken thoughts. Eventually, Peter rubbed at his neck and said, "Alright. I saw time have a nervous breakdown and wrap itself in tree bark. There were people, I think. Maybe versions of the same people. Or just memories playing dress-up."

Elowyn didn’t look at him but nodded. "There were too many moments. Or not enough. It all folded together."

Callum ran a hand through his hair. "It felt like...like remembering something that never belonged to me. Like watching grief grow roots."

A long silence followed. They didn't ask what it meant. The question felt too small for what they'd seen.

“I don’t think it meant for us to understand,” Callum said slowly. “Just...remember it.”

Elowyn’s gaze lingered on the bark. "Or like soil in our shoes. We’ll track it with us wherever we go."

Peter didn’t speak again, but his eyes were fixed on the canopy above.

When they finally rose, none of them knew what it meant. But all of them understood, without needing to say it, that the world was not quite the same as it had been that morning. And that somehow, impossibly, the Koes knew them.

—

By the end of July, Lanwynn Koes pulsed with slow, sunlit rhythms. The hedgerows buzzed thick with bees, and the paths between cottages wound like flower-lined streambeds, soft-edged and dappled. Time here did not pass so much as meander. Morning folded into afternoon folded into dusk, each hour held loosely by the land and passed from hand to hand with quiet grace. There were no bells to mark the day, no timetables to disrupt the hush. One knew what time it was by the feel of the soil, or by the birdsong drifting in from the elder thickets.

Ruairí McCormack had been born in mid-July. He arrived with a full head of dark hair. The name, Ruairí—meaning "red king"—had been chosen long before his birth, a name of warmth and fire and legacy. That his hair was black did not matter. Names in Lanwynn Koes spoke not only of appearance, but of essence. The Koesfolk said he had the presence of his name, even in his sleep.

Within hours, they had gathered, bearing gifts in baskets and wrapped in linen—Koesmade things, crafted in reverence, and never in haste: A blanket woven with moon-silk thread. A wind-chime that sang only at the cry of an infant. A single apple wrapped in a leaf, plucked from an enchanted tree that bore fruit once every seven years, believed to bring long life and good health to those who consumed it. A cellar of salt gathered and blessed under the solstice moon. A rune drawn in elder ash on driftwood bark to ward off evil and protect the newborn babe. No one asked whether the child was truly of Lanwynn. He had been born on this land, and that was enough. He was and would forever be Koesborn.

The birth had been attended by Emrys and two Koesfolk elders. Isolde’s labour had lasted through a storm that swept across the moors with a voice like old grief. The baby came just as the rain stopped. He opened his eyes at once and stared, unblinking, at the beams of the ceiling. It was said he had not cried again until the third day, and only when taken from the touch of his mother. The Koesfolk took this as a good omen.

After the flurry of Ruairí’s birth, life in Lanwynn returned to its slow, sacred rhythm. The excitement softened into a golden hush, and the days resumed their usual pace, cradled by the land’s unhurried breath.

Elowyn spent his mornings with Kenver, the Gwithyas an Koes, the Warden of the Grove. They had known each other long before Elowyn ever set foot in Hogwarts. From the time he could walk, Elowyn had followed Kenver's quiet footsteps through the ancient paths of the Grove, learning by observation, by breath, by stillness. Kenver was now in his forties, a bachelor with no interest in village affairs or wider ambitions. His love belonged wholly to the forest and the quiet rhythms of the land. He lived simply, spoke rarely, and bore a deep, settled contentment that made his presence feel like part of the old wood. He preferred patterns to surprises, silence to noise, and found the most comfort in repetition and solitude. He never sought connection the way others did, but those who loved him knew: the forest understood him, and that had always been enough.

Kenver was a man of moss-stained cuffs and eyes like weathered lichen. He did not teach so much as allow one to learn. Together they tended root-buried runes and harvested resin from sentinel trees. Kenver showed him where stones shifted slightly when the moon was full, and how the grove shivered in warning before a storm. He taught him how to walk without interruption, how to still his own thoughts so that the Grove might think more clearly through him. Once, when Elowyn asked how long he had served, Kenver simply said, "Long enough to forget what I knew before."

They rarely spoke in full sentences. They spoke in gesture: a hand raised toward the canopy, a nod to a lichen bloom, a pause before a knot in a tree. Elowyn moved like the Koes itself—unhurried, alert, full of listening. It was how he had always been, shaped in part by the unusual magic of his birth, but deepened through years spent at Kenver’s side. The rhythm of the Grove had entered him slowly, until it was not something he practiced but something he was.

The afternoons were the only times the boys agreed to be apart. It wasn’t that they feared separation, but rather that for the first time in months, they felt safe enough to breathe separately. Lanwynn Koes held them gently, allowed them to be themselves without the constant vigilance of the outside world. They always found their way back to each other by supper, but the quiet hours between lunch and dusk belonged to their own paths.

Callum’s afternoons found him wandering, untethered by expectation for the first time in what felt like years. The second day in the hamlet, he followed a sound—less a noise than a vibration—rising from the clover fields like low, golden music. That path, as many in Lanwynn did, brought him somewhere unexpected. He drifted toward the apiaries out of quiet curiosity, and there met Meryn, the beekeeper. They looked up from their work, squinted once—a face sun-lined and unreadable, framed by whiting curls and eyes sharp with laughter—and said, "You’ve got stillness in your bones. Come hold this."

It was hard to say how old Meryn was, or even quite what they were. There was something both ancient and young in the way they moved, barefoot in all seasons, hands calloused, voice pitched somewhere between wind and water. The Koesfolk never explained, and no one asked. Meryn simply was, the way trees were, or the way rivers were. They were accepted without comment, as one accepts sunlight or stone.

Meryn had been a Koesborn child, solemn-eyed and curious, often found listening at the base of trees or speaking softly to the wind. As a child, they had been chosen—some said summoned—by the previous An Kowsyas Gwenennow, the Bee Speaker, an old witch with soft eyes and the grace of drifting petals, who moved through the world as though every footstep was a prayer. She took Meryn as her apprentice before they had even come of age, teaching them how to tend the hives and whisper news to the bees, as was the old tradition.

At Hogwarts, Meryn excelled in Care of Magical Creatures, gravitating always to the beings who buzzed or chirped or hummed their truths. They returned to Lanwynn immediately after graduation and resumed their apprenticeship until the old Bee Speaker passed—a loss felt so keenly that the bees swarmed in spirals for hours, circling the cottage and fields in low, humming grief. They sang for days, low and mourning, as if reciting her name into the wind. The day after her burial, the bees crowned Meryn in honeycomb, and no one doubted their acceptance.

That had been decades ago. Though their hair had gone grey speckled with white, and their face lined like a well-thumbed map, Meryn still moved with quiet surety, and the bees still followed their steps.

Meryn wore a coat stitched with apotropaic symbols and spoke in low hums. The hives here were not ordinary—they sang when the air turned, and their honey shifted colour with the solstice. Some bees bore runes on their backs, faint and shimmering. Meryn showed Callum how to calm them with breath and gentle spells, not smoke, and how to listen for the hive's mood in the buzz. He learned the meaning of the thrum when they were content, and when they were warning. Callum took to it quietly, without fuss. The bees seemed to like him. Once, a queen landed on his shoulder and rested there for the better part of a minute. Meryn had only smiled and said, "She sees you."

Later in the afternoons, once the bees had quieted and the fields exhaled their heat, Peter could usually be found at Marwood & Travers, elbow-deep in parchment and packing straw. He had initially protested—loudly—that holidays were for leisure, not labour—but it hadn’t lasted. Something about the methodical sorting of goods and the dry wit of Thaddeus suited him.

He grumbled, of course, but only half-heartedly. Thaddeus had little patience for dramatics, which Peter somehow respected. They developed a quiet rhythm, efficient and unsentimental. Peter took secret pride in learning how to pack delicate potions for flight, inventing new methods for securing fragile vials, and once spending half an hour crafting a padded sleeve from old parchment and twine. When Thaddeus, without looking up, said simply, "You're getting better at this," Peter beamed so fiercely the nearest quill blotted itself in solidarity, because growing up in a house full of noise, he’d never been truly seen.

He began to stay longer after hours, organizing the inventory shelves with a quiet focus no one expected of him. One evening, Thaddeus handed him a parcel and said, "This one’s yours to inscribe." Peter froze, then nodded, and wrote the address with careful, even strokes.

As evening neared and the air cooled, the pace of the hamlet shifted once again. Peter, hands ink-smudged and shirt dusted in straw, would leave Marwood & Travers with a stretch and a sigh, his energy still crackling even as the day dimmed. Callum, too, would make his way from the hives, the scent of wildflowers and honey clinging to his clothes. They would meet near An Hel, where a different kind of work awaited.

Emrys held language lessons under the eaves of An Hel. Callum and Peter were daily participants, along with Brígh and Maebh. Isolde and Malachy would attend, work permitting. There were always a few curious Koesfolk who came to observe and offer aid. Emrys made the lessons lyrical—singing old poems, reciting riddles in rhymed couplets, speaking of names that were never written down. Elowyn helped often, slipping into Cornish when addressing the others, sometimes forgetting himself and having to double back into English. Callum, fluent in Irish, tangled the two often and wore his frustration like a second skin. Peter, by contrast, swore at regular intervals about the injustice of only knowing English. Still, they progressed. By high summer, both boys could argue about bread in Cornish and win.

Callum would sometimes slip into Irish and fumble back out, muttering, "It's like trying to waltz to a jig—close enough to trip you," while Peter would fling himself back into the grass dramatically and groan, "Why are there four ways to say the in one sentence?"

Elowyn, lounging in the shade with a blade of grass between his fingers, offered a small smile. "There's only one, Peter. It just likes to wear disguises."" Brígh would scold them in near-perfect accent, and Maebh would scribble the corrected phrasing with dry commentary.

After the rhythmic cadence of language lessons beneath the rafters, the evenings drew them westward to a secluded glade at the forest’s edge, where the trees grew tall and protective and the light filtered in soft and dappled. Emrys went with them always—boots scuffed from years of wear, his wand tucked into the breast of his robe—though others took turns guiding the practice. Thaddeus came with precision, his spells timed to the breath; Malachy brought the force of fieldwork and instinct, while Isolde, when she was able, instructed with quiet certainty and eyes that missed nothing. The boys already knew much: Protego Maxima cast in unison, the joint shield that curved around them tightly, Impedimenta that halted motion with perfect timing, Confringo that shattered stone from a single word, and Expulso launched with accuracy sharpened by fire. But the adults expanded their arsenal. Incarcerous was taught first—not merely as a snare, but as an extension of will. Ventus followed, its gusts taught not to flail but to drive. Glacius was harder, drawn from stillness, and left frost blooming faintly on the grass. Expelliarmus, so often dismissed as basic, was drilled again and again until it cracked like a whip and could unarm not only wand but will. The boys learned to move together, to speak as one, and sometimes to cast without speaking at all. Their magic began to mirror them—intuitive, deliberate, and quietly dangerous. And when they cast their joint shield, the adults did not speak when it shimmered into being; they only watched, something reverent in their silence, as though what had been made could not be unmade.

Once a week, when the spellfire had faded from their limbs and the glade’s hush settled like moss over stone, the boys turned toward a different kind of work—quieter, but no less essential. Healing required its own strength. Lowena Carnoweth welcomed them into her cottage at the edge of the moor, where the walls leaned with age and the air smelled always of mint and parchment. Her hearth crackled low, and silence was never something to fill, only to share. She did not ask them to speak of what had happened. She understood the shape of grief and fear, how it curved the spine and caught behind the eyes. Instead, she brewed tea that steadied breath and softened memory, and she asked questions the way gardeners plant bulbs—patiently, beneath the surface, trusting that one day, something would bloom.

They came together not because anyone told them to, but because it had become a quiet rhythm in their week. Sometimes they arrived in silence and left the same way. Sometimes they interrupted one another mid-thought, finishing each other's sentences or lapsing into soft arguments about meaning. But more often, they simply were—Callum hunched forward with hands clasped, Peter sprawled on the floor tracing invisible shapes in the rug, Elowyn seated elegantly with his legs tucked under him and gaze far away. They didn't need to say everything aloud. Being together was enough. It was the clearest kind of balm.

With Elowyn, Lowena spoke in riddles, always just a step away from clarity—allowing him space to draw his own meaning. With Peter, she used stories, weaving humor and metaphor to bypass the walls he threw up with jokes. And with Callum, she rarely spoke at all. Their time together with Lowena was marked by shared stillness—silent moments that were not voids, but vessels. Sometimes they sat for an hour without words, and that, too, was healing.

Some days were harder than others. Peter once sat trembling with a teacup clutched between white fingers, unable to explain the memory that had just surfaced. Elowyn, pressed thin with the weight of guilt he had no name for, curled into himself by the hearth. Callum, who rarely let pain show, once stepped outside and did not come back in until nightfall when Elowyn and Peter enfolded him into a soft embrace. Lowena never tried to fix them. She offered space and most importantly she bore witness.

They began to understand that healing was not linear. It was a slow spiral, looping backward as often as it pushed forward. It was a remembering and a forgetting, a hurting and a softening, and, above all, a losing and a finding. There were no spells to undo what had been done—but there were hands to hold the aftermath.

Lowena also taught them how to prepare—not for peace, but for the inevitable return of fear. She knew, perhaps better than anyone, that the coming school term would not be a return to normalcy but an immersion into uncertainty and danger. So she gave them small rituals to ground themselves, charms to calm a racing heart, and breathing techniques drawn from old Koes traditions. She spoke of thresholds—moments between fear and action—and how to stand still in them, even if just long enough to choose.

One week, she gave Peter a stone polished smooth and cool. "When it warms in your hand," she said, "you're carrying more than you're speaking. Sit with that. Then speak. Or not. The stone doesn’t mind."

As the sun dipped low and the sky thickened to indigo, An Hel opened its doors. An Hel an Koes, circular and carved from one great hollowed elm, stood where no building should have lasted so long and looked as if it had grown there rather than been built. Its bark was still alive in places. Ivy threaded through its rafters. The floor pulsed faintly beneath their feet.

The full moon rose high and golden, casting a warm sheen over An Hel an Koes, and the Koesfolk gathered for the full moon feast—a night of music, motion, and vibrant life. There was no seating chart, no hierarchy, just long wooden tables and quilts unfurled on the floor. Platters shimmered into place and refilled themselves with wild greens, roasted roots, honeyed cakes, and fruit that glowed faintly in the moonlight. Hands passed goblets and bowls, laughter skipping like stones across the gathered crowd.

When the boys entered together, they stepped not into reverence but into rhythm—a thrum of welcome that vibrated in the wooden floorboards and the hollows of their chests. One of the elders began a song, not solemn but spirited, and others followed with harmony and stomping boots. The hall rang with joy, and Elowyn felt a warmth rise in him that had nothing to do with the fire. He saw Callum lift a laughing child high into the air, and Peter slip honeycomb to an old man who winked in thanks.

As the feast unfolded, Elowyn, as always, ate only from the earthenware bowls filled with grains, fruits, and greens. He had never eaten meat—not from judgment, but from something deeper, older, quiet within him. The idea of taking a life, even ritually, had always felt like severing a thread meant to stay woven. The Koesfolk never questioned this. There were others like him, though not many. It was not doctrine but instinct, and in Lanwynn Koes, such instincts were honored.

Though not strictly vegetarian, the Koesfolk approached food with reverence. Meat besides fish was rare, and when animals were taken, it was only at the end of long lives, after deep care, and always with ceremony. Their bodies were washed, blessed, and mourned. A name was spoken over the fire. It was said the Koes remembered each one.

As the night wore on, Elowyn watched a toddler fall asleep against a dog broad back, and no one stirred to move him. Callum was pulled into a circle dance before he’d finished eating and Peter was conscripted into storytelling before dessert—standing on a low stool and using exaggerated voices to everyone’s delight. He did his best to tell it in Cornish, but what came out was an amusing blend of Cornish and English, muddled syntax and all. The crowd was delighted—not only by the humor in his delivery but by the earnestness of his attempt to speak their tongue, a gesture that was both endearing and brave. The music was constant: fiddles, pipes, and a rhythmic clapping that rose like heartbeat. At one point, someone lifted a lantern and spun beneath it, scattering sparks of light that the children chased with shrieks of delight.

By night’s end, the candles did not gutter so much as dance lower, the hall dimming not in silence but in satisfied hum. The moonlight spilled in through the eaves, and someone struck a final chord that echoed like a blessing.

Isolde had joined them for dinner, Ruairí bundled close against her chest, but she left early, whispering her goodbyes with a soft smile as the child began to stir. Malachy stayed longer, talking quietly with a few elders, until Brígh and Maebh both fell asleep in his arms. He carried them home with the ease of long habit, nodding his farewell at the threshold.

And so it was just the triad and Elowyn’s fathers walking the winding path home beneath the gaze of the full moon. They did not rush. The cool breath of the moor moved around them, and the night hummed with life—the rustle of hedgerows, the distant call of an owl, and the low whisper of the Koes settling into sleep. The boys walked hand in hand, Elowyn in the middle, as they often were when no one was watching—or perhaps when everyone was. Emrys and Thaddeus followed behind, speaking quietly, their voices occasionally lifted in amusement or gentle debate. The Koesfolk did not need lanterns. The moon was enough. The trees knew them.

—

The day began with an owl. It wasn't one of the many fleet-footed, rag-feathered messengers that threaded daily through Lanwynn Koes’s skies, but a large and solemn barn owl with ribbons of dusk across its wings and a letter with a Ministry seal stamped in dark wax upon its leg. It landed not at the cottage window, but on the stoop, as though demanding access to the sanctuary that was the Marwood-Travers cottage.

Thaddeus had been reading in the front room. When he opened the door, the owl turned its head slowly, held his gaze, and offered the missive without sound. Elowyn, watching from the next room, saw his father’s expression change in the subtle way that only long study could catch: a slight stilling of his shoulders and  his breath held a fraction too long.

Thaddeus did not open the letter right away. Instead, he tucked it into the pocket of his robe and murmured something indistinct before returning to his chair. The fire crackled, unbothered. Emrys, elbow-deep in carrot tops, did not look up—but Elowyn noticed his grip shift just slightly on the knife.

Later that morning, someone was seen at the edge of the boundary. And then another. And another.

In the days before that morning, strangers had been arriving intermittently—sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in uneasy clusters of three or four. They arrived without warning and without luggage, as though they'd simply walked out of fog. Most stood still for long stretches, facing the Koes in silence. Some wore cloaks too heavy for the summer warmth; others wore no shoes at all. A few shimmered faintly, cloaked in unfamiliar magic that clung like smoke from a hearth never theirs. None came laughing. None came calling. Their presence was not heralded, only noticed—glimpsed from hilltops or caught in sidelong glances through warded windows.

They had not crossed into Lanwynn Koes—could not, even if they tried. The ancient boundary held. But they were visible from the upper hills or glimpsed through the hazy shimmer of warded paths. They lingered near the enchanted stones, the hidden tracks once used by those who remembered. Some faces stirred half-forgotten memories—old residents who had left for larger magical communities, now burned or silenced. But they did not attempt to enter, which struck many as strange. If they truly remembered the way, if they truly belonged, the boundary would have let them through. That they lingered instead—just outside, saying nothing—cast a chill that no ward could warm. They made no sound, no move to speak or approach. The Koesfolk, in turn, watched from a distance—quiet, uncertain.

Since some of the strangers seemed to be returned children of the Koes, the Koesfolk responded as they always had to Koesfolk in need—with quiet generosity and small offerings of food and light, gestures shaped by centuries or even millennia of habit. They left candles in their windows and bowls of food tucked discreetly near thresholds—gestures meant not for the strangers beyond the boundary, but for those Koesfolk who had left and who might find their way back. All were placed well within the boundary lines, meant for those who had crossed into Lanwynn Koes and been welcomed home—those few who had returned in fear, in grief, or in search of quiet safety. 

The gestures had become habitual, and no one spoke of drawing lines between who belonged and who only looked familiar. It was muscle memory mistaken for trust, or perhaps for hope. There were murmurs—low and uneasy—not about fear, but about unfamiliarity wearing the face of old kin. Still, no one turned away. No new wards were raised. To be Koesborn was to offer to other Koesfolk in need, not to guard. And in that offering, something began to open that should perhaps have remained closed.

Late that afternoon, Elowyn, Callum, and Petter had been walking back from Lowena Carnoweth’s cottage when they saw a woman beyond the boundary—tall and thin, with deep lines around her mouth and a scarf pulled tight around her neck despite the warm air. She stood just beyond the shimmer of the boundary, unmoving. From inside the warded veil, she was plainly visible—but from the outside, there would have been no shimmer at all, and no sign of watching eyes.

Peter squinted before he said in passable Cornish. “I know her. She came to our place years ago. Sold my mum a broom polish that nearly set the bristles on fire.”

Callum slowed beside him, his gaze sharp, before he answered, also, a bit roughly, in Cornish. “Looks like she hasn’t slept in a fortnight.”

“She hasn’t blinked either,” Peter muttered. He tried to sound amused, but the edge in his voice gave him away.

They kept walking. Elowyn, slightly ahead, glanced back. He’d felt it the moment they turned onto the path—something off, something leaning against the edge of knowing. The boundary held, as it always did, but the stranger’s presence lingered in his chest like mist.

"She doesn’t belong here anymore," he said at last slowly. His voice was quiet but certain. "The Koes knows. She hasn’t even tried to cross. That tells me enough."

“I wonder if she’s still got the polish,” Peter said, half to himself struggling to remember the Cornish word for wonder. But no one laughed.

They did not speak again until they were home, where a good meal waited, warm and fragrant, and a soft bed beyond that—a small, ordinary comfort that felt, in that moment, like the strongest magic of all.

By the first days of August, just after the new moon feast, the Daily Prophet began reporting contradictory headlines.

MUGGLEBORN REGISTRY STRENGTHENS MINISTRY SECURITY

MINISTRY DENIES ATTACKS IN WALES, CLAIMS PEACEFUL RELOCATION

HOGWARTS SAFER THAN EVER, SAYS NEW HEADMASTER

But in Lanwynn Koes, the Prophet was increasingly left folded and untouched on stoops. Instead, copies of The Quibblerpassed from hand to hand, creased and annotated. After dinner one night, Peter sprawled across a bench with the latest Quibbler open over his knees, chewing the end of a sugar quill as he read aloud: “Family of six missing from Merioneth. Smoke seen on the ridge. Wands snapped and left behind.”

He looked up and said in Cornish. “Cheery. Wonder if next week’s issue comes with a free panic attack.”

Elowyn, seated nearby, gave him a soft look—half amusement, half comfort. “You carry more than you let on, Ric,” he said gently, voice a murmur meant only for their small circle. “But you don’t have to carry it alone.”

Callum, whose lap Peter’s head rested in, reached down and placed a steady hand over Peter’s chest, anchoring him with quiet ease.

Peter shrugged and said in English. “What? I'm just saying, it used to be Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and now it’s all doom and dread. Still—better than that Ministry rag.”

And from the wireless came voices made grainy with distance and caution:

“Reports from unverified sources suggest a rise in disappearances among unregistered witches and wizards in border regions. The Ministry maintains that such claims are exaggerations...”

“...and in lighter news, Celestina Warbeck will not be touring this autumn due to unforeseen circumstances—”

“—we advise all magical households to renew their wards and avoid travel after dark. This message comes to you from Potterwatch—keep the faith, keep your wands ready—”

That evening in early August, the Koesfolk, called by the elders, met in An Hel an Koes. The hall was still fragrant from the new moon feast nights ago, that somber gathering where the Koesfolk sat in flickering candlelight and shared stories of what once was and what might still come. With the presence of strangers haunting the boundary and unease coiling tighter with each passing day, the mood had turned not only pensive but weighted—less a hush of reflection and more a silence waiting to break. Rumors of strangers walking at the edge of the boundary had grown persistent. A dog, who previously roamed all over the hamlet and Koes, refused to leave its porch. A rune etched in ash had flickered to near-invisibility.

“Time we set a watch,” said one elder, voice firm but not fearful. “This place stands because it listens. Let’s listen now.”

Every adult volunteered. Malachy stood first.

“I’ll take the midnight turn,” he said simply in Cornish though it was clear he had struggled to find the words.

No one spoke against him. He had only been in Lanwynn Koes a month, and while many had warmed to him—admiring his steady presence and quiet strength—there were those who still hesitated. He was not born to the Koes, and old habits of caution stirred beneath the surface. But none voiced their concerns aloud. Not in front of Malachy. Not when he stood as he did, calm and resolute, his gaze level with every person in the room.

The watch was quickly organized. At night, two members would walk the boundary in four-hour shifts, eyes sharp and wands ready. During the day, one watchman would keep patrol in the same rhythm—ever moving, ever present. It was a rhythm as old as the grove, one that had not been needed since the last war, but returned now as if it had only been sleeping. The Koesfolk did not speak of war directly, but they moved with the quiet precision of people who remembered the cost of peace.

The boys sat near the edge of the gathering, watching. Elowyn felt a hum beneath his seat—a faint ripple through the wooden floor of An Hel. An Dar had felt the change too.

That night, the boys lay in the bed that had once been Elowyn’s but now belonged to all three of them, a shared refuge stitched together by love and quiet understanding. The expansion charm Emrys had quietly woven still held, leaving room for their shifting forms and unconsciously sought limbs. The wind pressed against the cottage like a held breath.

Sometime past midnight, a sound cracked faintly in the distance—not loud, not near, but unmistakable: spellfire. Just enough to touch the edge of dreaming, to stir some instinct deep in the bones.

Then something on the air—a scent like scorched pine or burnt parchment. It drifted in for only a moment before vanishing again, as if the night itself had swallowed the evidence. Not enough to rouse them fully, but enough to thread unease into their sleep.

And then again—another crack, sharper this time. And another. And another. Spellfire, distant but unmistakable. It echoed faintly across the hills before the night stilled itself once more, as though the earth had exhaled and decided to pretend nothing had happened.

Peter stirred. “Please tell me someone’s roasting marshmallows very aggressively.”

Callum, eyes open, said nothing. He looked toward the window.

Elowyn’s hand found theirs beneath the blankets. “It’s far off,” he said softly in Cornish.

“That’s what worries me,” Peter muttered in Cornish, quieter now.

They lay awake for a long time, pressed close in the dark, the warmth of each other a tether against the echoing quiet outside. Elowyn’s hand never left Peter’s, and Callum’s fingers brushed lightly over Elowyn’s wrist, the smallest rhythm of comfort in the hush. No one spoke. There was no need. Presence alone was the balm—the shared space of breath and skin, of safety held not in walls, but in the certainty that none of them would face the night alone.

And when it became clear that the night would hold no further spellfire, that the silence had settled again like moss over stone, they let themselves drift—one by one—back into sleep. Not restful, not quite, but enough.

In the morning, Emrys stirred the porridge with a quiet flick of his wand and handed out toast with the other. His tone was light, but his movements were sharper than usual.

Peter, still blinking sleep from his eyes, glanced up from his bowl and asked in Cornish, “Ewn (Uncle), er, last night—was that fireworks or should I get started on goodbye letters?”

Emrys gave a low chuckle, the kind that rose more from habit than humor. He passed a plate of toast to Elowyn and poured tea into three mugs before replying, in English for expedience, “Nythva (Nephew), there was a disturbance, aye. I was called to tend one of the nightwatch—fool of a man stepped past the line after the spellfire ended, thinking to find signs, maybe tracks. Found a cursed object instead.” He shook his head slowly. “The wards held, as they always do. But what we heard was them being tested. Prodded, like someone tapping the walls to hear if the house is hollow.”

Callum's spoon paused mid-air as he said in Cornish.

“Were they caught?”

“No,” said Emrys again in English. “They fled into the trees before we could catch a clear look. But after things quieted, the nightwatch stepped beyond the line to investigate.” He set the spoon down with a soft clatter. “Foolish. The boundary is there for a reason. You don’t go wandering past it in times like these.”

“What did they find?” Callum asked in Cornish.

“A trinket. Looked ordinary—coin, maybe, or a badge. One of the watch picked it up without casting so much as a detection charm. The thing was cursed. Sloppy enchantment, probably designed to muddle memory or confuse direction. Took it right to the chest.”

Peter winced and asked in Cornish. “Did they lose their eyebrows or just their sense of self?”

Emrys didn’t smile but he answered in Cornish. “They’ll recover. But it was a warning. The next curse might not be so generous.”

Thaddeus came in with the post. There was no Prophet. Only a copy of The Quibbler, creased at the spine, and a single envelope with no seal—thin, plain, the sort that made the breath catch without reason. A shadow at the threshold.

—

The welcome letters and supplies lists arrived just after dawn, only two weeks before their departure to Hogwarts. A single owl—singed at the tips and irritable—descended to the sill with three letters bound together by a single black cord. The address written in curling Hogwarts script read: 

West Gable Room

Marwood-Travers Cottage

Lanwynn Koes, Cornwall, England. 

Even the way the letters were bundled felt deliberate, as though Hogwarts—or something behind it—had acknowledged what the three boys had become: not separate entities, but a single unified one.

Peter held his letter up and frowned before speaking in Cornish. By now, they spoke it more often than English—Callum still slipping into Irish now and then, Peter switching between Cornish and English whenever a word eluded him. It gave his jokes a kind of stutter-step rhythm, punchlines wrapped in whatever tongue was nearest to his wit. The patchwork fluency didn’t just suit him—it amplified him. He grinned, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“West Gable Room?” he said, lifting the parchment. “What’s next—‘Callum by the door, Elowyn in the middle, Peter cowering behind his stalwart friends’? Maybe they’ll include our favorite sleeping positions next year.”

The line was flippant, but his fingers kept worrying the edge of the parchment. The laughter, when it came, was quiet and uneasy.

“The Castle always knows,” Elowyn said quietly. “It’s the Castle, they say—it sends the letters out magically. But even so, knowing and naming are different things. This...this feels like intention.”

Callum looked up. “Like someone’s been watching.”

No one contradicted him. Elowyn unfolded his with deliberate fingers, eyes scanning for meaning beneath the formality. Peter tore his open with a dramatic flourish, already muttering before his eyes hit the bottom of the page. Callum had his smoothed out before him on the table, frown set like carved stone.

The items listed were not what they’d expected.

“No Defense Against the Dark Arts,” Peter muttered. “Just…a new class, Magical Sovereignty and Control.”

“Wolfsbane root,” Callum said quietly. “Belladonna. Dragon bile. Whoever's teaching this...they mean business.”

“And this,” Elowyn said, tilting the parchment so the light caught the words like a secret half-revealed. “Magical Theory: Obedience and Order. Compulsory.” He paused, then added, quieter, almost to himself, “Even the title sounds like it wants to teach us how to kneel.”

Peter looked up and grinned—a poor disguise. The smile was crooked, held together by defiance more than humor. “Well, can’t say they didn’t warn us.”

They were gathered in their room, formerly Elowyn's—curtains tied back, trunks half-packed, books stacked like miniature ramparts beside their beds. Sunlight warmed the floorboards. It smelled of beeswax and elderflowers, and beneath that, the faint scent of woodsmoke from breakfast. It was a sanctuary, but the letters in their hands had cracked something essential.

“We should be preparing,” Elowyn said quietly in Cornish. “Not just our things. Ourselves.”

Callum replied, “We should practice again. Like before. Duels, hexes, defensive wards. Not just theory this time.”

Elowyn met his gaze. He didn’t disagree, but his voice dropped. “It’s more than that. We need to be ready... in here.” He touched his temple. “And in here.” He laid his palm flat over Callum's chest—Callum leaned into the touch. “Last time, we were almost broken. We can’t afford that again.”

Peter groaned and flopped onto the bed with theatrical despair. “Can’t we just pretend we’re not marching into a bloody Ministry-run nightmare for, like, one more day? Just one more full Lanwynn day? With food and no curses and zero threats of homicide?”

As he landed, he glanced toward Elowyn—whose hand still rested gently against Callum’s chest—and felt a flicker of something he couldn’t quite name. It wasn't jealousy, not exactly, but a twinge all the same. He loved them both, knew he belonged among them, but moments like that sometimes made him feel like the third echo in a harmony that had been written for two.

Callum let the silence stretch a beat longer than usual, then stepped closer, facing Elowyn. “You’re right,” he said quietly turning to Peter—not in concession, but in understanding. “I’d rather stay too. But we need to know what’s coming.” He reached out and placed his hand gently over Elowyn’s where it rested against his chest, grounding them both in the moment, the gesture subtle but steady between them.

He glanced down at his letter, fingers tracing the edges. “And these should’ve come weeks ago. Two weeks until term—it’s late. Too late.”

Elowyn looked toward the window, thoughtful. “Delays from the Ministry aren’t just inefficiency anymore. They’re messages. Warnings.” He glanced at Peter, sensing the unspoken worry flickering beneath his humor. Callum moved then, stepping away from Elowyn to sit beside Peter on the bed. He didn’t say anything—just placed a steady hand on Peter’s knee, quiet reassurance in the absence of words. Peter didn’t meet his eyes, but his shoulders eased the slightest bit, and that was enough.

Peter kicked his legs against the bedframe. “S’pose we should take comfort in being fashionably doomed.”

Elowyn moved to the bed then, sitting on Peter’s other side. He didn’t speak, just rested a hand lightly along Peter’s back, a quiet gesture of presence rather than reassurance. The three of them sat like that for a moment—Peter in the middle, held not in arms but in silence, flanked by the two people who knew him best and asked nothing more of him than to stay.

Peter sat up and shrugged. “We’re not ready. But we’re going anyway. So maybe I just want to enjoy the illusion a little longer.”

Letters had arrived from all sides—and none of them took the task lightly. Peter’s parents had sent two scrolls later that day, their concern sharpened by the arrival of a Hogwarts letter addressed to a neighbor’s child—a letter whose contents were grim enough to crack their usual levity—their handwriting cramped and crisscrossed, and their worry tucked behind clumsy jokes and repeated urgings to be safe, stay home, wait it out. But their second letter hadn’t gone to Peter at all—it had been addressed to Thaddeus, pleading with adult authority to reason with their son, to explain that no cause, no castle, no war was worth the cost of a child.

Emrys and Thaddeus had exchanged a long, wordless glance over Elowyn’s Hogwarts letter when Elowyn had brought it to them. It was short, overly formal, stamped with the Ministry’s seal alongside Hogwarts—clearly dictated and likely intercepted. Emrys, characteristically, sat him down later that day. Not to demand, but to ask—gently, with all the gravity he could offer—whether Elowyn truly understood what he was walking into. “You don’t have to prove anything,” he had said. “To Hogwarts. Or to us.”

Isolde's words to Callum were the most direct. She came herself not long after Emrys had delivered the news, walking the winding path from her cottage with Ruairí swaddled close and a solemn steadiness in her step. She sat beside him under the shade of the old wild cherry tree and did not mince her words. She would never stop him—she said so twice—but she begged him, with tears held behind her eyes, not to go. That they could find a tutor, that he could wait, that Lanwynn Koes was safe. 

Not all of the pleas came from the parent of the child they were aimed toward. Perhaps they’d hoped the words would land softer on unfamiliar ears—or be taken more seriously. But the boys had said no. Each in his own way, with his own voice. They would return. They must return. Hogwarts wasn’t safe. But it was theirs. And they would not yield it.

On the second day after the letters arrived, after each parent had made their attempts—some gentle and others firmer—to sway the boys from returning, Thaddeus rose at first light and quietly made his way to Diagon Alley. He said nothing of it at the time. But by mid-afternoon, he returned with three sets of supplies, carefully bundled and charmed for the journey. When the other parents, startled and slightly indignant, asked how they could repay him, he raised a hand and shook his head. “Let’s not be vulgar,” he said gently, waving off their protest. “One doesn’t tally favors among friends. It was my pleasure—for the boys.”

—

In the late afternoon before the Hogwarts students of Lanwynn Koes would return, An Hel an Koes filled with soft footsteps and subdued conversation. The annual farewell feast had none of the brightness of previous years. Where once there had been laughter and song and the exchanging of small charms for luck, this year held only murmured farewells and the heavy hush of partings not guaranteed to be temporary.

There were only seven students returning to Hogwarts this year, and four of them were older than the triad—a fifth-year, two sixth-years, and a seventh-year—each of whom had remained distant all summer. They hadn’t just kept to themselves—they had pointedly avoided Elowyn, Callum, and Peter. When the triad entered a space, the older students made swift excuses to leave it. They never sat at the same tables, never paired with them for any of the collective tending or care. Their eyes flicked away too quickly, their silences too practiced. Even at the honey tastings and the moon feasts—when the whole hamlet traditionally joined hands in a circle of belonging—they lingered like shadows just outside the glow, watching, but never joining. The message was quiet, but unmistakable: You are not safe to be near. We will not stand with you.

The hall was fuller than usual, filled not just with those bidding goodbye but those watching—mothers clasping hands tightly beneath the table, fathers who had never spoken much now quieter still. The food was warm, but the appetite had vanished. A child’s laugh from one corner sparked a few smiles, but they dimmed too quickly.

The older students stood together at the far wall, arms folded and expressions shuttered. They watched now with guarded eyes. When Peter tried a light joke—in Cornish no less—one of them turned sharply away.

In Cornish, Callum muttered, “Well, that was subtle.”

Elowyn murmured back in Cornish, “They never wanted to see us.”

“They’re afraid,” Peter said in English. “We remind them of what they’re walking into. Or what they left behind.”

Around the edge of the hall, lanterns flickered and long shadows danced against the walls. A few of the adults watched, saying nothing—not out of indifference, but because they knew words could only stretch so far across the chasm of fear and love. Even among the Koesfolk, there were boundaries that could not be crossed, losses that could only be named in silence.

The feast had once marked a beginning, a bright send-off wrapped in food and song. But this year, it felt more like a vigil. The war, which had always seemed a distant specter, now felt as though it had crept to the very heart of the hamlet. The children were not just leaving for school. They were walking into danger, into the open mouth of war.

Many looked on the students not with joy or pride, but with quiet ache, as though memorizing the shape of them one last time. To send them back felt, to some, like betrayal. And yet, the feast was held, because traditions mattered, even in the shadow of unraveling. Because the Koesfolk, in their own way, believed that love must be witnessed—even when it cannot protect. Grief has its own etiquette—and tonight, it sat at every table, spoon in hand, mouth closed tight against the wail that wanted to rise.

Before the boys left, Mamm Wynn and Tas Wynn stepped forward—not as elders of the Koes, but as kin of the heart. With arms outstretched and eyes bright with unshed tears, they drew Elowyn, Callum, and Peter close, enfolding them as if to press memory into skin. It was not a farewell. It was a blessing passed from heartbeat to heartbeat, a silent prayer whispered in the rhythm of three held breaths. When they stepped back, their hands lingered a moment longer, as though reluctant to release them to what lay beyond the wood.

—

In the early morning on the day of their departure to Hogwarts, just after first light crept past the rooftops and spilled soft over the hedges, the triad walked into the Koes. The air still held the hush of night, though the birds had begun their scattered songs. They moved quietly, as though something sacred waited.

It was not a named ritual, but a known one. They had walked this path often enough that their feet knew the bends and bramble without looking. But today the path and the Koes itself felt different—thicker and older. The day of leaving always did.

Callum stepped forward first. He did not speak, but his jaw was tight, and his shoulders squared with a farmer’s resolve. He had fallen in love with Lanwynn Koes in the way roots love soil: quiet and deep and without question. The branch that dipped low, moved as if stirred by the wind, brushing his brow with something like affection before dropping into his palm a single acorn—perfect, solid, impenetrable. It was smooth as river stone and heavier than it looked, as if it held the weight of seasons. He turned it over in his hand, then closed his fingers around it and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat, close to his heart.

Peter followed. He had made jokes all the way to An Dar—some in Cornish, some in English, and some half-finished—but now he was silent. His mouth quirked like he still had a punchline lodged somewhere behind his teeth, but it didn’t come. His eyes were scanning the clearing as if it might suddenly vanish.

He paused beneath the branches, one hand in his pocket, the other drumming a quiet rhythm against his thigh. When nothing fell, he started to turn away—then stopped.

There, curled delicately at the base of An Dar, lay a woven loop of vine—three strands braided so finely together it looked as though they had grown that way. One was ivy, small-leaved and clinging. Another, honeysuckle, pale and fragrant even now. The third, bramble, dark but strong, its thorns dulled. Together, they formed a seamless braid, looped once around itself like a circlet.

Peter knelt and picked it up, turning it in his hands. The vines were still green, impossibly so. They flexed as though alive.

He looked up at the branches, then over at Elowyn and Callum.

“In case I forget we’re better as three,” he said, soft but steady. “Subtle.”

He slipped the woven vine over his wrist and tucked it beneath his sleeve. “Alright, I get it. I’m stronger when I let you hold me up. Doesn’t mean I’m not still funny, though.”

He didn’t smile. Not fully. But he stood a little straighter than before. It was small, imperfect, a shell of something once whole. But when he touched the woven vines, it warmed faintly, and the light that trailed from it pulsed once, like breath.

He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to. He was still standing, and Elowyn and Callum were there. That was thanks enough.

Elowyn stepped forward last. His heart was beating too fast, though his face betrayed none of it. He had grown beneath An Dar once—carried by the land, shaped by it—and the pull of that connection felt like a taut thread drawn through his chest. But this time, there was no tangible gift. Instead, when he looked up into the boughs, the world shifted.

It wasn’t sight exactly—more memory than vision. Time folded in on itself, not linearly but all at once. The ground shifted beneath him—not physically, but with the strange sensation of standing in a place that was simultaneously younger and impossibly older. Shadows gathered and scattered.

He saw a grove, but not the one he knew. The trees were younger, and wilder. Figures moved beneath the boughs, flickering in and out of clarity—their edges smudged, like charcoal against rain. The one in the center had a staff crowned with a living vine. The others whispered to the leaves. Their mouths didn’t move. Their voices came from the wind.

Seasons turned in bursts—blossoms opening and falling in the span of a blink. The oak thickened, split, healed. Stones were placed, then broken, then moss-covered. Millennia collapsed. Language changed. Rituals shifted. Only An Dar remained. Then it was gone. The Koes was whole again. Elowyn stood breathing hard as though he had run a great distance.

He bowed his head and touched his hand gently to the bark. “I will remember,” he whispered in Cornish.

“I won't be able to hear you there,” he whispered again. “But I’ll try.”

Elowyn’s chest ached—not from pain, but from the weight of recognition. This had happened. It was happening still. An Dar remembered. He stood for a long moment, eyes unfocused, breath catching faintly. Then he bowed his head, touched his hand gently to the bark one last time before they turned to wander back, and whispered again, “I will remember.”

The wind stirred, and with it came a deep, wordless sound—not quite speech, but something older. They all heard it, though none could name what it meant. For a long time they stood in the clearing, each with their gift, and each wrapped in silence. They did not speak of what they’d received—there’d be time later, perhaps by firelight or under blankets in the quiet of their dormitory room, when the Castle’s stones listened but did not speak, and the dark held them close without pressing in too tightly.

Callum’s gaze lingered on Peter, as if still listening for the heartbeat beneath the jokes. Peter looked toward Elowyn, not quite meeting his eyes, the vine at his wrist a weight he hadn’t expected. And Elowyn, who walked between them, looked out across the trees not with certainty, but with reverence, as though listening to something none of them could yet name.

They were not of one mind, and they did not move in lockstep. Their thoughts scattered in different directions—Callum already at the stone boundary, Peter half-lost in imagined disasters, and Elowyn drifting somewhere between vision and earth. But even so, their paths curved back toward one another, as water might wind toward a single wellspring. Every step forward was a quiet declaration: I will walk beside you,  even when the road twists from my own. As they walked, something in the air moved with them.

—

When they returned, they shared breakfast with both families—an unspoken ritual that had shaped the golden rhythm of their summer days. They gathered around the expanded table, its lengthened grain catching the light like water in motion, and in the easy clatter of dishes and clink of spoons, the boys found something like peace—steady, rooted, and shared. The table had been expanded by magic—a soft stretch of elm and pine that could seat them all. Sunlight filled the room. Tea steamed gently. No one hurried. No one lingered.

Emrys poured tea with careful precision, the steam curling like quiet intentions between them. Isolde passed plates while Brígh tried to feed Maebh bits of toast, her tiny fingers sticky with jam. The morning unfolded gently, like the last page of a much-loved chapter.

When the plates had been cleared and the second pot of tea poured, Thaddeus rose from his seat and crossed the room with an object wrapped in deep green silk. He placed it on the table before the boys with a reverence that drew the attention of all present.

“I had to do some rummaging,” he said mildly, eyes glinting with something unreadable. “But I thought you might make good use of this.”

He unwrapped the silk to reveal a narrow mirror, framed in weathered silver and just slightly taller than a wand. The glass within was dark, almost obsidian, but if one stared long enough, shadows began to ripple across its surface.

“A Foe-Glass,” Thaddeus said. “Old, but sound. It belonged to my mother—not that she fought, mind you. She married a Muggle and lived well out of reach during the last war. But she believed in being prepared, and this always hung near our hearth.” He paused, then added, “I asked her if I could give it to you.”

Maebh, who had been watching wide-eyed from beside Brígh, tugged at Isolde’s sleeve. “What’s a Foe-Glass?” she asked.

Isolde leaned down, brushing a strand of hair from Maebh’s forehead. “It shows your enemies, sweetling,” she said gently. “Or those who mean you harm. It lets you see what might otherwise be hidden. But only if you’re ready to see it.”

Peter let out a low whistle, the weight of the gift silencing even his quips. “What if it starts showing our own reflections?” he muttered, half-joking but not quite.

“It won’t,” Thaddeus replied. “Unless you become your own worst enemy.”

Emrys shot him a look, but said nothing. The boys exchanged glances. There was nothing clever to say.

Isolde, whose gaze had turned quietly reflective, added softly, "They don't make them anymore, you know. The schematics were lost long ago—destroyed, some say, during the last war. What's left now are relics, few and far between. You're fortunate to have one. Keep it close."

Peter looked at the mirror again, the gravity of it settling deeper across his face.

Conversation faltered. Someone mentioned the latest headline from the Prophet. Thaddeus raised an eyebrow, and the subject died. Callum picked up the Foe-Glass, cradling it with deliberate care, and carried it to his trunk, already stationed by the door alongside Elowyn’s and Peter’s. The quiet returned, not heavy but thoughtful, like the hush before a storm. They finished their meal in silence, the kind that had come to feel like understanding.

—

When it was time to go, there were no long speeches. Emrys held each of them tightly. Isolde kissed Callum’s forehead and whispered something he didn’t repeat. Brígh and Maebh waved from the threshold.

The triad walked with Thaddeus and Malachy through the hamlet to the boundary, their trunks having been shrunk and tucked safely into their guardians’ coat pockets—Elowyn’s and Peter’s in Thaddeus’s, and Callum’s in Malachy’s. Their boots fell soft against the well-worn path, the sound of departure swallowed by the hush that had settled over the village. The air had changed—not colder, exactly, but thinner, like the breath before grief, stretched tight between the moment of holding on and the one where letting go begins.

The shimmer of the boundary was soft golden halo around the village. Lanwynn Koes behind them glowed as if in blessing. The world ahead was grey—a storm had blown in after sunrise and a soft rain had begun falling.

They crossed the boundary together—Callum on the left, Elowyn in the middle, and Peter on the right. Their steps, usually light, echoed strangely on the stone. And then, just as all three feet stepped over the boundary, something stirred beneath them—not a tremor, but a pulse, soft and deliberate.

It reverberated through their boots and up their spines, like a heart not their own briefly beating through the earth. Elowyn stopped short, breath catching in his throat. The air around them shimmered faintly.

“Did you feel that?” he asked in Cornish, voice barely above the whisper of wind.

Peter squinted at the ground. “Something. Like...a tug. Like when you’re falling asleep and your body jolts.”

“Warm,” Callum added, eyes narrowing. “But not fire warm. More like breath.”

Elowyn didn’t answer immediately. His head tilted slightly, as though tuning his ear to something only he could hear. His fingers twitched at his side—not in fear, but attunement. As if he were waiting to understand what it meant.

Thaddeus raised his wand and glanced once more at Elowyn and Peter, his other hand resting in reassurance on Peter's shoulder. Malachy, standing beside Callum, murmured something low in Irish that only Callum understood—something about walking steady and looking back only once. The boys nodded.

The shimmer around Lanwynn pulsed one final time, a golden breath caught on the edge of release. The two men stepped forward in unison, each with a firm grasp on the boys at their sides. Thaddeus Side-Alonged Elowyn and Peter, Peter's shoulder brushing Elowyn's as they were drawn close. Malachy did the same with Callum, who squared his shoulders and pressed a hand to the pocket where the acorn lay.

And then, with a sharp breath of displaced air and the faintest sound like rustling leaves in a storm, they vanished. Lanwynn Koes, golden and still, faded behind them. The breath it had been holding slipped out at last, quiet as dawn, and the shimmer around its borders dimmed, as if settling in to wait again.

Chapter Text

Platform Nine and Three Quarters was quieter than it had ever been. It was not silent, but subdued, as if even the bricks of King’s Cross held their breath. Mist clung low to the paving stones, curling around trunks and toes, whispering against cloaks and coats. There were no owls hooting, no last-minute shrieks of forgetful students. No one hurried. No one laughed. The only sound was the groan of steam and the hiss of a train that looked older than it had a year ago, as if the war had aged it alongside the rest of them. It pulsed with an energy that felt reluctant, almost resentful, as if it too knew it was bearing children into something bleak and wrong.

They stood near the barrier, clustered loosely in the thinning crowd. Malachy knelt by Callum's trunk, wand steady, murmuring the spell to enlarge it. The trunk snapped outward with a hollow sound, expanding reluctantly. Beside him, Thaddeus did the same for Elowyn’s and Peter’s, his expression unreadable but precise. The adults did not speak as they worked; there was nothing left to say that had not already been spoken in glances, touches, and long silences. The whistle of the train broke the hush, long and low like something mourning.

When Malachy rose, he looked at his son for a long moment. Something passed between them, wordless but undeniable, like the ghost of a conversation never begun. Then he reached forward and pulled Callum into his arms. It was not the awkward pat-pat sort of hug Callum remembered from early childhood. It was full-bodied and firm, his father’s calloused hand cradling the back of his head.

All summer, Malachy had watched the easy way Thaddeus and Emrys touched Elowyn—the brief shoulder squeezes, the embraces that needed no occasion, and the way Elowyn and the others leaned into one another without flinching or fear. It had unsettled him at first, that softness, that unapologetic intimacy so foreign to the reserve of his own upbringing. But somewhere in that foreignness, Malachy had glimpsed a different way of being—a way in which love could live in gesture, not just in action. He did not understand it fully, but he had come to recognize its balm. It soothed in ways words never could. And so he had reached for his son.

Callum did not speak. He simply pressed his face into the rough linen weave of his father’s cloak and closed his eyes. Callum, unused to such warmth from his father, stood still for half a heartbeat too long, as if afraid the spell might break. There was no apology, or explanation, but in that embrace was a kind of belonging he had not known he needed until it was offered freely.

Thaddeus, too, stepped forward. He embraced Peter first, without ceremony or hesitation. Peter, who had spent much of his life being one of many, melted into it. He did not joke. He did not deflect. He simply stood and accepted the fierce, brief grip of someone who had taken the time to see him clearly. When Thaddeus pulled away, his hand lingered just a moment on Peter’s shoulder before moving to Elowyn. He did not speak. He pulled him close and held him in place, one hand resting over the back of his neck. Elowyn leaned in, still and solemn, and the scent of Thaddeus’s robes—clove and woodsmoke and something faintly herbal—settled over him like a memory.

When he reached Callum, Thaddeus did not embrace him in the same way. But he rested a hand on his shoulder—a solid, grounding weight that Callum felt for some time after they turned away. Callum nodded, not quite knowing what to do with the warmth that flickered in his chest.

Elowyn, Peter and Callum turned and moved together toward the train, the three of them walking in step without needing to speak. The steam hissed around them, thick and almost oily, clinging to their robes and soaking into the seams. The platform seemed to retreat from them as they passed, and though no one moved, it felt as if every adult watched them go. As they boarded and walked the corridor, the other students moved aside. It was not rude or angry, but cautious—the way one might step back from a sleeping wolf, just enough space to ensure it remained asleep. Eyes followed them, but no voices did.

“They’re back?” someone whispered, voice tinged with disbelief. “Didn’t Merrick say something about the Janus Thickey Ward?”

Another voice, low and nervous, followed. “I heard they nearly burned down half the forest.”

“Someone said it wasn’t even wands, just raw magic. Wild, untamed stuff. Nearly took the walls down.”

“They were dragged out half-dead, I heard. Barely breathing. And then they just disappeared.”

“Bet they’ve been somewhere awful. You can see it in their eyes.”

One last voice, very quiet, said: “I heard they didn’t cry. Not even once.”

A few Ravenclaws had paused to look, their gazes sharp with speculation. Two Hufflepuffs whispered behind cupped hands, and even a pair of older Gryffindors, usually too proud to acknowledge Slytherins at all, slowed as they passed. There was wonder in some faces—that these three had survived whatever it was the rumors claimed. But there was fear too, the kind that wrapped itself around the imagination and squeezed. Dangerous, some seemed to think. Unnatural. If they could live through that...what else might they be capable of?

They did not respond. Elowyn's hand brushed Peter’s as they passed, a quiet reassurance passed like a current. Callum kept his shoulders back, spine straight, eyes forward.

They claimed a compartment near the end of the train. It was empty, though the entire train felt deserted in a deeper, more unsettling way—less vacant than hollowed, as if every compartment carried only echoes of what should have been. Even where students did sit, they sat too still, spoke too little, stared too long at nothing. The walls themselves seemed to breathe silence. And woven through that silence was something else: a presence. Adults they did not recognize moved slowly through the corridors, robed in dark, unmarked fabric, their eyes too sharp and their steps too soundless. They did not speak. They only watched, their wands tucked visibly in their belts like a warning. Peter slid the door shut with a sharp click and locked it without being asked. The train shuddered beneath them and began to move. The lurch sent a ripple through the bench seats, a vibration that felt more like dread than momentum.

Outside the window, the platform blurred, the figures upon it pulled away into fog. The world dissolved quickly, as if eager to forget them. There was a shout, a flicker of light, and then a Hufflepuff girl crumpled sideways in the corridor beyond the glass, her robes smoking faintly. The compartment filled with tension like a held breath.

Callum stood first, his expression hardening. Peter and Elowyn exchanged a glance. As Callum slid open the compartment door, a sharp tableau met them in the corridor beyond: a third-year Hufflepuff girl crumpled on the floor, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs, her wand clutched uselessly in one trembling hand. Two Slytherin boys stood over her—third-years as well, vaguely familiar from glimpses in the Common Room last year. Their expressions were twisted with a smugness that only cruelty could breed, and their wands still smoked faintly. It was a pathetic scene, childish and brutal, the kind of small torment that made the air feel colder.

Callum opened the door wider, and then Elowyn stepped into the corridor with a slow, deliberate grace. His voice was soft, but it carried clearly:

“If you must display your lack of breeding, do keep it quiet. Some of us have summer reading to finish.”

The air tightened. The two older Slytherin boys who had cast the jinx faltered. Their wands lowered a fraction.

Peter stepped into the doorway behind Elowyn, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, his voice cutting and dry.

“Honestly, if you’re going to be cruel, at least be original. That hex is older than my Great-Aunt Theda, and she’s been dead for seventy years.”

More than a few compartment doors had cracked open, curious faces peeking out into the corridor. Some students lingered longer than others, expressions ranging from intrigued to apprehensive, drawn by the disturbance and the strange tableau it had become. Someone snorted. The tension cracked, not vanished, but broken enough to scatter the scene. The girl, dazed but unharmed, scrambled up and disappeared without offering thanks. 

One of the boys sneered, voice sharp with entitlement. "She’s a Mudblood. Doesn’t belong here anyway."

Elowyn did not blink. His tone remained effortlessly composed. "Blood may run muddy in your mouth, but that does not mean your manners must."

The second boy scoffed. "You think you're something special, do you?"

Peter, still leaning in the doorway, raised a brow and smirked. "Well, if this is the future of wizarding strength, I’m not impressed. Picking on a half-starved third-year? Is that what passes for valor these days? You might want to conserve what little dignity you’ve got left. Looks like you'll be needing it."

The first boy flushed, his wand held too high, his fingers clenched around it with the white-knuckled grip of someone trying too hard to look unafraid. It trembled slightly in his hand, betraying him with every quiver. Callum stood in front of him with his own wand half-raised—not aimed, but held in such a way that only the smallest flick of his wrist would have shifted it into a threat. He wanted it seen, wanted the weight of it to hang in the air. Callum stepped forward then, his stance low and deliberate, voice calm but edged. The boy's gaze flicked briefly to Callum's wand and then back to the Callum's face as Callum said:

"You want a repeat of last spring? Go ahead. Cast it. See how far you get."

Neither boy moved. There was a flicker of recognition—not just of the names, but the weight of what they might represent. There had been whispers of fire and duels and something ancient stirring in the stones of Slytherin’s floor. But there had been other whispers, too—ones that said the boys had been half-dead when they were found, dragged away like children too weak to stand. The truth had blurred beneath the weight of repetition, leaving behind only fear and uncertainty. The Common Room and the fire in the Forbidden Forest and the silence that followed.

The third-years slunk away without another word. Elowyn turned and stepped back inside. Peter followed with Callum bringing up the rear.

Peter’s hand shook as he relocked the door, and he quickly stuffed it in his pocket before either of the others could see. Callum sat down too fast, his movements loose with the sudden absence of adrenaline, as if it had left him hollow. Elowyn remained standing for a moment longer, then let out a breath that was too long, as if he had been holding it the entire time. They settled into their seats. The hum of the train felt wrong somehow. It was less a rhythm and more a drone, as though they were not headed to school, but away from something they would never be allowed to reclaim.

Peter sat hunched over his book again, pretending to read. Callum kept one hand fisted in his robe, knuckles white. Elowyn said nothing, but when their eyes met, something unspoken passed between them—quiet and steady, like a tether drawn taut in the silence. The corridor beyond their compartment remained empty. No one knocked. No one passed.

Elowyn stared out the window. The fog was thick now, and the countryside had already vanished from view. The glass reflected only themselves—three shadows hunched against a growing dark.

“It feels like we’re walking the Koes again,” he murmured in Cornish, “but the path won’t show itself.”

They had agreed, in the quiet days before leaving Lanwynn Koes, that they would speak Cornish amongst themselves—not to be contrary, but for safety, and for the slim thread of privacy it might offer them in the months ahead. They knew, with the grim certainty of boys who had already witnessed too much, that the coming year at Hogwarts would be shaped by fear and silence, and worse.

Peter and Callum had taken to the language with surprising speed. They were not yet fluent, but it had come more easily than expected. Elowyn guided them gently, correcting only when needed, his patience as steady as the path they had walked together since the vow at the boundary stone. When Peter fumbled a word, Elowyn offered it again with a quiet nod. When Callum hesitated, Elowyn spoke the line with him, never once making him feel small for needing help.

The more they used it, the more natural it became. What had started as strategy had begun to feel like habit—like something that belonged to them now. It may have been the time spent among the Koesfolk, or the way An Dar had received them, or simply the closeness they shared. But the old language had begun to settle into them—not as something foreign, but as something returned. In Cornish, their voices felt truer. There was a kind of ease to it, a rightness that none of them could quite name. And though no spell cloaked them, speaking it wrapped a kind of ward around the three of them nonetheless.

Peter glanced up from the book in his lap, thumb still marking the place he had been rereading for the third time. He had spent the better part of the summer catching up after his two months in the Hospital Wing, and now he was trying—frantically, determinedly—to finish the last few chapters of the summer reading he refused to arrive unprepared for. “What do you mean?”

“This,” Elowyn replied, not turning his head. “The journey. It doesn't feel like it is leading anywhere.”

“Still, at the end of all that wandering, we found a giant tree bleeding magic and light. Not exactly a picnic, but it beats a one-way ticket to a cursed castle, doesn’t it?”

Elowyn turned to Peter and drew a breath that was too long and too slow all at once, as though bracing himself against the weight of truth he did not wish to speak. He sighed, not in frustration, but in weary recognition, and offered a small nod—a gesture of understanding shared between those who have already glimpsed what lies ahead. There would be no tree of light waiting this time, and no sacred grove to enfold them in its lush embrace. There was only a castle wrapped in silence and shadow.

Beside Peter, Callum said nothing, but in the glass his reflection betrayed him. His eyes were wide and alert, not fixed on the blur of countryside, but on something just beyond it—on what might be waiting. He watched not the landscape, but the possibility that something would break through it. The kind of watching that comes from knowing danger wears many faces, and not all of them show themselves in daylight.

The train carried them onward—three boys sitting in a quiet carriage, headed not for home, but into the heart of something dark and closing, the wheels singing a song that none of them wanted to understand.

—

The train hissed to a halt with a sound that seemed more like a warning than a welcome. Doors clattered open one by one, the groan of metal and the thud of boots striking down onto the platform swallowed by a fog so thick it pressed in on every angle, turning even the nearest outlines to ghosts. Where once there would have been chatter and laughter from overeager first-years, now there was only hush. Even the owls were silent, and the wind refused to stir.

As they moved down the train corridor, the triad moved like a single shape cut into three—a rhythm long practiced and unconsciously held.

Elowyn’s robes, black cashmere lined in green silk and trimmed in subtle silver embroidery, carried the same elegant drape and fine weave he had always worn—not for show, but for presence.

Peter’s, by contrast, were newly made and matched in quality, tailored precisely to his measure after a summer spent working alongside Thaddeus in the apothecary. The old hand-me-downs had vanished without ceremony. The cut was less sculpted than Elowyn’s, looser across the shoulders and sleeves, designed to move easily with him rather than cling. There was even an extra interior pocket sewn discreetly into the lining—perfect for notes, or wrappers, or odds and ends Peter always seemed to acquire. Something in his posture—subtle, but steady—spoke of pride not yet used to showing itself.

Callum’s robes were equally fine, if quieter in cut, and he wore them like they might vanish with too much movement. He ran his fingers along the seams unconsciously, as if expecting to be scolded for having them. And he had been, in a way—Malachy had bristled when he’d found out that Thaddeus had had Callum fitted and ordered several sets of robes without consulting him. Isolde had only touched the fabric and said nothing, remembering well the way pure, baby cashmere wool fell in her hands when she was still a Nott. Thaddeus, when asked, had only said: the boys are a set now. They ought to look the part. Fine robes were a kind of armor.

The mist curled around their ankles and sleeves, obscuring everything but the glint of silver thread and the solid weight of presence. They looked strange now, these three—neither children nor what came next. They had not been untouched by the year behind them, but had not been broken by it either.

Elowyn stepped down first, his boots touching the slick stone of the Hogsmeade platform as though entering another realm entirely. The fog moved around him like breath, unwilling to part. His hand brushed the cold iron railing, and when he looked up, he saw them.

They stood at the edge of the platform—the carriages, and before them were creatures that were tall and dark, their skin stretched taut over protruding bone, wings like torn parchment folded against ribs that rose and fell too slowly to be at peace. Their eyes, pale and strangely luminous, turned toward him in perfect unison.

Elowyn did not start. He simply stilled. He had never seen such creatures before, not even in the deepest parts of the Koes, though the Koes was vast—unknowably vast—and some parts shifted, reshaped by magic older than language. He had heard rumors Thestrals lived there, hidden among the undisturbed reaches. And though he had not seen them, he was sure he had sensed them once, in the hush between footsteps or the weightless silence just after something ancient passed too near.

Some wordless instinct told him what they were—not their names, but their nature. Death lingered in the hollow of their gaze, and yet they bowed to him, almost imperceptibly, as though acknowledging something ancient in him, something shared.

Behind him, Callum disembarked, Peter trailing close behind, both blinking against the wet air.

“What are you looking at?" Peter asked.

Elowyn’s voice was low. "They’re pulling the carriages."

Peter squinted harder. “I must be going blind, I don’t see a thing. What are?"

Callum tilted his head, eyes narrowing as he studied the space Elowyn had fixed on. "Thestrals," he said slowly. "I think that’s what they’re called. Magical creatures. You can only see them if—"

He stopped. The silence stretched for a moment, heavy.

Peter let out a sharp breath that fogged the air in front of him. "Oh. Right. Bit of a grim entry requirement, isn’t it? ‘Congratulations, you’ve survived trauma. Here’s a skeletal death horse to commemorate the occasion.’"

Callum gave him a look, half a smirk despite himself. "Sensitive as always, Ric."

Peter shrugged. "I cope through comedy. It's either that or weep into El’s robes again."

"You’ve done that already," Callum said, deadpan.

"Not recently," Peter replied, with mock indignation. "I’ve grown. Emotionally. Probably."

Elowyn’s gaze remained fixed. The Thestrals did not move. He took a single step forward, then whispered—not loudly, not ceremonially, but with the same stillness Emrys had once used when lighting the vigil candle for an elder who had passed in the Koes.

"Aganeth, daughter of Morven and Lovan."

The name fell from his lips like pebbles into a still pool—soft, final, remembered. It belonged to the elder witch whose passing he had borne witness to with eyes wide and heart trembling. As was the way of the Koes, her body had been set alight in solemn vigil—flames quiet, reverent, and fiercely bright—at the altar stone north of An Dar, while the village gathered in silence to honor her end. When the fire gave way to ash, her remains were scattered at the roots of the great tree, where all endings circled back to beginnings. Her name lingered now not only in memory, but in the living soil of Lanwynn Koes, and deep within the rings of An Dar itself—an echo woven into the wood.

The Thestrals blinked slowly, then turned back toward the carriages.

The boys climbed into one, the wood damp beneath their fingers. Inside, the bench seats felt colder than they should have, the lantern overhead flickering with a greenish hue. The fog pressed against the windows, stubborn and unmoving, as the carriages rolled forward.

"Is it just me," Peter said, glancing toward the obscured shapes of other carriages ahead, "or does this feel less like arriving at school and more like being carted off to Azkaban?"

Callum didn’t answer. His gaze remained fixed on the half-seen silhouettes of trees that slipped like ghosts past the fogged window, but Peter could feel his silence—the shape of it, dense and taut, threaded through with thoughts unspoken. Elowyn himself had fallen into quiet, the breath in his lungs seeming to echo as the Thestrals vanished from view and the Castle stirred at the edge of his senses, dimmed and distant, like a voice calling out underwater. He was watching the trees pass, though they were little more than shadows in the mist. Occasionally, a branch would materialize—gnarled, reaching—and vanish again.

Elowyn, fingers curled around the window frame, leaned forward slightly. His voice was quiet but certain. "It can’t reach us. Not properly."

Peter looked over. "What can’t?"

"The Castle," Elowyn said. "It feels… restrained… bound."

The trees thinned, and Hogwarts emerged from the fog like a wound slowly laid bare. Its towers rose solemnly, its windows flickering with dim, watery light—as if seen through layers of ice or memory. Yet it was not serenity that filled the space between stone and sky, but a profound stillness, the kind born not of rest, but of restraint. The Castle did not feel wounded. It felt subdued, like something powerful held in check beneath bindings it could not shake.

Callum pressed his hand to the window, fingers splayed as though feeling for something beneath the chill. "It looks strange," he said quietly. "Less light and no warmth."

Peter shifted in his seat, fidgeting with the seam of his robe. "Like someone’s threw Pervuian Instant Darkness Powder over the whole place," he muttered. "Like the Castle’s still in there somewhere—but smothered."

As they neared the gates, strange figures came into view—cloaked in black, and unsmiling. They stood like statues, arms crossed, wands at their hips. One stepped forward to inspect a carriage ahead, speaking in low tones. Another snapped at a third-year for stepping down too slowly. Their eyes swept across students like censors, measuring worth, seeking fault. There were more of them than last year, and none bore the ease or curiosity of Hogwarts staff. Their movements were tight, mechanical—like chess pieces moving not of their own will.

"Who the hell are they?" Peter muttered.

Callum’s jaw tightened. "Not professors. Not Ministry either."

"Nor are they human, some of them," Elowyn murmured, not unkindly, but with that eerie certainty that came from listening to things others could not hear.

The boys fell into silence again. The lantern inside the carriage swung gently as they moved, casting long, distorted shadows over their faces. Elowyn closed his eyes briefly. The Castle pulsed faintly against the edge of his mind, not warm or welcoming, but trapped. The carriages rolled on. The gates creaked open. Beyond them, Hogwarts waited—not like a beacon, but like a prison.

—

The Great Hall had been scrubbed and polished, its surfaces gleaming under hundreds of floating candles—but the light was wrong. The flames flickered sullenly, as though reluctant to burn, and the enchanted ceiling did not reflect the sky so much as imitate it, a dull grey stretch of clouds unmoving and too still, like a canvas hung badly askew. There were fewer candles than usual. Fewer students too. The magic that had once lent the Hall its warmth now felt strained, as if the very stones were holding their breath in pain.

The four House tables sat strangely empty in places—long stretches with no plates laid out, spaces where laughter might have once echoed now silent. Gryffindor's was scattered and hollow, its remaining students pale and tight-lipped, eyes flicking toward the doors as though expecting to see someone arrive who never would. Hufflepuff clung together in tight groups, hands held beneath the table, expressions strained but stubbornly kind. Ravenclaw seemed the most composed, though their stillness was not serenity—it was observation tinged with wariness. And Slytherin—Slytherin was smallest of all.

Less than half the Slytherin table had been filled, a hollowed-out remnant of its usual presence. Among the upper years, whole clusters of students were conspicuously absent. Whispers slithered over the glint of silver goblets and empty silver chargers, half-formed rumors cloaked in fear and supposition: that some had departed willingly to serve the Dark Lord; that others had been ferried off to the continent, hidden in ancestral manors behind blood wards and foreign tongues. And the Muggle-borns—no one said their names aloud. They were simply gone. Into hiding, some whispered. Out of the magical world entirely, others murmured. And a few, in voices barely above breath, said the rest: removed from life itself. No confirmations followed those murmurs. There had been no official word—only a hush that thickened and congealed in the empty spaces they left behind. It was a silence that hung over each absence like a shroud, invisible but suffocating, draped heavy across the bones of the table.

As Elowyn, Callum and Peter entered the Great Hall for the Welcome Feast, rumors of another kind floated like ash on windless air. Once they’d been spotted stepping onto the train at King’s Cross, it was clear that their absence had not been forgotten—only reshaped. Glances followed them down the train corridor before they’d even found a compartment, and whispers swelled behind them like a Moon-full tide. The triad had not been seen at the end of the last school year, and in the long weeks that had followed, the silence surrounding their absence had thickened into myth.

From compartment to corridor on the train to the vaunted walls of the Great Hall, speculation passed between students like contraband sweets: forbidden but irresistible. One of the Slytherin second-year girls claimed she'd heard from her cousin who worked for the Knight Bus that they had burned the Slytherin common room to cinders in a bid for power within the house only to be stopped by older, loyal Slytherins. Another, a Slytherin fifth year, insisted his sister knew someone at the Ministry who had glimpsed the boys' names flagged in a confidential memo—something to do with spells too powerful for schoolchildren. Someone else, one of the few remaining Slytherin seventh years, claimed her aunt, a Healer at St. Mungo’s, had seen the boys with burn scars and bloodied hands, though she wouldn't say more.

Among the other Houses, the whispers took on a darker edge, stories steeped in suspicion and dread. These were not tales meant to inspire—they were laced with warning. It was said that the three had gone too far, that they had woken something in the Slytherin Common Room that ought to have stayed buried. Some claimed the stones themselves had cracked from the force of it. Ravenclaws whispered that the magic twisted around them, and that spells refused to behave in their presence, bending like reeds in a storm. Gryffindors, ever prone to the dramatic, muttered of blood rites, and of Dark magic pulled from forgotten tomes and rituals never meant for children or bearers of the Light. Even Hufflepuffs—so often the last to condemn—had fallen silent when the triad passed, their usual warmth cooled by unspoken unease. Whatever had occurred, it had left its mark—and it was not only one of triumph.

That mark lingered in the way others looked at them. It was not admiration that followed them through the corridors or across the Hall, but wary calculation. Students from other Houses stared when they thought the boys wouldn’t notice. They spoke softly, exchanged sidelong glances, their faces shuttered and uncertain. Wonder still bloomed—but it had been hollowed out by fear. If Elowyn, Callum, and Peter had survived what should have broken them, what else might they survive? And worse—what might they unleash next?

Within Slytherin, however, the looks were different. They were more calculated. While some admired their alleged audacity, most viewed them with suspicion, their silence interpreted not as stoic strength but as the pause after a failed coup. It was whispered—never aloud, but always just within reach—that Elowyn, Callum, and Peter had tried to seize control of the House itself. The story shifted depending on the teller, but the heart of it remained: they had made a move and it had failed. Their survival, some said, was not proof of strength, but of insignificance. A true threat would have been crushed completely. Those who had stood against them, who had fought and left and now wore the Mark—those were the ones worth remembering. They had stepped into the ranks of the Dark Lord's chosen. The triad had remained behind, and in Slytherin, that was not the mark of cunning but of failure. They were seen as remnants—unclaimed pieces left behind when the board had cleared. And remnants, in Slytherin, did not rise. They were stepped over.

Amidst the swirling rumors, Honoria Mulciber and Vesper Selwyn sat like carved queens at the center of the Slytherin table, their backs unbowed and expressions untouched by the tension that rippled through the rest of the Hall. They whispered to one another from time to time, but never without purpose. Their words moved with precision, measured as though the wrong syllable might tip the world. Theirs was a presence rooted not in fear alone, but in the weight of legacy. Rumor held that their fathers’ pledges in the first war had never been broken, thus they had retained the Dark Lord’s highest regard. Their fathers maintained that regard through acts whispered about but never confirmed. Their older brothers—Cassian Mulciber and Septimus Selwyn—once expected to lead, had not returned to Hogwarts that year. They had entered the Dark Lord’s service, leaving the younger sisters to rule in their absence.

Whatever truth stirred in those rumors, the result was plain: Honoria and Vesper moved through the castle like royalty enthroned. Their presence reshaped corridors and silenced rooms. Other children of Death Eaters had been told to show deference—quietly, but with unwavering care. These girls were not merely admired or envied; they were protected. A single slight might reach the ears of men who answered to no court but power itself. Theirs was not rule through charisma—it was rule through implication, through threat veiled in etiquette and through command spoken in a glance.

Further down the table, Draco Malfoy sat alone unthroned. He was as pale as candle wax. His hands were folded and unmoving atop his lap. There had once been a constellation of figures around him—Blaise, Pansy, Theodore—bright and cold and glittering with the weight of old names. But now, a hush surrounded him instead. The others still watched him, still hovered near, but the gravity had changed. Whatever favour the Malfoys once wielded had faltered, and the throne Draco had never asked to sit upon now ensconced others found more worthy. Elowyn saw it in the set of his jaw, in the way his shoulders didn’t relax even once. Malfoy only watched. That was all.

Elowyn’s eyes were drawn from observing the changed dynamics of Slytherin House by the quiet procession of first-years entering the Hall trailing behind Professor McGonagall. They moved like shadows cast by someone else’s fear—small, uncertain, and silent. None of them spoke above a whisper as they clustered before the dais, hands twisting into sleeves or clutching at the edges of their robes.

Their eyes roamed the hall: the ceiling’s dim and static imitation of sky along with the sullen flicker of half-hearted candlelight that cast no warmth and little light. The flames seemed to draw back from their own brightness, as if wary of what they might reveal. The children looked too young for such a place. They looked too breakable for the press of dread that weighed on the air. And yet they stood—not rigid, or defiant—but still, as if the truth of this new Hogwarts had whispered itself into their bones the moment they stepped off the train.

Then, from beneath the dais, the Sorting Hat stirred.Its brim, moth-eaten and fraying, opened slowly—not with theatrical flourish or the sing-song cadence of years past, but with the heavy breath of something ancient forced from slumber. It did not sing. It did not rhyme. It spoke. The voice that emerged was low and solemn, rough as stone worn smooth by centuries of passage, and laced with a tremor that was not fear, but strain—like a great bell rung past its limit, its tones warped by pressure and time.

Elowyn stiffened, breath catching in his throat. He felt it—deep beneath the flagstones, coiled in the marrow of the Castle—a ripple through the ancient magic that had once moved in harmony with his breath and blood. This was not that fluid, living pulse he had known in his first year. It was slower now, heavier. As though the Castle were rising against chains not of iron but enchantment, its will subdued, its voice stretched thin beneath layers of silence. It stirred, but haltingly, like a creature long bound struggling to remember the shape of freedom.

The Sorting Hat’s voice—the Castle’s voice, Elowyn realized with aching clarity—carried that same faltering power. Each word was spoken not as greeting, but as a reckoning. These were not merely verses woven for tradition. They were a message forced upward through constraint, pressed from the heart of the stone itself. A warning, not a welcome.

The lines are drawn in ash and flame, 

Where ghosts bear witness, none the same. 

The masks we wear will weigh like stone, 

And hollow oaths will leave us lone. 

The brave may fall, the cruel may climb, 

And truth decay in gilded rhyme. 

Loyalty twisted, wisdom chained, 

Kindness hunted, mercy blamed. 

Yet still the spark is passed anew— 

To hearts unsure, to minds still true. 

And still, though fear may line the land, 

All are called, and all may stand. 

No bloodline here will bar the door, 

All wands are welcome on this floor. 

The House divides, but magic knows— 

Each soul must choose how bright it glows.

A whisper rolled across the Hall, rising like smoke from dry tinder. The Hat’s brim closed with deliberate finality, and the sharp-eyed might have noticed the way the woman to Snape’s left sneered at it—lips curling as if she’d like to snatch the ancient thing from its stool and set it alight. Her companion, seated on Snape’s right, scowled with open disdain, his fingers twitching at his robe as though the Hat’s words had cut some nerve. Both looked ready to pounce, to silence the Hat before its defiance could settle into the stones—but neither moved. The Hat remained.

Only thirty students were sorted, barely half the usual number. Three went to Slytherin—all names Elowyn recognized faintly from the Prophet’s lists of arrests and pardons and family trees drawn in ink and blood. One boy looked around the table with wary triumph. Another did not look up at all. The third, a girl, sat still as stone.

From the staff table, Headmaster Severus Snape stood. He looked thinner, somehow, and sharper. His robes hung like shadow and steel. His voice was clear and cold, cutting across the hall like a blade unsheathed.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” he said, and the word fell heavy, like a stone dropped into still water. “You will find that some things have changed. Others remain exactly as they have always been: Discipline. Obedience. The pursuit of magical excellence. These are no longer ideals to be admired—they are requirements.”

His gaze swept the Hall, eyes glinting like frost on iron. “This is a school. Not a sanctuary. Your safety lies in your conduct. Your success, in your silence. Do not presume yourselves heroes. Do not believe yourselves invisible.”

He paused. A beat stretched long. “You will study,” he said again, lower now. “And you will survive. That is all that will be asked of you. And it is more than many will be given.”

He stood back without further comment. Alecto Carrow rose next, and a subtle ripple passed through the Hall. Whispers stirred along the Slytherin table and beyond—half-formed murmurs about who she truly was, what she had done, and the place she now held. Some said she had presided over interrogations at the Ministry. Others claimed she had taught history in secret long before the war, wielding it not to inform, but to indoctrinate. The truth, like the woman herself, wore many faces—but each one was polished, persuasive, and coiled with intent.

"Purity," she said, her voice calm and clear, the smile on her face curving not with cruelty, but with the certainty of doctrine. "It will be restored. Not by fury or force, but by the quiet force of conviction. The stain upon our world is not blood—it is indifference. It is the refusal to act while Muggles poison skies, rip mountains open, and build engines of extinction without oversight or consequence. And it is our kind, born of power and memory, who stand idle. That will end. Not out of hate, but necessity. Hogwarts is not a refuge for weakness. It is a crucible, and from it, the worthy will emerge tempered, clarified, and proud. This is not an age for compromise, but for clarity. And not for pity, but for purpose. Let the uncertain tremble—for we shall not."

Amycus Carrow followed. He was broader than his sister and heavier in bearing, not brutish in the way of a brawler, but built like a wardstone—imposing by design. He said nothing as he reached the dais. Whispers trailed him as well, low murmurs of the new subject he had claimed from the curriculum: "Magical Sovereignty and Control." Already students spoke of drills, posture training, wand drills repeated until one’s hand ached—not cruel for cruelty’s sake, but relentless. Precise. The atmosphere he cultivated was not one of panic, but of obedience.

His voice, when it came, was slow and firm. "Dissent," he said, his gaze unblinking, "will be addressed. Not with fury, but with order. Discipline is not merely a virtue. It is a necessity. And control over one's opponent is not violence when the cause is righteous. We are not here to punish. We are here to teach strength. There will be no tolerance for sentiment masquerading as morality. The weak will not be coddled. The impure will not be indulged. A new order has taken hold, and it will be built—not in anger, but in iron."

The silence that followed was absolute, a kind of hush so profound it seemed to press against the skin. No applause stirred the air. No murmur of protest followed. It was as though every breath in the Great Hall had been drawn in and forgotten. Only the sudden clatter of a spoon—dropped by a trembling hand at the Ravenclaw table—pierced the quiet, its sharp echo ringing out like a warning bell in a cathedral of dread. From the staff table, Professors Flitwick and Sprout exchanged a glance—his, sharp and worried; hers, laced with sorrow. Professor McGonagall’s lips had thinned into a pale line, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the table. Hagrid stared into his goblet, as if hoping to find words at the bottom. None came. Even Professor Sinistra, ever poised, sat rigid in her chair. The silence reached them all, and the looks they shared spoke volumes that words dared not.

Severus Snape, who had remained standing like a shadow, turned, about to step back toward the lectern.

But before he could reach it, another figure rose. Professor Sprout’s chair scraped softly against the stone, the sound oddly tender amid the sharpened silence. She stood slowly, her hands trembling where they pressed against the table’s edge, but her voice—when it came—held a surprising steadiness, like something rooted deep.

“I know this year is unlike any we’ve ever known.” She did not look at the Carrows. Her gaze swept the students instead, lingering on the youngest among them. “But I would ask you to remember what truly makes a witch or wizard strong. Not cruelty. Not fear. But care. Diligence. Kindness. Hold fast to one another, even now—especially now.”

There was a pulse in the air. Then movement. Alecto Carrow had risen slowly from her place, her expression carefully controlled, wand already drawn, though held low.

“You overstep, Madame Sprout” she said, her voice smooth as polished stone, each syllable precise. “You sow confusion where there should be order. That will not be permitted.”

A hush fell sharp and sudden, like a blade drawn just behind the ear. Several students shifted, hands twitching toward wands that never quite left their robes. Peter sucked in a breath too fast and shallow, his chest rising with a jerk. Callum’s hand clenched beneath the table, fingers curling inward until the skin over his knuckles blanched.

Snape’s voice, when it came, was like the snap of a trap closing. "That will do," Snape said coldly, the words clipped and disdainful, as if the very act of raising one’s voice was a vulgarity he would not indulge. "This is a school, not a theatre."

The words hung there—deliberate, unembellished, and final.

Alecto did not lower her wand. But her eyes flicked toward him, and her fingers tightened on the grip. Her lips moved, mouthing something meant only for Sprout. The earth-mistress of Hufflepuff did not flinch, though a shadow passed across her face. Still, she met no one’s eyes as she slowly resumed her seat.

Snape stepped behind the lectern once more, his robes whispering like a curtain drawn across an unwanted scene. He cast a long glance down the hall—over the students who sat hollow-eyed, over the teachers who remained tense in their chairs, and over the place Sprout had dared to stand. His lips curled with the faintest disdain, as though he could hardly bring himself to speak again into a room so thick with spectacle.

"Eat," he said at last—flat, unimpressed, as though summoning a thing not worth naming. And with that one clipped word, the feast appeared.

From beneath the table, Peter’s fingers twitched against the hem of his sleeve. He felt too warm, then too cold, and then nothing at all. The food had appeared when Snape had given the word—roast meats and dense breads, thick puddings and steaming vegetables—but none of it seemed to matter. Peter flinched when a fork scraped too sharply against a plate. His hands were hidden beneath the table, curled into fists so tight they ached.

Elowyn and Callum, seated to either side, sensed it—his rising distress, along with the uneven rhythm of his breath—and each, without exchanging a word, laid a hand gently on his leg. Elowyn’s fingers brushed his knee, light as candle smoke. Callum’s palm settled against his thigh, warm and steady. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Peter could not eat. He picked at a slice of potato, pushed it from one side of his plate to the other. Next to him, Callum sat stiffly. He wasn’t eating either. His eyes kept drifting toward the staff table to the Carrows, and to Snape.

Elowyn watched the flickering light and the way it cast uneasy shadows across the far wall, his fingers curling slightly around the edge of his bench. Callum, sitting beside Peter, did not move, but Elowyn felt the shift in him—something internal, unyielding. And in that moment, Callum resolved. He would not let them suffer—not Peter, nor Elowyn. Whatever this year demanded, however the Carrows twisted the world around them, he would be their shield. He would stand between them and the worst of it, even if no one else dared to. He watched the Carrows with narrowed eyes and said nothing, but the vow had already taken root. He would not let them be touched. Not again. 

Elowyn stared at the high table. His eyes were distant—not unfocused, but elsewhere, listening to something no one else could hear. The Castle felt tighter now, drawn like a bowstring. He could feel it groaning beneath the weight of new bindings, its breath caught in its throat. It would not last, he thought. Nothing pulled so tight could.

Peter shifted in his seat and let out a breath too thin to calm him. He leaned in slightly and whispered, in Cornish, "Anyone else feel like they’re about to be marched into a Death Eater etiquette seminar?"

Elowyn’s lips barely twitched. Callum didn’t so much as blink. The firelight guttered, shadows drawing long across their faces like memories unwilling to fade. As the feast began to draw to a close, the serving dishes cleared themselves with silent, mechanical precision, as if even the Castle no longer had the heart to pretend. Overhead, the ceiling remained still—stars that didn’t twinkle and clouds that didn’t move. The feast was over. But the night—that would be longer than anyone dared admit.

Elowyn looked down at his untouched plate. His hand drifted toward a roll of bread, then stopped. The movement was small, but final. Ahead waited the Slytherin common room—the place they had not entered since the floors had turned red with their blood. Ahead waited the hearth where the flames had once offered warmth but now promised only recollection. Ahead waited the stones that still bore the memory of their blood, dried and unseen but never forgotten, and of their fear, caught like breathless whispers in the cracks between floorboards, woven into the dormitory's bones as surely as magic itself. They had not returned to that room since the night they had nearly been broken—since the night they had lain in the wreckage of themselves, holding fast not out of comfort but survival. It had taken the taste of death to teach them what they were. It would take all they had to descend into the Castle’s heart once more, to cross the threshold of the place that had unmade them, and to carry forward not in spite of sorrow, but through it—threading their path between memory and the shadow of what had nearly destroyed them.

—

The torches lining the corridors of the dungeons flickered out at random, as though the Castle itself had begun to breathe unevenly. The shadows had grown thicker here, not oppressive but expectant, as if the stones remembered things they dared not speak aloud. Their footsteps echoed softer than Elowyn remembered, swallowed by a hush that was not silence so much as memory pressed flat against the walls. Each step downward grew heavier, until even the air felt dense with what had been. The path twisted slightly, familiar but deeper somehow, as if the Castle had redrawn its own veins in the long months since they had last walked them.

The three of them walked without speaking. Elowyn in the middle, his fingers lightly grazing Callum’s on his right and Peter’s on his left as they descended. Callum on the right, his stride even but taut, like a bow drawn halfway and held there. Peter on the left, eyes darting from torch to archway, his wand gripped low in his hand though he wasn’t sure when he’d drawn it. The Castle watched—not in hostility, but in a kind of quiet concern as though it too was waiting to see how they would fare.

They reached the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room and paused. The stone door, intricately carved with serpents, waited, its stone coils tense with expectation. Elowyn stepped forward and murmured the password—something characteristically cruel and self-effacing, no doubt chosen by Snape to remind his House of their place. The door melted like wax, the stone drawing downward with a soft shhht until an archway formed. Open not with welcome, but with obligation.

Beyond it, the Slytherin Common Room lay still and silent.

It was not dark, not exactly. But the light from the fire cast no comfort. The flames in the central hearth danced in unnatural hues—green turned silver at the edges, as though someone had tinted the air with memory. The secondary and tertiary fireplaces glowed even more dimly green, unwelcoming and sickly. The furniture had been rearranged slightly, as if trying to disguise the shape of what had happened here. There was no sign of blood. No scorch marks remained. There were no divots in the stone. Everything had been cleaned—scrubbed until the very memory had been erased. But the room still felt wrong. It felt like a tomb that had been ransacked and robbed.

No one looked up as they stepped inside. Conversations paused just long enough to register their arrival, then resumed in hushed tones sharpened by tension. A few heads turned, eyes flicking over them with caution, before returning to goblets and shadows. One seventh-year boy near one of the secondary fireplaces—perhaps Montague, though Elowyn could not be sure—gripped the stem of his glass too tightly, his knuckles whitening before he set it down with quiet deliberation. Another, seated with a book spread across her knees, muttered something under her breath that made her companion glance up sharply, then look away. Across the room, a pair of fifth-years shifted their seats slightly, just enough to avoid sitting directly across from the path the boys would take to the stairwell. A ripple passed through the room—then stillness. The common room had already closed ranks. Elowyn felt it immediately, a tightening of space that made room for them in form, but not in welcome. They were tolerated, not accepted. Too dangerous to provoke, too untrusted to embrace. Their return was not an arrival—it was a disturbance.

The triad moved in silence, heads held high, wands discreetly in hand. Callum walked slightly ahead and to the right, his gaze flicking from shadow to silhouette, tracking movement with the sharpened instinct of someone who had learned the cost of inattention. His shoulders were tight, every step deliberate, as though each footfall mapped the perimeter of danger. Peter, nestled between them now, twitched slightly at each whisper of torchlight shifting or conversation flickering into silence. His fingers flexed intermittently around his wand, and he stayed close enough that Elowyn could feel the heat of his body. Elowyn, having moved to Peter’s right, seemed to glide more than walk. There was a stillness to him—measured and unbothered. His robe hem scarcely brushed the thick green rug laid over the stones as he passed, his expression calm, untroubled. He looked almost unearthly beneath the torches’ green glow—like a thing not made to bruise. Every footstep toward the stairwell felt rehearsed and watched.

Once they reached the broad stairwell that curved into the boys’ dormitory hallway, they began to descend—slowly, with the weight of memory tugging at every step. The stones beneath their feet seemed colder than the rest of the Castle, as if they had absorbed what had happened here and had no intention of forgetting. The air thickened with each level, not with damp or dust, but with something more intangible: the echo of shouts, the scent of scorched wool, and the rush of spellfire that had once split this silence wide open.

Elowyn moved with grace, his steps were sure but reverent, as if descending into a sanctum. The memory of the scent of magic and ash rose to meet him, mingling with the phantom trace of blood. His breath caught, but he did not falter. To his right, Peter glanced frequently over his shoulder, his grip on his wand tight but unraised. He did not speak, but his steps were uneven, each one betraying the tremor in his chest. On Peter's left, Callum’s shoulders were tense, muscles coiled and ready, eyes locked forward as though expecting green light to erupt once more from behind the door. Every part of him was poised, a soldier re-entering a battlefield.

No curses lashed from the shadows, and no threats materialized in the dark. Yet the air pulsed with remembrance, charged not with hostility but with the weight of what had once happened here. Each flicker of dying torchlight, each softened echo of footfall along the stones, posed silent questions—unanswered, unanswerable. The Castle remembered. And in the deepening hush that followed them down, so too did they.

Their dormitory had shifted, just as tradition demanded. A year up, one door farther down the corridor. It was meant to mark advancement, but tonight it felt like displacement. Elowyn hesitated before the new door. It looked no different from the others, but the pull behind it was stronger. As though it held their ghosts and had been waiting to return them. The sconces here burned with steady green light, their glow gentler than expected, almost mournful.

For a long moment, none of them moved.

Callum’s breath hitched so quietly Elowyn might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening. The taller boy stood rigid, shoulders drawn, eyes fixed on a point beyond the door. Whatever he saw, it was not the carved serpent knocker or the flickering sconces. It was green light—sharp and absolute—flaring at the edge of death.

Elowyn reached out and placed a hand lightly on Callum’s forearm, his touch gentle and grounding, as though to tether him to the present. The tension in Callum’s muscles did not ease, but he did not pull away. On Callum’s other side, Peter took his hand without hesitation, their fingers twining together in a quiet affirmation of presence. Still, none of them spoke. The air between them was too thick with memory—the remembered scent of smoke and ash, the sting of spells too narrowly dodged, the knowledge that Death had drawn near and chosen, inexplicably, to pass them by. For a breathless moment, the corridor stood still with them, the sconces flickering in sympathy, casting their shadows in long streaks across the stone. They had stood here before—but never quite like this.

Elowyn reached for the handle, but before his fingers closed around it, Callum moved. His hand, still joined with Peter’s, pulled free. He stepped forward and pushed the stone door open himself—not with force, but with finality. He would bear it first. He had borne it before.

The room beyond greeted them like a held breath. It was familiar and not. The beds were where they had always been—Callum’s closest to the door, Peter’s in the center, Elowyn’s furthest from the entrance. The curve of the walls, the windows lining the ceiling looking out into the murky depths of the lake, the low-burning fire in the hearth—it was all as it had been. But the shadows pooled more gently now, and the sconces glowed with a golden-tinged green, like moss at twilight. The air carried something that felt like permission. The Castle’s magic here was not restrained—it pulsed quietly, like a heart remembered how to beat.

All seemed as it had been, yet the room breathed a different rhythm. The shadows no longer clung so tightly to the corners, and the light from the sconces carried a quieter warmth. Something unspoken had softened. Peter’s bed, once the same size as the others, now stretched wider—as though the Castle itself had remembered the shape they had taken in fear and had made room for it. It was large enough now for three to gather close, to brace against the dread that still lived outside their fragile sanctuary and to hold the line between nightmare and morning together.

He stared at it for a moment, then said, dryly, “Didn’t realize I’d been promoted.”

The laugh that followed was brief and brittle, but real.

Callum gave a half-shrug. “Yours's in the middle,” he murmured. “Makes sense.”

No one unpacked. No one reached for the latches on their trunks or folded the robes that had been pressed with trembling hands back at home. Instead, they turned toward the door with the same silent consensus that had followed them all the way from the Great Hall. Elowyn reached into the inner pocket of his robes and drew forth the small cloth bundle of charms and runes that Emrys had taught them to craft. These were not charms from textbooks, nor spells taught in classrooms. They were older—passed down through the hidden rites of Lanwynn Koes, shaped by blood and intention rather than incantation alone.

They stepped forward together, three shadows working in unison, their movements practiced though quiet with reverence. With wands raised, they began to trace sigils in the air—symbols layered with protective intent, drawn slowly and surely into the dim green light. Their voices, low and steady, chanted incantations not yet mastered but clung to with conviction. Ancient magic, called from memory and need, spun itself across the threshold. The air shimmered faintly as the spellwork settled. Each layer locked into the last, a tapestry of barriers and veils wrapping the frame of the door and the stone beyond.

It was not just precaution. It was a declaration. They would not be caught unaware again. This space, whatever else it had become, would hold only what they allowed within. The final charm pulsed like a heartbeat before fading into stillness. Where there had once been vulnerability, there now lay defense—woven not just of magic, but of will.

When they were done, Callum knelt beside his trunk and carefully opened the worn latch. He pulled forth a bundle wrapped in forest-green cloth and unwrapped it to reveal the Foe-Glass he had packed with steady hands, long before he knew exactly why it mattered. The object shimmered faintly, cool to the touch and heavy with promise.

He turned toward the wall nearest the door, where an alcove had appeared—one none of them remembered from the year before. It was narrow, half-shadowed, shaped with the elegance of architectural coincidence that always marked the Castle’s quiet acts of intention. With a kind of solemn purpose, Callum stepped forward and placed the mirror within it. The Foe-Glass did not crackle or flare. It only began to swirl slowly, as if the shadows inside were stirring from a long and watchful rest.

Peter tilted his head and squinted at the indistinct shapes swirling through the mirror’s depths. "Two of them," he muttered. "How charming. Maybe it’s Mulciber and Selwyn off to a blood purity ball. Or the left and right fists of bad decisions, holding hands on their way to detention."

Elowyn said nothing, but his eyes flicked toward Callum, who had already turned slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting in a dry smirk. "I've got another guess," he said under his breath.

Peter gave a half-smile, "Could be the Carrows—poster children for educational reform, if your idea of reform includes hexes before breakfast and a curriculum built on Cruciatus practice."

They continued unpacking then, with a quiet diligence that belied their fatigue. Elowyn hung each robe with precise hands, placing them into his wardrobe as though arranging offerings upon an altar. Peter unrolled his socks and sorted his spellbooks, the corners of his mouth twitching upward when he found the new pyjamas Thaddeus had commissioned—soft linen, untouched by any other hands. He pressed them to his chest for a moment, as if to test their reality, before placing them carefully on the bed. He turned then toward his wardrobe, lingering near the open doors without yet reaching for anything else. The fabric’s softness lingered on his fingertips, and something in his face unlatched, a look not of vanity but of quiet awe. He did not change—not yet—but the expression remained: the unguarded look of someone seen and provided for.

Callum had unpacked swiftly, a habit born of practicality. His movements were efficient but not careless. He tucked his wand holster against the bedpost, adjusted the drapes above his mattress, and stripped down to his boxers without a hint of self-consciousness. His body had changed—broader through the shoulders, strength layered in the arms and legs of someone who had worked under open skies and carried the weight of hives and harvests. He said nothing of it, but the lines of labor were written clearly in the set of his back and the surety of his steps.

As they finished unpacking, each in turn slipped into the en suite to wash away the dust of the day. The three shower stalls were warm with rising steam, the sound of water a constant hush that wrapped the space in something quieter than silence. Their time there overlapped—Peter finishing as Callum entered, Elowyn stepping in just as Peter toweled dry. They moved around one another like parts of a well-worn charm, unspoken rhythms guiding their motions.

No words passed between them in those moments, only the comfort of shared presence echoing faintly through misted glass and stone. The warmth eased muscles still coiled with travel and tension, washing away what little armor the day had left clinging to skin and thought.

One by one, as they finished their nightly rituals in the en suite, they crossed the threshold into the dormitory room again. The air was dimmer now, softened by steam and the scent of soap and candle wax. Their beds stood open like remembered promises, each mattress waiting with the quiet solemnity of altars. Once they were all in bed, the sconces dimmed of their own accord, as though acknowledging not simply the hour but the shift in the sacred.

The hearth’s glow had gentled to an amber hush, casting long shadows against the ancient stone. The room welcomed them not as guests but as kin—those who had been broken and returned. It drew close around them, thick with intention, folding over their bodies like a warded cloak woven of warmth and warning. The Castle’s breath held with them. Not in fear, but in vigil. A reminder of the dark that waited just beyond its bounds—and of the light they carried still. The silence grew heavy. The room held it like breath in the lungs, a stillness that thickened rather than settled.

Peter said at last, “This is stupid. I can’t sleep without one of you lot breathing in my ear.”

Another pause passed, stretched thin by the weight of unspoken memory. Then, as if moved by the same pulse, they began to rise.

Callum moved first, his blankets falling away as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He did not speak. He did not need to. Elowyn followed a moment later, his feet finding the stone floor with soundless grace, his eyes already turned toward Peter.

Elowyn moved lightly, his limbs folding as if into ritual, a grace as fluid as water spilled in moonlight. Callum followed, his presence heavier, more grounded, the bed dipping beneath his quiet strength. Peter lay between them, neither center nor margin, but the point where breath slowed and shoulders eased. They arranged themselves without speaking. A head resting on a shoulder. Fingers seeking and finding familiar hands. Legs brushing, warm through linen and silk and skin.

The shape they made together had shifted. It was not romance—not yet—but something deeper. Not a promise spoken aloud, but one woven in proximity and breath, in shared history and the vow that they would not let go, not now, not again. What they formed was a braid of presence, three strands wound tight with trust and the unspoken knowledge that, whatever the Castle held, they would meet it together.

The candles sputtered once and then twice—then guttered out, their flames vanishing with a final shiver of light. Darkness did not fall so much as settle, thick and velvet, folding over the room like breath withheld.

In the Foe-Glass by the door, the mist began to part—not quickly, or cleanly. Twin shapes shifted just beyond clarity, their silhouettes almost human, their faces hovering at the edge of recognition. No features emerged, not fully. Only the sense of eyes, watching from within.

Elowyn stirred beneath the blankets, not fully awake but not quite claimed by sleep. Something in him tightened—not in fear, but in readiness. The Castle’s breath deepened around them, the air drawn taut like a bowstring. Its heartbeat thudded low in the stones. The watchers waited. But so did the triad—and they no longer waited alone.

Chapter Text

The light in the Slytherin dormitory had turned a pale, wavering green by the time Elowyn stirred, the refracted glow from the Black Lake overhead spilling through the ceiling windows in slow-moving ribbons. Shadows of drifting reeds and distant fish wavered above them, broken occasionally by a stronger pulse of light, like a thought surfacing beneath still water. It was the kind of light that made the world feel suspended, as though time had been stretched thin and all things—the stone walls, the boys in their beds, the rippling flickers of water—existed in a hush that neither belonged to night nor day.

Callum had risen already. He stood near the foot of Peters’ bed in just his boxers, wand gripped in one hand, the early green light catching the shifting muscles of his back as he stretched one arm behind his head. His motions were silent, spare, economical—the kind of grace born not of vanity but repetition. There was no self-consciousness in him, only routine. Elowyn watched for a moment longer than necessary—not in longing or desire, but with a quiet, searching stillness. Something in the way Callum moved, changed and changing, not quite the boy he had been even in spring, held his attention. It was not about form so much as presence—the density of someone growing into himself. Elowyn’s eyes lingered, thoughtful but unreadable, before he moved, the stillness in his body belied by the calculating flicker behind his eyes. He rose with feline control, shoulders rolling back as though shrugging on invisible armor.

Peter remained a lump beneath the blankets, sprawled theatrically in the middle bed—the one they'd all ended up in the night before—face half-buried in a pillow, one arm flung overhead like a tragic actor awaiting applause. A muffled groan emerged. "Brilliant," he said thickly. "Another thrilling morning at the You-Know-Who Academy for the Enthusiastically Misguided. Do we start with Advanced Scowling or roll straight into Practical Cursework and Casual Bigotry? I’m feeling quite limber."

Elowyn made a quiet sound—not quite a laugh, not quite pity—and crossed the room barefoot, his steps nearly inaudible against the cool stone floor. Rather than waking Peter, he moved toward the en suite and pushed the door wide open, allowing the curl of steam to spill outward into the dormitory and warm the chill from the air. The gentle hiss of running water followed, and through the open doorway he could be seen standing at the counter, silk sleeves pushed up, methodically washing his face  with slow, precise movements. The green light of the lake flickered across the mirror and the white porcelain of the sink. Even this simple ritual—cleansing, breathing, smoothing back damp hair—was done with a kind of composed elegance, as though preparing not just for the day, but for battle.

Peter groaned again and peered out from under his arm. "Oh good, hot water. Let the pampering begin." He peeled back the covers with great reluctance, the new soft linen pyjamas Thaddeus had chosen for him slightly rumpled from sleep but undeniably luxurious. He muttered as he swung his legs over the edge, brushing a crease from the trouser leg. "I swear if I’m forced to salute the Dark Mark before breakfast, I’m transferring to Beauxbatons."

Callum’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. He was half-dressed now, bent slightly over his open trunk, fingers moving with muted frustration through the neat chaos as he searched for his new tie. Elowyn, still toweling the last of the moisture from his face, asked softly if either of them had seen his brush. Callum glanced up, then crossed to Elowyn’s trunk with the ease of long familiarity, located it in a moment, and brought it back without a word. Elowyn’s fingers brushed Callum’s palm as he took the brush—a brief contact, warm and unnoticed by neither of them.

"Thank you," he murmured, and turned toward the mirror. The brush passed through his dark hair in long, even strokes. He needed no mirror; each movement followed a rhythm etched into muscle memory, practiced since before he knew why ritual mattered.

Peter stood with great ceremony, ruffling his hair into a greater mess than sleep had managed. He glared blearily into the en suite and sighed, dragging himself in with the grim resolve of a man facing execution. A few minutes later he reemerged, damp hair pressed flat against his head, muttering darkly about soap that smelled too expensive to be trusted. He dressed in a flurry of half-hearted effort, arms flailing through sleeves and buttons fastened askew until Elowyn, with wordless precision, stepped forward and straightened his collar first and then his tie.

"There," Elowyn said softly, fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary. "Now Honoria can’t possibly find fault with you."

Peter raised a brow and smirked. "Wearing robes like this, she might finally acknowledge I exist. Or attempt to hex me out of jealousy."

Callum fastened the silver clasps of his robe, his voice dry. "Don’t tempt her. She’ll find a way. Probably with something barbed and subtle."

They finished dressing in relative silence, but it was not awkward. Rather, it was a shared ritual, a ceremony of preparation. Elowyn layered the folds of his robe just so, drawing the fabric over his shoulders as though it were a mantle of state. Callum holstered his wand with an audible click, checked the strap, and then did it again. Peter lingered a moment before the fireplace, letting the warmth touch his face, eyes half-lidded and thoughtful.

Their school robes might have passed as standard at a glance, but the fabric held a richness, and the fit bore the quiet precision of tailoring meant to elevate without drawing notice. Each carried the imprint of the boys who wore them. Elowyn’s moved like silk in water—elegant, almost formal, yet never stiff. He wore them as one born to elegance, each motion fluid and precise. Callum’s robes bore a more martial line—functional, tightly tailored, clean and unyielding, like armor made of cloth. Peter’s were looser, though still well-fitted, hanging on his lanky frame with a kind of noble irreverence that made him seem taller and stronger. He turned once, examining himself in the mirror.

"Honestly," he said with quiet delight, smoothing the edge of his sleeve, "looking like this, even Vesper might struggle to find something sharp to say."

Callum snorted softly. "Tempt fate again, and she’ll etch an insult so precise it'll take three dictionaries and a Pensieve to understand."

Elowyn gave no reply, but his mouth quirked upward. He turned back toward the door. "Wands," he said gently, and all three of them reached instinctively for the weapons they had already checked twice. Elowyn’s fingers tightened briefly around the handle. His wand stirred faintly beneath his grip, the kelpie hair within flexing like something half-submerged and listening—no urgency, only a cool, watchful readiness, like a creature testing the current from below.

Before they left, they stood together, facing the door. For a breath, no one moved. Their eyes met, but not a single word was spoken. The silence between them carried weight—agreement, resolve, and a bond older than the school year and deeper than mere friendship.

Elowyn nodded once and then lifted his wand. The unwarding charm slipped from his lips like breath, and the wards shimmered briefly before dissolving, like frost melting away in the morning sun.

The heavy stone door creaked open, and the corridor beyond lay empty and silent—not with peace, but with the hollow stillness of a place where safety no longer lived. The air felt undisturbed, yet curiously watchful, as though the walls themselves were waiting for danger to materialize at any moment.

As they stepped through, Elowyn’s wand surged in his hand—not alarmed, or defensive, but aware, like a heartbeat syncing to the tempo of something vast and waking. There was no immediate threat, but there was something in the air: the charge of tension, like a thunderstorm that refused to break.

To the right of the door, the Foe-Glass rested among their other precautions. Its surface swirled, fogged and murky, but shadows moved within it—indistinct and shifting like ink in water. But two, nearly human in shape, hovered near the center. Neither were yet defined, or yet visible, but they hovered close to the center with faces turned away.

They left the dormitory together, cloaked in silence and fine robes, wands in hand. No alarms rang. No voices followed. The door closed behind them with a soft, final click.

They emerged into the Slytherin Common Room without breaking stride. The door clicked softly shut behind them, muffling the quiet breath of wards resetting. The room was subdued, not quite empty but near to it—just a few students scattered across velvet chairs or bent over early reading assignments. None looked up for long. There was no whispering, no sneering, no direct acknowledgment. Just a momentary flicker of gaze and then silence reclaimed the space, like mist curling back into its corners.

The air in the Common Room felt heavier than usual, cloaked in a hush that settled like dust in the seams of old stone. There were no windows here—only the arching, vaulted ceiling carved into the bedrock, the sconces along the walls burning low and steady. The main stone fireplace across from the entrance burned low, its flames steady but subdued. Along the tall walls flanking the entryway, the four secondary and four tertiary hearths flickered with quiet discipline, each casting long, angled shadows across the flagstone floor. Though the Common Room was deep in the Castle’s bedrock and cold by design, the fires had always burned here—constant and numerous, a network of warmth in a House otherwise known for ice. The long tapestries that hung like shadowed veils stirred only faintly, as though uncertain whether they ought to be still or sigh. The room, once heavy with dark and polished grandeur, had hollowed not from disuse, but from the absence of conviction. Those who had held it most fiercely had already gone—vanished into the Dark, or withdrawn into silence. It felt less like a sanctuary than a waiting room for something that hadn’t yet arrived but was certain to come.

Elowyn led them forward, his pace steady and unhurried. Sometimes he took the center position without thought, other times it was Peter or Callum, depending on the need of the moment. That morning, Elowyn walked in the middle, Callum and Peter at either side—not flanking so much as orbiting, their steps in practiced balance. It was not performance, nor strategy, but something organic that had grown between them. When Peter felt exposed, they shifted without words, Elowyn or Callum stepping just behind or just ahead, offering shape and shadow, and a quiet promise of protection. Their formation was fluid, a choreography of care that neither boasted nor faltered. Each step in sync, each breath shared in rhythm, like three notes of a living chord.

Peter’s gaze flicked toward the fireplace where Merrick’s old gang had once loitered. That space, so often tense with threat and cruel laughter, was now vacant. Nott was gone. Selwyn too. The loudest loyalists had been called to darker places. Only a few shadows remained. Medea Rowle sat in the corner with a book she didn’t appear to be reading, her eyes fixed instead on the wall just above it. Across from her, Darius Travers sipped something dark from a silver cup and said nothing. He watched Elowyn particularly with narrowed eyes and a muscle twitching faintly in his jaw, but made no move to speak.

They ascended the stairs to the main floor from the dungeons together, the path familiar and freshly fraught. Their footsteps echoed with a strange clarity, amplified by the empty hush of early morning. Somewhere above, a distant bell tolled once, a reminder that time still moved forward even when everything else felt stalled. As they climbed, the green of the lake gave way to the yellowed light of the upper corridors—filtered sunlight touched with the slight tarnish of age and grief.

The Great Hall loomed ahead, its doors already open. Inside, the long tables were half-filled with early risers, but the Slytherin table was notably sparse. The three first-years clung to the far end like castaways to driftwood, their robes still stiff with newness. Fourth-years occupied another cluster, silent and hunched over their plates. The upper years—once a dominating presence—were nearly absent altogether. Gone to the cause, hidden away by fearful families, or vanished into silence.

Elowyn did not pause. He moved toward the center of the Slytherin table with the same deliberate grace he carried in all things, as though the world itself adjusted around his decisions. He selected a seat neither at the exact nor too far to the margins—a quiet defiance of hierarchy. Callum sat to his right. Peter to his left. The symmetry of it was unspoken but exact.

They had just begun buttering toast and unfolding napkins when the sound of heels clicking against stone broke the soft rhythm of breakfast. Honoria Mulciber approached like someone used to claiming space, her robes immaculate and her smile sharper than politeness required. Vesper Selwyn glided half a step behind, gaze already trained on them like a hawk deciding where to strike. Two other girls in their year—Octavia Flint and Corinne Rosier—trailed behind, hesitant, as if unsure whether proximity would stain or protect them.

"Well," Honoria said, smiling with her teeth as she took the seat directly across from them, folding her hands over her plate with exaggerated elegance, "don’t we look polished. Petey, I hardly recognized you under all those sharp seams and cleaned-up edges."

Peter looked up without flinching. "Well, you know me—always dressing for the job I don’t want in a world I didn’t ask for. Apparently robes without tears or suspicious stains are all the rage now. Who knew all it took to be noticed in this House was a clean hem and straight seams?” He buttered a corner of toast with theatrical care. “Imagine what I could do with a tailor and a few galleons of spite."

Callum made a quiet noise into his cup, equal parts amusement and warning. Vesper, not missing a beat, slid gracefully into the seat beside Honoria, directly across from Callum. Her fingers moved too smoothly, her posture too perfect, her gaze fixed on him like a cat who already knew which corner her prey would turn into.

“Lummy," she said, voice sweet and slow, "how was your summer? I heard—well, I suppose it wasn’t all sheep and barley."

Callum turned his head to look at her fully. "No. It wasn’t. And you already know that, don’t you? Funny how stories travel when no one’s meant to be talking. Makes you wonder who’s doing the whispering."

Vesper’s smile didn’t falter, but it cooled at the edges. "You know how stories get twisted. But I heard something peculiar—about your family’s land. Some say there was fire involved. Such strange times for accidents, don’t you think?"

There was a pause. Elowyn reached for his tea with steady hands.

"Curious," he said softly, eyes never quite meeting hers. "That sort of detail tends to stay close to the wand-hand. Unless someone wanted it known. Or couldn’t help sharing among friends."

Vesper blinked, her composure wavering just enough to show the slip. Peter’s spoon clinked faintly against his saucer.

"Seems a strange thing to bring up over breakfast," Peter said, light and sharp. "Unless you thought the scorch marks made for good conversation."

"Don’t be absurd," Honoria said lightly, her voice touched with a false softness. "We’re only making conversation. After all, it’s a new year—and we’ve all been told to behave. Discipline, obedience, survival. Isn’t that the new order of things?"

"Indeed," Elowyn murmured, his tone mild, almost airy. He sliced into his scone with the same careful grace he used for wandwork. "It’s always wise to accept what’s offered. Especially when it’s gilded just enough to make you forget the cost. Trickery wears its best clothes at breakfast, after all."

The silence that followed was not total—but it settled thickly, like mist over stone. Octavia and Corinne lingered nearby, murmuring half-heartedly about timetables, their words little more than cover for the sharp attention they paid to the exchange unfolding across the table. Their eyes flitted between the triad and the girls seated opposite, not so much watching as measuring. Honoria reached for the teapot and poured herself a fresh cup with a grace too smooth to be natural. "Pass the marmalade?" she asked Peter, her tone bright and false. He slid it toward her without comment. Vesper unfolded her napkin again and dabbed at her lips, though there was nothing there. Elowyn lifted his tea with both hands and blew gently across the surface, as though coaxing the heat from something far more dangerous.

Conversation did not resume. Instead, it fractured into polite motions and empty gestures—the clink of cutlery, the muted rustle of parchment, the precise placement of cups and spoons. The sharpness had dulled, but the weight remained. The air held the tension of something unfinished, like a chord left unresolved.

They finished eating slowly. Every small sound—knife against toast, a bench creaking, footsteps near the dais—carried more clearly in the thinning company of the Hall. The warning bell rang, and benches began to shift. Students stood, some gathering their books with mechanical efficiency, others lingering as if reluctant to step fully into the day’s unfolding shape.

Elowyn rose with deliberate calm. He slung his satchel over one shoulder and turned to the two girls still seated with them. "Coming?" he asked lightly.

It was not a command. Nor a challenge. Just a thread of inclusion offered with such perfect neutrality that to refuse it would make one appear small.

Honoria looked startled—not in fear, but in calculation. The invitation had not been expected, and certainly not earned. Vesper looked to Honoria, smoothing her sleeve with the languid ease of someone accustomed to following other people’s lead.

And perhaps that was the crux of the matter. Honoria and Vesper had been prepared for presentation, not power. Groomed to carry the names, to perfect the posture, to speak in clipped venom and smile with polished cruelty—but never to lead. That role had belonged to their older brothers, now gone to war. They were daughters of legacy, not architects of it. They had been taught grace, not governance—trained to wield words like polished blades, but never handed the weight of true consequence. Now, in the absence of their brothers, they reigned from thrones built of posture and pretense. Their rule held—but only because no one had yet asked them to bleed for it.

To remain seated would be to acknowledge exclusion. To follow, however quietly, was to suggest choice. In that moment, something shifted. The girls saw it. The triad made space—not through dominance, but by existing so fully within their own current that others had to choose whether to swim or be left in stillness.

"Of course," Honoria said, voice velvet-smooth and iron beneath, as she gathered her satchel with practiced poise. Vesper glanced at her—not for approval, but confirmation—then gave a nearly imperceptible nod and followed suit, her movements fluid and silent. Octavia and Corinne, seeing motion ripple from their acknowledged leaders, rose a moment later without a word, their expressions unreadable but their alignment clear.

Callum and Peter exchanged a look. Not surprise—only quiet amusement. The triad stood and stepped back from the long bench, circling around the end of the table where the distance between sides could be crossed. They paused there—just long enough for the silence to settle and the invitation to echo without words.  The triad turned and moved forward again, their rhythm unbroken, the moment already folded into the choreography of the morning.

They all left the Great Hall together, at least in posture. Honoria and Vesper moved first—sweeping ahead with studied nonchalance, their pace just quick enough to reclaim the illusion of leadership. Elowyn, Callum, and Peter followed close behind, their steps unhurried, undisturbed by the arrangement. They moved as one still, steady in their rhythm. Octavia and Corinne came after, their expressions unreadable, their distance a quiet admission that they were following—not the girls ahead, but the triad. As they stepped into the corridor, the three boys slipped into Cornish, the rhythm of it soft and curling—words falling between them like stones dropped into water. The girls ahead stiffened slightly at the sound, their shoulders drawing just taut enough to betray the strain of not knowing.

Around them, whispers began to rise—the Common Room battle, the fire at McCormack Farm, the rumors that had yet to find a name. Three boys who would not kneel—walking in quiet cadence, now speaking a language no one else understood. It was soft and secret and alive. A bond no one could seem to break, a rhythm no one had taught them yet everyone could feel. They weren’t leading. They weren’t defying. They were simply moving forward as if kindness were still allowed, as if care could still be a compass—and that, somehow, was more dangerous than rebellion.

The corridor narrowed as they walked, the stone walls pressing inward with a subtle weight that made even the light seem thinner. The torches flickered low and constant, the flamelight casting faint shadows along the floor like spilled ink. None of the boys spoke. Elowyn walked at the center again, his satchel drawn close, eyes scanning forward with a quiet intensity. Callum matched his stride, jaw tight, shoulders braced as if for a blow he knew would not come yet but would come all the same. Peter’s gaze darted between them both, his expression unusually still—ironic, perhaps, given how often he wielded words like armor. But this morning, the silence was heavier than sarcasm.

They turned down the corridor that once housed the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, but their path curved toward a new room instead—a smaller hall repurposed now for what the timetable called Mandatory Muggle Studies. The door was ajar, the room behind it dimly lit. As they entered, they saw that the traditional rows of desks had been replaced by a wide semi-circle of chairs with slate-topped desks that curved like a smile around the front of the room. At first glance, it appeared welcoming, open. But the lighting was too low, the sconces deliberately muted, and the shadows clung like a second skin. The space gave the illusion of dialogue while clearly orchestrating control.

The walls, once lined with bookshelves and soft-toned magical charts, now bore black-and-silver posters filled with dense script and brutal imagery—moving photographs of cities crumbling beneath pollution, faded images of Muggle wars, and a few garish caricatures that looked uncomfortably like propaganda from another century. Clippings from the Daily Prophet were pinned like trophies across the far wall—articles that no longer bore bylines from reputable journalists but instead shouted with headlines about "The Erosion of Magical Values" and "How Muggles Seek Our Subjugation."

The room was arranged in two concentric arcs of desks—the inner semicircle smaller, with fewer, more closely spaced seats, and the outer ring broader, designed to appear inclusive while placing most students further from the center. The Slytherins, numbering only seven, were grouped along one end of the curve. The many empty desks in their section exaggerated their smallness, like a vanishing house reduced by war and fear. The triad took seats near the center of their side of the room, their placement neither submissive nor confrontational. The four remaining Slytherin girls sat just adjacent closer to the front but near enough to the triad to appear united—Honoria with her legs crossed and expression placid, Vesper leaned slightly forward with her hands folded. Octavia and Corinne glanced toward the Gryffindor side with mild interest, their faces unreadable. The Gryffindors, about twenty in all, sat opposite, scattered across their side of the arc. Once a House known for its numbers and noise, their diminished presence gave the impression of a chorus now singing in half-voice. Most were silent, a few stiff-backed with arms crossed, their expressions wary. A red-haired boy whispered something to a brown-skinned girl beside him, and she nodded once, lips tight.

Alecto Carrow swept in without preamble. Her smile was wide, her robes crisp and dark, and she moved with a kind of theatrical cheer that was more unsettling than any overt sneer. She did not slam the door behind her. It shut on its own, a soft click that seemed louder for its precision. "Good morning, class," she said brightly, clasping her hands at the front. "I do hope you’re rested. We begin a new term and a new understanding."

She turned slightly, and the blackboard behind her filled with curling golden letters—not chalk, but conjured script that gleamed faintly like liquid gold spilled under candlelight. The title read: The Muggle Threat: How They Seek to Destroy Us.

A soft murmur moved through the Gryffindors.

"Now, I know some of you have heard different stories," Alecto continued, voice still honeyed, as she paced slowly before the board. "You’ve been taught about integration, cooperation, and equality. Noble ideas, yes—on parchment. But let us ask ourselves: What has history actually shown us? What have Muggles actually done to our kind?"

Her eyes swept the room, resting momentarily on Elowyn, who returned her gaze with polite blankness. “We saw the Statute of Secrecy enacted because Muggles hunted us—burned us, drowned us, hanged us in town squares with cheers echoing through the smoke. We’ve seen not one war, but two that tore the world apart in living memory."

Alecto continued, her voice smooth and deliberate. "Entire cities razed. Forests flattened. Children incinerated beneath skies painted with fire. They created weapons that sundered the very air, cracked mountains, scarred the oceans. They poison the earth to feed their machines. They strip mine the bones of the planet, choke the skies with their greed, and call it progress. And still they turn on one another—country against country, neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother. They destroy what feeds them, what shelters them, what makes them human. And now their technology—efficient, insatiable, cold—has the power to erase entire peoples before breakfast. If ever they looked our way, truly looked, what hope would we have but secrecy or their annihilation?"

As she spoke, the blackboard behind her came alive with magical illustration—silent, haunting projections in sepia and shadow. A witch bound to a stake, flames licking upward as faceless Muggles clapped. Trenches filled with Muggle soldiers trudging through mud, explosions erupting wordlessly behind them. London cloaked in smoke as bombs fell from above. A mushroom cloud rose slowly, ominously, its base pulsing faintly as if with breath.

The room had gone utterly still. Several Gryffindors stared wide-eyed at the unfolding images. Even some of the Slytherins leaned forward slightly, caught in the slow horror that moved behind her. No screams accompanied the scenes, but they didn’t need them. The silence was heavier. And it settled in like a truth long buried, now unearthed in front of them all.

A girl among the Gryffindors—a small, sharp-shouldered girl with hair in braids—raised her hand.

Alecto smiled. "Yes, Miss Patel?"

The girl hesitated. "Isn’t that more about fear than reality? Muggles don’t even know we exist. We’re not in hiding because of them. We’re in hiding because we chose it."

Alecto’s expression didn’t change. "A fair question. But let me ask you this—if a predator does not see you, does that mean it won’t bite when it stumbles upon your den? Ignorance does not equal safety, Miss Patel. In fact, it’s often the most dangerous mask of all."

Another Gryffindor—a boy with freckles and dark eyes—spoke up. "But they haven’t attacked us. They’ve left us alone for centuries. Isn’t this just stirring fear where there isn’t any?"

Alecto’s smile widened. "And would you have us wait until they do? We are not advocating war. We are advocating wisdom. Muggles, though blind to our presence, build weapons that could flatten mountains, poisons that seep into earth and air, systems of control that strip even their own of freedom. And you think they’d embrace us with open arms?"

The room was still. The Gryffindors sat rigid. Octavia glanced at Corinne. Vesper tilted her head, studying the reactions around her with the gaze of someone cataloging weakness. Honoria’s gaze flicked—once—to the triad. Elowyn did not move.

But Callum’s jaw had tightened further, and his fingers flexed around the edge of his desk. Peter, seated on Elowyn’s left, leaned the slightest bit forward as if to speak—but Elowyn’s hand found his knee beneath the desk and pressed gently. A moment later, his other hand came to rest briefly on Callum’s forearm. The gestures were so small they might have been missed entirely—except Honoria saw them. Her eyes narrowed slightly, then slid away.

"You’ve been taught to believe the best of others," Alecto said now, her tone still smooth. "And that is not your fault. But I am here to teach you how to survive. And sometimes, survival means knowing when to stop pretending the world is kinder than it is. Muggles do not simply stumble into destruction—they seek it out, dress it in flags and formulas, and call it power. History proves it. Do you know what the nuclear bomb does? It takes a single point of air and turns it into fire hotter than the sun. It vaporizes flesh, melts stone, shadows people into walls. It was dropped not once, but twice. Entire cities flattened, tens of thousands killed in seconds. And still they cheered. Still they built more. Magic could do the same—has done the same—but we were kept silent. The Statute of Secrecy forbade us to act, to intervene, to stop them. We could have stopped it all. But instead we watched the world burn from behind veils, from behind cowardice. That will not happen again. Not if you learn what I’m here to teach you.

She turned to the board again, and with a flick of her wand, the golden script faded and was replaced by a new heading: Assignment: Readings for Truth.

Beneath the title, new lines unfurled in delicate gold lettering: Selections from Muggle Atrocities: A Magical Witness to the World Wars. Alecto’s voice floated above the conjured script. “These essays were written by those of our kind who watched in silence as Muggles slaughtered one another. You will read the account of a German-born seer who predicted the rise of the first war, and the heartbreak of a French half-blood who walked through the mudfields of Verdun in disguise, burying bodies that had no names. You will read of the London witch who wove protective charms over entire neighborhoods during the Blitz—only to be reprimanded by the Ministry for violating secrecy. And you will read the letter of a wizard who stood at the edge of Nagasaki, unable to stop the fire that consumed even the shadows.”

A pause, then a voice—uncertain but determined—from among the Gryffindors. A boy with sandy hair stood up, his hands clenched at his sides. "My granddad was in that war," he said, voice cracking just slightly. "He got shot when his group was running from a fight. They thought he was dead and left him. But a German soldier found him. He had his gun out, and my granddad thought he was going to finish the job. But instead… he helped him. He tied up his wounds. Carried him. Took him as a prisoner, yeah, but didn’t hurt him. Didn’t even shout. Just helped."

The boy swallowed and glanced around before meeting Alecto’s eyes. "So yeah, Muggles can do terrible things. But they can choose to be good, too. Some of them do."

Alecto’s smile didn’t falter, but her voice cooled slightly. “Indeed. Individual exceptions. One kind act doesn’t excuse the machine that produced the war. You speak of a moment. I speak of centuries. The structures they build—their governments, their industries, their armies—those are not made for kindness. They are made for control. For conquest. For power.”

Elowyn’s voice cut through the quiet like thread drawn taut. “And our world isn’t?” He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. “Power is the only currency some of our kind trade in…especially in certain Houses.” He didn’t look at Alecto, nor at the boy, but forward—calm, collected. “It’s not only a Muggle trait.”

Alecto turned to face him fully now, her eyes narrowed, sharp with something almost curious. She took a step closer, slow and deliberate. "Mr. Marwood-Travers, isn’t it? From that quaint little hamlet that claims to be older than the stones of this Castle." Her smile was thin. "I know of your family. I know of your fathers. And you speak of power as if it were shameful. But magic has always carried power—and Wizards, unlike Muggles, have the control and discipline to wield it wisely. It is not power that corrupts, but weakness. Indecision. Sentimentality."

She leaned forward just slightly, her voice low and smooth. "You mistake your discomfort for moral clarity. But don’t worry. That’s what this class is for. To teach you the difference." She carried on before anyone could summon the courage to challenge her—to name what she followed, or who. As if speaking his name aloud might somehow thin the veil she wore. But she gave them no opening, only the steady cadence of doctrine cloaked in reason.

Her tone remained calm, precise. “These are not fables. These are truths your textbooks erased. Read them carefully. Read them completely.”

From her desk she lifted a stack of thick pamphlets—gray, with thin spidery lettering—and passed them forward with a charm that floated them desk by desk. When the first landed in front of Elowyn, his wand stirred faintly inside his sleeve, as if discomfited by the magic that carried the page. He made no motion to still it.

Peter looked down at the pamphlet and then looked away. Callum did not look at it at all.

"These are my writings," Alecto said brightly. "We don’t use traditional textbooks anymore—they’ve grown…biased. What you will read comes from my research, the experiences of witches and wizards who lived through some of the worst Muggle atrocities, and which I have told with care. I trust you will treat these truths with the seriousness they deserve."

She smiled one last time, then stepped back. "Class dismissed."

No bell rang. No chair scraped loudly. The students stood in stages, unsure whether the dismissal was real or rhetorical. The Gryffindors moved first, some with tight jaws, others casting backward glances. The Slytherin girls lingered a moment longer. Honoria lifted her pamphlet, slipped it into her satchel, and walked out with a smoothness that gave nothing away. Vesper followed, silent. Corinne and Octavia drifted after them.

The triad stood last. Elowyn gathered his things with methodical care. He looked at the pamphlet one last time, then tucked it into his satchel without a word. Peter’s face was pale, his mouth a firm line. Callum’s brows were drawn low, eyes stormy.

They said nothing. What could they say? Professor Carrow had spoken with precision, not hatred—her words drawn from the Muggles' own history, their own truths. She had shown them the worst of Muggles, and the worst was undeniable. They were not ready to argue with that—not yet. So they left in silence, not from agreement, but from the hollow ache of not knowing how to refute what felt too real. The quiet trailed them down the corridor like smoke, acrid and clinging. And within it, something had begun to smolder—not belief, not quite. But the uneasy knowledge that if they were to answer her, they would have to dig deeper than they ever had before.

—

The hearth in the far corner of the Slytherin common room burned low, its light drowsy and copper-soft, casting long shadows that swayed like kelp in a dark current. Only the occasional crackle of firewood broke the hush. Most of the House had retired to their dormitories; the green-lit space now belonged to the few who kept later hours, or who had not yet surrendered to exhaustion. Near a tertiary hearth, half-wrapped in its warmth and in one another, sat Elowyn, Callum, and Peter, their books spread around them like a barricade against the deepening dark.

They were quiet, not from ease but from something more difficult to name—not tension exactly, but the weariness that follows a long day of being watchful. Their quills scratched across parchment. Occasionally one of them would speak, a muttered question or a shared note. Peter had long since kicked off his shoes and pulled his legs up beneath him, quill tapping idly against his teeth between thoughts. Callum sat hunched, brow furrowed in a way that meant he understood the material but resented its implications. Elowyn, ever the one who tracked the weight of silence, moved his gaze slowly through the room, cataloguing its shifting temperature, the walls' subtle hum, the thinning threads of the Castle's awareness.

Something about the Castle felt more off tonight—not wrong, exactly, but quieter. As though it too were conserving energy.

His eyes drifted to an alcove not too distant from where he sat with Callum and Peter. Two older students had taken up a perch on one of the lesser-used stone benches: Medea Rowle, with her severe braid and sharp-featured glare, and beside her, Darius Travers. His presence cracked slightly through Elowyn's calm like a stone tossed onto thin ice.

Darius had the black hair common to the Travers line, and eyes the same impossible shade of blue that Elowyn saw in his own reflection, though lacking the violet glint that came from the Grove. His features were angular, almost handsome, but not quite. There was a coarseness to him, something unrefined, like stone that had been chiseled but never polished. He did not yet know how to arrange his limbs when he sat; his elbow jutted too far out, his posture too self-conscious. But he held himself with the certainty of someone raised to believe the world would give way before his name.

He leaned in toward Medea, but his voice carried, just enough.

"It’s odd, isn’t it," he said, his tone conversational but laced with disdain, "how they always sit so close. All that...touching. As if they had no sense of decorum. I was taught that sort of thing was rather beneath a proper upbringing."

Medea raised one thin eyebrow, her expression cool and sharp. "Tainted blood always leads to tainted manners," she said softly, her voice carrying just enough to be heard. Her eyes, however, followed his gaze with a flicker of something colder still.

Darius nodded with his lips pursed and then continued, clearly pleased with his own cleverness. "Of course, it’s not entirely unexpected. The Dirtborn was raised in some forest, wasn’t he? Among…common Cornish peasants. I suppose one shouldn’t expect refinement, even if he is a Travers. Of sorts."

Medea gave a low, amused breath. "Is he really, though? Related? Surely the Soilspawn can’t be connected to your family. Even distantly. The bloodline must have run thin somewhere indeed."

Darius leaned back, just slightly, his expression darkening into something gleeful and mean. "I asked my father about it over the summer," he said, projecting his voice with false nonchalance, the kind that longs to be overheard. "Apparently, centuries ago, one of our kin had a tantrum over inheritance, or pride, or some other petty thing—and slunk off like a whipped dog into the wilds. Vanished into some fetid, swampy grove and never came back. My father said he settled in a place so backwards the owls refused to deliver post. Lanwynn Grove it’s called"

He smirked, letting the name hang in the air like rot. "Built himself a hovel, took up with locals. Lived in the dirt, drank stream water, and bred with peasants who thought wand-polishing was a sacred rite. Gave up his coin and his station—for mushrooms and sentiment."

Darius gave a mock-sorrowful shrug. "So yes. Related. But only by the thinnest, muddiest thread imaginable. A brown blotch on the family tapestry."

Elowyn did not give the slightest outward impression of having heard him. His face remained serene, his hand steady on the parchment. But within, the words stirred old recollections of ancient roots. He remembered what his father had once told him in the quiet hush of the Koes many times in his childhood—that the Travers had lived in Lanwynn Koes since time immemorial. That, centuries ago, it was not a wayward son who fled into the woods, but one who left them behind, hungry for wealth and titles and the polished grandeur of the English wizarding elite. That it was he who had forged the Travers name into a thing of breeding and bloodline, abandoning the old ways for ballroom etiquette and peacock pride.

Elowyn let the dissonance settle like loam. Perhaps Darius's tale was a lie. Perhaps his father's was a myth. Perhaps both had been shaped by those who needed the past to shine only in their own direction. He did not know. But the Koes remembered. And the soil, though silent, did not forget.

Elowyn did not look up as his mind wandered back to his parchment. He did not need to. His senses, honed by a childhood attuned to the land and by a full year in Slytherin House, registered the heat of Darius’ gaze, the oily way it lingered too long, as if trying to uncover something that was not his to know. And though he kept his eyes on the page, the words spoken behind him stirred something deep and slow in his chest—a memory not of pain, but of contrast.

He dipped his quill once more, the ink pooling smooth and sure. Callum sat at his feet, one shoulder leaning lightly against Elowyn’s knee, while Peter’s chair had been drawn in so close their elbows brushed as they worked. Callum reached over to tug gently on Peter's sleeve, pointing to a passage in Defensive Spell Theory. They bent their heads closer, Peter murmuring something under his breath that made Callum snort.

Without quite thinking, Elowyn reached down and ran his fingers slowly through Callum’s hair, letting the strands slip between his fingers like moss trailing in a stream. At the same time, his other hand found Peter’s and held it lightly, thumb tracing an absent line over his knuckles. He was not usually so demonstrative—not in public, and certainly not in Slytherin—but the room was nearly empty, and something in the weight of Darius’s words, or perhaps the Castle’s subdued breath, compelled him toward the comfort of touch.

Callum leaned quietly into the touch, the side of his head resting briefly against Elowyn's knee, while Peter’s fingers curled around Elowyn’s in response, a wordless squeeze of presence and understanding. As quickly—though with the same subtle elegance with which he had offered it—Elowyn withdrew his hands, letting them fall away without fuss or flourish. He picked up his quill again, the gesture smooth, practiced, and returned to his parchment, as if nothing at all had passed between them. And yet, the ease lingered, anchoring him in the only truth that mattered.

Let Darius watch. Let him speak. He would not be the first to misunderstand what held the three of them together. But even so, Elowyn’s shoulders remained angled slightly toward the Common Room’s heart, the sentinel's posture he'd never quite unlearned. He did not speak of it, not to Callum, not to Peter. It was probably nothing…probably. And yet the Castle, for all its ancient silence, seemed tonight to agree: danger had not passed. It had only begun to watch back.

Chapter Text

The dormitory was still half-draped in sleep, the air soft with warmth from the banked fire and the rhythmic breath of three boys woven together in dreams. Thin green light spilled through the underwater windows, dappling the floor like ripples on a forest pond. It was the second morning of the new term, and though the Castle had begun to wake above them, the Slytherin second-year dormitory remained a sanctuary carved from hush and habit.

Elowyn was already up, dressed in his uniform shirt and trousers with a Slytherin green silk waistcoat buttoned snug at his middle, his robe folded neatly on the end of Peter’s bed. He moved quietly through the half-light, adjusting the slim wand holster fastened beneath his shirt cuff, his movements measured, almost ritual. At the center of the room, sprawled on his side of the wide mattress, Callum lay on his back, right arm outstretched breathing steadily, his face turned slightly toward the door. Peter was curled against his side, nose tucked into Callum’s shoulder, one hand resting lightly on his ribs as if to keep him from drifting too far away.

Elowyn paused for a moment, then stepped softly to one of the chairs by the hearth and sat, facing the bed. From there, he watched them in stillness. The sight settled something inside him—a quiet reminder that there were still places in this Castle that belonged to them alone. They had warded the door themselves, whispering the spells Emrys had taught and Isolde had refined, their voices soft in the flickering torchlight of summer evenings. The Castle did not resist them; it welcomed their small defiance.

Though, it felt quieter—not hostile, but distant—like a friend who had once spoken freely and now only listened, weary and withdrawn. It was not the silence of peace, but of something held back, as though the very walls were drawing breath, waiting to see who would dare speak first.

Callum stirred, blinking himself awake. He tightened his arm gently around Peter, giving him a soft hug before easing free. Stretching with a quiet groan, he pushed himself up on one elbow and squinted toward Elowyn. "You’re dressed already?"

"I woke early," Elowyn said softly, not quite meeting Callum’s eyes. “My dreams were…troubled"

Callum didn’t press. He stood up slowly, running a hand through his hair, which stood up in soft spikes, then padded groggily toward the en suite. Peter groaned beside him and flopped an arm over his eyes, making no move to follow.

"M’gonna die," Peter muttered. "Second day. This is when I perish. Tell my family I died tragically in service of magical education."

"You’ve written one twelve inch scroll," Callum said dryly.

"A noble effort nonetheless."

Elowyn allowed himself the soft curl of a smile as he bent to lace his boots. "We’ve got Magical Domination and Control this afternoon."

Peter groaned louder and pulled the blanket over his head.

"Still think it sounds like a curse," he mumbled through wool.

From the en suite, Callum’s voice echoed faintly over the sound of running water. "Reckon it’s just Defense, redone. New rules maybe. Same incantations. Same wandwork."

Elowyn shook his head, thoughtful. "It’s not just that. Alecto’s lecture yesterday...parts of it made sense."

That quiet settled in again—not tension, but thoughtfulness. Peter peeked out from beneath the blanket.

"You mean about Muggles?"

Elowyn nodded. "She said they destroy everything they touch. And I suppose, to some extent, that must be true. None of us knows much about their world."

"Peter groaned softly and began untangling himself from the blankets like he was fighting a losing battle. "We’ve no Muggleborns to ask," he said as he sat up, rubbing his eyes. "They’re all gone.""

Callum emerged from the en suite a moment later, hair damp and skin flushed from the warmth, clad only in the boxers he had slept in. He moved through the room with the ease of familiarity, heading to his wardrobe where clean clothes waited. As he dressed—briefly, unselfconsciously—neither Elowyn nor Peter looked away, the moment passed over like any other breath between them, a rhythm too well-worn to name. Shirt in hand, he began buttoning it slowly.

"My dad’s family’re Muggles," he said at last. "But they’re just farmers. They’ve never done anything terrible. Unless you count shooting foxes when they get too close to the sheep."

Peter made a face and sighed through his nose, then rose with the exaggerated weight of someone facing an unavoidable doom. He shuffled into the en suite with the slow, theatrical resignation of a boy destined for martyrdom, his muttering fading like incense into the steam-damp air.

"Still," Elowyn said as he rose from the chair and crossed to the bed, lifting his robe with care. "The world still has wildness. The Koes still exists. And when I’ve been outside it, in places Muggles live, I’ve still seen forests. Rivers. Green things. If they were set on destruction, wouldn’t all of that be gone by now?"

He slipped the robe over his shoulders, the soft baby cashmere falling in smooth folds, the collar and cuffs embroidered in the faintest whisper of silver. At a glance, it looked like any other Hogwarts robe, but up close, the craftsmanship became clear—elegant, finely made, and quietly defiant.

Callum considered this. From the en suite came the sound of water sloshing in the basin and a series of clatters and muttered exclamations—Peter, waging a small, noisy war with the sink. The sounds were as familiar as birdsong now, a daily overture to their mornings.

"So maybe it’s not all lies. But it’s not the whole truth either."

Elowyn met his gaze. "Exactly."

From the en suite came a muffled clatter, followed by Peter’s voice echoing through the steam. "What was that? Say it again—I’m losing a duel to this blasted tap."

Elowyn exchanged a glance with Callum, then crossed the room and slipped through the doorway. Inside, Peter was scowling at the basin, linen pyjamas damp, sleeves clinging awkwardly to his arms.

Without a word, Elowyn drew his wand. A swift drying charm whisked the moisture from Peter’s shirt and hair, followed by a second for the floor, and a third to clear the fogged mirror. The steam withdrew like breath recalled.

Peter huffed a laugh. "Much obliged, sir. A noble rescue."

Elowyn only nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching. Peter gave him a mock bow and slipped back into the dorm, where he dressed quickly, still shaking his head.

Still half-dressed, one sock on and the other dangling from his fingers, Peter padded across the stone floor to where the Foe-Glass hung, half-shadowed, near the wardrobe. His shirt was tucked in but slightly askew, tie loosened and hanging off-center, the effect endearingly chaotic. This morning, only one shadow was clearly visible within the glass. The other two were dim and indistinct, as though standing behind smoke.

"Looks like we’ve only got one stalker today," Peter said. "Wonder which one. Maybe Honoria and Vesper had a falling out. Or maybe the other one finally blinked."

Callum joined him with Peter’s boots in hand, staring at the blurred shapes. "Could just mean one of them’s close."

Elowyn approached with Peter’s robe neatly folded over one arm, his and Peter’s satchels balanced carefully on his shoulder. He waited until Peter tugged on his second sock, then stepped forward, smoothing Peter’s tie with a flick and a gentle tug. The gesture was practiced, quiet, and full of grace. One hand lingered briefly at Peter’s cheek, a feather-light touch, which Peter leaned into subtly as he looked into Elowyn’s eyes a smirk on his face. Elowyn stood back and held Peter’s robes out so he could slip his arms into it easily.

Once dressed in one of the new robes Thaddeus had ordered for him—robes that had never belonged to anyone else, their fabric soft and perfectly tailored—Peter lingered for a moment, running his fingers along the seam with quiet satisfaction. There was something about the way they hung on his frame, the crispness of the sleeves, the unspoiled newness of it all, that made him stand a little straighter.

Beside them, Callum offered Peter’s boots without a word, placing them within easy reach with the same calm, wordless care.

Peter muttered his thanks, his voice low and a little rough, the flush on his cheeks deepening as he took in the quiet choreography of their care—Callum and Elowyn, each in their way, ensuring he was whole and ready. The gesture settled into him like warmth after winter. 

Elowyn said softly, more to himself than the others, "Perhaps one of them’s begun to think more clearly than the rest," and his eyes lingered a moment longer on the glass.

Callum had already undone the wards in silence, the gesture folded into the rhythm of their morning like breath. That quiet efficiency—the seamless exchange of robe, boots, and glance—brought Peter the final measure of steadiness he hadn’t known he needed. Elowyn adjusted the strap of his own bag, his eyes drifting once more around the room, taking in its hush as if sealing it to memory.

Once they’d all confirmed they were ready, they left the dormitory behind them, the stone door sealing with a quiet shhhk of magic—one of the only comforts that had not yet been touched.

—

The walk to Charms was unexpectedly civil.

Honoria and Vesper had joined them at breakfast—not with ceremony, but with the cool confidence of girls who knew they needn’t ask permission. They settled across from the triad at the Slytherin table, their tones light but threaded with the delicate barbs of pureblood conversation: remarks sharpened like needles, observations polished to gleam, and the kind of pleasantries meant to measure as much as engage.

Peter met their attempts at superiority with glib remarks that only sometimes concealed his irritation. He raised an eyebrow at Honoria’s casual dismissal of Ravenclaw House as "a cluster of theory-proud know-nothings," and retorted that at least Ravenclaws didn’t need family fortunes to afford personality. Vesper smirked faintly at that, and though Honoria's nostrils flared, she said nothing more. Callum remained quiet through most of it, eating methodically, his posture relaxed but his gaze always alert. Elowyn offered nothing but grace—his voice even and his small smiles genuine but unreadable. When he looked at the girls, it was with neither fear nor challenge. It was with clarity.

By the time they reached the Charms corridor, the group had splintered politely—Honoria and Vesper falling a few steps behind but following them into Flitwick’s classroom with the air of students who had always belonged. It was, after all, a required class for all second-years, and their presence served as a quiet reminder that the House of Slytherin moved as one—even when its loyalties ran crooked beneath the surface.

The room, high-ceilinged and wide-windowed, felt as it always had—a place of warmth and wit, where the air moved freely and even the torches flickered with an energy that felt closer to joy than heat. Professor Flitwick stood atop his stack of books at the front, robes neatly pressed and wand tucked beneath one arm like a maestro preparing to conduct.

“Good morning, second-years!” he piped, beaming as the students filed in. “Today we’ll be advancing our wand-lighting charms with a more challenging variation—Lumos Stellaris. A floating light that responds to your wand’s positioning and illumination intent. Builds beautifully on the work you did last year with Lumos, but requires greater control and finesse. Sit quickly!”

The boys took their usual seats at a table near the windows—close enough to the front to avoid scrutiny, but far enough to keep space around them. At the next table over, a quiet Ravenclaw named Margot Lynley had already settled in—round-faced, half-blood, with large glasses and ink-stained fingertips. She offered a small nod of greeting as they arranged their things, and Elowyn returned it with a murmured “Good morning.”

The lesson moved with Flitwick’s characteristic rhythm—part lecture, part performance. He demonstrated a steady beam of light that could pulse in intervals, then a flickering globe of soft illumination meant for low-light reading. Then came a focused point of starlight that hovered in midair, responsive to wand movement. “This,” he said with particular delight, “is called Lumos Stellaris. Very handy in the observatory. Or if one finds oneself inexplicably lost in a hedge maze. It happens more often than you'd think.”

Peter, who had always struggled more with spellcasting that required bursts of power than with those requiring control, found himself enjoying the exercises. His conjured orb of light hovered near-perfectly after only two tries, responding with a gentle gleam as he guided it along an invisible path in the air. Flitwick clapped his hands together with delight. “Mr. Ainsley! Very fine work—excellent control of focal concentration. Five points to Slytherin!”

Peter sat back, visibly pleased, the praise soaking into his posture like sun into stone. “Well,” he muttered, nudging Callum with a grin, “there’s a first for everything.”

Margot glanced over at Elowyn, her expression tinged with quiet awe at the delicate orb hovering before him. “You’re from Lanwynn Grove, aren’t you?” she asked. “I read about it once in A Compendium of British Magical Settlements: From Antiquity to the Present. But I didn’t think anyone actually lived there.”

Elowyn didn’t answer at once. He had just succeeded in drawing a softly glowing sphere from his wand that hovered with remarkable stillness—delicate like real starlight, the kind seen faintly from earth, filtered through time and atmosphere, more suggestion than flame. His wand obeyed, though with a faint sense of disinterest, as if such tidy magic held little challenge for a core born of wilder waters.

Elowyn didn’t falter. He inclined his head slightly. “I am,” he said, and turned his attention back to his hovering light. After a pause, he added, “Though I don’t believe the author ever visited.” His tone was thoughtful rather than corrective, eyes still fixed on the starlit orb before him. “Some places aren’t meant to be entered by curiosity alone.”

Margot blinked, then nodded slowly. “It must be quiet there,” she said, her tone shifting. “I think I’d like that.”

Elowyn smiled then, just a little. “It teaches you to listen,” he said, the words soft and measured, as though quoting something older than language. "But not all who hear will understand what’s being said."

Callum, who had performed the new Lumos charm with measured ease, made a small adjustment to his wandwork without comment. His orb dimmed and brightened in perfect rhythm, his eyes seemingly fixed on the charm but his attention subtly attuned to Elowyn's exchange with Margot. Though he continued practicing, he listened closely—ready to defend if the conversation turned sharp, though it never did. Peter, noticing the way Callum’s gaze had tilted toward Elowyn, grew quiet as well. He, too, listened then, hands still but wand resting in his lap, silently prepared to step forward if needed.

Margot hesitated, then ventured, “The book said the Grove was still inhabited by Druids. That they live as they did millennia ago—without modern spells or enchantments, even.”

Elowyn’s smile flickered but did not deepen. "The old stories linger," he murmured, voice quiet as breath caught in leaf-shadow. "But the truth roots itself deeper than any telling. The Druids came once, yes. But the Grove…the Grove does not keep only to what was."

Margot looked a little baffled, her brow furrowing as if trying to follow the direction of a conversation that had turned a corner without her. She didn’t reply, but turned back to her wandwork, murmuring something to the Ravenclaw girl beside her. The two bent again over their shared workspace, their quiet efforts glowing softly in the scattered light.

The room hummed with quiet light and effort—students bent over their wands, Flitwick circulating with praise and correction, windows spilling gold onto stone. It felt, Elowyn thought, like the old Hogwarts. Or the memory of it, suspended briefly in this space where light was meant to be summoned, not feared.

But even as his spell hung before him, Elowyn felt the tension it carried—poised between elegance and effort. The charm demanded quiet discipline, the kind not easily summoned in a school more inclined toward spectacle than stillness. There was no place for practice, not truly. No corner of the Castle that invited repetition without observation. How quietly odd, he thought, that it had taken this long to notice the absence. So much they’d learned on borrowed time and shadowed space. And what more might have flourished, if the ground had been made ready?

The bell rang, gently unraveling the spell that had settled over him. The lights faded, and Elowyn blinked once, then quietly began gathering his things—quill, parchment, wand—each motion automatic, done without true thought. Around him, chairs scraped and laughter stirred the quiet, but he moved as if still in dialogue with the charm he had cast. The moment was gone, but it left something behind—like starlight, still reaching across distance long after the source had dimmed.

As they filed out, Peter bumped Elowyn’s shoulder with his own. “Did you see mine? Held it for fifteen whole seconds before it popped.”

“I did,” Elowyn said, his voice low and sincere. “It held like it meant to stay.”

Callum gave a nod of agreement. “One of the brightest in the room.”

Peter’s cheeks pinked, but he grinned and gave a small shrug. “Well, I’ll try not to let it go to my head. Unless it gets me out of homework.”

The corridor outside stretched long and quiet. Somewhere below, the bells marked the hour. Lunch came first, but already the shadow of Magical Domination and Control lingered like a taste on the tongue. The mood began to shift, as if the very walls of the Castle had caught the echo of approaching footsteps. But for now, the air still held a trace of starlight.

—

Magical Domination and Control took place after lunch, and as the boys filed down the stone corridor toward the classroom they’d once known as Defense Against the Dark Arts, there was a hushed tension between them. The memory of Charms with Ravenclaw still clung to their minds—a class filled with brightness and air, Professor Flitwick as buoyant and sharp as ever, and even a pleasant conversation with a second-year Ravenclaw girl who’d complimented Peter on his wandwork. The contrast sharpened the feeling that they were now walking into something entirely different, something that hummed with the thrum of restraint and watchfulness.

The door to the classroom stood open. Inside, the space had been transformed. Gone were the cabinets of dark artifacts and the shelves of tattered books; in their place hung stiff parchment posters charmed to animate in slow, ominous loops. Witches and wizards in dark uniforms stood above cringing Muggles, and phrases like Order through Power and Magic Is Might glimmered in cruel runes. The desks had been removed entirely—only straight-backed chairs lined the walls in perfect symmetry, leaving the center of the room bare, a wide arena of cold stone. The air itself felt taut, dry as old parchment and heavy with a quiet, ideological gravity.

Amycus Carrow stood at the front, thickset and broad-shouldered, his wand tucked into his belt like a weapon at rest. He did not smile. He did not greet them. He simply waited until they had all taken their places—Slytherin on one side, Gryffindor on the other—before speaking.

“You’ve been taught to defend yourselves,” he said without preamble. “To shield. To run. To fear.”

He paced slowly before them, his boots clicking sharply on the stone. “That was a mistake. A wizard does not fear. A witch does not cower. Magic is dominance. Magic is control. If you are defending, you are already losing.”

There were no murmurs, no fidgeting. Only the scrape of quills hastily scribbling away.

“My sister spoke to you yesterday,” he continued, casting a glance toward the Gryffindors. “She began to reveal to you the truth about Muggles and their appetite for destruction. Today, I will teach you what it means to stop that destruction at its root.”

With a flick of his wand, dozens of tall dummies appeared in two precise rows down the center of the cleared classroom. The dummies were shaped like humans, padded and worn, with a faint shimmer of defensive enchantment stitched across their surface. With another flick, Amycus conjured a shimmering barrier between the two sides, stretching behind the dummies. It shimmered pale gold and held firm, designed to absorb any stray spellwork. Elowyn’s brow lifted slightly in surprise—he had heard the whispers about Amycus, dark and cruel. But this small act of precaution, of care disguised as control, complicated the image.

Amycus understood that precision required repetition—and repetition required access. He gestured to the nearest dummy in front of him.

“The heart,” he said. “Is where life begins and ends. To strike the heart is to declare authority. Control.”

He turned sharply, raising his wand. “Praecisum.”

The incantation rang through the room with weight, heavy as lead. A single deep slash appeared across the dummy’s chest, high and precise, just above where a human heart would be. There was no blood spilled, but the tear in the fabric was clean and deep. A few seconds later, it shimmered faintly and began to seal itself, the fabric knitting together until no trace of the wound remained—a brilliant demonstration of Amycus’s control and power.

A Gryffindor student in the second row—Oliver Prewett, small and flame-haired—raised a tentative hand. “Sir…couldn’t we use Diffindo for that?”

Amycus didn’t sneer. He merely looked at the boy and spoke evenly. “Diffindo is a useful charm—for sewing or herbology. It is surface magic. Clean. Neat. Harmless. A wizard does not shear. A wizard severs. Praecisum is not a charm. It is a curse. It cuts deep. Straight to the seat of life. It does not tear for the sake of pain—it cuts for the sake of control.”,” Amycus said, almost admiringly. “It’s not some defense nonsense. It’s a real spell that is both dangerous but controlled. That is what you will practice. You will not shield. You will not parry. You will strike.”

A few of the Gryffindors glanced at each other. One—Thomas Belby, a wiry second-year—raised his hand.

“Sir, shouldn’t we learn shielding spells too?”

Amycus turned to him, his expression devoid of emotion. “If you require a shield, you are already losing. That will be the last question of that kind, Mr. Belby. Consider this your warning.”

Thomas flushed and looked down.

Amycus motioned for them to begin. Dummies appeared before each student, and the room filled with the hum of magic and whispered incantations. The class spread out across the room, and Elowyn, Callum, and Peter stood near the far wall where the flickering torchlight cast long shadows.

Callum stepped forward first. His stance was steady, his hand sure. He raised his wand and said the incantation clearly, not loudly. The dummy jerked as the spell struck home, a neat red slash blooming just above the heart.

Amycus nodded once. "Efficient. Nearly clean. Work on narrowing the entry—your angle was slightly off. But the intent was clear." 

Callum felt the praise settle somewhere deep in his chest, an unexpected warmth blooming behind his ribs. Elowyn noticed, and a quiet smile touched the corner of his mouth—pleased for Callum, proud of his steadiness. Yet beneath the pride curled a quiet unease. This magic—so precise, so severing—was nothing like the living spells of the Koes. It moved against the grain of the world rather than with it, and that dissonance thrummed at the back of his mind, unresolved.

Peter followed. The room around him crackled with focused magic—spells slicing through dummies, students hunched in concentration, the sharp scent of scorched fabric clinging to the air. Under Amycus’s severe gaze, Peter felt his stomach tighten. He hesitated—then muttered something under his breath, raised his wand, and cast.

Nothing happened.

“Louder,” Amycus barked from across the room. “And aim with intent. Not hope.”

Peter swallowed and tried again. This time, the spell sparked at the tip of his wand, sputtering, but it fell short, slicing only the shoulder of the dummy. He exhaled sharply and lowered his wand.

Amycus said nothing.

Callum stepped in beside Peter, his voice pitched low and steady. "Tighten your grip a little. Keep your feet square—like when we practiced with the targets in the orchard."

Peter nodded, jaw clenched, grateful but still visibly tense.

On his other side, Elowyn offered no advice—only presence. He stood close enough that Peter could feel the warmth of him, the silent reassurance of shared breath. It steadied him more than any spell could have.

Peter took another breath, planted his feet more firmly, and raised his wand. This time, the incantation came with more force. Praecisum. The spell lanced forward and scored a shallow cut across the dummy’s chest—far from perfect, but true.

Amycus’s voice rang out across the stone. “Better. But do not flinch. A true strike does not ask permission. Again.”

Peter adjusted his stance, his shoulders squaring with effort. He cast once more, and this time the spell hit truer, cutting deeper across the dummy’s chest—clean, if not elegant.

Amycus gave a brief nod. “Acceptable. Progress. Practice will hone it. Move on.” With that, he turned away, already watching the next student, his evaluation precise and without pause.

Elowyn did not cast. He stood with his wand lowered, watching the motion of the room: the way students adjusted their footing, the strange quiet of the strikes, the flickering light catching the curve of Amycus’s mouth—not a smile, not quite. The feeling of the room was not cruelty. It was order. And it felt unnervingly familiar.

They had trained like this—at first in secret, on the Castle grounds during their first year, to defend themselves against older Slytherins who meant them harm. Later, they trained with Emrys and Isolde, with measured incantations and controlled breathing and fixed targets. What they had created out of necessity, Amycus now framed as doctrine. And it was working.

Elowyn stepped forward at last, lifted his wand, and spoke the incantation with a calm, clear voice. Praecisum. A red slash appeared across the dummy’s chest—neat, high and deliberate. He cast again, then again, each strike landing with precision just over the heart. His wand did not merely obey; it surged forward, answering the curse with dark delight, its wild core stirred by the spell’s violence. But the more it leaned in, the more Elowyn faltered. With each repetition, his hand trembled a little more, the slashes slower, the motion more strained. The spell was obedient, yes—but it pushed against something deep in him, something rooted in soil and silence beneath the Grand Oak. What the wand exulted in, the boy resisted. And between them, the rhythm unraveled.

Amycus approached, watching closely. "Excellent control. Rare precision," he said, and though the words were flat, there was a trace of recognition in them. Elowyn inclined his head but said nothing. Inside, his magic recoiled—not at the spell, but at its intention. It was not the rhythm of harmony. It was the rhythm of conquest. He had been taught magic as care, as comfort, and as community—woven with the land and the lives of those who tended it. This spell was laced with hatred and pain, a design that could only unravel the threads of community he had been raised to cherish.

The class continued much the same for the remainder of the period, each student taking their turn with the spell. Amycus, having seen the triad’s control, ceased commenting on their performance, turning instead to those who struggled. From across the room, Honoria cast a sideways glance toward Elowyn, her lips pressed in a line that could have meant anything—disdain, calculation, or perhaps something darker. Vesper said nothing, but the faint tilt of her head suggested she had seen more than she let on. Honoria and Vesper were passable—precise enough to avoid criticism, but lacking depth. Many of the Gryffindor second-years, however, failed to land their strikes cleanly. The barrier shimmered again and again with errant spells, catching them in flickers of light and magical strain. Elowyn noticed Amycus never flinched, never raised his voice. He watched, evaluated, adjusted—like a general training soldiers. And the classroom obeyed.

When the class ended, Amycus dismissed them with a nod. "You will practice this daily. Power is not a choice—it is the law of our world. This classroom will remain available to you whenever there is not a session scheduled. I expect each of you to return at least once a week, on your own time. There can be no control without regular and sustained practice."

He paused, letting the words settle, then added, "I have also arranged for suitable practice rooms near each of the four common rooms, should convenience keep you from this one. There will be no excuse for failure."

Elowyn’s head tilted slightly at that, a ripple of surprise passing through him. He had never heard of such an offer at Hogwarts—never known a professor to take the initiative to provide space simply for practice. And yet, it made a peculiar kind of sense. Was it not the purpose of a school for magic to ensure its students had space to grow in their craft? The thought stirred something quiet and unsettled in him. The flicker of admiration that rose was reluctant, almost embarrassed—but it was real.

They filed out in silence.

In the corridor outside, the air felt cooler somehow, as though the Castle had exhaled.

Peter was the first to speak. He turned slightly toward Elowyn and Callum and spoke in Cornish, “I hated how much I liked that.”

Callum nodded, his voice low. “He’s not wrong about the control. That’s the worst bit.”

Elowyn turned his gaze between them, not sharply but with the slow, searching stillness of thought. "It felt good," he said, the words quiet and veiled, as if they’d passed through more than just breath. "Not only the spellwork, but the clarity—the order of it. A place to practice, freely, without fear. It should have always been so. And that, more than anything he said, troubles me."

Peter gave a half-shrug. “Probably because they didn’t want us learning anything too well.”

Elowyn turned the thought over in his mind, the words lodging there like seeds waiting for root. Why had such space never been offered before? What did it reveal, that Amycus not only allowed but encouraged it? It was too deliberate to be incidental—this gift of space, time, and sanctioned mastery. And like all such gifts, it carried the unmistakable shape of purpose, and the shadow of a cost not yet named.

Callum frowned thoughtfully. “So…we should keep practicing, shouldn’t we? In one of the rooms he set up?”

He paused. “I think we should,” Callum continued, firmer now. “We need to keep sharp.”

Elowyn hesitated, gaze trailing along the corridor walls as if he could see the enchantments that still throbbed through the stone. “I want to. But I don’t trust that we won’t be watched.”

Peter nodded beside him. “Yeah. Feels like bait, doesn’t it? Like there’s a sign on the door that says ‘Free Sweets Inside’ and we’re the ones too hungry to question it.”

Elowyn inclined his head, slow and thoughtful. “We should continue our training,” he said, voice quiet but certain. “You’re right about that.” His eyes flicked toward the corridor’s curve. Just then, a faint ripple passed through the stone beneath their feet—too subtle for others to sense, but Elowyn felt it resonate through his soles. It wasn’t resistance. It wasn’t assent. It was simply awareness. As though the Castle itself, ancient and attuned, was observing just as they were, weighing the truth of this new order in silence. “But I can’t shake the sense that those rooms will be watched. Not obviously—but closely enough to matter.”

Peter exhaled, the corners of his mouth pulling down. “Yeah. Same. Like someone’ll be keeping a checklist labeled ‘Triad Missteps’ and sharpening a quill every time one of us sneezes too loudly.”

Callum gave a slight shrug, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe so. But if they’re watching, what of it? Let them see dedication. Let them see control. We’ll be sharper for it—and they’ll see we’re not to be underestimated.”

Elowyn didn’t respond with words. As they walked, he let his fingers brush gently against the back of Callum’s hand. Callum glanced over, his expression softening, and without breaking stride, he took Elowyn’s hand in his for a brief moment, gave it a quiet squeeze, then let it go. 

Peter walked just ahead of them, quiet now. Then, almost to himself, he said, “Y’know, I thought we’d be hexed into next week the second we stepped in. But this...this is worse. Feels like it’s teaching us how to lose ourselves while thinking we’re getting stronger.”

Elowyn’s gaze lingered on the path ahead, his expression unreadable. The words echoed something he had not yet named aloud—that there was power in this magic, yes, but not the kind that healed or wove or rooted. It was severing magic. Clean. Efficient. Lethal. He had been taught that true strength preserved what mattered, that magic lived in relationship. This magic did not preserve—it carved. And as the thought unfurled, it pressed a quiet question against his ribs: what if, in mastering it, they were not simply becoming more skilled, but becoming someone else entirely? How many cuts could one make before something essential bled away?

They walked on, the quiet padding of their steps carrying the weight of things left unsaid—how much they had liked it, how easily the routine had settled over them, how strange and disorienting it was to be offered something that resembled care where they had braced for cruelty. Perhaps it was not an illusion after all. And if there was care in it—real, deliberate care—then the ground beneath their certainties shifted, and that made it all the more difficult to name what they had just experienced.

They turned toward the corridor that would lead them to the Great Hall for dinner, the scent of roast and bread already lingering faintly in the air. Elowyn, still adrift in the quiet tide of thought, reached out and placed a hand lightly against the small of Peter’s back. It was a soft, unspoken gesture—offered without ceremony or need. Peter leaned subtly into the touch, his body responding before thought could intervene, as if the warmth of that gesture filled a space he hadn’t known was hollow. He straightened just slightly afterward, the motion almost imperceptible, as though reassured that he was held with equal care and belonging.

The walk from Magical Domination and Control to the Great Hall was quiet—perhaps too quiet for the number of feet moving across the stone. No one jostled, and no one lingered. Conversation, when it happened at all, was hushed and clipped. Even the ghosts, who once drifted whimsically through the upper corridors during meals, seemed absent or hesitant, as though the very air discouraged movement without intention.

The triad walked near Honoria and Vesper—adjacent, but not together. Trailing just behind them were Octavia and Corinne, their expressions eager and posture carefully mimicked. Honoria and Vesper held their usual composure, but it was marked now by a faint undercurrent of satisfaction. Their eyes were bright, their posture a shade more confident. They slid onto the benches directly across from Elowyn, Callum, and Peter at the Slytherin table, each with the grace of one accustomed to being observed, their shadows settling in beside them like dutiful echoes.

"A rather illuminating pairing," Vesper said as she reached for a pitcher of pumpkin juice. She didn’t look at anyone in particular, but her voice carried just far enough. "One day on ideology, the next on technique. It feels…intentional."

Peter opened his mouth, then shut it again. A breath later, he tried again. "Funny thing is," he said, forking a piece of potato, "there wasn’t much ideology in it today. Just that slicing curse, again and again. It wasn’t about who deserves power—it was only about having it. And somehow that felt…reasonable. Magic needs command, I suppose. Without it, it’s just sparks."

Honoria smoothed her napkin across her lap. "Context matters," she said lightly. "Yesterday’s lecture laid the foundation. Today’s spellwork built on it. Control without cause is chaos, but cause without control is useless."

Callum, slow and deliberate with his food, finally lifted his eyes. "They’re building something. With all this. History, power, practice—it’s not just coincidence."

"Isn’t that what history is?" Vesper asked, eyebrows raised, the edge of a smile dancing at her mouth. "Construction? Shaped with a wand and a purpose."

Elowyn set his fork down with careful precision. "Sometimes," he said, voice mild. "But even scaffolding can rot, if the wood beneath was never sound."

Honoria did not reply, not with words. She took a measured sip from her goblet and lifted her chin the smallest fraction, adopting the serene look of someone who believed she had already won. The girls returned to their meal, and so did the boys.

As he ate silently, Elowyn thought, not for the first time, how strange it was that magic and history were never joined here. At home, his fathers had always woven their lessons together—charms tucked into philosophy, ancient runes threaded through stories of invention and change. It had seemed the natural order of things. And yet both had studied in these very halls, where such connections were rarely, if ever, made. He wondered if the school had changed since their time, or if, as he often suspected, his fathers had simply taught themselves what truly mattered.

Around them, the Great Hall was quieter than it should have been. Conversation at the other tables came in muted waves, never quite cresting. Some of the portraits that once lined the high walls were missing entirely, their frames empty, while others were obscured by dull cloth hangings. Above them, the enchanted ceiling flickered between dusk and stormlight, the usual charm faltering at the edges.

Alecto Carrow passed once down the central aisle—speaking to no one, yet looking at everyone. Her steps were slow and deliberate, while her eyes were glassy but alert. She took her seat at the staff table, but the conversations quieted even more than before. Elowyn noticed a cluster of Gryffindors staring at her—none too subtly, but true to form—before turning back to whispered conversation, their eyes still darting toward the dais. The tension she left behind seemed to cling to the backs of the students’ necks long after she had passed.

Peter made a joke about her hair—that it looked like she'd used a brush made from Thestral tail hair—but the comment fell into the hush like a pebble in still water. No one laughed. Even he looked uncertain the moment it left his mouth, as if realizing too late that even humor felt unwelcome in the new quiet of the Hall. Even he didn’t smile after saying it.

They finished quickly. None of them said it aloud, but the weight in their chests pressed them toward movement. The September air had turned sharp with evening, a chill settling into the stone and rising off the grass beyond. They made their way toward the entrance arch, the path that led to the grounds stretching dark and promising beyond it.

They were not able to pass as a figure stood there—tall and black-robed with his face shadowed beneath a hood. It wasn’t a professor or a prefect. It wasn’t anyone with a name they knew, but he was familiar in shape and stillness. He carried himself with the same quiet authority of those that had stood beside the carriages at the start of term only yesterday. He had the same unnatural stillness that denied explanation.

Callum slowed first. Peter came to a sudden stop just behind him. Elowyn, the last to halt, felt it then—a faint disturbance in the Castle’s stillness, something subtle but unmistakable. There was a shift beneath his feet, as though the very stones were bracing themselves. A tautness had settled into the floor, a tension neither hostile nor welcoming. It felt like a breath held too long. It felt like a door that had never been locked but had now been quietly shut and barred.

Callum took a step forward, his voice steady but calm. "We’d like to walk the grounds," he said.

The Watcher did not flinch or shift. After a moment, a voice emerged from the shadows of the hood—low, clipped, and absolute. "Grounds are off-limits without staff escort. For safety."

That was all. The Watcher offered no further explanation, no threat—only an unyielding presence, like a door that refused to open no matter how politely one knocked, its silence heavier than any command.

Peter leaned slightly toward Callum and muttered in Cornish, “We could invite him along. Make it a proper evening stroll.”

Peter moved as if to ask the Watcher to join them, but Elowyn’s hand was already reaching to still him before he could get any words out. Callum straightened, his chin lifting slightly, and looked at the Watcher with steady eyes.

Though he said nothing of it, there was a pause—slight but sharp—after Peter had spoken. A flicker of attention, perhaps. Disapproval not voiced, but felt all the same. Elowyn didn’t need Legilimency to know the Cornish had been understood—and not appreciated. The hooded figure regarded them in silence, then spoke again—curt and final. "Move along."

They did. They turned, the silence heavy around them.

“So much for a moonlit stroll with my two favorite conspirators,” Peter murmured.

“No,” Elowyn said softly. "Nor, I think, for some time."

As they climbed the stairs again, the Castle offered no protest. Only the echo of their footsteps in corridors grown narrower by the day.

—

The library doors opened with a groan that echoed farther than it should have in the stillness of the Castle. It was not late, but it felt it—something in the air made every step down the aisles feel like a trespass, as though the books themselves had begun to hold their breath. The lanterns along the upper arches glowed their usual amber-gold, but the light wavered strangely at the edges, flickering like candle flames touched by an unseen draft. Even here, the Castle felt held in check, as though its magic, too, had been asked to remain still.

Madam Pince looked up from the circulation desk as they entered. Her eyes, sharp and piercing, softened in recognition.S he gave them a small nod—more gesture than permission, but it was enough. She returned to her ledger without comment. Last year had earned them a wary truce, perhaps even a thread of trust, and none of them intended to unravel it.

They wove through the library’s central way, past the heavy study tables and the younger years bent earnestly over parchment and scrolls. The scent of ink and vellum drifted on the air. When they reached the far back corner—beyond the Arithmancy stacks and the indexes of magical fauna—they slipped into the same alcove they had claimed the previous year. A half-curved wall shielded them from sight, and above them, one amber lantern cast a pool of quiet light over the table. It had been a refuge when they’d been shunned; it was a refuge now, in subtler ways.

They settled in without speaking. Elowyn drew out his charms theory textbook—Intermediate Charms: Theory and Practice, assigned by Flitwick, but already annotated in his precise hand after perusing it over the summer. The book crackled faintly when opened. He read slowly, but his thoughts drifted: to the Castle’s missing portraits, to the barred gates, to the breathless stillness in the flagstones.

Peter had his Charms assignment open before him, parchment slightly askew and his handwriting trailing toward the edge of the page. He muttered now and then as he transcribed notes, occasionally pulling a face at a misremembered incantation or correcting a wayward flick of his quill. At times, though, he stared into the distance, quill hovering over the page, his mind clearly wandering elsewhere. Callum, across from them, bent over his notes with methodical focus, underlining terms and jotting corrections in the margins with a sure, steady hand. Now and again, Elowyn leaned gently against Peter’s side, a quiet press of warmth, and reached across the table to brush his fingers against Callum’s hand—brief, grounding touches that needed no words at all.

The warmth between them didn’t need articulation. They took pleasure in the work—it offered a space where they knew exactly what was required of them, where each scroll and sentence was a puzzle they could solve. They leaned into that certainty, into the rhythm of study, into the calm quiet that grew between them like something planted and tended. It asked for no explanations. It was enough.

For a long while, the only sound was the quiet rhythm of pages turning and the soft scratch of quill on parchment. There was comfort in it, a kind of spell spun between them—not of silence, but of shared presence.

Eventually, Peter looked up, voice low and uncharacteristically serious. "That class yesterday. Muggle Studies. Professor Carrow makes it all sound…inevitable. Like they—Muggles—have always been this way." He paused, frowning faintly. "I don’t really know much about them, I guess. It’s just—it's got me thinking."

Callum looked up at Peter with his gold-flecked eyes. “She made it sound like we're lucky they haven’t burned everything to ash while we’ve been sitting on our hands."

“They haven’t though,” Elowyn said, turning a page. “The Koes is still there. As are the moors that surround it which aren’t enchanted. And all the wild unenchentaed places beyond this Castle and Hogsmeade. If Muggles meant only ruin, wouldn’t all of it be gone by now?”

Peter exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh. “We should read more. Not her pamphlet. Real Muggle history.”

“There’ll be something here,” Callum said. “We could check the stacks—see if Madam Pince has anything worth reading. Proper Muggle history, not the pamphlet Professor Carrow gave us.”

Elowyn glanced toward the main desk where Madam Pince still sat, then down at the parchment beneath his hand. “We’ll ask,” he said softly, “but let’s finish this first.”

Peter looked up from his parchment, quill poised loosely in his fingers. “I’ve written most of it,” he said, glancing between the other two. “Callum, are you finished?”

“Almost,” Callum replied, not looking up as he underlined one final term.

Elowyn, sensing the quiet urgency behind Peter’s voice, slipped his quill into its case and closed his book. “Let’s go now then,” he said, his tone gentle but certain.

The three of them stood and made their way through the hushed rows back toward the circulation desk. Madam Pince looked up as they approached. Her expression, as ever, was cool and unreadable, though her eyes flicked briefly to the smudge of ink on Peter’s hand.

“Good evening, Madam Pince,” he began, voice low but clear. “We were wondering if you might help us locate some books on Muggle history.”

There was a long pause. Then, in a voice that seemed a degree too careful, she said, “All texts on Muggle history have been reassigned to the Restricted Section.”

Peter frowned, then tilted his head. “All of ‘em?"

Madam Pince nodded slowly, her lips pulled into a tight line.

Peter continued, "That’s not how this usually works, is it? I thought you'd need a signed scroll, three professors, and maybe a midnight incantation under a full moon.”

“No,” she replied, and her tone tightened by the smallest degree. “It is not. Materials are usually only moved to the Restricted Section following review by a faculty committee.” She paused, the weight of it settling heavily, "That process was not observed.”

“Professor Carrow?” Callum asked.

Her lips thinned, but she gave a single nod. 

A silence bloomed between them—not uncomfortable, but heavy. The kind that carried understanding.

Then, after a breath, she added in a lighter voice, "There are other volumes—histories of magic itself—that you may find illuminating. They're not labeled as Muggle studies, but sometimes truth can be found tucked between different shelves."

Peter leaned in slightly, voice pitched in mock whisper. “And where might we find those shelves, Madam?”

Madam Pince’s eyes flicked sideways, then returned to Peter. “Along the north wall—past the magical law section, near the central hearth. Look for the third set of shelves from the window. There are three I’d recommend: The Shifting Silence: Magical Society in the 20th Century by Theophilus Wren, Magics Intertwined: A Pre-Industrial Survey by Agatha Bellchant, and Of Wand and Will: Shaping Society through Magic, Volumes I–III, by Elias Gamp.”

“Thank you,” Elowyn said, bowing his head with quiet gravity. And she, with equal gravity, returned the gesture.

They slipped away toward the north wall, navigating the dim rows with practiced ease. They discussed as they went who would retrieve which book so as not to double up in the search. As instructed, they passed the magical law section and located the third shelf from the window, where green and black leather bindings gleamed dully in the lanternlight. Elowyn found The Shifting Silence, its spine delicately tooled with silver lettering. Callum pulled down Magics Intertwined, weighed it in his hands, then nodded. Peter retrieved Of Wand and Will, the three hefty volumes nestled together like stubborn siblings on the same shelf. “Merlin’s buttons,” he muttered, eyeing their combined girth. “I think I’ve just pulled the literary equivalent of a troll’s thighbone.” He gathered all three, stacking them carefully, and flipped briefly through the topmost with a soft, impressed whistle.

With their choices in hand, they returned to Madam Pince, who inspected each volume with a pinched but approving eye. She recorded the titles in her logbook with a sharp flourish of her quill and handed them back without a word. Her nod, though slight, carried something like respect.

They returned to their alcove without speaking and each of them began leafing through their chosen volume. An hour passed, not in silence exactly, but in the shifting rustle of parchment and the low hum of shared purpose. Elowyn tilted his head as he read, occasionally making quiet notes in his journal. Callum held his book close, absorbing line after line without pause. Peter muttered every so often, not unkindly, but with a kind of awed irritation—there was too much, and none of it in the pamphlet Carrow had passed off as truth.

They sat for a moment longer in silence, then packed their things in a hush made thicker by thought. When the lantern flickered thrice, briefly, before settling into still light, Elowyn stood and reached for his satchel.

“They’re dimming the lanterns,” Elowyn said, rising as he slipped his books into his satchel along with his quill case and parchment. His voice was gentle, almost wistful, like he was answering something the Castle itself had whispered.

Peter stretched, his spine crackling faintly in the hush. Callum gathered his things with neat care, tucking everything into his bag with the same deliberate precision he brought to spellwork. They rose together—not rushed, or dawdling, just moving with one purpose. They threaded their way back through the shelves heading back to their dormitory—not triumphant, but intact. The Castle still felt subdued, the air slightly thick—as though it, too, were learning how to be silent. But in that quiet, beneath the wary lanterns and the weight of history, they had found a pocket of peace.

—

The dormitory had gone still. The sconces had guttered out one by one, their last flickers swallowed by the lateness of the hour. Only the fire in the hearth remained, casting low green flames that shimmered gold at the edges—gentler than the colder silver that danced in the Common Room. It bathed the half-moon curve of the room in a hush of shifting light, its glow brushing the beds and the stone floor like the final breath of a long-kept secret.

The curtains around Peter’s bed remained open, by silent agreement. None of them liked the idea of being closed off—not now, not after everything. They had endured enough hidden threats. Open space and shared warmth felt safer.

They lay curled beneath the blankets, not tangled, but close. Peter was in the middle, elbow bent beneath his head, his other hand tucked beneath the coverlet. Elowyn rested on his side, his back to the wall, gaze distant as if watching the fire even when his eyes were closed. Callum lay on Peter’s other side, one long leg half-draped across the mattress, body turned toward the others, his breath slow but wakeful.

Peter spoke first. “We might be the quietest criminals Hogwarts has ever seen.”

Elowyn hummed softly.

Peter pressed on, his tone warm with sleep. “Slinking off to the library, whispering under blankets, questioning authority. I mean really. Next thing you know we’ll be brewing illegal tea in the dungeons.”

Callum snorted. “We’d be caught the moment it boiled.”

“We’d never get it past Pince,” Peter added. “Not unless we disguised it as a footnote.”

Their laughter was quiet and brief, a shared breath in the dim.

After a moment, Peter rolled slightly to face the ceiling. “That class. With Amycus. It felt...orderly. I don't like that I didn’t hate it.”

“It’s easier to listen when no one’s shouting,” Callum said, then added, “Or sneering like Snape as if it was a personal failure we dared to exist.”

Elowyn opened his eyes. "That’s how belief gets in," he murmured. "Not by force, but by suggestion—by the quiet shaping of what seems natural, even reasonable. That’s what makes it dangerous. It doesn’t announce itself. It moves in with folded hands and perfect posture."

“Like it belongs,” Peter murmured.

Elowyn nodded. “Like it’s always been there.”

A long silence followed. Above them the lake was shifting, the dark water pressing faintly against the windows, but the only sound was the soft, steady breath of three boys not quite ready to sleep.

“We’ll keep training,” Callum said. It wasn’t a question.

Elowyn turned his head slightly. “Yes. Though I don’t know where. The new rooms—they’re too convenient.”

Peter exhaled, voice dry. “And nothing about this place is ever convenient without a reason.”

“They’ll be watched,” Elowyn agreed. “Or worse—shaped.”

“So?” Callum asked. “We find another place. The Castle still has corners.”

Peter shifted beneath the blankets, elbow brushing Elowyn’s arm. “Do we still need to?”

The question hovered.

No one answered at once. Elowyn blinked slowly, eyes unfocused. Callum’s fingers flexed once, then stilled. Peter’s hand found the edge of the coverlet and tightened slightly, as though the feel of fabric might keep him anchored to the quiet truth: they didn’t know…not yet.

They had expected this year to be worse than the last. And yet, in some ways, it felt more like a school than it had before—there was order now, along with structure and quiet. People still whispered about them, especially in their own House, but those whispers were edged not with cruelty, but with caution. Perhaps even fear.

The fire crackled, casting a long flicker of light against the far wall. Peter drifted first, breath slowing, head sinking slightly toward Elowyn’s shoulder. Elowyn followed not long after, nestling closer, his head gently tilted against Peter’s. One hand curled just above his heart, the other resting lightly on Peter’s chest, feeling the quiet rhythm there as if to reassure himself it continued.

Callum remained awake the longest. His eyes lingered on the Foe-Glass mounted opposite their beds. It shimmered faintly, the black mist unsettled. There were figures there—indistinct, shifting, always just out of focus. They were not gone, but not near either—or perhaps, this year, the enemies wore no faces at all, and the danger lay in ideas—unspoken and  inherited—and in the truths denied or buried. It lingered in the silence, in the knowledge suppressed and the stories half-told, just beyond the edge of knowing.

As sleep began to pull him under, Callum turned from the door with the unthinking grace of habit, settling onto his stomach. One arm stretched outward across the blankets, draping over Peter’s waist with his hand resting lightly on Elowyn’s hip in a gesture so natural it seemed shaped by ritual rather than thought. He had come to think of them not merely as friends but as extensions of his own soul—wordless, essential, as vital as the breath in his lungs or the pulse that moved unseen beneath skin. Even in rest, the vow he had made—to guard them, whatever shadows gathered—held firm, quiet and unwavering as stone.

Chapter Text

The library was hushed that late October morning, but it was a brittle sort of quiet, the kind that seemed to carry unease rather than comfort. The smell of old parchment and candle wax hung in the cool air, mixing with the faint scent of ink that rose from the very stones. Dust motes spun lazily through pale September light, yet even that light felt wan, as though the enchanted windows had grown weary. Sconces flickered in uneven rhythm, their flames thin and hesitant. The Castle felt subdued, its ancient awareness pressed down beneath an unseen weight. Elowyn felt it keenly—no hum beneath the flagstones, no soft shifting of shelves as he had once sensed. The Castle endured, but no longer seemed alive.

Nestled in an alcove hidden by the stacks at their usual table in the far corner, the three boys worked in a loose sprawl of parchment, quills, and well-used books. The scratch of nibs against paper and the occasional creak of chairs were the only sounds. Peter sat beside Elowyn, hunched over the third volume of Of Wand and Will: Shaping Society through Magic by Elias Gamp, fair hair falling forward into his eyes as he traced a line of text with an ink-smudged finger. Elowyn, noticing the way Peter kept tilting his head to see past the strands, reached over and brushed the hair back.

“It is long past time you sought a haircut,” he murmured, as softly as if remarking on the turning of seasons.

The hair fell forward again almost at once, and Peter smiled without looking up. “I’m growing it out,” he said lightly, “to look like my favourite person—well, one of my two favourite people. I’ll let you two argue which of you that is.”

Warmth bloomed in his chest at the quiet care, a fleeting reminder that even in the Castle’s muted hush there were moments of connection that steadied him. The gentle gesture lingered in his mind as he bent back to the page, the scratch of quills and the faint creak of their chairs knitting the quiet back together around them.

Callum snorted, still bent over his parchment. “Well, if it’s me, you’ve gone a ways past. I’ve not had hair past my ears since I was six.”

Elowyn reached out again, fingers brushing Peter’s hair back once more, his hand lingering for a moment against Peter’s temple, warm and steady. Peter looked up this time, grinning at him, and Elowyn’s lips curved in a soft, knowing smile before Peter ducked back to his book.

Across from them, Callum smiled faintly at the exchange, then lowered his gaze to his own work. His broad shoulders hunched as he resumed annotating his parchment in his usual deliberate hand, the steady scratch of his quill filling the pause. Elowyn, his own tasks finished, turned to his private study, setting neat notes from The Shifting Silence beside the summaries he had taken in Carrow’s class. He moved with patient precision, weighing Gamp’s measured observations against those of other magical authors who described how Muggle conflicts had devastated wizarding families—how witches and wizards hid their magic to survive, or were hunted for it. From time to time his gaze drifted to the high, dusty windows, as if searching for some trace that the Castle still watched over them.

Elowyn finally laid down his quill, voice quiet as he broke the stillness. “Professor Carrow’s lecture on China yesterday—how she spoke of the Cultural Revolution as proof that Muggles cannot govern themselves.”

Callum looked up, brows drawing together. “Aye. She made it sound like Muggles always tear their world apart unless someone stronger takes charge. Carrow told it as proof they can’t be trusted to choose their own leaders.”

Elowyn’s gaze rested on him for a moment before he spoke again, gentle but certain. “Their world is our world too. Whatever harms them, in the end, harms us.” He reached across the table, laying his hand lightly over Callum’s. Callum gave a small, wordless nod.

Peter tapped a passage in Gamp’s book. “Gamp writes about Li Mei, a folk healer in Hunan who used simple charms for fevers and childbirth. In China, witches and wizards have always been more part of their communities, never so bound by secrecy as we are, though they keep the depth of their magic hidden. She was denounced by the Red Guard as ‘superstitious,’ dragged into the square and beaten while her wand and tools were burned. She hid with sympathetic Muggles until the madness passed, but her husband and sons starved to death after their land was taken and they were driven away.”

Callum frowned, setting aside his quill. “Carrow spun it like a lesson—that Muggles are weak, that they need wizarding control. But if wizards there live closer to their neighbours than we do, doesn’t that prove her wrong, at least a bit? And Li Mei only survived because Muggles risked themselves to hide her. Carrow never mentions things like that—it shows plain enough they’re not all evil, no matter how she wants to paint them.”

Elowyn inclined his head. “It does seem so,” he said softly. “What Gamp describes feels nearer to the Koes—woven into the land, part of its breath, yet careful never to bare the deepest parts of their magic. I have known no Muggles but my father and grandparents, and they are not like most—wealthy, educated, far from ordinary life. Still, it feels a way of living less divided, more bound together, as if the world itself were not held apart by fear.”

Peter nodded, his mouth tight. “Gamp just lets Li Mei tell it herself. No preaching, no gloating—just what happened. And it’s awful. All of it.”

Elowyn’s hand rested on the spine of The Shifting Silence. “This book speaks of how regimes silence their people, even when magic is scarce. Always the same pattern—fear, control, power hoarded by the few.”

Callum gestured to Magics Intertwined lying open beside him. “And mine shows how magical communities get caught in the crossfire. Even those with power aren’t safe when leaders decide who lives and dies.”

Callum’s quill stilled again. “She makes it sound like a lesson,” he said quietly, brogue soft but firm. “Like Muggles are weak—not in strength, they kill readily enough, but in will, as if they can’t govern themselves without someone pulling the reins.”

Peter’s lips pressed into a thin line. “She says it like that proves her point. Like we’re supposed to think, ‘Look how awful they are to each other, they’d be better off if wizards ruled them.’ And I…I don’t know. Maybe she’s right? If wizards had been in charge, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened. The Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Armenian Genocide, Pol Pot’s killing fields—tens of millions dead, Elowyn. It’s like they spent the last century inventing new ways to destroy each other—and us. What if… what if we could stop them?”

Elowyn looked up at last, dark blue eyes ringed with violet steady but shadowed. “That is the story she and her brother want us to believe,” he said softly. “That control equals salvation. That power can mend what it does not understand. But that is not what we were taught in the Koes. My fathers always said the land shapes us, and we shape it in turn, but never by force. The moment one hand closes round another’s throat, no matter how gently, the world begins to break.” He paused, gaze drifting to the dim light through the high windows. “If we believe that domination is kindness, we become what we fear.”

Callum set down his quill, meeting Elowyn’s eyes. “My da's family are Muggles,” he said slowly. “My Great Uncle Patrick fought in the war—World War Two. He never liked to speak of it, but Da said he’d seen things so terrible they haunted him till he died. He wasn’t evil. None of them are. They’re just…people. Some good, some bad. Same as us.”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “I know. But Professor Carrow says witches and wizards lived through the same events. She talks about those who hid Jews in the Holocaust, smuggled food into Ukraine, fought against Pol Pot. She calls them heroes who’d have done better if they’d been in charge.” He let out a short, humourless laugh. “And then she says next time, we will be in charge. We will prevent things like these from happening.”

The words hung in the air like smoke. Elowyn felt something bristle within him—something deep and old, at odds with Professor Carrow’s narrative. It was the same instinct that had always guided him in Lanwynn Koes, the same quiet certainty that magic was meant to heal, to bind, to grow—not to command. “She twists their stories to serve her ends,” he said at last. “These histories are not lessons in power. They are warnings—of what happens when power is used without compassion or restraint.”

Peter stared down at the page, brow furrowed as though hoping the ink might rearrange into a gentler truth. “It’s just…how can people do this to each other? How do you starve a country to death? Or herd families into camps and kill them? Or slaughter the teachers and thinkers so no one can resist?”

“They convince themselves they’re right,” Callum said, voice quieter now but firm. “That it’s necessary. That it’s for the greater good. I reckon He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tells himself the same thing every day.”

Peter gave a strained laugh. “And here I am reading all this like it’s going to be on an exam. Three volumes, and not one happy ending. I keep thinking—maybe the next chapter, maybe this time, they’ll learn. But no. Just more of the same. Bloody cheery reading for a twelve-year-old, eh?”

Callum huffed softly, almost a laugh. “You’re the one who picked it.”

“Yeah, well, I thought it’d make me clever.” Peter flipped the page with exaggerated care, glancing briefly at Elowyn. “Now I’m not sure if I’m clever or just traumatised.”

Elowyn’s lips twitched in the faintest smile. He reached out, sensing the conflict stirring in Peter, and gently threaded his fingers through Peter’s. Peter leaned toward him almost without thought, and when he looked up their eyes met.

“Perhaps both,” Elowyn murmured, voice carrying quiet warmth.

Peter grinned, though the expression quickly flickered and faded. His hand remained threaded with Elowyn’s as he bent back over the book. “Do either of you ever feel like…maybe Carrow’s right and we’re wrong? Like maybe Muggles can’t be trusted to look after themselves?”

“No,” Elowyn said firmly, his voice even as stone. “Because the moment we decide someone else is too broken to choose for themselves, we become the thing we fear.”

Silence settled over them, and each boy drifted back to his own thoughts. Callum bent once more to his work, quill scratching steadily. Peter, restless, kept reading, murmuring fragments—dates, numbers, names too monstrous to be real. Elowyn let his own reading fall still, gaze lifting to Peter with a depth of care and quiet devotion that ran bone‑deep. He knew with certainty that Professor Carrow’s words were false; the Koes had taught him otherwise, had shown him what it meant to live bound to the land and to one another, each life part of the same whole. Yet he understood, too, that Peter’s world had been different—raised among witches and wizards in a society that, though not openly supremacist, had always been built upon those same old hierarchies. His fingers tightened gently around Peter’s, and he watched the faint light play across the boy’s hair, a silent vow of steadfastness in a place that felt dimmer by the day. The Castle’s stillness pressed around them like a held breath, and Elowyn wondered how long Hogwarts could endure without its spirit breaking entirely.

After another hour of study, the three boys gathered their books and parchments, tucking away quills and inkpots with the easy rhythm that had grown natural between them. Callum slung his satchel over one shoulder, then without a word took Peter’s as well, leaving Peter free to juggle the heavy volumes of Gamp’s text. Elowyn closed The Shifting Silence with deliberate care, stacking it atop the others before rising with his usual quiet grace.

As they left the alcove, Peter shifted the books to one arm so that Elowyn’s hand could find his. Callum brushed Elowyn’s free hand as they fell into step, his fingers settling there as though it were the most natural thing in the world. The three of them walked side by side through the winding corridors, their joined hands a quiet proof of how easily they had grown into one another’s presence. Their footsteps echoed faintly against the chill stone floors. The Castle felt colder now as autumn deepened; the torches sputtered as though begrudging their light, and the air carried the faint bite of October in the Highlands.

They moved with the tide of students heading toward the Great Hall, the muted chatter of their classmates weaving through the corridors like an indistinct hum. A draft curled along the stone passageways, carrying with it the faint scent of roasting vegetables from the kitchens below. Their joined hands remained a quiet anchor as they walked, Peter giving Elowyn’s fingers an occasional squeeze while Callum’s grip stayed steady and warm. A few students glanced their way as they passed, though without the sharpness of mockery—only mild curiosity, as though the sight of their quiet unity demanded notice. More than one of those glances lingered not with scorn but something closer to envy. By the time they reached the heavy doors of the hall, the warmth and sound of midday bustle spilled out to meet them, a fragile reminder of ordinary life amid the strangeness that had settled over the Castle.

The Great Hall had grown dimmer since the start of term. Its ceiling, once a living mirror of the sky, now resembled a poorly painted mural—clouds that did not shift, light that never moved. The enchanted banners drooped without their usual lustre, and the space seemed colder than before. Elowyn could not help but notice that the tables felt less and less full as the weeks passed. He wondered if students had gone home, or simply avoided the hall, or if some other explanation lurked just out of reach. Yet the long tables still buzzed faintly with the hum of students at Saturday lunch, as though normality might be maintained by habit alone.

The triad let go of one another’s hands as they slid onto a bench halfway down the Slytherin table. Peter, without hesitation, began filling their plates with an easy familiarity that spoke of long practice—roast beef pies for himself and Callum, roasted vegetables and cheese pasties for Elowyn, and a generous spoonful of roasted potatoes for all three. “If you’re clever, you go for the meat before it cools,” he quipped, his grin crooked as he nudged Callum’s plate toward him. Callum only shook his head but passed Elowyn the bread without being asked, a small exchange so fluid that neither seemed to notice it had happened. Honoria and Vesper noticed the quiet ease between them but made no comment; the boys, unaware of being observed, remained entirely unbothered.

Honoria Mulciber and Vesper Selwyn had already been seated when the triad had approached, their posture still carrying the faintest trace of superiority even as their smiles were warmer than they had ever been the year before. They had been seeking the triad out more often of late, not quite enjoying the company yet recognising that they were all Slytherins in the same year, sharing difficult times. Honoria shifted slightly to sit opposite Elowyn while Vesper remained beside her, both offering polite nods that carried a new kind of ease. Elowyn studied them from beneath lowered lashes, his fork idle for a moment. Something about their presence had changed since the previous year: the brittle edge to their speech was softened, their eyes less calculating, their company less perfunctory. It was not trust, but it was something nearer to it. A suspicion stirred within him—had they been under a spell before, compelled by hands now joined to Voldemort’s cause? He could not know, but he had been wondering for some time—ever since their return over a month and a half ago—and he marked it silently to share later with Callum and Peter.

A voice carried over the clatter of plates and the low hum of conversation—loud, cutting, and meant to wound. “Marwood-Travers, you’re looking especially smug today. Must feel grand, knowing you were dug out of the dirt like some cursed experiment and still handed a seat at this table. I wonder if you ever think about what you really are—half-made and unnatural, pretending you belong.” Darius’s laugh rang false, sharp as broken glass. His friends tittered uneasily, glancing at him as though even they sensed the bitterness curdling his words.

Peter stiffened beside Elowyn, his hand tightening around his fork. Callum’s shoulders squared, the muscles in his jaw working as he muttered under his breath, “He’s asking for it.”

Elowyn’s hand came to rest lightly on Callum’s arm, fingers brushing in a silent plea for calm. “Not here,” he murmured, his voice barely above the clink of cutlery. 

Peter leaned closer, whispering with a grin that did not reach his eyes, “I’m sure he’s just jealous he can’t manage to get one person to enjoy his company much less two.”

The corners of Elowyn’s mouth curved faintly, though his eyes remained steady on Callum’s. “Breathe,” he said softly, a single word meant for both of them.

Darius laughed again, louder this time, his gaze fixed on Elowyn with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck prickle. “Look at him, sitting there like he’s better than the rest of us. Thinks being pretty makes him clever. Must feel powerful, Marwood-Travers, parading about with your two little lovers trailing after you like pets.”

Callum’s hand twitched toward his wand. Before Callum could act, Peter leaned forward with a bright, cutting smile. “Careful, Darius—talk like that and people might think you’re jealous you can’t get even one person to care for you, let alone two. Makes sense though, since charm’s never been your strong suit.”

Honoria’s eyes, sharp as ever, flicked to Darius. She tilted her head, a faint smirk curving her mouth as she said lightly, “Peter does have a point—jealousy makes you look rather desperate, Darius. Jealousy never did suit you. You’d do better not to wear it so plainly.” Her voice was pleasant, almost amused, but her words landed like a well-aimed hex. Vesper let out a soft laugh, the kind that mocked without seeming to.

Darius faltered, colour rising in his cheeks as his friends shifted uncomfortably. Yet he forced a sneer back onto his face. “Pathetic, really,” he said, voice louder now, cutting. “Marwood-Travers always needs someone else to fight his battles for him. Without you two hanging off him, he’d crumble the moment anyone pushed back.” His words dripped with mockery, though the bitterness beneath was plain.

Elowyn turned his gaze on Darius then—slow, steady, and unblinking. He studied him for a long, unnerving moment, saying nothing. The silence felt heavier than any retort, a quiet assessment that made Darius shift in his seat. Beside him, Callum seethed, his jaw tight as his hand twitched near his wand again.

Still holding Darius in his steady gaze, Elowyn shifted his hand to rest firmly on Callum’s arm, a silent act of reassurance. His fingers curled slightly, grounding Callum as if to tether him in place. Darius’s eyes flicked to the touch with open disgust, though behind the sneer there was something darker—an envy he could not quite hide. The anger in Callum’s face eased just a fraction, though his jaw remained tight. Peter reached for another slice of bread with exaggerated nonchalance, muttering, “Merlin help him—acting like that, he’ll never find anyone daft enough to fall for him, let alone two.” He said it lightly but loud enough to carry, his grin wickedly amused. Callum gave a short chuckle despite himself, some of the heat leaving his eyes as Peter’s humour cut through his anger.

Honoria and Vesper said nothing more, but they exchanged a glance that spoke of keen awareness. Whatever game they had once played, their eyes still missed little. They returned to their meal, and the conversation at the table gradually resumed its earlier hum, though the air between the triad and Darius’s group felt charged, the tension not quite gone.

Vesper broke the silence first, spearing a roasted carrot with delicate precision. “The Carrows’ lesson yesterday was tedious. As if none of us can read a history book.”

Honoria arched a brow. “Their lectures are bludgeons, not lessons. I can only imagine they believe we’ll learn obedience through sheer boredom.”

Peter gave a short laugh, though his eyes were still hard from the earlier exchange. “If that’s their goal, it’s working. I’m nearly ready to hex myself into a coma rather than hear another speech about Muggle folly.”

Callum made a low sound of agreement, his gaze still drifting toward Darius every so often, jaw tight. “Would be easier if they just admitted they want us scared and angry. Pretend it’s education.”

Elowyn reached for his goblet, his voice calm as still water. “Fear and anger are easier to sow than compassion. They choose the quicker harvest.” Beneath the table, his hand rested firmly on Callum’s thigh, a grounding touch meant to steady him before the tension could rise again. Elowyn leaned in slightly, murmuring a few quiet words meant only for Callum—soft, steadying, a reminder to breathe and let the moment pass. Callum’s eyes met his, some of the fire easing, and he reached beneath the table to grasp Elowyn’s hand in return, holding it tightly as if to anchor himself there.

Vesper’s eyes lingered on Callum’s clenched jaw, but she only said mildly, “Perhaps they’ve forgotten Slytherins prefer subtlety.”

Honoria smirked faintly at that, taking another sip of her drink. “Or they never learned it to begin with.”

The conversation shifted to safer topics—complaints about assignments and the dull sameness of life at the Castle now that Quidditch had been cancelled for the year—but Callum’s eyes flicked toward Darius now and again, his anger banked but far from gone. Elowyn noticed, filing it away as something that could not remain unresolved for long.

When the meal wound down, Darius rose with his friends to leave. As he passed by, he deliberately bumped Elowyn’s shoulder, leaning close enough for only the triad to hear. “Enjoy your lapdogs while you can, Marwood-Travers. One day, you’ll be left with no one to hide behind.” He sneered and strode away, his friends trailing after him with uneasy glances.

Callum exhaled slowly, his jaw tight. “Merlin’s beard, I wanted to hex him into next week,” he muttered, still watching Darius’s retreating back.

Peter let out a low whistle. “Would’ve been worth it just to see his face. Though I’d rather not find out what kind of punishment the Carrows would dream up for that.”

Elowyn’s hand remained in Callum’s, his voice soft but firm. “He wants you angry. He wants us all angry.” After a pause, his gaze lingered on Darius’s retreating back. “He’s jealous, though he’d never admit it. It festers in him, twisting into spite.”

Callum glanced down at their joined hands, then nodded once. “Aye. I know. Doesn’t make it easier to stomach, though.”

Peter smirked faintly. “Next time, we’ll hex him in private. Less chance of either of the Professors Carrow giving us an educational beating.”

They lingered only long enough to finish the last of their meal, the conversation settling into quiet murmurs about lessons and the dull rhythm of schoolwork. When their plates were empty, Elowyn offered Honoria and Vesper a polite nod of farewell, his tone as measured as ever. Peter, with his usual irreverence, gave them a jaunty grin, and Callum, still simmering but calmer, inclined his head in brief thanks. The two girls returned their farewells with cool civility, sharp-eyed even in their politeness. Then the triad rose together, gathering their things before stepping out of the hall side by side, the weight of the encounter lingering between them as tangibly as the chill in the air.

They left the Great Hall without a word, the echo of Darius’s cruelty still clinging to them like a bitter aftertaste. The corridors felt colder now, their footfalls sharp against the flagstones as they descended toward the lower levels of the Castle. The torches sputtered in their sconces, casting long, distorted shadows that swayed with each draft. Yet as they drew closer to the practice rooms, a different anticipation stirred—habit and purpose reclaiming their thoughts. The familiar turns of the passageways led them at last to the space near the Hufflepuff common room, the one they had quietly claimed for themselves.

The practice room near the Hufflepuff common room was unlike the rest of the Castle these days. The triad had chosen this space over the one near their own common room, reasoning that it would be less frequented and therefore grant them more privacy, especially from their fellow Slytherins. The chamber itself was laid out with a generosity that spoke to its purpose: wide enough for free movement, with magical dummies that repaired themselves after each strike, shelves of well-thumbed spellbooks and reference charts, and tidy cupboards containing basic first-aid kits, potions, and practice wands. Sturdy wooden benches lined the walls, and racks of targets in varying shapes and sizes stood ready for use. Where the corridors felt draughty and dim, this chamber glowed softly, its stone walls warmed by a golden light that seemed to seep from the very air rather than any obvious source. There was a faint scent of beeswax, parchment, and something verdant, as though the room remembered summers long past. A low hum of magic pulsed gently, like a breath held in patient expectation.

Elowyn lingered in the doorway, his dark eyes roaming slowly over the space. “It feels different here,” he murmured, the words half to himself. “As though the Castle has not forgotten what it is meant to be.” His fingers brushed the cool lintel. “Perhaps it is by design. Perhaps the Carrows make the spaces they deem essential welcoming, so we might give ourselves to them more readily.”

Peter stepped past him with a crooked grin, wand already in hand. “Well, at least it’s warm. I was starting to think my fingers might freeze clean off walking down here.”

Callum chuckled, the sound low and brief, as he crossed to the centre and lowered their satchels with a heavy thump. “Right, then,” he said, glancing between them. “We’ll run drills, same as before. Start with what we know, then work in Confringo and Expulso. After that, we’ll give Igniverto a try.” The last was a spell they had heard whispered in corridors and scribbled in the margins of borrowed books: a focused jet of fire that burned hotter and sharper than the usual Incendio. The notion of wielding flame in such a precise, violent way set Elowyn’s wand thrumming uneasily in his grasp, the kelpie hair core restless and alert, as though it already anticipated the challenge.

They began with defensive magic. Callum squared his shoulders, feet planted firmly, and lifted his wand with measured steadiness. “Protego Maxima!” The shield shimmered into being, but its edges wavered as if the room itself pressed against it. Elowyn followed suit, the rowan wood humming with restrained irritation. His translucent shield flared bright for an instant before faltering, dimming as though starved of strength. “It resists us,” Elowyn said softly, brows knitting. “Perhaps Professor Carrow has set some charm upon it—something to weaken what he does not value.”

“Figures,” Peter muttered, spinning his wand through his fingers with restless energy. “Offence is his thing, isn’t it? Might as well paint the walls scarlet and scrawl Hex First, Ask Questions Later above the door.”

Callum gave a short laugh but gestured sharply for them to ready themselves again. “Defence is harder here. So we practise twice as much. If the room won’t help us, we’ll make do.”

The three of them fell into rhythm. Elowyn cast Protego Maxima again, feeling the strain pull not only at his muscles but at the well of magic deep inside him. He sensed the drain on his magical core, that quiet reservoir of power he had come to understand more fully over the past year. It pulsed with each spell, a measured give-and-take, and he could feel the faint tug of his wand responding, its kelpie hair core bristling in protest at the defensive magic, as though resentful of being used for something so contrary to its nature. Peter’s shield flickered briefly into place, vanishing almost as soon as it appeared. “You’ve nearly got it,” Elowyn said, his voice soft, a current of encouragement beneath the words.

They worked methodically. The air grew alive with the snap and crack of magic as spells ricocheted against conjured targets. Sparks fizzed and burned against the flagstones, the dummies jolting and swaying under the force of the curses. The smell of scorched fabric and ozone grew stronger, clinging to their robes. Peter’s first Expulso shot fizzed and sputtered, veering wide to strike the far wall harmlessly. He grimaced and shook out his arm. “Brilliant. Nearly blasted my own toes off.”

“You’re improving,” Elowyn assured him, stepping close so that their shoulders brushed. “You found the focus. Narrow it next time.”

Callum watched them both with sharp eyes, poised to intervene if Peter’s aim went astray. As he observed Peter’s growing confidence, a flicker of pride moved across his features—Peter was no longer the timid boy who had once shrunk from duels. “Again,” he said simply. “You’ll get it.”

Peter’s next attempt struck true, bursting bright against the target dummy. The crack of impact rang through the room, and a shower of sparks rained down around it. He blinked in surprise, then grinned so wide it lit his face. “Ha! Did you see that?”

“Aye,” Callum said, pride edging his quiet voice. “Well done. Again.” Peter flushed, a ripple of happiness flickering through him at both the success and the rare praise, his grin lingering as he readied himself for another spell.

They shifted to Confringo. Elowyn’s spell thudded like distant thunder as it struck its mark. The blast reverberated through the chamber, a concussive wave pressing against their chests. His wand vibrated in his grip, a thrill of power coursing up his arm. The kelpie hair sang in fierce approval, though beneath it Elowyn felt an undertone of wariness at the raw destruction it channelled. He exhaled slowly, steadying his breath.

After an hour, Callum gestured for them to attempt Igniverto. “Quick bursts,” he instructed. “Not more than two seconds.” He demonstrated, a narrow jet of brilliant blue-white fire erupting from his wand to strike the dummy’s chestplate before winking out. Heat shimmered in the air, washing over them in a brief wave that left the room smelling faintly of charred air and hot metal.

Peter’s attempt came next. His first effort sputtered, the flame spurting weakly and dying with a hiss. He groaned, running a hand through his hair. “It’d be easier to just light a torch.”

“Again,” Callum said firmly. “You’re close.”

Peter tried once more, his stance better, his wrist steadier. This time the flame flared true, bright and controlled. His eyes widened as exhilaration bloomed across his face. “Merlin, I did it.”

Elowyn’s wand thrilled when his turn came, the kelpie hair core rippling with eager energy at the raw violence of the fire magic. He cast the spell, and the flame leapt forth in a fierce, narrow jet that licked hungrily against the dummy’s chest. He practised again and again, the flames growing hotter and truer until the dummy stood fully charred, its surface blackened and smoking before it slowly repaired itself. His wand sang in his grip, resonant and wild, and a conflicted shiver ran through him—he loved the untamed power of it, yet a flicker of fear curled in his chest at how easily it might consume him if he surrendered to it. 

While he practiced, Peter and Callum continued on separate dummies, glancing toward him from time to time. They knew his affinity for fire, knew that the release of wielding such magic was a rare catharsis for their calm, mystical friend. The first time they had seen him unleash flames—burning the tree to ash—they had been afraid. Now they only watched with quiet understanding, knowing Elowyn needed moments like these, when his reserve could finally give way to something fierce and unrestrained.

When Elowyn at last lowered his wand, a faint wisp of smoke still curled upward from the dummy. Peter shot him a crooked grin, wiping sweat from his brow. “You do look terrifying when you do that, you know,” he said, tone warm rather than afraid.

Callum stepped closer, nodding once in quiet agreement. “Aye. Suits you, though. Feels like you’re meant for it.”

Elowyn glanced between them, a shadow of a smile touching his lips. His shoulders sagged faintly, the toll of such violent magic leaving him weary and hollowed out. “Perhaps. It feels…right. And that is what frightens me.”

Peter tilted his head, still grinning. “Good thing you’ve got us, then. We’ll make sure you don’t go burning the castle down.”

Callum stepped in and embraced Elowyn fully, pulling him close in a steady, grounding hold. “We’ll be here. Always,” he murmured.

Peter moved in as well, looping his arms around them both with a grin that softened into something earnest. “Aye,” he said quietly, resting his chin briefly on Elowyn’s shoulder. “Always.”

For several hours they drilled, trading spells in carefully timed sequences. Callum took command easily, guiding them through coordinated attacks: Peter’s sharp Stupefy followed by Elowyn’s explosive Confringo, with Callum anchoring their rhythm through clean, swift Expelliarmus strikes to disarm an imagined foe. Between castings, Callum gave short, clear commands—“Good. Again. Faster this time.” Elowyn’s voice wove between those orders in quieter encouragements that coaxed Peter’s confidence upward with each success. Callum felt a deep, steady pride as Peter’s accuracy sharpened, recognising how far he had come from the boy who once hid his fear behind humour alone.

Peter’s progress was tangible. His stance grew surer, his movements sharper, and his spells struck their marks with growing precision. Each success brought a flash of triumph to his eyes that had been absent at the start of term. The weight of the attack on the McCormack farm and the Slytherin common room had not left them, but here in this room, victory—small though it was—felt possible.

It was during a mock duel that Callum’s instincts shone clearest. A rebounded hex spiralled close to Elowyn, and Callum stepped into its path without hesitation, broad frame shielding him as though it were second nature. “Careful,” he said tersely, lowering his wand once the danger passed. Elowyn inclined his head, gratitude flickering in his dark eyes—an acknowledgment that words could never fully convey. Callum felt a surge of protectiveness—this had become second nature, to stand between Elowyn and danger—and he knew Peter felt the same, his own wand lifting a fraction as though prepared to cover them both.

They pushed themselves until their limbs trembled from effort, the steady drain on their magical cores leaving them light‑headed and raw, a reminder of the cost of power well‑spent. The room bore the evidence of their labour: scorch marks licked the dummies, the stone floor was pitted and blackened in places, and the air smelled faintly of ozone and charred cloth. Peter finally flopped to the floor with a groan, laughing between uneven breaths. “I’m knackered. But—bloody hell, that was brilliant.”

Callum extended a hand to pull him up, chest still heaving with exertion. “Aye. We’re getting there.”

Elowyn stood apart for a moment, wand still humming in his hand as though reluctant to still itself. He looked around the warm, golden-lit chamber, at the faint shimmer of enchantment in the walls, and felt unease stir beneath his breastbone. “It welcomes us,” he said at last, voice quiet and heavy with thought. “Perhaps that is its danger.”

Callum joined him, glancing around at the inviting space. “Aye. Feels more like Hogwarts than anywhere else we’ve been in weeks. Almost makes you forget who built it for us.”

Peter, still catching his breath, pushed his hair back from his forehead and sat cross-legged on the floor, a crooked grin tugging at his lips. “Forget? Not likely. But if we get this good, maybe it won’t matter who made it.”

Elowyn lowered his wand at last, feeling the hum within it fade reluctantly. “Power never comes without cost,” he said softly. “And yet we cannot afford to stop.”

The three of them gathered their things slowly, exhaustion settling over them like a heavy cloak. As they stepped toward the door together, the golden light behind them seemed almost to beckon, as though urging them to return. None of them looked back.

Peter shifted his satchel to free a hand, and without a word Elowyn’s fingers found his. Callum’s hand brushed Elowyn’s before settling there as well, and they walked on in easy silence, the simple contact as natural to them now as breathing.

The corridors felt colder of late, the Castle no longer keeping its warmth as it once had. The memory of the practice room lingered—the golden light, the hum of welcoming magic—a sharp contrast to the draughts that curled along the flagstones now. Their footsteps echoed softly as they made their way to the Great Hall, where they ate a quick dinner without lingering, the fatigue of the afternoon’s practice still heavy in their limbs. They spoke little, exchanging only a few quiet remarks before leaving the hall behind. Steam curled in the en suite showers, washing away sweat and soot until the air felt easier in their lungs. They dressed in the soft comfort of jumpers and shirts suited to rest. Hair still damp, they returned at last to the common room, the weight of the day settling into something quieter as they slipped into their familiar corner by the fire.

The Slytherin common room was quiet that evening, cool and green-hued as always, the firelight throwing long shadows across the carved stone walls. In their usual corner near the seldom-used tertiary fireplace, the triad had settled into their habitual space, a spot worn and familiar, a quiet refuge from the rest of the house.

Elowyn sat upright in one of the armchairs, his dark hair still damp from having washed after practice, a quill in hand as he bent over a neat stack of parchment to write letters to his fathers. A small pot of ink sat to his right, catching the greenish gleam of the firelight. Peter occupied the armchair to Elowyn’s left, a thick book propped open on his knees—the third volume of Elias Gamp’s Of Wand and Will. Callum, as was his habit, preferred the floor. He sat cross-legged at Elowyn’s feet, his head resting lightly against Elowyn’s leg as he worked on an essay for Care of Magical Creatures, the parchment balanced on a conjured writing desk across his knees.

The fire crackled softly in front of them, casting their faces in warm relief. Over the quiet murmur of quills and the occasional rustle of turning pages, fragments of hushed conversations drifted through the room. Older students whispered of dark happenings beyond the Castle walls: the Prophet’s latest proclamations naming more Muggle-borns as enemies, the Quibbler’s defiant articles about Harry Potter and the resistance, the disappearance of well-known witches and wizards. Some murmured of raids and arrests, of the Malfoys’ diminished standing despite Voldemort’s presence in their home, and of how other old families—like the Mulcibers and Selwyns—seemed to be rising in favour. Their patriarchs had remained loyal even during Voldemort’s interregnum, had endured imprisonment in Azkaban for that loyalty, and now, having been broken out alongside the other Death Eaters, were being richly rewarded with power and influence as they became further entrenched in his inner circle. The Ministry’s silence only deepened the unease as Voldemort’s control spread. None of the whispers rose above a murmur, yet the weight of them pressed like a shadow that could not be dispelled.

Peter snorted softly, tapping a finger against a passage in his book as if to punctuate the whispers still circling the room. “Listen to this—apparently some Muggle leaders thought it a fine idea to stockpile enough weapons to blow up the entire world. And then they wondered why everyone was terrified. Honestly, Muggles shouldn’t be allowed near anything more dangerous than a soup spoon.” His grin was crooked, but disbelief flickered in his eyes, the absurdity of what he read oddly at one with the dark rumours humming in the air around them.

Elowyn glanced over briefly, the faintest smile curving his lips. “Fear often fashions its own chains.”

Callum made a low sound of agreement, though he kept writing, quill scratching steadily. “Madness, the lot of them,” he muttered. “Makes you grateful for sheep and soil.”

Not far away, Darius sat with a group of boys and his closest friend Medea Rowle, her severe braid pulled tight and her sharp-featured glare fixed on the room at large. Darius's expression remained locked on Elowyn. His gaze was sharp, filled with loathing that seemed to curdle as he watched the three of them. The others spoke idly among themselves, yet Darius’s eyes did not waver. Elowyn felt the stare after some time and glanced up briefly, meeting it without flinching. Darius’s lip curled, disgust plain on his face.

Elowyn returned to his letters, though his mind lingered on the boy’s fixation. There was something more behind that hatred, something that hovered just beyond Elowyn’s grasp. He could not tell if it was jealousy, obsession, or some darker impulse, but it was constant and unsettling.

As the evening wore on and students began drifting toward the dormitories, Darius rose. His footsteps were measured as he crossed the common room, his eyes never leaving Elowyn. He leaned close as he passed, voice pitched so low that only Elowyn could make out the words, though Peter and Callum could hear the poisonous whisper. “Dug out of the dirt like some unnatural experiment, and yet here you sit, acting as if you belong. We’ll see how long that lasts—how long your little lovers stand by you when the world finally decides to put you back where you came from.”

Callum stiffened, his quill forgotten as he rose sharply to his feet, wand already in hand, fists clenching around it. The sudden movement knocked the conjured writing desk sideways, the ink bottle tipping over—though it righted itself at once, mercifully spill-proof. His chest rose and fell with restrained fury. “You don’t get to speak to him like that,” he said, voice low and taut with anger that had been held back all day but now burned hot. “No one will harm him.”

Peter snapped his book shut with a sharp crack and rose fully from his chair, wand in hand. He stepped to Callum’s side so that the two of them stood together, backs to the fire, braced and ready. Their sudden unity drew the eyes of several nearby students, conversations faltering as more Slytherins turned to watch.

Elowyn rose then as well, wand still in hand, his movements graceful and deliberate. He stepped forward so that the three of them stood together facing Darius, a solid front against his malice. Darius, who had intended to walk away after his whisper, froze when he saw them united before him, the weight of their combined presence holding him in place.

Elowyn looked at Darius, his face unreadable. His voice was quiet but carried a deliberate, cutting weight that stilled the air around them. “You mistake my silence for weakness. That will be your error, not mine.” The words hung between them like a sharpened blade. Darius’s sneer faltered for the briefest moment before he turned sharply and strode away toward the dormitory staircase, retreat plain in his steps. A few students exchanged glances, some shaking their heads as if silently wondering why he had been foolish enough to be so openly cruel. There was a glimmer of something like respect in the looks cast toward the triad—not for brute strength, but for the unspoken unity that had driven Darius back without a single spell cast.

Callum took a step after him, anger flashing in his eyes, but Elowyn turned gracefully and reached to touch Callum’s face, gently guiding it toward his own. His hand lingered, cupping Callum’s cheek as he caught Callum’s golden gaze with his own violet-ringed one. 

Callum’s jaw tightened as he whispered, “I can’t stand by while he threatens you. I won’t.” 

Elowyn’s gaze softened, the steady calm of someone who would not be moved to wrath. “Cal,” he murmured, voice low but carrying the weight of certainty. “He craves our anger. Let us not give him the victory he seeks.”

Darius disappeared up the staircase, his footsteps fading. Callum’s eyes flicked to his retreating form once more as Elowyn slowly lowered his hand from Callum’s cheek, the care between them clear, a quiet reminder of safety and devotion that neither needed to name.

Callum exhaled slowly, his voice low and rough. “I know you’re right,” he said, golden eyes still on the stairs. “But it’s hard, seeing someone I care about treated so. I can’t stand to watch and do nothing.”

Peter gave a lopsided grin, his voice light though edged with fondness. “You didn’t do nothing. Standing there glaring at him like you meant to hex him into next week—pretty sure that was enough to send him running.” 

Callum let out a short, quiet laugh at that, the sound brief but real. Elowyn reached to brush his fingers against Peter’s arm in a silent gesture of gratitude before the three of them returned to their seats. 

The common room gradually returned to its muted rhythm. Peter sank back into his chair, reopening his book with a scowl, while Callum lowered himself once more to the floor, though the tension in his shoulders remained. Elowyn returned to his letters, the quill gliding smoothly across the parchment, but his mind was far from the words he wrote. The image of Darius’s sneer lingered, sour and heavy, a shadow that even the firelight could not banish.

They stayed like that for some time, each falling back into his own task. The warmth of the fire and the quiet familiarity of their corner offered some small comfort, yet unease coiled at the edges of their thoughts. Callum’s head found its way back to Elowyn’s leg, but the tautness in his jaw betrayed his anger. Elowyn’s quill never faltered, though his thoughts remained fixed on Darius and the threat that had hung in his words. The fire popped softly, sending a faint shower of sparks up the chimney. Beyond their corner, the Castle seemed distant and muted, yet Elowyn could still feel its presence—faint and tired, as though it too bore witness to what had just passed. Every so often, Elowyn’s free hand moved in gentle, absent circles against Callum’s shoulder, a quiet reassurance that spoke of care more than words could manage.

When the common room grew quieter and their tasks were finished, they rose at last. The walk down to the dormitory was slow and companionable, the weight of the day settling heavily on their shoulders. They spoke little as they prepared for bed, their movements practiced and wordless, the simple routines of washing and changing into nightclothes comforting in their familiarity.

The dormitory was warmer than the rest of the Castle, as though its magic resisted the chill that had crept into the corridors of late. Perhaps it was Elowyn’s presence—his quiet connection to the Castle—that kept this space from dimming entirely. The half‑circle room glowed with a gentle firelight that softened the shadows cast by the curved stone walls. Their beds, with their serpentine‑carved frames and heavy curtains, stood like sentinels along the arc of the chamber. In a small alcove that had not existed until the day they first entered the room that term—as if the Castle had anticipated their need—the Foe Glass stood in its usual place, its surface dark and still.

The boys had changed into soft nightclothes, shedding the weight of the day with the familiar rhythm of bedtime. Elowyn and Peter had crawled into Peter's bed first, settling beneath the thick quilts while Callum extinguished the last of the lamps. Without a word spoken, Callum slipped in between them. It was unspoken but understood—he needed to be in the middle tonight. Elowyn shifted closer, an arm draping lightly across Callum’s chest, while Peter pressed against his other side, his hand resting near Callum’s shoulder in quiet solidarity.

For a while they lay in silence, the only sounds the soft crackle of the fire and the distant gurgle of water in the pipes. At last Callum spoke, his voice hushed and roughened by exhaustion. “I hate him,” he muttered. “I can’t stand seeing him look at you like that. Like you’re…less than him. Like you’re not meant to be here.”

Elowyn turned his head slightly, his dark hair brushing the pillow. “He looks at what he fears,” he said softly. “He would not hate me so if he did not think I was strong.”

Peter gave a small, drowsy snort. “Strong’s one word for it. I’d say terrifying. You saw his face when you stood up. Nearly wet himself, he did.”

A faint smile curved Callum’s lips, but it faded quickly. “It won’t stop him, though. You know it won’t.”

“No,” Elowyn admitted, his voice calm, though the weight of the truth lingered in the air. “But anger feeds him. And I will not give him that.”

They fell quiet again, the fire popping softly. Sleep tugged at them, heavy and insistent. Callum’s breathing slowed as Elowyn’s arm remained across his chest and Peter’s hand stayed near his shoulder, the three of them curled close beneath the quilts, the steady rhythm of their breaths weaving together in the hush of the dormitory.

But Callum did not yet close his eyes. The sense of foreboding that had coiled in him since Darius’s whispered threat lingered still. His gaze drifted to the Foe Glass in the alcove, its surface dark and glossy. As he watched, the blackness shifted, and a single figure resolved within it—corporeal, distinct, yet faceless. Callum squinted, his breath catching as certainty pooled in his gut. He knew, even without a face, who it was.

It was Darius.

The fire crackled softly, casting brief flickers of light across their entwined forms. Callum’s eyes stayed fixed on the mirror, alert even as weariness tugged at him. Beneath the weight of blankets and the warmth of his friends, he felt both safe and deeply unsettled, the quiet of the room a fragile shell against the shadow of what waited beyond. Somewhere in the stones around them, faint and tired but still present, the Castle seemed to linger—a silent witness keeping its quiet vigil over those it sheltered.

Chapter Text

The air in the Great Hall that Halloween evening felt thick and wrong, as though the room itself were holding its breath in dread. The candlelight, dimmer than usual, flickered low across the long tables, casting shadows not of light, but of shape—jagged and writhing like limbs pinned beneath glass. The enchanted ceiling above showed no stars—only a bruised and roiling canopy of cloud, stained the colour of old blood and churning as if some vast presence paced behind it, unseen but felt. The pumpkins had not been carved with whimsy but with grotesque cruelty—mouths twisted into howls, eyes gouged rather than shaped, their hollow interiors seeping faint trails of dark steam. They grinned, yes, but it was the grin of something unwell.

The feast had not yet begun, but already the Hall felt less like a place of celebration and more like a wake held in the belly of something long dead. The air was close and stale with anticipation, as if the Castle itself resented the evening’s pretense. The long tables stretched out like slabs in a crypt, and students sat in uneasy clumps, their shoulders hunched, voices hushed to murmurs if used at all. Even the ghosts—who drifted in and out as they always had—offered no lightness. Their presence, once a peculiar sort of charm in years past, now felt like an omen. Sir Nicholas’s head tilted a little too far to the side as he passed, and the Grey Lady glided overhead with an expression so remote it seemed she mourned something the rest of them had not yet understood. The Fat Friar’s jolliness had withered into a kind of apologetic silence, and even the Bloody Baron hovered at the far end of the Hall, unmoving. They lent no magic to the moment, only death. Pale echoes bearing silent witness to what Hogwarts had become.

Only Peeves defied the mood. He cackled gleefully from the rafters, swooping low to toss handfuls of spoiled pumpkin guts and whisper absurdities into ears at random. His antics, once merely annoying, now felt unhinged—like a child laughing at a funeral. But somehow, that fit too.

At the Slytherin table, the mood was fractured—a surface of stillness with subtle fractures running through it. Vesper twirled a silver ring around her finger with a steady, distracted rhythm, her eyes occasionally flicking toward Elowyn, Peter, and Callum. Honoria leaned in toward Vesper, her voice low but urgent, her expression drawn tight with something between concern and calculation. Darius, whose family name carried weight even if he never could, nearer the center, his smirk brittle and too self-important for a House that prized circumspection.

The focus of the table, however, still circled around the remaining seventh-years whose surnames carried both history and consequence. Draco Malfoy sat like a statue carved from bone, posture perfect, face expressionless. Beside him, Theodore Nott kept to himself, eyes heavy-lidded but watchful, scanning the Hall as though cataloguing risks. Pansy Parkinson held her chin high and her voice low, murmuring to Daphne Greengrass in a tone that suggested disdain but failed to mask unease. And yet, even with these names gathered in the middle of the long table, glances still drifted down to the triad—Elowyn, Callum, and Peter—newer, younger, but marked by something harder to name.

The Ravenclaws sat in huddled clutches, their usual air of aloof precision traded for a kind of perplexed melancholy. Some spoke in low voices about the feasts of previous years—floating pumpkins that danced to music, spectral musicians who played waltzes in midair, illusions that conjured flocks of spectral bats that swooped in coordinated spirals through the Hall, their wings shedding glimmering trails like smoke spun from moonlight. The younger ones listened wide-eyed, stealing glances upward as though half-expecting the ceiling to remember itself and return to wonder.

The Hufflepuffs kept close to one another, clearly unsettled by the unfamiliar tone of the evening. Some of the older students tried to smile, tried to explain that Halloween at Hogwarts was once something magical and joyful—a night of floating jack-o’-lanterns and warm cider and of laughter echoing off stone. They spoke of past feasts filled with music and mischief, of moments when the Castle itself seemed almost playful. But their attempts at levity died quickly, their voices fading under the weight of the present. The younger ones seemed unsure if this was a trick or a test, and many clung to each other for warmth and comfort, wide-eyed and silent, casting anxious glances at the High Table as though expecting some terrible curtain to rise.

The Gryffindors were quieter than usual, a simmering frustration evident in the stiff way they held themselves. One seventh-year girl spoke tensely about how the Carrows had ruined the last real celebration Hogwarts might have had this year—how even Halloween, a night usually full of daring and mischief, had been hollowed out and made grim. A fifth-year boy muttered something about needing to be ready, always ready, and kept shifting in his seat as though he expected a duel to erupt at any moment. A fourth-year tried to rally a joke about sabotaging the feast with dungbombs but was met with silence and a sharp look from a classmate who clearly didn’t think the Carrows would find it funny. A first-year at the far end kept looking toward the High Table with a kind of frozen dread, her hands clenched in her lap, lips moving silently—as if reciting something to herself, a prayer or a memory or a name she didn’t want to forget.

The wonder was gone. In its place sat something sullen, weighty, and wrong. The air, once charged with anticipation on nights like this, now sagged under the burden of things unspoken. They were different Houses with different demeanors—some cloaked in pride, some in fear, and some in cold resolve—but the words they spoke all orbited the same gravity: the Carrows. The war. The rules that changed like tides, not so much cruel as cunning—crafted to shape thought as much as behavior. And what each of them might do, if it came to doing something at all.

Yet beneath the unease, there was a paradoxical sense of order. This year, Hogwarts felt more like a school than ever before—not in warmth or freedom, but in structure. Lessons were rigorous. Expectations were clear. The Carrows did not lash out in senseless punishment but guided with ideological precision, embedding their vision of the world into every rubric, every reading, every rewritten line of magical history. What disturbed the students most was not brutality, but persuasion.

There was no illusion of comfort tonight, no charm strong enough to soften the edge of dread. It was a feast in name only, a gathering shaped more by absence than presence—of joy, of laughter, and of the very idea that Hogwarts had once been a place of safety. It felt, in its stillness, like the moment just before a verdict is given, or the second before a match is struck in the dark. The air was filled with a quiet not born of reverence, but of reckoning.

The House banners drooped like funeral cloths. And no one dared speak above a whisper. No one laughed. When the Headmaster rose, it was not to command silence, but to speak into a hush already thick with unease. There was no need to quiet the students. They were already watching—heads slightly bowed, shoulders drawn in tight, as though waiting for permission to exhale.

Snape did not raise his arms, nor did he wait for stillness. He merely inclined his head, robes whispering as he moved, and spoke with his usual clipped disdain, as though he had been made to recite something beneath him. "Before we begin the feast, an announcement. The Professors Carrow have seen fit to establish new academic groups—cohorts, if you will—for students who, in their estimation, exhibit promise in particular magical disciplines. Attendance is compulsory. If your name appears, you will attend."

He paused, letting his gaze pass coldly over the Hall, a flicker of contempt barely veiled behind his expressionless mask. "Further information will be posted in the morning. Now, eat."

He sat before anyone had fully absorbed the words, his robes settling around him like smoke. And with that, the feast began—but there was no sense of release, nor was there a rush of conversation or the clatter of serving dishes arriving. The food appeared in silence: roast meats and dark gravies, potatoes dyed purple and black for the occasion, candied figs and floating toffee apples that bobbed unnervingly above their plates. The effect was more ghoulish than festive, as though the meal were a tribute to something ancient and grim. Even the sweets—meant to dazzle—seemed to hover like flies over a putrefying corpse, drawn not by sweetness but by the scent of something rotting beneath the surface. The scent lingered in the air, cloying and unshakable, as if some hidden thing had begun to spoil the moment the feast was conjured.

Elowyn reached for nothing at first. He watched. Alecto Carrow was seated near the High Table’s end, eyes flicking hungrily between students as if weighing their usefulness. Amycus sat slouched beside her, tearing bread with his teeth, his expression unreadable. The other professors—those not aligned with the new order—looked withdrawn, some pale, others stiff in their chairs, as though watching a slow sickness take root.

Peter began to fill his own plate—heaping it generously with roast beef, blackened potatoes, and candied figs. Then, without being asked, he reached for Elowyn’s as well, adding only what he knew would be eaten: roast parsnips, minted peas, a neat scoop of the pumpkin gratin, and two honey-brushed buns. He would have filled Callum’s too, but Callum was already helping himself, his movements economical, eyes flicking briefly toward the High Table and then back down again.

Peter paused in his motions, spoon still in hand, and glanced sideways at Elowyn. Elowyn had yet to speak again, his gaze still fixed somewhere just beyond the table—as if watching not the people, but the pattern beneath them. "You all right?" Peter asked, voice low.

Elowyn blinked, finally turning toward him. "Yes," he said, though it sounded more like a reflex than truth. He took the plate and nodded his thanks, but his mind was still elsewhere. Snape’s clipped announcement still hung over the Hall, and though the chatter had swelled in uneasy bursts, none of it seemed to settle. Elowyn had been silent for much of it, watching the High Table with the same measured attention he might give to an approaching storm. Peter kept glancing his way, noting the tightness in his jaw, the slight pause before he reached for anything on the table. The air itself felt taut, as though the walls were listening. 

Elowyn took a slow bite, more for appearance than appetite—the taste registering only dimly—and the moment seemed to draw the Hall itself into a kind of suspended breath. Vesper and Honoria sat across from the triad speaking in low tones over their untouched plates. Somewhere along the Gryffindor table, a fork clattered to the floor, startling more than one head to turn.

“Do you think it’s for punishment or praise?” Peter asked quietly, glancing at his plate. He had heaped it with roast and potatoes, but now only picked at them. His fork scraped gently at the purple and black potatoes as if trying to find some reassurance in its shape.

Callum shrugged. “Could be both. Depends what they want out of it. Might say it’s about ‘promise,’ but that could mean anything. Could mean obedience. Could mean skill.”

Elowyn finally reached for a small roll, his hand lingering near the butter. “Snape said ‘particular promise,’ not loyalty. Which means they’re watching more than just House lines. They’re measuring…something else.”

Peter frowned. “But they didn’t say what kind of study. It could be anything. History, maybe. Or spell theory. Maybe dueling.”

Callum made a low sound of disagreement. “If it were something proper, Flitwick or Sprout would be involved. They’re not.”

“It’s all very secretive,” Vesper said, her tone even, each word deliberate. “If they intend to sort us, I’d prefer it be done by someone whose judgment commands respect. These two are…serviceable, perhaps, but hardly refined.”

Honoria arched a brow, her voice carrying the cool precision of a verdict already passed. “Their grandfather fancied himself a wandmaker—unlicensed, untrained. He’d strip the true cores from second-hand wands and replace them with murtlap fur or crup tail hair. Harmless things, faintly magical at best. Then he’d parade them about as ‘dragon heartstring’ or ‘unicorn hair,’ as if deception could elevate his station. Common stock masquerading as craftsmen—it’s almost laughable.”

Peter gave a small huff of laughter, though it quickly faded. “You lot seem less worried than I expected. If I’d known wand forgery was such a crime against magical civilization, I’d have reported my brother years ago—he once tried to enchant a twig with toothpaste and swore it’d hex our neighbor’s cat.”

“Worried?” Honoria repeated, a faint curl to her lip. “Not in the slightest. The Carrows are aligned with the right causes. They’re simply…coarse.”

Vesper’s gaze was steady, almost weighing him. “The question is whether they seek true skill, or merely bloodlines and obedience.”

“A bit of both,” Elowyn said quietly, his eyes distant. “But I think it’s deeper than that. They’re pulling threads—seeing which ones hold, which ones snarl, and which fray to nothing. They want division, yes, but not just in loyalty. They’re searching for the grain in each of us, testing the weave to see what unravels when the pressure comes.”

Callum’s eyes narrowed. “And they’re watching how we respond—how we speak to each other, who backs down. It’s not about the lessons. It’s about control.”

Honoria toyed with a slice of roast pumpkin, gaze steady. “Control in the hands of people with such lineage is…distasteful. Better to seem the model pupils, let them think us docile while we gauge exactly how far they’ll reach—and where their grasp begins to falter.”

“Or,” Peter said slowly, “we don’t waste our time putting on a show for them. We take what’s useful, compare notes when we’re out of earshot, and keep it between us.”

Vesper studied him for a long moment, a faintly amused glint in her eye. “Not all of us here will be chosen, you realise.”

“That might not be a bad thing," Elowyn said at last. "Being chosen could bring more danger than benefit—and I’m not convinced their favour is worth the cost.”

For a while, they sat with the weight of the exchange, each turning it over in their minds. The feast, never festive to begin with, seemed now only a prelude to something grim—a hush before the blow. The scrape of cutlery was muted, the hum of wary whispers threading through the air. Across the room, the Ravenclaws passed folded bits of parchment between them, their heads bent in quick counsel. The Gryffindors, bunched near the end of their table, looked thunderous, while a few Hufflepuffs had gone utterly still, eyes fixed warily on the High Table.

The feast dragged on. Dishes refilled without joy; the pumpkin juice tasted faintly bitter. When dessert arrived, Callum pushed his plate away entirely. Elowyn barely touched his pudding. Peter tried to act as though everything was fine, but every time Alecto laughed—from the deep, wet throat—a tremor ran down his spine.

They left together once the food vanished. Vesper and Honoria moved ahead without comment, their footsteps echoing softly against the stone corridor. It wasn’t invitation so much as allowance—they didn’t wait, but they didn’t stray far either. Their presence, like so much else that year, carried layers. They weren’t friends, not truly, but there was a mutual awareness—born of proximity, survival, and the quiet understanding that being second-years in a thinned and fractured House meant something. For now, it meant this: they walked together into whatever came next.

Their dormitory welcomed them with its familiar, muted warmth—so different from the chill of the Common Room and the corridors beyond. The low fire in the hearth painted the curved stone walls in soft gold, making the green hangings seem deeper, richer. Callum stripped down to his boxers without thought, padding toward the en suite while Peter began pulling off his robes, tossing them onto the trunk at the foot of his bed. Elowyn moved more slowly, placing his neatly folded garments into his wardrobe before disappearing into the en suite with his silk pyjamas draped over one arm.

They passed each other in the doorway, quiet in the easy rhythm they had settled into over the last year. The sound of running water and the faint scent of soap drifted through as they moved about at once. Peter emerged with damp hair, padding barefoot toward his bed while Callum, still in his boxers, returned from rinsing off to warm himself briefly by the fire before climbing into Peter's bed. 

When Elowyn returned, he found them both waiting—Peter leaning against the headboard, Callum stretched out beside him, each wearing the quiet, knowing look that came when they sensed his thoughts were troubled. Without a word, they shifted, arms and shoulders angling to draw him in. Elowyn slipped under the covers between them, the silent press of their warmth a reassurance against the weight of the day, settling into the hush that always came before sleep. The sconces along the wall had already begun their slow, magical dimming, leaving the hearth’s glow to paint them in soft green-hued amber.

Peter, lying behind Elowyn with his arms wrapped loosely around him, let his voice break the hush at last—low and uncertain, his breath warm against Elowyn’s ear. “You think they’ll choose any of us?” he murmured into the dimness, the question balanced uneasily between genuine curiosity and a thin thread of dread.

“Could be one. Could be all," Callum murmured, his hands loosely holding Elowyn’s as he faced him in the dim glow. "Snape said it’s mandatory, and they might even decide to split us on purpose—just to see what happens when they pull us apart."”

Peter grimaced. “I hope they don’t pick any of us. Worst case, they take one or two and leave the rest out. That’d be as bad as all of us going—maybe worse.”

“And if they do?”

“Then we go,” Elowyn said quietly. “But we keep our eyes open. We watch each other’s backs. And we don’t forget what they’re trying to do.”

Peter made a small, thoughtful noise, shifting closer until his shoulder pressed into Elowyn’s. “Feels like the school’s already split enough without this. If they’re trying to wedge us apart, they might actually manage it.”

“It does,” Elowyn agreed, though his voice was distant.

Gradually, Peter’s breathing deepened, his chest rising and falling against Elowyn’s back, while Callum’s followed in a steady, untroubled rhythm, his hands still loosely cradling Elowyn’s in the space between them. Elowyn lay awake in their hold, eyes fixed on the door lost in shadow. The thought circled back again and again: the Houses had always divided them. Now the Carrows would slice those divisions even finer. He could feel the shape of it already—threads pulled tight, ready to snap. In the quiet, framed by Peter’s warmth at his back and Callum’s steady grip before him, the sense of containment that had crept into the Castle since their return felt heavier, more deliberate, as though stone and magic alike were being bent into a cage. At last, he drifted into a troubled sleep, his dreams thick with foreboding.

The morning came slowly, seeping into the dormitory like a tide reluctant to rise. The fire had burned low in the hearth, leaving only a bed of faintly glowing embers whose warmth lingered in the gentle curve of the half-circle room. The sconces had not yet brightened, and the chamber remained wrapped in that tender, in-between dimness when night has not fully relinquished its hold. From the windows set into the curve of the ceiling, the first light of the morning filtered down through the lake above, its rays diffused into a muted, watery green that slid across the floor in rippling patterns. 

Elowyn woke first, though he could not say if he had truly slept at all, his rest troubled and shallow, and he could not have said what roused him—perhaps the faint crack of stone settling, or the cool breath of air drifting from the en suite door left slightly ajar. He had barely shifted in the night. Peter lay behind him, one arm curled loosely around his waist, his breath slow and even against the back of Elowyn’s neck. Before him, Callum still held his hands lightly clasped between his own, his close-cropped hair lying in soft, sleep-tousled wisps at his crown, the bare curve of his shoulders warmed by the shared cocoon of blankets.

For a long moment, Elowyn did not stir. The weight of the day ahead pressed at the edges of his thoughts, unwelcome but steady. Something in the air felt different—quieter, as though the whole House were holding still. Somewhere in the Castle, a list had been posted. Its existence was a certainty, as inevitable as the tide.

Peter shifted next, his arm tightening briefly as if to be sure Elowyn was still there. “Morning?” he mumbled, voice rough with sleep.

“Morning,” Elowyn answered softly, though the word carried no brightness.

Callum’s eyes opened to the dim, their steady gold fixing briefly on Elowyn. “We should get up,” he said at last, though his tone lacked conviction, and he made no move to rise.

They disentangled themselves slowly, as if the pace of their movements might somehow slow the day. The moment Callum swung his legs from the bed, the sconces along the walls began to brighten by slow degrees, and the fire in the hearth rekindled itself with a soft crackle, its flames reaching higher as though stirred from slumber. Callum left first, padding barefoot across the warm stone toward the en suite. Peter followed with a jaw-cracking yawn, dragging a hand through his hair as the first rush of water sounded from within. Elowyn lingered on the mattress’s edge, letting the warmth of the blankets fall away as his feet sank into the thick rug. For a moment he sat there, toes curling into the weave, the dimness wrapping close around him. Then he rose in a slow, unhurried stretch, arms lifting above his head, shoulders loosening in the cool air. The movement felt more ceremonial than practical—a quiet bracing for what lay ahead—before he crossed to his wardrobe, fingers trailing along the carved edge as he opened it to choose his clothes for the day.

The sounds of their routine filled the room: water splashing in basins, the gentle clink of bottles set down on stone counters, the muted scrape of drawers opening. Callum reappeared first, towelling his hair before flicking his wand to chase away the last dampness. As he crossed back into the room, the sconces brightened fully, their steady glow meeting the fire’s rekindled crackle. The hearth now burned hot and bright, casting long, shifting shadows across the warm stone floor.

Peter emerged a moment later, already dressed but barefoot, lingering in the deep warmth radiating from the newly rekindled flames. Elowyn eventually stepped into the en suite, though he need not have waited—its generous space and fittings easily accommodated them all at once. Still, he moved with deliberate precision, as if each act were a quiet ritual. He washed his face slowly with Koesmade soap, letting the familiar scent rise in gentle curls of steam, then smoothed on the creams Emrys had made for him, and finally brushed his hair with the silver-handled brush from Thaddeus—every gesture unhurried, each motion measured, as though he were setting the tone for the day to come.

By the time he emerged from the en suite, serene and composed, his pale skin seeming almost to glow like soft moonlight in the newly lit room, the sconces were fully aglow and the air had lost its pre-dawn chill. Callum’s gaze caught on him, momentarily struck by how beautiful Elowyn was—the shimmer of violet-ringed dark blue eyes meeting his own, the pale radiance of his skin, the quiet poise in every movement. Elowyn offered one of his soft, quiet smiles before turning toward his wardrobe to dress. Yet the heaviness lingered, unmoved by light or warmth. They finished dressing in silence, the unspoken pressing closer than words might have allowed. Peter broke it at last with a small sigh, glancing toward the door. “It’ll be there by now.”

No one argued. They knew it was true.

Together, they crossed the dormitory, the door shutting behind them with the quiet finality of a page turned. Their steps carried them unhurriedly through the common room’s muted silvery-green glow, then upward through the cool hush of the dungeons, each corridor leading them nearer to the day’s reckoning. When they emerged into the Castle’s vast entrance hall, the air felt heavier, charged with the murmurs of gathered students clustered before two lists—one affixed to each side of the Great Hall’s towering doors. 

They crossed the last stretch of the entrance hall together, the hush of the dungeons still clinging to their robes like cool mist. The air here felt heavier, a current pressed by whispers and the dry rasp of parchment against stone. At either side of the Great Hall’s high doors, fresh notices had been pinned up with lacquered tacks—two lists, each bearing a new seal: one stamped with a prim wreath and the words Heritage Advancement Club, the other with a coiled serpent entwined around crossed wands, Martial Spellcraft Club. Even their names were careful masks: Alecto’s club for the “preservation and uplift of wizarding heritage,” and Amycus’s for “applied offense,” both titles polished smooth so the splinters wouldn’t show.

They reached the nearer parchment first. Peter stepped closest, almost despite himself, eyes skimming down the column of names until his breath caught. “I’m on it,” he said, too quietly to be boast, too quickly to be anything but honest surprise. His name—Peter Alaric Ainsley—sat there in neat, uncompromising ink beneath the prim seal. He turned at once, guilt and a fragile light warring in his face. Elowyn’s answering smile was soft and real. Callum’s chin dipped once, a steadying nod. Neither of them begrudged him the flicker of gladness; they had all been starved too long for any kind of good thing.

“Let’s see the other,” Callum murmured.

They crossed the threshold of murmurs to the second posting. Martial Spellcraft Club. The handwriting here was sharper, as if the quill had been cut on a whetstone. Callum’s name leapt at them—Callum Niall McCormack—anchored midway down. He exhaled, a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding. “Right,” he said, and if a hint of pride warmed the word, it was quiet and clean. Peter clapped his shoulder once, quick and sure.

Elowyn looked from one list to the other. His name was on neither. Relief, quiet and deep, unfurled in him—he had no wish to join either, no desire to be drawn further into whatever snares these clubs might lay. The absence was not a wound, not exactly—more a hollowness, a shape he recognised as safety for now. “Good,” he said softly, and meant it—for them. He watched Peter’s smile falter, then steady; watched the light settle behind Callum’s eyes like coals banked for later. He was glad—truly—but the lists themselves felt like cracks widening in old stone, and he could not shake the sense that being chosen might bring danger swifter than it brought honour.

For four months the three of them had lived a single braid of days—sleeping, eating, training, studying—shoulder to shoulder until the hours forgot how to separate them. Only in Lanwynn Koes had they drifted, and then only to help: Peter with Thaddeus in the shop, Callum with Meryn on the warding lines, Elowyn with Kenver among the hedgerows and roots. Even their quiet had been shared. Now two neat columns threatened to pull at the weave in opposite directions.

Elowyn felt it first—the way the hall’s murmurs shifted tone as news rippled outward. He heard excitement, triumph, and the thin, bright edge of something sharper. The Slytherins closest to the lists wore a sheen of satisfaction, voices pitched high with approval, while further off the Gryffindors grumbled openly, Ravenclaws muttered in clipped disapproval, and a few Hufflepuffs voiced their displeasure with blunt, carrying honesty. He lifted his gaze to the crowd and saw how the lists sorted faces: this one relieved, that one stiff with resentment, a third already calculating. He was happy for Peter, and for Callum too, but beneath it lay a worry that the school—already splintered—was being asked to fracture again, this time with smiles and stamped seals.

“Breakfast?” Peter said, because the only thing to do now was keep moving.

“Breakfast,” Callum agreed.

They entered the Great Hall to a low susurrus of Saturday voices. Light pooled in gold along the tables, but it had the muted cast of torchlight fighting through fog—the enchanted ceiling above no longer an open reflection of the world outside, but a pale, imperfect mimicry of a morning sky. It felt thinner, strained, as though some unseen hand had drawn tight cords over it.

At the Slytherin table, two familiar figures had claimed their places early: Honoria Mulciber sat perfectly composed, a hand at her goblet as though she had been born posing for portraits; Vesper Selwyn leaned back with languid ease, eyes glinting over the rim of a teacup. They had been airy and dismissive about the clubs last night, but their presence here before most students had risen from their beds said what their mouths did not. Both spared the boys a cool, measuring glance that carried its own quiet admission: of course they had expected to be chosen. Fathers’ names had a way of writing themselves on parchment before quills were uncapped.

Farther down, Darius had made himself a trumpet. “Heritage Advancement, naturally,” he was saying to anyone who would listen—and to those who wouldn’t, louder. “Standards must be kept. Surprised they’re keeping some of these…elements at all. Did you see? The Dirtborn wasn’t on any list.” His gaze slid deliberately toward Elowyn, the gleam in his eyes a mingling of glee and malice. His laugh rang brittle as cut glass. A few older students smirked without looking up; a first-year flinched and stared at his plate.

Callum’s jaw tightened. Peter’s mouth pressed thin. Elowyn let the words pass him like cold air and moved to the bench opposite Honoria and Vesper, where the light fell warm across the wood. He slid in, and the others followed, the familiar geometry of their places reknitting itself without thought—Callum a wall at Elowyn’s right shoulder, Peter close at his left. Platters drifted within reach. The food smelled as it always did: bread and butter and heat, the house elves' stubborn insistence on comfort. For a moment, they let the ordinary do its small, stubborn work.

Honoria’s gaze lingered, a faint curl to her lip. “Well,” she said, “at least some of us have been chosen to be useful.”

Peter arched a brow. “Useful, or decorative?”

Vesper smirked into her cup. “Perhaps both. The Carrows do love their showpieces.”

Elowyn met her look evenly. “Sometimes a place in their display case is just a better view of the cage.”

“Cages can be comfortable,” Honoria replied, her tone light but her eyes cool. “Especially when one is on the right side of the bars.”

“Comfort doesn’t make them any less a cage,” Elowyn said softly.

After breakfast,” Elowyn murmured so only Peter and Callum could hear, his eyes on the toast he was buttering with slow, careful strokes, “we’ll plan. Whatever these clubs are meant to be, we’ll decide how to be inside them. Or beside them.”

Peter nodded. Callum did too. Though the lists were now out of sight in the Entrance Hall beyond the open doors, Elowyn felt their presence like a draught creeping under a closed door—two new fault lines inked into the life of the school. The weight in his chest, coiled since the feast, drew tighter. The boys ate and breathed in unison, each aware of the others, holding close to the small space between them, as if keeping it narrow might slow the widening fractures beyond their table.

Chapter Text

The library was dimmer than it ought to have been, even for a Saturday morning in early November. Though the enchanted sconces lining the walls were lit, their glow seemed unable to stretch beyond a few feet, caught and swallowed by the hush that had settled over the Castle like a second skin. Shadows clung to the high arches, and the vaulted ceiling—once charmed to provide a soft diffuse light—now loomed low and heavy, dulled to a blotchy blur of greyed stone. The Castle’s magic, like a creature cowed, remained silent and sullen, retreating deeper with each passing day.

Still, in the farthest corner of the library—where the air held the faint scent of parchment, ink, and the sharp-green trace of a modern preservation tonic used on the circulating collection (never on items in the Restricted or Sequestered Section, whose volumes were too old or unstable to accept such treatments)—the triad sat close around a table scattered with books, quills, and notes. They spoke in Cornish, their voices low and sure, the cadence of it easy now—woven into their days like the delicate weave of an exquisitely made cloth, each thread drawn close, stronger for its place among the others. What had begun as a precaution had grown into something more rooted: a quiet thread of belonging pulled between them, even here. The Castle no longer felt like theirs, but the language still did.

Their usual spot—a pocket of quiet carved out of a world grown brittle—offered little warmth, but it offered each other, and that was something. The lamplight haloed Peter’s hair as he bent low over Elowyn’s notes, quill tapping lightly against the parchment. Elowyn sat across from him, shoulders upright but gaze shadowed. Callum had taken the seat to Elowyn’s right, his movements precise, efficient, as he underlined a passage with sure strokes.

Peter gave a small, low whistle, pointing at a line Elowyn had written. "Wait, that’s not how she put it. Professor Alecto said Muggles resisted magical integration—like they were rejecting us—and then used that to argue for the 'necessity of heritage protections.' Which is a fancy way of saying keep them out."

Elowyn nodded once, the motion precise, and flicked his wand to vanish the line. “She reworded every concept until prejudice passed for protection,” he said softly. “By the time she claimed magical decline stemmed from mixed households, her logic had twisted so subtly it wore the shape of reason. That’s the danger of it.”

Callum didn’t look up. “Twelve inches by tomorrow, and one of her specially written readings,” Callum muttered, not looking up. “It started with a Muggle war—something about scorched earth—and ended by implying that magical-born kids in Muggle families are…volatile by nature. She never says it outright, but it’s all there, tucked between metaphors. A kind of slow rot. Or a fault line waiting to give.”

Peter tapped the end of his quill, eyes still on the parchment. “I still can’t believe they put us in separate ones. Heritage Advancement. Martial Spellcraft. Sounds like dueling clubs curated by a taxidermist.”

“Not clubs,” Elowyn said softly. “Divisions.”

Peter sat back, brow furrowed, and glanced toward Elowyn, his quill pausing mid-tap. Then, with a hesitant reach, he touched Elowyn’s arm—brief, uncertain, like he was still learning how to offer comfort. “Still don’t get why they left you off. You’re brilliant with magic—especially dueling. Professor Amycus should be fawning over you.”

Callum didn’t look up, but the line of his jaw tightened. “Might be blood.”

Elowyn gave a faint, dry sound—too soft for a laugh. “Pure by blood,” he said, his tone even, almost detached. “But I suspect it’s not blood they object to. It’s what doesn’t fit cleanly into their lines.”

Peter scratched behind his ear, then glanced sidelong at Elowyn with a crooked grin. "Maybe it’s the whole planting-in-the-earth bit. Too druid-y for the Carrows. Oh and can’t forget about An Dar’s sprinkling a bit of ancient forest magic into you—well. You’re basically a one-boy forest rebellion. They’re probably worried you’ll start growing roots mid-duel."

They laughed—Callum with a low, surprised bark, Elowyn with a softer laugh that curled at the edges like smoke. Peter’s eyes shone, forget-me-not blue and wide with delight, even as they darted between the others to catch the sound again. Callum’s golden eyes crinkled at the corners, a rare burst of light in them, while Elowyn’s—deep blue ringed with violet—held a shimmer like the sky just before nightfall. For a moment, the heaviness in the room lifted. Even the Castle, dulled and dim, seemed to lean in toward the sound as if reminded of something it had almost forgotten. Madame Pince, gliding past with a trail of floating books in tow, gave a sharp shush without turning her head, and vanished again between the stacks like a ghost wearing spectacles.

Callum finally set his quill down. “They don’t like things they don’t understand.” His voice was quiet, but something hard glinted beneath it. He looked at Elowyn, then reached out and placed his hand gently beside Peter’s. “You don’t fit their story.” Their hands remained where they were, still resting on Elowyn’s arm, no longer just comfort but a quiet claim—protective, unyielding, shared now.

“No,” Elowyn murmured, gaze distant. “I was written in another script.” Gently, without fanfare, both hands withdrew from his arm—Peter’s first, then Callum’s—leaving behind not absence, but quiet affirmation.

Peter glanced at him sideways. “So what’s the plan then?”

“You both go,” Elowyn said, voice quiet but assured. “You listen closely. Write everything down. Then we come back here—every time—and speak it aloud in our own words. We’ll trace the shape of what they’re trying to build. And if it isn’t built for care, or shelter, or good—we’ll find something stronger to raise in its place.”

Peter reached over and nudged Elowyn’s scroll slightly closer. “We keep moving. Together.”

Callum exhaled, but there was tension in it. “Just feels wrong. Like they’re testing us already—splitting the rope just to see if it frays.”

Elowyn met his eyes. “Then we show them what a braid does under pressure.”

A pause fell between them.

“We’ll keep each other informed,” Elowyn said at last, voice soft but steady. “If they mean to splinter what we’ve built, they’ll find the weave more stubborn than they expect.”

Peter smiled faintly and leaned in until his shoulder pressed lightly against Elowyn’s. “What are we calling it, then? Operation Stick Together? Sounds like something that backfires in Potions and glues your hands to your eyebrows. Or worse, glues your eyebrows to someone else’s hands.”

Callum let out a low chuckle, the kind that came more easily now when Peter was involved. Elowyn arched an eyebrow, but his smile was real. “Then let’s hope we get the ingredients right.”

Callum passed a book toward Elowyn without comment, but his fingers lingered just long enough to make the gesture feel like more than convenience. Elowyn’s hand brushed his as he took it, a small point of warmth that grounded more than it startled.

The library’s hush returned, broken only by the gentle scratch of quills and the distant creak of floorboards under some unseen student’s tread. It was a rhythm they had grown used to—this quiet study, this silent closeness—but something in it now felt thinner, as though time itself had become a membrane about to tear.

When the quarter-hour bell sounded, it was softer than usual, as if muffled by the very walls. Peter sighed and sat back. “Well,” he said, closing his book with a reluctant thump, “I suppose the Ministry of Magic Department's of Misinformation and Muggle Management await.”

Callum stood, stretching until his spine popped faintly. He glanced at Elowyn. “You’ll be all right?”

“Naturally,” Elowyn said, his gaze never lifting from the parchment. “Leave yours—I’ll see them through. No sense in each of us drowning separately.”

Peter rose last, clapping Callum lightly on the back. “If either of us comes back with a new tattoo or a loyalty oath, tell Thaddeus to bury us under the herb beds.” He handed his scroll across the table, and Callum followed suit, sliding his own beside it. “They’re all yours, love. Try not to make us sound too clever—it’ll be suspicious.”

Elowyn didn’t blink at the word, but he tucked it away. Peter rarely used terms like that—and when he did, it meant something. “I’ll make certain the grave is shaded,” Elowyn murmured.

They exchanged small smiles—light, but not careless—and turned to go. Elowyn watched them disappear into the library’s deeper shadows, their shapes briefly illuminated by a shaft of cold afternoon light from a high window. The moment they passed beyond it, something shifted. The light remained, but it no longer felt warm. Just…absent.

He sat very still for a long time. The Castle’s quiet pressed in again—not oppressive, but observant, like a breath held between heartbeats. It was not the silence of peace but the silence of something withheld, as if the stones themselves were watching, waiting to see what would unfold now that the triad’s rhythm had been split. The air felt thinner, as though a spell had been half-cast and left lingering. Elowyn turned back to his books, but his fingers faltered just above the page. His eyes passed over the ink, but the meaning blurred, untethered from sound or sense. The emptiness beside him was not loud, but it was precise.

They had not been parted within the walls of the Castle like this—not since Peter had opened his eyes again last winter, not since the triad had begun moving through the world with one breath, and as one body growing into one slow-blooming bond. To sit alone, even in their usual place, felt wrong in a way that touched bone. And underneath it all—quieter than a whisper, deeper than a chill—was the feeling that something had cracked. It had not broken, not yet, but it was shifting. As though a seam had given way in the foundation of things, and now waited, patient and silent, for the fracture to widen.

He could not explain it, not even to himself. But the Castle knew. The library knew. Their magic—what little of it still hummed in these dim corners—recognized the parting not as absence, but imbalance. Like a tapestry with one thread pulled loose, its shape altered even if the color remained.

The seat across from him still held Callum’s warmth. Peter’s quill had been left at the edge of the table, as if it too were waiting. A book near Elowyn’s elbow closed with a gentle thump, unaided, as though to mark the moment.

He stared at the page in front of him, though he could not have said what it held. What had begun as a fissure now felt like a line drawn in something deeper than stone. And yet—he would not let this be the thread that unraveled them. Not yet and certainly not here.

The air shifted softly, just once, and the faint scent of moonwort returned, curling into his awareness like a memory pressed between pages. The Castle was listening. And so, Elowyn vowed silently, he would answer.

—

The classroom looked much as it did during Magical Domination and Control, but everything felt magnified. The space seemed larger somehow—more dummies, more students, and a deeper quiet that pressed close to the skin. Even the torchlight, cold and unwavering, seemed sharper, casting shadows with a precision that made the air itself feel intentional. There was no clutter here. The walls bore only faint echoes of their former selves, outlines where portraits had once hung, and the stone had been scrubbed so clean it gleamed like a blade. Even the propaganda posters had been removed—a distraction, Callum thought, for what would happen here. What struck him most wasn’t the layout—it was the feeling. There was more purpose in the room now, more silence and with it an overwhelming sense of discipline. And among the students gathered, many he recognized by name or rumor—duelists with top marks in offensive casting, who were whispered about in corridors as not to be challenged lightly. This wasn’t just a club. It was a crucible.

Callum stood near the back of the group, wand loose in his fingers, shoulders square, knees slightly bent as if waiting for a blow that might never come. The air smelled of burnt ozone and something sharper—old copper and singed cloth along with the tang of metal and heat clinging to the stone walls like a second skin. He rolled one shoulder, then the other, feeling the stretch of old bruises bloom and settle beneath the surface, the ache a familiar comfort. His boots were planted with care, toes angled just enough to shift easily if needed, and he adjusted his grip on the wand not out of nerves but out of need—to feel the grain of wood against his skin. His wand pulsed with readiness in his palm.

He liked the weight of himself. The push and pull of his body in motion. He felt freest when he could feel the stretch of tendon and the tight coil of muscle—it was a language he trusted more than words. Magic moved through him like blood through the body, and it told the truth even when nothing else did. It reminded him where he ended and the world began, and that the place between was where choice lived. As he shifted his stance again, pressing his weight into the balls of his feet, he let the pain hum low in his ribs. Pain, well held, was direction. It pointed. It refined. And here, in this space of silence and spellwork; it made him sharper.

Professor Amycus stood at the front, calm and steady-eyed. He didn’t bark commands or pace like a man spoiling for a fight. He waited until silence fell like a tomb and then spoke with quiet certainty of the kind that left no room for dissent.

“Seven spells,” Amycus said simply. “Offensive only. You will cast until your arm aches and your grip falters, and then you will cast again. Not because repetition builds strength—but because it erodes hesitation. And hesitation, in battle, is death. Impedimenta, Stupefy, Flipendo, Reducto, Confringo, Expulso, Bombarda.”

He gave only the list. No theory. No purpose. Just the command.

The room remained still, listening.

As Callum raised his wand and stepped into position, he began to feel the shape of it. The logic unspoken but deliberate. Start with Impedimenta—slow your opponent, make them vulnerable. Then Stupefy—stun if you can, stop them cold. If they resist, use Flipendo to knock them back, gain space. Follow with Reducto—blast through shields, barriers, breath. Then the fire spells—Confringo, Expulso—sear, rupture. Finally, Bombarda—the finisher, the one that didn’t wound but destroyed.

It made sense. Too much sense.

He moved through it with steady hands, each spell fitting into the rhythm of breath and muscle. His wand followed the arc as though the knowledge lived in the body, not the mind. And still, his thoughts drifted—back to the practice sessions that felt nothing like this. He’d done similar drills before—out past the Marwood-Travers' cottage under the hedge trees, or by the lake last year, where the reeds whispered like old friends and Elowyn’s hair had caught the late summer light like threads of black glass spun by fae.

Even now, as he thought back to one of their many practice sessions, Elowyn didn’t look quite real. There was something about him—something other—that no amount of familiarity could dim. Callum could remember a dozen moments from their sessions by the lake: the way the breeze would lift the edges of Elowyn’s robes, how his wandwork moved like water, graceful and inevitable. His magic never felt like attack—it felt like an invocation, it felt like a prayer calling something forth that was already waiting. Elowyn didn’t strike. He asked, and the world answered.

Remembering it now, in this room of sweat and discipline and the harsh crack of offensive spells, made Callum ache with a kind of grief. Not for something lost. But for something sacred that might not survive the winter to come. Elowyn was a hush to him; he was a kind of stillness that made Callum think of standing stones and deep wells. The curve of his neck, the way his eyes—blue so dark they verged on violet—reflected sunlight like pooled twilight, made his chest feel heavy and light at once, like standing too close to a cliff’s edge. Otherworldly—that was the word for him. Not just in the usual sense, but in the way old stories his Mamó spoke of children taken by the fae at birth and replaced with something finer and stranger—replaced with something unearthly. Elowyn had a quiet dissonance about him, as if the world he moved through had been shaped around him rather than the other way around—too sharp in his grace, too soft in his silences, and too wholly unlike anyone else.  And Callum—Callum could hardly fathom the grace of being held in his orbit. That someone like Elowyn would not only see him, but choose him, freely and fully—it filled him with something bright and steady. It filled him with a kind of quiet gladness that lived beneath his ribs.

And Peter—Peter was the opposite. Not quiet or still, but loud in the ways that mattered. All sharp grins and sun-warmed mischief, like a spell cast to summon joy. His hair never lay flat, always a little wild, like he’d just rolled out of bed or barely outrun some happy chaos. His nose was dusted with freckles, his sleeves always rumpled, his collar slightly askew—as if he lived half a step ahead of himself. But it was his eyes that undid Callum most. Forget-me-not blue, bright and wide open, always alight with something—humor, mischief, care. They didn’t just look; they noticed. And when they landed on Callum, it felt like being named. There was a pull to Peter, magnetic and fierce, but it wasn’t Elowyn’s starlit gravity—it was the warmth of something lit from within. A fire in winter. A roof against rain. A heartbeat in a quiet room. He made Callum feel like he could be a boy again—not forged or burdened, but whole. Peter’s nearness didn’t overwhelm—it welcomed. It sparked something slow and golden behind Callum’s ribs and spread outward, steady and sure. He made Callum want to laugh too loud. To be touched. To be known. Not because it was rare, but because it was real.

Elowyn belonged to another realm entirely, as if shaped by the old magic that threaded through standing stones and half-forgotten songs. He was of myth, of stillness, of some delicate and devastating beauty that felt just out of reach. But Peter—Peter lived here. In the world of words and jokes and bruises and breath. And Callum—he lived between them. He was the weight that kept them tethered to something solid. He needed them both, the star and the flame. And in some strange, unsayable way, he felt they needed him too. Because even stars need gravity. Even fire needs shelter.

As he continued practicing the sequence, he remembered Peter’s commentary—half-joked, half-serious spells lobbed with a grin that belied their accuracy. He remembered Elowyn correcting them both with that quiet, tinder-dry tone and the kind of look that didn’t scold so much as see. It was that look—measured, thoughtful and utterly unshaken—that made you want to be better. Not out of guilt or pride, but because he believed you could be, and somehow that made it feel true. Those sessions had been slow-burning and sure, stitched together by breath and care, by bruises tended and victories shared. He’d practiced this sequence before, wand slicing air beside Elowyn’s smooth grace and Peter’s laughing precision, the three of them woven into something nearly seamless. And even now, muscle memory carried him forward—but it ached, because they weren’t there. Not this time.

He missed their rhythm. Peter always cast like he was skipping stones, quick and full of bite. Elowyn, though—Elowyn’s magic had grace, a pause before bloom, like petals unfurling under moonlight. The others in the room were good, some very good, but they moved like soloists—not like a song.

Still, it called to him. Not the violence, but the shape of the training. It was something his body understood—a pattern he could trace through breath and stance and the way his knees bent just slightly before the third spell. His shoulders adjusted naturally to the recoil of Reducto, his grip tightened half a second before Confringo. Every joint in his body seemed to listen, respond.

After over an hour of solo repetition, Professor Amycus moved among them, not with menace but with method. He corrected grips, narrowed elbows, adjusted stances with small flicks of his wand or terse nods. Professor Amycus stood tall, his tone clipped but calm. "Pair off," he said. "Not with your own house. Not with your own year."

He stepped through the rows, gesturing as he passed. "This is not to test precision. This is to test cohesion. You will cast in sequence—seven spells, one after the other. One of you begins, the other follows. One spell apiece until the chain completes. Then switch. No discussion. No instruction. Let the rhythm guide you. If you cannot keep time, you are not ready."

His eyes swept over the group. "The enemy will not match your age or house. They will not pause to let you catch up. You will learn to strike in tandem. Or you will fail alone."

The pairings were deliberate: second-years with sixth-years, Hufflepuffs with Slytherins, Ravenclaws with Gryffindors. It was meant to bind them—not by loyalty, but by necessity. The goal was not just practice, but fusion.

His partner was a tall Gryffindor sixth-year—broad-shouldered, with a furrowed brow and a wand-hand like iron. The older boy eyed Callum with quiet suspicion at first, as though unsure whether a second-year Slytherin belonged in the same ring. But they fell into step quickly, the rhythm of the spells cutting through the air with rising heat. They didn’t speak, didn’t need to. Their breath and magic synchronized across the sequence, the gap in age narrowing with each cycle. The other boy’s spells struck cleanly, and he nodded once when Callum returned each one with quiet force. Not friendship, not yet. But something respectful began to kindle there—recognition, perhaps, of grit forged in silence.

And, too, Callum noticed things—small things he hadn’t expected to register. The easy strength in the older boy’s stance. The solid way he moved. The line of his jaw as he concentrated. Not longing, not even curiosity—just a flicker of warmth that wasn’t quite admiration alone. His body picked it up first—that awareness of presence, of nearness. But it didn’t touch the part of him that mattered. That part already moved in orbit around two suns. Whatever he noticed now was distant, faint—like light from another star. Visible, maybe. But not part of his sky.

They kept at it for another hour, shifting between starting and finishing the sequence. The burn in Callum’s shoulders spread down into his back, hips tight from the repeated pivot of Flipendo, knees aching from the subtle crouch Reducto demanded. His wand felt heavier with each cast. Magic wasn’t just theory and will—it was physical, a draw from somewhere deep that left his magical core thinned and raw by the thirtieth repetition. Around him, others sagged too. Shirts clung damp to skin. Foreheads glistened. Spells landed slower, with less edge. But no one stopped. No one dared.

The silence was different now—less measured, more brittle. They were quiet not out of discipline but because speaking might shatter what was left of their focus. And still, they pushed through. Callum’s body led him, muscle memory dragging spell after spell into the air even as his mind quieted, narrowed. There was no time for remembering now. Only the moment. Only the shape of each cast, the shifting heat of the dummies as they took hit after hit.

Amycus moved among them like a wraith—silent, sharp-eyed, watchful. He said little, but when he did speak it landed like a stone dropped in still water.

"Enough," Amycus said, voice cool and steady. The spellwork stilled with visible relief, though no one sagged enough to draw rebuke.

"Pairings dull the edge," he continued. "You begin to anticipate each other too easily. We will shift again. Triads this time. One spell each, rotate until the sequence is complete. Then begin again. And again."

He paused, eyes sweeping the room. "New blood in the mix keeps your instincts sharp. Magic is not comfort. Magic is demand. You do not cast it to feel safe—you cast it to dominate."

He began assigning groups before they could react. Names, houses, years—all tossed aside in favor of contrast. Callum found himself placed with a wiry Hufflepuff fourth-year girl whose aim had grown sharper with each round and a pale, quiet Ravenclaw sixth-year boy whose magic crackled with a restrained sort of violence. Neither looked particularly pleased, but neither argued.

Callum adjusted his stance again. The pain was deeper now, in his forearms and spine, in the tremor of overused muscles. But the rhythm would carry him. He was sure of that. The pattern was etched into him now, not just in memory, but in motion.

They raised their wands, and began again.

Callum watched them, these not-quite-comrades, all working the same sequence. All were tight-lipped and focused. There were no smirks or jeers. There was just spellwork. And strange as it seemed, it was the cleanest cross-House effort he'd seen since he’d stepped into the Castle.

That should’ve felt like a win. Maybe it was. It stirred something in him anyway, a quiet sort of pride. But it caught him mid-cast—his wand dipped, spell sputtering just shy of its mark. The Ravenclaw boy stepped in without pause, picking up the next spell in the sequence, followed sharply by the Hufflepuff girl. They didn’t scold, didn’t speak, just flowed past his lapse like water rounding a stone. Callum blinked, jolted back into the rhythm, shame burning hot and fast beneath his skin. Because it didn’t matter where the learning came from. What mattered was what you did with it.

He’d take it back to Elowyn and Peter. Peter would catch the rhythm before the hour ended, grinning like a fox, fast on the uptake and faster still in execution. Elowyn would watch it unfold once—maybe twice—then quietly shift their footing, tilt the angle of their wrists, and suddenly the entire thing would run smoother than it had before. He’d say nothing at first, just adjust—and when it clicked, his eyes would lift, violet ring catching the light, like a fae-born prince glimpsing a seam in the world no one else could see. They’d take what Professor Amycus taught Callum and pull it apart gently, curiously, until only the useful bones remained. Then they’d rebuild it together to make it theirs. And in that, it might become something better.

He almost missed his part in the next cycle, distracted by the thought of Peter’s laugh or Elowyn’s murmured praise—but this time he caught himself, dragged his attention back to the shape of the spell just as it spilled from the wand. From then on, he gave himself over to it fully. The pain. The rhythm. The aching dance of movement and intent.

They kept drilling. Callum moved through it again and again. His legs ached deep into the bone, muscles pulling tight and sluggish with each pivot and cast. His spine burned from the effort of keeping form, shoulders drawn taut like a bowstring straining under tension. Even the skin of his hand felt too tight where it gripped the wand, which had grown slick with sweat and heat, humming low with residual magic. His magical core pulsed with a slow, hollow throb, like a well nearly dry, and each spell seemed to draw from someplace deeper, more hidden—somewhere beneath bone and breath. His temples ached. His knees flared. His whole body felt like it had been stretched thin and beaten to shape, but still, he moved. Still, he cast. The rhythm settled in—not because it was easy, but because it was all that remained.

Professor Amycus stepped forward at last, his eyes sweeping the room like a blade. "Enough," he said, voice low and final. The drills ceased instantly, wands lowering with the clumsy precision of exhaustion. No one spoke. No one dared.

He gave no praise. Just nodded once—curt, final. Approval was implied, never gifted. "You will return Wednesday after supper. Do not be late."

And with that, he turned his back and walked away, leaving them standing in the echo of spent magic and burning limbs.

Callum could barely move. Every part of him ached—legs trembling, wand hand numb, and back spasming with sharp knots of tension that no stretch could undo. His magical core felt frayed and hollow, like an overdrawn well that echoed when struck. He knew, in the ache of his knees and the throb behind his eyes, that he’d pushed well past the edge of fatigue. Around him, the others felt it too. They gathered their things slowly, a quiet tide of burnt-out limbs and sweat-damp robes. A few whispered, low and rasped, but even that faded. If someone cracked a joke, it landed with a hollow thud. No one laughed. No one had the breath.

They left together, trudging out as a single, sluggish mass, too tired to splinter. No one spoke of what they’d learned. But they all carried it in their bones.

He saw what Professor Amycus was doing—what he wasn’t saying. This wasn’t about belief. It wasn’t about bloodlines or banners. It was about movement, control, and precision. It was about stripping away hesitation. It was about being ready. The war was out there. It didn’t shout in the halls of Hogwarts, but it murmured. In the papers. In the tremble of certain names. In the way some beds stayed empty after summer holiday.

There was a flicker, then—a memory of the Common Room battle, sharp and searing as if scorched into the folds of his mind. The way his hand had trembled, the pulse of fear that made the wand feel like lead in his grip. The breath that never quite reached his lungs, caught in his throat while the world burned in flashes of spelllight and screaming. He could still hear Peter's voice, choked with pain. Still see the way Elowyn’s magic had torn loose in a blaze of silver and wildness. If he’d known this sequence then—if his body had moved with this precision and certainty—maybe he could’ve shielded them better. Maybe he wouldn’t have frozen. Maybe he could have changed something. But that wasn’t the point, was it? The past was ash. What mattered now was the shape of the flame he’d carry forward.

He descended the stairs slowly, boots dragging a little more with each flight. The air in the upper corridors was cooler, and he let the draft brush over his sweat-slick skin like a balm. The ache in his limbs pulsed in rhythm with the beat of his heart—low, steady, relentless. Each step was a choice. One more inch forward. One more moment upright. He thought of the library ahead—its quiet, its soft lamplight. And of Elowyn, maybe still bent over his scrolls, Peter likely fidgeting or doodling on the margins. That thought pulled him forward more than anything else. Not duty. Not fear. Just the hope of seeing them—his suns, his sky. He pressed on.

The lamps in the library burned lower now, their golden light pooling soft across the reading tables and gilding the edges of parchment and quill. The scent of the place was steady and anchoring—old paper and ink, a hint of juniper and thyme from the preservation charm used on the newer books, and the subtle, crackling hum of magic woven through the air itself. Callum stepped into that hush like it was a sanctuary, though his limbs still throbbed with effort, his magical core aching with every heartbeat. His eyes scanned the rows automatically—and found Elowyn just where he’d hoped, seated at their usual table near the eastern windows, head bowed over a scroll, wand on the table beside him and his fingers curled around his quill writing in his elegant script.

Even from across the room, Callum felt it—that hum and pull. Elowyn’s presence never dulled, or settled into the ordinary. There was something about him that remained wild and refined in equal measure, like a fae creature brought too close to the mortal world. The lamplight caught in the strands of his hair, turning black silk to something richer, deeper, as if it were woven through with night itself. His posture was unassuming, his robe slightly rumpled from hours of stillness, but to Callum, he looked like poetry incarnate.

As if sensing him, Elowyn looked up. His expression shifted the instant he saw Callum—eyes widening first in relief, then softening into concern. He stood without a word, chair scraping back in the quiet, and crossed the space between them in three long steps.

“Sit,” he said gently, guiding Callum to the chair beside his own. “You look like you’ve walked straight out of a storm and left your soul behind in the wind.”

Callum didn’t argue. He let Elowyn’s hands steady him, let himself fold down into the seat and lean forward, elbows on the table, head low. The pain in his body was no less, but something in him unclenched.

Elowyn didn’t speak. He was already moving. He reached into his satchel and pulled free a neatly wrapped bundle—oiled cloth sealed with a wax emblem of An Dar. Unfolding it, he revealed a small Koesmade bar—dense, amber-hued, threaded with seeds and honey and crushed hazelnut, wrapped in a faint magical shimmer to keep it fresh. Emrys sent a dozen every couple weeks, enough for all three boys. Elowyn always kept one tucked away.

Elowyn simply broke the bar in half, then, seeing the slackness in Callum’s shoulders and the way his hands trembled in his lap, brought the larger piece to Callum’s lips himself. No explanation was needed—not between them.

Callum found the strength to lift his hand, fingers brushing Elowyn’s in a touch that lingered—not long, but enough. Enough for the fire of it to catch and smolder across his skin, a heat that pulsed low and steady, waking everything dulled by exhaustion. His whole body, raw and hollowed out from spellwork and strain, responded to that contact as if it had been waiting for it, as if it had been needing it. His breath hitched, the ache in his limbs sharpened into awareness, and still he said nothing. 

Elowyn didn’t move away, only shifted to guide the bar gently to Callum’s lips, his fingers steady, patient. Callum bit into it, the sweetness grounding him, sharp with crushed nut and Koesmade honey, and closed his eyes against the flood of sensation—not just taste, but being cared for and known. His hands trembled with more than fatigue, but Elowyn’s gaze remained soft and unwavering, anchoring him in the hush of the library and the firelight between them.

Elowyn’s fingers lingered just a moment longer, then gently folded the rest of the bar into Callum’s hand. He didn’t move away—just slid his chair closer, the legs scraping softly against the stone. The warmth between them grew, quiet and steady.

“Rest, Cal,” he murmured, soft as misty rain on the moors. “I’ll keep watch.”

It wasn’t said for comfort, or for show. It was simply care, quiet and unshakable.

Callum closed his eyes. My Elowyn, he thought—not with possession, but with awe. As if the world had given him something sacred and said: Hold this well.

And for a moment, there was no Castle, no war, and no searing ache in his limbs—only the taste of honey and the steadiness of the boy beside him, who was  vholding his gaze with a quiet gravity that felt older than the stars. Callum felt it like a binding force, ancient and unyielding, as though some arcane constellation had long ago fixed Elowyn in his sky.

—

The walls were slick with posters—words like PRIDE and PURITY scrawled in gleaming silver script across thick parchment, paired with grainy illustrations of wandless Muggles fleeing burning homes or clumsily brandishing weapons they barely understood. The torchlight gave everything a jaundiced hue, turning even the students’ faces sallow and strange. Professor Alecto stood at the front like she was born for a pulpit, wand tapping idly against her palm as her voice rose and fell with practiced ease.

"We do not hate them," she said, and Peter almost believed it. "We fear the rot. The collapse. The pattern, children. The pattern. Look to the fall of Byzantium. Look to 1642 in England. Look to every moment in magical history where complacency allowed the non-magical world to burn unchecked, and see who paid the price."

Peter tried to keep up. He really did. She was brilliant, in her way—every reference sharp, every fact just true enough to feel solid underfoot. But something about the way she wove it together made him feel like he was stepping into a net, not a truth. Still, it was hard to argue with someone who made history sound like prophecy fulfilled. She wielded rhetoric the way others used hexes, and the words slipped past his defenses even when he wanted to block them.

His quill scratched absently against the edge of his parchment, not taking notes so much as tracing shapes—a triangle, then a spiral, then a star, then the half-formed curve of an E before he caught himself. His thoughts spun too quickly to catch—snippets of what she said tangled with flashes of Callum’s quiet steadiness and Elowyn’s unreadable gaze earlier that morning. The way Elowyn had reached for both of them before they left, but Peter couldn’t shake the sense that Elowyn’s hand had lingered longer in Callum’s. But no—no, that wasn’t right. He was being ungrateful. Unfair. They both cared for him, didn’t they? Equally, as much as anyone could care for someone like him. He was just being stupid, letting his thoughts run wild again. He should’ve been happy. Grateful. Two boys like that—so fierce and brilliant—had chosen to keep him close, let him into whatever it was they were building. And yet here he was, doubting it, picking at it like a loose thread he couldn’t stop worrying with his fingers. As if he could ever deserve something so whole.

He glanced sideways without meaning to, seeking anchor or distraction—something to catch him before he spiraled too far inward.

Darius.

He was sitting close. Closer than Peter remembered. Silent, for once, his posture relaxed, gaze fixed on Professor Alecto like she was telling bedtime stories instead of justifying centuries of magical superiority. And that would have been fine, forgettable even—except that now, for the first time, Peter really looked at him.

The hair. The pale skin. The sharpness in the cheekbones and the way his eyes caught the torchlight.

Blue eyes.

Not Elowyn’s—not that strange, dusk-ringed shade that made you think of twilight over water. But close. Just deep enough to make Peter’s chest stutter. Just dark enough to trick something in him into remembering.

The way Elowyn’s gaze would catch him across a room. The way his hair would fall across his face in the wind before being tucked back with long, graceful fingers. The way his presence felt like gravity and quiet and starlight all at once.

And now here was Darius. A poor imitation, yes. But the echo was there. Broad strokes. Dark hair. Pale skin. Blue eyes. Just enough to make Peter feel like someone had knocked the breath out of him in the middle of a sentence.

It wasn’t just that he looked like Elowyn. It was that, for a moment, something inside Peter responded like he was Elowyn.

He blinked, hard. Told himself he was being ridiculous. People looked like other people all the time. Wizards had family lines that crisscrossed so tightly you could pull half a dozen cousins from a single name if you looked far enough back. Elowyn was a Travers on one side—and Darius was too. Maybe that was all it was.

Still, it tugged. Like someone had taken a thread buried deep in his chest and given it a sharp little pull.

Darius glanced sideways. And smiled.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” he murmured, voice low and just a touch amused, like they were in on something together. Like they shared some secret Peter didn’t remember agreeing to.

Peter stiffened, heart skittering for reasons he couldn’t name. He didn’t answer. Not yet. He was taken aback. It hadn’t even been an hour since Darius had spewed every vile thing he could manage about Elowyn—half-truths and bitter slander dressed up as cleverness—until Peter had snapped and told him to shut his mouth or else. And now here he was, sitting beside him like nothing had happened, smiling like they were in on some shared joke. The ease of it—of slipping between malice and charm—was almost worse than the insults themselves.

Because the resemblance lingered. Not in any one feature—but in the way Darius held his gaze, unflinching. The confidence. The attention. It was the attention, really, that made his stomach twist. The fact that someone was seeing him. Looking at him. And looking at him like that.

Peter turned away. He stopped looking. This boy had spent the better part of the term tormenting Elowyn, taunting him with sharp words and sharper looks—mocking what he couldn’t understand. Calling him Dirtborn or Soilspawn. Cruel, deliberate. Vile. Peter wouldn’t reward that with attention, wouldn’t let himself be drawn in by echoes and shadows. Not when the real thing—the real boy—was somewhere in the castle likely tracing ancient runes or humming Cornish lullabies under his breath.

At the front of the room, Professor Alecto clapped her hands once, sharp and sudden.

“Debate teams,” she said, her voice slicing through the low hum of conversation. “Two sides. All of you. The question: had wizardkind taken full control of the conflict in 1642, would England have burned? One side will argue for complete magical dominance before the war’s outbreak. The other—militant magical intervention only once the rebellion began. Choose your factions.”

She paused to let the weight of her words settle as the students present sorted themselves in fairly equal groups. Once they had settled, Professor Alecto then continued. “You will have half an hour to prepare your arguments. Each team will select one debater and one rebutter. Presentations will be ten minutes per team. After the initial arguments, you will have another half hour to prepare your rebuttals. The opposing team will rebut first. I will judge the outcome.”

She let that linger before finishing with a slight, wicked smile. “The winning side will be excused from the 18-inch scroll due next Wednesday. Everyone else—start planning your citations.”

Chairs scraped. Students murmured. Peter found himself ushered into the group arguing for post-rebellion magical intervention—Darius was there too.

As they huddled to formulate points, Peter hesitated. He knew he should stay quiet—keep his head down. But something rose in him anyway, and he offered a thought—something about how wizards could’ve ended the war swiftly if they’d acted decisively, how that might have prevented the Statute of Secrecy from ever needing to exist.

Darius looked at him.

“That’s clever,” he said, and it didn’t sound sarcastic. “Very clever. We ought to lead with that.”

And then, as the others began to nod, Darius added, almost offhandedly, "He’s got a good head on him, doesn’t he?" Not loud, not performative. Just...warm. Like it was obvious.

Peter blinked. His stomach flipped.

He didn’t know what to do with that. Not really. It wasn’t the first compliment he’d ever received, but it might have been the first one that had landed so cleanly. Like a stone tossed straight into the center of his chest.

He told himself it didn’t mean anything. That Darius was playing some angle. That it was calculated. That Peter shouldn’t enjoy it. That he was being foolish.

But the truth was simpler, and worse.

He liked it.

He liked the way Darius had said it. He liked being seen. Not for being clever or fast or funny—but just...for being.

And that made something old and hungry in him stir. Because there hadn’t been many moments like that in his life. Not enough to build a shield against it.

So he smiled, just a little. And hated himself a bit for it.

But not enough to stop.

Because the flutter had returned. And it was louder now.

As the team narrowed down their points, names for the debater role were floated. Darius, without hesitation, nominated Peter. His tone was confident, even admiring, and he looked at Peter like he belonged at the front of the room. For a dizzying moment, Peter thought they might actually go with it. But after some back-and-forth, a Ravenclaw seventh-year was chosen instead—more experienced and more expected.

Peter nodded along like he didn’t mind. Like he hadn’t already started imagining what it would feel like to stand there and be listened to. To speak and have people nod instead of roll their eyes.

Inside, his feelings churned.

He shouldn’t have cared so much. He shouldn’t have liked how Darius kept turning to him, kept echoing his points, kept making it feel like Peter mattered. But he did. And that small, desperate part of him—the one that had always wanted someone to say he was enough—latched on tight.

He thought about Callum and Elowyn. What would they think of this? Of him? They’d see through Darius in a blink, he was sure. They’d warn him. They’d protect him. But they weren’t here. And Darius was. With blue eyes and dark hair and a voice that made Peter feel...seen.

And it wasn’t love. It wasn’t even want.

But it was something. And it scared him more than anything Professor Alecto could say.

Because he shouldn’t need this. Not when Elowyn had fed him by hand just days ago, eyes filled with gentle certainty. Not when Callum had folded Peter against him in the dark of their dorm and whispered that they were whole together, all three. Not when he had two people who cared for him—not just tolerated him, not just admired him from afar, but knew him and stayed anyway.

And still he’d smiled at Darius. Still he’d warmed at his praise. Still he felt the ache of not being chosen like a bruise blooming under skin.

He hated himself for it.

For wanting what he already had, but from someone who didn’t deserve to offer it.

For craving the reflection when the real thing was already his.

For feeling like maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t enough for the ones who truly mattered, and so he reached for the first hand that seemed to.

He didn’t know what was wrong with him.

He knew Callum and Elowyn cared. He did. He’d woken that very morning tucked between them, warm and safe, with Callum’s arm slung across his waist and Elowyn’s breath soft against the back of his neck. It should’ve quieted the doubts. Should’ve made them impossible. And yet, even wrapped in their closeness, some part of him still whispered that he didn’t belong. That he was a guest in something older, deeper, more inevitable than himself. That they would’ve found each other regardless—and maybe better for it.

And now this. Smiling at the boy who called Elowyn Dirtborn. Letting it happen. Letting himself feel good because someone noticed him.

He wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

The parchment in his lap was blank. His quill sat still in his hand. The debate buzzed on, voices rising and falling like waves around him, and he barely heard them.

Because inside, the voice he tried hardest to ignore was whispering again.

You’ll never be enough.

And worse:

You were never supposed to be part of this.

He drew a breath. Shaky. Shallow.

And told himself he was fine.

That he could smile through it. He always did.

That no one had to know.

That maybe—just maybe—if he worked hard enough, was bright enough, funny enough—they’d never see the fracture. Never notice how much he doubted the love they gave him. Never realize that sometimes, when he looked at them, he felt like he was trespassing in something sacred.

And so he stayed quiet. And scribbled something meaningless on his parchment. And didn’t look at Darius again.

~

When Peter and Callum had left Elowyn in the library earlier that afternoon, it hadn’t been dramatic. No whispered confessions or lingering stares. Just books and parchment and the muffled sounds of other students shifting in their chairs. Elowyn hadn’t even looked up when they stood. He was bent over Peter’s essay, lips pursed the way they always were when he was about to tear through something with that quiet, infuriating precision of his.

Peter had slid his own parchment toward him and muttered, "They’re all yours, love. Try not to make us sound too clever—it’ll be suspicious." more for levity than anything else. He hadn’t expected a reaction. He got a nod accompanied by a ghost of a smile.

Callum had lingered. Just for a second. A hand on Elowyn’s shoulder, firm and familiar. Elowyn had turned then—not much, just a glance up, eyes flicking to Callum’s, something quiet passing between them. A soft acknowledgment. Had he smiled? Had his hand moved to cover Callum’s? Peter didn’t think so. He was almost certain. And yet, once the thought formed, it stuck like bramble, catching on everything. He knew it hadn’t happened. He knew Elowyn hadn’t reached up, nor had he clutched Callum’s hand like something cherished. But now that he’d imagined it, he couldn’t untangle the fiction from the moment. It rewrote itself in his mind, again and again, becoming sharper with each pass. And Elowyn—calm, lovely Elowyn—had only turned back to the parchment, as if nothing had shifted. As if Peter hadn’t felt the air change. As if he hadn’t been standing right there, watching the world close just enough to leave him out.

It wasn’t even a moment. But Peter felt it like an old wound reopened, a hairline fracture spidering through something fragile and carefully mended. It hit low and sharp—like a silent admission carved into the air between them: this is not for you. Not quite. Not fully. The glance, the touch, the hush between them—it wasn’t cruel, but it was closed. And Peter, watching from just beside it, felt like the boy outside the glass, nose pressed to a window he’d been told he was welcome to, only to find the lock had always been on.

He’d laughed—of course he had—some throwaway line about how the two of them could banter over ink stains later, said under his breath, not even loud enough for either of them to hear. Then he’d shoved his hands in his pockets and strode out like it didn’t matter, like his chest hadn’t cracked a little wider with every step. He heard Callum call after him, something light and questioning, but he walked faster, pretended not to hear. They were going different directions anyway, he reasoned. Might as well get there first.

Except not.

Because now he was walking alone toward his club meeting, and the Castle felt too big, and the halls too hollow, and the voice in his head too loud. And it wasn’t just the echo of self-doubt—it was fear, too. He hadn’t walked the halls alone since the day of the attack, back in first year, when his body had been bruised and broken in the shadow of a corridor that should’ve been safe. That memory pulsed under his skin now, unwelcome and sharp. Every flicker of torchlight felt like a threat. Every bend in the hall, a mouth waiting to swallow him whole. He kept walking. He didn’t run. But something inside him had curled tight and small, like it was bracing for another blow.

As he trudged up the winding stairs toward Professor Alecto’s classroom, the fear clinging to his ribs gave way—slowly, stubbornly—to thoughts of the only two people who had ever really made him feel like he mattered. They care, he told himself. They see you. They hold you in the mornings and laugh at your stupid jokes—at least sometimes. They make space for you, like a spare chair pulled up to an already full table, or like a note scrawled in the margins—an afterthought, maybe, but still there. But even now the memory pressed close: Elowyn’s body against his that morning, warm and unconscious, a quiet kind of claim. That should’ve been enough. That was enough. And yet the thought still itched—had Elowyn smiled when Callum touched him? Had he leaned into it, just slightly? Peter knew he hadn’t. He knew. But now that the thought had seeded itself, it bloomed like a bruise, and everything else looked darker by its shadow.

But for every one of those thoughts, two more rose like weeds: They laugh, but only sometimes. They hold him, but only when there's room. They see him, but do they really look? He was the afterthought, the optional page in the back of a book—nice, maybe, but not necessary. The spare chair could be pushed away just as easily. And the margin note? One smudge and it would vanish.

He knew it wasn’t fair. He knew he was lucky. Two boys who actually cared—really, truly cared—and yet he still managed to find the shadow in every light. Still picked apart every kindness for the catch hidden beneath it. Still wondered if the spell that had bound the three of them together might fade, and if it did, would anyone even notice he’d gone?.

Because Callum had touched him. And Elowyn had looked. And in that split-second Peter had seen something closed—not cruel, or cold, simply complete. A seal pressed down with casual grace, excluding him without intent. It hit Peter like a blade slid between ribs—not deep, but expertly placed. He was outside the circle again. Always almost, never quite. They were a finished sentence. And he…he was the punctuation added after the fact, useful, maybe, but never necessary.

He was a third. Worse, he was a tagalong. The quiet pause between their sentences, the comma they barely noticed—there to break the tension, to carry the moment, but never part of the meaning itself. He filled in the silence when it got too heavy, made Elowyn smile when he forgot how, and laughed loud enough for all of them when they were too tired to. He was necessary only in the way a bandage was necessary—when things broke. But they weren’t broken, were they? Not when they looked at each other like that. Not when a glance could be a promise. And Peter, he was no promise. He was a patch. A placeholder. An afterthought.

His stomach twisted—a writhing, guilty knot that made him want to double over. Because he knew none of it was true. Not really. Just that morning, he’d woken up warm and safe, Elowyn’s body curled against his back like a second skin, breathing slow and steady into the crook of his neck. Elowyn, who was always careful and composed in the waking world, had held him so unconsciously and closely in his sleep, like it was the most natural thing in the world. That memory rose now like a shield against the bitterness, a soft, glowing thing that flickered just enough to hold the dark at bay. It should have been enough. It had been enough. But the ache didn’t listen to reason, and guilt lapped at the edges of it all—shame for the thoughts he couldn’t stop, the comparisons he kept making, the ungrateful edge to a heart that should’ve only been full.

He loved them. With all the fractured, frantic pieces of himself that had never been handed back to him whole. And he knew, logically, that they cared for him too—deeply and fiercely, in the way only the three of them could. But logic was a thin shield when your chest was tight and your throat was raw and your thoughts kept circling back to a single, harmless moment like it was a blade. And beneath the bitterness rose something deeper: guilt, hot and choking. 

Even now, the flaring anger at Callum’s brief touch—just a gentle hand on Elowyn’s shoulder, barely more than a moment—and Elowyn’s quiet glance in return, clawed at Peter’s thoughts. It was nothing…less than nothing. And yet it churned through him like poison, dark and slick and self-inflicted. He tried to cling to what he knew—what he’d felt just that morning, Elowyn’s warmth wrapped around him like a second skin, breath soft and steady against the back of his neck—but the bitterness was a tide, and the guilt a riptide beneath it. He was broken, wasn’t he? Given something precious and still managing to scrape hurt from the edges of it. Who mistrusted kindness like this? Who took love—true, quiet, constant love—and twisted it into pain? He hated that part of himself. Hated how easily he unraveled over nothing. Hated that this ache felt familiar, like a friend he’d sworn he’d never let back in. 

Because he knew none of this should matter, not after waking up with Elowyn curled against him, not after all the proof of care etched into their every word and gesture. But the truth gnawed at him—he felt broken. Like someone who’d never been truly loved, and now that he had it, real and steady and rare, all he could do was question it. All he could see were the cracks he’d imagined into being. What kind of person did that? What kind of boy looked love in the face and doubted it?

He should’ve shaken it off. Should’ve cracked a joke. Should’ve said something—anything—just to hear himself above the noise in his head. But instead, he turned outward, desperate to escape the cacophony inside. He focused on the Castle around him, counting the stones in the wall, the worn patterns in the floor, the torchlight flickering like the pulse of something ancient. He walked faster, clutching his bag too tight, as if it could anchor him to something real. As if the heaviness of parchment and ink and guilt might somehow balance the weight pressing against his ribs.

The classroom door loomed ahead, lit by that awful yellow torchlight. Peter squared his shoulders, pasted on a smirk, and stepped inside. A couple dozen students were already there, scattered across the curved rows of benches, the air heavy with the hush of waiting. Students from every House, every year—though mostly older—clustered in loose pockets of familiarity. Peter recognized faces but knew none of them well enough to claim as his own. He slid into a seat near the middle—too shy for the front, too proud for the back—hoping he could disappear into the center of things without drawing attention. No one looked up. No one made room. He didn’t expect them to. But still, some part of him had hoped. So he set his bag down softly, hunched his shoulders in just a bit, and let his eyes drift toward the front, waiting for Professor Alecto to begin.

Peter didn’t hear Darius sit down. One moment the bench beside him was empty, the next it was occupied—a soft rustle of wool, a faint shift in weight, and the unmistakable sting of cologne that smelled expensive for the sake of being expensive. It clawed at Peter’s senses, sweet and cloying and wrong, the kind of scent that made your eyes water and your instincts recoil. It was the kind of thing someone wore to cover the rot underneath.

“Is he always that smug?” Darius asked, voice low, almost contemplative. Like they were friends sharing a joke. He didn’t look at Peter, just gazed forward as if the stone walls had posed the question themselves. “Your Dirtborn.”

Peter blinked, slow and deliberate, as if giving his brain time to catch up to the insult.

Darius finally turned, a smirk curling at the edges of his mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. Elowyn, right? Got mixed up with what the rest of us call him.”

Peter stiffened. His spine straightened like someone had pulled a string, and his jaw tightened.

“You’ve got something on your chin,” he muttered, not looking at Darius. “Might be all that shite falling out of your mouth.”

Darius gave a low, amused chuckle, utterly unfazed. “Touchy. Must be true, then. Don’t worry, I’d be defensive too if my favorite toy was stitched together from compost and stolen glamour.”

Peter turned this time, his expression sharp. “Say something like that again and I’ll transfigure your teeth into quills and you can see if Madam Pomfrey can unwrite you.”

Darius lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. No need for dramatics. I just don’t see the appeal. Pretty, sure—if you’re into the fragile, glass-doll aesthetic. But cold. Remote. That sort of beauty’s all ice and no fire.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t fancy bigots,” Peter snapped. Too loud. A few students turned to look. He dropped his voice quickly, though it trembled with barely contained rage. “And maybe if you spent more time learning basic human decency and less time sniffing around people who wouldn’t piss on you if you were aflame, you’d have a social circle that didn’t rely on shared bile.”

He said it too loud. He knew it. His voice cracked the quiet like a plate dropped on stone. The second it left his mouth, he wished he could snatch it back.

Darius tilted his head like he was examining a puzzle box. His gaze sharpened, flicking across Peter’s face with a look that felt too focused, too knowing. “Hm. You defend him like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

Peter looked away fast, staring hard at the blackboard, at the dull gleam of the torches, at the grain in the wood of the desk in front of him. Anywhere but Darius. Anywhere but the trap he’d walked into.

Because he could feel it now—the truth of it, heavy and sliding beneath his ribs. Darius was a bastard. Vile and cruel. The sort of person who mocked Elowyn’s parentage, who called him Dirtborn like it was a badge of dishonor rather than a mark of reverent magic. He had spat those words across the common room more than once, had sneered at Elowyn every chance he got. And now he wanted to talk?

Peter should’ve ignored him. Should’ve stood and moved. Should’ve laughed like he always did and let the sting roll off his back.

But Darius’s words echoed.

Pretty. Cold. Remote.

Behind glass.

And the ache in Peter’s chest throbbed like a bruise.

Because hadn’t he felt that way? Even for a moment? When Callum had reached out and touched Elowyn’s shoulder and something in Elowyn’s eyes had softened? When Peter had watched them and felt, for the barest of seconds, like an interloper?

He hated himself for it.

Elowyn wasn’t cold. He wasn’t distant. He was thoughtful and strange and endlessly kind, even when he barely said a word. Just that morning, he’d curled around Peter in sleep, breath brushing the back of Peter’s neck, hand resting on his waist. There had been no pretense in it. No calculation. Just warmth.

But now, Peter couldn’t stop thinking about Darius’s smirk.

“You defend him like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

A crack split through him, invisible and spreading. Shame bloomed hot in his throat.

What would Elowyn have done? Or Callum? They wouldn’t have cracked. Wouldn’t have faltered. Would’ve stood their ground with quiet grace or blistering calm. They would’ve made Darius feel small with nothing but the truth.

Peter just felt small.

He squeezed his hands into fists beneath the desk, nails pressing crescents into his palms. He hadn’t meant to give Darius anything. He hadn’t meant to feel any of it. But the thoughts were still there, circling like vultures: What if Darius was right? What if Elowyn was out of reach, not because of his magic or his blood or his beauty, but because he belonged more to Callum than to Peter? What if Peter was just the shadow they kept out of guilt?

He was spiraling. Fast.

And when the classroom door creaked open and Professor Alecto swept in, robes trailing like smoke, eyes sharp as winter glass, Peter barely noticed. Because the moment had already cut him open, and now he was bleeding guilt across the inside of his own mind. He straightened in his seat, but the air around him felt too thick. Like trying to breathe through water. He didn’t register that Darius had stayed close, that he was sitting almost beside him now, posture easy, as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t just twisted the knife. Peter looked down at his parchment and didn’t see a single word. Just the tremble in his fingers. And the echo of the thought he couldn’t quite silence: What if I’m the one who doesn’t belong?

~

He hadn’t written a single word during the entire club meeting. He’d only scribbled, really—just vague loops and jagged half-formed sentences that wouldn’t make sense even to him later. His hand still trembled faintly, and he clenched his quill tighter as if that might quiet the noise inside him. The debate had ended barely five minutes before, and Professor Alecto had already dismissed them with the promise of an eighteen-inch essay due by Wednesday—a punishment for the losing side. They’d lost by a narrow margin, and Peter couldn’t help but feel the sting of it more than he should have. Not because of the essay, but because of Darius.

Throughout the discussion, Darius had been warm, engaged, flattering. Every time Peter spoke, he nodded. Agreed. Praised. “Brilliant point,” he said once, loud enough for half the table to hear. “I’d never have thought of that.” And Peter—Peter had lit up like a Lumos spell in a dark room. It was horrible. It was wonderful. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

And it made him sick.

Darius had smiled at him like he mattered. Like he was smart, and clever, and worth listening to. And Peter had drunk it in like a man lost in the desert, even as his stomach turned with guilt. He kept thinking about Elowyn and Callum. About how they always listened. About how they always made space for him. About how they’d never let him feel like an afterthought. They never had—but the voice in his head, his voice, always did. Always found a way to twist their care into something conditional, and fragile. It always made him doubt the truth he’d been given freely. He always made himself doubt it.

Darius hadn’t made space for Peter. Darius had made room. He’d cleared it out and filled it with nothing but Peter. No Elowyn, and no Callum. No glances shared across his shoulders. No whispered words he wasn’t quite meant to hear. Just attention. Just him.

So when Darius said, offhandedly, as they packed up their things, “We should work on the essay together,” Peter didn’t answer right away. His mouth opened, then closed.

Darius didn’t press, just slung his bag over his shoulder and added, “You’re one of the only ones worth talking to in this whole bloody group.”

Peter swallowed hard. The compliment hit like sugar on his tongue. Too sweet, almost sickeningly so, but also addictive.

“Yeah,” he said with a half-shrug, trying for casual and missing the mark entirely. “Might as well fail together, yeah?” 

Darius nodded and turned toward the door, his steps slow and unhurried. Just before crossing the threshold, he glanced back over his shoulder, one brow slightly arched in wordless invitation—an unspoken, cocky little well? that somehow managed to feel both casual and expectant.

“Now?” Peter echoed, already moving toward the door. “I was on my way to meet Elowyn and Callum.” He tried to shrug it off, casual and easy, but it came out crooked, unsure. “But sure—guess we could scribble a few things while I walk. Not like I’ve got better ideas.”

Darius nodded, as if Peter’s plan had always been his own. “Lead the way, then,” he said, voice easy, like they hadn’t just tiptoed past something dangerous. Like there hadn’t been a pause. Like Peter hadn’t hesitated at all.

And then Darius was walking beside him. Just like that. Talking. Easy. Light. Like they were friends. Like Peter hadn’t told him off only a few hours before. Like he hadn’t called Elowyn Dirtborn.

Peter hated how quickly it all felt natural—even worse, how right it felt. Like slipping into a too-warm bath after a storm, his mind screamed against it even as his heart settled. The familiarity shouldn’t have been comforting. Darius didn’t deserve that. Not after everything. And yet, Peter had found himself matching his pace, nodding along, laughing even. All the while, guilt gnawed at the edges of his thoughts—sharp and relentless. How could he let someone so vile make him feel wanted? How could he enjoy the praise when it came at Elowyn’s expense? And still, he had. He couldn’t stop himself. That’s what made it worse. The shame wasn’t in the act—it was in the wanting.

He kept glancing sideways, unsure of how to hold himself. He wanted to walk faster, to leave Darius behind, but that would look suspicious. And he didn’t want Darius thinking he was weak. Or worse, guilty.

They passed the stairwells and torchlit corridors until they reached the library doors. Peter hesitated. Darius didn’t. He walked right in beside him. Peter’s skin prickled. He didn’t want Elowyn or Callum to see. Not like this. Not with him.

The library was quieter than usual. The soft scratch of quills, the rustle of parchment, the occasional whisper. Peter wove through the rows like a ghost, heart pounding. He knew the others were there. They’d said they’d meet back here. He’d almost hoped they wouldn’t be. But of course they were. Constant. Faithful. True. Always.

Callum was half-sprawled in the chair next to Elowyn, his head resting on Elowyn’s shoulder. Elowyn wasn’t doing schoolwork—he was writing letters, his handwriting smooth and deliberate even at this angle. He looked up when he heard Peter’s footsteps.

A soft smile. Real. Just for him.

But then Elowyn saw Darius, and his smile faltered—just a flicker at first, but enough. Enough for Peter to feel it like a slap. It vanished completely a moment later, replaced by that glacial mask Elowyn wore when he was shutting something out. That soft, gentle Elowyn—the one who belonged only to Peter and Callum—was gone in an instant, and in his place stood the other Elowyn. The one made of frost and silence and unreadable eyes. The one who never let anyone close. Peter had only ever seen that look turned on enemies. He told himself it wasn’t for him. But still, he asked: was it?

Peter knew Elowyn’s smile hadn’t dimmed because of him. He knew it was Darius—of course it was Darius—but that didn’t stop the sting. It landed like a slap anyway, sharp and echoing, the kind that made you flinch even when you saw it coming. And still, some traitorous part of him whispered: Are you sure?

Darius, ever the showman, didn’t falter. His grin sharpened at the edges, effortless and oily. “Tomorrow, then?” he said, just loud enough for Elowyn to hear. “We’ll tackle that essay together, yeah? I’ve got high hopes for us.”

Peter nodded mutely, eyes locked on Elowyn with a desperate, silent plea. He wanted Darius gone—wanted the air between them cleansed of his noise, of his presence, of everything he was. How unlike Elowyn he was, Peter thought—how sharp and theatrical, how his voice filled the air rather than softened it, how his presence didn’t quiet the room but swallowed it whole. Elowyn didn’t have to demand attention. He just existed, and the world bent around him. Darius performed. And Peter—Peter had let the actor follow him in. He wished, with a sharp, aching urgency, that he could simply vanish—just pop out of existence like an overstrained spell. Disapparate, combust, melt into the stone. Anything but stand here in the wreckage he’d just dragged through the door.

Behind him, Darius lingered for a heartbeat. Peter, his eyes fixed on Elowyn, saw Elowyn’s face—already glacial—harden further, like frost deepening into permafrost. He didn’t flinch, nor did he blink. Just watched. Watched as Elowyn’s eyes—still fixed on Darius—went slate-cold and unreadable, their brightness shuttered like a window drawn against stormlight. The change was immediate, unrelenting, and Peter felt the chill of it pass through him like a ghost brushing past. He tried to tell himself that the look wasn’t meant for him, that the frigidity in Elowyn’s expression was reserved entirely for Darius. But some dark, aching part of him couldn’t help but wonder: had he done something too? Had he, by bringing Darius here, invited that iciness onto himself? Had those unreadable eyes turned on him as well? Was Elowyn angry with Darius—or with him? 

Then, Elowyn looked away, back to his parchment, and Peter felt a sudden, crushing certainty that he’d done something terribly wrong. It was the same look Elowyn had worn back in their first year, when the whole of Slytherin had turned against them and they'd had to learn what silence could mean.

Peter felt like he’d been peeled back and left raw, nerves exposed and humming with shame. He walked the last few steps toward Elowyn and Callum, his legs unsteady, each one heavier than the last, as though guilt had weight and it was pooling in his limbs. Every inch forward felt like a betrayal answered in kind—he’d brought Darius here. He had let the enemy follow him into a space that had become a sanctuary, quiet and carved out from the war beyond these walls. A place that had felt like it belonged to the three of them. And now—now it felt smaller. Tainted.

His heart was a mess of contradiction, all tangled yearning and shame. He wanted to tell them everything—that he’d been stupid, that he’d let himself be seen by someone who didn’t deserve it, that he’d craved attention so badly he’d lost his way. He wanted to lie and pretend it hadn’t meant anything, that he hadn’t smiled back, hadn’t slowed his steps to match someone else's. But more than anything, he wanted to collapse into their arms, to bury his face against familiar warmth, and beg them—wordlessly, desperately—to love him enough to make this ache go away. To remind him that he was still theirs. That he hadn’t ruined it beyond repair.

But he just walked. Quiet. Small. Like the space between them had stretched a little wider. And in his chest, the voice was already whispering: See? He’s not happy to see you. Why would he be? Traitor!

—

The hush of the library had deepened into something stranger—less the ordinary quiet of quills and parchment, and more the reverent stillness of a place listening. It was not silence but suspension, like breath held too long. Even the enchanted windows, charmed to mirror the weather beyond, seemed reluctant to let in the day’s brightness. Somewhere above the Castle, the sky remained blue, the sun warm—but in here, between layers of stone and spell, the world had dimmed to an echo.

And Elowyn, for the first time in over a year, was alone in it. It struck him only then, with Callum and Peter gone and the parchment still quiet beneath his quill: this was the first time since Peter’s attack in their first year that he had sat, unaccompanied, within the Castle’s walls. There had been solitude before, yes, in the sanctuary of Lanwynn Koes or the hush of the dormitory while the others slept—but not this. Not the vulnerable stillness of being alone in corridors that had once led Peter into shadow. The knowledge ghosted through him, made the silence more than silence. It was watchful, waiting. A breath held by both the Castle and its quietest ward. He breathed once, deeply. The stillness held.

Elowyn had not moved from the spot where Callum and Peter had left him. The quiet folded itself around him like a familiar cloak. Their departure had stirred nothing—not the air, not the dust, not even his gaze. He had kept his eyes on the parchment before him, as if continuing to write could prevent the room from noticing they had gone. One letter, folded and sealed in careful wax, lay addressed to his fathers. Another, unfinished, spilled its ink slowly across the page—a reply to Lowena Carnoweth, whom he trusted with the truths he could not name aloud.

His letter to his fathers was affectionate, threaded with delicately worded curiosity, but the unease beneath it could not be softened by phrasing. He knew them too well to miss the deliberate vagueness in their recent replies—the oblique references to delays, and shortages, and to the village’s unnatural quiet. They were not telling him everything. And he could not blame them. The war had thinned the lines of communication, frayed the meanings between words. Marwood & Travers had not declared a side, but Daddy had been sending tinctures to safehouses, balm and boneknit to pockets of resistance. Daddy was always discreet and always careful, but the wind was shifting, and Elowyn feared the line they walked might snap.

He adjusted his posture, as though straightening his spine might steady the thought. Then, with deliberate calm, he dipped his quill again and continued the letter to Lowena. He wrote of his dreams—of the ones that returned too often and the ones that left him waking with the ghost of grief in his lungs. He wrote of Callum’s quiet worry, the way it pressed at the edges of his voice, and of Peter’s brightness, which had begun to flicker at odd moments. The dimming, he thought, did not begin within Peter himself, but from something outside him—an unseen pressure that had lingered too long, wearing grooves into the brightness that used to rise so easily to the surface.

He paused to let the ink dry and made his way to Madame Pince. She did not look up when he arrived but hummed faintly when he asked about wandlore, almost as if pleased someone had finally thought to inquire.

"Obscure, not forbidden," she said, rising with brisk precision to guide him toward the far eastern stacks. "Most of it’s theoretical—niche work, really. Try Resonant Cores and The Theory of Temperament. If you find Wand as Witness, let me know. It was last checked out by a Durmstrang transfer three years ago and never returned. All correspondence to his home have come back unopened."

He thanked her with a nod, committing the titles to memory. He did not mention that his wand sometimes seemed to anticipate his movements, responding not to command but to intention—as if it were not merely channeling his magic, but participating in it. It felt, at times, as though the wand was not simply a conduit, but a presence—perceiving the world through him, or perhaps beside him, or perhaps through some strange seam between the two. He’d never heard anyone else describe their wand in such terms, not aloud, not even in the privacy of the dormitories, and certainly not in the hushed, rule-bound corners of Hogwarts. But still, the thought clung to him: that his wand was not merely listening, but watching—that it bore witness, and in some strange way, understood.

He stepped lightly between the stacks, guided more by instinct than order, until he reached the section Madame Pince had indicated. His fingers skimmed along the bindings, pausing at the titles she had named. He pulled three from the shelf: one slim volume on wandwood and its historical uses, another thick and weathered text cataloguing core materials across cultures, and a final, curious book titled Resonant Cores—the first of her suggestions, its spine creased with age. Gathering them carefully in his arms, he made his way back to the front desk and presented them to Madame Pince, who took them without comment and marked each one with a flick of her wand.

Books in hand, he returned to his table, the quiet pressing close once more. When he returned to the table, Callum was already there—shoulders slumped, eyes shadowed, the curve of his back bowed beneath invisible weight. He was just sitting, as though the effort of holding himself upright had become too much. Elowyn’s heart pulled taut. Silently, he reached into his satchel and drew out the Koesmade bar he always kept tucked away. He unwrapped the bar and broke it neatly in half, placing one piece directly into Callum’s hand.

“Eat,” he said—not as instruction, but as offering.

Callum stared at it for a moment as if even the act of chewing required more strength than he possessed. Elowyn didn’t press. He only shifted slightly in his seat, careful not to disturb the fragile peace beginning to settle. With quiet precision, he took the other half of the bar and lifted it toward Callum’s lips. Callum’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused, but his mouth parted obediently. Elowyn fed him the rest of the bar in slow, gentle pieces, waiting between each one, giving him time. When the last bite was gone, Elowyn brushed the crumbs from his palm and settled beside him once more—quiet, steady, and watchful. At last, Callum took a bite from the other half Elowyn had placed in his hand, slow and mechanical, like a machine winding itself back to life.

Once the final crumb was gone, Callum shifted sideways, his movements fluid but exhausted, and let his head rest against Elowyn’s shoulder. Within moments, his breathing deepened, slow and even, the weight of sleep finally claiming him.

Elowyn remained still, letting the warmth of Callum’s weight anchor him. He unfolded the letter to Lowena but did not resume writing. Something in the air had changed. The sconces burned lower than they should have, their golden light thick and syruped. The library’s magic, ever-present and watchful, felt drawn in, coiled. It reminded him of a held breath. Or a whispered warning. The Castle was listening. And it did not approve. He shivered, just once, then looked up

There stood Peter—and Elowyn's heart lifted. The sight of him, even from across the room, unraveled something tense and tightly coiled in Elowyn's chest. Peter’s hair was tousled, cheeks faintly flushed, and though his smile was thin, it was there—and for a flicker of a moment, that alone was enough. There was a light to Peter when he entered a room, not always brilliant, but bright in its particular hue—an alchemy of warmth and mischief and ache. It was a light Elowyn had grown to crave, not because it chased away the shadows, but because it made them feel less lonely. In that moment, yes—he felt joy. A small, unguarded, and deeply human joy.

And then Elowyn saw him: Darius. For a moment, Elowyn could not place what he was seeing. Peter, walking beside Darius Travers—a boy who had, since the term began, spewed nothing but venom at Elowyn—felt like a wrong note struck in a familiar song. His mind immediately grasped at logic: they were in the same club, that must be it. It had to be proximity, nothing more—an accidental convergence of schedules, of space. But even knowing that, Elowyn could not stop the quiet tug in his chest, the dissonance that rang just slightly out of tune with the rest of the world. But then he looked closer and saw the brittle tension in Peter’s frame—the shoulders held too stiffly, the smile stretched too far. There was something off in the angle of his body, as if he were leaning away from something he couldn't quite name.

Darius, by contrast, moved like he owned the air around him. His gait was smooth, theatrical, full of confidence that fed on notice. His voice preceded him, as always, trailing dramatics and carefully measured charm. But it was more than that. Elowyn felt the imbalance of him. The Castle felt it too—he was sure of it. The atmosphere itself had shifted.

They stepped closer. Darius’s parting words—loud, too loud—slid like a blade between them.

“Tomorrow then, Ainsley?” he said, the smirk curling like smoke. “We’ll tackle that essay together, yeah? I’ve got high hopes for us."

And something inside Elowyn recoiled and he felt his smile faltered, not in anger but in disquiet—a silent disruption of warmth, like a sudden breeze extinguishing the steady flame of a candle. Darius stood not far behind Peter, and though the boy’s posture was relaxed, his eyes were too focused, too intent, his lips shaping words Elowyn could not hear but understood all the same.

Dirtborn. Soilspawn. Filth-fed and forest-whelped. He’ll be mine soon, and you’ll watch him fall.

The slurs landed without sound, but not without weight. Elowyn’s stomach turned, not with fear but with something colder—disgust, restrained only by the knowledge that any reaction would give Darius what he wanted. He kept his face even, gaze calm, but a distant flicker of something ancient stirred inside him. A defensive grace honed not through duels but through knowing when to let stillness speak.

Peter approached, slower than usual, his shoulders tense beneath the weight of something unspoken. Elowyn shifted his parchment aside without disturbing Callum, who still slept soundly, his head tucked against Elowyn's shoulder. Without a word, Elowyn made space, offering quiet invitation. And as Peter sat, Elowyn smiled at Peter—gentle, sincere, and so wholly his own that it seemed to carry the hush of the forest with it, quiet and unshakable, like something rooted. But Peter didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps he had, and chose not to. Elowyn reached out and touched his forearm—just briefly.

Peter laughed, but the sound came too quickly. It rang hollow—too bright, too brittle. Then he pulled away, as though the contact had singed. Elowyn let his hand fall gently to the table. He asked nothing. He pressed nothing. He only returned to his letter, his quill gliding across the parchment with practiced ease. But his mind did not follow. Had Peter known Darius would follow him? Had he invited it? Did he not feel it—what radiated from Darius like heat from sun-cracked stone, warped and dangerous? Or had he felt it and welcomed it anyway?

Elowyn’s face betrayed nothing. His posture was composed, his breath slow and even. But beneath the surface, an ache began to gather—tight and twisting. It unspooled in the space between hurt and restraint.

He had seen it—the flicker in Peter’s eyes when their gazes met, that tremble of recognition shaded by distance. There was a pause, a hitch in the rhythm between them, a new carefulness where once there had been ease. It was not distrust, not fully, but a questioning—uncertain and sharp-edged. Elowyn felt it like a thread pulled taut between them, a subtle tension strung where there had been seamless belonging.

He glanced up again at Peter, who had taken the parchment for Mandatory Muggle Studies—the one Elowyn had already revised with patient notations and careful suggestions. Peter’s face creased into a frown as he studied the margin notes, chewing his lip and muttering softly to himself as he made the adjustments. Elowyn let his gaze linger. There was a time, not long ago, when Peter would have grinned up at him and made some wry joke about his handwriting or the sheer number of commas he insisted on. But now he sat curled inward, and Elowyn could see the tension in the lines of his jaw, in the way he hunched slightly as though guarding something tender.

A tremor ran faintly through Peter’s hand as he wrote, causing the ink to pool unevenly in the corner of his parchment. Elowyn noticed it—noted it—but said nothing. The room, once warmed by Peter’s voice and humor, felt thinner now, as though the light through the windows had paled.

Elowyn’s gaze lingered on Peter for several long moments—long enough for the weight of that silence to settle, tender and uncertain, between them. Then, with the deliberate grace that cloaked all his movements, he turned back to his parchment. The quill resumed its course, carving lines across the page with practiced ease, but the words beneath it shimmered and wavered, as though seen through water. The ink bled faintly at the corners of his sight, haloed in quiet grief, and for a moment he could not remember what he had been writing. It was as if the page had slipped from purpose, as if the very shape of thought had blurred—unmoored, unsettled, and unraveling just slightly at the seams.

This table had once been a sanctuary—a quiet altar of parchment and breath, where words could settle and hearts could unfold without fear. This seat, once a refuge from the storm beyond these stone walls, had become something akin to home. And Peter—ever-quick, ever-burning Peter—had brought brightness to it all, laughter like starlight in the dark. He had drawn levity from the cracks, lifted the corners of Elowyn's solemn world, and stitched their days together with unspoken affection. But now he sat hunched and guarded, his gaze sliding past Elowyn as if he feared what he might find there. His laughter came sharp, not joyful but defensive, edged like a warding spell cast too quickly.

Elowyn did not feel the loss as pain, not in the way one feels a wound or a blow, sudden and sharp, but as something far more insidious—a quiet that pressed against the edges of his awareness with the slow, deliberate weight of inevitability. It was the kind of stillness that did not soothe but warned, a hush that stretched too long and carried with it the scent of thunder yet to break. No voices were raised, no glances shattered like glass, and yet the air felt thinner somehow, as though it had been emptied of the certainty that had once filled it.

Elowyn let his gaze drift downward to Callum, whose weight rested with familiar warmth against his shoulder—a quiet presence that, unlike so much else of late, had not shifted or pulled away. There was comfort in that shared stillness, in the slow, steady rhythm of breath that rose and fell with a kind of unconscious trust. It tethered Elowyn to the present, to the small sacredness of now. And yet, even that quiet could not erase what had passed between them—between all three of them. He had not seen Peter’s eyes flick upward, had missed the brief, too-bright glance cast toward their joined forms. He had not caught the narrowing of Peter’s bright blue eyes, or the silent conclusion that followed it. 

But something beneath Elowyn's ribs tightened all the same, as though his heart had sensed what his eyes had not. And within his heart, sorrow stirred—not the kind that cried out for notice, but the kind that settled into the hollow places, coiling low and deep where no light could reach. And as his fingers stilled against the parchment, he felt it—that minute, near-imperceptible shift beneath his feet, a tremor that could have passed for a shifting chair or a creaking shelf. But Elowyn knew better. The Castle, old as root and stone, had felt it too. Something had changed. A fracturing had begun.

Chapter Text

From: Thaddeus Arthur Benedict Blythe Marwood

Study, Marwood-Travers Cottage

Lanwynn Koes, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

To: Elowyn Lucan Athelstan Blythe Marwood-Travers

Slytherin House, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Scotland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

3 November 1997

To my son, Elowyn,

Your most recent letter arrived on a morning cold enough to warrant the hearth's kindling, and I must admit the coincidence felt poetically apt. There is something bracing in your inquiries of late, something of frost and flint. You have always possessed a keener mind than most your age, but I sense it now honed to a new edge—one I both admire and, if I am honest, watch with careful interest. The questions you are asking are not those posed by children, nor are they easily answered by adults. Still, I shall attempt a reply worthy of your seriousness.

Scorched earth policies, as you rightly note, are not the invention of any single people or century. They are as old as conflict itself, though the language changes: salting the land, razing the fields, denying shelter to an advancing force. In the Muggle world, these strategies have appeared with grim regularity. The retreating Russians during Napoleon’s 1812 campaign set fire to their own cities and left naught but ash in his path. Closer to your current curriculum, you may have heard of General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose infamous March to the Sea during the American Civil War left a trail of deliberate devastation across Georgia. Both believed, with a conviction born of war, that such ruin would shorten the greater conflict.

Wizarding history is not innocent of such methods. The Third Goblin Rebellion, though often summarised in cursory fashion, ended with the systematic collapsing of entire tunnel systems, dooming not only rebel strongholds but their surrounding magical habitats. There are unconfirmed reports that during the suppression of the Welsh Conflagration in 1642, the Ministry—in its earliest form—resorted to memory purges so vast they effectively erased several square miles of Muggle settlement. Wizards speak often of Muggle destructiveness as if it were a pathology unique to them, but history does not support so convenient a distinction. Wizards, too, have burned.

You write that Professor Alecto Carrow has argued such tactics demonstrate the inherent chaos of the non-magical world, and that it is the wizarding community's moral duty to exert control. I shall refrain from editorialising, but I encourage you to consider this: any claim of moral superiority that rests upon the vilification of another group must be examined not only for its logic, but for its fear. History is as often the study of what societies attempt to justify as it is the study of what they achieve.

What, then, might such justifications reveal about those who make them? Who benefits from the framing of an entire people as dangerous or incapable? And what do we risk losing when we adopt simplified narratives about conflict and control? I would be interested to hear how these questions sit with you, especially in light of your own experiences—not only within the classroom, but among your peers.

Your instinct to understand, rather than to judge, is one I have long cherished. The finest minds are not those that leap to condemnation, but those that pause to question the shape of things—even when such questioning is uncomfortable. Especially then.

I have enclosed two texts from my own shelves. The first is Magical Strategy and Statecraft by E. Damocles Witherbourne—a somewhat dry but informative treatment of wizarding conflict through the centuries, with particular attention paid to the ethical frameworks underpinning major decisions. The second is The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman, a Muggle historian whose work I read some years after completing my university studies, though I have followed her writing with interest ever since. It is neither light reading nor comfortable, but her clarity and precision in tracing the self-destructive decisions of governments may prove fruitful. I imagine, it it were part of the castle’s collection, it is no longer readily available.

If your appetite remains unquenched, I recommend also Cleansing Flame: Magical War and Moral Cost, though I suspect that volume may also have been removed from circulation. You might consult Madam Pince directly—if you approach with care.

Your Papa sends his love. He is out this morning in the Koes, gathering the last of the season’s herbs and blooms before the frost settles in earnest. The cold has come early and hard this year, and the land is behaving oddly—less like a slumbering friend, more like something watchful and reticent. Still, he moves through it as he always does, quiet and purposeful. It is good to see him focused. He worries, of course, but then again, we both do.

Has Peter been feeling more himself of late? You’d said he was somewhat under the weather in your letter. I noticed he has not replied to my last letter, though I imagine he is caught up in schoolwork—or perhaps more happily engaged in one of your ongoing projects. Do remind him that I am always glad to hear from him. And Callum? I hope the autumn air agrees with him better than summer's heat. He struck me as a child who relished the quieter seasons.

Your Grandmama and Grandpapa Marwood came for dinner last week. They told me how much they treasure your letters. I gather you’ve been writing them faithfully every Sunday—your grandmama is, quite frankly, beside herself. She quoted you twice at supper and made me promise to pass along how proud she is of your insight, your eloquence, and (her words, not mine) your impeccable manners. I shall resist the temptation to tease you about it—but only just. It pleases me, more than I can easily say, to see the line between generations remain unbroken.

My dear son, I must draw this letter to a close. Let me leave you with this, then: continue to ask the more difficult questions. They will steady you better than any easy certainty and serve you longer besides. Know that we think of you daily and trust, with quiet pride, the shape you are taking in this season of your life. The frost may come early this year, but not all that roots itself well is undone by cold. You were never expected to follow a path—we hoped only that you might forge one worthy of your name.

With steady love, as ever,

Your father

—

(Translated from Cornish)

From: Emrys Travers

Marwood & Travers Cottage, Lanwynn Koes

To: Elowyn Marwood-Travers 

Slytherin House, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

4 November 1997

To my Dar Byghan, Elowyn,

The frost kissed the windowpanes this morning, thin as spider silk but stubborn, as though it had been waiting all night to draw its lace across the glass. Your Papa, of course, had already gone—or if he returned at all, he left no sign of it. I had fallen asleep beside the fire, and when I woke, the candle had long since guttered and his side of the bed was still cool. If he returned, he left no trace of it—no note, no half-drunk cup, not even a slipper out of place. It’s more likely he never came home at all. I suspect he stayed the night in the shop again, watching the wards flicker low and making those infernal lists by candlelight. He will deny it if asked, so don’t ask. Let him keep his dignity.

I write from the old bench beneath the sycamore, bundled in one of the woollen cloaks your father insists on keeping precisely folded in the upstairs wardrobe—navy, of course, and lined in green silk. It still smells like ink and mint and something unnameable that must surely be age. The Koes is quiet this morning. Not silent, exactly, but subdued in that particular way it gets when the air is thick with watching. An Dar has been restless, Elowyn. The storms have come early, and hard, and not always from the direction they should. We had thunder last week without a cloud in the sky, and the old stream in North Hollow ran backwards for nearly half an hour. Mamm Meredydd swears it was only a charm misfire, but I saw the worry in her eyes.

The new moon gathering was smaller than usual. Perhaps forty heads in all, and few lingered after the rootfire dimmed. Hwester Gweneth brought her fennel loaves, still warm, and Tas Bedwyn poured a measure of blackthorn wine, though even he seemed subdued. We lit the rootfire and sang only a few of the harvest songs, quietly and without ceremony. The mood was heavier and more reflective than usual—less a remembrance and more a wake. Your absence was sorely felt. Isolde asked after you—she always does—and Callum’s sister Brígh sat beside me for a long while, quiet as ever, her eyes fixed on the flame as if waiting for something to rise from it. There was talk, low and uneasy, about the missing.

Three now. You’ve likely heard whispers already, but I’ll say it plainly: Mamm Alys Trevorrow, Hwester Madwyn Hale, and Mab Jory Penhaligon. All gone within the last fortnight. No sign, no note, no scent trail, not even a whisper from the wards. It’s as though they stepped into the woods and vanished. Their families are...holding on, but the village is unnerved. Even the dogs bark differently at night. Alys tended the young orchard, and Jory helped keep the rootcellars charmed. Their absence is more than grief—it leaves gaps we can feel underfoot. The elders met in An Hel an Koes two nights past, and while no one said the word out loud, I think we’re all thinking it—something is leaning against the edge of us, and it is not kind.

We had another brushing at the perimeter last Sunday. The western grove lit up like flameglass for nearly a minute before fading. No breach, thank the roots, but I do not like the feel of it. It was not a test this time. It felt...deliberate. Almost surgical. Your father has taken to sleeping in the shop —curled in the old armchair by the hearth, his spectacles askew, and the candle gutters low beside his stack of correspondence. I find him there sometimes with ink on his collar and the fire burned down to cinders. He says little, but he has started making lists, and Thaddeus Marwood does not make lists without cause.

I am tired, Elowyn. Not in spirit, but in body. And not afraid, not exactly—more wary, perhaps, in the way an old hawk watches the sky before a storm it can’t quite name. I am tired of not knowing where the next wound will open. I’ve been out gathering nearly every day, chasing what roots and blooms remain before the frost claims them for good. Some days are oddly balmy—sunlight slanting warm through the canopy like it’s early September—and the next, the wind cuts like January steel. Then a full day of rain will come, soaking through boots and roofs and tempers alike. The Koes does not know what season it’s in, and neither do we. The elderflower is trying to bloom again. I found yarrow growing where none has ever rooted. Even the cleavers have turned bitter too soon. 

An Dar is speaking, but none of us can make sense of the murmurs beneath its bark. I have tried, Elowyn. We have all tried. But its voice is thick with something we don’t yet understand. And still, people fall ill. The fevers are strange—flickering like fireflies and then flaring to dangerous heat. The herbs spoil faster than they should. The drying charms unravel as if something unseen were breathing against them. It is an unsettling time. Still, the work continues. The people here need healing, and they need steadiness. I bring both where I can. That means poultices at dawn and lullabies at dusk, watching over fevers and reminding the living to eat. Sometimes, it’s enough to sit beside someone until their breath finds rhythm again. Your father does more than most realise, though I suspect you’ve always known that. The cottage stays warm, though the firewood vanishes faster than we stack it, and the soup is always hot.

Lowena came by with a basket of quince and a look I didn’t quite understand. She didn’t say much about your letters to her, but she did smile when your name came up. I think she misses you. Zenobia, for her part, has taken to sleeping on your pillow again. She’s sulking less, which is either progress or plotting. Time will tell. She is a great comfort to both your father and me—soft where the days are hard, and watchful in the quiet ways that matter. I believe you made the right choice in leaving her here this year, Elowyn, though it pained you at the time. She’s needed, and she knows it. And between us, I think she’s rather glad not to be in that great draughty castle this year—she never liked it, as you often reminded us in your letters. Scotland didn’t suit her temperament, nor her tail.

Your Mamm Wynn has sent a pair of socks and a scarf each for you, Peter, and Callum, enclosed with the parcel your father and I sent—along with a fresh bundle of Koesmade nut and honey bars, since I suspect your supply has long since vanished. She worried it might already be too late in that frigid northern castle of yours, and I’m inclined to agree. She told me to tell you they were stitched with warming charms and good sense. I suspect one took better than the other. Your Tas Wynn sends you his love as well—he’s been whittling again, says it keeps his hands useful when the weather pin him indoors. He’s asked after your studies and whether you’ve been taking care of your hands—says no good can come of a young wizard who forgets the virtues of simple work. I told him you were managing well enough, and he harrumphed like a thundercloud. They are well, but like all of us, feeling the press of a season turned sideways. Still, your Mamm-wynnkeeps her hearth bright, and your Tas-wynn their kettle full, and between them, their house is warmer than most.

Before I close, I must say this: I see them, too, Elowyn—your Callum and your Peter. I see what they are to you, and what you are together. You do not need to explain. I knew it before you spoke it aloud. It was in the way you looked at them that first afternoon with them in the Koes—how you stood beside Callum as if he'd always been part of the land, and how your hand found Peter’s without needing to search. You are bound, my son—not by ritual (though that may yet come), but by choice and trust and something far older than either. You are stronger with them, and I am glad beyond measure that you have found such kinship.

And yet—there is a note in your letter I cannot ignore. A hesitation, like a skipped beat in a familiar song. You wrote of Peter with less ease than before, and I know your heart well enough to sense when it is bruised. Whatever has passed between you, know this: bonds such as yours are not so easily broken. They bend, sometimes sharply, but they are shaped by love, and love is not fragile. Callum remains steady in your words, and I take comfort in that. And I trust that Peter, for all his brightness and bite, will find his way again. Give him grace, as you always have. Let him meet you in his time. The kind of love you carry between the three of you is rare, Elowyn. Do not cast it in shadow before you have seen what light may yet come.

I will not ask questions you cannot answer. I know better than to tug at threads you must keep knotted for now. Just know this—your name is spoken here often, and always with reverence. Not as a memory, but as a presence felt keenly. It rises with the steam from our morning tea, settles in the hearth-smoke, and stirs in the hollows where your boots once pressed the soil. The Koes speaks your name the way it speaks of deep water and old trees—gently, but with weight. There is a shape in this land, Elowyn, made not only by your feet but by your spirit, your quiet way of listening and choosing, again and again, to tend what others would overlook. That shape remains. It shelters us even now. And in your absence, it does not feel empty—it feels expectant. The land remembers you. So do we. I do, with every breath, and I hold fast to the thread between us until you come home again.

With all the light that remains, and the eternal love that binds us,

 Papa

—

(Translated from Cornish)

From: Lowena Carnoweth

Carnoweth Cottage, Lanwynn Koes

To: Elowyn Marwood-Travers

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

7 November 1997

Mab Elowyn,

Your letter came with the breath of the wind behind it. I read it on the bench behind my cottage, where the moors stretch wide and the wind knows everyone’s name. The heather was still damp from yesterday’s rain, and a kestrel circled above as though listening in. You wrote with your usual clarity and care, and more than once I paused, not to answer, but to listen. Even in the space between your words, the truth stirred.

You spoke of the one whose light seems dimmer just now. Of the ache that comes not like a break, but like a slow tilt in the branches, a quiet lean away. Fracture, when it begins, rarely shouts. Often it is the hush before it widens.

You once wrote of him as fire and edge, quicksilver and ache. I remember the first time he came to me, his gaze sharp, his posture proud, but his hands twisting at the sleeves of his jumper. He spoke quickly, too quickly, like someone trying to stay ahead of his own silence. There are wounds we carry in quiet corners, Mab Elowyn, where even our own breath feels like trespass. He holds many such corners.

You dreamt of him wreathed in smoke, his voice lost to it. You could not move. You could not reach. That is a dream a healer knows well. Sometimes love stands at the edge of the wood and must watch while the one it cherishes walks into shadow alone. You cannot clear his path. You cannot force the smoke to lift. But you can remain just beyond its edge, steady and unchanged.

The hurt you feel is not misplaced. To see him in comfort with one who has flung ash and poison at your name, to watch him smile in shadow while you offer only light, it bruises. Let the bruise be. Let it mark the place where love was struck, but do not press on it needlessly. You are right to feel it. You are also right to wait, and to hope.

But, Mab Elowyn, do not trim yourself smaller in hope he will find his way back. You must remain whole, not so he may return to the shape of you, but so you may continue becoming yourself, even if his path never bends again toward yours. Love that is real will choose to return, not be chased.

If the days ahead feel frayed at the edges, try this: find a quiet place. Let your feet touch bare earth, if you can. Place one hand over your heart, and the other over your belly. Breathe in for four heartbeats. Hold for two. Breathe out for six. As you do, think your name, not just once, but layered as it truly is:

Elowyn.

Elowyn, child of the Koes.

Elowyn, chosen of An Dar.

Elowyn, who listens, who mends, who endures.

Repeat it until you feel the roots of it settle into your bones. When the fog rises, it helps to name the ground you still stand on.

You are not failing him. You are learning how to love without losing yourself. You are not lost. You are becoming.

Walk gently, always,

Lowena

Chapter Text

The library had settled into its usual midweek hush by the time Callum returned, the thick stone walls absorbing what little sound filtered in from the upper corridors. Distant footsteps faded behind heavy doors and long-forgotten shelves, but there was a strangeness to the quiet now—more subdued, as though the very air was listening. The enchanted lanterns along the eaves flickered faintly, no longer burning with their once-steady light, casting irregular, wavering ribbons of amber across the woodgrain tables. Some sputtered just slightly, like candle flames in a draft, their magic stretched thin. Dust motes drifted more thickly than usual, hanging in the air like a veil not shaken loose, catching what little glow remained and magnifying the sense of neglect.

Elowyn looked up from his notes as Callum sank into the chair beside him with a tired grunt, sweat glistening at his temples and the back of his neck where his short rusty hair clung damply to his skin. His robes were askew, as though he’d fought his way through a storm. He looked wrung out—eyes shadowed, hands faintly trembling from magical overuse. His bag slumped off his shoulder as he sat, landing on the floor with a dull thud.

“More drills?" Elowyn asked gently, his voice still threaded with the quiet cadence of study.

Callum gave a weary nod and rolled his shoulders back, groaning faintly. "Same as last week. Seven spells—Impedimenta, Stupefy, Flipendo, Reducto, Confringo, Expulso, Bombarda. Again and again. He’s trying to make us cast through exhaustion. Says it’s for 'resilience-building,' but it’s more like breaking us down so we don’t think, just react."

Elowyn gestured toward the neatly rolled scroll already lying beside his own notes, bound with silver thread. "I revised your Transfiguration scroll while you were at club. The one due tomorrow. You had strong ideas, but the conclusion veered. I made notes to help bring it back to your central premise."

Callum stared at the scroll for a moment before picking it up. The thread glinted softly in the low light. "You’re unreal, El," he said, voice hoarse. "Thank you."

Elowyn offered only a soft smile in reply. As Callum unrolled the scroll and began reading through Elowyn’s notes—his previous draft splayed open beside him—he dipped his quill and began transcribing his essay anew in his own hand. Elowyn reached out and laid his fingers lightly against Callum’s wrist. It was a brief touch, neither dramatic nor unnoticed—a moment of quiet connection that anchored them both in the dim and shifting space they had claimed as their own. It was not loud in its meaning, but it was steady: a gesture of reassurance, of solidarity, and of presence that needed no explanation.

They said nothing more for a time. The library around them exhaled into stillness.

Elowyn, having finished revising his own Transfiguration essay, slid it aside and drew toward him the thin leather-bound tome he had checked out the previous Saturday: Resonant Cores: On the Enchanted Kinship Between Wand and Wizard. The book had a scent he adored—of lavender ink and cured leather, of old wood and something like honeysuckle. The title was embossed in faded gold, its letters catching the lanternlight in faint flickers as he turned the cover and resumed reading. He made notes in his journal—a meticulously maintained volume bound in deep green hide, its edges engraved with curling tree branches—and annotated a diagram of wand resonance curves with delicate care.

Callum wrote beside him, slower now, his movements deliberate. The scratch of quill on parchment was steady, a rhythm they both seemed to fall into without speaking. Only the faint creak of the lantern chain overhead interrupted them, swinging slightly as if moved by breathless magic.

Then a voice broke through the quiet—too loud for the hushed library, too smug for the sacred hush that lingered here. It rang across the shelves with a practiced sort of ease, unmistakable in its cadence and calculated arrogance.

"Come on, Petey, you don’t actually believe that, do you?"

Callum’s head snapped up. His spine straightened like a drawn bow. He turned sharply, eyes narrowing as he peered past the towering shelves that shielded their table from the main thoroughfare. The sound had come from the central aisle, still distant, but drawing nearer.

Elowyn didn’t look up. His hand paused above his journal for the briefest breath, quill suspended mid-curve, then lowered again to the page with practiced calm.

"You’ve got to be more careful," Darius’s voice echoed faintly. "You’ll embarrass yourself Saturday  if you don’t keep up. After dinner Friday, yeah? Our group’s got to set the standard."

Callum muttered something low and poisonous under his breath, inaudible even to Elowyn, but it trembled with meaning.

Footsteps echoed now, slow and unhurried, each one stretched just long enough to suggest a practiced ease—a casualness too deliberate to be unintentional.

"See you then," came the final farewell, laced with a too-long pause—performed, rehearsed, knowing.

Then, louder: "Don’t work too hard tonight."

Callum twisted in his seat just as Darius Travers came into view at the far edge of the aisle, casting a quick, ostentatious wink directly toward their corner.

Peter stood alone for a moment, facing the empty space where Darius had disappeared behind the towering stacks. He lingered there, shoulders squared in an awkward mimicry of confidence, his face still curved with the remnants of laughter—but the expression no longer suited the quiet gloom of the library. Here, among the flickering lanterns and the slowly gathering dust, it looked out of place, a brightness cast from another room and another world entirely.

Gradually, his smile slipped away, not all at once but in hesitant degrees, as though Peter himself were uncertain whether to let it go. He turned, and as he approached, the grin peeled away like bark from a tree. His shoulders hunched slightly, feet dragging in a way that betrayed a heaviness not yet voiced. He looked like someone coming down from a high he hadn’t asked for.

Callum faced forward again, jaw clenched tight. Peter reached their table and sat down across from Elowyn. His hands were fidgeting with the edges of his robes.

“Alright?" he asked, in English, voice trying for casual but landing somewhere between guilt and bravado.

Callum didn’t look at him as he asked in Cornish, "Why’re you hanging about with that prat? You know what he says about El. You’ve heard it."

Peter flinched. "It’s not like that," he said, still in English, too fast. "Professor Alecto paired us.”

The lie sat between them overripe and rotten.

Elowyn noted it but said nothing as Peter continued.

“And he’s actually sort of—"

Callum continued, ”Sort of what? Brilliant? Enlightened? Secretly writing a memoir?"

Peter gave a weak laugh. "He’s...smart at it."

Callum leaned forward, eyes dark. "You could’ve asked to be reassigned."

"To who? We’re not exactly swimming in free partners. Besides, it’s not like Professor Alecto is taking requests."

“I’m sure you didn’t even try."

Peter huffed. "Sure. Let me just march up to her and say I don’t like my debate partner. Maybe she’ll clap her hands, summon a doily, and pour me a nice cup of tea while we gossip about my emotional growth."

The joke hung in the air, stale, and Callum looked irritated—his lips tightening and breath hitching as though he were about to say something sharp enough to slice the silence in two. Across the table, Peter’s eyes flicked downward just in time to see Elowyn’s hand slide beneath the table and settle, calm and unhurried, on Callum’s thigh. A flare of something hot and unbidden—jealousy, sharp as nettles—rose in Peter’s chest, twisting behind his ribs. For a breath he wanted to lash out, to jab or joke or push some faultline until it cracked. But Elowyn, still composed, turned to Peter with a quiet grace, closed Resonant Cores with a soft snap, and looked up. His voice, when it came, was gentle.

“What was the topic tonight?” he asked, in English.

Peter seized the lifeline. The tension in his shoulders softened, not vanishing but settling—like a storm retreating just beyond the tree line. His hands, still resting flat against the table, eased their grip on nothing. Even the set of his jaw shifted, the sharpness dulling as though Elowyn’s question had pierced through something tight and tangled within him. He leaned forward slightly, not in eagerness but in relief, grateful for the reprieve from Callum’s glare and the unspoken things pressing between them.

"It was the slaughter of the indigenous tribes in the Americas. Professor Alecto said a lot of them were guided by magic-users—shamans and such—but they had the wrong idea. They believed in working with nature. Not controlling it. She said that’s why they lost. Because their magic was too soft."

Elowyn tilted his head, his eyes sharpening behind long lashes. “That way of magic sounds familiar."

Peter furrowed his brow. “How?"

Elowyn spoke softly, each word unfurling like mist over moorland. "That philosophy...it isn’t foreign to me. It echoes the ways of Lanwynn Koes. The way I was taught to live. In the Koes, we listen. We keep balance. We give back to the land, not take from it. Even before the Druids and Celts, there were people who wove their lives into the roots and rivers, who asked the wind before speaking, who shaped their magic with reverence, not conquest. That’s not weakness—it’s a different kind of strength. The kind that holds.”

Peter shifted in his seat, the corner of his mouth pulling downward. “Darius says magic like that—magic that listens and waits—is just cowardice in prettier robes. And I’m not saying he’s right, but…” He looked down at his hands. “I mean, maybe that kind of magic just…isn’t built to survive. Not now. Not in a world like this.”

Callum let out a breath, sharp and quiet. “Darius Travers,” he said, as though the name tasted wrong. He still spoke in Cornish, refusing to yield that safety they had agreed upon at the beginning of the term. “You quoting him now, are you? What’s next—start him a fan club? Get yourself a little badge made up?”

Callum’s voice wasn’t raised, but there was steel in it, quiet and cold. The kind that didn’t need volume to land.

Peter stiffened. The flush that had already begun to bloom across his cheekbones deepened, rising like heat through glass. His hands, once restless at the hem of his robe, went still against the table, fingers spread as if bracing for something he could not name. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not with Callum’s eyes on him—those sharp gold irises alight with fury, not loud but burning low and steady, like coals that had been waiting to be rekindled. And not with Elowyn’s gaze holding him in silence, deep blue and rimmed with violet, cold as starlight and twice as ancient, seeing further and deeper into Peter than Peter wished to be seen.

Peter remained silent. His eyes dropped to his lap, then rose again to Elowyn’s face. He looked stricken—pulled between ideas he didn’t know how to hold at once. Elowyn could see it all there, flickering behind his gaze. Darius’s laughter. Professor Alecto’s voice. The Grand Oak. The softness of Lanwynn Koes that had held Peter in his time of need.

Peter frowned slightly, still unsure and finally spoke. "I mean...maybe. But if that way worked, wouldn’t they have won? That’s what Professor Alecto says, anyway.""

Elowyn’s expression shifted—just slightly, but enough. There was a shadow behind his eyes, not anger or even disappointment, but a quiet sorrow that settled into the silence between them. Peter saw it, and for a moment he faltered, glancing away as though the truth in Elowyn’s gaze was too sharp to meet. But Elowyn said nothing more. He had spoken what he believed, not to persuade but to plant a seed. Whether it would take root was not his to decide. This path—uncertain and branching—belonged to Peter alone. He reached for the second scroll already resting beside his notes, its parchment smooth and clean, bound with silver thread that caught the dimming light like frost on a spider’s web.

"I revised your Transfiguration essay," he said, setting it in front of Peter.

Peter looked at it for a long moment. Then, without a word, he pulled out his quill and fresh parchment and began copying it over.

Callum, whose temper still smoldered beneath the surface, reached down and took Elowyn’s hand in his own. He gave it a warm, grounding squeeze—not hurried, or harsh, but steady and sure—before releasing it and turning back to his scroll, jaw set and breath more rapid and disturbed than usual.

And Elowyn, silent now, simply watched Peter as he wrote—watched the slope of his shoulders, the hesitation in his script, the way his eyes lingered on certain words. He tried to read the story beneath the ink, tried to see the threads that hadn’t yet broken. And he wondered, heart aching and slow, if it was already too late to turn the page back.

—

By the time Saturday afternoon had unfurled its hush across the Castle, the library had settled again into its usual rhythm. The autumn light filtered pale and listless through the tall windows, casting thin stripes of warmth across the stone floor and illuminating the ever-thickening dust in the air. The flickering lanterns above the shelves sputtered intermittently now, the magic inside them threadbare and aging. Still, there was comfort in the familiar hush, in the solitude offered by the far aisles and forgotten corners. Elowyn had claimed their usual table after lunch and remained there while Callum and Peter were at their club meetings. Elowyn sat with his parchment spread neatly before him, quill gliding in careful Cornish across the thick cream parchment of the letter.

Callum arrived not long after, slipping into his usual seat beside Elowyn with a nod and the soft rustle of robes. Though still carrying the fatigue of the week, he no longer looked as worn down as he had after the first and second club sessions. The exhaustion clung more lightly now, his body beginning to adjust to the relentless rhythm of drills and sparring. He didn’t speak at first, only leaned his elbow on the table and watched Elowyn write, his fingers drumming absently against the grain of the wood.

“Writing to Mamm Wynn?" he asked quietly in Cornish.

Elowyn nodded, dipping his quill again. "Yes," Elowyn replied, his voice low and thoughtful. "She wrote on Thursday. She's been troubled by the weight in the air—says it presses through even the parchment of my letters."

Callum snorted faintly. "She’s not wrong."

The two boys lapsed into companionable silence, Elowyn continuing his letter with elegant strokes, and Callum pulling a Charms textbook from his satchel and flipping through the crisp pages of a new chapter on protective enchantments, the scent of fresh ink still clinging faintly to the parchment. The quiet settled thick around them, dense as snowfall in a blizzard and just as sacred. The hush curled into the corners of the aisle and softened the edges of the light, a stillness so complete it felt like a charm in itself. Time stretched long and slow, and stayed that way for a while, draping the space in a hush that neither boy disturbed.

A laugh broke the quiet—quick, brittle, and far too loud for the soft stillness they had cultivated. Darius's. It was not a pleasant sound, but a calculated rupture, sharp-edged and hollow, as if mocking the very idea of peace. Elowyn didn’t lift his head at once. Instead, his quill stilled mid-stroke, hovering above the parchment, while a subtle tightness crept into the line of his jaw. Callum, sensing it, glanced sideways, eyes narrowing slightly.

Another laugh followed—Peter's this time. But it wasn’t the bright, easy sound Elowyn remembered. It rang thin and strange, more performance than pleasure, clinging to Darius’s words like ivy to stone, seeking something to hold onto. Elowyn’s brow furrowed slightly, though he said nothing, the unease etching itself into the space between them.

They came into view by degrees—Peter stepping lightly into the aisle, his laughter too bright, too sharp against the hush of the library. Darius stepped into the aisle behind him, and then lounged with theatrical ease against a nearby shelf, the sort of lean that suggested ownership rather than rest. He spoke in a voice too quiet for Callum or Elowyn to catch, but his gaze never wavered—it was fixed, pointed, and landed squarely on Elowyn like a blade balanced on its edge. Peter, back turned to their table, laughed again, louder this time, and Darius’s hand found Peter's arm in a gesture that seemed casual until it lingered just a breath too long. The flush that climbed Peter’s neck was visible even from behind, his ears pink, his posture taut with something unspoken.

"Tuesday after dinner, then," Darius said, his voice raised just enough to carry, casual in tone but unmistakably deliberate. “We need to prepare for Wednesday’s debate."

Peter hesitated before answering, the pause just long enough to betray him. "Yeah," he said, quieter than before. Though his back remained to them, his head turned just slightly, as if checking the space behind him—half-afraid, half-hopeful that neither of them had heard. "Sounds good."

Darius lingered a moment longer, his lean against the shelf shifting into something unmistakably flirtatious. He tipped his head toward Peter, lips curling into a grin that was all teeth and mischief, and murmured something low that made Peter flush deep red from neck to ears. Callum, watching from the table, saw it all—the way Peter angled subtly toward him, the way his stance steadied rather than faltered, the way his fingers curled faintly in response instead of retreating. Then, with a lazy push from the shelf, Darius turned and sauntered off down the aisle, every step a statement. As he passed the end of the aisle, he cast a lingering glance back—not at Peter, but at Callum, his eyes narrowing with a sneer that curled at the corner of his mouth, unspoken but unmistakable. The air in his wake felt charged, as though he’d left behind not just words but a dare.

Peter lingered for a moment, gaze trailing after Darius until the last of his footsteps had vanished down the corridor. When he turned back to the table, it was with the faintest jolt—like remembering a promise made to someone he'd nearly forgotten. He tried to school his expression as he approached, but a trace of warmth clung to the corners of his mouth, betraying what lingered still beneath the surface.

There was something unguarded in Peter’s face—a flicker of raw want, not only for acknowledgment, but for something less easily named: to be chosen. His steps were brisk but uncertain, his smile faltering mid-formation, like a mask unsure of which play it belonged to.

“Hey,” Peter said, too brightly, in English, as he slid into the seat across from Elowyn. There was a gleam behind his eyes still—something flushed and half-formed—but it faltered the moment he glanced at Callum. The fire waiting in Callum’s gaze was unmistakable, held just barely in check, and it forced Peter’s smile into something thinner, tighter, not quite convincing. He looked away. "Bit late today. Got caught up."

“Caught up, were you?” Callum said, in Cornish, eyes locked on Peter. “Aye, I saw. Looked more like you were being reeled in.”

Peter shifted in his chair. "Darius says I’ve got quicker instincts than most in our group. Even the older years. Says I read the room well and that I pick up the debate threads faster than anyone."

"Did he now?" Callum said, his tone cool and dry as old slate. He turned a page, deliberately.

Peter frowned faintly. "I mean, he’s not wrong. I've been getting solid marks in our discussions. Even Professor Alecto said I make sharp points—'rhetorically agile,' she called it."

Elowyn glanced between them, then back down to the parchment before him. His quill moved again, but the strokes were slower now, the script more spaced, as if he were waiting to see where the words might lead.

"What are you working on?" Peter asked, louder than the moment required, his voice curling just slightly with forced ease. Callum let out a quiet scoff, but his lips pressed into a thin line and he said nothing more. The fire behind his eyes banked, but did not dim.

Elowyn set his quill down and folded the letter with quiet care. “Writing to Mamm Wynn,” he said, his voice quiet but deliberate as he shifted to English—a bridge laid gently across the space between them.

Peter nodded but didn’t speak. The silence that followed was not the comfortable sort. It was taut. Stretched thin.

"Anyway," Peter said, attempting a lighter tone, "Darius reckons we might get paired for a proper two-on-two debate next week. He wants us to partner up. Says I’m the only one in the club who can hold a conversation longer than a minute without quoting the Daily Prophet or drooling on the table. And apparently, we ‘complement each other’s styles.’ Or whatever that means."

Callum let out a slow breath and looked up, finally. He glanced at Elowyn, then fixed his gold eyes on Peter.

"You quoting Darius Travers now, are you?" he asked in Cornish, dry and sharp. "What’s next—your own little club crest? A coat of arms stitched with his praises?"

Peter blinked. "It was just a compliment."

“From. Darius. Travers,” He spoke with deliberate precision, each word carefully etched into the air, as if carving meaning deeper with every syllable—making certain Peter grasped the weight beneath them.

Elowyn turned with quiet steadiness and reached over, his hand settling gently atop Callum’s where it rested on the table. The touch was featherlight but grounding, a wordless gesture that meant only: not now. When he spoke in Cornish, his voice was soft and sure. “Let it be, for now.”

Callum turned to him, the embers of his anger still flickering in the set of his jaw, but when he met Elowyn’s eyes—deep and steady, threaded through with quiet understanding—his breath eased. The heat in him softened, and with a slow nod, he let the moment pass and slowly nodded. Peter watched the exchange unfold, something sharp flickering behind his gaze. His mouth thinned, eyes narrowing with a flicker of something he barely understood—envy, perhaps, or longing dressed as resentment. But he caught himself before it could linger, smoothing his features into practiced neutrality, as though willing his heart to fall silent again.

Elowyn’s turned back to Peter, his gaze quiet and steady. His fingers slipped from Callum’s hand without haste.

“You are sharp,” he said softly, in English. “And quick. Darius wasn’t wrong to see it. I’m only glad someone else has.”

The words were simple, but they landed with weight. Peter stilled, his hands resting on the edge of his satchel as though afraid to move. The flush that had only just begun to fade returned, rising slow and unbidden beneath his skin. He did not speak. He could not. Not with Elowyn’s voice still ringing inside him, clear and calm and too generous to ignore. Confusion stirred behind his eyes—an ache he could not name, a longing he did not understand, and a shame that clung like shadow to the praise he had so badly wanted to hear.

Instead, he kept his eyes low, the corners of his mouth flickering with the ghost of something unspoken—gratitude, perhaps, or guilt masquerading as silence. He then reached into his satchel and pulled out a parchment folded twice, the edges soft and creased from handling. He flattened it on the table, smoothed the corners with care, and dipped his quill in ink, posture tight with unspoken urgency. Across from him, Elowyn had retrieved his wandlore text once more, the soft flutter of turning pages a balm against the rising tension. He resumed his notes in silence, quill moving in elegant arcs, the rhythm of study steadying him like breath.

Callum pretended to read, eyes flicking over the open page of his Charms textbook without taking in a word. More often, his gaze wandered—drawn again and again to Peter, to the careful lines of his writing, to the set of his shoulders. Anger still lived behind Callum’s eyes, sharp and smoldering, but it no longer stood alone. There was something else layered beneath it now—an ache, quiet and bruised, and another feeling Callum had no name for, only the sense of it: like sorrow softened by regret and twisted with a pain that had forgotten where it began.

—

By the time Wednesday evening folded itself into the quieter corners of the Castle, the library had returned to its weekday hush. The flickering lanterns overhead burned a touch lower now, their sputtering light casting long, softened shadows across the stone floor. The hour was familiar. The rhythm, expected. Elowyn and Callum were already seated at their usual table—one that had, over the months, become a kind of shelter tucked between the shelves. Their shoulders were bent toward their scrolls, the silence between them companionable but taut, stretched thin by the echo of Peter's absence and the mounting expectation of Darius’s next intrusion—an intrusion they both feared would come, and knew would not be kind. The air smelled of ink and aging parchment, and the scratch of quills was the only sound.

Peter was late.

Callum, head bowed, worked through a particularly dense section of his Charms textbook with slow precision. His movements belied the quiet current of frustration simmering beneath his stillness. Elowyn, beside him, had just finished revising Peter’s Charms essay and now lingered over a passage near the end of Resonant Cores. His quill rested idle across the open page of his notes. Neither of them spoke.

Then came footsteps—two sets.

Peter’s voice came first—bright, close—followed by the laugh they had come to dread. It cut through the aisle like a jagged charm poorly cast, brittle and far too loud, with an edge of cruelty curled behind its echo. It was Darius. Again.

They appeared at the edge of the aisle. Peter stepped forward with the familiar spring in his gait, and Darius followed only a breath behind. As they entered the aisle, Darius placed a hand on the small of Peter’s back, guiding him gently, possessively, down the narrow passage. Halfway down, he used that same hand to still Peter, turning him slightly so that his back faced Callum and Elowyn.

Darius stopped there and leaned with theatrical ease against a shelf, far closer than he had ever come before. His posture was casual, but his eyes were sharp. He did not acknowledge Elowyn. He barely looked at Callum. Instead, he tilted toward Peter with the same too-familiar smile curling across his face.

"Brilliant work tonight, Pete," Darius said, loud enough for Callum and Elowyn to hear. "You carried that argument better than any second year I’ve ever seen. Sharp. Controlled. That bit about magical regulation and non-wand wielders? Inspired."

Peter flushed. The color rose swiftly up his neck, as if lit from within. "Thanks," he said, trying to keep his voice level, but there was a tremble of giddy pride beneath it. Darius’s praise had a gravity to it, and Peter orbited without resistance.

Darius gave Callum a cursory nod—nothing more than a flicker of acknowledgment, like a chess player about to call checkmate. Then, glancing toward Elowyn, he added, "Some people sit so quietly, you’d think they were part of the furniture. Maybe they believe silence makes them wise. Or maybe they’re just afraid the sound of their own voice would disappoint them. But not you. You speak up. That kind of boldness—it’s rare. Especially when you’re standing next to someone who never makes a sound. Says a lot more about you than him, doesn’t it?"

Peter’s throat tightened, the right words caught behind his teeth—but he said nothing, and the moment passed.

Elowyn did not lift his gaze, nor did his expression shift.

The silence thickened like fog, stretching into something heavy and unwelcome—long enough to bruise, longer still to betray.

"Anyway," Darius said, pushing off the shelf to stand straighter, brushing invisible dust from the sleeve of his robe. His voice curled warm and bright. "We've got those two study sessions before Saturday—tomorrow and Friday, right? You’ll come? Wouldn’t be half as clever without you."

Peter nodded quickly. "Yeah. I’ll be there."

Darius’s smile widened at that—big and bright and clearly meant to be seen. "Knew I could count on you." Then he leaned in one final time and said something quieter. Though the words did not carry, the tone was unmistakable—praise again, intimate and direct. Peter’s eyes widened slightly, his lips tugging into a half-smile before he remembered himself and looked away.

Just before turning to leave, Darius reached out and placed a firm hand on Peter’s upper arm, his fingers curling just enough to hold. The gesture lingered a moment, possessively, before he let go. Then he turned. As he stepped away, he glanced once more toward Callum—this time with undisguised contempt. The look was sharp and deliberate, a sneer curled at the corner of his mouth. It lingered just long enough to sting. Callum met it without flinching, his jaw clenched, his hands rigid beneath the table.

Peter approached a moment later. His face was still flushed, his steps light with the echo of Darius’s attention. He slid into the seat across from Elowyn, his expression still touched with that glow—the shimmer of being seen. Inside him, something fluttered, though he could not yet name it. The thrill of approval thrummed beneath his skin like a second heartbeat.

Callum shook his head faintly and looked away, but Peter did not notice. He was still caught in the warmth of Darius’s words, too wrapped in the glow of being singled out.

Elowyn reached beside him without speaking and handed Peter the scroll he had revised. The parchment was smooth, and the margin notes were neat and precise, written in Elowyn’s unmistakable hand.

Peter glanced at it, then at Elowyn, and murmured a quiet, "Thanks."

Elowyn offered a small smile, warm but quiet, and said, "You’re welcome, Ric." His voice was soft—steady in the way of things held close, not showy, but sure. Then he lowered his eyes too quickly, adjusting the scrolls beside him with needless precision, giving Peter no time to respond.

They settled into their work after that, each boy retreating into the safe rhythms of parchment and ink, but Callum could not focus on the text. Instead, he watched Peter—watched the slight rise and fall of his shoulders, the way he leaned forward toward the scroll as though the inked words might offer clarity. There was anger in Callum still—hard and hot—but beneath it something else stirred: the ache of betrayal, and the quiet grief of watching someone choose silence over defense.

Beside him, Elowyn did not speak. His quill remained still in his fingers, the ink on its tip drying unnoticed. Though his gaze was lowered, it drifted at intervals to Peter—watching, wondering, and aching. The quiet between them pressed inward, heavy and questioning. Peter had said nothing when it mattered, and yet he had flushed so openly under Darius’s gaze. Elowyn’s thoughts curled inward like smoke, folding around the ache that had begun to settle deep: What had he failed to offer, that someone else, someone like Darius, could so easily give? In the quiet that followed, even the Castle held its breath, unsure whom to mourn.

—

By the time the library's lanterns had brightened to their evening glow, Elowyn and Callum were still at their table, parchment and books packed away, their satchels slung over tired shoulders. It was Saturday evening, and they had waited longer than they should have. Outside, the sky had shifted fully into night, and the faint chime of the Castle bells marked the final call for supper. Still, there was no sign of Peter.

Elowyn glanced again toward the far end of the aisle, where shadows stretched long between the shelves. Callum stood beside him, arms crossed, his jaw tight. The silence between them was different tonight—taut, strained by worry and something heavier and unnamed.

"We’ll miss dinner if we wait any longer," Callum said, not quite hiding the edge in his voice.

Elowyn nodded slowly, though his eyes lingered one last time on the empty corridor. "Let’s go."

They turned toward the main doors, steps slow and reluctant. But just as they reached the threshold, the doors creaked open from the other side. Peter stepped through, flushed and radiant, his eyes bright. Darius was just behind him, a breath too close, his presence unmistakable even before he spoke.

Elowyn and Callum came to a quiet stop, their robes catching faintly in the shift of air from the opening door, as though the Castle itself had paused to see what might unfold.

"Oh—hey," Peter said, surprised to see them. He grinned, wide and breathless. "Sorry, club ran late. We had a final debate and...I was lead. We won."

There was a glow in his voice, bright and unguarded, and Elowyn, despite everything, met it with warmth. “That is well done, Ric," he said softly, pride touching the edges of his voice. Callum, beside him, did not smile—his eyes were fixed instead on Darius, and the glare they held needed no translation.

Darius rested a hand on Peter’s shoulder, fingers pressing with a possessive ease, then let it slide down his back in a gesture far too familiar. Callum noted it, and the anger on his face deepened—sharp and unyielding, like a blade drawn half from its sheath. Darius then leaned in as though to whisper something but spoke just loud enough for the others to hear: "Couldn’t have done it without you, Pete. You’ve got more wit than the rest of them put together—present company included."

Elowyn said nothing, but his lips pressed into a faint line. Callum looked away.

"You lot headed to dinner?" Peter asked quickly, his voice lighter than the air around him.

"Aye," Callum replied at last, turning to Peter with a gaze like a whetted blade. "Just leaving."

The four of them walked down the corridor together. Darius and Peter led the way, their shoulders nearly brushing, while Elowyn and Callum followed just behind, close enough that their hands brushed with every few steps. Darius spoke loudly, his voice bright with praise and pointed humor, carrying easily through the dim corridor. The shuffle of their footsteps was nearly drowned out by the sound of Darius’s laughter—sharp and deliberate, like a performance meant to be overheard. When they reached the Great Hall doors, Darius reached out again—this time placing a hand on the side of Peter’s neck, his thumb brushing just beneath his ear before trailing off his collarbone as he withdrew. Peter flushed.

"See you Monday," Darius said, voice low and rich with implication. "Don’t forget—Wednesday's ours."

Peter nodded, his smile crooked and a touch dazed. Darius straightened, stepped back with the grace of someone exiting a stage, and cast one final smirk over his shoulder before vanishing into the crowd—leaving behind the echo of his touch and the shape of his grin like a signature written in flame.

The triad found their usual place along the Slytherin table, settling into the bench in silence—Elowyn in the middle, Callum on his left, and Peter to his right. Food had already appeared, and the hall was loud with conversation and clinking cutlery, but at their section of the table, the hush held.

Peter ate with subdued focus, though his eyes flicked again and again toward the center of the Slytherin House table. Darius did not look back—not once—but a knowing smile played at the corners of his mouth, smug and slow, as if he could feel Peter’s gaze without needing to return it. He looked triumphant, as though he'd already won something none of them had agreed to lose.

—

The light had shifted again by the time the library's lanterns began their soft, rhythmic flicker—the old enchantment signaling the library's imminent closure. Outside the light had deepened into evening, and the air held the quiet chill of encroaching winter. Elowyn and Callum sat together at their usual table, their books already closed, scrolls rolled and bound, waiting still. The space around them was nearly empty now, hollowed by absence. Even the dust hung motionless in the lanternlight, as though the very air was reluctant to disturb them.

Little had passed between them in the last hour they’d waited, their silence not strained but solemn—an echo of all they hadn’t said and of all they couldn’t. There had been nothing to say, not really. Only the slow creep of minutes and the ache of waiting without answer. When the silhouette of Madam Pince emerged between the high shelves, her expression was its usual severity softened only by the hour. Both boys stood in quiet obedience at her approach.

"We’re closing," she said with a nod, not unkind. "Off you go."

They gathered their satchels and their books without protest. Elowyn gave her a faint nod in return, and Callum murmured a tired, "Thank you." Together, they walked to the doors, but instead of stepping through, they lingered just inside them, their eyes fixed on the unmoving handle, willing it to turn. But Peter did not come. At last, it was Callum who pushed the door open, and the corridor beyond yawned wide and empty. The hour stretched thin and threadbare, like fabric worn to nothing, unraveling at the seams.

Callum leaned against the stone wall beside the threshold, his shoulders sagging beneath the weight of a feeling he hadn't been ready to name until now.

"He’s not coming, is he?" he asked, voice quiet.

Elowyn, standing just beside him, didn’t answer right away. His gaze lingered down the corridor as though hoping it might yield a different ending. But there was no sound of voices or laughter, nor was there an echo of a hurried footsteps rounding the corner. There was only silence.

"No," Elowyn said softly. "Not tonight."

Callum let out a long breath. There was no anger in it now, only grief, tired and low.

"I thought maybe he just needed space. That it would pass." He stared down at the stones beneath their feet, jaw tightening. "I didn’t think he’d let it get this far."

Elowyn turned to face him fully then, eyes searching. "He may not see it the way we do. Not yet."

Callum looked up, and for the first time in days, there was no heat behind his eyes, only hurt. "But you do."

Elowyn nodded, quiet and solemn. "I do."

A silence settled between them again, not cold this time, but familiar and shared and tinged with grief.

Elowyn reached out to take Callum’s hand, but before he could, Callum slipped his arm around Elowyn’s back in a quiet gesture of closeness. Elowyn stepped in without hesitation, resting his own arm around Callum’s waist, their bodies curving gently toward one another as they moved. They walked like that—silent and side by side—drawn together not by words, but by their bodies drawn together and by the ache of what they both felt unraveling behind them.

Though neither said it aloud, they both felt the hollow space beside them where Peter ought to have been. They knew he would not come—not tonight. And the other possibility, the one neither dared name, hovered just out of reach. So they walked on, arms wound round each other’s backs, holding each other close against the cold and the ache and the quiet that followed them.

Chapter Text

The Castle was colder than usual—an austere, bone-deep chill that clung to the stones and seemed to leech warmth from the very air. It was not the cold of winter, but of something emptied. The hearths sputtered more often now, their enchantments flickering like weak heartbeats, and even the portraits had grown quiet in their frames, their expressions dim with unease. In the deepest corners of the library, where they had laid their claim a year ago, the once-muted warmth that pulsed faintly through the stones had all but receded. One of the hanging lanterns flickered above Elowyn, casting irregular light over the open books and scrolls laid neatly on the table between him and an empty chair. The stillness here had always been sacred—a hush not born of silence, but of protection. Now it felt brittle, hollowed, as though the very air had been leeched of memory and meaning. It was no longer a silence that shielded, but one that exposed—cold, thin, and edged with absence.

Elowyn sat with his spine drawn tall, his quill moving steadily over a sheet of parchment, though his eyes flicked only occasionally toward the words he wrote. The parchment itself was fine—thick, cream-hued, with a faint tooth to it that caught the ink just enough to lend texture without drag. It was the kind Thaddeus insisted upon, all crisp elegance and formality, a small but steady standard of refinement in the life Elowyn had been raised to expect. Elowyn would never have chosen something so polished himself, but he had grown used to its weight beneath his fingers, the way it held both ink and expectation without faltering. He wouldn’t have known any different, not really—not with Thaddeus’s ever-watchful standards shaping his habits since he before could hold a quill—before he was even born.

Even as Elowyn wrote—a letter to his Mamm Wynn—the rest of him leaned outward, attuned to the edges of the world: the breath and shift of the Castle, the slight tremor in its walls, the near absence of that low hum he had always felt in its bones. There was still something like a memory of warmth but it pulsated in a faint and fractured rhythm. Even An Dar, from hundreds of miles away, whispered more clearly to him than the Castle did now. The Koes' pulse reached him as a distant echo, like wind through oaks too ancient to bow, and still he heard it more vividly than this place he lived and breathed in daily.

He stilled and his quill stopped as he remembered stepping off the train that first September, the way the Castle had met him like a tide, unrelenting and immediate. It had spoken in sensation—stone and starlight and old magic twined in the mortar—so loudly that he’d felt it in his blood. He remembered the first Halloween feast, how the candles had trembled with something beyond enchantment, how he’d felt the Castle reach for him, not with hands, but with a will—so forceful and immediate that he had struggled to concentrate on anything else the rest of the evening, the Castle's magic pressing at the edges of his senses like the tide against a shore not yet ready for it. Now, its voice was barely a murmur. No louder than the hush between heartbeats—once a chorus, now a near silence that made the air itself feel too still.

The Castle was still alive, but it felt as though it lay on its deathbed—its magic dim and distant, drained of the vibrancy it once held. He missed it. Missed the way it used to reach toward him, curious and subtle, when he studied late or when he lingered beneath the ceiling windows of their underwater dormitory, watching moonlight ripple through the lake above and cast shifting silver patterns across the stone floor with Callum dozing beside him and Peter snoring softly in the next bed. Even now, An Dar whispered to him from hundreds of miles away—its breath steady, if faint—but the Castle’s voice had become nearly imperceptible. And that silence, so sudden and so complete, felt dangerous in a way he could not yet name.

Callum returned first, as he always did. His footsteps, no longer heavy with fatigue, came at a steadier rhythm, though he moved as if his limbs remembered weariness. He paused for a moment at the edge of their table, taking in the sight of Elowyn lost in thought, his expression distant and gaze unfocused, hand still resting on the page though no longer writing. Not wanting to disturb the quiet reverie, Callum moved softly, lowering himself into the seat beside Elowyn and tugging off his coat with deliberate care.

But Elowyn, sensing him even before he sat, blinked once and turned toward him. His smile was small, but soft and genuine—something warmed through with quiet welcome, as though Callum’s presence had pulled him gently back into the present.

“Same sequence of drills again?” Elowyn asked gently, his voice unfolding like a ribbon from silence—measured, composed, and still tinted by the quiet distance of whatever thoughts had momentarily held him elsewhere.

“Nay,” Callum said, stretching his shoulders. “Bit tighter this time. Professor Amycus changed the line-ups again—took out Reducto, Expulso, and Bombarda. Added Praecisum, Deprimo, and Relashio. Wants us to think like a unit, not just duel like one.”

Elowyn turned fully toward him now, catching the faint flush in Callum’s cheeks, the tautness in his jaw. “You’re adapting well,” he said, voice soft with something that might have been pride.

Callum exhaled. “I’m used to it now. Doesn’t knock me like it did.” He heard it—that thread of quiet pride woven through Elowyn’s voice, subtle and certain, the kind Elowyn rarely offered aloud but always meant in full. It made something warm uncurl in Callum’s chest. He didn’t smile, not quite, but he straightened a little in his chair, the glow of being seen settling over him like the quiet lift of sunlight through morning mist.

He shifted slightly in his seat, and Elowyn reached into his satchel, fingers closing around a small, wrapped bar. Without a word, he placed it gently in Callum’s hand. One of Emrys’s Koesmade nut and honey bars. Callum gave him a glance that held gratitude as he unwrapped it with careful fingers, and ate it quietly, with little fanfare. Madame Pince had been markedly more vigilant these past weeks, prowling between stacks with narrowed eyes, ever since the cleaning charms had begun to falter. The house-elves had taken up the slack as best they could, but the whole Castle was unsettled. Even the dust didn’t behave properly anymore.

They settled into a brief quiet, the kind that wrapped around them not with comfort but with a hush too delicate to name. Elowyn’s hand hovered above the parchment, his quill paused in mid-air, deep violet ink gathering slowly at the nib like rain about to fall from the tip of a leaf. It was the only ink he used—Emrys made it himself, scented faintly with crushed juniper and spelled with precision to kiss the parchment cleanly, never blotting, and to dry swiftly—like dew vanishing at dawn—leaving only intention behind.

Elowyn studied Callum sideways, the crease between his brows deepening as his gaze caught the faint smudge of fatigue beneath Callum’s eyes, the way he chewed the inside of his cheek—an old habit when thoughts sat too heavy for words. The scent of the Koesmade bar lingered faintly, warm with honey and crushed nuts, touched with hints of cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg—a seasonal variation Emrys made just for autumn. Even its comforting spice, rich and lingering as memory's weight, could not thaw the strange stillness that had settled around them. Elowyn turned back to his letter, but his quill remained unused. His thoughts had slipped from the surface and gone elsewhere, drifting somewhere unreachable.

The air shifted.

From their hidden nook, they didn’t see Peter enter. Darius’s voice came first. “—And really, I thought your rebuttal on the Muggle legislative systems was rather brilliant,” Darius was saying. His tone was laced with laughter, warm and unctuous. “Professor Alecto may not have liked it, but that’s rather the point of a debate, isn’t it? To be unexpected.”

Elowyn did not lift his head. Callum turned slightly in his seat, his posture stiffening.

They rounded the corner of a nearby row of shelves—Peter with his head slightly bowed, Darius trailing a half-step behind. As they came into view, Darius surged forward, his voice now carrying deliberately. “Don’t forget, Ric—we’ve got our study session after dinner in the Den. Essay on Muggle revolts and magical suppression. Still can’t believe we lost. Ridiculous.”

He dropped the words like stones between them, though his eyes were not on Peter. They were fixed on Elowyn, who had heard Darius approaching and began to write again with slow precision as if he had not heard.

Peter nodded, a flush creeping up his neck. Callum was staring at him incredulously, his mouth parted slightly as if he couldn't believe what he’d just heard. Darius, meanwhile, wore a look of quiet triumph, his eyes still fixed on Elowyn with a gloating satisfaction that dared him to react. But Elowyn’s expression held the icy mask he had learned to wear so well in Slytherin—flawless, unreadable, as though carved from marble. Not a single flicker of emotion betrayed him. His quill moved with slow deliberation, the only sign that he had registered anything at all.

Callum’s voice was quiet, clipped, and pitched just low enough for Elowyn alone to hear. “Right. Study session.”

Darius smiled, not having heard Callum’s muttered barb but sensing, with quiet satisfaction, that he’d landed exactly where he meant to. “Looking forward to it. It’s always better to work with someone who actually understands nuance—and the importance of wizarding tradition.”

He turned, clasped both of Peter’s shoulders in his hands, and gave them a firm squeeze—a gesture a touch more than fraternal in its warmth, but calculated in its display. “Looking forward to it. Don’t be late—we’ve got so much to cover,” he added smoothly. "Later, Ric." The name landed like a curse disguised as camaraderie. Callum scoffed audibly, unable to contain his disgust. Then Darius swept away toward the stairs, leaving behind a silence that crackled with tension.

Callum waited until the footsteps faded and then stood slowly to face Peter, his voice low but firm. “What are you doing,” he said in Cornish flatly, “working with a git like that? Calling you Ric like he knows you. Like he belongs with you.”

Peter stiffened but looked away. He spoke, in English: “Don’t start, Callum. Not unless you’re going to do it properly with a lecture and a parchment scroll.” He hesitated, then muttered, “It’s just a name.”

Callum, continued in Cornish, “I’m not starting. I’m asking. And it’s not just a name, it’s our name for you.”

“He’s not a git.”

“Oh, come off it, Ric,” Callum said, his voice edged with venom—a rare flare of Slytherin steel. “You heard the way he talks. How he looks at El. Like he wants to gut him and hang the skin on a wall.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. And you know it.”

Peter’s fists clenched at his sides. “He’s been kind to me. Revolutionary concept, I know—someone actually listening without sighing halfway through.”

Callum narrowed his eyes. “So do we.”

“Do you?” Peter shot back. “Do you listen, or just assume I’ll follow orders like some under-qualified House-elf with a sense of humor?”

Elowyn rose slowly from his seat, the motion graceful and deliberate. He stepped forward, positioning himself between them—a quiet fulcrum amid the fraying tension. One hand settled lightly on Callum’s arm, a tether of calm. Callum glanced down at the hand on his arm, jaw tight, then turned back to Peter, not pulling away.

Peter saw it. And something inside him shifted. “That’s rich, coming from you,” he said, voice suddenly sharp. “You’ve got someone who looks at you like you matter more than anything. Don’t talk to me about listening.”

Elowyn’s hand remained on Callum’s arm, steady and grounding, while his other reached out and settled gently on Peter’s. A bridge, not a boundary—his touch a quiet plea for unity even as the air between them frayed.

“Ric,” Elowyn said, in English, the name carrying a gravity too old for his years. “We chose you. We chose each other. And even now, we keep choosing you.”

Peter shook him off, his laugh a brittle thing. “No. Of course that’s what you’d say. You speak in riddles half the time and expect us to feel enlightened.” He looked at Elowyn now, not with affection, but a glint of something sharp. “You don’t choose me. You orbit each other and toss me crumbs when it’s convenient. I get to watch from the edge and pretend I belong, and honestly—” he gave a bitter shrug, “—I’m tired of the performance. You two get the parts that matter. I get the silence in between.”

Callum stepped forward, eyes flaring with something hotter than anger, but Elowyn’s hand on his arm held fast—gentle, but firm enough to keep him still. “Don’t speak to him like that,” he said, still in Cornish, his voice low and tightly controlled, each word cut clean from the restraint it took not to shout.

Peter turned, jaw clenched, and yanked his arm from Elowyn’s grasp. “Why not? You going to tell me he can’t take it?”

“He’s taken enough,” Callum said. “And so have I. You think it’s easy, this? You think you’re the only one who ever felt like they weren’t enough?”

Peter’s expression faltered, just for a moment, before he masked it again.

Callum didn’t move. “You matter to us. Even now. But we’re not going to beg you to see it.”

Peter let out a sharp breath that might have been a laugh. “Well, at least Darius doesn’t try to fix me.” He glanced at them both, eyes gleaming with something brittle. “Enjoy your perfect little Elowyn. Always so composed. Always so sure.”

And with that, he turned and walked away. His footsteps were too quick, too loud for the quiet of the stacks, but he didn’t stop.

Callum made to follow, rage rising fast—but Elowyn stepped gracefully into his path, both hands coming to rest on either side of Callum’s face. The gesture was firm but not forceful, steadying rather than restraining. His thumbs brushed along Callum’s jaw, grounding him in the moment.

“Let him go,” Elowyn said, reverting to Cornish, his voice barely above a whisper, shaped not by command but care. “He’s not ready to hear us.”

The storm behind Callum’s eyes flickered, then ebbed—not gone, but quieted as he looked into Elowyn’s eyes—dark blue with a ring of violet, as if the night sky had been rimmed with magic. There was no judgment in them, only depth and calm and something ancient that held him fast. He let out a breath through his nose and gave a single, stiff nod.

Elowyn took Callum’s hand in his own and led him gently back to their chairs, his grip neither urgent nor hesitant, but steady. Callum allowed himself to be guided, the anger in him still burning low, though banked now by the quiet steadiness of Elowyn’s presence. He eased back into his seat, the tension in his shoulders coiled tight.

After a long silence, Callum finally spoke, his voice quieter now, tinged with a weary ache. “He’s daft if he thinks we don’t care.”

Elowyn’s voice broke the silence only after it had settled thickly around them, a hush so deep it felt almost sacred. At last, soft and careful, as if he were still thinking it through. “Sometimes...when someone’s hurting, they can’t feel care unless it’s loud. Or costly.” He turned to look at Callum, his usually placid face edged in sorrow. His gaze was distant. “I believe we’ve always shown him in our way. It mustn’t have been the way he needed.”

They sat hand in hand, the hush between them heavy with thought—Peter’s absence lingering like a bruise, and Elowyn’s words folding over them again and again in the quiet spaces of their minds. The stillness held not emptiness, but ache—shared and silent. The flickering lantern above them cast uneasy shadows on his face, and in the reflection of the inkpot, Callum could see his own frown mirrored. They didn’t speak for a long while. The Castle remained silent. Even its breath was gone.

Callum let the quiet stretch between them until it thinned, pulled taut with the strain of unspoken things. He had been restless ever since Elowyn returned to his letter—shifting slightly in his seat, fingers tapping out erratic patterns against the hem of his jumper, shoulders tightening and releasing as if trying to shrug off something invisible and unwelcome. Elowyn had noticed it, of course; he always noticed. But he had said nothing, choosing instead to finish the letter with unhurried grace, sealing it with wax and pressing the crest gently as though enshrining a prayer. Only once the envelope lay completed beside the inkpot did he sit back, folding his hands in his lap, and glance at Callum from the corner of his eye.

Callum’s posture had grown rigid by then, as though words were a storm trapped in his chest. The air between them, once companionable, now bristled faintly—heavy not with anger, but with ache. At last, he exhaled sharply, the breath curling into the brittle hush, and said, not unkindly, but edged with the weight of sorrow and simmering frustration, "You could’ve said more."

Elowyn did not pretend to misunderstand. He set the sealed envelope down, fingers lingering for a moment on it, then folded his hands atop the parchment, the violet ink shimmering faintly under the flickering lantern light. His gaze remained on the page, as though the silence had etched words onto the parchment that he alone could read. When he finally turned, his face was composed and quiet, but there was a shadow beneath the calm.

"I would have liked to," he said. "Every part of me wanted to stand and speak.” He paused and turned to Callum his violet ringed eyes tinged with sorrow. "Mamm Wynn Lowena’s letters have been circling the same truth for weeks now. He has to choose us himself. It can’t be done for him—not by force, not by plea. Not even by love."

Callum looked down, his jaw shifting side to side, working through the clench of what couldn’t be said aloud. "Aye. I know," he said, though the words came out hard and halting. He dragged a hand over his face, then let it fall limply to his knee. "It’s just—I wish it didn’t have to be like this. That he’d just look up and see us. Not keep chasing someone who—" His voice broke, and he pressed his lips together. "I want to believe he’ll come back. I do. But part of me—part of me wonders if he already made his choice and just hasn’t said it out loud yet."

He looked away then, blinking hard. "Doesn’t make it hurt less, though. Doesn’t make it feel any less like we lost something we didn’t even know how to keep."

"No," Elowyn said softly. "It doesn’t."

Callum raked a hand through his hair, the gesture worn and familiar. "It’s just...he’s been at our side for over a year. Every bloody morning, every daft moment in the Common Room, the way he always had something sarcastic to say when things got too tense. And now he’s, I don’t know what, friends with someone who—who’s spat venom at you, and he’s laughing like it doesn’t matter. Like we don’t matter."

Elowyn’s voice remained low, but there was steel threaded through the softness, a strength woven into gentleness. “We matter,” Elowyn said, quieter now, but clear. “And I think he knows that. But he hasn’t yet learned he matters to us—not in the way we feel it.”

Callum nodded, but it was the nod of someone conceding to a truth that tasted of iron and ash. He sat in silence while Elowyn packed his things, his eyes tracing the careful motions with a tension he could not quite name. There was something sacred in the way Elowyn moved—precise, deliberate, as if tidying away grief rather than parchment. Callum’s hands rested on his knees, but they flexed now and again, restless, uncertain. When Elowyn finally rose, smoothing the folds of his robe and lifting his satchel to his shoulder, Callum stood too, his hand reaching out, unthinking at first, then sure. His fingers found Elowyn’s with a quiet urgency, their palms meeting in the space between sorrow and resolve. He did not speak. He did not need to. He was simply drawn forward by the quiet gravity of the boy he could not bear to leave behind, and chose, instead, to hold fast.

The Castle groaned faintly in its bones—pipes, perhaps, or something older and deeper, the creak of ancient wood or groaning of worn stone. When they stepped out into the corridor, they walked in silence, their footfalls muffled by thick rugs and even thicker enchantments. The torches lining the corridor burned lower now, their light dimmer, shadows stretching long and strange along the flagstones. Here and there, a portrait stirred—watching them with narrowed eyes or feigned sleep—but most remained still, as if even brushstrokes and canvas had dimmed in sympathy with the Castle whose magic felt as though it were being stifled by some unseen hand.

Elowyn did not release Callum’s hand. He held it more firmly than usual, and Callum, though surprised by the pressure, understood it. Their shoulders occasionally brushed as they moved through the corridor’s cold hush. A gust of wind passed through a window left slightly ajar at the corridor’s bend, stirring the hem of Elowyn’s robes and lifting a few strands of Callum’s hair. Neither spoke. The silence between them was not absence, but shelter—a space not yet ready for words. As they neared the Great Hall, the low hum of distant voices began to filter through the stone.

The Great Hall was dimmer than it should have been. The enchanted ceiling offered only a soft veil of stars tonight, but the stars looked like mere points of light—distant, dim, and almost lifeless. The sky above did not shimmer with depth, nor stretch wide with wonder; it was flat, wrong, a painted illusion grown thin with strain. As if the very spell that conjured it had begun to forget what true sky looked like, or as though the heavens themselves could not bear to look down upon the students gathered below. It was not a canopy but a veil, drawn tight across the aching bones of the Hall, reluctant to bear witness to the quiet sorrow threaded through every breath and glance. Candles floated high above, their flames subdued, flickering like thoughts half-formed and memories half-lost. 

Many of the House tables were sparsely populated, students hunched over their meals with subdued chatter and guarded glances. A sense of caution hung low in the air. The war, and the Carrows, had leeched joy from the place, draining colour and light from what had once been a sanctuary. It was no longer the radiant heart of the school, but a shadowed reminder of what had been—a place where laughter now sounded too loud, and silences too deep.

But not entirely. One corner of the Slytherin table shimmered with noise—sharp laughter that didn’t sit right against the hush of the hall. Darius sat at the center of it, gesturing grandly, his smile all polish and teeth, charisma sharpened to a weapon. He held court with his small coterie of friends and hangers-on with ease, his tone just loud enough to draw attention without seeming crass. Peter was beside him, laughing, ducking his head when Darius slung an arm around his shoulders with a theatrical flourish. His face, half-turned away, caught the low candlelight—smiling, open, and carefree in a way that felt jarring.

Callum stopped walking. Elowyn saw it all—Darius’s deliberate glance in his direction, the gleam of smugness in his eyes, a predator pleased with its maneuvering. Peter's laughter did not seem forced, and that was what struck hardest. Elowyn didn’t rise to it. He kept walking, his expression serene, as if Darius were no more significant than the hiss of wind against stone or the shifting of distant leaves. Elowyn, still holding Callum’s hand, guided him wordlessly to the nearest bench, their joined fingers a quiet anchor against the noise within and without.

"Let’s eat quickly," Elowyn said, his voice quiet but threaded with intent. "Then I’d like you to show me what you learned today—in the Hufflepuff practice room." His tone was not commanding. "It’s quieter there. And I think we need quiet."

Callum didn’t reply, but his jaw tightened as he nodded his head slowly. He tore his gaze from Peter and began to serve himself from the food spread before them. His hunger was shallow, dulled by emotion, and the smells of food seemed distant, irrelevant. They sat far from the others, on the very edge of the table, as though distance might shield them from the ache. Their plates remained half-full, utensils moved more out of obligation than desire. They ate lightly and quickly. All the while, the buzz of Darius’s laughter scraped at the edges of their silence; it sounded too sharp, and rehearsed. His laughter trailed them like smoke as they rose from the table and slipped from the Hall before dessert was even served.

The Hall had already begun to empty as Elowyn and Callum departed. Students filtered to their common rooms in small clusters, voices low and hurried. With the grounds barred by the Watchers and every familiar path hedged in by curfews and eyes that did not blink, the students had begun to shrink their world to what little remained. The library, the classrooms, their common rooms, their dormitories—each a corridor of routine, not refuge. And so most retreated to their common rooms, not out of comfort, but because there was nowhere else left to go. The Castle, once vast with possibility, had narrowed, like lungs constricted by fear. 

Elowyn’s and Callum's footsteps echoed in quiet rhythm as they descended deeper into the castle, Elowyn leading them with certainty, cutting through the dim corridors like a thread of purpose through a fraying seam. They passed beneath high windows choked with frost, past suits of armor that no longer bowed, and portraits that stared blankly or turned their faces to the wall. The torches lining the way sputtered low, casting shadows that quivered like half-formed thoughts.

Just before reaching the Hufflepuff dormitory portrait, Elowyn veered left down a narrower side corridor that twisted toward the unused classroom spaces. The air grew cooler here, and heavier. The walls bore no portraits, and the sconces along the walls were fewer, as though the very stones sought solitude. At the far end stood a plain wooden door, unmarked save for a brass handle rubbed dull by years of quiet use and whispered training.

They slipped inside. The room was rectangular and windowless, with a row of battered dueling dummies lined against one wall and floor tiles already scuffed and marked from recent training spells. The room had only lately been converted for practice—its echoes still adjusting to the new rhythm of footfalls and spellfire. It smelled faintly of chalk dust and ozone, a tang that hinted at spells and sweat. The torches lit as they entered, but their flames flickered low, casting long shadows that danced along the stone. It was not an inviting room, but it was private and it was theirs, for now. They’d been using it regularly for weeks now and had only occasionally encountered Hufflepuffs in practice. Each time, the others had made quick exits, whispering apologies, their eyes wide with something like unease. The rumours had only grown since—each more outlandish than the last—painting them not as boys in training, but as something stranger, sharper, and perhaps touched by wild magic and war.

Callum strode to the center of the room and began the drill sequence Professor Amycus had assigned during club today. He had changed the line-ups again—removed Reducto, Expulso, and Bombarda. In their place, he had added these three: 

Praecisum. A slicing charm—his wand tip flicked in a sharp, clean arc, the spell humming through the air like a razor’s edge.

Deprimo. A downward thrust of force, the floor groaning slightly beneath the invisible weight that crashed down upon it.

Relashio. A burst outward, controlled, measured—less explosion than exhale.

He moved through the sequence again. Then again. Each repetition honed the spellwork, sanding down the excess. His breath grew heavier, sweat gathered along his brow, but his limbs moved with quiet precision—no wasted energy, no indulgent gestures. It was not showy magic, nor was it refined, but it was efficient. It was, undeniably, meant for war. But in the discipline of it, in the restraint, there was something unexpectedly graceful. His magic had never been unruly—Callum had always been careful and deliberate—but now even that stillness had grown sharper, forged into something leaner, harder, and more distilled.

Elowyn leaned against the wall, arms folded, gaze steady. He watched like someone beholding something sacred. As he watched Callum run through the sequence, he remembered how Callum used to fly when they could exit the Castle. Just like his movements now, it had not been with abandon, but with intent, his form carved against the sky like a blade in motion, precise even in ascent. The air had answered him, not because he chased it, but because he met it on equal terms. Now, the ground held him like a crucible. And in that grounded form, there was a different kind of grace. Not freedom, but purpose. Not joy, but resolve. Not wildness, but will.

When Callum finished, he exhaled hard and walked back to Elowyn, dragging his sleeve across his forehead. His steps were sure, but heavy, the burn of practice still in his limbs. He didn’t speak at first. He only sat, legs splayed and breath slowing, chest still heaving lightly.

Elowyn slid down beside him, shoulder brushing his. Neither pulled away.

"It helps," Callum said after a time, his voice rasped by effort. "Doing something. Moving. Magic that’s got direction. It stops the noise."

"I know," Elowyn said. His tone carried the weight of someone who had found the same silence in repetition, the same balm in movement.

After a moment, he rose and stepped into the open space where Callum had trained. "Show me?" he asked gently.

Callum nodded, and rose again. He moved beside Elowyn, demonstrating the sequence slowly, walking him through the movements with the quiet clarity of someone who had done them a hundred times already. Elowyn mirrored each motion—hesitant at first, then smoother with every attempt. They practiced side by side for several rounds, alternating spells like steps in a shared dance. Praecisum, Deprimo, Relashio—each word a rhythm and each gesture a tether.

The minutes folded into each other uncounted. Magic flared and faded, casting light and shadow across the walls, and still they continued, wordless and focused. When they finally stopped, their breath came hard, hair damp with sweat, and their magical cores pulsed faintly with strain. Callum winced, a hand pressed to his sternum, not in pain, but ache—the familiar emptiness of magic drawn deep and used well. Elowyn felt it too, though less sharply, like a weight nestled beneath the ribs. But there was something soothing in it: a kind of completeness.

They sank back against the cool stone, breath slowing, limbs heavy from the hour’s work. Elowyn leaned in, his head settling lightly against Callum’s shoulder—not reaching for comfort, but resting where it had always felt right. The torches flickered low, their flames swaying like thoughts unspoken. The Castle groaned softly in the walls, a hush of old stone shifting as if remembering something it could no longer name. There had always been three of them. But now, in the quiet that followed motion, there were only two. And Peter’s absence—though not spoken—settled between them like smoke that would not lift.

After a time, Callum spoke again, quieter now, his voice low and slightly hoarse from the exertion of practice. "I keep thinking about him. It’s like something’s missing from the room all the time. He was just...there. Talking rubbish. Complaining. Joking. Laughing. Making the quiet less quiet. And now it’s just not right, and I can’t help noticing."

Elowyn lifted his head from Callum’s shoulder, gaze soft and wet with tears unshed. "What’s left is us," he said quietly, "and the space he shaped—still here, still echoing." His fingers, slow and deliberate, reached across the small distance and found Callum’s. Their hands met palm to palm, no grip at first—just contact, skin to skin, the warmth of presence answering absence. Then, just as gently, Elowyn leaned back in, letting his head rest once more against Callum’s shoulder, the gesture quiet and full of ache, as if to say: I’m still here. We are still here. 

Callum nodded, his jaw tight. Then, quietly, he turned his face just slightly and rested his cheek against the crown of Elowyn’s head, the gesture tender and anchoring, the weight of it saying what words could not. He drew in a breath through his nose. "It hurts. Not just ‘cause of what he said. Just…I miss him. He’s been pulling back for weeks, but having him gone, well, I keep turning like he’s still there, like I’ll hear him grumble or laugh. But it’s just empty now. Just quiet."

Elowyn looked toward the nearest torch, its flame weaving slowly as though uncertain. "It's alright to ache," he said, his voice threaded with something old and solemn. Then, with reverent care, Elowyn placed his other hand over Callum’s, enclosing it completely between both of his own—a gesture not of possession but of quiet keeping, as if to say: I will hold what you cannot, for as long as it takes. He continued. "I miss him too," Elowyn said, voice barely above a whisper. "Not just the way he laughed or filled a room—but the way it felt to know he was near. I don’t know if I did right by him. Some days I feel like I reached too far; others, not far enough. I don’t know if he’ll come back to his place with us, or if the path behind him is already ash. But the ache of it—of not knowing—that’s the part I carry. But missing him...that part is easy. It’s the waiting that undoes me."

Callum’s fingers fidgeted along the hem of his sleeve, though his other hand remained enclosed within both of Elowyn’s, cradled with a care that made no demands, as if Elowyn could keep them both from unraveling by holding tight to this one point of warmth. His voice was rough when he spoke again. "You really believe he’ll come back to us? That he’ll see Darius for what he is?"

Elowyn was silent for a long moment, the hush stretching between them like a veil drawn across something sacred. Then, softly, as if speaking it aloud might help make it true, he said, "I believe he’s lost right now. And I believe that when he’s ready to find his way again, we’ll still be here. That’s what matters. Not whether he returns today or tomorrow. But that the path remains open. That he knows the way back, even if he can’t walk it yet. That he knows we’ve left the door unlocked."

Callum nodded again, more slowly this time. He rested the back of his head against the cool stone wall, eyes closing briefly. "You always sound so certain. Like you know which way the tide’ll turn, even when the wind’s gone strange."

"I don’t," Elowyn murmured, his gaze fixed on the slow-breathing flame. "I wonder all the time—whether I pressed too gently, and whether I missed the moment to hold or the moment to let go. I’ve no clarity, only echoes and silence and choices already made.” He paused, then pressed his fingers more firmly into Callum’s, their joined hands speaking where words could not. "I try to be steady, all the same. For you. For him. For us. Not out of certainty. Just...because there ought to be something still lit, even when the way is lost. There ought to be a light that doesn’t ask to be followed, only to be seen."

They fell into silence after that, but it was not the brittle kind that filled the library or the Great Hall—no anxious fidgeting, and no words biting at the edge of breath. The hush wrapped around them like a soft blanket—worn and frayed at the edges, but warm still, stitched through with memory and the echo of laughter not yet forgotten.

Outside the door, the Castle shifted, a breath exhaled from deep within the stone. Its magic had faded like an old song forgotten by those who once sang it, dimmed by grief and silence. But it had not left. Its presence whispered through cracks in the stone, curled around hearth embers and stairwells, hidden in dust motes and torchlight. It listened not with ears but with the deep knowing of old magic, catching every sorrow like a falling leaf, cradling each flicker of hope as if it might bloom. Though far, it was not absent. Though dulled, it was not undone. In the hush between heartbeats, it watched over the ones within, waiting for the moment it might stir more fully once again. Inside, two boys sat side by side, holding space for the one who was missing—not erasing him, not condemning him, but waiting. Not as ghosts haunt, but as hearths do—ready to be rekindled when those who belong return home.

Chapter Text

The common room shimmered in its usual gloom, silver-green firelight licking along the ancient stone walls like water trapped in glass. The scent of damp stone and ash hung in the air, clinging to robes and skin alike, as though the room meant to brand its occupants with its heritage.

They had walked the corridors in silence, side by side, arms draped loosely across each other’s backs—an intimacy born not of spectacle, but of shared ache and a mutual need for support. They had not spoken since leaving the practice room, but the closeness between them had said enough. They moved still joined together by the echo of sigh and spell and sorrow.

As they approached the entrance to the Slytherin common room, their mood shifted. They did not speak, but as they approached the threshold, they changed. Their arms, draped still across one another’s backs since leaving the practice room, lowered with wordless intention. Callum's hand found Elowyn's, and Elowyn’s fingers threaded through his in reply—without hesitation or question. It was no longer simply the comfort of private grief, but something deliberate. Callum gave the password softly. The stone door, slick and seamless, melted like wax into the floor. The cold green glow within glittered against the warm golden hush of the corridor behind them, a beckoning illusion of grandeur. But they knew what lay beneath the glow. They knew the firelight shimmering from the intricately carved fireplaces cloaked something rank and ancient, a quiet rot veined through stone and silence, always consuming, and always waiting.

Stepping over the threshold was like walking into another world. The green-silver firelight warped the air, turning each face into a stranger’s and each shadow into a watching eye. Here, softness was a risk, and every gesture meant something. Elowyn felt it immediately—the way his spine straightened, the way his expression smoothed into practiced neutrality. This was not a room that welcomed tenderness; it devoured softness like flame devours lace. And yet, for the first time, they crossed its threshold hand in hand, unwilling to surrender the solace they had drawn from closeness, as if the memory of warmth might shield them from the cold within.

They moved without pause across the cathedral-like expanse of the common room, their gazes held steady, though both Elowyn and Callum could not help but glance toward Peter as they passed. Still, they kept their focus ahead, eyes drawn toward the dim sanctuary of their own hearth, refusing to grant the many small silences coiling around them the satisfaction of notice. They found their hearth—shabby, dim, nearly forgotten, its stones marred with ancient curse marks that had long resisted even the most earnest attempts at cleansing. No one sat there. And yet, it was not empty. The air around it seemed to breathe, low and steady, as if haunted by the memory of laughter that once filled its shadows, and the quiet murmur of late-night study pressed deep into its walls. It remembered them. It held their shape.

Laughter rang out from the hearth near their own; it was sharp and slightly forced, like porcelain striking porcelain. It came from one of the secondary fireplaces just right of the central hearth, a place chosen for visibility, but not prominence. Darius sat there, one long leg folded over the other, his arm draped possessively across the back of the velvet chaise lounge where Peter was seated, as though he were heir to the room and staking a claim to everything in it. Now and then, his fingers brushed Peter’s shoulder—light, deliberate touches that seemed like affection, but spoke more of possessiveness, and of performance, and of power shaped like intimacy. 

Peter was perched beside him,  the firelight turning his blonde hair a ghostly green and casting a pallor over his skin that made him look almost spectral. His grin stretched wide, and his laughter rang high and bright. His eyes gleamed, but not with simple joy; they shimmered with something frantic—an unfamiliar brightness that Elowyn did not recognize. They shone with fear that the belonging he felt was temporary and would slip through his fingers if he didn’t hold it fast and firm. As Peter gazed at Darius, Elowyn recognized the delight and longing that lit his face; it was how Elowyn saw both Peter and Callum and how he knew Callum saw both of them, as a beloved friend, but something more as well, something as yet unnamed.

Darius turned his head just slightly when the boys had entered—not enough to be overt, but with the precision of a stage actor hitting his mark. His expression remained placid, unreadable to anyone else, but Elowyn saw it for what it was: a gesture too exact, and too rehearsed. This was not the first time Darius had chosen a seat angled perfectly to observe without appearing to watch. There was theatre in his posture, and intention in his gaze. Darius's scene had already begun, and they had stepped into its frame as if summoned by cue. The curtain had lifted—and they were not the audience. They were the target.

As they crossed the wide, echoing hall, Callum tensed beside Elowyn, his posture stiffening with each step, jaw clenched against the surge of fury that rose at the sight of Darius’s arm curled so possessively behind Peter’s shoulders. Elowyn gave the smallest nod toward their hearth—a silent plea to hold steady. As they continued moving, he tightened his grip on Callum’s hand, not in fear, but in quiet insistence, as if the pressure alone could pull him back from the brink. Elowyn did not glance toward the other hearth again, but he felt the weight of attention pressing against him—the deliberate gaze of Darius, and worse, the uncertain pull of Peter’s eyes, lingering. It felt like walking through a web spun of glass threads—each strand nearly invisible, each one slicing with the softest touch, every step forward slicing the flesh neatly.

"—ah, your companions have arrived. Look at them—strolling about as if the castle were some country estate passed down through generations. One might expect a touch more discretion from proper Slytherins...like you...but alas…" Darius was saying, voice light, amused, slicing.

Peter froze, eyes wide and uncertain, the silence of his hesitation stretching taut for a heartbeat too long. Then Darius grinned, all charm and teeth, and murmured to Peter that he was only teasing, his voice dipped in silk and smugness, the kind of tone that made the cruelty sound almost affectionate. Peter then laughed—high and sharp, the sound a brittle echo that broke too cleanly in the air. To the room, it sounded easy and bright. To Elowyn, it rang hollow—like the echo of a bell made of glass, trembling on the edge of fracture, beautiful until the moment it shatters.

At last they reached their corner. Elowyn sank with silent grace into his usual armchair, the fabric worn to the shape of him, while Callum lowered himself to the floor at its foot, his limbs stiff with restraint, hands clenched hard between his knees as if holding something in. Elowyn, careful in every gesture, unshouldered his satchel and pulled free his wandlore text and notebook, letting their familiar weight settle across his lap. He turned to the chapter he’d marked earlier—"Wizard and Core Emotional Resonances"—and let his eyes drift down the page. Callum sat unmoving, eyes locked on the green fire as if it might yield him clarity or calm. But it offered no such comfort—only flickering reflections of a fury too deep to speak aloud. His satchel sat unopened at his side, forgotten.

From the nearby hearth came another peal of laughter—Darius again, his voice wrapped in honeyed contempt, the sweetness sharp as nettles beneath the tongue.

"Some people mistake cold for elegance. Easy confusion, I suppose, if you’ve never stood close enough to feel the ice beneath the polish. He’s always so composed, isn’t he? Poised like a statue in some old cathedral, all refinement and shadow—no warmth to thaw the edges. But you, Ric—you glow. There’s nothing frozen about you. You let people in. You let them see you. That’s what makes you different. That’s what makes you better. People want to be near you—you don’t have to hold them there."

Peter’s cheeks flushed a deep, telling pink, and he ducked his head, the weight of Darius’s praise settling awkwardly on his shoulders like robes tailored for someone else. It was not the kind of attention he knew what to do with—too pointed and too public. His hand crept up to rub the side of his neck, a quiet, involuntary motion Elowyn had long since learned to read. He was uncomfortable—and unusually for Peter, he had no quip, or  jest, or shield of humor to hide behind. Just silence and the heat of being seen.

A low growl curled in Callum’s throat, rough and quiet, like thunder threatening just beyond the horizon.

“Don’t,” Elowyn murmured in Cornish, eyes on the page, his quill unmoving. His free hand reached down and pressed gently to the back of Callum’s neck, fingers warm and grounding. He could feel the tension beside him rise like heat off a boiling kettle, could feel it thrumming beneath Callum’s skin. “Don’t,” he whispered again.

"He’s talkin' 'bout you, El," Callum hissed, jaw tight.

"He’s talking about himself," Elowyn said. "He just doesn’t know how to name the ache."

Callum’s hand slapped the cold stone floor beside Elowyn’s chair, the crack of it sharp and sudden, like the snap of a tether straining against its final knot—rage barely veiled, restraint fraying with each breath.

Peter jolted at the crack of Callum’s palm against stone, the sound shattering the hush like a snapped wand. His shoulders hunched slightly, eyes flicking toward the floor, then back to Darius with a flicker of uncertainty. Darius’s lips curved into a brief, wolfish smirk as he cast a glance at Callum, but when Peter turned to him again, his expression had already melted back into something cool and unreadable. Then, as if the performance must go on, Darius leaned in, his voice velvet-soft—but aimed like an arrow, meant for Elowyn and Callum as much as Peter.

"You can always tell who’s used to being obeyed. They crumble the moment someone dares to choose differently. It bruises them—poor things, all pride and no spine. But not you, Ric, defintiely not you. You’re different. You’ve got steel in you, and warmth too. You don’t demand loyalty; you earn it."

Peter’s teeth worried gently at his lower lip, the skin already reddened from habit. He said something—quiet, uncertain—not meant to travel beyond the space between them. Darius answered in kind, voice dipped low and honey-slicked. Whatever he said made Peter blush, the colour blooming high on his cheeks like a secret unearthed too suddenly. He didn’t look toward Elowyn or Callum. He looked only at the floor, as if the stones could anchor him against the weight of being seen.

Elowyn, his hand still resting at the nape of Callum’s neck, thumb tracing slow, grounding circles, lifted his gaze toward Peter and Darius just as the word came—low, coiled with venom, each syllable shaped to slice. It unfurled like smoke from a dying fire, not shouted but released, a quiet cruelty designed to scar. From the velvet murmur between Darius and Peter rose two words that halted Elowyn’s hand mid-motion.

“Wombless Bastard."

Callum surged upright from where he sat cross-legged at Elowyn’s feet, the sudden movement startling in its force. But he did not look at Darius—his gaze locked on Peter, raw and burning. His voice rang out in Cornish, fierce and trembling, a lash of grief more than fury, "What the hell did he just say?"

The room stilled—not only from the force of Callum’s voice, but from the echo of a language too old and too sacred for most to name. Whispers faltered. Heads turned. Even the flames in the nearest hearth seemed to bow, flickering low as if to listen. Peter froze, his body rigid with the weight of something he didn’t understand, and turned to face Callum—whose expression was thunderous, grief and rage braided so tightly they could no longer be unspooled.

Callum continued, still in Cornish, his voice fraying at the edges. "You sat there and let him speak of Elowyn like he’s nothing. But he isn’t nothing. He’s everything to me. I thought—" His voice cracked, rough with betrayal. "I thought he meant the same to you."

Darius withdrew his arm from around Peter’s shoulder with the air of someone bored with a performance he’d already mastered. He leaned forward slightly, a lazy, venom-laced smile curling his lips—never once bothering to meet Callum’s eyes, as if to say the boy’s fury was beneath even contempt. “I was engaged in a private conversation, McCormack,” Darius said coolly, voice as smooth as marble and twice as cold. “Do take your leave. You're proving just how unsuited you are to the standards of this House.”

Callum took a step forward, fists balled so tightly the knuckles blanched, but Elowyn was already rising, movement smooth and precise, his hand slipping around Callum’s wrist—not to restrain, but to steady, to remind him he was  not alone in this hurt.

"Don’t," Elowyn spoke again, the words curling from his tongue in Cornish, soft and steady as dusk. "Not now."

Callum turned to Elowyn, his eyes alight with a fury that glowed bright and unyielding, "I just want to protect you."

"I know, dear heart" Elowyn replied, voice low and soft. "But not like this. Not here"

Callum’s breath caught. His eyes shimmered with something beyond rage. Then, with a growl deep enough to startle a pair of second-years huddled by a different hearth, he turned sharply and disappeared down the stairwell.

Darius looked pleased—no, satisfied—as though the final move in a well-played game had just been laid. A quiet, merciless triumph curved at the corners of his mouth. He leaned in toward Peter, murmuring something meant for no one else. Peter gave a breath of laughter, small and unsure, and Elowyn, watching, could not tell whether it was amusement or the sound of someone trying not to drown.

Elowyn hesitated for only a moment, then sank slowly back into the armchair, the worn leather chill against his legs and spine, as if the seat itself had recoiled from what had passed. His heart was not simply torn—it was unraveling, thread by aching thread, dignity fraying at the edges of loyalty. Though the House had quieted since the hollowing out after last term, and their place within it grown more assured, the old expectations still pressed down upon him like a polished mask—demanding composure, performance, and the careful silence of the poised. His instinct to stay—to guard both himself and Callum through silence—whispered its poisoned counsel. Louder though was the ache that pulled him toward the stairwell, and toward Callum.

He wanted to follow him. He wanted to reach for him. He wanted to keep him from unraveling alone somewhere below. But he also wanted to shield him from the eyes that lingered, to mask the depth of what had just fractured between themselves and Peter.

His hands trembled uncontrollably. He tried to will them to stillness, but his attempts were futile, and soon his whole frame quaked under the weight of two choices—each promising safety, each carving him open. He lasted only a heartbeat longer before he began gathering his things with a carelessness uncharacteristic of him. His notes bent. His quill rolled under a chair. He let it. He wanted to abandon it all—to flee the firelit silence and laughter, but he could not allow himself to break here, under their eyes, where every tremble would be counted and catalogued.

When he rose, it was with the shape of grace, but not its substance—the practiced movements still there, but they were hollowed and stripped of ease. To any who truly watched, he was not composed but crumbling. He stooped to gather Callum’s satchel, fingers brushing over the worn strap with a care that bordered on reverence, as if even Callum's bag deserved gentleness after what had passed. Then Elowyn walked toward the stairwell without haste, cloak billowing behind him like a black cloud. He did not look back. He did not give them the dignity of his gaze. Behind him, laughter rose from all quarters—a celebration of the cruelty just witnessed. Elowyn heard none of it as all he could think of as he descended the staircase was Callum, his dear heart, unraveling alone.

Chapter Text

When Elowyn stepped into their dormitory moments after Callum had entered, he found a space in flux. What had been their sanctuary was unsettled, stripped of its usual warmth. The stillness that saturated the space felt like a death shroud drawn tight over a grotesque corpse. The sconces burned low along the stone walls, but their flicker lacked the golden gentleness that had wrapped them in warmth in the midst of the frigidity that was the current iteration of the House of Slytherin; the shadows they cast were restless, convulsing against the curve of the room as though unsure of their own shape. What had once been a refuge for three was now fractured, its corners echoing with absence. The air itself seemed wary, weary even, as if it knew that Peter's silence had changed something sacred in the room the triad had claimed as a haven.

Callum’s presence tore through the reverence like wind through a cathedral in ruin—its stained glass shattered, its arches scorched, its silence ruptured by the echo of something once sacred, now profaned. His boots lay abandoned one near the door and one near the hearth—the one kicked sideways and the other sprawled as if in mid-run. His robes were flung across his bed, half-draped and half-crumpled, as though they’d been ripped off in a fury. He stood now at the center of the room, shirt half-torn, the buttons already half ripped off and the others clinging stubbornly on, struggling out of it like it had betrayed him. When it caught on one elbow, he cursed low under his breath and tried to yank it free with a jerk, but it stubbornly resisted and he got more tangled.

Elowyn stepped forward without a word and raised his hands to Callum’s arms, still trapped in the half-torn shirt. The fabric had twisted around his shoulders and neck like a noose, and Callum's futile struggling had only made the knot tighter. Elowyn's touch was featherlight, almost reverent, as he guided Callum’s arms downward and gently freed the cloth from where it clung. Violet met gold—an accidental glance—and in it, something unspoken passed between them.

Elowyn did not speak. He did not reach for Callum’s face, though the urge was there—a quiet longing to smooth the furrow in his brow, to offer comfort in skin rather than speech. Instead, he turned his attention to the buttons still stubbornly clinging, fingers deft and slow. He unfastened the last of them, each one a small release, and eased the shirt from Callum’s shoulders as though undressing a wound.

Callum exhaled sharply the moment the shirt fell away. He stood bare-chested before Elowyn, chest heaving not from effort but from something more primal. He breathed like a man who had been suffocating beneath his own skin. As though his clothes had been holding in the storm. His skin was flushed with heat, and his neck and shoulders were tight with restrained fury. His chest rose and fell as though he'd run a mile. Though he had paused to allow Elowyn’s aid, he could not bear stillness and turned again, as if motion might hold him together, resuming both his pacing and the frantic stripping away of everything that clung too tightly to his skin. 

He removed his trousers next—unfastened with impatient fingers, shoved down with a force that made him stumble, then he kicked them aside. Now, clad only in his boxers, he stalked across the dormitory like a caged thing, pacing the long arc between the left side of Elowyn’s bed and the dormitory door, his path sweeping past the fireplace on one side and the foot of Peter’s bed and his own on the other, fists clenched, breath wild, moving again and again in that narrow passage as though trying to wear a groove into the stone itself. His lips moved constantly, muttering to himself—not coherent words, but fragments of fury and frustration, and half-formed thoughts spat under his breath, as though trying to expel the storm that had nowhere else to go. Angry tears ran down his face, unchecked, streaking hot against skin already flushed with shame and rage.

Elowyn stood where he had freed Callum from the confines of his shirt, silent witness to the unraveling that followed. The act of undressing had once been a quiet ritual—something Callum slipped into like second skin the moment he crossed their threshold, a small, wordless affirmation that here, at least, he was safe.  But this was not that. This was a casting off, a furious shedding of skin and expectation alike. There was no comfort in it. Only revolt. Each garment had been flung like an accusation, as if the fabric itself bore guilt for what had been said, for what had been allowed, and for what had not been stopped.

“I should’ve done more,” Callum muttered in Cornish—to himself, to the stones, to Elowyn. His voice was low, rough, catching on the edges of his grief. “Should’ve hexed him where he stood.” His fists clenched, knuckles white. “Should’ve cursed him so hard he forgot his own name.”

Callum stopped in front of one of the large, time-worn wardrobes, his fists still clenched, chest heaving. Without warning, he drew his right arm back and slammed it into the oak door with a sickening crack, the wood denting beneath the force. "After what he said about you," he growled, breath catching, "I should’ve floored him. Should’ve left him swallowing splinters."

Elowyn moved forward then with the grace of someone who had learned to carry his sorrow like a shawl, folding it around his shoulders instead of shrugging it off. His face was unreadable, lips pressed in a line, his eyes hollowed not by anger, but by weight. He laid his wand gently on Peter’s bed—their bed, as it had quietly become over the past months—and crossed the room to stand beside Callum, who now leaned his brow against the dented wood, breath shallow, blood from split knuckles seeping in slow threads, like grief made visible.

“No, dear heart,” Elowyn said, his voice in Cornish scarcely more than breath, as he laid a hand between Callum’s shoulder blades, his thumb tracing slow, steady circles down his spine in silent promise. “That fury—it isn’t who you are. You’re strongest when you remember yourself.”

The fire snapped—a sudden, sharp crack that startled the air—and it yanked Callum from the stormed silence of his unraveling, like a hand gripping the collar of his thoughts and dragging him back to breath.

"You should be angry," Callum muttered, his forehead still pressed to the scarred wood of the wardrobe. His Cornish stumbled on the edges, thick with grief, but he refused to speak anything else but the language which had become its own kind of shelter and safety. "You ought to be furious. Properly burning."

Elowyn tilted his head, but did lower his gaze. "I am," he said. "Just not like you are."

Callum let out a short, bitter sound, half a laugh. "Then you're better than me."

"No," Elowyn said softly, fingers pressed against Callum’s neck. "Just...different."

Callum exhaled hard through his nose and resumed his pacing, bare feet striking the stone with a purpose just short of fury. Elowyn sat at the foot of his bed, watching in silence as Callum tried to force the fury out through motion, as if he could sweat betrayal from his skin. After long, taut moments, Callum halted, facing the fire with his arms crossed like a barricade, spine drawn tight as bowstring. "He stood there," he said, voice low, the words jagged. He swung his arm outward, as if to hurl the memory into the flames. "Watched you get torn down. Let Darius speak to you like filth. And he just sat there. Didn’t even blink."

Elowyn nodded. "I know."

Callum turned again, fists curling tight. "Then why—" he burst out, slamming his palms onto the mantle with a thud, leaning hard into the stone and staring deeply into the shimmering gold-green flames, as if the fire might burn the ache clean from his chest. "Why are you always the one reaching out?" His voice rose, hoarse with disbelief. "Why do you keep carving out space for him when he won’t even stand in it? When he won’t even try?"

"Because," Elowyn said, lifting his gaze at last, dark eyes meeting Callum’s, who had turned his head with the weight of a question he could no longer bear in silence, "I can’t let someone else’s silence turn me cruel."

Callum stared at him. The fire hissed again, throwing golden light between them. Elowyn's voice had not risen. It had not trembled. It had simply settled into the room like truth.

He turned back to the fire, still braced against the mantle, his voice a rasp over coals. “He’s not worthy of you.”

Elowyn gave a quiet breath, neither agreement nor denial. "Deserving has never had much to do with love."

Callum opened his mouth as if to respond, but when the words came, they cracked on the way out. "I don’t deserve you," he said, barely above a whisper, as though saying it louder might undo him entirely. And then he broke. His knees gave way beneath him, and he collapsed in front of the fireplace, the hearth's warmth washing over him like it might absolve what he could not name. He covered his face with both hands, shoulders beginning to shake as the first sobs came—choked, furious, and ragged—while the firelight spilled over his bare skin like a cleansing flame, gilding the grief that undid him, as if to say that even this unraveling could be made sacred. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered again.

Elowyn rose slowly, stepping toward the hearth with the reverence of a supplicant crossing sacred ground. Each footfall was a passage through fire—not flame, but sorrow-made, licking at his heels like a ghost of pain. Callum, the destination of that inward pilgrimage, lay prostrate before him, bathed in a halo of flickering gold, his grief etched in light and skin.

Elowyn moved as though burning from within, his longing to reach Callum flaring hotter than the firelight gilding the boy’s skin. The quiet blaze he carried was not for spectacle—it was for endurance, a firewalk of love and ache. Callum burned from without; Elowyn from within, his need to soothe stronger than the instinct to shield himself.

Elowyn lowered himself beside Callum without a word, his knees meeting the cold stone like a prayer offered not to any god, but to grief itself. One arm curled around Callum’s back—not to hold, not to claim, but to offer shelter. He, too, was burning. But in that moment, he chose to burn beside him rather than apart. His own sorrow pulsed like an ember, glowing low and dangerous in his chest. But he folded it down, letting silence carry the weight words could not. What he offered was not healing. It was presence—unwavering, and whole.

Callum collapsed into him. His sobs came harder then, wrenching through his chest with a violence that startled even himself. He gripped at Elowyn’s arm, burying his face in the crook of Elowyn’s shoulder like a pilgrim who had known only bitter waters and found in Elowyn the first water that tasted sweet. Callum wept for all the hurt he carried deep in his soul. He wept for himself and the hardness he had been taught to bear outwardly. He wept for the softness he now showed so openly. He wept for the weakness he felt he had shown. He wept for not being strong enough to defend the boy he called home. He wept for the name Darius had flung so cruelly at Elowyn. He wept for Elowyn's shaking hands. He wept for Peter’s silence. He wept for the shame that twisted in his gut like a wound left untended. He wept from the sheer weight of not being enough, of not stopping it, of not knowing how.

And threaded through it all was a grief too tangled to name: that Peter hadn’t stood up. That Peter wasn’t there. That some part of him still didn’t want to hate him for it. That some part of him loved Peter like he loved Elowyn, and that Peter’s absence amplified all the pain he felt tenfold.

The sobs came in waves, no longer sharp but deep and shuddering, until he had wept past the point of noise, past the point of breath. And when the last tear fell, he felt hollowed—not emptied, but scorched through, as though his sorrow had been burned to ash and in its place, the quiet that remained shimmered with something strange and sacred: not peace, not yet, but the first breath after fire.

As his sobs subsided, Callum slowly curled up beside Elowyn on the hearthrug, his head resting in Elowyn’s lap with the trust of someone who had wandered deserts and found, at last, an oasis that did not vanish. Elowyn’s left hand came to rest atop Callum’s crown, fingers light as if anointing, not comforting—a benediction given in silence. With his right hand, he reached for Callum’s.

Callum, already half-curled toward him, caught it instinctively, lacing their fingers together and drawing Elowyn’s hand to his chest, pressing it above his heart like a seal. Elowyn let it rest there, palm open and still.

Elowyn stared into the fire, unmoving, his violet-ringed eyes rimmed with tears that shimmered at the edge of release but did not fall. He would not let them. Not yet. Callum needed him whole, and so he held himself there—still and silent, the shape of his sorrow folded inward, waiting.

“I should have done more,” Callum choked. “I should have stopped it. I should’ve laid him flat. I should have--”

Elowyn held him closer, splaying his hand flat across Callum’s chest as if trying to still the storm within him through sheer presence alone, his touch not firm but steady—anchoring, like a beam of moonlight on a tide too wild to name.

But the flood wouldn’t still. Callum’s breath hitched again, his voice unraveling. “My da never let anyone speak to my mum like that. Not once. Didn’t matter if it was fists or wand—he made damn sure it stopped. Always. And me? I just stood there shoutin’. I just watched you shake.”

He turned his face downward, nestling more fully into Elowyn’s lap, the crown of his head brushing against the curve of Elowyn’s ribs, as if seeking shelter from the world. His shame cut deeper than tears, dragging his gaze to the rug below like a weight he could no longer bear to lift. “I’m not him. And I don’t want to be. I know that. Lanwynn taught me better—showed me other ways to be strong. But still...it’s in me, El. That voice that says being a man means making it stop with force. That love has to shout and strike. My da—he did what he thought was right. He was trying, always trying, to protect us. But it came out in fists and fury more than not. And now I—I feel weak for not doing the same. For only shouting. For not stopping it.”

Elowyn’s left hand remained gently pressed to the crown of Callum’s head, thumb tracing a slow, grounding circle at the base of his skull like a priest offering a blessing. His right hand stayed curled in Callum’s, still held close to the boy’s chest, their joined palms rising and falling with each breath. He said nothing for a moment, letting the quiet settle.

Callum shifted, slowly, turning his body toward Elowyn until he was curled fully into him, arms winding around Elowyn’s waist like a traveler seeking shelter from a storm. His face pressed into Elowyn’s torso, breath warm and uneven against the soft wool of his jumper. In response, Elowyn held Callum’s head gently between both hands, as if cradling a ruined relic—not broken beyond worth, but sacred because of what it had endured. The gesture was intimate, anchoring. Not a possession, but a blessing.

“You didn’t fail me, Cal,” he said, voice barely more than breath. “You carry so much. But love isn’t something to prove—it’s something to share. And you share it, every day. There’s no shame in shouting. No shame in feeling. No shame in loving.”

The silence that followed was different now. Not the hush of restraint, but of grace. Of something understood. And in that quiet, Callum let it go. Not the grief, or the guilt, but the grip of them. He let go the belief that he had to carry it alone. The silence stretched tender and trembling.

Eventually, Elowyn stood. He hesitated only a moment before reaching down and gently pulling Callum to his feet. Their fingers stayed laced as Elowyn led him across the room—not with force, but with the quiet assurance of someone offering sanctuary. As they walked, he shrugged off his outer robes and laid them loosely across the foot of his own bed—uncharacteristically disheveled, not from carelessness, but from the weight of the night. Then, with a quiet grace, he unfastened his trousers and stepped out of them, folding them beside the robes until he stood in only his undershirt and pants—an unspoken act of readiness, of softness, of belonging.

When they reached Peter’s bed, Callum paused, uncertainty flickering across his face as he realized where Elowyn had led them. Elowyn glanced back and, with a voice low and sure, said simply, “He’s still for us.”

Callum’s breath caught, but he nodded. Beneath the anger, the words echoed true.

They climbed into Peter’s bed together, Elowyn’s back pressed to Callum’s chest. Elowyn drew their fingers together, weaving Callum’s hand over his heart like a vow spoken without sound. Callum’s left arm slid beneath Elowyn’s neck, his hand extended outward into the space Peter had once filled. Elowyn mirrored the gesture, his own left arm reaching across the void. They did not speak his name, but shaped the silence around him—the hollow he had left, and the home he still belonged to.

And that was how they fell asleep—facing the hollow together, fingers outstretched into the waiting dark, the fire casting its last golden breath over them as if to bless what remained.

Nothing more was said.

The fire burned low. And in the sacred hush that followed, they fell asleep holding hands, the space between them untouched and holy—a waiting place, shaped by love, and silence, and the ache of what still might be.

—

The fire had burned to its last embers by the time Peter returned. The sconces, long since flickered out, left the dormitory in a hush so complete only the whispering hiss of the fading embers. The faint light that remained in the room came only from the hearth, where coals glowed low, casting long shadows and stammering flames. Above, the glass windows in the ceiling revealed nothing but the inky dark of the lake, its weight pressing down with a slow, unrelenting gravity. The ancient waters pressed close, not crashing, but pressing in with quiet menace, coiling around their dormitory like the long shadow of something ancient and menacing. What had once felt like refuge now loomed like jagged rocks beneath a black moon and even blacker tide, where every part of him would be splintered.

Peter slipped through the stone door so quietly that even its ancient weight made no sound. He paused just inside, breath catching. After adjusting to the near blackness of the room, his eyes found them instantly. Elowyn and Callum lay curled together in Peter’s bed, their bed—the bed they’d shared to hold the dark at bay and to anchor themselves against the dangers Hogwarts and their war-torn world flung at them like waves against a crumbling shore. Elowyn’s back nestled into Callum’s chest, their right hands drawn together over Elowyn’s heart. A space had been left in front of them—Peter-shaped, unmistakably so. Even in their sleep, Elowyn and Callum had left room for him, their outstretched left hands reaching to where he had been until now, as though their bodies, even in slumber, remembered the triad they had formed together and refused to yield it to the encroaching darkness. Their hands stretched like a quiet invitation shaped by love and habit and, in spite of it all, hope. And Peter knew it. He knew that despite his silence, despite all he had withheld, they still thought of him as theirs. That space, left for him without question, struck with more precision than any accusation. It did not scold. It simply waited. It was not an exclusion. It was an invitation. And it splintered his heart like timber on reef—slow at first, then all at once, until nothing held.

He stood there at the foot of the bed so long his legs ached and his knees threatened to fold beneath him. The cold air slipped under his cloak like a serpent threading frost along his spine, insinuating itself into his marrow with a chill that did not bite but bled inward, quiet and sure. It sank past skin and sinew, threading its frost into the hollows of his chest until every breath stung with the weight of what he could not name. Guilt gnawed like something feral. Rage sparked and sputtered. But above all, there was doubt. Not just of belonging—but of worth. Of whether the space they’d left for him was mercy or memory. Or whether what had been offered so freely, so often, was still truly his to claim. And deeper still, the ache of knowing it was—and believing he had forfeited it anyway, and also believing that he no longer deserved it.

He turned, slowly, and crossed the room to the armchair by the hearth—not the stiff-backed one by the wardrobe, but the green velevt one Elowyn used more than either he or Callum—a worn little chair softened by years of quiet pondering, of reading with knees drawn up, of midnight thinking, and of silent keeping. It smelled faintly of lavender and wintergreen—both unmistakbly Elowyn—and something else that Peter could never quite name, only feel—a kind of memory, not his, but shared all the same.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept without them. Not through fevers or fear, not through loneliness or rage. They had been a constant tether. Even when the world frayed around him, they had held his shape. But now, he could not lie with them. Not after the silence he had chosen. Not after he had turned his back on what had always waited for him with open hands. He couldn’t crawl into Elowyn’s or Callum’s either—that would feel like trespass, like claiming comfort he had forfeited.

Because he had. He knew he had.

Their beds weren’t just beds. They were places of trust, of laughter muffled under blankets, of secrets spoken in the hush between night and morning. They were spaces shaped by love and trust and comfort. And he had stepped beyond the boundaries of that love, unspoken though they were. He had heard the call and turned away. And in that turning, something had cracked.

So he folded himself into the armchair instead—an exile of his own making—and let the quiet burn through him. Arms wrapped tight around his knees, he sank as far into the cushions as his small frame would allow, trying to take up less space, trying not to be seen by a world that hadn’t looked for him anyway. He stared at the coals until they blurred. He did not blink.

The fire offered no warmth, not truly. It teetered on the edge of death. And so, he told himself, was the place he had held in their world. The thoughts came fast, vicious, and snarling through him with the precision of old wounds reopened. Coward. Traitor. Burden. If he were worth it, they'd have noticed sooner. If he mattered, he wouldn’t have to fight for breath in spaces that already held him. He saw their outstretched hands and still told himself it wasn’t enough. Because he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t lovable enough. He wasn't brave enough. And, he was sure, he wasn’t needed.

He did not cry. He didn’t believe he deserved to. Not after the silence he’d offered in place of a defense. Not after the way Elowyn had trembled, and Callum had shouted, and he—Peter—had chosen not to act. Not after he had turned away from love freely given and wondered if something else—something fresher, darker, more thrilling—might be enough.

Darius had looked at him like he saw something. That had to mean something. Didn’t it? And yet, Peter wasn’t sure what Darius saw. He didn’t even know what he saw in himself. Elowyn and Callum made space for him daily—soft, steady, and unconditional—but somehow it still felt fragile, like it would disappear if he asked too much of it. He thought he’d chosen something better. Now he wasn’t sure he’d chosen at all. Maybe he’d only been reaching, blinded by the ache to be wanted with certainty, too clouded by doubt to see that he already was.

So he did not cry. Because crying would have meant believing he still had the right to grieve. And he wasn’t sure he did—not after turning away, not after choosing silence, not after all the damage that had already been done. The silence settled, the embers succumbed to darkness, and still he did not move. Long into the pre-dawn hours, he sat there, curled and watchful, as the last glow in the hearth faded to ash.

When he woke, it was with a start. He hadn’t remembered even falling asleep. The dormitory flickered with hints of green, the light from the sunrise filtering through the lake above with the early suggestion of morning. Not sunlight, but the pale half-light that came from the lake above, filtering through the ceiling-glass in swells and eddies. The water made shadows dance like ghosts across the stone.

Peter rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand, slow and bleary, as though brushing sleep from a face he no longer recognized. The fire had died entirely, its warmth long vanished, its memory etched only in the faint scent of ash. He rose on unsteady legs, every joint stiff with the echo of penance. The ache was not sharp but deep, threaded through his limbs like the tolling of some interior bell, rung slow and steady by the weight of all he had not said.

For a moment, he lingered. Just a moment. He looked again to the bed and to the boys still asleep and to the shape they made—to the space still waiting for him. His gaze caught on the blanket bunched gently around their legs, the slight rise and fall of breath, the way Callum’s arm remained extended across the void. They hadn’t moved.

With a final sigh, he turned away, his shoulders tight and a knot behind his breastbone began to pulse. He crossed the room slowly, quietly, to his wardrobe. Every movement was hesitant, as though afraid to disturb the stillness. With chilled fingers, he undressed, peeling away the clothes he had worn since yesterday—creased, sweat-damp, and sleep-soured—and folded them, not neatly, but with reverence, as if laying down the weight of guilt itself. He reached for a clean shirt, and fresh trousers, pulling them on with trembling hands.

Then, as silently as he had entered, Peter stepped toward the stone door. Just as he passed, a flicker caught the edge of his vision. It was the Foe-Glass, half-shrouded in shadow, shimmered faintly. It wasn't bright, or sharp, but enough to stop him.

He turned.

There—

There he was.

Not Elowyn. Not Callum. Not Darius.

Himself.

Peter stared.

His own reflection, clear and sharp, stared back at him with shoulders hunched and jaw tight, eyes rimmed in shadows that spoke of sleepless nights and splintered thoughts. He looked like a boy caught between fragments, still trying to find shape in the outline of who he used to be.

He did not recoil, but something inside him ached. He blinked once, and in that blink, the image blurred. He let the breath go, slow and quiet, like something ancient slipping back into the dark. Then he turned. Behind him, the room remained still. The Foe-Glass shimmered once more, and Peter’s image faded. The shadows returned to faceless shapes.

He was not their enemy. Just a boy lost in the dark, still searching for the way back to the light.

Chapter Text

The first snow had not yet fallen, but the sky bore its promise in the pale stillness that dimmed even the enchanted ceiling of the Charms classroom. Near the rear of the room, just beside the door, stood a Watcher. Rumors had been swirling for days that they were beginning to appear outside of Carrow-led lessons—ostensibly for safety, as the war beyond the Castle walls escalated. Muggle-borns and their families had begun to vanish in greater numbers. Even Muggles with no magical connections were dying in curious patterns across Britain. The Watchers, cloaked in black and unspeaking, now moved with a sanctioned vigilance through the corridors, their presence a reminder that Hogwarts was no longer merely a school.

This one did not move when Elowyn and Callum had entered, nor did they speak. Their arms were folded loosely behind their back. Their face, like all Watchers, was hidden beneath a drawn hood—featureless, anonymous, and deliberate. They had no parchment, no wand in hand. And yet their stillness was a weight all its own. Callum halted just inside the doorway, his eyes locking onto the Watcher with unmasked suspicion, body taut and ready. Beside him, Elowyn slowed as well, gaze drifting over the black-cloaked figure with a flicker of recognition—but no surprise. They were already holding hands, but as they stood before the Watcher, Elowyn’s grip tightened—not in fear, but in answer. Their joined hands did not waver. If anything, the gesture sharpened, became deliberate, a wordless refusal to cower. With a subtle but firm tug, he drew Callum forward, turning his own face away from the Watcher with the kind of practiced indifference that came from knowing exactly how power watched and waited. Their hands remained clasped as they made their way to their seats.

The rows of desks gleamed dully in the wan light, softened by the dark blue velvet hangings that muffled the windows. The Castle itself felt quieter than usual—not merely hushed, but withdrawn, as though its ancient awareness had pulled inward. All term, its presence had ebbed with each tightening rule, each intrusion, each act of control. But now, with the Watcher in the room, even that faint pulse of watchful sentience seemed to retreat deeper still. And yet, beneath that hush, Elowyn felt something else—something distant, yet inexplicably nearer than the Castle itself. It was An Dar. Though far away, the Koe’s presence stirred faintly within him, its whisper clearer than the ancient stones beneath his feet. It was troubled, and that quiet unease settled over him with more weight than the Watcher’s gaze. 

Elowyn and Callum had already made their way to their usual seats, hands still joined as they sat. Elowyn unpacked his things with quiet precision—quill neatly poised, parchment aligned with an exactitude borne of instinct rather than effort. To his right, Callum leaned back just slightly in his chair, arms folded, jaw tight, gaze flicking once toward the Watcher before settling forward. To Elowyn's left, the desk sat empty—deliberately so. Upon it, he had placed Peter’s slim, worn notebook and a quill, the shaft of it straightened with care and the nib freshly trimmed. It was the one Peter had always admired, and now it lay there as a quiet, deliberate offering—an invitation, and a symbol of hope yet unclaimed.

The class buzzed faintly with the shuffling of students finding their places, though it lacked the usual warmth. The Slytherins had clustered to the left of the room, the Ravenclaws to the right—an unspoken divide that had formed sometime in September and never been remarked upon. It was not enforced, merely understood. The Watcher at the back of the room had not gone unnoticed. The Ravenclaw second-years—only around twenty in all—clustered in tighter, quieter groups, near the front, glancing furtively toward the cloaked figure without ever quite looking directly. Murmurs about the upcoming assessment were laced now with uncertain looks and questions too hushed to catch. The Slytherins were more subdued still; only six were present—Elowyn, Callum, Honoria, Vesper, and the remaining girls, Octavia Flint and Corinne Rosier. Two others had not returned for second year, and Peter had yet to arrive. Even among their own housemates, conversation thinned, wary and distant beneath the Watcher’s hooded gaze.

Peter arrived just before the bell, breath visible in a faint puff from the hallway's colder air. Darius was at his side, speaking in low tones too intimate to be casual. As they reached the doorway, Darius took both of Peter’s hands into his own and gave them a slow, deliberate squeeze. "I’ll see you soon," he said, his tone thick with affection but pitched just loudly enough to carry. It was the sort of gesture meant to be seen, its softness theatrical. There was affection in it, but more for the audience than the boy. His eyes never left Elowyn and Callum, and the smile he wore held no warmth. Peter watched him walk away before turning toward the classroom, shoulders drawn taut.

Callum watched Darius’s performance with mounting fury, his posture snapping upright as if ready to leap from his seat. His breath flared through his nose, chest rising in a tight rhythm, and his fingers clenched the edge of the desk with barely contained force. Every inch of his body screamed to act, to say something, to throw back the challenge Darius had wordlessly hurled at them. But Elowyn, still composed despite the ache behind his eyes, reached out and laid a hand on Callum’s arm. The touch was firm, steady, and deliberate. It anchored Callum like a stone in a storm, not asking him to quiet his rage, but offering him something stronger to hold onto. Callum’s shoulders fell, not in surrender but in restraint, tension bleeding out by degrees as he drew a long, quiet breath and anchored himself in Elowyn’s calm. 

As Peter turned to enter the classroom, his eyes landed on his usual desk beside Elowyn and its quiet offering. He hesitated, body held taut, as if the sight had cracked something within him too deep to name. For a single heartbeat, he looked as though he might cross the room, take his place, accept what was still being offered. But then the tension won out. Without a word, he turned away and made for the front of what had become the Slytherin side of the room, sliding into the seat beside Honoria and Vesper. They nodded—barely, neither warmly, nor cruelly. As though acknowledging a distant relative at a funeral. Peter didn’t look back.

Professor Flitwick entered shortly after Peter had taken his seat, a hush following him like a trailing cloak. The stack of parchment in his hands quivered as he adjusted his spectacles with a care that felt less absent-minded than usual. He did not ascend the small, elegant staircase built into the base of his lectern—an understated fixture charmed to match the polished wood and brass flourishes of the rest of the room—but instead remained at floor level, hands visibly shaking as he smoothed the edges of his notes. The Watcher's presence near the back of the room seemed to cast a longer shadow over him than the winter light allowed. When Flitwick spoke, his voice lacked its usual buoyancy, trimmed down to careful syllables, each one weighed before release.

"Today’s lesson," he began, eyes flicking once toward the door as if expecting it to open again, "concerns a charm of suppression—Silencio. A powerful spell with wide utility, but especially vital in circumstances where stealth or interruption may mean the difference between survival and catastrophe."

He paused, flipping a page. "The charm has a long and sobering history, often invoked in times of war, oppression, and... misinformation. In the early sixteenth century, Muggle magistrates claimed the ability to identify magical speech patterns. Many witches and wizards who could not cast Silencio in time were accused, tried, and executed for supposed blasphemies or arcane speech."

Flitwick glanced up, the tremor in his hand more pronounced now. "As you are aware," he continued, "our curriculum has been updated this term to include the broader historical context of magical suppression, especially through the lens of Muggle actions and ideologies. It is important," he said stiffly, reading directly from his parchment, "to recognize that the Muggle world has often responded to the unknown with violence. In fact, during the European witch hunts, entire communities of magical folk were silenced—not just through death, but through fear, misinformation, and the deliberate erasure of magical history."

His voice faltered slightly. "This is why we study Silencio today. Because there are moments when silence is necessary for survival, and when silencing another can be an act of self-preservation or protection. Magic must be guarded, and sometimes hidden, from those who would twist its truth."

The words had the cadence of a speech rehearsed, assigned. And yet, in the small flicker of his eyes as he turned another page, there was a quiet grief—or perhaps shame. One of the Ravenclaw girls, Ayesha Qureshi, seated toward the middle of the room, kept glancing toward Professor Flitwick as though waiting for something—perhaps a joke, a warm aside, the spark Flitwick usually brought with him. It didn’t come. Her shoulders drew inward slightly, and her quill paused above her parchment as she watched her House Head continue his lecture so uncharacteristically.

Professor Flitwick glanced down, adjusted his stack of notes, and began demonstrating the wand movement with a sharp, upward flick. As the lecture shifted into practical instruction, something in him eased. The lines of tension around his mouth began to smooth, and his voice gained a steadier rhythm. With each repetition of the wand movement, Flitwick began to reinhabit his usual form—still more subdued than in years past, but familiar nonetheless. He moved among the desks with gentle corrections, offering encouragement in tones that, while quieter, had not lost their precision. Slowly, the careful mask of obligation gave way to the quiet joy of teaching, even under watchful eyes.

The demonstration began with a flick of Professor Flitwick’s wand that sent a faint shimmer across the air, as if the very sound in the room had been pulled taut. He gestured toward a small silver bell perched on the edge of his lectern, and with a murmured charm, it began to ring on its own—its high-pitched chime pulsing rhythmically in the quiet room like a ceremonial toll. Only once the bell had gained a steady cadence did he cast, "Silencio." The clapper continued to swing, but no sound followed. A second gesture, accompanied by the counter-charm—"Reverto Vocis"—restored its voice, the peal rejoining the air as though a curtain had been pulled back from reality.

“The wand movement for Silencio is a sharp upward flick,” he explained, demonstrating again with precision. “Reverto Vocis is subtler, a spiral inward, as though drawing sound back from the stillness. Please take care with both. Silencio is not a thing to be wielded casually.”

He demonstrated the pair several more times, allowing the bell to ring and then silencing it again, before finally restoring its sound with the counter-charm. Once he was confident the students had observed enough, he instructed them to take out their wands and begin practicing the motions without casting—refining the movement, angle, and flow with silent precision before they would be permitted to attempt the charm itself. As they moved through the patterns, Flitwick stepped lightly among the rows, adjusting wrists here, softening elbow angles there, offering murmured corrections that never broke the hush of the room.

He did not pause for questions. With a murmured incantation and a graceful sweep of his arm, wooden boxes appeared atop each pair of desks, each one charmed to release its catch with a soft click. Inside, small frogs blinked up at their assigned students, their glossy green eyes wide, throats ballooning with unvoiced croaks.

Elowyn’s hands stilled the moment the frog appeared in front of him. His expression didn’t shift, but Callum felt it in the subtle way Elowyn’s shoulders tensed, the way his breath changed. “I won’t cast on it,” Elowyn said quietly in Cornish the words smooth but weighted. “It hasn’t given leave.”

Callum looked from the frog to Elowyn, then reached out, his fingers brushing Elowyn’s wrist—firmly and grounding. “We’ll use each other, then,” he said quietly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Before they began, Elowyn reached into his satchel and withdrew a folded scrap of parchment. A flick of his wand transfigured it into a shallow ceramic bowl. With a quiet, focused breath, he cast, "Aquamenti," conjuring a thin stream of clean water that filled the bowl just enough. He set it gently into the box beside the frog, who blinked slowly in reply. Only then did he turn to face Callum, wand in hand, ready to begin. 

Callum watched the small gesture with a warmth that crept up his neck and into his chest—familiar now, though not yet named. It wasn’t the magic itself, but the quiet thoughtfulness behind it, the way Elowyn moved through the world with care even when no one else noticed. He didn’t speak, but his fingers lingered against Elowyn’s wrist a moment longer before letting go.

They swapped a glance—brief, understanding, without performance—and began their practice, Elowyn casting the charm first. Callum opened his mouth to speak but no sound emerged. He raised his eyebrows in approval and motioned for Elowyn to lift it. With a quiet "Reverto Vocis," the spell released.

Flitwick caught sight of them and tilted his head slightly, noting the absence of frog and the small bowl of water resting in the box. He paused beside them a moment longer than necessary. His eyes, soft with something like understanding, lingered on the frog nestled inside the ceramic dish before flicking to Elowyn’s wand. No rebuke came. Only the briefest of nods—then he moved on, saying nothing. 

From the back of the room, the Watcher’s hood shifted—barely, but unmistakably. Their faceless attention had turned toward Elowyn and Callum. They made no move, nor sound, but the stillness around them deepened, like a room exhaling and holding its breath. Callum felt it before he saw it, that subtle prickle of being watched, and shifted fractionally closer to Elowyn, wand steady prepared to defend. 

Around the room, other students leaned over their boxes, casting Silencio with varying degrees of success. Some frogs croaked defiantly, others froze into silence. A few students laughed under their breath. One Slytherin girl cast the spell too forcefully and caused her frog to leap from the box entirely, leading to a brief scramble that ended in sharp glances from the Watcher at the back.

A few Ravenclaws near the middle of the room turned when they noticed Elowyn and Callum practicing on each other. Their whispers were brief and subdued, curiosity mingled with a note of unease as though something about the choice unsettled the order of things. But neither boy looked up. Their practice was methodical, quiet, respectful.

Peter had been paired with Ayesha, and though she was patient and precise, Peter’s hands were tense and his focus fractured. They took turns practicing on their frog. Ayesha cast first, successfully silencing it with a light flick, and then quickly followed with the counter-charm to restore its voice before nodding for Peter to begin his turn. He cast Silenciothree times and failed to land it cleanly. Their frog blinked in confusion, throat bobbing silently with half-started croaks. Ayesha winced once, adjusted her grip, and repeated the sequence—charm and counter-charm—with quiet determination. 

Peter apologized under his breath, but his eyes kept sliding sideways—drawn again and again to the middle of the room, behind him, where Elowyn and Callum stood close in the open space, heads inclined toward one another, movements synchronized and assured. A faint muscle ticked in Peter’s jaw, his muttered frustration audible only to Ayesha, who turned just long enough to catch the direction of his gaze. Her brow furrowed—more in caution than concern—and without a word, she returned to her practice. She had no intention of becoming enmeshed in Slytherin entanglements.

Throughout the room, Flitwick moved with careful rhythm, correcting wand angles, praising quietly when appropriate. His voice, though steadier than at the start, was still gentler than in years past. He never once raised it. Even the frogs seemed to learn the new tone of Hogwarts, growing quieter as the lesson progressed.

The Watcher at the back remained motionless. Only once did their hood shift slightly, when a Ravenclaw girl’s frog refused to regain its voice. The girl paled, managed the counter-charm on her second try, and avoided looking anywhere but her desk for the remainder of the class.

When the final bell rang, Peter was the first to rise. He slipped past desks without a word, weaving between slower students and out the door with a burst of cold corridor air. Darius was waiting just outside the threshold, posture relaxed but gaze fixed on the classroom beyond. As Peter stepped out, Darius reached for one of his hands and took it without hesitation, entwining their fingers with deliberate ease. He murmured something too low to hear, something meant only for Peter, and gave his hand a slow, tender squeeze before turning them both away from the doorway. Then, turning his head with slow precision, Darius cast a single look back into the classroom. His eyes locked on Elowyn and Callum, and his smile—sharp and controlled—held no warmth at all.

Elowyn, still packing his parchment with slow precision, didn’t flinch. He hesitated briefly, his gaze lingering on Peter’s untouched notebook—left there like a question that had never been answered—then reached out to close it carefully and tuck it away beside his own things. Callum offered no glance toward the door; his focus remained fixed on Elowyn’s face, reading the pain he so carefully concealed. He saw what Peter either could not or would not: that Elowyn had laid out the notebook as a gesture of welcome, and as an open hand extended across the breach. That Peter had walked past it—past them—without a flicker of acknowledgement stoked Callum’s fury like a banked fire stirred to life. But he said nothing. Instead, he reached out and took Elowyn’s satchel without a word, slinging it over his own shoulder with quiet determination.

Near the lectern, Professor Flitwick lingered a moment longer, his gaze sweeping the room once more. He looked toward the back—toward the Watcher—and then back at Elowyn and Callum, the corners of his mouth drawing down slightly as though he had meant to say something but thought better of it. With a small sigh, he gathered his own notes and tucked them into the crook of his arm, descending the steps of his platform with a slow, practiced grace. He gave the classroom a final, unreadable glance before shuffling out, his short robes whispering faintly across the stone floor.

Elowyn and Callum stood together, hands reaching and clasping in a motion so practiced it needed no thought—only the instinctive reach for something steady in a world unraveling. Callum’s thumb moved softly against Elowyn’s knuckles, a wordless tether, grounding and sure. Elowyn responded with a subtle squeeze, not for comfort alone, but for presence and for the reassurance that someone still stood with him, beside him, against whatever might come. When they passed the Watcher, Elowyn looked up and gave a small, deliberate nod. The Watcher did not respond, but simply watched them go. The Watcher did not respond, but fell into step behind them, their silent footsteps trailing just far enough not to intrude, just close enough to remind them they were never truly unwatched.

As Callum and Elowyn walked down the frigid corridor, the Castle, distant and dim throughout the lesson, felt no nearer now, though he had long since learned to live with its silence. And yet somewhere far from here, he could feel An Dar stirring—quiet, troubled, sensing the world beyond.

The walk to the Great Hall was silent but not unfeeling. Though no words passed between them, Callum remained acutely aware of Elowyn’s every movement like the way his fingers twitched slightly before stilling, the rhythm of his breath caught just a hair too fast and shallow, and the faintest downward cast to his eyes that no amount of poise could conceal. Their hands were joined, fingers loosely laced, until they were out of sight of the Watcher who had trailed them from Charms. Then, with a motion so fluid it barely registered, Callum gently let go and reached across the small distance between them, slipping an arm around Elowyn’s shoulders—not possessively but protectively, fingers resting lightly against the curve of his far arm. Elowyn wanted to lean into it—he longed for the warmth and weight of it—but his mind was too distant and caught up in spirals of thought and sensation he couldn’t quite name. He could never truly pull away from Callum—not when something in him was always reaching, always drawn, the way all Koesfolk felt the quiet pull of An Dar even from a distance. But he didn’t lean into Callum’s touch. He simply kept walking, his body moving forward while his mind frayed at the edges, splintered by too many thoughts pulling in too many directions.

They moved through corridor after corridor, stone and shadow pressing in close, the air thin with silence and stripped of wonder. Magic, where once it had hummed like a heartbeat beneath their feet, in the stone bones of the Castle and the breath of its air, now felt like something pulled too thin to hold—an echo trailing the ghost of a song long faded. 

When they finally entered the entry hall, they found twin Watchers flanking the entrance like carved statues brought to life; each of their masks were angled in eerie symmetry, unmoving but impossibly aware. They did not speak, nor make any move to bar entrance. But as Elowyn and Callum stepped forward, they could feel the weight of being watched settle across their shoulders like a second cloak, oppressive and cold.

Within, the Great Hall unfolded in familiar geometry: the enchanted ceiling was dull and overcast, though even that seemed generous as if some distracted hand had merely painted clouds on a vast canvas and forgotten to enchant them. Gone was the illusion of depth, of sky, and of magic; in its place hung a ceiling that no longer fooled the eye, only reminded it of what had once been while the four House tables stretched long and straight beneath. Slytherin’s banner hung motionless in the draftless air, its silver and green rendered oddly lifeless in the dimming light. As they entered, Elowyn instinctively slowed, his eyes flickering across the hall not with caution, but calculation. He noted the placement of the second-years along their usual stretch of the table: Honoria and Vesper sat opposite their usual place, side by side and whispering in the clipped, conspiratorial tones of girls raised in the echo chambers of high bloodlines. Their postures were composed, but not as stiffly formal as before—less performance and more presence. Elowyn’s gaze passed over them without pause, then shifted further down.

Darius was already seated. He lounged with deliberate ease in the further down along the third stretch of the table, just past the midpoint. He had one arm draped behind Peter’s shoulders in a way that could be mistaken for casual until one looked closer—until one saw the proprietary curl of his fingers at the base of Peter’s neck, the slow, possessive movements that were neither gentle nor rough but something far more insidious, at least to Elowyn’s eyes. Peter, for his part, leaned in. His body angled subtly toward Darius, his elbow brushing the other boy’s side, while his laugh gurgled softly, barely audible. When Darius murmured something low, Peter flushed faintly and lowered his gaze, nodding.

Elowyn stopped walking. For a fraction of a second, it was as if he had been struck by an invisible force. He stood just long enough for Callum to notice the stillness, then resumed his pace with a grace too practiced to seem natural. They took their usual seats in silence, Callum slipping in beside him with the ease of routine but not the comfort. Across from them, Vesper glanced up, her brows lifting in quiet appraisal. Honoria offered a faint, acknowledging nod—nothing warm, but not unfriendly either—then glanced past them toward the place where Peter and Darius sat. Her expression did not change, but something behind her eyes shifted, a flicker of calculation or concern too brief to name. They exchanged no words with Elowyn or Callum, but each gave a slight nod of greeting, and then, almost in sync, the girls turned back to their own murmured conversation, their heads tilting close once more.

Callum, ever watchful, began piling food onto Elowyn’s plate—small, manageable portions of things he knew Elowyn would normally eat, had he any appetite at all: slices of roasted parsnip, a bit of seeded oat bread, a bowlful of leek and potato soup still steaming faintly. Elowyn didn’t touch it.

“You’ve got to eat something, El,” Callum said quietly in Cornish, voice pitched low to avoid notice. He didn’t press. He never did. Instead, he nudged the plate a little closer, as if proximity alone might conjure hunger.

Elowyn blinked, then reached slowly for his spoon. He stirred the soup but didn’t lift it. His voice, when it came, was soft and nearly lost beneath the din of the Hall. “An Dar is stirring.”

Callum looked up from his own meal, eyes narrowing slightly. “From this far?”

Elowyn nodded. “It shouldn’t be possible. Not unless something is wrong. It feels...” He paused, choosing his words as if they might betray him if he chose poorly. “…prickly. Like…a nettle buried deep within, only a whisper of pain, but it lingers.”

Callum was quiet for a moment, then spoke—not in English, but low enough that only Elowyn would hear.

“I’ve been feeling something too. Didn’t think it was anything. Just a kind of unease. Thought maybe it was just…” He didn’t say Peter’s name, but the pause was enough.

Elowyn’s spoon stilled.

“But it’s been growing,” Callum continued. “Not stronger, just… more. Almost small enough to ignore. But it’s there. If I pay attention.”

Elowyn was quiet before answering. “That’s how it begins. All Koesfolk feel An Dar, in their own way. Like a weak current beneath the surface of thought.”

Callum glanced at him, frowning. “But I’m not really Koesfolk.”

Elowyn turned to him, gaze steady. “You are. The Koes knows you now.”

Callum looked down at his hands. “I remember what you said. Back before I took the oath. I thought maybe you were just being poetic.”

Elowyn gave a faint smile, tired but true. “I usually am.”

He reached for Callum’s hand and rested his fingers lightly over Callum’s. “But I meant it.”

Elowyn gently squeezed Callum’s before he withdrew his hand and turned back to his soup, lifting the spoon as if by instinct rather than appetite. Beside him, Callum took a steady bite of his meat pie, though his eyes flicked to Elowyn between bites, tracking each movement as if to be certain he was still tethered to the moment. Elowyn sipped slowly, methodically—more ritual than hunger—and though the food touched his lips, his thoughts wandered far beyond the walls of the Hall.

Callum set his fork down with care, glancing toward the entrance before speaking. “Do you think it’s all connected?”

He didn’t name the Watchers—but his eyes lingered on them. “You feeling the Castle going quiet. An Dar stirring. Us feeling it now. Maybe it’s not just one thing.”

Elowyn didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted, not toward the Watchers, but toward the far wall of the Hall where a tapestry hung unnaturally still.

“It might be connected,” he said at last. “Or not. I don’t know. The Castle is quiet—too quiet. It doesn’t feel asleep. It feels distant. Like we’re walking its halls, but the spirit of it has gone somewhere far away.”

He paused, his eyes flicking toward the space where Peter sat, though he did not look directly. “All I know is…something’s shifting. And I can’t name all of it.”

Callum exhaled through his nose. “Others have noticed it too. Heard a fifth-year say two staircases froze this morning. Someone else said the portraits on the north landing aren’t moving. Just... stuck. Like wax figures.”

Elowyn gave a faint nod, his eyes now trained on his untouched soup as if reading omens in the ripples. “I heard the portraits on the upper Astronomy corridor have gone blank. Nothing but painted backdrops. No figures at all.”

Callum shivered faintly. “Feels the same in the corridors sometimes. Like we’re not walking through a school anymore, but through something… emptied out.”

Elowyn nodded, his voice low. “The Watchers too. Not just the ones who follow—those who stand in place. They remind me of trees hollowed through by rot, their bark still holding shape, fooling the eye into thinking life remains. But what lived inside has either slipped away… or been sealed in.”

From further down the table, Darius laughed again—a little louder this time, the sound cutting across their low Cornish exchange like a blade. There was something smug in the cadence of it, deliberate enough to draw eyes. Elowyn flinched almost imperceptibly, his spoon hovering just above the soup as though the sound itself had touched him. Callum’s jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing at the interruption.

“We don’t have to stay,” Callum said after a long pause. He spoke through clenched teeth, eyes fixed on Darius with a thunderous expression that barely concealed the urge to retaliate. He continued, his voice low but sure. “Let’s go to the library. We’ve still got time before class. Quiet might do you good.”

Elowyn did not look up, but his fingers closed slowly around the handle of his spoon. After a moment, he set it down with care. Then, finally, he met Callum’s eyes and gave a single nod.

They began to gather their things.

Just then, from across the table, Honoria’s voice interrupted, calm but unmistakably directed at them. “What language are you speaking?”

Callum looked up, his expression unreadable. Elowyn did not.

“Cornish,” Elowyn said quietly.

Honoria blinked. “Is that…some kind of regional spellcraft?”

Elowyn looked up at that—just slightly. “It is the tongue of my home,” he said, voice soft and distant, as if echoing a memory. “It’s older than the stones beneath our feet and the first language I ever knew. It’ll be the last I’ll ever speak.”

Honoria tilted her head, her long blonde hair slipping over one shoulder like sunlight over frost-kissed stone. “I’ve never heard it before,” she said, brows drawing together faintly. “It can’t be all that old?”

“It’s older than English,” Callum said, his voice quiet but edged with stone.

Honoria tilted her head, regarding them both. “You say that like that’s of consequence. If no one’s heard of it, it’s age doesn’t mean much.

“It does,” Elowyn replied.

She speared a fig on her fork but didn’t eat it, letting it hover like punctuation as she pressed on, unmoved by Elowyn’s reply. “Is this…something all of you do? In the west?”

“No,” Elowyn said. “Only in Lanwynn Koes.”

Honoria considered the name, rolling it silently in her mind. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Not many have,” Callum said. “It’s not on most maps, magical or otherwise.”

Honoria gave a small, noncommittal hum—the kind that could signal doubt or interest or both. “Odd, the way you speak it in front of everyone. As if you expect us to understand you.”

“We don’t,” Elowyn said. “But we don’t speak it for you. We speak it for each other.”

“Well. At least it sounds prettier than Gobbledegook.” There was the faintest pause before she added, more to herself than to them, “Even if I still don’t see the point.”

Vesper gave a snort of laughter beside her, and the two girls bent their heads once more, murmuring in quicksilver tones that excluded as easily as they once sought to control.

Elowyn’s fingers brushed the last of his things into his satchel. He glanced again at Callum, who nodded and gathered both of their satchels, slinging them over one shoulder with the ease of someone who had done it a dozen times before. They rose in unison, and as they stepped away from the table, their hands found each other, fingers twining not from habit but from quiet need. They walked from the Hall as one. Behind them, several pairs of eyes followed—some curious, some calculating, and some unreadable. Among them, Honoria watched with an expression that did not quite shift, though something behind her gaze stirred, faint and flickering. As if a lifelong blindness had cracked just enough to let in the smallest thread of light.

They stopped in the library for a while, choosing a table tucked near the back—an unfamiliar corner, their fifth table that week. Nothing settled. Elowyn turned pages without seeing them, and Callum, after a few quiet minutes of shifting parchment, confessed he couldn’t stop expecting Peter to appear, to drop into place beside them like he always had. Elowyn had nodded, saying little, but the truth hung between them. The library no longer felt like theirs. The rhythm of it had been broken, so they left early,  walking slowly toward class, their silence companionable but heavy, each of them lost in the ache of what used to be.

They walked in silence toward their next class, Elowyn still leaning against Callum as though drawing from his warmth what strength he could no longer summon on his own. The corridors narrowed as they descended the familiar path toward the classroom that had once been Professor Snape’s classroom. Its air, once charged with purpose and alertness, had grown cold and heavy, as though the very stone had learned how to listen, and whom to serve. The Castle, once a gentle murmur in the back of Elowyn's mind, had fallen utterly silent the nearer they drew to the room, as though even its ancient sentience dared not follow him past that threshold.

The door was already ajar. Within, the chairs had been pushed back tightly against the walls, like sentinels retreating from the heart of the room, as if even the furniture had been commanded to bear witness from a distance. The emptiness at the center yawned wide, solemn and still, like an altar awaiting its next offering. The dummies that usually stood in rows like waiting soldiers had been removed. There was nothing between the students now—no buffer, or distraction. Just space and silence.

Elowyn and Callum entered together, eyes flicking instinctively to either side of the door, expecting to see a Watcher stationed in the shadows. But there was no one. Just the sound of their footsteps and the stillness that seemed to lean forward. They exchanged a glance, brief but weighted, and moved quietly to their usual seats. Elowyn removed Peter's notebook from his satchel after sitting and placed it on the chair beside his own with quiet intention. Callum said nothing, but his eyes lingered on the gesture a moment longer than usual. They waited in silence. For a time, it was only the two of them, Elowyn and Callum, seated side by side in a room that offered no comfort. The walls felt too close, and the floor too wide. Slowly, the others began to arrive.

The remaining Slytherin second-years arrived one by one, their footsteps soft against the flagstones, as though the room itself demanded quiet. Honoria and Vesper moved with the crispness of habit, nodding to Callum and Elowyn with expressions unreadable, their eyes sliding away as they passed. Behind them came the other two girls, Octavia and Corinne, silent as shadows, who neither spoke nor offered a glance. They slipped into their seats beside Honoria and Vesper, forming a small cluster of stillness against the left wall, like birds settling before a storm. Across from them, the Gryffindors filed in one by one, outnumbering the Slytherins nearly three to one. No one spoke. The air thickened with a silence that pulsed low and expectant, as though every student sensed that something, seen or unseen, was shifting beneath their feet.

Peter slipped in with the last hush of the closing door, his entrance quiet but deliberate. He did not so much as glance toward Elowyn or Callum. His eyes skimmed past the empty chair where the notebook sat, an unspoken offering, and he moved instead to the farthest edge of the Slytherin row, well away from Callum and Elowyn who sat nearer the center, folding into himself as he sat, arms wound tight across his chest like a ward against feeling.

Professor Amycus entered without ceremony. His presence gathered like stormlight beneath a thunderhead—dense, inevitable, and humming with something unspoken. He wore no robe today, only a long high-collared tunic of dark grey, belted at the waist, with sleeves rolled to the elbow. He paced slowly into the center of the room, boots clicking faintly against the stone.

"Today," he said, voice clipped but smooth, "we turn from mere incantation and muscle to the principle beneath the spell. Today, we examine control not as reflex, but as philosophy."

He turned once in a slow circle, hands clasped behind his back.

"You have been taught—wrongly—that certain forms of magic are unforgivable. That they are tools of tyranny, of evil, of monsters." He stopped and looked toward the Gryffindors, who stiffened beneath his gaze. "This is false. There is no spell that is evil. There is only the purpose for which it is used—and the strength of the one who wields it."

He began pacing again. "It is not a crime to control. It is a crime to lose control. The greatest threat to a wizard is not dark magic—but weakness."

No one stirred. The silence did not settle so much as press downward, heavy and close.

Professor Amycus smiled faintly, the expression barely tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Today, we descend into the marrow of magic," he said. "The bending of will. The quiet theft of agency. Today, we study the Imperius Curse."

The words slithered through the stillness like smoke. A ripple ran through the Gryffindor line. One boy exhaled sharply, a thin, sharp sound like steam escaping a sealed pipe. No one spoke. No one dared. Professor Amycus ignored the murmurs, eyes hooded, and drew his wand with slow deliberation.

"It is advanced, yes. Difficult to master, yes. But necessary. There will come a day when your life, or the life of someone you love, depends on your ability to override the will of another. You must learn how it feels—to resist it and” he paused while looking around the room, “to cast it."

He paused again, his body stilling with the precision of intent, then slowly turned, the weight of the room seeming to pivot with him, until his gaze found Elowyn.

"Mr. Marwood-Travers. If you would."

Callum sat up so sharply that his shoulder jolted against Elowyn’s, breath catching in his throat. Fury surged in him—raw, blinding, and, now all but instinctual—not at Amycus alone, but at a world that would dare touch what he had quietly sworn to protect. He would rise. He would speak. He would burn everyone here to ash if it meant shielding Elowyn from this. But then—

Elowyn’s hand came to rest on his arm, light as a leaf, yet somehow as firm as the deepest roots of some ancient tree. It was not restraint. It was not command. It was a reminder.

Callum stilled.

Elowyn rose with a grace that belonged to no boy and no age, a hush falling around him like a veil. He walked toward the center, not like a student summoned, but like a sovereign meeting fate on his own terms.

Professor Amycus waited, wand in hand.

"You may have heard," he said to the room, "that the spell can be resisted. That willpower alone can hold it at bay. That, too, is false. All wizards break eventually."

He turned to Elowyn, nodded once, raised his wand, and spoke, "Imperio."

The hush deepened until the only sound was the sharp intake of breath as the spell struck—then nothing. Elowyn stood utterly still, every line of him poised and controlled, though behind his eyes, a storm began to gather, dark and immense, churning in silence. He felt it at once: the pressure, smooth as silk, winding through his thoughts with quiet insistence, coaxing him to yield. But beneath that softness rose something more ancient—a pulse not of the mind but of the marrow, deep and steady, born of An Dar. It was no blaze. It was a thrum, quiet and unshakable. It held.

He did not move.

Professor Amycus frowned slightly and pressed more magic into the curse. Elowyn’s fingers twitched. His foot shifted, not by choice but by intrusion, as though his body were a marionette resisting the string. The pressure deepened, coaxing motion where none was willed. His body felt distant, waterlogged, but his mind burned clear. The command came again, wordless but unmistakable: Bow.

Across the room, Callum’s hand had found his wand, clenched so tightly around it that the tendons stood out beneath his skin. His knuckles were white, the wood trembling faintly where it met his grip. His eyes were locked on Elowyn, willing him to resist and endure. There was no air in Callum’s lungs, only the taut burn of helplessness and fury.

Elowyn's knees bent, slow as dusk. He folded into a bow not of obedience but of something older, something layered in defiance and dignity, so deliberate in its descent it might have been mistaken for reverence by those who could not feel the weight he bore.

Professor Amycus held the curse a few moments. When he lifted it, Elowyn straightened and inclined his head—not to Amycus, but to the room.

No one spoke. But something in the air fractured—a stillness too long held, now strained. In that silence, a quiet consensus formed: what they had witnessed was not obedience. It was something else. They did not have a name for it, but it unsettled them more than the curse itself.

Callum exhaled slowly, shoulders loosening as though some invisible wire inside him had been gently unspooled. His wand, still gripped in his hand, lowered a fraction, though the tension in his gaze did not fade. Every inch of him was turned toward Elowyn—his fury and his ache—tethered by something deeper than spell or vow.

Professor Amycus's mouth curled at one corner. "Longer than I expected," he said. "You resisted well."

He turned to the class. "You will form a line. Each of you will cast the curse once, on me. Resistance is key—you must understand what it feels like to be denied."

No one moved.

The door creaked open. Two Watchers entered with silent precision, stepping into place on either side of the door. They did not speak. They did not need to.

The students rose.

Amycus turned to Elowyn and gestured. "You will cast first."

Elowyn met his gaze without flinching. “I cannot."

Professor Amycus did not blink. "You refuse?"

"I was raised to believe in care, not conquest."

For a long moment, Professor Amycus said nothing. The stillness clung to him like frost. Then he spoke, each word smooth as ice, untouched by doubt or warmth. "Then the lesson shall proceed differently. You will learn from the other end of the wand. If you will not cast, you will be cast upon. One by one, your classmates will perform the curse on you."

Elowyn did not hesitate. He stepped forward, his movement quiet as snowfall, and turned to face the first student in the line, as though stepping into a ritual long foretold. "So be it."

The line formed slowly, a hesitant procession that drifted not toward the center, but clustered near the safety of the back. No one wanted to be first. The air was thick with unspoken bargains and downcast eyes. Eventually, a Gryffindor girl stepped forward, her hands trembling as she raised her wand, apology already softening her face.

Elowyn looked at her both clear-eyed and steady.

"Leverav dhis," he said in Cornish. I give you leave. The words were soft, but they carried.

She blinked, uncertain. Her voice wavered as the incantation left her lips, a whisper bruised by fear. The spell reached him and scattered as harmless as breath against granite.

Another stepped forward, their steps reluctant, wand raised with the hesitation of a confession.

Again: "Leverav dhis."

And again.

And again.

The phrase became a thread, winding its way through the room with solemn grace. With each utterance, the air thickened, weighted by something sacred and unseen, as though the space itself had remembered how to pray. They did not know the meaning of the words, yet with every repetition, they began to feel the shape of them, the hush they commanded along with the defiance they concealed. It was no longer mere speech. It became ritual—a liturgy of consent spoken aloud in a room built for domination.

Callum knew what they meant.

As did Peter.

The spells came like waves against a rockface. Some broke before they touched him, fading to nothing in the air. Others struck with greater force, testing the edges of his endurance. Elowyn resisted when he could, steady and sure. When the magic overwhelmed him, he slowed its passage, delayed its command, made even his surrender speak of resistance. Not once did he yield without leaving behind the mark of his will.

Then it was Callum’s turn.

He remained still, as if rooted by something deeper than fear.

Professor Amycus’s voice cut through the silence, sharp as a splinter of ice. "Refusal means you will be next."

Callum's hands curled into fists at his sides, the tension drawn tight through every line of his frame, as though he could hold the moment still by sheer force of will.

Elowyn raised his head, slow and deliberate. Their eyes met across the silence, something ancient and unspoken passing between them.

"Leverav dhis, ow kerghalav."

The words struck with the hush of a vow, too sacred to break.

Callum stepped forward, his body moving as though through bramble and flame. Each motion was burdened, each breath caught between grief and obedience. His wand lifted with the weight of all he could not say. Silent tears streaked his face, carving lines of salt and fury.

He whispered the curse. The incantation left him like a breath he had been holding for years. It landed, soft and sure, and Elowyn bowed his head beneath its weight. Professor Amycus nodded once, his face carved of silence, offering neither praise nor reprimand.

Elowyn felt the curse settle around him, not like a blow, but like a mantle placed by trembling hands. This time, he did not resist. He chose to yield, not to the spell, but to the one who cast it.

Close your eyes, the voice inside said.

And he did.

Callum lowered his wand with a trembling hand. He turned away quickly, head bowed, shoulders tight with grief as he moved to the back of the line.

A few more students stepped forward, each slower than the last, as if the act of casting had become a penance. One Gryffindor boy cast with such force that Elowyn staggered back a step, catching himself before he could fall. Another spell caught his breath in his throat and left his fingers twitching. The room had shifted; silence no longer sheltered shame, but reverence. Elowyn met each wand with the same quiet offering, and each spell—whether pitiful or strong—passed through him with less force than before. His limbs were heavy now, his breath thinner.

Peter came next. His hands trembled as he stepped forward, and though he lifted his wand, the motion lacked certainty, as if guided by sorrow more than intent. With each step, the trembling deepened—from fingers to shoulders, from breath to spine—until his whole body shivered with silent reluctance. He could not bring himself to meet Elowyn’s gaze, as though the shame of it might undo him completely.

Elowyn looked toward him anyway. "Leverav dhis," he said. Then, softer still, "Ow kerghalav."

Peter’s head snapped up as if struck by something unseen. He stared at Elowyn, stunned, his lips parted in a silence too full for words. The wand in his hand wavered. He cast the curse—not with conviction, but with the trembling hope that it might falter mid-flight, that mercy might shield them both from the truth of it. Elowyn barely felt the spell as it touched him, light as breath and just as easily dismissed. He did not move, nor did he waver. Peter’s eyes dropped, his mouth a tight line. Without a word, he turned and walked away, his retreat quiet and swift, like someone leaving a grave.

The class dragged onward, each incantation a slow-burning brand. The Watchers remained as statues, unmoving. Professor Amycus stood expressionless, carved from something colder than discipline. Elowyn endured spell after spell, faltering only once. By the end, his knees trembled, and his skin had paled to the hue of winter moonlight.

When the bell rang, no one moved. Professor Amycus dismissed them with a single nod.

Callum was beside Elowyn in an instant. His arm wrapped around Elowyn’s waist, steadying him without word or question. Elowyn did not lean fully, but neither did he resist. Together, they gathered their things in silence. Callum shouldered both satchels without thought.

The other students parted as they passed, their silence a reverent benediction. Their eyes dropped, uncertain whether they averted out of shame or reverence.

In the corridor beyond, the hush clung to the air like smoke after fire. It was not silence, but residue—the kind that lingers in burnt-out chapels and battlefield graves. Callum first took Elowyn’s hand, and then drew him close with quiet urgency. His arm slid around Elowyn’s waist, not as a question, but a claim of care. Elowyn leaned into him almost at once, his body answering before thought could intervene. The tremor in his limbs remained, but now it was held—not stilled, but shared.

They walked slowly toward the Great Hall, Callum’s arm still firm around Elowyn’s waist, their steps unhurried and grave. Though they bore the ache of the class in every limb and breath, they moved forward—neither shattered nor whole, but bound to one another in silent resolve. The corridor stirred behind them with the soft tread of students passing, their voices low and their gazes guarded. A few Gryffindors, barely audible, offered murmured thanks—not loudly, or with ceremony. Not all knew what had transpired, but some understood enough, and some would not forget.

Chapter Text

The corridor beyond the classroom breathed, its silence was not indifferent but mournful, as though the Castle itself bore witness to Elowyn’s act of mercy and endurance; it was a silence that felt almost sentient, as though the Castle itself recoiled from what had been wrought within its walls. The torches along the tower stair burned low, their enchantments faltering, casting tremulous rings of light that barely held against the gathering dusk. The last of the students had already drifted away—some with downcast eyes, others with furtive, haunted glances back toward the door. Only a few had dared to speak. The air was heavy with the residue of magic that had crossed a boundary it was never meant to touch.

Elowyn walked slowly, each step marked by the faint pulse of something older beneath the stones—a rhythm that answered the beat of his heart, the quiet memory of An Dar still alive within him. Every movement was deliberate, as though his body were relearning how to belong to itself. The echoes of command still pulsed faintly beneath his skin, though the words had long since faded. His strength wavered; his equilibrium—both magical and mortal—had been strained past its tether. Yet even now, as Callum kept an arm firm around his waist, helping him stay upright, he moved with the same quiet dignity that had carried him through the lesson, head held high, gaze distant but unbroken. The tremor in his hand betrayed him only to those who loved him enough to see it.

Callum saw. He had been watching since the first curse struck, his anger flaring and then softening into fierce protectiveness. He had seen Elowyn stand against curse after curse, each one flung by a trembling classmate, and each one met with the same quiet, unwavering grace. He had watched the grace that could be no other way, shaped by the teachings that made him who he was rather than any deliberate defiance that became both shield and sacrifice, how the choice to take every curse and give them leave had cost Elowyn more than he would ever confess. He walked directly beside him now, arm still around his waist, holding him close, his presence a living brace against collapse. When Elowyn’s knees weakened, he steadied him again, his hand firm and sure against his back.

“Come on, El,” he said softly in Cornish, the tongue now their sole sanctuary, spoken like a secret prayer between them, his voice low with care, meant to comfort rather than command. “Let’s sit for a bit.”

They turned into a small alcove midway down the corridor—a recess where a suit of armor sat motionless upon its plinth, its visor dim, the metal dulled with dust. Once it would have stirred or bowed as they passed, but the enchantments had thinned; the Castle’s breath had faded here many months ago. The air was cooler and dimmer. A single sconce flickered here, its light gilding the edges of dust motes as they turned in the light. Callum guided Elowyn down to sit at the foot of the still figure, then lowered himself beside him, close enough to share warmth but not to press.

For a time, neither spoke. The hush between them was not empty but fragile, holding what words could not. The torch flickered, its light dimming further, and the Castle seemed to wait.

Callum’s breath came rough and tight. He rose abruptly, as though the stillness might break him if he stayed inside it. He did not pace far—there was nowhere to go—but he needed the shift of weight, the coil and release of muscle, to keep from shaking. He lingered only an arm’s length away, unwilling to stray farther from Elowyn in his exhaustion.

“I just—how could you take it like that?” he said at last, the words scraping out of him. “All of it.” His jaw worked. “Why didn’t you just do it? Cast it once and be done.”

Elowyn did not lift his head. He stared ahead, though the weight of the motionless armor loomed behind him, close enough that he could almost feel its cold presence pressing through the air above his shoulders. He reached out for Callum’s hand. Callum let him take it and draw him gently closer, their hands warm in the December chill of a corridor whose warming charms had long since faded.

After a moment, Elowyn, his eyes downcast, spoke, his voice low and worn. “It isn’t in me to cast such a thing,” he said softly. “To shape will against another is to unmake what I am. In the Koes we are taught that the self is never separate—that to harm one is to wound the whole. So I bore it. I gave them leave that they might learn without the stain of unwillingness, that what was cruel might pass through something willing and not break them.” 

His fingers tightened faintly around Callum’s as his violet gaze lifted to meet the gold. The light between them wavered, soft and uncertain, yet unbroken. When he spoke again, his voice carried the hush of something older than choice. “It was never defiance,” he murmured. “Only faith—in what shaped me, in what binds us all.”

Callum swallowed hard, his breath catching as their eyes held—violet locked on gold, a fragile stillness stretching between them. For a heartbeat, he forgot the Castle, the corridor, everything but the quiet pull between them. The shame of his own spell burned hot behind his ribs, mingling with something deeper that he could not name. “I should’ve refused,” he said roughly, turning aside as heat rose to his eyes, the first tears spilling before he could master them. “I promised myself I’d protect you this year, and I failed.” He dropped to his knees before Elowyn, sudden and unsteady, the motion born of anguish more than thought—a supplicant without knowing it, as though seeking absolution he would never ask for. “I hurt you.”

Elowyn shook his head faintly, exhaustion softening his voice. “You did what you had to, and I gave you leave freely. I meant it, Cal.” He reached out, his hand trembling, and laid it gently against Callum’s cheek. “You didn’t fail me.”

Something in Callum broke, and the tears that had burned hot and silent deepened into sobs, raw and unguarded. He bowed his head, pressing his forehead into Elowyn’s lap. Elowyn’s hands rose instinctively, tender and slow, his fingers threading through Callum’s short hair. The motion carried a quiet echo of benediction, as though his touch offered the absolution Callum had not dared to seek. Neither spoke. The quiet that followed felt sacred and the air itself trembled with forgiveness made tangible and grace both ancient and human.

After a time, Elowyn slipped down from the plinth and gathered Callum fully into his arms. The stone was cold beneath them, but Elowyn held him tightly, his touch steady despite the tremor that had taken his limbs. Callum’s sobs came and went in waves until they left him emptied and shaking. When quiet returned, Elowyn’s voice followed it—low, barely more than a whisper against Callum’s temple. “You were given leave,” he murmured. “And though I need not forgive you, if that is what you need, then you have it. Whatever is within my power to give, it is yours—asked for or not.”

The corridor lay quiet around them, the torch guttering low until its light flickered to near extinction. The world had narrowed to warmth and heartbeat and the slow return of silence. For a while, neither boy moved. The ache in Callum’s chest dulled to a throb, and Elowyn’s arms slackened only when he felt the trembling ease beneath his palms. When they finally drew apart, the air between them felt thinner, fragile with what had been spoken and what could not yet be. Elowyn leaned back against the plinth, his pallor soft in the wavering torchlight. Callum eased from his arms and gathered his knees close, the hush between them thin as frost on glass. After a moment, he leaned into Elowyn’s shoulder, drawn by the quiet steadiness there. Elowyn’s arm rose without thought, his hand settling at the nape of Callum’s neck as though to bless rather than hold.

Elowyn’s voice had faded into the hush, but the silence that followed carried a different weight now—something bruised but tender, ready to break if touched. Elowyn felt it gather around them like a tide returning, his thoughts drifting unbidden toward Peter. He had left small invitations in his wake all week—a space kept beside him in class, a word offered, a glance held too long, but Peter had turned away from each one with the same distant courtesy that hurt more than anger could. The memory of it pressed against his ribs, heavy and familiar. They stayed like that for a long while before Callum spoke again, his mind circling toward another hurt he had not yet named.

Callum swallowed. The touch steadied nothing and everything. “I know you’re thinking of him,” Callum said quietly after a long silence. His voice roughened, a mix of knowing and weariness. Elowyn hummed a soft note that might have been assent, his fingers moving through Callum’s hair in slow, absent rhythm. He lowered his cheek until it brushed Callum’s temple, a wordless gesture of comfort and knowing. “He’s been pulling away for a month,” Callum continued, the anger coming up hard. “Going to Darius—Darius—after the way he’s been to you all term.” His voice thickened; the next words came out sharper as he drew back, meeting Elowyn’s violet gaze, the air between them taut with anger and ache, half a step into the language of his childhood, quick and edged, the heat of it clear even if Elowyn did not know the words. He caught himself, blew out a breath, and forced the Cornish back into his mouth, blunt and bare. “He doesn’t deserve us.”

Elowyn’s hand tightened again. “He’s still part of us,” he said quietly, the words carrying both conviction and ache. “Or he was. A year is not so easily unwoven. He shared our nights when the cold crept in, our laughter when the walls felt too close. He made the small things bearable, made the days make sense when they shouldn’t have. I thought…” His voice faltered, the disbelief threading through every breath. “I thought he’d find his way back.”

“If he were ours, he’d be here,” Callum snapped. He scrubbed a hand over his face, anger and worry at war. “He chose.”

“He chose something he thinks he needs,” Elowyn said, his voice soft but threaded with fatigue. “He looks at us and sees only two, not what we are meant to be. He forgets the shape of us.” His gaze drifted toward the floor, unfocused, as though following the memory of a current only he could feel. “We were balanced, once. Your steadiness, his laughter, my reach beyond. It was whole.” He looked up then, the faintest tenderness softening his exhaustion. “You see the world in its working parts, Cal,” he said softly. “I see it in what moves beneath—its spirit, its patterns. But he…he saw it as it was, and that made us whole.”

Callum turned away, shoulders drawn hard. “Stop defending him,” he said, and though he tried to smooth it, the anger frayed the edges of the words. “You keep suffering for him. You suffered in there for all of them.” He gestured toward the classroom with a tight jerk of his chin. “And I—” The admission stuck. He swallowed again. “I did it. I cursed you.” He paused, lowering his head into his hands, breath catching as the weight of it all pressed down. "I’m sorry.” The last two words were quiet, almost shapeless.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Elowyn said. He reached for Callum, meaning only to rest a hand against his neck, but Callum turned away, the motion small yet final. Elowyn’s hand hovered in the air for a breath before he let it fall back to his side, the space between them widening with the gesture. “I gave you leave.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Callum shot back. The Irish slipped again, sharper this time, then died on his tongue. They both sat now on the cold floor before the plinth, the armor towering just above them. Callum leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, close but careful not to crowd Elowyn. “You shouldn’t have stood there and let them use you to learn how to hurt.”

Elowyn drew a long, quiet breath before speaking, the sound more sigh than speech. He shook his head slowly, voice low and steady as he said, “There were no good choices,” Elowyn said at last, the words quiet and even, as if worn smooth by thought. “Only paths already marred. I chose the one that harmed least, and hoped it might keep you safe.” His voice faltered, then found its balance again. “I hold no bitterness, Cal. Only love."

The word hung between them, startling, unlooked-for. Elowyn seemed to hear it as if someone else had spoken. He drew a breath, closed his eyes, and said it again, quiet and deliberate. “I love you.” He paused and then said quietly barely above a whisper, “I...love Peter too.”

Callum went very still. Some of the anger left him all at once, as if it had been only scaffolding for fear. He huffed a breath that tried and failed to be a laugh. “I—” He looked down, suddenly awkward in a way that felt too young for how he usually carried himself. “I love you too,” he said, and then grimaced, a flush rising high on his cheekbones. “It sounded stupid when I said it.”

“It didn’t,” Elowyn murmured, his gaze meeting Callum’s with a faint, trembling warmth. After a moment, he reached to touch the side of Callum’s face—just a brush of his fingers, as if to anchor him there. “It sounded true.”

They were quiet then. The sconce muttered and flared, then settled back into its thin glow. Elowyn’s shoulders had slumped; the strain showed now in the fine tremor along his hands, in the pallor at his mouth. Callum saw it and shifted nearer, his arm circling Elowyn where they sat against the plinth. The touch was steady and close, as if to bind what the world had tried to unravel.

The Castle gave no comfort, though its old enchantments shivered faintly as if listening, remembering the mercy it had witnessed, but it did not turn away. Somewhere within the armor on the plinth, a catch loosened; a gauntlet shifted a fraction, the faintest scrape of metal on metal. The visor did not lift. The old magic only stirred, a small, weary acknowledgment of two boys holding on in the dimness while the world beyond them unraveled.

Chapter Text

The Great Hall had never seemed so stripped of wonder. The floating candles sputtered as if their enchantments were dying, a few burning low and others gone dark entirely, their wicks releasing thin threads of smoke that curled endlessly into the still air. The ceiling, once a living mirror of constellations and stormlight, had dissolved entirely—now simply bare grey stone, dull and unyielding. The lamps along the walls were dim, clouded with soot, and the hum of dinner had softened into a worried hush. Yet when Elowyn and Callum crossed the threshold, a subtle warmth followed them, faint but undeniable. It was as though the light that had abandoned the ceiling had sought shelter instead in the faces that turned toward them.

They had been speaking of him since the first second-years had drifted into the Hall after their double Magical Domination and Control class, their voices a low susurrus beneath the fading clatter of supper, the scent of roasted meat and smoke still lingering in the air. Though they had not been an hour later than their classmates, the story had spread through the Castle like a secret with its own pulse. Trapped indoors for months, forbidden the grounds, the students had folded in upon themselves; every whisper grew teeth and sprouted wings in such confinement. By now the tale had already become near myth: the boy who gave permission to be cursed so that others might not be condemned. The telling changed with every voice, but the shape of it remained. He had spoken calmly. He had meant it. He had turned cruelty into something shared. When the Gryffindor second-years—the ones who had cast the curse—looked up now, their expressions held a trembling mixture of shame and reverence, as though they no longer knew which emotion to trust.

At the High Table, Professor Amycus sat among the staff, his face as severe as carved stone. His presence at an ordinary meal was unusual, and it lent the room an unspoken tension. Near him, Professor Flitwick sat in his perfectly charmed seat, his small frame held taut, his gaze quick and watchful yet shadowed with worry. Professor Sprout leaned close to one of the lesser-known instructors, whispering beneath her breath, her expression drawn with unease. They too had heard the whispers—rumors carried on anxious tongues through the staff corridors—and they, like the students, lived under the same quiet surveillance. The lesser known professors kept their eyes on their plates, the scrape of their cutlery too careful, as though even the mere appearance of attention might betray them.

Professor Amycus alone remained utterly still. Where Professor Flitwick’s eyes darted with anxious calculation and Professor Sprout’s fingers twisted at her napkin, Professor Amycus’s attention was deliberate, measured, and cold. His gaze moved rarely, his expression a mask of neutrality. Only in the stillness between blinks could one have guessed that his eyes ever lingered on Elowyn at all—a glance so slight it might have been imagined. Where Professor Flitwick’s worry was unhidden and Professor Sprout’s unease softened her features, Professor Amycus’s restraint was perfect, his attention buried beneath calm indifference. Yet something in the air tightened all the same, as though the Hall itself sensed where his focus truly lay.

Elowyn seemed unaware of it all. For a heartbeat his movements lagged—the faintest hesitation before each step—as if his body had forgotten how to follow thought. The rhythm of his gestures faltered, uneven for once. His face was drawn, pale as candlewax; his mouth held taut, as though speech itself might reopen some inner wound. His eyes, dark and luminous, ringed with a shimmer of violet, kept slipping away from the people around him, fixed on some distance only he could see. Callum walked close beside him, their hands joined as they moved together down the long aisle between the benches. His left hand held Elowyn’s right in a quiet, steady clasp, his touch a lifeline—a tether drawing Elowyn back from the drifting edges of thought. They passed rows of watching faces before reaching their usual place across from Vesper and Honoria, where they slid onto the long bench side by side. 

The girls sat straight-backed, their plates cleared but for the dregs of cider in their goblets. Honoria’s hands trembled faintly, the silver rim of her goblet clinking softly as she lifted it and set it down again. Vesper pressed her palms flat against the table to still their movement, resisting the old habit of biting her nails. A trace of warmth from the cider lingered on the air, its sweetness oddly at odds with the chill that had crept between them. Neither of them had ever cast Unforgivables before; they had never been asked to bear what their brothers had been groomed to do. And now they faced the boy who had taken their spells and turned them into something neither of them could name. 

Honoria folded and unfolded her napkin. She knew she was being rude to speak before he had even settled, but she and Vesper had lingered long past their meal for this. Her fingers trembled when she asked, “What did you say…when we cursed you?”

Elowyn, so lost within his own thoughts, did not at once look up to acknowledge the question. The pause stretched, a small, taut silence heavy with his absence. Callum glanced at him, worry and affection interlacing in his gaze. Beneath the table, his left hand came to rest lightly on Elowyn’s thigh—a grounding touch, steady and warm. In his right hand, his fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around his goblet before he spoke, his voice low and reverent, the words soft but weighted, trembling at the edge of tenderness and restraint. He looked first to Elowyn, hoping he might answer, but Elowyn did not lift his gaze, lost to his own silence. Callum’s eyes lingered a moment longer before turning toward the girls, his expression softening—wonder still threaded with love so clear it felt like light made visible. “He said, ‘I give you leave.’”

Vesper frowned, her brows knitting as her head tilted, the motion small but searching. Confusion softened the fine angles of her face. To her—and to nearly everyone raised in modern magical Britain—magic had always meant control. Purebloods prized dominance as heritage, the shaping of will upon the world, while the non‑purebloods dressed the same creed in kinder phrasing: discipline, or refinement. Beneath both, mastery remained the measure of worth. She shook her head slowly, still trying to understand. “Why would he say that?”

Callum hesitated. His eyes dropped to the plate sitting empty before him, and when he spoke again, his voice had roughened. “Because he meant it,” he said finally. The pause that followed stretched, long enough for the fire to flicker and settle. “Because what they asked of us…it wasn’t right. I didn’t see it then, but he did.”

Honoria’s fingers tightened around her goblet, the cider within rippling as she frowned, uncertain. Vesper shifted beside her, her brows drawn, her gaze lowered—not in reverence, but in thought. They could not quite grasp what Elowyn or Callum meant—only that something in it unsettled them. To their minds, the wrongness lay in the curse itself, in the breach of rule, not in the will behind it. The silence between them was uneasy, threaded with questions neither knew how to ask. The faint hiss of cooling candles filled the space where understanding should have been.

The air around them shifted, charged and still, like the hush after a hymn. Along both the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables, heads turned—some discreetly, others without pretense. The soft clink of cutlery faltered when Elowyn drew breath to speak. The murmur of conversation thinned to a low current, the kind of quiet that hums before something momentous. Even the scent of cooling food seemed to hang in wait. Nearby Ravenclaws leaned forward, eyes bright, straining to hear, and the wavering candlelight caught on silver and glass, trembling as though the Hall itself held its breath. The Slytherins, subtler by nature, waited as well, their gazes lowered but attentive, pretending to eat while their spoons lingered mid‑air. Even they could not resist the pull of what he might say, the quiet expectation trembling just beneath the surface.

Elowyn’s gaze lifted from his plate. His Cornish accent, usually softened by Thaddeus’s unflagging insistence on proper English, surfaced unbidden, worn thin by exhaustion. His hand trembled slightly against the table; his voice caught before he found it again. “In the Koes,” he said quietly, “to cast upon another without consent is desecration. Magic lives between the willing. It…it isn’t meant to be forced upon another.” He paused, the silence stretching as his composure trembled. Tears gathered faintly at the corners of his eyes, catching the candlelight before he blinked them back. His chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, each breath a fragile effort to hold himself together. “There were no good choices,” he said, the words halting. “I…I could not cast it myself. And I would not have any of you forced to. So I said it… so no one else would have to choose between pain…and cruelty.”

The silence that followed did not dissipate, rather it lingered, dense and waiting. Across the Great Hall, the faint crackle of candles guttering seemed almost too loud. Callum’s thumb brushed over Elowyn’s knee beneath the table, a grounding gesture more instinct than thought. The warmth of his hand steadied the tremor in Elowyn’s leg, anchoring him once more in the present.

At the High Table, Professor Flitwick’s gaze had gone distant, his small face drawn in thought, while Professor Sprout’s eyes shone with something close to grief. They did not fully understand what they had heard, yet some deeper part of them knew it would not leave them easily. Even the other professors had fallen silent, their movements cautious, as though afraid to disturb whatever had just passed through the room.

The stillness broke not with applause or rebuke, but with a whisper—soft, uncertain—from farther down the table, a student repeating Elowyn’s words under their breath. Another followed, and then another. The story was already retelling itself, threading back into the murmurs that circled the Hall. By the time the echo reached the far end, meaning had blurred again, reshaped by awe and misunderstanding. And in that quiet retelling, Elowyn’s act began its slow transformation into myth.

Honoria and Vesper did not answer. They had been raised to master themselves and to measure others, to believe strength meant control. Yet what Elowyn had done overturned the logic of everything they had been taught, and the weight of that reversal pressed in around them. It did not seem weak though they knew it should have. What they had witnessed felt unclassifiable, heavy with meaning they could not name. Honoria’s fingers tightened on her goblet, her lips parting as though to speak, but no word came. Vesper looked down, her throat working, confusion flickering across her face. The world they understood had shifted, and the quiet that followed carried its gravity.

The silence held, long enough that the moment began to feel fragile—too pure to survive the world beyond it. For a heartbeat, even the Hall seemed to listen. Then, inevitably, it broke. A low, deliberate chuckle rose from farther down the Slytherin table, its sound a fracture through the stillness. It was Darius. He lounged back, one arm draped along the bench, his smirk a quiet violation of the hush that had fallen. The moment was broken. The Hall exhaled—cutlery clattered, voices resumed in low murmurs, and the faint clang of a plate echoed somewhere far down the row. Candles flared and guttered, reclaiming their weary light, and the air filled again with the smell of cooling food and smoke. The breath of reverence was gone; in its place came the restless rhythm of ordinary life, uneasy but familiar.

Peter sat beside Darius, his body held tense, a shallow flinch betraying him each time Darius’s sleeve brushed his arm, his eyes darting sideways before he forced them still. The older boy’s hand had drifted high on Peter’s thigh beneath the table, his touch too lingering to be mistaken for comfort; his smile was too deliberate. Peter kept glancing toward Elowyn and Callum, guilt flickering behind his eyes, but Darius noticed each look and answered with proximity—leaning closer, his hand still resting where it did not belong, his voice low and coaxing. The contact had a sharp possessiveness to it, and the unease it caused spread down the table. Someone at the Ravenclaw table muttered that the second-year Slytherin was being mauled, and laughter, thin and uncertain, rippled uneasily along the benches.

Elowyn saw but did not speak. A flicker passed through him—a tightening at the corner of his mouth, the smallest quiver in his breath, as though he were swallowing words he dared not release. His hands trembled. Callum set his fork down and covered Elowyn’s hand with his own, a quiet act of steadiness that neither could name. The shaking eased but did not stop. Further down the table, Darius’s laughter rose again—loud, self-satisfied. He stood and drew Peter up with him, his arm sliding low around the boy’s waist, his hand resting possessively on his hip, and turned just enough to catch Callum’s eye. The smile he gave was slow and deliberate, a performance meant for an audience of two. A few nearby students looked up from their plates, sensing the spectacle, but Darius only chuckled softly and led Peter out of the Hall, his hand never leaving its place.

Darius and Peter’s departure left a faint hum of talk in their wake, but it soon dwindled into low whispers. Callum’s jaw tightened as he watched them go, a heat rising in his chest that he could not cool, his grip on the edge of the table whitening. The minutes stretched thin. He shifted in his seat once, then again, unable to still himself. Elowyn, lost in thought and exhaustion, didn’t seem to notice—his eyes unfocused, his mind far from the noise around them. Absentmindedly, he lifted his fork from time to time, taking small, mechanical bites, more habit than hunger, the motion barely conscious. Callum’s restlessness grew until it pressed against him like a weight; he could no longer bear the staring eyes, the echo of laughter that still hung in the air. At last, he leaned closer, his voice low but firm. “Let’s go,” he murmured. “Please.”

They rose together, careful not to draw attention, the quiet of their leaving nearly lost beneath the low murmur that had returned to the Hall. Elowyn’s movements were slow and brittle, Callum’s hand steady at his back as they slipped between the benches. At the High Table, Professor Amycus stood. He adjusted his robes with the same mechanical precision that marked all his movements and started toward the staff door at the far end. As he passed along the wall, his gaze caught a glint of silver from one of the old House shields hung there—just enough reflection to show two figures moving toward the main doors. He paused for the briefest instant, then continued on, the echo of his steps fading into the side passage that led toward the dungeons. The door closed behind him with a thin, metallic sound that cut clean through the fading hum of supper.

The low murmur of voices in the Great Hall dwindled behind them as the heavy doors closed, sealing the warmth and noise away. The corridor beyond was narrow and cold, its torches burning low and unsteady, their flames wavering in thin drafts from the lake. Damp stone breathed chill air around them. Callum walked close beside Elowyn, his arm around the boy’s shoulders in quiet protectiveness. Their steps echoed together, the sound soft but hollow. Elowyn leaned into him slightly, his body trembling beneath the weight of exhaustion, his eyes shadowed and distant. Since the lesson that afternoon, since the whispers and stares at dinner, he had not spoken. Callum said nothing either; his silence was its own vow—that no one would touch him again.

The air grew heavier as they descended toward the dungeons. The scent of wet earth and iron thickened, mingling with the faint hum of water through the walls. They rounded the last bend toward the Slytherin common room, the passage narrowing to a stretch of dim torchlight and shadowed alcoves. From somewhere ahead came the muffled rhythm of breath—a sound out of place in the silence.

Callum slowed. Elowyn, dulled by fatigue, walked on until Callum’s arm stopped him. A pair of figures moved in the gloom just beyond the next torch—two shapes pressed close together in a shadowed alcove, half-hidden from the corridor. At first, it was only a flicker of motion, indistinct. Then the details sharpened. Darius stood with his back to the wall, one hand pressed to the small of Peter’s back and the other cradling the back of his neck. Peter faced him, back to the corridor, his head tilted upward in uncertain surrender. His breath caught—a confused tremor of something he thought might be tenderness along with a warmth that bloomed too quickly to question. His eyes remained shut, blind to Darius’s gaze, which was open, fixed upon the corridor with a cold, predatory patience. Darius’s eyes found Callum and Elowyn immediately and held their gaze, unblinking. A slow, deliberate glint lit his eyes; not warmth but triumph, a cruelty long planned and savored, gleaming even as his lips remained pressed to Peter’s. As he continued to kiss the younger boy, his gaze fixed on them like a predator admiring the trap he’d set.

Elowyn stopped breathing. The truth of the scene revealed in that gleam of triumph from his distant kin struck him all at once. This was not a private tenderness but a performance, an act staged for them. The cruelty of it hollowed his chest, and his stomach twisted as if he had swallowed ice. His eyes widened, their dark violet depths bright with unshed tears that had long begged release. His face blanched; his lips parted soundlessly. His fingers trembled and a faint ringing filled his ears, the world narrowing until only the echo of his own heartbeat and Callum’s firm warmth pressed against his side remained.

Before he could think, his wand was in his hand, its familiar weight grounding and unbearable all at once; it thrummed beneath his fingers, the kelpie core within stirring as if waking, a glimmer of the wild sentience it once held flickering to life, answering his righteous indignation with a shimmer of protective fury that rose through his arm like a living current. A shimmer of light quivered along its length, spilling against his wrist like heat, and the air thickened, pressing close. The nearest torch flared once, heat rippling through the narrow corridor, then sank back into the feeble gloom the faltering Castle could still muster, its light trembling as if with exhaustion. His voice caught in his throat—a soundless gasp of disbelief and anguish that tore through the fragile stillness. Callum felt it too, the shock that stole his breath, his muscles tightening as though to shield Elowyn from sight itself. Then Elowyn’s knees gave way, his body folding beneath the weight of horror and exhaustion.

“El,” Callum whispered, catching him before he fell. His arm tightened, half-holding, half-guiding him forward, hurrying him past the alcove. But Elowyn’s wand slipped from his hand and struck the flagstones with a soft, resonant clatter that froze them both. Callum’s heart lurched—he held his breath, certain Peter would turn. The clattering of the wand seemed to ring forever, the corridor stretching around them in dreadful silence. Callum froze, the air thick around him, while Elowyn swayed beside him, his face gone white, eyes wide and glassy as though the strength had drained from him in an instant.

Then, as Callum bent to retrieve the wand, he caught sight of a faint shimmer suspended in the air—a subtle distortion, like heat rising above stone. Understanding came at once: a sound-dampening charm. Peter would hear nothing unless the world itself broke open. The realization chilled him even more than the cruelty of the act. He lifted the wand, the polished wood cold in his grasp, and straightened slowly, tightening his hold around Elowyn’s shoulders. Darius’s eyes gleamed in the flickering light; his smile widened, cruel and knowing, before he finally broke the kiss, his hand lifting to trace Peter’s face in a mockery of tenderness; it was a gesture meant for his unseen audience as much as for the boy himself. Peter did not turn, his face tilted upward, panting softly, gazing with unguarded affection into Darius’s eyes. He never saw what had transpired behind him, nor could eyes so clouded by the illusion of love perceive the quiet malice gleaming in Darius’s gaze.

Callum drew Elowyn closer, almost carrying him now, and quickened his pace down the corridor toward the Slytherin common room, the echo of that smile—sharp and lingering—following them into the dark. Callum’s grip was calm and firm around Elowyn’s shoulders, but his heart was hammering with fury and helplessness. Neither spoke. The air behind them was silent again, as if the dungeon itself wished to forget. When they reached the blank stone wall that guarded the Slytherin entrance, Callum bent close and whispered the password. The stone shuddered, then softened and melted into the floor, a faint breath of cold lake air sweeping past them as the doorway opened. He guided Elowyn through first, and the stone sealed itself again, smooth and seamless.

Inside, he hurried them through the cavernous, cathedral-like common room and down the broad steps toward the boys’ dormitory hall, the air heavy and quiet, everything washed in dim green light that wavered from the hearths and sconces like ripples across deep water. When he’d got them both inside, Callum helped Elowyn to his bed. The boy sank down wordlessly, his face pale, and his eyes unfocused. Callum knelt before Elowyn, Elowyn’s wand still in his hand. He looked up at the boy—tears now falling heavy and fast down his pale cheeks—and placed the wand carefully into his trembling hands, as though the small, familiar weight might steady the torrent of tears that finally escaped him after long weeks of Peter’s distance and absence, culminating in the day’s cruel lesson in Magical Domination and Control. The wood caught the faint shimmer of moonlight filtering through the lake above. Callum lingered there, his hands enfolding Elowyn’s, watching the boy he could not shield from the world’s cruelty yield at last to his grief. The dormitory lay hushed, the moonlight filtering ethereal and soft through the lake above, mingling with the fire’s golden-green glow.

Callum knelt before Elowyn for a long while, his hands resting lightly in Elowyn’s lap, listening to the uneven rhythm of his breaths until, little by little, they steadied. When at last the tears slowed, Callum rose to fetch a pair of Elowyn’s deep green silk pyjamas from the wardrobe beside the bed, only a few steps away.

He returned and drew the curtains. He closed them, uncharacteristically, as though by dimming the world he might shield Elowyn from its cruelty, though he knew there was little he could truly do. He moved with quiet precision, loosening the fastenings of Elowyn’s robes and sliding the fabric from his shoulders, each motion measured and reverent. The damp cuffs clung faintly to Elowyn’s wrists; Callum freed them with the care of one tending a wound, setting aside the robes and shoes in silence. Elowyn did not resist; his gaze remained distant, his limbs heavy and unresponsive, the curve of his throat pale in the dim green light. The golden-green glow from the hearth wove faint warmth across his skin.

Callum reached for the nightshirt and dressed him gently, his hands steady even as his chest ached with tenderness. The dim green light caught against Elowyn’s bare skin—pale as river stone, traced with the faint, silvery marks that the Battle of the Slytherin Common Room had left behind. Callum’s breath caught at the sight, a mix of reverence and sorrow rising in him as he brushed his fingers along one of the faint scars, barely daring to touch. The fabric slipped over Elowyn’s head and fell softly against his skin. When Callum eased him down upon the pillow and drew the thick wool winter blanket to his chest, Elowyn’s eyes fluttered but did not focus. Callum brushed a lock of dark hair from his temple, his touch lingering. He bent then, pressing a light kiss to Elowyn’s temple, a quiet benediction of love and comfort before he drew back.

When Elowyn was settled, Callum crossed to his own wardrobe on the opposite side of the room. He undressed in silence, hanging his robes and folding his clothes with quiet care. The hearth’s soft golden-green flame flickered low, mingling its glow with the faint light from the windows above. He returned to Elowyn’s bed and climbed in beside him. Elowyn had turned onto his side, his back to the hearth’s glow, and Callum shifted close until they faced each other across the narrow space between their pillows. For a long moment neither moved; the soft golden-green light touched their faces, their eyes meeting in the dimness. Callum’s hand hovered, then rose to touch Elowyn’s face, his thumb tracing slow, gentle circles along his cheekbone—a motion meant to soothe more than to comfort. Elowyn’s gaze flickered, and though no words passed between them, the grief in his eyes met the steadiness in Callum’s until, slowly, his breathing evened, his eyelids fluttering shut as sleep finally claimed him, and the tension in his body finally eased.

Callum watched him for a while longer, his heart heavy and full, tracing the slow rise and fall of Elowyn’s chest in the dim half-light. Love swelled in him—deep and aching—as did shame: for every harm he had done, for the curse he had spoken, for every cruelty he had failed to stop. He lingered there, suspended between devotion and regret, until his own eyes grew heavy. Sleep came to him softly, slowly, like the tide creeping over sand, each breath easing the ache in his chest. His final thought was of Elowyn—the boy’s face hidden in shadow, turned away from the hearth’s golden-green glow, the faintest glimmer of peace softening his features at last—before he drifted into the quiet dark. 

The dormitory lay hushed, filled only with the muted rhythm of the lake pressing against the walls and the low, steady crackle of the hearth’s golden-green flame. Moonlight and firelight mingled softly across the bedclothes through the narrow crack in the curtains left open just a little so they were not completely shut off from the world, their glow bending and wavering like light diffused through deep water. Above, the Castle remained dim and distant, its vast heart dulled and hollowed, yet here—far below the world of halls and cruelty—the air felt different: closer, warmer, as though the fading magic remembered this place and would not let it go. Within that faint pulse of life, they slept: uneasily, yet together, while the Castle dreamed of light.

Chapter Text

“Mr. Marwood-Travers. Mr. McCormack. Wake at once,” Snape said coolly as he stepped into the dormitory’s dark stillness. He advanced several paces, wand raised to ignite the room, his expression carved with early morning disdain. Only when he reached the side of their bed and saw the two boys curled beneath the same blanket did his mouth thin into a sharper line. “If you insist on piling yourselves into one bed,” he added icily, “you might at least attempt to look less useless when roused.”

The first light of morning had not yet begun its pale ascent through the waters above the Slytherin dormitory, and the chamber lay drowned in a deeper darkness than any ordinary night, for the lake allowed no hint of dawn to pass through its shifting depths. Only the faintest movement of distant currents sent dim, wavering shadows across the ceiling, soft distortions rather than light, as though the world beyond the glass were holding its breath beneath untold fathoms. The fire had burned down to a low cradle of embers, offering barely enough glow to sketch the curved row of beds in muted amber.

Snape flicked his wand once and the sconces flared to life while the fire leapt sharply in its grate, banishing the black gloom in an instant. The sudden light revealed the familiar severity carved into his features, yet there was something else beneath it as well, a strained weariness tinged with the faint disgust of a man forced to contend with matters that ought never have required his attention at this hour.

Callum lay on his side in his boxers, one arm drawn protectively around Elowyn even in sleep. Elowyn, still dressed in his silk, rested beneath the blankets with the weightless exhaustion that only follows long hours of grief and worry. His hair had fallen across his cheek, and though his face had softened, there remained a faint tension around his mouth, a remnant of the tears he had shed.

Snape had no patience for such stillness. His footsteps cut through the hush as he strode toward them, his cloak moving like a shadow, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the two boys in the same bed. Callum jerked awake first, pushing himself upright in a confused half rise as Elowyn stirred beside him.

“What is it, sir,” Callum muttered, his voice thick with sleep.

Snape ignored the question. “Both of you will dress at once. And you will explain why Mr. Ainsley is not in his bed where he belongs.” His tone was sharp and weary at the same time. “Up. Now.”

Elowyn blinked against the light, disoriented and slow to rise, his voice unsteady. “Sir, I do not know. He never came.”

“Nor is he here now,” Snape replied, his irritation sharpening. “One would think that if a dormitory mate failed to return for the night, even the two of you might have managed to notice. Yet here we are, and the rest of us are expected to correct your negligence. There seems to be no end to the number of students incapable of remaining in their own bed tonight.”

Callum bristled but said nothing more. Snape turned on his heel with a sharp swish of his cloak. “Dress for travel and bring your wands. I will wait for you in the common room. Do try not to take an age. Some of us have responsibilities that extend beyond rousing wayward children at absurd hours.” He swept out without another word.

Both boys dressed quickly and quietly, each moving with the tense, automatic motions that come from being roused too early with no explanation. Elowyn chose his winter travelling robes, a dark green pair cut in a clean, elegant line that Thaddeus had tailored for him before term, their fabric soft yet sturdy and suited for winter air. Callum, ever practical, pulled on the deep charcoal robes Thaddeus had purchased for him at the start of the year, robes that managed to be both durable and unexpectedly elegant on him, falling neatly across his shoulders in a way that gave him a quiet, composed presence. 

When they were ready, they stepped into the corridor where Snape stood in stiff impatience, his expression suggesting that their mere existence had inconvenienced him. The corridor felt wrong in a way Elowyn sensed immediately. The Castle had been dimming for months, its ancient magic thinning little by little as though something vital were slipping from its grasp, but now the decline felt stark and unmistakable. The air held none of the muted thrum that had once lingered in the stones, and the faint enchantments that normally softened the drafts seemed to have faded into nothing. The portraits did not feign sleep; they remained motionless and pale, as if whatever life dwelled within them had grown too faint to stir. Even their footsteps rang out in a strange, hollow way, echoing farther than they should, as though the Castle no longer possessed the strength to gather its own sounds close.

Snape spoke no further as he led them, his steps clipped and echoing sharply off the stone as they moved from the dungeons into the wider arteries of the Castle. The torches along the corridors sputtered fitfully, their flames dim and uncertain, as though the Castle had grown too weary to keep them steady. Drafts wound through the hallways in thin, unsettling strands of cold, slipping beneath their robes and whispering along the floors with none of the usual guiding warmth that the Castle offered to those who listened.

The higher they climbed, the more Elowyn felt the absence press in on him. Once, Hogwarts had carried a low hum of age and memory that rested gently at the edge of his senses, a presence that shifted like a slow tide within the stones. Now there was nothing. No quiet pulse beneath the floors, no familiar awareness threading through the stairwells, no subtle acknowledgement of his passing. Even the portraits they passed remained unnervingly still, their painted eyes open but without movement, as though waiting for something they dared not name.

By the time they reached the gargoyle, the silence had thickened into something that clung to the air. Snape uttered a low, clipped incantation under his breath, one that Elowyn was almost certain he was not meant to hear, and the staircase shuddered before it began to move, as though it required more coaxing than usual. The motion felt uneven, each turn carrying a faint tremor, and Snape’s irritation deepened with every lurch, his jaw tightening as though even the Castle had decided to inconvenience him. The climb to the Headmaster’s Study carried a rising dread with it, the temperature dropping further with every turn of the staircase. When they stepped into the room at last, the air itself felt strained, stretched thin by the weight of everything.

Malachy McCormack stood near the hearth, his hands clasped, his expression grave. Thaddeus Marwood sat in one of the simple wooden chairs that sat before the Headmaster’s desk, and rose as soon as the boys entered. The office itself felt different from the last time they had seen it at the end of the previous year, when Dumbledore had had it filled with curious artefacts and small gleams of silver and gold on every available surface. Snape had stripped nearly all of that away. The shelves that had once held delicate instruments and iridescent baubles now displayed books arranged with rigid precision, along with carefully selected artefacts of learning, potions, and defensive magic, each chosen for utility rather than ornamentation. The walls seemed starker, the colours more muted, and the large desk felt severe beneath the minimal objects Snape allowed to remain. Only the portraits of past Headmasters continued to watch from their gilded frames, their painted faces unusually subdued in the hush of the early hour. Thaddeus stood among these changes with perfect composure, his robes immaculate, yet something in the space around him felt wrong in a way Elowyn sensed rather than understood.

Thaddeus approached Elowyn slowly when he entered and spoke softly in Cornish, “Dar Byghan.”

Elowyn froze. Papa had called him that all his life, yet hearing it now from Father felt strangely out of place, as though the word did not fit quite the way it should. Without fully realising he had done so, he reached for Callum’s hand, seeking a steadiness outside himself, something solid to anchor him against the unease rising in his chest. Something in his father’s voice seemed to shift the air around them, carrying a weight he could not name but felt all the same. A quiet understanding stirred within him, faint and cold, though no one had spoken a single explanation.

He let go of Callum’s hand as he stepped forward, his voice trembling as he did. “Where is Papa?” he asked in Cornish, the question barely audible.

Thaddeus did not answer immediately. His expression held a controlled stillness that revealed nothing. “This is not a place for such truths,” he said quietly in Cornish, his voice carrying a measured formality that tightened the air between them. “We shall speak of it at home.”

Elowyn nodded, though the motion was unsteady, his face tightening as he tried to hold himself together after all that had pressed upon him in the past day. Callum stepped in at once, steadying him with both hands when it seemed the effort of composure alone might undo his balance.

Thaddeus turned to Snape, his voice shifting back to English. “Where is Peter?”

Snape’s jaw tightened. “Missing. He was not in his dormitory. I will summon staff and begin a search immediately.” His irritation seemed edged with embarrassment.

For the briefest moment, Thaddeus’s fingers curled against his robes, a small tightening so quick it might have been imagined. “Very well,” he said with quiet restraint.

He turned to Malachy and asked in Cornish, “Would you take the boys home, please?”

Elowyn stepped toward him, voice rising. “You are not coming.”

“I will remain until Peter is found,” Thaddeus answered. His voice was gentle but carried a weight that left no room to argue.

Elowyn moved forward without thought. Thaddeus drew him into his arms. It was nothing like his usual controlled embraces. This one was full and close and trembling at the edges, as though he were gathering his son to him while his world shifted beneath his feet. Elowyn clung to him, feeling the quiet shake in his father’s hands, sensing something frayed and unfamiliar there. When he looked up into his father’s eyes, he was almost certain he saw a glimmer of tears, though perhaps it was only the light catching in an unexpected way.

Thaddeus whispered something in Cornish meant for Elowyn alone. When he finally released him, Elowyn felt hollow and unsteady, as though the ground had thinned beneath him.

Malachy guided the boys toward the door. “Come along you two.”

Elowyn allowed himself to be led, but at the threshold he turned for one last look. Thaddeus had returned to his chair. He sat with perfect composure, yet there was a shadow in his eyes that unsettled Elowyn in a way he could not easily name, something veiled and unfamiliar that pressed faintly against the quiet of the room.

Elowyn watched him for a moment before the door closed. The Castle remained silent. It offered no guidance and no comfort, as though whatever magic had lived within its stones for a millennia had fallen into a sleep too profound to stir from. Even the staircase that had carried them upward only moments before sat entirely still, forcing them to walk down step by step. Each tread echoed with a hollow resonance that chilled the air, as if the Castle no longer had the strength to gather its own sounds close. With each step, he became aware of something he had not noticed in the rush of the moment, something so subtle he might have missed it entirely. The Castle, whose magic had been dimming throughout the term, felt empty now, completely absent. There was no quiet pulse beneath the stones, no whisper of memory brushing against the air, and no faint stir of awareness threading through the walls. It was as though Hogwarts’ magic had been drawn entirely away.

The emptiness struck him with a cold clarity that made his stomach twist. He reached for the familiar presence instinctively, the way one reaches for a hand that should be there in the dark, and found only silence. In that silence, something else rose. A pull from far beyond the lake and the gates and the forest, stretching unmistakably from the direction of Lanwynn Koes. An Dar. It came not as a voice but as a pressure beneath his ribs, a tightening in his chest, and an ache that had been threading through his dreams all night. An Dar was not merely calling him home. It was sending anguish along the bond they shared, a grief so deep it moved through him with the slow force of a tide, older and more sorrowful than anything he could name. Its grief pressed against him with a steady insistence that left him breathless, and he could not shake the sense that something vast and irrevocable had already begun. 

As they stepped out from the Castle into the deep Scottish winter, the sky remained unbroken by dawn. The long December night held fast as though the light itself resisted crossing into a world already tilting beneath his feet.

Chapter Text

Peter surfaced from sleep slowly, the way one does when the night before had been warm and muddled and edged with choices he had not thought through. For a moment he did not know where he was, only that his cheek rested against warm skin and that someone’s breath moved steadily beneath him. The curtains around the bed trapped the night air inside, thick and close, and the muffled hush of the dormitory made it feel as though the rest of the world had been locked away. Then he felt the faint lift of Darius’s chest and remembered, with a swoop of heat and shame that felt perilously like delight, exactly where he had fallen asleep.

He did not move at first. The two of them were bare-chested beneath the tangled sheets, the warmth of the night still clinging to the space between their bodies in a way that made Peter’s breath hitch. His skin remembered touches he was not ready to name and moments he could not quite let himself think about, moments that felt stolen now that morning light had made everything too real, too sharp, too irreversible. Darius sprawled like someone posing for a portrait that had not yet been finished, utterly at ease in a bed where two boys had very clearly done more than sleep. He had the angled beauty of Elowyn without the refinement, only the suggestion of something fine still trapped inside the stone. It was precisely that unfinished quality that made Darius so hungry for admiration and so jealous of anyone born more complete, and Peter knew this, he had seen it again and again, yet lying here with his ear pressed to Darius’s heartbeat he felt something else as well, something that tried very hard to call itself love.

Peter felt painfully aware of his own state. He wore nothing but his boxers, the waist sitting lower on his hips than it should have, as if he had tugged them back on in the dark and not bothered to fix them properly. His stomach twisted with the memory of hands that had moved with confidence he had not possessed, closeness he had not known how to refuse, and choices that no longer felt like choices at all, because something had been taken from him in the dark that he could not get back now that the sun had risen. His legs tangled with Darius’s and the sheet pushed down somewhere near their waists. His hair stuck to his forehead. His skin smelled of sweat and cologne and the cloying tang of whatever expensive potion Darius used on his hair. He felt exposed in a way that made his heart thud too loudly in the quiet space, yet underneath the embarrassment there was a thin, treacherous ribbon of satisfaction, because someone had wanted him enough to pull him close and keep him there all through the night.

That has to mean something, he thought, in the small, secret part of his mind that never stopped counting signs. People did not stay like this with boys they did not care about. They did not fall asleep with a chest full of someone else’s breathing and wake up still holding on. Elowyn and Callum had, of course, but that was different, that was them and their ancient, inevitable gravity, and Peter was always half afraid that the warmth he shared with them was a spell that might one day wear off. They matched in ways he never could, fit together with a kind of effortless certainty that made him feel like a guest in a story already written, someone who had wandered into the margins without being invited. Maybe that was why he kept reaching for Darius in the dark, why he kept hoping this meant something. Maybe it was because he had found in Darius some crooked echo of what Callum was to Elowyn or what Elowyn was to Callum, someone who might be his version of them, his answer to the ache of not belonging. Darius was new, sharp, separate. Darius chose him. Just him. That meant something, surely.

The dormitory door opened. Peter froze so abruptly it felt like his lungs had locked shut. For a heartbeat he heard nothing at all. He was certain Darius had cast some muffling charm the night before, certain no sound should have reached them, certain no one should have been able to hear anything. Panic flooded him as he thought of what the dormitory must have heard, what they must already be whispering. Then a boy’s voice intruded, cutting across the fragile quiet.

"Darius. You awake? Snape is looking for Ainsley. Staff too. He is wanted in the headmaster’s office." A pause followed, soft and startled. "Word’s already going round the dorms he’s with you. Snape will have heard by now."

Peter sat up at once, breath catching in his throat so abruptly it hurt. For a second he could not tell whether the jolt in his chest was fear of Snape or the mortifying knowledge that someone else knew where he had been, knew what this looked like. Darius only made a low sound, half a sigh, half irritation.

"Give us a moment," Darius murmured, sounding unbothered, almost amused, as though being caught like this were nothing more than an entertaining anecdote for later.

Footsteps retreated and the door shut as Peter scrambled upright, clutching the sheet to his chest before realizing it did nothing to hide anything meaningful. "I need to go. Dar, I need to go now. Snape is going to have my head. Staff are looking for me. Cal and El must be worried. Something must be wrong." His throat tightened around their names.

For a heartbeat he saw it very clearly, the way they would wake in the Slytherin second-year dormitory without him there, Callum frowning, Elowyn very still and very quiet, the way he went when worry sat too heavily in him. They would ask around. They would see staff searching. They would think he was hurt or missing or dead, and the thought twisted in his stomach so sharply he nearly retched. Worse still was the creeping conviction that maybe it would not matter the way it once had, that perhaps he had pushed himself out of the space they kept open for him. They had always made room, always left a place beside them, and he kept stepping away as though he did not deserve it. Maybe he did not. Maybe they were better without him, perfect and self-contained, and he was the one who had wandered off and proved he was not necessary at all.

Beneath the cool lake light that filtered down through the windows that looked out into the lake above, Darius stretched lazily, clearly enjoying himself. He rose from the bed without a hint of modesty, fully nude and unashamed, as if the night’s intimacy were nothing more than a pleasant diversion to him, as if it had cost him nothing, as if he had not crossed a line that Peter could not uncross. Peter looked away at once, face burning, memory of the night before flashing through him with a mix of heat and regret and something that he stubbornly insisted must be fondness. The way Darius had called him clever, the way he had listened, the way his hands had been sure and wanting, all of it tangled with the ugly fact that Darius had once spat the word Soilspawn at Elowyn like a curse.

Good people do not do this, he told himself, and then immediately argued back that good people also did not leave friends alone who never showed anything but love them, that maybe this was not betrayal at all but a sort of proof, that his heart was big enough to hold more than one person, that love did not have to be tidy to be real. He had never been any good at knowing what love should feel like. This felt like something, and sometimes something had to be enough.

Darius crossed to his wardrobe, opened it with a practiced flick, and selected fresh clothes with the ease of someone choosing which version of himself to present to the world. “Snape never kills anyone from Slytherin. Pass me those, would you?" he said lightly, and Peter almost laughed, because of course Darius could turn even Snape’s fury into a joke about their House.

Peter tossed the clothes to him, cheeks burning. He tried not to look as Darius pulled on his trousers and shirt, yet his eyes betrayed him in small, darting glances, catching the unfinished angles of Darius’s face in the watery light. It somehow made him look more like Elowyn’s sketch than ever, a half-formed echo of the boy who had once held a place for him, the boy Peter was sure he had ruined everything with. He told himself it was not about that, not really. It was not that Darius reminded him of Elowyn; it was that Darius reminded him that someone might still choose him now that he had convinced himself Elowyn and Callum never would again.

You love him, the desperate voice in his head whispered, clutching at the memory of last night with sticky fingers. You must, or you would not feel like this. You would not have stayed. You would not be this afraid of losing whatever this is.

Peter found his own shirt discarded near the foot of the bed and pulled it on. It clung unpleasantly to his back, and he could feel the heat of his own skin through the fabric. He stepped into his trousers, fingers fumbling with the fastenings, and shoved his feet into his shoes without socks. He felt ridiculous and late and strangely proud all at once, as if his crumpled state were proof that something in his life was finally happening to him and not just around him.

Darius buttoned his shirt slowly and inspected himself in the tall mirror by his wardrobe. "You look fine," he said, gaze entirely on his own reflection.

Peter knew he did not. He looked like a boy who had woken up somewhere he should not have been, wearing yesterday’s secrets and today's shame in all the creases of his clothes. He knew Elowyn would see it at once, Callum too, and the thought made him want to crawl out of his skin. At the same time another thought, mean and small, whispered that perhaps they needed to see it, needed to know that he was not something to be set gently between them and wrapped away, that he was not the rough, unlovable thing clinging to their softness, the jagged edge in a place meant for gentler souls. He hated that thought as soon as it arrived.

"Can we go now?" His voice wobbled.

"Keep your wand straight,” Darius said as he gave one final sweep of his hair, then nodded, satisfied with the version of himself he had chosen. "Yes, we can go."

They left together, Darius immaculate in ways he had crafted carefully, Peter rumpled and half-hidden behind embarrassment. The common room seemed brighter than usual under the filtered lake light. Every passing Slytherin felt like an accusation, though none of them looked at Peter long enough for that to be true. He imagined what they would see if they did. Darius with his polished stride, his collar sitting perfectly at his throat, every button exactly aligned. Peter beside him, shirt creased, hair untidy, eyes too wide. One looked like he belonged here, like the House had been built to fit him. The other looked like he had wandered in by mistake.

It is not a mistake, he told himself fiercely. You chose this. He chose you. This is what people in love do, they make stupid decisions and stay in beds that are not theirs and trust that it will somehow be worth it when morning comes.

Darius walked with a self-assured grace, his movements smooth, confident, practiced, the sort of walk that said the Castle itself should be grateful to hold him. Peter trailed slightly behind, feeling as though the castle were watching him instead, judging him, weighing him. Knowing exactly what had happened and exactly whom he had betrayed in order to let it happen.

He thought of Elowyn’s hand resting on his waist in sleep, of Callum’s arm thrown over both of them like a shield, and for a moment he wanted to turn back time, to climb out of Darius’s bed and crawl between his own sheets where he belonged. Then Darius glanced back with a small, satisfied smile, the kind that said Peter was precisely where he was meant to be, and the yearning twisted itself into something else, something that said perhaps there was room in him for all of it, perhaps he could love them and Darius at once, perhaps his heart was not a pie that had to be sliced into smaller and smaller pieces until there was nothing left.

By the time they reached the stone gargoyle, Peter’s stomach fluttered with dread. His palms were damp. His heartbeat was quick and unsteady, tripping over itself in a way that felt uncomfortably like being caught between two spells. Staff were searching for him. Snape was waiting. Elowyn and Callum would know something was wrong.

He kept telling himself he had not done anything truly wrong, that he had only wanted to be wanted, that wanting could not be a crime.

Except he had, and he knew the castle knew it, the stones underfoot thrumming with quiet, disapproving awareness as they stepped forward to face whatever waited above.

—

Peter stepped through the door to the headmaster’s office with the same sick, twisting feeling that had taken root in his stomach the moment he left the dormitory. The cold of the room met him at once, not familiar but immediate, the kind that seeped from bare stone and long-shadowed corners as though the space itself preferred silence over company. Shadows pooled atop the shelves of bottled memories and preserved oddities, and the faint sour scent of old potions hung in the air like a quiet admonition. It struck him, sharply, that the last time he had stood in this room—when Dumbledore had summoned him after the attack and spoken of accidents with a gentleness that refused to touch the truth—the space had looked nothing like this. Back then it had been bright and golden, full of warm ticking instruments and small, useless twinkles of magic that pretended safety even when there was none. Now the room felt stripped to its bones. Sparse. Cold. Severe in a way that made his skin prickle. Snape’s influence had carved the place down to its essentials, leaving behind stone, shadow, and silence. And somehow that bareness made the moment sharper, as if the office itself had shed every comforting lie and waited for him to catch up.

Snape stood by the door, tall and severe, as though he had stationed his entire person there as a barrier rather than a greeting. His gaze flicked over Peter once, taking in the creased clothes, the rumpled hair, the too‑wide eyes. A faint curl of disdain tightened his mouth before he smothered it beneath a silence sharp enough to cut. "Mr. Ainsley," he said coolly, "you have taken your time. Hours, in fact. Hours during which the staff and I have scoured this Castle for you—while you were otherwise occupied." His gaze snapped to Darius, cold enough to frost the air. "And Mr. Travers. If you insist on entertaining overnight guests in flagrant violation of curfew, do try not to hinder an active search for a missing student." Only then did he step aside.

Because someone else was there.

Thaddeus stood at the center of the room, framed by the office’s dim light, posture straight, coat perfectly arranged, expression carved from polite restraint. His presence changed the air, made it heavier and gentler all at once. Peter felt his breath catch. He had expected Snape’s anger, not this. Not Thaddeus. Not the tightening ache in his ribs that came with seeing him.

"Peter," Thaddeus said, and his voice was quieter than the room deserved, softer than Peter felt he deserved. It was the voice Thaddeus used only when he was trying not to embarrass someone, the voice he had used exactly twice before in Peter’s hearing. As he spoke, his gaze flicked—once, briefly, almost imperceptibly—over Peter’s rumpled clothes, the creased shirt, the collar askew. He said nothing about it, not a syllable of reproach or inquiry, but the seeing alone was enough to send heat rushing up Peter’s neck. Then Thaddeus’s attention returned fully to him, the silence carrying no judgment he dared name. It wrapped around Peter like a hand offered in steadiness.

Peter attempted a bow of his head that came out crooked. "Sir. I— I did not mean to be— I was not avoiding—" He stopped. His voice sounded thin and small in the vast room. Darius’s arm tightened around his waist in a gesture meant to look casual but felt possessive, claiming, like a reminder.

Thaddeus’s eyes flicked to the arm. He noted its placement, the proximity, the posture, the implication. His expression did not change at all.

"Mr. Travers," Thaddeus said with the sort of courtesy so impeccably crafted it might as well have been a blade wrapped in silk. "Thank you for accompanying Peter." Darius straightened slightly, as if unsure whether he had just been praised or dismissed.

Snape remained silent, his dark eyes watching everything with the stillness of deep water. The tension in the room stretched thin, brittle as old parchment.

Thaddeus turned his attention back to Peter and spoke, in Cornish. "There has been an incident in Lanwynn Koes." His tone did not rise or strain or tremble. "Elowyn and Callum have already been taken home. Malachy arrived with me before dawn and Disapparated with them. I have been here since the early hours waiting for word of you."

Something inside Peter stopped. His chest, his breath, his thoughts—everything froze. The room dimmed around the edges. His mouth went dry.

"I— an incident?" His voice cracked, the word itself snagging in his throat as panic knotted tight in his chest. He reached instinctively for Cornish, but the syllables tangled uselessly after a month without use, slipping from him at once and collapsing back into English in a rush of thin, uneven breath. "Is— are they— what happened? Why did they not— why did no one— I should have been here— I am sorry—" The apology crumpled before it fully formed. His throat shut around every word, leaving him blinking hard against the rising panic he could not shape into speech.

Thaddeus lowered his gaze, not in shame, but in that way he did when he needed someone to focus on his tone rather than his expression. He shifted to English here, the change subtle and deliberate, sparing Peter the weight of a language he could not hold in this moment. “There is no need for apology. I will take you back when you are ready." Thaddeus’s gaze flickered briefly toward the others in the room, not sharp, but discerning. "And the particulars…are better spoken in a place that belongs to us. Not here."

Peter felt Darius stiffen beside him, his grip tightening, subtle but unmistakable. Peter swallowed. His hands trembled.

"I cannot," he blurted, though even as he said it his body betrayed him—his shoulders jerking forward as if to step toward Thaddeus, his feet rooting themselves to the floor as if to flee in the opposite direction. "I mean—I have things I am supposed to finish, and people counting on me, and it is nearly the end of term." His voice wavered; his hands twitched uselessly at his sides. "I… I cannot just walk out like I matter enough to be fetched home early." His eyes darted from Thaddeus’s face to the floor, then back again, panic and longing flickering so quickly across his expression it looked like two warring truths fighting beneath his skin.

Thaddeus studied him for several moments, his eyes moving with the precision of someone assembling a truth from broken pieces. Then he inclined his head.

"I understand," Thaddeus said, and then, softer still, as though offering the truth without pressing it upon him, "and you matter far more than you think." The words were gentle, almost tender, and they struck Peter harder than any rebuke could have.

He continued, “I will retrieve you from King’s Cross in a fortnight." A pause followed, deliberate and long enough to sting. "Unless you would prefer I contact your parents so that they may collect you for the holiday. If that is your wish, I will arrange it."

"No," Peter said at once, the word escaping before reason caught it. "No— Lanwynn Koes is— it is my— I will come home. In a fortnight."

Darius’s arm tightened, sliding from Peter’s waist to his shoulder in a slow, possessive shift meant to read as intimate rather than territorial, but Peter did not look at him. He could not.

Thaddeus stepped closer—not enough to crowd, but enough to reach. Darius gave a soft, annoyed huff and pulled Peter nearer like a challenge.

Thaddeus did not challenge back. He simply lifted a hand and placed it gently against Peter’s cheek, his thumb brushing the faintest arc just below the cheekbone. The touch was light, steady, the sort one offered a frightened creature that might bolt.

"I shall see you in a fortnight," he said softly, “to bring you home."

Peter’s breath trembled. He nodded.

Thaddeus stepped back. He turned toward the door and reached for the handle. He was nearly gone when Darius muttered, "Lanwynn Koes. That backwater of mud and moss? You’d be wasted there. Come to mine for the winter break instead."

Thaddeus paused. He turned back to Peter alone, his gaze settling with a quiet, searching depth that felt less like scrutiny and more like recognition. Peter’s eyes dropped at once, heat flaring across his cheeks, the shame of Darius’s hand on his shoulder tightening like a vise as he imagined what all of this must look like to someone who had waited hours for him. Yet he felt Thaddeus’s gaze all the same, steady and unflinching, the look holding for several seconds—long enough for something in Peter’s chest to tilt dangerously, as though the floor had shifted beneath him.

There was concern in Thaddeus’s eyes, but it was the restrained kind, the kind wrapped in composure and dignity, the kind that asked without demanding and understood without presuming. It softened nothing; it only deepened the weight of what he saw.

Peter’s breath stuttered. His knees threatened to give. Then Thaddeus inclined his head before he turned and stepped through the doorway. The door closed behind him with a soft, deliberate click that left the room stripped bare of sound, and in that hollow quiet Peter felt something collapse inward, a sinking, breathless certainty that whatever he had broken in himself last night had now been seen by someone who mattered, leaving him exposed and unbearably small.

—

Peter followed Darius into the Great Hall feeling like he had been scraped hollow. The brightness of morning spilled through the high windows in a washed-out winter gold, the kind of light that made everything look gentler than it felt. It should have warmed him. It didn’t. It only made him feel exposed, as though the sun itself had peeled back every lie he had told himself since waking.

Darius’s hand did not settle at his back the way it had in Snape’s office. It hovered there for the span of a single breath before withdrawing entirely, as though even the pretense of closeness had become distasteful now that Thaddeus’s eyes were no longer on them. All the way down the corridors Darius walked a pace ahead, never looking back, never slowing, never offering Peter so much as a glance. By the time they reached the threshold of the Great Hall, Peter found himself trailing him like an afterthought, half a step behind and shrinking further with every stride. From a distance it might have looked like they entered together; up close Peter felt the widening gulf between them like a cold draft along his ribs.

They sat, though not as close as they had for a month. Darius took his place among a knot of fourth-yearswith an ease that made space for him at once, their laughter rising to meet him. Peter ended up a space away, perched on the edge of the bench as if he had arrived there by mistake. Darius’s knee did not brush his; Darius did not even glance his way. Whatever closeness had existed in the dark was gone now, discarded as cleanly as a shed skin, and Peter felt the absence of it like a bruise spreading beneath his ribs.

“Honestly, Ainsley” Darius murmured, reaching for a piece of toast as if this were an ordinary breakfast, “you look like you’ve been dragged out of a hedge. Traverses do not make a habit of being seen with boys who cannot manage basic grooming.”

Peter stared down at his plate, cheeks warming. “I didn’t exactly have time—”

“Oh, I know.” Darius’s laugh was soft, almost indulgent, and loud enough for the fourth-years clustered around him. “Hard to be punctual after a night like yours, eh?”

The implication curled hot and nauseating in Peter’s stomach, and for a moment he could not understand any of it. Darius wasn’t calling him Ric anymore. Not even Peter. Just Ainsley, tossed out like a reminder of distance. They had spent the night tangled together, and for weeks before that Darius had been so close, so warm, so intent on him. What could have changed in the space of a single morning? He tried to smile—something small, something smoothing—but it felt wrong on his mouth, brittle and hollow.

“And this whole thing about Lanwynn Koes,” Darius continued lightly, buttering his toast with lazy precision. “Honestly, Ainsley. It’s sweet in a pathetic sort of way. A backwater hamlet full of moss and branches and people who probably think a decent robe is a sign of moral failing. If you want to pretend it’s your home, fine, but perhaps don’t say it in public.”

Peter flinched. “It is my home.” The words sounded weak even to him.

Darius lifted a brow. “If you insist. Though frankly, it’s difficult to imagine anything more backwater than wherever you were born, and yet somehow you’ve managed it by choosing Lanwynn Koes. Saying it aloud only makes you sound even more provincial than usual.”

Heat prickled behind Peter’s eyes. He pressed his palms together beneath the table, trying to steady his breathing. “Can we not do this now?”

“Do what?” Darius asked, pitching his voice just loud enough for his friends to hear, the false innocence sharpened into performance. “Have a conversation? Are we not close enough for that?”

Peter reached, instinctively, desperately, and touched Darius’s forearm.

It happened in the barest slip of a moment, quick and sharp as a spark catching dry tinder.

Darius jerked away as though Peter’s hand carried a hex. The bench beneath him screeched against the stone, the long plank rattling sharply enough to draw heads from every direction. A dramatic recoil—one Darius made no attempt to soften.

“Oh please,” Darius announced, loud enough to carry to the Ravenclaw table. “Not in public, Ainsley. Honestly, I thought you’d at least have a sense of when you’re being clingy.”

A ripple moved through the hall. Conversations faltered. Forks hovered. Peter froze, his hand still halfway in the air, stupid and suspended. His heart thudded painfully against his ribs.

“Did you truly imagine,” Darius went on, his voice pitched into that smooth, ringing register designed to be heard, “that what happened last night meant anything? That I—someone of my standing—would choose a boy like you? A boy who can’t even dress himself properly in the morning?”

Peter’s vision blurred around the edges, the world pulling away from him in a slow, sickening drag, not quite breaking but tilting, tipping, as though something essential in him had just come loose and begun to fall.

“A poor, low-class wizard with no breeding, no polish, no sense of how things work—” Darius leaned back with a languid flick of his fingers. “It’s delusional, really. I was being charitable. You should be grateful I even—”

“Mr. Travers.”

A professor’s voice—stern, warning—cut across the rising hum. Peter didn’t see who it was. He couldn’t look up.

Darius kept going. “Honestly, Ainsley, the fact that you thought for a moment—”

He didn’t finish.

A soft, cool presence appeared at Peter’s left. Another at his right.

Honoria and Vesper stood there, their expressions composed into perfect society masks, the kind that made grown purebloods straighten their posture. Their hair immaculate, their uniforms crisp, their etiquette impeccable.

“Darius,” Honoria said, her voice honeyed steel, “that will suffice.”

Vesper’s gaze swept over him, cool and unhurried. “Your conduct is un-Slytherin. Public scenes are the refuge of the undisciplined. You are embarrassing yourself and our House.”

Honoria added, with a polite tilt of her head, “And you are disturbing breakfast. Do compose yourself.”

Darius stared at them, affronted and suddenly unsure. He opened his mouth as if to protest, but Honoria leaned in just a fraction, her voice barely above a whisper, meant only for him: “Do not forget who my father is.” It was not a threat—just a reminder, quiet and devastating. Whatever Darius had been about to say withered at once. Neither girl granted him another glance. He was dismissed not by command, but by the effortless, cutting weight of their indifference.

Honoria turned to Peter. Her hand touched his elbow, barely a whisper. “Come,” she said softly. “There is no dignity in remaining for this.”

Vesper moved to his other side, her touch just as light.

Peter stood on unsteady legs. The room felt enormous, bright and sharp and echoing with the memory of Darius’s words. He kept his eyes on the floor as the two girls guided him toward the doors, their quiet grace forming a shield he did not know how to deserve.

He did not look back. And with every step, the truth settled heavier in his chest, gathering weight until he could scarcely breathe beneath it:

He had been used.

And worse—he had offered himself up for it. He had stepped out of the warmth of two boys who had held space for him, real space, gentle and steady and growing, and he had traded it for the sharp thrill of being chosen alone. Not part of a triad. Not one thread in something woven carefully over the past year and a half. Just him, singular, wanted—or so he had convinced himself. He had given up the closest thing to love he had ever known for a performance, for a boy who had mocked Elowyn to his face and spat on everything Callum respected. He had gone anyway. Into Darius’s hands. Into Darius’s bed. Into Darius’s arms. Even after every cruel word. Even after knowing better.

What had he expected? That someone who treated Elowyn like dirt would treat him like gold? That a boy who sneered at where Peter came from would suddenly decide he was worth keeping?

He was an idiot. A selfish, grasping idiot who had ruined the one good thing he’d been given.

He deserved this.

Every step toward the doors felt like penance—slow, dragging, hollow. Honoria and Vesper held him upright with impeccable grace, but inside he was collapsing, folding into himself like something crushed by its own weight.

He had walked willingly into the hands that broke him. And he had no one to blame but himself.

Chapter Text

The crack of Apparition tore through the frozen morning like a split in the sky, sharp and bright against the heavy silence. For a breathless instant there was only the thin echo of it, carried away over fields locked in frost, over hedgerows bowed beneath their own white weight, over the slow dark curve of the distant forest that ringed the Koes. Snow lay clean and ungathered across the common ground, except where it had drifted in soft ridges against the old boundary stone at the eastern edge of the hamlet. Its carved grooves were full of ice and shadow, the ancient sigils traced in white and deepened by time.

Malachy McCormack stepped back from the point where they had arrived, his boots crunching softly on the crusted snow. One hand still gripped his wand, the other held Callum’s shoulder for balance. The air was colder here than in Scotland, a sharp and ancient cold shaped by An Dar’s long memory, the kind that lingered from a Cornwall of millennia past and carried a clean, metallic scent that tasted of stone and river and something older still.

Elowyn’s feet had scarcely found their place upon the earth when the world struck him.

It came with no warning, no gradual rise, and no gentle flutter at the edge of thought. An Dar surged through him with the force of a winter sea, grief and fury braided together in a single, obliterating wave. The trees stood visible in the distance beyond the hamlet, though still far from reach, yet he felt them as though the roots had thrust up through the frozen ground and wrapped themselves around his bones. His breath vanished. His vision blurred. The earth tilted and the sky narrowed, and inside his chest something vast and wordless howled.

His knees went out from under him. He would have dropped to the snow if Callum had not moved at once. Callum caught him under the arms, forearms braced, the impact driving him half a step backward. Elowyn sagged into him, the weight of his body suddenly boneless, his head bowed as if someone had struck him from behind. A raw sound tore free of his throat, too small for the pain that had brought it.

“El,” Callum breathed, his own heart pounding hard enough to hurt. “I’ve got you. You’re on the ground. We're home.”

Home. The word barely reached him. Elowyn’s fingers dug into Callum’s sleeves, seeking purchase that was not truly there. His throat locked around a rush of syllables that did not form, little half-shapes of Cornish and English and something older still, all breaking apart before they could find air. His lips trembled with words that would not come. He tried to pull in a breath and found the air too thick to pass his tongue. The grief in him was not singular. It was not his alone. It was a river that had burst its banks and taken him with it, carrying him helpless along a course that had already been cut in the soil of the Koes.

He did not know why he was crying. The first hot tear startled him, as if it belonged to someone else. Then there were more, spilling over his lashes in an unbroken stream, freezing almost at once in the bitter air. His chest clenched around them, his lungs straining against an invisible weight. An Dar thrummed inside him, a deep, low keening that throbbed in his teeth and spine, in the tender places behind his eyes, in the soles of his feet that had only just found their way back to this earth.

“I… I must…” His voice came in thin and strained Cornish, pushed through a throat that felt bruised. He swallowed, tried again, and tasted salt and iron. “I must go to An Dar.”

The words did not sound like a choice. They fell from his mouth with the flat inevitability of a sentence already passed, as though the forest itself had placed them upon his tongue.

Malachy had been watching him closely, his face gone ashen beneath the wind-reddened skin. At those words, he stepped forward, positioning himself between Elowyn and the faint track that led away from the stone toward the west, where the trees rose dark against the pale sky.

“Elowyn, lad,” Malachy said in Cornish, quiet but firm. “We must first go to Tas Wynn and Mamm Wynn. They will explain what has happened.”

Elowyn lifted his head, or tried to. The world swam at the edges. Malachy’s shape wavered before him, solid and kind and utterly in the way. Somewhere beyond him, beyond the low stone walls and the clustered roofs softened by snow, the forest waited. He could feel its attention like a hand pressed to the back of his neck.

“I have to go,” he said. The words were stronger now, dragged into being by desperation. “I have to go to An Dar. I cannot breathe here. It is…it is pulling me.”

His eyes did not quite focus on Malachy’s face. They kept sliding past him, toward the line of dark trees. His body leaned forward as though some invisible cord had been fixed from his ribs to the heart of the wood, drawing him step by reluctant step. His breaths came in shallow, uneven pulls, each one catching at the top as the grief inside him shifted.

“Elowyn,” Malachy said quietly, his voice steady despite the strain around his eyes. “You cannot go on like this. Come with us to Tas Wynn and Mamm Wynn. They will tell you everything you need to know.”

Callum felt Elowyn flinch at that, felt the way his shoulders tightened under his hands. There was a flicker of something close to anger in the hitch of his breath, in the set of his jaw.

“I must go to An Dar,” Elowyn whispered, his voice thin and shaking. “I cannot turn from its call.”

Malachy drew a slow breath through his nose, the steam of it curling in the cold air. His gaze flicked to his son, and for the first time since they had arrived Callum saw the rawness in his father’s eyes, the grief that sat there like a stone. Malachy reached for Callum’s arm, fingers closing around his sleeve.

He switched to Irish, his voice dropping to a low, urgent murmur. Elowyn stood only a step away, but the words were beyond him, and even if they had not been, he was too swept under by An Dar to grasp their meaning.

“Callum,” he said, his voice low and tight. “Listen to me. Emrys is gone.”

The words struck harder than any blow. For a moment Callum could not understand them. They seemed to fall short of his ears, as if the air itself refused to take them in. Emrys is gone. They did not fit inside his skull. They were too large and too wrong.

He heard himself make a sound, a thin, fractured thing that shamed him until he realised it was air leaving his lungs. His vision narrowed, the boundary stone and the snow and his father’s face all blurring at the edges. He had to close his eyes, just for a heartbeat, to keep his legs beneath him.

“What are you saying?” Callum answered in Irish without thinking, the words slipping out before he could catch them. His own voice sounded distant, as though someone else were speaking through his mouth. A flicker of guilt knotted in his chest for speaking a tongue Elowyn could not follow, but it tangled helplessly with the crushing ache he felt for the boy he loved. “When? How?”

“Later,” Malachy said quickly, the strain clear in every word. “This isn’t the place. He died in the night, when Death Eaters entered the Koes. He fought beside me. I was with him when…when he died.”

The last words broke unevenly. Malachy drew a thin, shaking breath as tears gathered despite him, falling slow in the cold, the kind he would once have swallowed down without a sound.

“We don’t yet know how they breached the boundary,” he managed, his voice thick but holding. “The elders have been waiting since dawn. Bring Elowyn to Tas-wynn and Mamm-wynn now. Emrys’s body has been laid at the altar. He shouldn’t see him like that—not now.”

Callum opened his eyes. The world swam back into focus piece by piece. The stone. The frost. His father’s hand tight on his arm. And Elowyn, only a step away, shaking as if from cold though the tremors came from within. His face had gone very pale, the fine bones drawn tight beneath his skin. Tears tracked silently over his cheeks, dropping to the snow without his notice. His gaze was turned toward the distant trees, unfocused and far away.

Callum thought of telling him. He thought of cupping Elowyn’s face in his hands and shaping the truth in English, or in the Cornish Elowyn cherished, or in the quiet language they had begun to speak without words at all. He pictured the way Elowyn’s body would draw tight around the knowledge, the way the nameless howl in him would find its shape and break loose. He pictured that grief striking the keening of An Dar in the same instant, two wounds meeting like flint against stone.

He could not do it. Not here. Not on this open ground with the presence of the great tree pressing at the edges of his mind, steady and immense, and the hamlet still beyond the turn of the lane.

He looked at his father, swallowing hard around the ache that had lodged beneath his breastbone.

“I will bring him to Tas Wynn and Mamm Wynn,” Callum said in Irish, his voice steadier now, “but not before An Dar has seen him, and he has seen An Dar. You must feel it too. There’s no turning him from it now.”

Malachy pressed his lips together. Snow whispered softly from a nearby hedge as a bird shook loose a dusting of it. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once, then fell silent. The world seemed to hold its breath around the three of them.

“Yes,” Malachy said at last. “I feel something pulling at me also. It will hurt him to go, but do as you must, son.”

“You understand why, Da” Callum answered. “Listen to An Dar.”

The thrum of An Dar was there, close as heartbeat, humming through the frozen soil, through the worn stone, through the thin soles of their boots. It rose around Elowyn like a low chant, unheard by him in any conscious way and yet gripping every part of him with sure hands.

Malachy’s shoulders slumped by a fraction, as if some inner argument had finally run its course.

“We’ll go together then,” he said, the words shaped into a promise rather than a question.

Callum reached for Malachy’s hand, closing his fingers around his father’s with quiet certainty. Malachy’s grip tightened once before he turned, and together they walked through Lanwynn Koes toward the darkening line of the forest. Callum kept an arm around Elowyn’s waist, steadying him as they went.

The path to An Dar unfolded before them in a way that made no sense at all, a twisting corridor of snow stamped by no pattern Elowyn recognized. It changed with every few steps, bending where it had once run straight, narrowing where it had once opened wide. The Koes was rewriting itself in mourning. What should have been familiar felt strange, stretched, distorted by grief, as though the forest were reshaping the route to fit the weight of what awaited them.

Elowyn walked without speaking. His breaths came shallow and uneven, misting weakly in the cold air. Tears streamed down his cheeks in an unbroken line, not sharp enough to be sobs yet but steady, relentless, the kind that came from somewhere deeper than his own sorrow. His boots slipped on the frost-slick ground as though the earth were shifting beneath him, urging him forward and holding him back all at once.

The Koes felt nothing like its usual self. The winter trees stood bare and skeletal, their branches clawing at the gray-white sky as though trying to drag down whatever faint light hovered there. Only the evergreens still held color, deep green and heavy with snow, the last threads of life clinging stubbornly to the frozen world.

Magic churned through the forest in jagged waves. Not the soft pulse Elowyn usually felt whispering under the bark and soil, but something frayed and storming, streaked with mourning so fierce it bordered on rage. It rolled through him with every step, seizing his ribs, squeezing his lungs. He stumbled, and Callum caught his arm without hesitation, steadying him before he fell.

Neither spoke. Callum’s grip was warm, anchoring, a reminder that not everything had splintered.

Somewhere far behind them, a crow cried once and then fell silent. The air dimmed. Even the wind held its breath.

Elowyn wiped at his face only to find the tears replaced themselves at once. Fury and grief surged through him in overlapping waves, impossible to untangle. Some of it was his, sharp as a blade to the gut. Some of it belonged to An Dar, vast and ancient and rising inside him like a storm tide. He could not separate one from the other; the emotions ran together, indistinguishable, drowning him.

“We’re nearly there,” Callum murmured, his voice the gentlest thread of sound in the frozen stillness. Then added, “I think."

Elowyn nodded, though the motion was weak. His throat burned with everything he could not say.

The trees began to thin. The world grew brighter around the edges, touched by the pale light of early morning. Snow glittered faintly beneath the branches, a muted, aching shimmer.

Then the clearing appeared.

An Dar towered in its center, its winter leaves unfurled: wintry green above, shimmering silver beneath, each one catching the weak morning light with a faint, otherworldly gleam. The effect was so subtle it might have been mistaken for frost or the trembling of cold air, yet it crowned the great tree in a pale, solemn radiance. The air around it trembled with power, raw and wounded and ancient, and the glow of the leaves seemed to pulse in time with the grief rising through the Koes, as though the tree itself were mourning.

Elowyn stopped at the edge of the clearing so abruptly that Callum halted beside him, the two of them suspended at the threshold as though the air itself had thickened into something they were not yet permitted to cross. Elowyn’s breath hitched, shallow and trembling, and his legs felt as though they had been carved from ice rather than bone. The clearing stretched before him in a terrible stillness, its silence full and heavy.

The stone altar to the north glowed faintly beneath the washed‑out sky, its surface rimed with frost that caught the light in muted flashes. A body lay upon it, draped in his Gwisk Bewnans, Life Shroud, deep blue like the churning winter sea, embroidered with silver knotwork that shimmered with the old symbols of passing and return. Even from here Elowyn could feel the solemnity radiating from it.

Tas‑Wynn, Mamm‑Wynn, and several elder Koesfolk stood vigil around the altar. Their hands were clasped before them, wands held gently within their palms, not as a gesture of prayer but as a binding of strength, their faces carved from grief that had settled so deeply it seemed almost part of the frost. They did not speak. They did not move. Their stillness felt older than the clearing itself.

Elowyn’s knees weakened beneath him, bending slightly as though the weight of the truth had settled upon his shoulders with merciless precision.

He did not need the shroud lifted. The knowing was already inside him, seeped into his bones the moment the clearing revealed itself.

A Koesborn was dead.

And this death belonged to him.

He stood trembling on the boundary where forest met sacred ground, unable to take that final step. The air around him seemed to waver with unspoken meaning, and tears slid down his cheeks in a silent, unstoppable spill, hot against the cold bite of the morning.

Callum stood beside him in silence, breath unsteady, eyes fixed on the altar with a dread he did not attempt to conceal. The cold pressed against them from all sides, sharp and merciless, yet Elowyn barely felt it. The clearing seemed to stretch endlessly before him, as though truth itself had unfurled across the snow and left him stranded at its edge, unable to move without shattering.

He tried once to speak, but no sound came. Only a soft, broken inhale that collapsed halfway through.

The magic in the clearing swelled in response, rising like a tide drawn from some fathomless depth. It vibrated through the frozen earth in a low thrum of mourning that needed no voice to be heard. An Dar keened without sound, its branches trembling faintly despite the stillness of the morning air. The silver undersides of its leaves shimmered as though lit from within by grief, each faint pulse catching the cold light of dawn. Beneath that grief lay a fierce, ancient fury, held tight for his sake alone.

Elowyn pressed a hand to his chest, fingers curling in the fabric of his robes as if he might hold himself together through sheer force of will. The sorrow inside him expanded until it felt larger than his own body, larger than breath, larger than the boy who stood trembling at the forest’s edge. His throat tightened. His vision blurred. The world seemed made of cold air and grief.

He wanted to run forward. He wanted to run back. He wanted to wake beneath the lake-lit ceiling of the dormitory and find none of this real.

Callum shifted closer, his arm tightening around Elowyn’s waist in a hold that was steady but never forceful, a warmth against the cold that anchored rather than guided. He remained a quiet presence, steady as an anchoring thread in a world already beginning to come undone.

“El,” Callum whispered, barely audible. “I’m here.”

Elowyn closed his eyes. For a moment, only a moment, he leaned into the sound of his name. Not enough to rest. Only enough to keep from falling.

On the stone altar, Emrys’s Gwisk Bewnans shimmered and glowed in the dim morning light, its magic‑woven threads catching dawn in a beauty that stood in heartbreaking contrast to the ugliness of death. The elders bowed their heads in unison, their breaths fogging in the frigid air. Tas Wynn’s clasped hands trembled. Mamm-Wynn brushed a single tear from her cheek, her movements slow, reverent, and unbearably tender.

Elowyn’s tears fell harder. He had known the moment his boots touched the boundary stone. The moment An Dar surged through him with that first wave of anguish in his dreams the night before. He had known. But standing here, breath quivering, heart pulling itself apart thread by thread, knowing became something heavier—something he could not yet lift.

The air felt thinned to a painful edge, sharpened by cold and brightness until it seemed to slice through every breath. The clearing waited for him, vast and solemn. The vigil waited, heavy as stone. The truth waited, patient and inexorable. And still Elowyn stood unmoving, unable to cross the quiet that lay between him and the world that was about to break.

Elowyn did not decide to move. His body simply folded toward the clearing, drawn forward as though the grief in An Darhad tightened into a cord and looped itself around his ribs. Each step he took broke the untouched skin of the snow, slow and uneven, as if the earth meant to test how much weight such a young frame could bear before giving way beneath him. The cold bit at his ankles and crept beneath his robes, but he hardly felt it. Something older than the winter was pulling him onward.

The Koesfolk standing vigil saw him and parted without being asked. No gesture prompted them, no whispered cue. They stepped aside the way water yields to a falling stone, opening a narrow path that led straight to the altar. Their faces were carved from sorrow, lined by age and love and long memory, and when their eyes turned toward him, reverence settled in the air like a hush. They knew, in a way only the oldest Koesfolk ever knew, that something vast and communal was passing through the boy before them.

He reached the base of the altar’s raised form, and the world tilted.

The stone was no simple slab. It rose waist‑high from the earth, a broad, ancient platform of granite approached by five shallow steps worn soft by centuries. Snow dusted the edges of each one, thin as sifted flour, as though even winter treaded lightly here. The steps felt impossibly steep beneath him, though they barely rose at all.

His foot found the first step without thought.

By the second, his tears blurred the edges of the world. By the third, his breath fractured in his chest. On the fourth he swayed, and Callum’s hand steadied him briefly at the waist before falling away. On the fifth, everything else narrowed to his own uneven breaths and the faint vibration of An Dar’s mourning echoing through the stone.

Emrys lay upon the wide expanse of the altar, his Gwisk Bewnans arranged beneath him with sacred care, the intricate folds holding him as though woven hands still touched him. His shoulders and head were bare to the winter sky. The marks of battle remained on his skin: faint scorch‑lines across the knuckles, bruising along the jaw, and a thin ribbon of hex‑splinter at the temple, but they did nothing to diminish the gentleness someone had restored to him. His hair had been smoothed. His face held the quiet remnant of kindness, as if he had not quite let go of the world even as it let go of him.

Elowyn took one more trembling step onto the altar itself and collapsed to his knees. His palms struck the stone with a soft sound, small and broken. A cry tore from him, raw enough to strip the air bare.

“Papa,” he managed, though it barely rose above the wind.

He crawled the last distance, gathering Emrys’s left hand, curled around his wand, between both of his own and pressing it to his brow. The cold of that hand pierced him like ice. His sobs rose in violent waves, shaking his small frame as though grief itself meant to tear him apart.

Tas Wynn had ascended the steps after him, one knee braced against the altar’s stone as he knelt at Elowyn’s right, one hand firm and steady between his grandson’s shoulder blades and the other on his son’s knee. His face was drawn tight with grief, the lines around his mouth carved deeper than Elowyn had ever seen them, his breath catching now and then as though steadying himself cost him more than he wished to show. 

Mamm Wynn had followed as well, taking her place to the left, cupping the back of Elowyn’s bowed head with the tenderness of someone who had held him since birth. Her other hand drifted to her son’s forehead, stroking with the slow, remembering tenderness she had used when he was small, her only child, as though touch alone might hold the world together for one breath more. Tears slid soundlessly down her cheeks, her shoulders trembling in quiet waves she refused to let interrupt her touch. Their sorrow pressed close, heavy and unhidden, yet they gave it no voice; they offered it instead as a shelter around him. The dead no longer needed them. The living did.

Callum climbed only the lower steps at first, halted by the sense that the air itself had drawn a boundary he dared not cross. But grief pulled him upward all the same, slow and unsteady, until he reached the edge of the platform and sank to his knees just behind Elowyn. He did not touch him. This sorrow belonged to blood and roots and the oldest ways of the Koes, and he would not trespass. Yet tears spilled freely down his cheeks, falling for Emrys, who had shown him such quiet kindness, and for Elowyn, who was unraveling beneath the weight of a world he was too young to bear.

The elders gathered at the foot of the altar, close enough that those nearest could reach the first step. They did not ascend fully; they simply leaned in, placing gentle, time‑worn hands where they could—one to Elowyn’s trembling shoulder, another to the curve of his bowed head, another resting lightly between his ribs as though to steady his breath. Others turned their touch toward Tas Wynn and Mamm Wynn, brushing an arm, a sleeve, a bent shoulder, acknowledging their grief too, for they had lost a son and still chose to hold the living upright. A few reached toward Callum as well, fingertips grazing his back or sleeve without intrusion. Their warmth rose through the winter air in quiet currents, a wordless weaving of presence older than parchment or spellcraft. They offered no instruction, no hush, no murmur—only the deep, ancient companionship of those who had witnessed grief in every form and knew that some sorrows could only be carried together.

Time skewed, stretched thin by sorrow. Koesfolk came and went in quiet intervals, their soft steps hardly disturbing the snow. Each arrival brought a new hand laid gently upon the grieving—a palm to Tas Wynn’s bowed shoulder, a brush of fingers to Mamm Wynn’s trembling arm, a warm touch to Callum’s back, a steadying presence at Elowyn’s side. Some lingered, hands resting in silent solidarity; others touched briefly before taking their place in the ring of vigil around the altar. Through it all, the circle never broke—an unending chain of witness and devotion, ensuring the dead was never left alone and the living were never allowed to fall.

The winter sun climbed its pale arc, silvering the frost along the altar’s edges. Hours passed like slow, grinding stones. Elowyn’s sobs weakened only when he had no tears left, leaving him trembling with hollow breaths that scraped the air.

Footsteps crossed softly into the clearing, breaking the long stillness. The Koesfolk stirred at once, their vigil opening in a slow, solemn ripple, parting just enough to allow the newcomer passage toward the altar.

Thaddeus mounted the steps in a steady, reverent climb. The grief carved into his face was a controlled thing, contained so tightly it looked brittle, as though the smallest disturbance might shatter the man entirely. When he reached the platform, he paused beside Emrys’s head, his breath catching once in his throat.

Callum stepped away at once, lowering his head. Tas Wynn and Mamm Wynn withdrew as well, their movements slow and weighted with understanding. This space now belonged to father and son.

Thaddeus lowered himself to his knees in the place Mamm Wynn had vacated. His hand hovered a breath above Emrys’s brow, never quite daring to touch the stillness there. Then his other hand settled on Elowyn’s back with a care so gentle it seemed carved from the man he had been before war and grief.

He did not speak. There were no words that could reach this depth of sorrow, nothing that would not shatter under the weight of it, so he simply turned that hand and placed it with exquisite gentleness against the small of Elowyn’s back. The silence that followed was steadier than any spoken comfort, carrying everything his voice could not bear to hold: I am here. I have you. You are not bearing this alone.

Elowyn shuddered beneath the touch, some instinctive part of him recognizing the new gravity settling across his shoulders, a truth too large and too rupturing to name. Father. Only Father now. The thought rose, broke, and dissolved before it could fully form. He pressed Emrys’s cold hand harder against his brow, as if clinging to both of them might somehow keep the world from collapsing beneath him.

The winter sun drifted past its zenith and began its slow, amber descent, and still the vigil held steady around them. Koesfolk moved in quiet rotations at the clearing’s edges, yet the circle nearest the altar never wavered. Hands reached for him, but only to rest lightly upon him, never to move him, never to break the sacred shape of his grief. No one tried to guide him toward warmth or food or rest. The grief belonged to all of them, but it had carved its sharpest edge into him, and they understood the sacredness of letting sorrow burn until it made its own space in the world.

As dusk gathered beneath An Dar, wands lifted in reverent arcs and a ring of torches flared to life, each one kindling with golden fire that burned cool and smokeless. The glow brushed the underside of An Dar’s winter leaves, turning the silver into a soft, uncanny shimmer as shadows spilled outward beyond the circle. The world outside the Koes seemed to vanish, leaving only this island of light, and grief, and memory.

Elowyn had long since exhausted his tears. His body still obeyed grief’s brutal demands, trembling with dry sobs that stole the air from his lungs and left his muscles aching. His fingers had gone numb around Emrys’s hand, yet he could not loosen his grip; each breath felt as though the night itself resisted entering a body that hurt so completely.

Darkness deepened. Stars pricked through the vast canopy of An Dar, glimpsed only in the narrow seams between its winter leaves. The cold pressed further into stone and bone alike.

Only when Elowyn's dry sobs faltered into thin, ragged breaths did Thaddeus shift at last. His voice, when it finally sounded, was quiet and raw at the edges, carrying every mile of what he had borne.

“Elowyn,” he murmured. “Dar Byghan. It is time to go home.”

Elowyn shook his head, a small and fractured refusal that held the aching stubbornness of a child who had lost more than he could hold. His grip tightened painfully around Emrys’s hand.

“I cannot,” he whispered, the word barely a breath. “If I leave he will be…he will be…”

The final word would not come.

Thaddeus steadied his hand against his son’s back, the gentlest pressure, the softest insistence. “He is not alone,” he said. “Nor will he be. The Koes will keep vigil. An Dar will hold him. You have given him all that you can give today.” His voice wavered almost too faintly to perceive. “Let me carry the rest.”

Elowyn didn’t answer. Exhaustion tugged at every fragile thread of him. His body had reached its limit hours ago, long before his grief had.

When he finally sagged sideways, Thaddeus caught him as if he had been preparing for this moment all day. He gathered Elowyn against him with a tenderness that remembered every smaller version of the boy he had held before, every stumble, every nightmare, every fevered night. Elowyn still clung to Emrys’s hand, his fingers slipping free only at the last possible moment, as though letting go were a kind of second death.

Thaddeus lifted him fully, gathering him with a reverence that deepened the hush around them. Elowyn did not resist. His face settled against his father’s shoulder, turned just enough that he could still see Emrys upon the stone, his breath thin and uneven against the wool of Thaddeus’s coat as they descended from the altar, each step steeped in a hush so deep it seemed to gather the clearing’s sorrow into itself, carrying them through the dim light with a weight both ancient and quietly human.

The clearing shifted almost imperceptibly when Thaddeus began to descend the steps, a soft recalibration of air and magic that moved through the Koes like an old instinct stirring awake. No sound announced it, no sudden flash of power; it was simply as though the forest remembered itself and the ritual it had carried for generations. 

Morvoren, the eldest of the Koesborn, stepped forward from the circle with the gravity of deep age, her movements slow and deliberate, shaped by the countless winters she had witnessed. She lifted her wand with the quiet assurance of one who guided rather than commanded, and the air answered her. A faint glimmer rose from Emrys’s still chest, golden-green and wavering like breath caught in cold light, gathering itself before drifting upward in a fragile, reverent ascent that hung in the air above Emrys heart. 

Every Koesfolk present bowed their head as Morvoren guided the first trembling strand toward An Dar, the great tree holding itself in a hush so complete that even its silver leaves seemed to quiver in sympathy. The line of essence did not dart or spiral; it rose in a long, unbroken ribbon from Emrys’s still chest, gathering its faint gold‑green along the way, as though drawing the remnants of breath and memory from the body it was leaving. It hovered above the altar for a suspended moment, the shimmer elongating, clarifying, then poured itself in a slow, solemn descent into the vast trunk of An Dar—a single thread sinking into ancient bark, slipping down toward the roots and up into the pale glow beneath the canopy. The clearing exhaled around it, a soft, collective sorrow, the soundless recognition of a home receiving one of its own.

Another tremor of light rose, then another, yet this time the gleam did not belong to Emrys alone. One by one, the Koesfolk closest to the stone touched their wands to their own sternums and released thin, shimmering threads of their magic, offering it the way their ancestors had in winters long past. The strands rose beside Emrys’s essence, weaving into it without thinning it, each filament a quiet vow that even in death no Koesborn crossed alone. Those closest followed, and then those beyond them; not all at once, but in slow, reverent pulses, until the air above the altar glittered with interlaced lights. Each thread lifted upward and vanished into the great trunk of An Dar, traveling down into its roots and up into the highest reaches of its canopy, spreading along every living vein of the great tree of An Dar—a gathering of grief, memory, and kinship winding itself into the ancient tree. Only when the final glimmer had faded did stillness settle once more over the clearing, deep and solemn, as if the forest itself were holding its breath in shared mourning. Each one lifted skyward and vanished into the gold-lit leaves until only stillness remained.

And the night folded around them as Thaddeus carried his son from the clearing, each pace deliberate, solemn, and heavy with the ritual still unfolding behind them. The dark pressed close at the edges of the path, yet the faint glow of rising essence lingered in the air, catching on An Dar’s branches like threads of drifting starlight. Callum followed only a step behind, unwilling to let Elowyn slip beyond reach, his own grief held taut and silent. The torches’ golden fire dimmed as distance stretched, and still the soft rise of magic continued behind them, weaving into root and canopy as the Koesfolk maintained their vigil. By the time the path curved, the clearing lay far behind, wrapped in shadow and ritual and the first long night of mourning. Yet even at that distance, An Dar still glowed through the dark, its branches brightening with every ribbon of magic drawn into its vast heart until it stood like a great, quiet beacon in the night. And ahead waited a home changed beyond recognition.