Heirbound

by MelancholySoul

Summary:

When war shifts the tides of the people who are tangible. When fate has unwoven a destiny, and Lady Magic has blessed a boy with a broken string.

Hadrian Potter is not the beacon of light the world expected—but something mysterious, quieter, and far more dangerous. Sorted into Slytherin, he finds kinship not in heroism, but in ambition, secrecy, and the pull of the elder. With an affinity for deep and unknown magic, under the mentorship of Severus Snape, and guided by the forgotten knowledge hidden deep within his bloodline, Hadrian begins to carve a path of his own. He is a legacy reborn—and the wizarding world will come to fear, or follow, what he becomes.

Notes:

sorry guys, i changed my name to MelancholySoul instead, no more whimsy because i am feeling sinister. filled to the brim with malicious intent

Chapter 1: Holly & Tulips

Harry Potter stood alone in the narrow courtyard behind the Leaky Cauldron, clutching a letter that had rewritten his entire life.

Before him loomed a solid brick wall, faintly shimmering in the morning light. The pattern in the bricks hinted at something more, a hidden doorway just out of reach. No one had shown him how to open it. He’d found the pub by instinct—or maybe fate—guided only by whispered directions inked in spidery handwriting. No mentor, no welcoming hand. Just a name on parchment, a key to a vault, and a world waiting behind stone.

The people inside the pub had stared. Some had whispered. None had approached.

Now, in the chill of the alley, he pressed his palm against the bricks. They felt ordinary, rough under his fingers. Magic. The word still felt foreign. Not frightening—just unreal. A witch swept past him, her robes fluttering like wings. She gave him a quick once-over, arching an amused brow.

“First time?” she asked, smirking as she raised her wand. With a few practiced taps, the bricks shifted, pulling apart with the low, grinding sound of something ancient waking from sleep.

Harry didn’t answer. He just stepped forward—and the world opened.

Diagon Alley unfolded in a rush of light, color, and noise. Buildings tilted at improbable angles, cauldrons steamed on display, and owls hooted from iron cages overhead. Spells sparked in shop windows. Laughter mingled with shouting and the metallic clink of galleons changing hands. For a moment, Harry was overwhelmed.

And then—he wasn’t.

The wonder didn’t fade, but it changed. It turned inward, into a kind of certainty. This place—this life—it was his. He wasn’t the freak locked in a cupboard. He was a wizard.

And here, they knew.

He didn’t speak a word, but recognition spread like fire through the street. Whispers rose behind him.

The Boy Who Lived.

He hadn’t meant to cause a scene. He barely knew what the name meant. All he had was a Hogwarts letter, a vault key, and the surname the Dursleys only ever used like poison. But in this place, that name meant everything.

People stared. Some pointed. A few bowed, murmuring as though witnessing history.

Harry had no one to shield him from it. He didn’t crave the attention, but compared to the cruelty and contempt he’d grown up with, this felt… survivable. It felt better. Here, he wasn’t punished for what he was. He was acknowledged.

As his Hogwarts letter advised, Harry headed towards a bank called Gringotts. He had slight apprehension of getting lost or not finding the bank, but he quickly found that he had no reason to fear. Standing in the middle of Diagon Alley the great bronze doors of Gringotts Wizarding Bank loomed before Harry, etched with stern warnings and ancient script. Even from the marble steps, he could feel the weight of the place—its quiet authority, its deep magic.

It wasn’t just a bank. It was something older. Guarded. Uncompromising. True.

Harry stepped forward alone, just a heavy key clutched in his hand. The goblin guards flanking the entrance didn’t move, but they watched him—sharp-eyed and still, like statues waiting for excuses.

He nodded once as he passed. Not with fear, but with respect.

Inside, the main hall stretched into marble distance—white stone floors, high arched ceilings, and rows of goblins seated at impossibly tall desks, quills scratching over endless ledgers. Behind each one was a maze of parchment, gold scales, and keys that glinted under lantern light.

Harry approached the nearest available goblin.

“I’d like to access my vault,” he said, holding out the small iron key. His voice didn’t waver.

The goblin barely glanced up. Then he took the key between long, clawed fingers and turned it once in his palm, as if measuring more than the metal.

“Vault seven hundred and twelve,” the goblin muttered, but his voice carried. “One moment.”

He stepped down from his high stool and disappeared through a back arch. A few moments later, another goblin approached—a different one, leaner, older, with a pointed nose like a hooked blade and clever eyes that glittered like cut obsidian.

“I am Griphook,” he said. “Follow me.”

Harry didn’t blink at the name, but he remembered it. It was carved into the vault door in some versions of his life.

Griphook led him through a side corridor, down spiraling steps, and into a waiting cart balanced precariously on narrow tracks.

“Hold tight,” he said, already climbing in.

Harry sat without hesitation. The cart jolted forward, and the world became speed and stone and wind. Tunnels flew past—arched with runes, dripping with age. The air grew colder. Water roared below. More than once, Harry saw shadows that didn’t belong to either of them.

He said nothing. Just watched.

“You are unusually calm,” Griphook remarked as they sped deeper. “Most young wizards do not enjoy the first ride.”

“I’ve never enjoyed being still,” Harry replied easily.

Griphook made a sound that might have been amusement. The noise was quite off-putting, a slight gargling sound that may scare away small children, but Harry didn't think twice about it.

They stopped abruptly before a tall, dark vault door—vault 712. No handle. No visible lock. Only an embossed crest long-since faded and an invisible weight pressing against the air.

“Old magic guards this vault,” Griphook said quietly. “Blood magic. Ancestral claim. Your key only opens it because your lineage permits it.”

Harry stepped forward, secretly wondering about his ancestry and his family. He felt the magic radiating off the vault. With the silence in the cave so thick, Harry felt almost as if he could hear the voices of magic calling to him.

“How old?” he asked curiously.

Griphook’s eyes flicked toward him. “Older than Hogwarts. This vault has not been opened since your parents died. It is watched… closely.”

Though Harry had no idea how old Hogwarts was, he could assume it was ancient based on the energy of his vault, and once again wondered about his lineage. Harry pressed the key into a hidden slot that only revealed itself when his fingers neared the center of the door. There was a clicking sound—ancient and deep. The vault hissed open.

Inside, light shimmered off piles of gold—golden coins stacked like bricks, silver ones in cascading chests, gemstones in enchanted glass boxes, and heirlooms he didn’t recognize. Charms hung thick in the air—wards, traps, protections long asleep. Scrolls lined the far wall behind thick panes of rune-inscribed crystal.

But what struck Harry most wasn’t the wealth. It was the feeling. The vault didn’t feel just rich.

It felt sacred.

Old blood, old names. A legacy locked in stone and spell. A vault of generations, filled with secrets and history.

He stepped inside and let the door remain open behind him. Griphook didn’t follow. He merely stood at the threshold and watched. Harry moved slowly—not to be cautious, but out of something closer to reverence.

There were coins, of course. But that wasn't what caught his eye. To the left stood a tall glass cabinet, dusty but untouched by time. Behind its clear pane rested a row of slim boxes—wand boxes, old ones, their labels faded with age. Family wands, he realized. Some would no longer respond to anyone. Others might still sing for distant cousins, long dead or long forgotten.

He stepped closer, drawn to the one at the far end. It bore a tarnished silver plaque:

Fleamont Potter – Ebony, Dragon Heartstring – 10 ¾ inches.

Harry stared at it for a long moment. A familiar name. A wand from another lifetime. He didn’t touch it.

Across the vault, near a stone bench half-covered in an embroidered cloth, stood a freestanding mirror—tall, oval, framed in blackened silver chases with swirling sigils. He stepped in front of it and found, to his surprise, but that of a younger man—glasses like his own, hair swept back, brown eyes unlike his own.

His instinct told him it was not a mirror, but a memory. The man must have been a part of his family, Harry knows they look similar, there were subtle differences in appearance.

To the right, nestled in a carved alcove, sat a sealed wooden box with no hinge, no clasp, no visible seam. It pulsed faintly with a golden warmth—old magic, slumbering magic. A protection charm, he could feel it. He didn't open it. Some things, he knew without knowing how, were meant to wait.

Beneath a draped cloth lay a suit of armor, polished dragonhide stitched with iron thread and reinforced with spellwork. Battle-worn, but cared for. Harry ran a hand along one of the pauldrons, feeling the memory of war in its weight. It hadn’t seen light in decades, yet it shimmered faintly beneath his fingers.

At the far end of the vault, flanked by two floating lanterns, stood a sword. The hilt was wrapped in emerald-dyed leather, the pommel engraved with a rearing stag. Its blade was etched with runes that hummed when he came close, a sound like breath drawn in just before a spell is cast.

It was meant for someone, Harry thought. Maybe me.

Below it, resting on a long velvet runner, were letters—some sealed with wax, others open, their parchment yellowed and brittle with age. Most were addressed to Charlus Potter, Dorea, Fleamont, names that meant everything to him—yet he didn't know who they were.

And tucked beneath them, a smaller envelope.

To be opened by the heir of James Charlus Potter, upon his first visit.

Written in a sharp, elegant hand.

He hesitated… then slid it open.

The parchment inside was brief:

If you’re reading this, then you’ve found your way home.

There is power in your blood. Not because of what the world sees, but because of what it has forgotten.

The Potter line was never just noble. It was ancient. Tied to the old magic. The kind you feel in your bones, not your wand.

Trust yourself. No one else will know what you’re capable of—but you will.

Claim what is yours.

—F.P.

Harry read the note twice. Then folded it, tucked it into the pocket over his heart, and sat for a moment on the stone bench beside the velvet cloth. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected in the vault—treasure, maybe. Or cold inheritance. But this?

This felt like roots. Not wealth. Not reputation. Legacy.

As he stood again, his eyes swept across the vault—wands, armor, books, blades, silence. And something inside him stirred—not hunger, not ambition. Something older.

A sense of invitation. The magic here didn’t guard itself from him. It was waiting.

Making his way towards the front of the vault, Harry picked up an emerald green velvet pouch with delicate silver embroidery, which he believes is meant to store coins. Harry then grabbed numerous coins, especially the larger ones—which are made of gold.

I’ll have to ask Griphook to explain the difference between pounds and wizarding currency, Harry thought.

When Harry reached the opening of the vault, he took a final glance around his vault then proceeded to step out.

“Not many wizards look beyond the coins,” the goblin said after a long silence. “But I think… you see more.”

Harry turned back to him, eyes steady.

“I feel the magic here. I can feel my family, this feels like home.” Harry started. “I’ve never had anything of my own before. If this is mine… I want to understand it.”
Griphook nodded slowly, as though giving something silently. Not approval—but respect.

After a moment, Harry locked the vault once more, Griphook turned without a word and gestured back toward the cart.

As they returned to the surface, neither of them spoke. But in the quiet of that return ride—wind in his hair, vault beneath him, wand newly bought—Harry didn’t feel lost. He felt anchored.

And Griphook, seated beside him, didn’t see a boy. He saw someone ancient magic might one day listen to.

“You’ll want to understand the currency,” the goblin said, his voice gravel-smooth. “It is not quite like what you’re used to.”

Harry glanced down at the glittering mix of coins with heavy relief. I didn’t even have to ask such a stupid question. Though Harry suspected that the goblin knew he wasn’t aware of the currency. “I—I’ve only ever used pounds. Not like this money.”

Griphook gave a curt nod. “Quite. Wizarding Britain uses a three-tiered currency system: Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. There are 17 Sickles to a Galleon, and 29 Knuts to a Sickle.”

Harry blinked. “That’s… oddly specific.”

“It is ancient,” Griphook said, with the faintest glint of amusement. “And inconvenient, yes—but unchanged since the time of the Founders. Tradition is valued more than simplicity in wizarding matters.”

Harry thumbed a heavy gold Galleon between his fingers. “So what’s a Galleon worth in pounds?”

The goblin considered him, as if weighing whether the question deserved a full answer. “It fluctuates slightly, depending on goblin markets and Muggle inflation. But for your understanding, one Galleon is roughly equivalent to five British pounds. Give or take.”

Harry looked down at the pouch the goblin had handed him from his vault. “So this is… a lot.”

“Indeed.” Griphook’s eyes gleamed faintly. “Old vaults carry more than gold. They carry weight. Legacy. Influence. That vault was not meant for a child, Mr. Potter—it was meant for an heir.”

Harry said nothing, but the weight of the Galleon in his palm suddenly felt much heavier. “What’s a muggle?”

Glancing at Harry, the goblin replied, “People who do not wield magic, the world you were raised in.”

Yes, Harry certainly needs to find a few books to explain all that he’s missed while living with muggles.

After the echo of rattling tracks faded and the whisper of subterranean water grew distant, the cart jerked to a stop. The shimmering light of the upper halls washed over them as Griphook and Harry emerged once more into the marble expanse of Gringotts.

Before Harry could step away, the goblin turned toward him, sharp eyes catching his.

“Tell me, Harry,” Griphook said smoothly, “have you ever heard of an inheritance test?”

Harry blinked. “No… I haven’t. This is actually my first time in Diagon Alley. I only found out I was a wizard a few weeks ago.”

If that surprised Griphook, he didn’t show it. He simply gave a thoughtful hum.

“Inheritance tests,” the goblin explained, “reveal more than gold and vaults. They show lineage—your full name, your parents’, any titles or magical heirships you may possess. They clarify what blood runs in your veins… and what rights it entitles you to.”

Harry’s heart gave an odd little thump. He hadn’t thought about any of that. What was his full name? Did he even have a middle name? What were his parents’? Was “Harry” short for something? What did heir mean exactly? Was it something important?

He made a mental note to look for books on wizarding customs—currency, titles, bloodlines—anything that could help him understand this world he had walked into.

“I’d really like to take one,” he said, his voice brimming with quiet determination. Rocking on the balls of his feet, he was filled with anticipation.

Griphook inclined his head. “I thought as much. I will schedule an appointment within the week. Expect an owl with the notice by tonight.”

There was something like approval in the goblin’s expression—a faint upturn of the mouth, not quite a smile, but close enough.

Harry nodded, only mildly disappointed that the test couldn’t be done immediately. He still had an entire list of school supplies to gather, and more than enough to learn in the meantime.

Turning to leave, he gave a respectful nod. Griphook returned it in kind.

Without another word, Harry stepped back into the golden light of the wizarding world, his thoughts already racing ahead.

Ignoring the eyes that tracked his every move, Harry stepped next into Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, determined to shed the smell of Dudley’s old clothes and decades of invisibility. He’d never owned anything new. Never worn something made for him. Everything in his life had been cast-off, ill-fitting, something someone else no longer wanted. But here? He had gold. He had choice.

When Madam Malkin tried to usher him toward the basic school set, he hesitated. His gaze slid past the standard black robes to the displays in the back: tailored garments in deep emerald and midnight black, trimmed in silver, with subtle runic embroidery and enchanted threadwork that shimmered like starlight. Robes that whispered when they moved. Robes that spoke of legacy and bloodlines and power.

Pure-blood clothing. Old wizarding clothing.

He didn’t know why, but he was drawn to them.

“I’d like something… finer,” he said. “Not just the standard set.”

Madam Malkin blinked, but her tone changed instantly. “Of course, Mr. Potter. Right this way.”

She brought out robes he’d never imagined: fitted school uniforms with hidden wand holsters, a cloak lined in soft Welsh wool fastened with a silver hawk-shaped clasp, and dress robes with self-adjusting seams woven with charmed fabric that would grow with him through the years.

In front of the mirror, dressed in a high-collared black robe edged in dark green and embroidered with silver threads fine as spider silk, Harry barely recognized his reflection. There was no hint of the neglected boy from Privet Drive. He looked composed. Regal. Unreachable.

“Sharp look,” Madam Malkin murmured, adjusting his collar. “Very old family. Very proper.”

Harry sent her a shy smile, but he was truly reveling in the fact that he looked as a normal wizard should. He’ll finally fit in and maybe people won’t see him for the freak he used to believe he was. Here, he’s not a freak for his magic, but he’ll never be normal. And maybe he can live with that.

The robes were just the beginning.

After the formal and school sets and the enchanted cloaks, Madam Malkin had raised a hand before Harry could leave. “If you’re dressing properly, Mr. Potter,” she said, eyeing his threadbare trousers and oversized Muggle shirt, “then you’ll want the full wardrobe. Pure-blood basics, I assume?”

Harry hesitated, then gave a small nod. He didn’t fully know what that meant—but he knew what he didn’t want anymore: Dudley’s stained jeans, old school uniforms that clung to his ankles, and the pitying looks of strangers when they saw him on the street.

Madam Malkin led him through a curtained archway into a quieter part of the shop—a private fitting room lined with full-length mirrors and polished wood. The space smelled faintly of parchment, lavender starch, and something older. The floor was warm beneath his feet.

A silent tailor, older and hunched with white hair and keen eyes, emerged from a side door. He didn’t speak, but began measuring without delay, wand in one hand, conjuring fabric swatches and pinning enchanted markers to Harry’s shoulders and waist.

“You’ll want daywear first,” Madam Malkin said, drawing out a set of folded garments from a lacquered drawer. “Wool slacks with self-creasing seams. High-neck tunics, charmed against stains. Formal undershirts—lightweight linen, but magically reinforced.”

Harry let her talk. The words washed over him like warm water, unfamiliar but oddly comforting. For once, no one was trying to hide what he was. They were building it, stitching it together with each fine thread.

The trousers were unlike anything he’d ever worn—charcoal grey with a precise, narrow cut that hugged his frame without clinging. They fell just over his new boots with tailored elegance. A thin stripe of darker silk ran along the side seam, subtle and formal. They were comfortable, enchanted to move with him, and warded against fraying.

The tunics were buttonless and pulled smoothly over the head, fastening with sleek silver clasps shaped like crescent moons or serpentine curves—an understated nod to old wizarding design. The collars sat neatly against his neck, some fastened high, others folded back into soft, ceremonial V-cuts. A few had barely-there embroidery at the cuffs—ancient runes for luck, strength, clarity.

“Nothing flashy,” Madam Malkin noted, folding her arms as she watched the tailor adjust the fit. “You’ll find proper wizarding fashion values tradition over trend. Clean lines, quality material, quiet magic.”

Harry looked at himself in the mirror—wearing deep green trousers, a black tunic with silver lining, and calf-high boots polished to a gleam. He looked… composed. Not like a child playing dress-up, but like someone from an old family portrait. Someone you’d be careful around. Someone expected to become something.

Is this what being a wizard feels like? he thought. Not just wands and spells—but identity. Presence.

“These are basics?” he asked quietly.

Madam Malkin gave a dry little smile. “For your kind, Mr. Potter? Yes. You’ll need enough for daily rotation, plus seasonal variation, dueling attire, and travel robes. Shall I prepare a standard trunk wardrobe?”

Harry hesitated for only a second. Then: “Yes, please.”

Because no one had ever done this for him. No one had ever looked at him and said: You deserve things that fit. Things meant for you. But now—he had a vault full of gold, a name the wizarding world knew by heart, and no Dursleys in sight to tell him no.

The tailor gave a low nod and vanished into the back room to begin assembling the order.

Harry sat briefly on a velvet bench as the last fittings were finished. Later, he’ll find that the standard trunk wardrobe also contained a large variety of underwear and socks—the underwear made of cotton and numerous colors, such as black, grey, and white, deep greens and blues. Much to his embarrassment but also appreciated greatly.

Wearing his new, crisp deep blue robes with golden stitching, his fingers brushed at his cuffs—cool, smooth, and unmistakably his. For the first time, he wasn’t hiding behind oversized sleeves or patched knees.

And if this world had always expected something from The Boy Who Lived, Harry was ready to make sure they saw someone far more than just a name.

And when he stepped back into the sunlight of Diagon Alley, the whispers began anew.

At Flourish and Blotts, he didn’t stop at the required reading list. He gathered books on wandless and wordless magic, additional potions books, dueling theory, defensive enchantments, wizarding politics, wizarding traditions and holidays, introductory to the wizarding world, even an obscure tome titled Magics Forgotten by the Ministry. No one stopped him. No one questioned his choices. They simply handed over what he asked for and watched.

Harry spotted a trunks and travel material shop, and decided to hurry in. The shop seemed relatively empty, and his school supplies were exponentially straining on his arms. Having a trunk to carry his things certainly seemed appealing in the moment, he'd need to purchase one anyway. There were many trunks to choose from—second-hand, leathers and woods, colours and textures. Harry decided on an elegant, black, leather bound trunk, with blackened silver edges. It had many compartments with plenty room to properly store his robes and supplies. His eyes also laid upon a matching satchel to carry books and stationary during the school day. How could he resist?

From his emerald coin pouch he had gotten from his vault, he handed the clerk the allotted amount of money and made his way into the alley. Finding an unoccupied bench, he quickly stuffed his supplies and satchel into his trunk, I'll organize it, eventually.

While Harry was heading towards Ollivanders, he noticed a line within the store, and decided to visit yet another store in the meantime. Scanning the Alley, his eyes fell upon a pet shop: Magical Menagerie.

The Magical Menagerie was louder than Harry expected. Cages lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each occupied by some chittering, growling, or croaking thing. Owls hooted sharply overhead, a cage of ravens cackled in broken rhyme, and a puffskein rolled lazily in its pen like a sentient ball of yarn.

Harry stood in the doorway, uncertain.

The clerk behind the counter looked up, already sizing him up for a standard owl or a friendly toad.

“Need a school pet, dear?” she asked. “Owl, cat, or toad—Hogwarts rules.”

Harry nodded slowly, but his gaze had already wandered past the display of snowy owls. He didn’t know why, but something tugged at his attention—pulled him deeper into the shop, past the brighter cages, into the back where fewer lights burned.

The noise of the front faded, as though the very air thickened. There, tucked beneath a faded velvet curtain and shadowed shelving, sat a long, low tank of blackened glass. It wasn’t labeled. No price tag, no cheerful description. Just quiet.

Something inside was watching.

Harry leaned down and met a pair of emerald eyes— bright and narrow, staring back through the glass— just like his. An all-black kingsnake, coiled elegantly around a pale branch, blinked once.

Then, it spoke.

Not aloud, but in his mind. No words—just a sensation. Recognition. A hum, like magic settling into place.

Harry inhaled slowly. He didn’t flinch.

“Hello,” he whispered. And to his own shock, he hissed the word—his voice drawn out in a smooth, sibilant sound he hadn’t meant to shape.
The snake flicked its tongue and lifted its head.

“Speaker,” it said in a hiss. The word slithered into Harry’s thoughts like smoke curling through a keyhole.

Harry stiffened. “You can… talk to me.”

“I can speak. You can listen.”

He didn’t need more. He didn’t need an owl. He needed this—this creature who had called to him without words, who met his gaze not with fear, but understanding. He didn’t know its name, but he knew its presence, and that was enough.

When he returned to the front, the clerk raised her brows.

“Change your mind about an owl?”

Harry nodded once. “I want the black snake. In the back.”

She looked confused, almost cautious. “That one? It doesn’t usually… like people. It’s not for sale.”

Harry simply replied, “It likes me.”

The woman hesitated. Then, after a long moment, she disappeared into the back room. When she returned, the tank floated behind her on a soft levitation charm.

“I’ll have to write a special approval note for Hogwarts,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. “Snakes aren’t forbidden… technically.”

Harry handed her the coins without question. As he did, the snake slid out of its branch and curled itself into the enchanted carrier, settling like it had been waiting for him all along.

As he stepped out onto the cobbled street, the sun catching the deep blue trim of his robes, the snake coiled gently in its portable tank beside him.

“You are bound by more than name,” the snake whispered in soft hisses.
Harry smiled faintly. “So are you.”

As Harry walked down the sun-dappled cobblestones of Diagon Alley, the soft rustle of scales reached his ears from the carrier at his side. The snake moved calmly, coiled and content, its emerald eyes watching him through the enchanted glass.

He hadn’t named her yet. It felt wrong to rush something like that.

She was sleek and black as ink, with the kind of poise that made her seem older than the stones beneath their feet. There was intelligence behind her eyes—ancient, maybe even dangerous—but never cruel. Just quiet. Waiting.

A name stirred in his memory.

Eris.

He remembered the word from a half-forgotten lesson at his old school—before the letters, before the magic. His primary teacher had spoken of Greek myths during a rainy afternoon, and the story had stayed with him: Eris, goddess of strife and discord, the one who was never invited but always arrived anyway.

Harry had liked that.

Not because she brought chaos, but because she wasn’t expected. She was unwelcome in the stories, like he’d been unwelcome in the cupboard—but she showed up anyway.

She changed everything.

He glanced down at the snake again.

“You don’t belong in a cage,” he murmured, almost a whisper. “You were born for more than that.”

The serpent lifted her head and flicked her tongue in the air.

“You speak the name?”

Harry smiled, just a little. “Eris,” he said aloud. “That’s you.”

She hissed softly, pleased. The name fit—elegant, sharp, and unexpected.

And just like him, never quite what the world was ready for.

On a whim, Harry decides to abandon the carrier. Hissing quiet consent from Eris, she quickly slides under the sleeve of Harry’s robes and coils gently around his left wrist. Her cool scales quickly become comforting as he treads along the magical path to the wand shop.

The bell above the door of Ollivanders chimed like the beginning of a spell.

Harry stepped inside, the noise of Diagon Alley fading behind him like a curtain drawn closed. The shop was dim and narrow, lined floor to ceiling with towering shelves stacked with thin, dust-covered boxes. The air smelled of wood shavings, wax, and old magic—deep magic, the kind that didn’t ask for permission.

He paused just inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust. The silence wasn’t empty. It was watching.

Somewhere in the back of the shop, a drawer clicked shut.

“Mr. Potter,” came a voice—reedy, deliberate, like parchment being torn very slowly. “I was wondering when I’d be seeing you.”

From the shadows emerged a tall, pale man with moon-silver hair and ancient eyes that looked right through him. He didn’t bow. Didn’t smile.

Garrick Ollivander simply regarded him.

“You’ve grown,” he said thoughtfully. “Strange. I remember the day you were born. The whole wizarding world changed that night. And now, here you are.”

Harry didn’t speak. He let the man’s words settle in the quiet like dust. He’d grown used to stares, to whispers, to reverence—but Ollivander’s gaze was different. He wasn’t impressed. He wasn’t afraid.

He was… interested.

“Right hand?” Ollivander asked, already moving.

“Yes,” Harry replied, his voice steady.

The wandmaker lifted Harry’s arm gently, measuring fingertip to shoulder, shoulder to floor, elbow to wrist. A floating quill jotted notes in the air beside him.

As the measuring tape fluttered back into a drawer, Ollivander turned away, fingers gliding across the worn wand boxes like a priest selecting relics. He muttered under his breath, then pulled down a slender box and cracked it open.

“Try this—ash, unicorn hair, eleven inches. Supple.”

Harry took the wand. It felt… wrong. Off balance. He gave it a flick and a stack of wand boxes exploded off the shelf to his left.

“No, no,” Ollivander said, snatching it back and already reaching for another. “That’s not it at all.”

One by one, wands came and went. Willow. Cherry. Dragon heartstring. None of them felt right. Some were inert. Others sparked too violently. A few simply refused to respond. All the while, Ollivander watched him—not just his movements, but something else, as though waiting for something hidden to surface.

And then, without speaking, the wandmaker stopped.

He turned slowly and walked to a high shelf near the back of the shop. This time, he didn’t speak as he brought the box down. His hands moved slowly, almost reverently.

When he lifted the lid, the air in the room shifted—dense and cool, like a breath drawn in before a storm.

“Try this,” he said quietly. “Holly and phoenix feather. Eleven inches. Supple.”

The moment Harry touched it, everything stilled. The wand warmed beneath his fingers—not a burn, not a sting, but recognition. As though it had been waiting. A soft breeze stirred the edges of his robes. Sparks burst from the tip, golden and arcing, and then dissolved into silence.

Ollivander’s eyes narrowed.

“Curious,” he said, almost to himself.

Harry raised a brow. “Because of the wand?”

“No,” the old man murmured. “Because of the phoenix. The feather in that wand comes from a very rare bird. It gave only two feathers. One lies in your hand.”

Harry waited.

“The other,” Ollivander said slowly, “resides in the wand that gave you your scar.”

Harry didn’t flinch. His eyes darkened slightly, but his posture remained still. “Fitting,” he said.

“Perhaps,” Ollivander replied. “Or perhaps it’s fate. Difficult to say. Wands choose their wizards, Mr. Potter. But in your case… I believe the wand has chosen carefully.”

Harry didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

The wand pulsed gently in his grip, as if approving his silence.

He paid with a few precise galleons, slid the wand into an inner compartment sewn into his trunk, and turned to leave.

At the door, he paused.

“Thank you,” he said, without looking back.

Ollivander didn’t smile. “Be careful, Mr. Potter,” he said instead. “The world already expects great things from you.”

Harry opened the door. The bell rang and he stepped back into Diagon Alley, the wand resting against his side like a quiet promise.

By the time the sun dipped low behind the crooked roofs of Diagon Alley, the crowds had thinned and the shopkeepers had begun to draw in their signs. Warm yellow light spilled from lanterns, casting long shadows across the cobbled streets as Harry sat on a bench outside Madam Malkin’s, Eris’s carrier resting beside him.

His legs ached. His arms too, from the weight of books and robes and boxes he hadn’t expected to carry. But he didn’t mind.

It was the first time in his life he had spent a day doing something entirely for himself.

Still, there were shops he hadn’t had time to visit—places that had caught his eye while he was being fitted for robes or handling his wand in Ollivanders. An apothecary, dim and earthy, with dried herbs hanging in its windows like garlands. And a little eyeglass shop tucked between a stationery store and a dusty bookstall, its brass-framed windows glinting beneath a sign that read:

MORLEY & SONS — Wizarding Optics Since 1462

Harry had stared at it for longer than he meant to. He’d never thought about choosing his own glasses before. His current pair—taped, scratched, and far too large—had belonged to Dudley once. He’d worn them so long they’d become part of his face, like a scar.

But here, now, with Galleons in his pocket and no one rushing him, he could choose better. He deserved better.

Still, the shops were closing. The day had slipped past too quickly, too much to take in at once. He sighed and stood, adjusting the straps of his school trunk over his shoulder. Eris shifted on his wrist and gave a soft rustle of scales, sensing his weariness.

“Not today,” he hissed to her. “But we’ll be back.”

The Leaky Cauldron was quieter now—only a few witches and wizards nursed drinks at shadowed tables, and the fire in the hearth had been banked to a low, comforting glow. Tom, the innkeeper, looked up from behind the bar with a polite nod as Harry stepped inside.

“Decide to stay a while, Mr. Potter?”

Harry nodded. “I think I need a week and some days. There’s more to see. And I’d like to be close when it’s time to go to King’s Cross.”

Tom handed him a room key without question. “Room eleven. Breakfast’s at seven, if you’d like it.”

Upstairs, the room was small but clean, with a sloped ceiling and a narrow window that looked out over the hidden alleyway. Harry set his things down carefully. His trunk by the foot of the bed, Eris’s carrier beside the window so she could watch the moon rise. He removed Eris from his wrist and set her on the bed—which she proceeded to wriggle around on before curling up.

He stood in the quiet for a long moment, fingers brushing the polished edge of his wand, then reached for the parchment Griphook had given him with a ledger of his vault.

He sat at the small desk in the corner and lit the candle with a nearby match. Shortly, an owl arrived from Gringotts, notifying him of an upcoming appointment for his inheritance test due for 11 AM, August 20th, two days from now.

There was still so much to learn. So much to choose. But for the first time, the path ahead of him didn’t feel like someone else’s story.

It felt like his own.

Chapter 2: Grass & Root

The morning came soft and grey, filtered through the window of Room Eleven like mist through gauze. Diagon Alley hadn’t yet stirred to life when Harry descended the stairs, the worn floorboards creaking underfoot. The Leaky Cauldron smelled of hearth smoke and fresh bread, and the clink of cups behind the bar told him breakfast had already begun.

He ate quietly at a corner table—thick toast with honey, and a mug of tea that warmed him all the way through. No one stared at him here. The other patrons barely glanced in his direction. It was a new kind of silence. Not locked-in-the-cupboard silence. Just… peace.

Eris, coiled comfortably in a charmed linen pocket beneath his cloak, remained still and watchful. She disliked the noise of crowded places, but Harry had whispered promises to her of dark shelves and cool stone—of shops that smelled of earth and parchment, not perfume and polish.

By the time he stepped into Diagon Alley, the first golden lights were flickering on in shop windows. The morning was still young, and Harry had plans.

The bell above the door to Morley & Sons: Wizarding Optics Since 1462 gave a polite ting! as Harry stepped inside.

The shop was quiet, dimly lit, and smelled faintly of lavender glass polish and old ink. Lenses floated slowly in display cases, suspended by soft magical hums. A tall, elegant man in slate-grey robes looked up from behind a curved counter carved with runes.

“Ah,” he said, voice smooth as parchment turning. “First-year, by the look of you. May I help?”

Harry hesitated, then stepped forward. “I think… I need new glasses. Or maybe to fix my eyes. They’re not great.”

The man held out a hand, and Harry placed his battered Muggle spectacles into it. The man turned them delicately between long fingers. “These are… very muggle. And very crude. Beyond repair, I’m afraid.”

There was no cruelty in his tone—just certainty.

He studied Harry more closely, something sparking in his gaze. “But perhaps… we won’t need a replacement at all. May I?”

Harry nodded.

The man drew his wand and gestured, summoning a floating lens of faint gold light that hovered in front of Harry’s face. Runes shimmered along its curve. He adjusted a dial at its edge, watching as the runes flared brighter, then stabilized.

“Interesting,” he murmured. “High magical interference. Unusual for someone your age. Some innate, some inherited, I’d wager. A bloodline with deep reserves. The eyes are often the last to adapt, especially when raised in the muggle world.”

Harry didn’t know what to say, so he stayed quiet.

“I’d recommend a Refractive Charm realignment,” the man continued, almost to himself. “A permanent correction, using runic stabilization and a touch of memory-laced scrying to maintain clarity through magical strain. No lenses needed.”

Harry blinked. “It won’t hurt, will it?”

“Not in any meaningful way,” the man said, with the faintest smile. “Some warmth. A shift behind the eyes. Like remembering something you’d forgotten.”

Harry sat in the reclining chair the man conjured with a flick, breathing deeply as the spellwork began. Warmth bloomed behind his eyes—first soft, then radiant, like sunlight through closed lids. The world blurred, then reassembled itself with astonishing sharpness. Detail returned in layers. Light changed. Edges refined.

It wasn’t like getting glasses.

It was like waking up.

The procedure took less than a minute.

When it was done, the man handed him a small black vial.

“Essence of star-thistle,” he said. “For the next day or two. Helps your magic stabilize the new pathways.”

Harry rose slowly, marveling at the clarity around him—how every wand box, sigil, and strand of runelight in the shop now seemed impossibly vivid. The world was no longer a smear of color and motion. It was defined.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

The man gave a slight bow. “Magic always seeks to return what was lost. You, I think, will discover many such returns.”

Harry stepped back into Diagon Alley, the battered glasses left behind on the counter like an old skin—shed, and no longer needed.

The apothecary sat nestled between two sagging brick buildings, its crooked sign swaying faintly above the door—Sliverthorn & Pimm: Alchemists & Suppliers Since 1321. The windowpanes were fogged with dust and condensation, obscuring the glint of glass jars and brass scales within. It looked half-forgotten, half-alive.

When Harry stepped inside, the air shifted around him like a veil being lifted—cool, fragrant, and heavy with age. The scent struck him first: dried peppermint, scorched bark, old parchment, and heavy herbal aromas. 

Bundles of herbs hung from the rafters like strange chandeliers: wolfsbane, monkshood, ghost nettle. Shelves rose around him in tight, teetering columns, each lined with mismatched jars and phials—some labeled in neat copperplate, others in spidery runes, and a few in languages Harry couldn’t name at all. Glittering salts, powdered pearl, twisted roots. Jars of suspended liquids the color of oil slicks and dying stars.

A thin, sharp-eyed witch behind the counter glanced up. “First-years to the left. Don’t touch the nightshade,” she said, already returning to her ledger.

Harry nodded, but didn’t move toward the student aisle immediately.

Instead, he wandered slowly.

It was supposed to just be a stop—one more errand on his list—but something in the air made his skin prickle. He passed rows of labeled bins and glass-fronted cabinets, drawn not to the neatly arranged first-year supplies, but to the deeper corners of the shop. The places with dimmer lighting and dustier jars. He paused before a shelf filled with things that shimmered or pulsed faintly in their containers.

Dragon bile, thick and dark green, sealed with wax.

Phoenix feather ash, like powdered fire, warm even through the glass.

Bottled starlight, faintly glowing, flickering in time with his heartbeat.

A narrow cabinet against the far wall bore a silver plaque:

 

PROPRIETARY USE – RESTRICTED

 

The ingredients within looked more like relics than supplies. Shaved basilisk horn. Distilled shadecap venom. A single, shriveled sprig of sleeping thorn sealed behind crystal.

Harry didn’t know what any of it did, not really. He felt something tighten low in his chest—a pull. Not fear, not even excitement. Hunger.

Eventually, he found the student section and gathered the standard items: pewter cauldron, brass scales, stirring rod, flasks. Bundled pouches of asphodel and wormwood. Bezoars sealed in wax-paper wrap. But his hands lingered on other things too.

 

Moonflower petals, delicate and pale as frost.

A vial of preserved belladonna root, ink-dark and knotted like bone.

A tiny tin labeled: Mandrake Dust – Sleep-Filtered.

 

And three books he hadn’t meant to pick up but couldn’t put down:

 

The Mind Beneath the Cauldron: A Treatise on Subtle Intuition in Brewing

Nuances in Timing and Techniques: How To Perfect Your Potions

Ingredients and Properties: A Detailed Reference Guide

 

When he finally brought everything to the counter, the witch didn’t question the extras. She barely glanced at the stack before holding her hand in reply to Harry’s coin offer. The total shimmered in the air briefly, then vanished.

She packed the items with precise, silent movements, sliding each jar and book into padded compartments of a charmed satchel.

“Keep the mandrake sealed till Solstice,” she said, without looking up.

“I will,” Harry answered, though he wasn’t sure how she’d known he’d grabbed it. He wondered when Solstice was and hoped he’d find the answer within the books he bought yesterday. 

As he stepped back into the afternoon air, the light of Diagon Alley felt sharper, and more bright. The cobbled street started to fill with witches and wizards as the day drew longer. Colorful robes of various fabric and pointy hats littered the shops that hummed with magic. Wandering down the sun-filled alley, he found a stationary shop that he had meant to visit yesterday. 

WORTHINGTON & WELLS: Stationers to the Scholarly & Arcane

Its front window was a mosaic of colored glass, behind which dozens of enchanted quills scribbled constantly on floating scrolls, looping letters in every imaginable script. The door opened with a sound like turning pages.

Inside, it smelled of paper—real paper, the old kind, thick with rag fiber and magic. The air was warm, dry, and faintly scented with cedar and ink. Narrow shelves lined the walls, stacked with rolls of parchment in every hue and finish: standard cream, storm-grey vellum, dragonhide-bound scrolls for spellwork under pressure.

An elderly wizard behind the counter gave Harry a brief, appraising glance over his spectacles.

“First-year, are you? Hogwarts?”

Harry nodded and slightly smiled.

The man gestured grandly to a cluster of wooden racks. “Then you’ll want the Standard Academic Set, but you’re welcome to explore—our inventory favors the curious.”

Harry wandered, fingers trailing lightly over parchment that shimmered faintly under his touch. Some pages were lightly enchanted to stay crisp in any weather. Others, he noticed, reacted subtly to his presence—changing color or warmth depending on how long his fingers lingered. He selected a ream of high-quality script parchment, one set charmed to reorder written thoughts into neater paragraphs, and another finer stack meant for spell theory and arithmancy, though he wouldn’t study those just yet. He also gathered a few scrolls of standard parchment—the kind that come with the standard set, since he wasn't sure how much space the homework load and note-taking would take up.

Past that, he found the inks.

Shelves of inkpots stood in regimented rows, gleaming like gemstones. Labeled in gold-embossed script:

 

Midnight Raven – rich black with a silver shimmer.

Ashbark Brown – favored for notes requiring discretion.

Verdant Seer – a shifting green ink that reflected mood or magical intention.

Tempest Blue – reserved for weather-based charms and storm journalers.

He picked three inkpots of Midnight Raven and a deep violet ink called Starling’s Wing, which was said to dry near-invisible unless viewed under candlelight or moonlight.

Next came quills.

The standard school quill was reliable, but Harry found himself drawn to the more unique options: quills made from hippocampus mane, raven feather, and one very fine one bound in silver wire—a Quicknote Quill that took dictation if you whispered to it. He chose a simple but well-balanced writing quill of raven feather for everyday use. Though Harry desperately wanted to indulge in the Quicknote Quill, he decided against it.

At the last shelf, he found notebooks—some blank, some ruled, some bound in soft bark or stitched with copper thread. He selected two plain leather-bound journals in a cool black and a plum violet—one for homework, and one he wasn’t sure about yet. It just felt like something he might need.

As he returned to the counter, the clerk eyed his selections with quiet approval and began wrapping them in neat brown paper, securing the bundle with a self-tying ribbon.

“Good choices,” the man said, slipping in a complimentary blotting cloth. “The right tools make all the difference in what kind of wizard you become.”

Harry carried the package carefully, resisting the urge to unwrap it right there in the street. There was something about the weight of it, the promise of blank parchment and ink not yet spilled, that filled him with a quiet, pulsing excitement. Harry didn't know what to expect of Hogwarts, but in a place where he could be himself and practice magic? It must be as wonderful as it seems.

Back in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, Harry unpacked his bags slowly, placing his new supplies on the nightstand and setting the extra ingredients in a drawer lined with soft parchment.

Eris slithered from Harry’s neck—her new favorite spot, and coiled on the desk, her tongue flicking lazily.

“You see clearer now,” she hissed, low and approving. 

“I think so,” Harry whispered, sitting beside her. And Harry knew that she meant more than just sharper eyesight.

With the hour nearing 3 PM, Harry decided to write a list of the supplies he’s bought and ensure he doesn’t forget to purchase anything. Harry sat hunched over a sheet of crisp standard parchment, the new raven-feather quill balanced carefully in his hand. The ink—Midnight Raven—flowed smoothly as he wrote, dark and sharp against the pale page.

He had never made a real list before—not like this. Not with supplies he was actually excited to get.

At the top, in bold letters, he wrote:

 

Uniform:

Three Sets of Plain Work Robes (Black)

One Plain Pointed Hat (Black) for day wear

One Pair of Protective Gloves (dragon hide or similar)

One Winter Cloak (Black, silver fastenings)

 

Books:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 by Miranda Goshawk

A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling

A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble

 

Other Equipment:

1 Wand

1 Trunk

1 Satchel

1 Cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)

1 Set of glass or crystal vials

1 Telescope

1 set of brass scales

1 basic potions ingredients kit

Parchment

Quills

Inks

 

Setting the quill aside, Harry sat back and looked at the list. His scratchy handwriting has never been perfect or pleasant to look at, but with a quill, it was beautiful—soft flowing lines and loops, even spacing and pressure, and delicate strokes. 

For once, things felt ordered. Where do I find a telescope? Harry pondered. He was glad that he only had one item left to buy, Diagon Alley is quickly drawing out his energy. All of the attention—staring, whispering, pointing— is starting to make him wary.

He hadn’t realized how long he’d been up here, how much time had passed since he’d finished his list. The room was silent save for the distant murmur of voices drifting up through the floorboards, the clink of dishes, the creak of footsteps down in the tavern.

Harry set his parchment aside, quill rolling slightly across the polished mahogany desk. He stood and stretched, the ache in his shoulders reminding him that, wizard or not, he still had a very human appetite.

With a last glance at the parchment, he headed downstairs in search of something warm—and maybe sweet.

The Leaky Cauldron had settled into its quieter rhythm by late afternoon, the lunch crowd long gone, the dinner rush still a few hours away. Harry sat at a small wooden table near the hearth, its fire crackling low but warm, casting dancing shadows along the soot-streaked walls.

A squat wizard in faded robes shuffled past with a tray, nodding politely. Harry’s own plate was simple but satisfying: a thick slice of roast beef, soft rolls still warm from the oven, a heap of buttered potatoes glistening beside a pool of gravy. Steam curled from his mug of spiced pumpkin cider, and the scent alone made him forget the strange, weightless ache of the day. He ate slowly, quietly. Every bite seemed to anchor him more in this strange new world—this place where magic breathed through the floorboards. 

At a nearby table, an elderly witch scribbled on a roll of parchment with a floating quill, and two goblins argued in low voices over a map. Although many stared, no one bothered him. No one called his name. For once, the silence felt companionable.

Harry finished his meal, wiping his hands on a linen napkin, and leaned back in his chair. He watched the fire flicker, belly full and mind buzzing. 

Harry climbed the stairs of the Leaky Cauldron slowly, the faded runner soft beneath his feet, a day’s worth of memories clinging to his shoulders like fog. The hallway was dim and warm, lined with crooked portraits that watched him with idle curiosity as he passed. When he reached his room, he slipped the key into the brass lock and stepped inside, greeted by the familiar creak of the floorboards and the faint scent of lavender polish and old wood.

He shut the door behind him with a soft click, sealing out the world. It was quiet up here, save for the occasional rumble of firewood settling in the hearth. A floating lantern cast soft amber light across the room, catching on the blackened edges of his trunk, the spines of his new books, the gently smoldering embers in the fireplace. Everything felt suspended in time.

Harry crossed the room, dropped his key into his satchel beside the bed, and sat at the desk. He wasn’t tired—not really. If anything, his mind buzzed, restless with questions and a strange, deep pull toward something he couldn’t name.

He drew out a few books from the stack he’d bought earlier: An Introduction to Wizarding Britain, The Common Tongue: Magical Culture and Heritage, and a thinner, older-looking volume with a midnight blue cover embossed with a rune circle—Seasons of Spell and Flame: Sacred Magic in the Wheel of the Year.

The title alone had intrigued him.

He lit the squat candle from the previous night, the flame blooming to life with a soft whoosh and flickering in a curious blue. The scent of beeswax and old vellum filled the air. Pulling out a fresh piece of thick parchment, Harry uncapped his bottle of ink, dipped his quill, and began to read and take notes.

An Introduction to Wizarding Britain laid out the practical things—how wizarding homes were constructed around ley lines and protected by centuries-old wards, how magical contracts were enforced not just by law but by spellbound truth. It described enchanted hearths, ancestral magic woven into family names, and how even the architecture of old magical towns had been shaped by rune-craft and geomantic currents. Wizards, the book explained, had not just lived apart from muggles—they had lived within their own magical ecosystems, guided by forces far older than any government. There was a chapter that mentioned muggleborns, halfbloods, and purebloods. 

Purebloods, he’d learned, were not just families that happened to have long magical lineages. There were codes. Expectations. A system of conduct as tightly wound as any spell.

Etiquette was woven into their daily lives—not as politeness, but as power. Seating order at gatherings mattered. So did the cut of one’s robe, the way one greeted another, the precise moment one chose to speak in public. Addressing an elder pureblood incorrectly could be interpreted as a challenge—or a disgrace.

There were rules for wand placement at formal dinners (wands left uncovered and facing outward indicated readiness for magical debate), enchantments worked into crest rings that responded only to bloodlines, and even traditional gestures of mourning and honor cast not in tears, but in firelight, salt, and silence.

Harry paused to write in his notes: 

Pureblood etiquette = magic encoded into behavior. Power moves through tradition.

He turned the page, and his eyes landed on the heading:

The Wizengamot: Blood, Law, and Legacy.

The passage began by explaining that the Wizengamot—the highest magical court in Britain—was not just a governing body, but an ancient council of magical peers, founded in the early Middle Ages. Its roots were sacred, not merely legal: the earliest members were high wizards, oath-sworn during solstice rites and bound by blood and name to protect the magical world from corruption.

Membership, Harry read, was still dominated by pureblood families, though technically merit and magical distinction could grant a seat. But lineage mattered. He underlined that with a tight stroke of his quill.

Most seats were inherited, passed down like vault keys or ancestral wands. Some families had held positions for centuries. And with the seats came influence—not just over law, but over magical culture itself. They shaped education, magical trade agreements, the classification of magical creatures, the enforcement of ancient contracts.

He turned another page and found a section describing Blood Rites: ceremonial spells that marked a witch or wizard as heir to a magical line, allowing them to access certain wards, vote in the Wizengamot if their family had a seat, or claim magical artifacts bound to their ancestry.

Harry’s name wasn’t in the book. But something about the way it all felt—half familiar, half alien—made him wonder. What had the Potters been?

They’d clearly been respected. Known. Ancient. But this world, with its traditional customs and layered laws, suggested there was far more to his family than just a vault and a name. If the letter addressed to him in his vault wasn’t proof—he didn’t know what would be.

He sat back for a moment, eyes drifting to the soft glow of the lantern. The book rested open on the desk, a map of another world etched in ink and parchment. A world of ceremony, power, and bloodlines. A world he was walking into, untrained, unnoticed—but not unarmed.

Harry dipped his quill again and wrote in bold strokes:

Learn the rules. Learn the lines. Then decide what to do with them.

And beneath that, almost as an afterthought:

Magic is not just spells. It’s structure. It’s history. It’s who remembers your name.

He looked down at his notes, at the pile of books beside him—some old, some new, all full of knowledge he hadn’t even known he needed.

One book explained common things that had been left unspoken in the rush of shopping and stares: how most wizarding families used enchanted tools for daily tasks, how homes were often protected by ancestral wards. It described Floo networks, apparition and owl posts, magical contracts and birth rituals, even how names were often chosen based on family spellwork or astrological signs.

Harry jotted that down, underlining the phrase ancestral magic. There was something about that—something old and sacred—that stirred in him. A feeling not unlike standing before the vault at Gringotts or seeing his family heirlooms for the first time. Like the world was bigger and older than anyone ever said.

Another tome: The Common Tongue—was more lyrical, more reflective. It spoke of magic as inheritance—not just in blood, but in story, in memory, in ritual. There were entire chapters on magical storytelling traditions, on the sacred role of names, and how the spoken word—when shaped with intent—was the root of the oldest spells. Language itself was magic, shaped by breath and will and emotion.

Harry paused to write: Speech is spell. Memory is power.

Finally, he opened Seasons of Spell and Flame. This was the one he’d been saving.

The pages were old but well-kept, the ink slightly raised, printed with an elegance that felt like it had been written to be spoken aloud. The book opened not with dates, but with philosophy: Magic moves in circles, not lines. It deepens. It returns.

It described the Wheel of the Year—an ancient magical calendar that predated the Ministry, predating even Hogwarts. The year turned not with months, but with eight sacred points: solstices, equinoxes, and the cross-quarter festivals between. These were not merely holidays, but intersections—moments where the veil between worlds, between self and spell, became thin.

Samhain, Harry read, was the death of the year. It was when the veil between the living and the dead dissolved, and the world grew still to listen. Witches and wizards honored their ancestors not with grief, but with fire, with offerings of wine and salt and smoke. Protective circles were drawn in ash and silver. Spells of remembrance were cast using bone and braided thread, and dream-magic was said to be strongest in this liminal time.

It was, the book explained, a festival of sacred darkness. A time not of evil, but of deep magic, shadowed magic, the kind that lived in the bones and the earth and the spaces between. It was here that Harry paused again. His parents flickered in his mind—not just as figures he had lost, but as something he could reach for. If this magic was real… maybe there was a way to feel closer. To speak into the silence and be heard.

He copied the sigil for Samhain onto the corner of his parchment: a circle bisected with a vertical line, stars in each quadrant, flame at the center.

Next came Yule. The longest night of the year, and the rebirth of light. It was a sacred time of quiet strength. Wizards would gather around fires—not for celebration, but for endurance, for storytelling, for passing down the names of their people. There were spells woven into the hearth itself—wards against illness, despair, misfortune. Food was enchanted to carry warmth through the winter. Charms were sung, not spoken, their power held in repetition and breath.

Yule was not flashy magic. It was deep-rooted, firelit, sacred in the old way. Harry imagined sitting in a room like that, wrapped in warmth and stories, knowing he belonged there.

He flipped through the pages, each festival revealing a new piece of the magical year—Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh—each connected to the land, to light, to death and growth and rebirth.

When Harry finally looked up, the candle had burned low, and the light from the lantern had softened to a dreamy haze. His parchment was filled with notes—sigils, runes, diagrams, phrases in old languages, and questions scrawled in the margins. It felt less like studying and more like uncovering something buried, something sacred and waiting.

He leaned back in his chair, letting the silence settle.

For the first time, magic didn’t feel like something outside of him—something in wands and books and shops. It felt old. Intimate. Like he had stepped into a river that had been flowing long before he was born and would flow long after he was gone.

And now, for the first time, he was learning to swim in it.

Harry closed the book softly and blew out the candle. As the smoke curled upward, he thought of Samhain flames, of shadow and fire, of memory and belonging.

In this world of sacred things, maybe there was a place for him after all.

Settling into the warm bed, Harry could hardly contain his excitement that comes with the next day.

His inheritance test.

Chapter 3: Sage & Arts

Harry woke before the sun.

The sky outside his window was still a dark indigo, the world hushed and holding its breath. Diagon Alley slept, but Harry didn't.

He lay in bed beneath unfamiliar, scratchy sheets, his hands tucked beneath his head, eyes fixed on the wooden beams above. His heart was already beating fast —not in fear, exactly, but in that strange way it did before something big. before something important.

The inheritance test.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. His mind has circled it all night, even in sleep —dreams folding in on themselves like scrolls, inked with names he didn't recognize. Magic pulsed at the edges of his thoughts, and even now, in the stillness of his room at the Leaky Cauldron, he could feel it —like the air itself was waiting.

What would the test say? Would he learn something new about his parents? About who he was? Would it change anything? Would it change  everything?

Eris stirred beneath his collar, the tiny serpent flicker her tongue sleepily against his neck. Even she seemed to sense it —the weight of the day ahead.

Harry sat up slowly, wrapping his arms around his knee, gaze distant.

Some part of him knew: after today, the world wouldn't see him the same.

And maybe... he wouldn't either.

 

The goblin said nothing as he led Harry deeper into Gringotts.

At first, Harry thought he’d simply be taken to another vault. But soon the familiar metal tracks and rattling carts were left behind. The air grew colder. The light dimmed. Even the stone changed — from smooth, well-kept tunnels to older, darker corridors where the magic didn’t feel quite tame.

The silence wrapped around him like a cloak.

Harry walked with his hands deep in the pockets of his robes, fingers brushing the smooth scales of Eris, the tiny black snake curled around his wrist beneath the sleeve. She was sleeping, but he could feel the warmth of her magic, quiet and coiled like his own. Her presence helped.

He didn’t know why he was nervous. Or—no, he did. He just didn’t want to admit it.

This test… it felt important in a way he couldn’t name. Not like buying books or robes or even a wand. This was bigger. Important.

Something in him had known that the moment the schedule notice parchment arrived. It had hummed against his fingertips, cold and silver-edged. Not a request. A call.

Now, deep underground, past the vaults and dragons and gold, Harry stood at the threshold of a chamber carved into the living stone of the earth.

The goblin leading him stopped at the entrance. “You will go in alone. The Keeper will explain.”

Harry hesitated. Then nodded. He stepped through.

The doors closed behind him without a sound.

The room was circular and domed, lit by flickering orbs of white flame that hovered high above. The walls were carved with runes — odd ones. Not like the writing in his textbooks. These felt alive. The letters shifted when he wasn’t looking at them directly, as though they breathed.

In the center stood a low platform of black stone. Upon it sat a goblin with pale silver eyes, robes crimson and dark, adorned with a torque of heavy iron around his throat. Before him was a basin made of obsidian, carved with deep runes and inlaid with gold.

“Approach,” the goblin said, his voice echoing unnaturally. “You are the boy known as Harry Potter.”

Harry nodded, stepping carefully across the carved floor. “Yes, sir.”

The goblin’s gaze was sharp. “You may call me Magthrall. I am the Keeper of Blood and Lineage. You have been summoned here to undertake a ritual of inheritance. This test predates the founding of Gringotts. It predates even Hogwarts. Do you understand what that means?”

Harry shook his head slowly.

Magthrall’s eyes glittered. “It means the magic you are about to touch is older than nations. It does not lie. It does not bend. And it remembers.”

Harry swallowed. The air was thick — not in a physical way, but like the weight of something unseen pressing down. A hum beneath his feet. A pulse. The room was watching him.

“You will provide three drops of blood,” Magthrall continued. “The basin will read your lineage, true name, magical legacy, and any active heirships or oaths. What is revealed cannot be altered. What is hidden will come to light.”

Harry stared at the basin. The stone shimmered faintly. Something inside it stirred.

He stepped forward and took the offered ritual blade. It was not sharp metal — it was obsidian, and it was warm.

That frightened him.

Still, he pressed the point to his thumb and made a small cut. Blood welled. He held his hand over the basin, and let three drops fall.

The effect was immediate.

The flames in the chamber dimmed to embers.

The runes on the walls blazed gold.

The stone beneath his feet thrummed like a heartbeat — not his, but the room’s. Something old and buried and impossibly vast uncurled from slumber.

Harry froze, breath catching in his throat. He felt everything — the walls, the floor, the magic in the air. Not just felt — he was inside it, part of it. The way one drop of water feels the entire ocean.

The basin flared gold. Runes swirled upward, dancing and twisting into shape above the black stone. They formed words — not printed, but carved into the air.

 

Name of Magic: Hadrian James Potter

Blood Status: Trueborn of Ancient and Noble Lines

Born: July 31st, 1980

Mother: Lily Rose Potter (née Evans)

Father: James Charlus Potter

Magical Guardian: Lord Severus Tobias Prince Snape (Godfather — Bound Oath, inactive)

 

Harry’s mouth went dry.

Hadrian?

That wasn’t his name. Or—it was. The magic said it was.

He said it aloud, just barely. “Hadrian…”

The name felt heavy in his mouth. Older. Like a bell that had not rung in a long time.

He was silent for a long moment.

“Why… why would no one tell me?” he asked quietly.

Magthrall tilted his head. “Names hold power. Especially true names. Some hide them. Others steal them.”

The goblin’s gaze narrowed. “Someone has gone to great effort to keep yours buried.”

“Who would want to keep my name hidden? Is it special?” Harry looked back at the glowing letters. “And Snape… who is he?”

“Your godfather,” Magthrall said. “He took a magical oath when you were born. Legally and magically, he was meant to raise and protect you after your parents’ deaths.”

Harry’s fingers trembled. “But he didn’t.”

“No,” Magthrall said softly. “He did not. But the bond is not active, which infers that it has been corrupted or meddled with. Perhaps he did not have the ability to raise you.” 

And though Harry— Hadrian, could understand what the goblin was stating, he silently wondered why no one wanted to raise him. Maybe I really am just a freak. Even here.

While Hadrian brooded, the magic shifted again. New runes rose into the air.

 

Recognized Magical Heirships:

Heir of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter (Primary Heir — Bloodline and Magic)

Heir of the Most Noble House of Prince (Heir via Reserve — Godfather Bond)

Heir of the Most Ancient House of Peverell (By Blood and Artifact Resonance — Confirmed)

Heir of the Most Ancient House of Slytherin (By Conquest — Magical Submission Detected)

The runes burned brighter. A low hum began to rise — not a sound, exactly, but a feeling of recognition.

“By conquest?” Harry asked, voice quiet, awed.

Magthrall nodded. “You didn’t inherit Slytherin by blood. You claimed it by force. The old spells, tied to his line, yielded to your will. That is conquest.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“You woke up,” Magthrall said. “And magic remembered you.”

Harry didn’t respond. He didn’t know how. What does that even mean?

He could feel it now — the magic of the room not bowing to him, not submitting… but watching, measuring. Not because he was eleven. Not because he was a boy.

Because he was something old, too.

Or had been made old.

The goblin waved a clawed hand, and four small black boxes floated toward the dais. They opened one by one.

 

The Potter ring, gleaming gold, set with a garnet, engraved with a phoenix and a griffin intertwined.

The Prince ring, wine coloured, with curling script and the faint trace of cracks through the words: Excitare Tenebris.

The Peverell ring, pure black, carved with the symbol: triangle, circle, line — the Hallows.

The Slytherin ring, deep green, coiled with a black serpent whose eyes shimmered like emerald flame.

 

“They will resize when worn,” Magthrall said. “You need not take them now. You may hide their appearance at will, no matter the circumstance. But the moment you announce them, the wizarding world will see what you are.”

Harry looked down at them. Ancient things. Powerful. Each one holding a history he didn’t yet understand.

Harry yearned for his family magic, ones of ancient and noble origin. Something to physically tether him to his new reality. 

When Harry quietly voiced his decision—to wear all four heir rings, yet keep them unseen—the goblin merely inclined his head in a slow, deliberate motion. It wasn’t quite a bow, but something primordial. A gesture that belonged to high halls and forgotten thrones, not marble counters and vault keys. Respect, yes—but not for the boy. For the choice. For the magic that stirred behind his eyes.

“As you will it,” Magthrall murmured, his voice rough with age, “so shall it be.”

“May I get a copy of the results?” Harry spoke quietly. He hadn’t wanted to be annoying, Uncle Vernon always said Harry asked too many questions— What are my chores today? May I have lunch, Aunt Petunia? Do I have a name like Dudley, Uncle Vernon? Where are my parents?

“You will find it in your vault,” Magthrall said. “And the records have been sealed. Unless you speak them, no one else shall know.”

Harry nodded once, stiffly. He stepped back from the basin. The runes were fading now, slowly, as though sinking back into sleep.

But they remembered him. And he would not forget them.

As he left the chamber, his new name whispered behind him like a shadow.

Hadrian.

 

The marble floors of Gringotts gleamed cold beneath Harry’s boots as he stepped away from the rusty cart, taking a moment to clear his head from the dizziness of the journey.

It was quieter this early in the afternoon,—the ritual taking only half the hour—the wizarding crowds not yet at full bustle. The silence suited Harry. It let him think.

Eris shifted beneath his sleeve, her tiny body warming his wrist like a ribbon of coiled ink. She was alert now—curious. Harry could feel her magic pulsing gently, as though she sensed why they had come.

He approached the long front counter, where a lean goblin with an ink-stained claw sat scribbling furiously in a ledger. The goblin glanced up, sharp-eyed.

“Yes?”

Harry cleared his throat softly. “I’d like to speak with Griphook, please. He manages the Potter vaults.”

The goblin’s eyes flicked down to the boy’s almost metallic violet robes, to the smooth, fresh wand at his hip, and briefly—just briefly—to his face. Something shifted in the goblin’s expression. Recognition. Not just of a customer, but of a name.

“Name?”

“Harry Potter.”

A pause. Then, more softly: “Or… Hadrian, now.”

The goblin didn’t smile—but the curve of his brow said enough. Without a word, he stepped down from his perch and vanished behind a heavy iron door.

Harry waited.

The marble hall felt colder than before. Or maybe it was the thought of what he was about to do—speaking aloud the things that had only existed in magic and firelight until now.

A few minutes passed.

Then Griphook appeared.

The goblin’s face regarded Hadrian in silence for a long moment, his obsidian-cut eyes glimmering with curiosity but also with a sense of familiarity.

Then he nodded. “Come.”

They walked through a quieter corridor than the usual vault paths—one lined with black iron lanterns and low-burning flame, not carts and rails. Griphook led him to a private meeting chamber with a stone table and no chairs. Just a single rune-glass screen against the wall, flickering gently with faint golden light.

Griphook gestured to the table.

“Speak.”

Harry hesitated.

Then, quietly: “I had the inheritance test just now. With the Keeper.”

Griphook’s brow lifted. “You took the full ancient rite.”

Harry nodded.

“I see.”

There was a beat of silence, broken only by the flicker of rune-light.

Harry glanced at his hands. The rings were hidden—cloaked by instinct and blood-magic—but he could still feel them pressing gently against his skin. Waiting.

“I… I thought it was just going to be a bloodline check,” he said. “To confirm the Potter name. But it was more than that. The magic was… alive.”

Griphook tilted his head. “It always is, for those who carry the weight of forgotten names.”

Harry looked up. “I carry four.”

The words hung in the room, heavier than stone.

“Potter,” he said. “Prince, through my godfather, apparently. Peverell, through blood. And… Slytherin. By conquest.”

Griphook’s eyes sharpened.

“Conquest,” he echoed softly. “Not by oath. Not by artifact.”

Harry shook his head. “The Keeper said the magic yielded to me. That I didn’t inherit it—I claimed it.”

There was silence.

Then, slowly, Griphook stepped forward and placed a clawed hand on the stone table. Runes bloomed along its surface—cool silver patterns spiraling outward, forming an ancestral grid.

“And you believe this, young heir?”

Harry looked up at him, his voice quiet but certain. “I know it. The magic in the chamber knew me… It felt different than other magic, like the magic was inside me and now I feel like, I dont know… like I remembered something that I’ve forgotten and now I remember it.”

Griphook studied him for a long moment, then inclined his head—not low, but deeper than before. Genuine amusement in his eyes, now. 

“Then the vaults will answer to you accordingly. All four bloodlines. All four legacies.”

“I don’t need access to all of them right away,” Harry said quickly. “I just… I wanted you to know. I didn’t want to pretend. And after all your help and telling me this… test thingy even existed.”

Griphook let out a horrid and terrifying laugh. Hadrian would be lying if he said he hadn’t flinched. Just a little, though.

“It is of no worry,” Griphook replied, a reminisce of a smile lingered on his face. “There are eyes in the wizarding world who will not see what you are. Only what they hope you might become.”

At Hadrian’s confused look, the goblin began to explain. “A savior. As you conquered the Dark Lord when you were of infancy, many believe that you will end his reign once more.” Griphook’s lip curled in distaste. “Very many people fear he shall return. And though very less, some hope and pray that he will.”

Harry didn’t answer. But Eris stirred again at his wrist, pressing tighter against his pulse.

“Griphook… may I ask something strange?” Hadrian eyed the goblin warily, fearing the answer he may receive.

‘You may.” He responded in a tone that made Hadrian neither pleased or more settled, so he proceeded with caution.

“Why do wizards fear the Dark Lord?’

A pause. The silence in the room thickens slightly, but Griphook does not show indication of leaving his inquiry unanswered.

He thought for a moment, “because he remembered what they wanted to forget.”

“Like blood magic?” Harry asked curiously and hopefully.

Harry recalled that yesterday whilst reading upon wizarding culture, dark magic and many others aside from light or neutral magic were heavily prejudiced against. Accordingly, the Ministry has banned almost—if not all—material and practices of anything classified as Dark Arts. Blood and death magic. Ancient magic. Rituals and ceremonies. Magic that can cause extreme harm, but extreme healing as well.

It didn’t make much sense to Hadrian. I’ve seen many wizards and witches use common spells which could easily harm others. Like summoning a heavy object could knock someone out, or you know, like turning yourself into a tree then being turned into parchment! 

If you could do harm with light spells, can’t you do good with dark spells? There are rituals that can help a family have a baby, or heal a blood-relative, what’s so wrong with that?!

“Among other things. He spoke of traditions buried by time—Samhain, the wheel of the Year, rites of shadow and starlight. Things once sacred. Now called Dark.” Griphook continued.

“So… he wasn’t trying to destroy the world?”

“He wanted to change it. He wanted to return the wizarding race back to its glory and tradition. But change is often worse to those in power.

Hadrian studied him quietly, fingers curling at his side.

“Was he cruel?” Harry mumbled, not meeting Griphook’s eye. “I know he killed my parents, but were there others?”

“All great figures are cruel, to someone. But cruelty is not what made them fear him.’

“Then what did?”

“He questioned the shape of their world. Their laws. Their so-called, “safety.” He asked why creatures like myself and vampires are barred from wandwork and social decency. Why the Dark Arts are banned, rather than taught. Why certain bloodlines are kept sacred and others erased. And he acted on the answers.”

“And because of that… they called him a monster?”

“No. Because he refused to bow.”

A long silence. Then Hadrian speaks again, barely above a whisper. 

“Maybe they’ll call me that too.’

“They already will.” Griphook responded softly. “Best you choose what kind of monster you wish to be.”

After a pregnant silence, Griphook stepped back from the polished limestone table.

“I will update the vault records. Secure the access tiers. And seal your titles from public record unless released by your word or rite.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing,” Griphook said. “If you plan to wear the rings, you would do well to study the cloaking rites properly. Cloaked power is less vulnerable than veiled lies.”

Harry nodded slowly. “I’m not hiding them. I’m holding them back. For now.”

The goblin gave him one final, unreadable look.

“Then may the vaults serve you well… Heir Hadrian Potter.”

Notes:

I apologize for the shorter chapter tonight, it just felt like the appropriate time to end the chapter! I hope you enjoyed the inheritance ritual, I was very excited to write it.

Chapter 4: Prejudice & Preparation

It was raining when Hadrian stumbled into Knockturn Alley.

Not heavily — just a thin, needling drizzle that slipped between the cobblestones and clung to his hair. The main street of Diagon Alley was packed that afternoon, thick with parents and shouting children and Ministry owls darting overhead. Hadrian had slipped into a narrow gap between two apothecaries, following an alley that twisted like memory.

He did not realize he had passed the border until the air changed.

Knockturn Alley was colder.

The change was subtle at first. The air grew cooler, more still. The buildings narrowed. Shop signs lost their polish. But he didn’t turn back. Something pulled at him. Not with menace — with curiosity.

As if the magic here was whispering, We have your answers.

Eris stirred beneath his sleeve, but did not hiss.

The alley opened at last into a cramped square with crooked stone steps and an old black lantern swaying above a low door: Vorrin’s Relics & Restricted Tomes. The window was dusty, the glass warped with age. Behind it, books slept beneath chains of tarnished silver.

Hadrian stepped inside.

The scent hit him first — dust, vellum, and some notes that went unnoticed by others, but not Hadrian. The smell of spell-ink and old blood. A gangly clerk raised his head from behind a counter but didn’t speak. Just nodded once, slow and silent. His eyes trailed the boy, ridicule and suspicion in his eyes.

Hadrian walked the shelves.

The books hummed softly in his magic. Not malicious, not luring — simply present. Aware. Some were sealed, others open. All of them worn. As if they had passed through many hands, and been made heavier by the truths they carried. They weren’t tidy. Titles bled into each other: “The Wandless Path,” “On the Nature of Night-Magic,” “Cleansing the Blood: A Misunderstood Ritual Art,” “The Solstice Offerings.” The bindings were cracked and handwritten. Some were in runes he could only feel, not read.

He passed a shelf labeled: “Histories of the Forbidden Path.”

One book caught his eye. Its title was pressed in faded silver ink:

“The Hollow Crown: A Dark Lord and the Restoration of the Old Ways.”

He took it down with both hands.

It was thick. Heavy. When he opened the cover, a line was inked on the inside flap in curling script:

 

“This is not a defense. It is a remembrance.”

 

Hadrian sat down on the floor between the shelves, the book heavy across his knees, and began to read.

The pages were not angry. They were quiet. Almost reverent.

 

Lord Voldemort was not born to Darkness. He was born to silence. A child of both worlds, raised in neither.

When he came to Hogwarts, he was the first in a generation to walk the ancestral halls with the blood of a forgotten line pulsing in his veins — and eyes sharp enough to see the decay in the stone.

 

Hadrian frowned. The page turned itself.

 

He watched a world asleep in its own shame. Sacred rites mocked. Seasonal festivals abandoned. Students taught only to obey, never to understand. The Dark Arts were reduced to a warning. Not studied. Not respected.

The Ministry had reshaped wizarding society to mimic the Muggle one. Christmas instead of Yule. Easter over Ostara. Samhain reduced to costumes and sweets.

Voldemort remembered what they’d tried to erase.

 

Hadrian paused. The room was utterly still.

He turned the next page.

 

He sought balance. Not dominion.

His vision was to restore the full Wheel of the Year — to reintroduce sacred days, elemental rites, ancestral offerings, and the honoring of spirits.

He spoke in the old tongues. He practiced the High Arts — rituals of dream-walking, shadow-binding, and mirror magic.

He founded the Circle of the Hollow — a private society of students and magical theorists who met in the forest and ruins to study magic as it had once been.

He wrote of wandless spellcraft, will-bound magic, runic resonance, ancestral communion.

 

He was branded a heretic. Then a monster.

 

Hadrian’s throat was dry.

This was not the Voldemort he had heard whispered about in Madam Malkin’s. Not the raving murderer Tom—the barkeep—had only muttered about once.

This man had studied the very magic Hadrian felt waking in his bones.

Further in the book were short chapters outlining Voldemort’s beliefs, recorded from banned lectures and captured journals. Some excerpts were marked as sealed Ministry transcripts.

 

“The Dark Arts are not inherently corrupt. They are intimate. Wild. Meant for hands that bleed and bones that break. To label such forces evil is not wisdom. It is cowardice.”

“A creature’s magic reflects its survival. Deny a werewolf the right to learn, and you forge a monster. Grant him magic, and you may meet a healer.”

“The magic of the Light is structured. Clean. But it is only half the sky.”

“I do not want dominion. I want restoration. Our world is not dying. It is starving.”

 

Hadrian closed the book only when the candle in the corner guttered low, marking the turn of an hour.

He stood, cradling the tome.

At the counter, the clerk looked up and said nothing. But when Hadrian placed the book down, the man tapped it once with a pale, thin finger, then met his eyes.

“A quiet reader,” he said, voice rough like carved stone. “The book likes you.”

“I think I was meant to find it,” Hadrian said quietly.

The man nodded. “Dark does not mean evil. But it does mean truth. Be ready for what follows.”

Outside, Knockturn Alley hadn’t changed.

But Hadrian had.

He tucked the book under his arm, pulled his hood up, and stepped back into the rain. Eris stirred softly, her voice hissing softly at his throat: Now you begin to see.

 

Sealed tightly in room eleven, far from the split world, Hadrian read.

 

It is a common lie that Dark magic was always feared.

Before the rise of the Ministry, before the Muggleborn Assimilation Laws of 1852, it was tradition. Celebrated, practiced openly, passed from parent to child.

Samhain, Midwinter, the Equinoxes. These were not feared days. They were thresholds — times when the veil thinned and the magic grew near. Offerings were left, fires lit, blood spilled not in cruelty but in pact.

 

It was not evil. It was balance.

But balance frightened those who came without roots.

 

Hadrian blinked, heart thudding faintly.

The next page showed a sketch of a traditional altar — stones marked with lunar runes, offerings of ash, bone, and grain. Beneath it, a quote:

 

“What is Light, if not the half of something whole?” — from the private journals of T.M. Riddle.

 

Hadrian agreed. And he kept reading, page after page.

 

With the rise of Muggleborn admission, the Wizarding government began restructuring the school calendar and cultural framework to match Muggle norms. Yule became Christmas. Beltane was struck entirely. Samhain was reduced to pumpkin decorations.

The goal, officials claimed, was safety. Comfort.

The unspoken truth: assimilation.

 

Hadrian swallowed.

It wasn’t bitter. It wasn’t angry. Just quiet. Sad.

 

And then came Voldemort. A boy raised outside magic, who returned and remembered what had been lost. He did not wish to kill tradition. He wished to revive it. His mistake was not cruelty — it was refusal. He refused to forget. Refused to bow to the new world. He remembered the old, and it remembered him in turn.

 

The final paragraph was underlined in faded red ink.

 

To speak of these things today is considered dangerous. But in the corners of the world where wards still burn with bone-fire and runes are scratched into stone, magic waits. Not evil. Not pure. Just old. Too old to care what name the Ministry gave it.

 

Inside his room, the candlelight flickered against the low ceiling, casting shadows that danced like memories. He sat on the bed, the book unopened now, resting in his lap like a sleeping dragon.

He didn’t want to read anymore.

He just wanted to think.

The Dark Arts are not evil. They are intimate.

That sentence echoed in his head like a bell tolling underwater. The more he rolled it over in his mind, the more it made sense.

Hadrian didn’t believe that magic was good or bad. He could feel it now — not just in books or wands, but in the air, in stone, in breath. Magic wasn’t cruel. It simply was. Like fire. Like storms. Like time.

And yet… the wizarding world had drawn lines.

Light magic was safe, gentle, Ministry-approved. It healed, shielded, obeyed.

Dark magic was wild. Personal. Powerful. And so they feared it.

He thought of the shelves in Flourish and Blotts — how so many books were edited, redacted, missing. He remembered the way witches in Diagon Alley whispered about Knockturn like it was cursed.

He remembered how the clerk had said, “Dark does not mean evil. But it does mean truth.”

Hadrian believed that.

He believed all magic should be studied — not locked away. But not to hurt. Not to dominate. Just to understand. To know.

But then, the question that had been rising in his chest all day finally broke the surface. Softly, aloud, to the empty room, Hadrian asked:

“Then why did Voldemort start killing people?”

The words hung in the air like smoke. He stared at the book in his lap.

“If he wanted to restore old ways… if he just wanted the magical world to remember its roots…”

His voice caught.

“Why did he torture Muggles? Why kill my parents?”

He didn’t want to cry. But it pressed at his throat like rising water.

Was it all a lie?

Was it power, in the end? Not truth?

Maybe he had begun with noble things. Traditions. Rights. Balance. But Hadrian had seen the scars Voldemort had left behind in people’s eyes. The fear. The deaths. The silence.

There was no answer waiting in the candlelight. Only the soft sound of Eris stirring on the windowsill.

She slithered closer, sensing his quiet distress, and coiled around his wrist. Her voice was soft in his mind, like silk dragged across old parchment.

“The world feared him because he saw too much. But seeing is not the same as saving, little master.”

Hadrian swallowed. “So he fell.”

“Or was broken.”

He didn’t know which was worse.

He leaned back against the headboard, pulling the book close to his chest now — not to read, but to feel. The weight of knowledge. The ache of half-truths. The silence where answers should be.

That night, he didn’t sleep easily. He dreamed of a boy with dark eyes, walking alone through endless halls of stone. Behind him, torches flickered with green fire. Around him, books whispered. Above him, the sky cracked open with runes.

Ahead of him… a door.

Hadrian woke before he reached it.

 

The alleys blurred together over the next few days.

Hadrian wandered them in silence — drifting through the wide arcades of Diagon Alley in the early morning, slipping down the hush-shadowed corners of Knockturn in the rain. The city of wizards had begun to feel more like a labyrinth than a street. Every stone was older than it looked. Every whisper curled with things unsaid.

He wasn’t sure what he was searching for. Maybe a sign. Maybe understanding.

Mostly… he just walked.

He passed by the familiar shops again and again — Ollivanders, Madam Malkin’s, the apothecary — watching the world through a different lens now. He caught glances he hadn’t noticed before: a witch flinching at the word “ritual,” a boy getting scolded for asking about wandless magic, a shopkeeper snapping shut a book titled Wards of the Firstblooded when Hadrian walked by.

Fear, he realized. Not of violence.

Of knowledge.

Hadrian slipped back into Knockturn Alley more often now, not out of rebellion — but because no one there looked at him like he was dangerous for asking questions.

He returned to Vorrin’s, the shop of forbidden tomes, and read in quiet corners for hours. Books on ritual circles, shadow-binding, ancestral spellwork. He didn’t take any more home. He just read. And remembered.

And thought.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing from the story he had always been told. That Voldemort had started not as a murderer, but as a man who wanted the world to remember what it had forgotten.

So how had he become this name of terror? What went wrong?

Hadrian sat once on the edge of a blackened stone fountain in Knockturn — broken, bone-dry, and carved with runes he almost recognized now. He pulled his knees close and stared into the empty basin for a long time.

His thoughts spun like smoke.

“He spoke in the old tongues. He remembered balance. He wrote of rights and ritual and restoring the Wheel of the Year.”

How did that man become the monster who killed his parents?

Why did he kill them at all?

Why them?

Why him?

 

The confusion grew heavier in his chest the longer he sat with it. There was no one to ask. The Ministry would lie. The books all stopped at the same place — Voldemort vanished. The Boy Who Lived survived. Full stop. No explanation.

The logic didn’t hold. Voldemort was brilliant. Focused. Precise.

So why spare an infant? Why not finish the job? And why target Lily and James Potter in the first place?

Hadrian’s fingers curled at his sides. The chill of the stone beneath him sank into his skin.

He thought of his mother — Lily Rose Potter, the name from the ritual — and her laugh in a memory he didn’t quite have. Of James Charlus Potter, who wore the Potter name before him. Of a house. A wand. Firelight.

And of a green flash that he only felt in his nightmares.

There was more. There had to be.

 

Later that evening, he sat in the Leaky Cauldron’s upper room, candlelight flickering against the windows, the sky outside heavy with cloud. The book from Vorrin’s sat open again beside him, turned to a page titled:

“On the Corruption of Vision: The First Wizarding War.”

He read the line three times:

“What began as restoration, in time, turned to fear. The more Voldemort was hunted, the more he became what they feared. He turned to weapons when the doors of diplomacy closed. What does a god become when starved of worship? What does a leader become when told he must be a villain?”

Hadrian stared at the page.

“Maybe he was a monster in the end,” he said aloud, voice barely above a whisper. “But they made him one, too.”

There was no comfort in that. No clarity. Just an ache, deep and quiet, beneath his ribs.

Because if the world could make a fine leader into Voldemort…

…what would it make of him?

 

That night, Hadrian dreamed again.

He stood on a cliff overlooking a forest of dead trees. The stars above spun in a perfect wheel. Behind him, a voice whispered in a tongue older than fire. Ahead, a door opened in the stone — carved with the Peverell crest.

He stepped forward, and the wind said:

“Choose not to forget.”

 

The question wouldn’t leave him.

No matter how many books he read, how many hours he spent walking the uneven streets of Diagon or slipping into the gloom of Knockturn, it followed him like a shadow with no caster.

Severus Snape.

His godfather.

The parchment from Gringotts had said it plainly. No mistake. No strange formality. Just a fact buried beneath layers of vaults and blood magic.

But that was the problem.

It was a fact he had never known.

 

Hadrian sat by the window in his room at the Leaky Cauldron, knees drawn to his chest, chin resting on his arms. Eris lay curled around his ankle, still and silent as stone.

He was watching the sky again — not for answers, just because it was the only thing in the magical world that didn’t seem to expect something from him.

Severus Snape is your godfather.

The words had rolled around in his mind for days now, like a pebble in his shoe — not sharp enough to wound, just never letting him walk straight.

Why? Why had no one told him? Why hadn’t he come? Why did he not want me?

 

He turned the name over slowly in his mind. Severus. It sounded strange. Formal. Not the kind of name people shouted across fields. Not soft, either. It felt like it had sharp edges, like it could cut paper — or silence.

And Snape. That one sounded familiar. Maybe someone had said it, once. A word half-heard in a crowded room. But there had never been a face. No photographs. No letters. Not a single visit.

So why claim to be a godfather at all?

What had gone wrong?

 

Hadrian lowered his head into his arms.

“He didn’t raise me,” he whispered, just to hear it out loud. “He didn’t come.”

He tried to feel angry. He wanted to, maybe. But the feeling didn’t come. There was no space for anger — not yet. There was too much else. Confusion. Emptiness. That aching, half-formed sense of something missing.

If Severus had been close enough to his parents to be named godfather… where was he when the world ended?

Why hadn’t he taken me in?

Why a cupboard? Why the Dursleys?

Hadrian thought of what The Keeper had said when the name first appeared on the parchment. “Some bonds are more complicated than they appear.”

What could that mean?

 

He imagined Severus as a faceless figure in a long robe, standing just outside the firelight of some memory too distant to hold. Watching. Never speaking. Never stepping forward. Maybe he had hated his parents. Maybe he was forbidden. Maybe he had chosen to stay away. Or maybe he was ashamed.

Hadrian didn’t know what was worse — that Severus hadn’t come, or that he might have had reasons not to.

 

Eris uncoiled and slithered gently up to his sleeve. Her cool scales brushed his wrist.

“The ones who walk away often have burned bridges behind them,” she whispered in the old tongue, barely louder than breath.

Hadrian didn’t answer. Just nodded. He would find out. One day.

He would look Severus Snape in the eye and ask, not with fury, but with truth:

Why didn’t you come for me?

 

The room at the Leaky Cauldron smelled faintly of burnt wax and dust, the lingering trace of spell-cleaning charms and old books. The last rays of evening sun filtered through the warped glass, casting amber lines across the floor where Hadrian’s trunk sat open, half-packed.

He knelt beside it in silence, sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark green robes brushing the floor.

Everything had its place.

 

His school robes were already folded with precision, stacked by color and trim — everyday wear, class robes, and the finer ones for special occasions. In another compartment lay his new, fine clothing, not an over-sized, hand-me-down in sight. His cauldron had been carefully shrunk and tucked into a padded pocket, next to his potions ingredients, sealed in neat, labelled pouches: belladonna, powdered root of asphodel, shrivelfig bark.

Books were wrapped in soft cloths to protect the spines. The Standard Book of Spells had been read three times, with color-coded tabs slipped between the pages and tidy notes tucked inside — wand motion diagrams re-drawn in the margins, annotated with comparisons to older techniques he’d discovered in Vorrin’s.

Even Hogwarts: A History had margins filled with questions. He had cross-referenced the founders’ philosophies with his own theories about magical lineage and bloodlines. He was determined to understand not just the castle, but its intent.

The wand box sat at the very top of his trunk, unopened since the day he bought it. Not because he hadn’t used it — he had — but because it felt wrong to leave it lying around—being on his person at all times. A wand was something sacred, not casual.

Hadrian didn’t throw things into a bag. He placed them.

This wasn’t just preparation.

This was respect.

On the desk nearby lay his thick violet leather notebook — charmed to resist ink smudges and flame — filled with handwritten summaries of every subject in his first-year syllabus. Transfiguration, herbology notations, spell classifications, potion theory. Each page crisp. Uncluttered. Quiet.

Hadrian closed it gently and slid it into the trunk’s interior case, securing it with a locking ward keyed only to his magic.

Eris stirred in her little traveling enclosure, a dark curl of coils resting beneath a warming charm and a shielding rune. She flicked her tongue lazily as Hadrian set her next to his robe satchel.

“Only a few more hours,” he murmured to her. “And then we’re off.”

 

He stood at last and surveyed the room — the little bed, the scratched floor, the steady flow of amber-tinted light radiating off of the hanging lantern.

This room had been his first step into the world of magic, and it had already reshaped him.

In the past few days, he had uncovered bloodlines, challenged legends, read books no one wanted him to find. He had asked dangerous questions. Sat with uncomfortable truths. Learned more in a week than the Muggle world had given him in a lifetime.

But now — now he was going to Hogwarts.

Not as a wide-eyed boy lost in a crowd.

Not as a symbol.

Not even as The Boy Who Lived.

He was going as Hadrian, even if he hadn’t spoken the name aloud yet. The world might not know it. But he did.

He had earned that name. Through grief. Through silence. Through magic.

 

He shut his trunk with a soft click, activating the binding wards and slipping his wand into its hidden holster at his wrist. The latch glowed briefly with his magic. Sealed.

Tomorrow, he would walk through a wall and board a train to a castle that stood on ancient ley lines.

Tomorrow, he would no longer be alone with books and theories.

He would begin learning with others. Among enemies, maybe. Allies, possibly. But learning, truly.

Hadrian extinguished the lantern with a flick of his wand and climbed into bed, eyes wide open in the dark.

He did not dream that night.

He didn’t need to.

Tomorrow, he would begin.

Chapter 5: Rails & Robes

Notes:

It’s finally here! I’m sorry if this chapter seems rushed, I hope you all enjoy it!

The morning came softly.

Golden light spilled through the lace-edged window of Hadrian’s room at the Leaky Cauldron, bathing his packed trunk in warmth. The air smelled faintly of fresh bread and wood polish — signs that the inn was already stirring below.

Hadrian dressed in silence, fingers calm and practiced as he fastened the buttons on his dark travel robes and slipped his wand into its holster. His trunk sat ready at the foot of the bed, sealed with quiet warding runes, Eris’s traveling enclosure cushioned within.

He looked around the room one last time, a little surprised at the pang it gave him.

His first home in the magical world.

 

The main room of the Leaky Cauldron was quieter than usual when he descended, the breakfast crowd still thin. Tom the barkeep was arranging plates behind the counter when he spotted Hadrian and waved him over with a broad, gap-toothed smile.

“Morning, Mr. Potter. Or shall I say, almost-student?” he chuckled, sliding a warm plate of eggs, toast, and roasted tomatoes in front of him at a corner table. “Special send-off breakfast — on the house.”

Hadrian smiled shyly, sitting down with his usual composed grace. “Thank you, Tom. That’s very kind.”

Tom leaned his elbows on the bar, voice a little gentler. “It’s been a pleasure having you here. Quiet sort, but polite. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I expect we’ll be reading your name in more places than just newspapers soon.”

Hadrian flushed lightly and looked down at his plate. “I just want to learn.”

“Then you’ll do just fine.” Tom gave a respectful nod — not theatrical, not indulgent. Just honest.

That meant more to Hadrian than he could say.

By midmorning, he stood before the barrier to Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross, a deep breath in his chest and a nervous flutter in his stomach. The station was busy, crowded with Muggles and families pushing trunks and owls in cages.

No one accompanied him. He didn’t need them.

He walked through the barrier like he belonged there — and in some strange way, for the first time, he did.

Platform 9 ¾ was a wave of steam, sound, and color. The Hogwarts Express loomed large and red, its brass fixtures gleaming. Owls hooted. Luggage levitated. Families hugged. First-years stared.

And the moment Hadrian stepped through, it was as though the platform tilted toward him.

Heads turned.

Eyes widened.

People nudged one another. Mothers whispered. Children pointed.

He kept walking, lips pressed tight. He didn’t need to ask what they were looking at.

They were looking at the scar.

 

He was almost to the train when someone stepped directly into his path.

“Oi! You’re Harry Potter, aren’t you?”

Hadrian blinked. A redheaded boy with dirt on his nose and an overlarge hand-me-down sweater stood far too close, squinting at him like he was trying to see through glass.

“Is that really your scar?” he pressed, before Hadrian could speak. “Blimey, it’s true then! Did he really try to kill you? Did it hurt? Did you—”

“I’d rather not—” Hadrian started, voice quiet, but the boy barrelled on.

“Ron Weasley,” he said quickly, puffing up a bit, like the name should mean something. “Mum said you might be on the train today. Everyone’s talking about you already.”

He said it like it was a favor.

Then, louder — far louder than necessary: “Harry Potter’s getting on the train, everyone!”

Hadrian felt heat rise in his face. A few heads turned again. Some children began to whisper.

He said nothing. Just nodded stiffly and slipped past Ron, ducking into the nearest carriage door with his trunk gliding behind him.

 

He moved quickly down the corridor, avoiding stares, until he found an empty compartment near the back. He closed the door and let the silence fall like a curtain.

The blinds were still open, but he didn’t mind. He sank into the window seat and let out a slow, shaking breath.

So much for a quiet journey.

He reached for his notebook, something familiar to ground him. His fingers brushed the leather cover — and then the compartment door clicked open.

A pale, sharp-featured boy stood in the entrance, blinking once. He had platinum-blond hair and wore polished traveling robes with silver trim.

“Oh — pardon,” the boy said, and his voice was clear, proper. “Didn’t realize this one was taken.”

Hadrian sat up straighter.

The boy hesitated, then stepped fully into view. He inclined his head in a smooth, practiced gesture — not arrogant, but formal.

“My name is Malfoy. Draco Malfoy,” he said, extending a gloved hand. “May I meet your acquaintance?”

It was the first time anyone had asked him that.

Hadrian’s surprise must’ve shown, but he rose to his feet nonetheless, smoothing his robes with quiet grace.

He took the offered hand and bowed his head slightly.

“Pleasure to meet you, Malfoy. My name is Hadrian Potter.”

If Malfoy was startled by the name, he didn’t show it. His grip was steady, his smile polite.

“An honor, I’m sure,” Draco said smoothly. “I understand wanting a compartment to yourself — especially you. But if you find the silence dull, my companions and I are a few doors down. You’d be welcome to join us.”

Hadrian smiled — genuinely, this time. “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Malfoy gave a small nod. “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

He turned to go, then paused — reached up — and drew the blinds closed.

Before he left, Hadrian offered a parting nod — the kind reserved for equals in pureblood customs.

Malfoy froze for the briefest second.

Then, as if recovering, he smirked faintly and gave a sly wink before sliding the door shut behind him.

The sound of it was soft.

Final.

And for the first time since arriving on the platform, Hadrian felt the tightness in his chest begin to ease.

Not everyone saw the scar first.

 

The train rolled on, a steady rhythm beneath Hadrian’s boots.

It was later in the ride when he finally stood, sliding open the door to his compartment and stepping into the corridor. Eris had curled into herself, content beneath a cooling charm, and the quiet had grown thick around him. He didn’t mind silence — he liked it — but Draco Malfoy’s words had stayed with him.

“You’re welcome to join us any time.”

A gesture, offered politely. No pressure. No pity.

Hadrian walked three compartments forward, straightened his spine, and knocked.

The door slid open.

Draco blinked in surprise for a half-second before his expression shifted into something warmer — not a grin, but a polite flicker of pleased acknowledgment.

“Ah. Hadrian,” he said, and stepped aside to allow him in.

The compartment was full.

Five other students looked up — all dressed impeccably in tailored robes, the subtle shimmer of personal crest charms pinned to their lapels.

They were purebloods, unmistakably. Not because of wealth or posture, but because of the ancient ease with which they carried themselves — like they belonged anywhere they chose to be.

Draco gestured. “Everyone, this is Hadrian Potter.”

The air shifted.

There was no gasp, no loud whisper, no fumbled bow — just a brief, collective pause, like the room had drawn a breath.

Then:

A quiet, “Welcome,” from a boy with tousled brown hair and observant eyes — Theodore Nott, he later learned.

“Do join us,” said Blaise Zabini, who sat closest to the window with a half-lidded gaze and a lazy elegance. “There’s room.”

Daphne Greengrass — silver-blonde and composed, with a spine like a blade — tilted her head slightly. “You may take the seat beside me, if you’d like.”

Hadrian nodded, carefully stepping in and taking the offered seat. He inclined his head in the subtle gesture of respect he had studied — chin tilted, eyes lowered, just enough to show understanding without deference.

He caught the briefest flickers of expression in the room.

Surprise. Intrigue. Something a little like approval.

Crabbe and Goyle, who had been quietly seated near the door like sentries, didn’t speak, but Crabbe blinked as if trying to process something unusually complex.

Pansy Parkinson, dressed in deep violet and lace, raised an eyebrow. “You know pureblood forms?”

“I’ve been studying,” Hadrian said, simply.

That made them all pause again.

And then, to his surprise — they smiled.

 

The conversation flowed effortlessly after that.

They spoke of summers spent in chateaus and manors, of visits to the Continent, of dueling tournaments, family gatherings, ancestral vaults.

“I spent three weeks in Athens,” said Pansy with a toss of her dark curls. “And honestly, wizarding Greece has no taste in potion packaging. Everything’s gold foil and little dragons.”

“I like the dragons,” muttered Goyle.

“Well,” said Blaise dryly, “that explains everything.”

The others chuckled.

Hadrian listened at first — content to observe, catalog the names, study their dynamic. He expected pride, arrogance, disdain — but what he found was a strange sort of kinship. They weren’t boastful, not exactly. Just… steeped in history. Like he was.

They spoke in shared reference points: ancestral halls, wandlore, formal dances, spells passed down through blood.

He belonged here more than he had anywhere.

Then Theo turned to him, mild curiosity in his eyes.

“And you, Hadrian? How was your summer?”

Hadrian hesitated. A pause.

He felt them all watching him — not with judgment, but with real interest.

“I… stayed in Diagon Alley,” he said carefully. “Mostly at the Leaky Cauldron. I wanted to… learn.”

Daphne blinked. “Learn?”

“I spent most of my time reading. Visiting the shops. Exploring magical theory. Bloodlines. Wandlore. Ritual magic. A bit of alchemy. Some cursed object theory. I think I may have read enough books to turn my head into a thesaurus.”

There was a beat.

And then: laughter.

Genuine laughter.

Even Crabbe gave a sudden, snort-like chuckle that startled himself. Goyle looked faintly alarmed.

“Oh, Merlin,” Blaise said, leaning back with a small grin. “You might actually fit in.”

“Might?” said Pansy. “He’s already more tolerable than you.”

They all laughed again, including Draco — and Hadrian found himself smiling, quiet and content. His shoulders loosened. His breath came easier.

These weren’t saints. They weren’t warm.

But they saw him.

And for the first time, they didn’t see The Boy Who Lived.

They saw Hadrian — polite, clever, observant. A boy who spoke their language and knew their history. A peer.

 

Draco’s compartment had settled into an easy rhythm.

The lamps glowed softly against the velvet-lined walls, and the voices inside were warm with amusement, little jokes and soft laughter weaving between them like threads in an embroidered tapestry.

Hadrian sat with one leg tucked beneath him, eyes alert but relaxed, a subtle smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Conversation had turned light and unhurried, ranging from house elves with peculiar habits to Blaise’s complete disbelief in wizarding fortune tellers. Even Crabbe had contributed — in his own way — with a sleepy observation about a ghost he’d once seen float through a corridor wall.

“Probably just my uncle,” Goyle muttered.

They laughed again.

Hadrian didn’t try to steer the conversation. He listened, added comments when they asked, and found himself more comfortable than he’d expected to feel all day. It wasn’t that he forgot he was Harry Potter — The Boy Who Lived — it was that… they didn’t care.

They treated him like he was just a boy. A clever, well-mannered one — but not a symbol. Not a shrine.

Time blurred.

Eventually, conversation slowed to a hum, their voices drifting lower, the movement of the train soothing in its rhythm.

Pansy was the first to doze off — head against the window, lashes casting shadows on her cheek.

Then Daphne, legs tucked beneath her robes, her head resting on Hadrians shoulder—to his and everyone’s surprise—breathing softly.

Draco leaned back with one hand behind his head, looking peaceful for once, like the weight of legacy wasn’t pressing down for just a few minutes.

Hadrian remained upright, lids heavy.

And though his breathing evened and his body relaxed, his magic was still listening.

He was a light sleeper. Always had been.

And in the gentle stillness, he heard them.

 

“Didn’t expect to like him,” Theo whispered, voice low but sincere.

“I thought he’d be… loud,” Pansy added, from behind closed eyes. “And obsessed with attention.”

“He has manners,” Daphne murmured approvingly. “Old ones. The kind my great-grandfather respects.”

“I didn’t think anyone outside our circles knew the old bows,” Blaise said. “But he did it perfectly. No hesitation.”

“Feels like he… knows us,” Theo said softly. “Not like a stranger, but like one of us who just… didn’t grow up with us.”

There was a pause. Then Draco’s voice, thoughtful:

“Did you feel it?”

“Feel what?” asked Blaise.

“The magic,” Draco replied. “He radiates it. Not even like our parents.”

“No,” Theo agreed. “It feels like… like he was born in it.”

“Like we were,” whispered Daphne.

Silence again.

Then a soft chuckle from Blaise. “Imagine if we all end up in Slytherin. Him too.”

“We will,” Draco said with quiet certainty.

“I’d like that,” Theo murmured.

They fell into true sleep after that.

 

Hadrian opened his eyes slowly.

He didn’t move. Just stared at the ceiling, warmth blooming in his chest where he hadn’t expected it.

They liked him.

Not because of his name. Not because of a scar. But because they saw something real in him — in the way he spoke, in how he carried himself, in the quiet presence of his magic.

He smiled faintly to himself.

“Daphne,” he said aloud, gently.

She stirred, blinking awake. “Mm?”

“What time is it?”

That set off a ripple. They all began to rouse with a groan and a scramble. Blaise stretched like a cat, Theo cursed softly as he knocked over his bag.

Draco looked to the window and muttered, “We’ll be arriving soon. Best change.”

Hadrian stood and offered them all a polite nod. “I’ll see you shortly.”

He stepped out into the corridor and returned to his own compartment.

 

The sun was beginning to dip outside the window, casting everything in gold. Hadrian opened his trunk and carefully lifted out his school robes — not the standard, wrinkled sort one found in Diagon Alley.

These were tailored, perfectly pressed, and black as obsidian. If one looked closely, nearly invisible embroidery shimmered at the cuffs — delicate snakes winding between old runes, a subtle homage to the House of the Serpent. His family crest rested just over his heart, stitched in silver thread.

He slipped them on, fastened his wand to the inside of his sleeve, and glanced in the glass.

For a long moment, he simply looked.

Not Harry.

Hadrian.

 

When he returned to Draco’s compartment, they were all dressed and seated again, straightening collars and dusting off sleeves.

Blaise looked up first. “Well, well.”

Even Daphne blinked in visible surprise. “Those are—are they snakeskin embroidery?”

“Black pearl thread,” Hadrian said, adjusting his cuff.

“You look like you walked out of an ancient family portrait,” Pansy said, almost breathless.

“Fitting,” Draco added, lips curling in appreciation.

Hadrian gave a small nod of thanks, then reached for the sleek, black carrier he’d brought with him.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

He lifted the lid, and Eris emerged slowly — small, glossy, and regal. Her eyes were intelligent, tongue flicking at the air. She wound her way up Hadrian’s arm like ink spilling in water.

Crabbe tensed. Goyle leaned back.

But the others looked fascinated.

“She’s beautiful,” said Daphne softly.

“What species?” asked Theo.

“Dusty forest kingsnake,” Hadrian replied. “But she’s docile — when she likes someone.”

Eris flicked her tongue and made a slow circle between them all, finally curling up in Draco’s lap, blinking at him lazily.

“Well,” Draco said, looking pleased. “I must be very likable.”

“She has excellent taste,” Hadrian said, and a few of them laughed again.

 

As the train began to slow, Hadrian turned toward the others.

“Which house do you think you’ll be in?” he asked casually.

They didn’t hesitate.

“Slytherin,” they answered, almost in unison.

Hadrian smiled faintly. “Same.”

No one asked why. No one questioned his answer. They simply accepted it — and something in that made Hadrian stand straighter.

The train lurched to a gentle stop. They gathered their bags, fixed their robes, and made their way into the cool evening light.

 

The moment Hadrian stepped off the train, his breath hitched.

It was like stepping onto sacred ground.

Magic — old, reverent, watching — rolled over him like mist.

The scent of the lake, the sound of water lapping against the shore — all of it faded against the pull he felt from the castle above.

His knees went weak for half a second.

Not from fear. From recognition.

The magic in Hogwarts thrummed in his blood like a second pulse, a low sound beneath everything else. It sang to him — in language too old to translate, in memory deeper than time.

He could feel the ley lines under his boots.

The stones of the castle had names, and some part of him knew them.

His vision blurred for a moment, not from tears, but from being pulled too far inward — into that strange place in his core where magic lived.

We remember you, the castle seemed to hum.

You have come home.

Hadrian steadied himself.

The others were laughing beside him — soft, polite conversation about boats and stars and what to expect. He followed the group toward the lake, eyes drawn upward to the looming towers of Hogwarts, lit like a beacon against the dusk.

He didn’t speak.

Not yet.

Magic was whispering to him.

And Hadrian Potter — heir of ancient lines, child of two worlds, serpent of shadow and light — was finally listening.

 

The Great Hall was unlike anything Hadrian had ever imagined.

Candlelight floated overhead in gentle suspension, casting warm flickers over the long house tables. The ceiling reflected the sky beyond the enchanted glass: a velvety twilight, streaked with the first bold stars. Four banners hung with solemn pride, each stitched with an animal that shimmered in the light.

But it was not the beauty of the hall that arrested Hadrian’s attention.

It was the magic.

It pulsed through the stone, thick and ancient, folding around him like a cloak. He could feel it in his lungs, in the arches of his feet, in the fine hairs on the back of his neck. The castle knew he was here. It watched. It waited.

He walked among the first years at a measured pace — posture straight, hands calm at his sides, while others fidgeted nervously.

His eyes found the staff table.

And at the center — Albus Dumbledore.

The old wizard’s blue eyes gleamed behind his spectacles, but when their gazes locked, Hadrian saw a flicker — sharp, unmistakable.

Disappointment. Disapproval.

Then Dumbledore blinked, and it was gone.

Hadrian looked away.

A battered hat sat on a stool at the front of the hall, looking limp and unimpressive — until a jagged seam near the brim opened, and it sang.

“When magic flowed in rivers wide,

And shadows danced where light would hide,

Four founders shaped these hallowed halls,

With wit and strength, and truth that calls…”

Hadrian listened carefully. Every word seemed older than parchment, sung in a voice that had seen centuries pass like seasons. The hall clapped when it finished, though he noticed most of the older students were already turning their attention to the Sorting itself.

Names were called. Students were sorted. The hat shouted house names with glee or solemnity, depending on the child beneath its brim. The arrogant redheaded boy who berated Hadrian had been sorted into Gryffindor—no surprise there. An entire clan of redheads sat and cheered as the youngest Weasley joined their table. 

Finally—

“Potter, Harry.”

The name rang like a bell. The hall hushed.

Hadrian stepped forward, quiet and composed.

He sat on the stool.

The Sorting Hat dropped over his eyes.

Ahhh, said a voice inside his mind. You are not what I expected.

Hadrian didn’t speak aloud. I’ve heard that before.

So you are observant. Humble. Curious… but not naive. Mmm… and there it is. The weight of something old. You’re touched by magic most haven’t felt in centuries.

Hadrian said nothing.

You don’t crave fame, or fortune, or power. You want… balance. To see magic whole again. The old ways remembered. A pause. Impressive. Very impressive. You are shaped by pain, but not ruled by it. Your heart holds fire and frost in equal measure.

And where do I belong? Hadrian asked softly.

You could thrive in Ravenclaw. Flourish in Hufflepuff. Even Gryffindor has its claim on your blood. But Slytherin… oh yes… Slytherin is where your path waits. Not because you are cunning — though you are — but because you understand the price of magic. And you’re not afraid to pay it.

Another long pause.

I think you already know.

You’ll be more than just a name, Hadrian. You’ll be a reckoning.

And then, aloud:

“SLYTHERIN!”

The hall erupted in whispers.

There were gasps. Murmurs. Shuffling feet.

“Harry Potter in Slytherin?” someone hissed.

But the Slytherin table — cool and composed — clapped politely.

Draco was already shifting over to make room.

Theo smiled faintly. Blaise inclined his head. Pansy gave him a sly, satisfied look.

He walked to the table with even steps, robes trailing behind him like ink in water.

When he sat, Draco leaned in. “Welcome home.”

 

The Sorting continued.

The whispers didn’t stop.

But Hadrian ignored them.

He watched as Daphne Greengrass was sorted into Slytherin, then Theo, then Blaise, Pansy, Crabbe, Goyle — all joining him at the long, emerald-draped table. When the last student was seated, Dumbledore rose.

His robes glittered like frost. His expression was serene — but Hadrian watched him closely now.

“Welcome to another year at Hogwarts,” the Headmaster said with open arms. “Let me introduce your professors…”

The list began. Familiar names — Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall…

“And finally,” Dumbledore continued, “Professor Severus Snape — Potions Master, and Head of Slytherin House.”

Hadrian’s breath caught.

There he was.

Seated near the end of the staff table, robes blacker than midnight, hair sleek and shoulder-length, skin sallow and eyes…

Hadrian met his gaze.

And the world narrowed.

Shock. Recognition. Yearning.

It struck through him like lightning — not pity, not regret, but something more. Like a man who had dreamed of seeing something for a decade and could not quite believe it was real.

In Snape’s expression, Hadrian saw truth.

He hadn’t abandoned him.

He’d been kept away.

For the first time in years, Hadrian felt something sharp twist behind his ribs — not sadness, not joy, but a thread pulled taut between two people bound by an old promise.

He gave the professor the smallest nod.

Snape returned it. Relief evident in his taught shoulders.

But his expression had said enough.

 

The feast began. Food appeared in mountains. Laughter rose. Students leaned toward one another across house lines, excited and full of life.

But at the Slytherin table, they all sat with a quiet grace — well-mannered, deliberate.

Draco raised his goblet slightly toward Hadrian.

“To a new year,” he said. “And new family.”

Hadrian’s chest warmed.

He raised his own in turn. “To Slytherin.”

The silver snake on the house banner above them gleamed in the candlelight — ancient and coiled. Watching.

Waiting.

And deep inside his bones, Hadrian could feel the castle humming again — as if the Sorting Hat had been right.

This wasn’t an ending.

It was a beginning.

 

The feast ended with the scraping of benches and the swirl of black robes as students began to rise. Headmaster Dumbledore dismissed them with a wave of his hand, and the four House tables were soon spilling out into streams of chatter and movement. At the Slytherin table, things were different. No one rushed. No one stumbled or shouted.

Instead, the prefects stood calmly — two older students with the unmistakable grace of those born into centuries of expectations.

“First-years, with us,” said the boy prefect, a tall, sharp-eyed student with a perfect part in his sleek dark hair. His badge gleamed on his chest.

The girl beside him nodded once, her tone polite but firm. “Stay together. Do not fall behind.”

Hadrian rose with the others. As he stepped into place behind Draco, he felt the shift — eyes on him.

But unlike the stares from earlier, these were more guarded, more measured. Slytherin students — older ones — observed him with curiosity, not hostility. Some exchanged quiet looks. One girl tilted her head slightly in what might have been reluctant approval.

Hadrian held his shoulders straight and chin high, face calm.

Let them look.

 

They moved as a unit, down stone steps and along dark corridors, past statues that breathed dust and walls that whispered faint echoes. The torches lining the dungeons flickered with greenish light, and the further they walked, the quieter the world above became.

Hadrian liked it here.

It felt like stepping out of time — like the deeper you walked, the closer you got to the bones of the castle.

“To enter the common room, there is a password you must speak or you will not be permitted entry. It changes frequently—every two weeks—so do not miss the meeting in which we announce it.” The tall, boy prefect said. 

Finally, they reached a stretch of damp stone wall adorned with a faded silver emblem. The girl prefect raised her voice and said clearly:

“Salazar’s Honor.”

The wall melted away without a sound, revealing a doorway cloaked in shadows.

They stepped through.

 

The Slytherin common room was unlike anything Hadrian had seen.

It was vast and elegant — dark stone floors polished to a sheen, emerald and silver banners hanging from vaulted ceilings, and furniture made of rich wood and black velvet. Low-burning green flames danced in wall sconces, casting a moody glow across ancient tapestries. Arched windows looked out into the black depths of the lake, where shadows of giant tentacles drifted now and then like clouds in an endless twilight sky.

A fire crackled in the hearth, its smoke curling lazily upward.

Everything smelled faintly of clean parchment, aged stone, and something ancient — seaweed and warding magic.

“Gather ‘round,” the boy prefect said, turning to face the first years. “Welcome to Slytherin House.”

They formed a loose circle. The prefect surveyed them, gaze lingering briefly on Hadrian before continuing.

“My name is Marcus Vaisley. This is Rosamund Travers. We are your prefects. You will treat us with respect, and in turn, we will ensure you survive this place.”

A few students shifted nervously.

“Let’s get a few things clear,” Rosamund said smoothly. “Slytherin is not what the other Houses claim it to be. We are not villains in some children’s tale. We are powerful. We are careful. And we know how to win. That makes us dangerous — and that makes others afraid.”

Marcus nodded. “This means that you will be treated unfairly. Teachers may be biased. Other students will try to provoke you. You are to rise above it.”

“House unity is your first shield,” Rosamund added, folding her arms. “You do not turn on each other. You do not fight one another publicly. Appearances matter. We are a family — even if you don’t like everyone in it.”

Hadrian’s eyes flicked around the room. Most of the others were nodding.

“Class schedules will be handed out during breakfast tomorrow,” Marcus continued. “Meals are at the following times: breakfast, 7 to 8; lunch, 12 to 1; dinner, 5 to 6. If you are late, you may miss them — do not come crying to us.”

Rosamund gave a small smirk. “If you’re hungry, learn better time management. Or find the kitchens.”

“You will have enemies in this school,” Marcus said bluntly. “Don’t pick fights you can’t win. Don’t provoke people needlessly. And if you break rules—”

“Don’t get caught,” several older students murmured at once.

Hadrian raised a brow. That bit was in the stories.

Rosamund continued, “Keep your dorm clean. Don’t lose House points foolishly. Don’t bring shame on the name of Slytherin. If you have a problem — speak to a prefect. Or come to Professor Snape. He’s the only reason we aren’t all expelled already.”

The fireplace flared green behind them.

Speak of the devil.

Professor Severus Snape stepped through the flames like a ghost in motion — robes swirling, expression unreadable. The common room quieted immediately.

The shadows liked him. They curled around his heels like smoke, reluctant to let him go.

He walked to the center of the room and faced the first-years.

His voice, when it came, was a cool blade:

“Welcome to Slytherin.”

No flourish. No welcome feast charm. Just cold precision.

“You are here because the Sorting Hat saw the qualities needed to survive — and perhaps thrive — in this House. Some of you come from lines that stretch back to Salazar himself. Others do not. It matters little.”

He looked at each of them — and then, his eyes met Hadrian’s.

In them, Hadrian saw shock, recognition, and something else. Longing. A question. A silent apology. The past locked behind clenched teeth.

He said nothing aloud.

But Hadrian understood.

Snape turned back to the rest.

“Slytherin House is watched. Scrutinized. Judged. If you expect fairness, you will be disappointed. If you expect leniency, you are a fool. You will earn everything in this castle by effort or cunning — or not at all.”

He paused.

“If you are in need — speak to a prefect. If it is serious, speak to me. We do not air our laundry in front of other Houses. We do not beg for pity. And we do not fail.”

Silence. The fire hissed quietly in the hearth.

Then—

“Mr. Potter.”

Hadrian blinked. “Yes, sir?”

“Come with me.”

There was a ripple of motion as Hadrian glanced at his new friends.

“I’ll see you in the common room,” he said calmly.

They nodded, each of them watching with unreadable eyes as Hadrian turned and followed Professor Snape into the shadows beyond the hearth.

The door to his future clicked shut behind him.

 

The quiet of the Slytherin common room fell away behind him as Hadrian followed Professor Snape down the winding, torch-lit corridors of the dungeons. Each step echoed faintly, yet the space between them felt heavier than the stone walls.

He wasn’t sure what to expect — punishment? A lecture? But no. The look in Snape’s eyes hadn’t been anger. It was something more unsettling.

Reluctance.

When they reached the heavy wooden door at the end of a shadowed hall, Snape flicked his wand, unlocking it with a soft click. The door creaked open.

“In,” he said, voice low but not harsh.

Hadrian stepped inside. Snape’s office was dimly lit, the flickering light casting golden shadows across tall shelves, worn books, and glass vials filled with shifting liquids. It smelled faintly of pine resin and crushed herbs — oddly comforting.

Snape closed the door behind them with a soft thud.

Then silence.

The professor circled behind his desk, folded his arms, and looked at Hadrian like he was trying to unravel him.

“Harry Potter,” he drawled slowly, the syllables stretched out like a test.

Hadrian swallowed, then straightened his spine. He lifted his chin.

“…Hadrian, sir.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“I go by Hadrian Potter,” the boy said more firmly, though something behind his words trembled. “That is my true name.”

There was a pause. The flicker of torchlight reflected in Snape’s onyx eyes, and Hadrian saw it — the faintest softening.

“I see,” Snape said at last. “A name more fitting. And how, exactly, did you come to know it?”

“I… went to Gringotts. I took an inheritance test,” Hadrian said. “They showed me everything. My name. My vaults. The titles. The bloodlines.”

Snape lowered himself slowly into his chair. “Of course. Ancient goblin magic. Uncaring of politics, unclouded by manipulation.”

His gaze sharpened. “And your upbringing? Where were you raised?”

Hadrian hesitated. He didn’t want to answer — not because he was ashamed, but because it still hurt.

“With the Dursleys,” he murmured. “In Surrey. Cupboard under the stairs until I left. They hated magic. They hated me. I think… I think they hated my parents.”

Snape’s hands clenched against the edge of the desk.

“And Dumbledore knew this?” he asked tightly, as if afraid to hear the answer.

“I think he did,” Hadrian said softly. “I’m not sure. But my Hogwarts letter was addressed to ‘Harry Potter, Privet Drive, cupboard under the stairs.’ But he left me there. Never checked. I’ve never seen him in my life before this day, sir.”

Snape stood. Slowly. Controlled — too controlled.

“I should have known,” he said under his breath. “That sanctimonious—he promised me you would be safe. Loved. Protected. That your childhood needed quiet, not attachment.”

He turned, facing away. His voice grew bitter, raw.

“Instead he fed you to wolves. Let you grow starved of affection. So when he finally reached out — when he offered the first crumbs of love — you’d follow him without question.”

Hadrian was quiet for a long time, letting those words sink in. They stung. Because they were true.

Then, carefully, he asked, “But… you’re my godfather. Why didn’t you raise me?”

Snape turned, and for the first time since they entered the room, he looked… hollow.

“I tried.”

Hadrian blinked.

“I begged him,” Snape continued, voice lower now. “Your mother made me swear, Hadrian. Not just to protect you — to love you. To guide you. But Dumbledore—he knew how I was perceived. That I had once followed the Dark Lord. He used that against me.”

He laughed, bitter and empty.

“He told me I was dangerous. That my presence would corrupt you. But the truth? He wanted you alone. Untethered. So you would need him. He erased our bond like ink off of parchment, but Hadrian, we did our bond in blood, not just a written contract. I’m assuming the inheritance test mentioned the bond was inactive, rather than completely removed.”

Hadrian nodded, curious as to where this conversation was leading. 

“Shall you and I both wish, we may visit Gringotts and reinstate the bond as to what it once was.”

Hadrian looked down at his hands, clenched in his lap. His chest ached.

“All my life,” he whispered, “I’ve wanted someone to care.”

Snape froze.

“I’d lie awake, imagining someone would show up one day — someone who knew me. Who loved me. Not for being the Boy Who Lived, but… just because I existed.”

He looked up. “I didn’t know it would be you.”

Snape’s voice cracked like a whisper of wind across glass.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance.”

Hadrian stared at him, overwhelmed — not just with sadness, but with longing. There was something deeply unfair about this moment. About the ten years they had both lost. About all the birthday candles he never got to blow out with anyone watching. About all the letters that were never written.

And yet… this man in front of him — pale, tired, angry — he had wanted him.

He still did.

Hadrian’s voice was raw.

“Do you still want to be my godfather?”

Snape looked at him, something wounded and fierce shining behind his eyes.

“Yes.”

Hadrian nodded. “Then I’d like to get to know you. And I’d like to have our bond again.”

The silence that followed was not heavy — it was quiet. A breath held between them.

“I live in the dungeons,” Snape said, a little stiffly. “It’s not… welcoming. But my door is open.”

“I like the dungeons,” Hadrian said, and a ghost of a smile touched his lips.

Snape blinked — startled, maybe, by the humor. Or the warmth.

“You should get rest,” he said finally, tone back to measured calm. “Tomorrow will be your first lesson. And there are… many things I believe you are ready to learn.”

Hadrian stood slowly.

Before he could go, Snape added, “Hadrian.”

He turned back.

“I will never leave you unprotected again.”

Something deep in Hadrian’s chest finally, finally unclenched.

“Thank you, sir.”

Nodding a formal and appreciative nod towards his godfather, Hadrian smiled softly. Snape—shocked once more, nodded and his lips quirked a tad in return. 

And this time, as Hadrian walked back toward the common room, the shadows of the dungeon did not feel so cold.

Chapter 6: Promises & Determination

The entrance to the Slytherin common room slid open with the faintest grind of stone, and Hadrian stepped inside, the hem of his robes whispering over the threshold like the trailing edge of a storm. The flickering green light from the hearth painted him in shades of jade and shadow, casting his features into an austere mask that bore no hint of what had just passed between himself and Severus Snape.

Conversation dipped—never halting, never rude, but thinning like mist disturbed by a breeze. Heads turned, subtly, not with the crudeness of open stares but the polished grace of pureblood observation. The Slytherins knew better than to pry; curiosity, in their world, was an art to be wielded, not worn.

Draco, reclining in one of the high-backed chairs near the fire, lifted his gaze with calculated nonchalance. Blaise sat beside him, dark-eyed and unreadable, while Theo lounged on the opposite settee with the casual elegance of someone who never needed to speak first. Daphne looked up from a worn leather-bound volume, marking her page with the ribbon before offering Hadrian a nod of quiet acknowledgment. Pansy glanced up from a velvet covered journal that she was writing in and smiled. Greg and Vincent, who had been hunched over a chessboard, paused only long enough to attempt to process what was happening— but quickly gave up. Vincent seemed to be getting a headache from thinking. Hadrian inclined his head to them all, a precise, practiced gesture rooted in old custom. He moved without hurry, as if the weight of what he carried should not—and would not—be given away in pace.

“It was Snape, wasn’t it?” Blaise asked eventually, tone light, tone almost lazy—but not quite. “You were gone for a while.”

Hadrian let the pause stretch, then answered with a small shrug, graceful but deliberate. “Yes. He wanted a word.”

Draco shifted slightly. “About?”

The fire cracked softly behind them. Shadows flickered across the ancient serpent carving above the mantle.

“He thought it necessary to warn me,” Hadrian said, voice quiet but clear, “that now that I’ve been sorted into Slytherin, I’ll be seen… differently. There are people who had expectations of me—who imagined I’d wear red and gold, that I’d be loud and brave and foolishly noble.” He gave a soft, humorless huff, something just shy of a laugh. “Now that I haven’t met that fantasy, some may decide they hate me for it. Or fear me. Or both.”

There was a pause. It was not awkward. Slytherins were comfortable with silence.

Daphne’s gaze lingered a moment too long on his face before she turned back to her book.

Theo leaned forward, fingers steepled. “He’s not wrong.”

“No,” Hadrian agreed, letting himself sink into the empty chair across from Draco, the leather creaking softly beneath him. “He’s not.”

The subject was allowed to drift away then, like a paper boat left to the current—acknowledged, but not pursued. That was the Slytherin way. If the truth was heavier than Hadrian let on, they would not demand it of him. Not tonight.

 

A chime sounded from one of the tall, serpentine wall sconces near the hearth—soft, melodious, but unmistakable. Rosamund, already standing by the arch that led to the dormitory corridors, turned slightly, her prefect’s badge catching the green firelight. She was tall and willowy, with the particular bearing that suggested a lineage of composed women who always knew precisely when to speak. Beside her stood Marcus, broad-shouldered and imposing, his arms crossed with the casual authority of someone unbothered by rebellion because he knew he’d quash it easily.

Rosamund raised her hand—not to silence them, but simply to draw their attention. Conversation lulled, heads turned. There was no need for shouting in Slytherin.

“First-years,” she said, her voice clear but velvet-soft. “It’s time to return to your dorms.”

A few quiet groans from the younger students, quickly stifled. She smiled faintly, as though amused by their reluctance.

“This schedule is only for the first week,” Marcus added, his tone deeper, more pragmatic. “After that, you’ll be allowed to remain in the common room as long as you like. We expect quiet after curfew, not absence.”

“Keep your voices low,” Rosamund added smoothly, “and no food in the dormitories. Leave the dramatics to the Gryffindors.”

That earned a soft ripple of laughter among the older students. The first-years rose, gathering books and slipping wands back into robes with varying degrees of grace. Hadrian moved with the rest, offering a quiet nod of thanks as he passed the prefects.

Beyond the common room, the dormitory corridor unfurled like the spine of an ancient creature. Torches in serpentine sconces flickered with pale green flame, casting the dark stone in cool hues. The hallway split left and right, and the boys turned toward the left-hand passage, their footsteps echoing faintly.

Unlike the Gryffindor dormitories, the Slytherin quarters did not corral the entire year into one open room like a camp of unruly boys. Instead, there were suites—each with its own common parlor and private sleeping quarters. A reflection of Slytherin values: privacy, dignity, and discretion.

The dormitory parlor was a miniature echo of the main common room. Deep green carpet muffled their steps, and a dark stone fireplace carved with intertwined serpents crackled gently at the far end. A handful of forest green and deep navy armchairs and a low table were arranged neatly before it, and tapestries depicting lake scenes swayed gently, as if stirred by unseen water currents.

A short hallway branched off to the left. There were three doors, each bearing a silver nameplate—charmed to adjust to whoever resided within.

Greg and Vincent peeled off toward the far room with the same lazy amble they brought to everything. Blaise and Draco disappeared into the center door, Draco already lamenting softly about the dust in their fireplace.

Hadrian’s name had appeared in delicate script on the first door. Theo’s was etched just below.

He stepped inside, Theo close behind.

The room was dim but warm, lit by a soft-glowing lamp on a side table between two deep green armchairs to the left of the door. The suite smelled of fresh rosemary and lavender. Hadrian could sense the magic of the castle—stronger than it had been in the Great Hall, even the common room. Now—he could sense only Theo and the castle, rather than all the other students’ magics. The intimately familiar magic was almost caressing. It was welcoming. It made him feel appreciated. Like he belonged. The Slytherin house made him feel another sense of familiarity, belonging, and camaraderie. It was like he was finally home after a long journey away. 

Directly across the room stood two tall, arched windows, their black iron frames slightly misted by the chill of the lake water pressing against the glass. Beyond, shadows flickered—kelp swaying, small fish darting, and further back, the pale suggestion of something immense and slow: the Giant Squid.

Hadrian crossed to the window, resting his fingers lightly on the sill. A school of silverfish swam past like whispered thoughts.

To the right, a tall mahogany bookcase stretched nearly to the ceiling. The carved runes along the frame shimmered faintly in the lamplight—protective enchantments, faint and subtle. Along the window wall, in each corner, stood their matching mahogany wardrobes, each detailed with those same runes and iron handles shaped like coiled serpents.

The beds were aligned on opposite walls—Theo’s to the left, Hadrian’s to the right—set slightly away from the walls to allow space for the furniture that flanked them. Between each bed and the door sat a carved nightstand, bearing identical antique lamps. Past the beds, toward the window end of each wall, stood their desks—wide, solid, and quiet in their presence, already stocked with ink, quills, and parchment.

The beds themselves were magnificent: four-poster frames of deep mahogany, with tall finials and embroidered forest green curtains that could be drawn for privacy. The bedding was silk—cool, smooth sheets and thick duvets with the same subtle sheen. The pillows—head and decorative—were splattered in dark rich colours, blues, violets, and greens, of course. It was opulent, but not garish. A quiet kind of wealth.

Hadrian set his trunk near the wardrobe, placing Eris’s enclosure gently on the windowsill. She hisses at him sleepily, her scales shimmering metallically, entranced by the lake beyond.

Theo had begun to unpack as well, placing his books on the middle shelf of the bookcase and arranging a silver-framed photograph of a stately witch and wizard—presumably his parents—on his nightstand.

It was Theo who spoke first.

“Do you know what classes you’re most interested in?”

Hadrian glanced up, pausing mid-way through arranging his potions supplies. “Potions,” he said, unsurprisingly. “I’ve read the entire book already, and I’ve picked up a few additional ones on theory and things. I like the precision and detail.” He thought for a moment longer, “and Transfiguration. I’ve always liked the idea of… shifting reality. Bending it into something else.”

Theo nodded, carefully smoothing the green duvet across his bed. “Charms, for me. I like the precision of that, too. The control. Transfiguration too, of course. Professor McGonagall seems—” he paused, searching for the word, “—formidable.”

“She does.” Hadrian smiled faintly, then added, “You’re quiet. I like that.”

Theo shrugged lightly, a corner of his mouth twitching. “My father says there’s more power in listening than in speaking.”

Hadrian’s gaze lingered on him for a moment, thoughtful. “He’s not wrong.”

Theo’s eyes flicked toward the windows, where the Giant Squid drifted closer, one great eye peering curiously into the room before disappearing into the shadows again.

They unpacked in silence after that. Not uncomfortable—simply companionable.

Draco’s voice could be faintly heard through the stone walls, already bemoaning the absence of imported soap.

Hadrian closed his wardrobe and allowed himself a quiet, weary breath. He liked Draco well enough, but he was a bit of a whiny git. He turned toward his desk and began arranging his books by subject, the smooth grain of the mahogany warm beneath his fingertips. Behind him, Theo was lighting a candle with a flick of his wand, its small flame dancing in the lake-shadowed room.

 

The bathroom was steeped in steam and the faint scent of cedar soap when Hadrian stepped out, hair damp and curling at his temples, charcoal-grey towel wrapped around his shoulders. The sconces above the polished mirror cast a soft, golden glow across the stone, catching in the flecks of silver rune-work engraved into the marble basin. Everything in Slytherin, he’d learned, was old and deliberate—carved to last, built to impress in the quietest, most immutable ways.

Theo was already brushing his teeth at the far sink, his dark hair neatly combed back, his black silk pyjamas immaculate even in this most mundane of moments. Hadrian’s were simpler, but still lavish—dark blue with silver piping, soft and worn.

“I thought Gryffindor was supposed to be the grand house,” Hadrian said mildly as he dried his face with a thick towel. “But we’ve got marble sinks, enchanted lamps, and privacy.”

Theo spit neatly into the basin and rinsed it down with a wave of his wand. “Gryffindor likes to pretend its chaos is charming. This is real magic. The kind that remembers its legacy.”

Hadrian hummed at that—softly, approvingly.

The two boys moved through the familiar rhythm of bedtime without the need to speak: towels hung, slippers slipped on, the final dimming of the bathroom lights as they returned to their bedroom. The arched windows let in little light now, only the shifting shadows of kelp and passing fish, the occasional flicker of a glowing jellyfish adrift in the water.

Theo climbed into bed first, drawing his duvet up with smooth precision before reaching for the silver lamp on his nightstand. Hadrian lingered by the window for a moment longer, looking out into the moving depths.

“Do you think we’ll get to see all of it?” he asked softly, eyes tracing the blurred shapes in the distance.

Theo propped himself on one elbow. “The castle?”

“The castle. The grounds. The magic.”

Theo’s expression remained unreadable for a moment. Then, quietly, “I hope so. There’s too much here to waste.”

Hadrian turned from the window and crawled into his own bed, the silk sheets cool against his skin. The ceiling above was painted deep green and dusted with tiny constellations that shimmered faintly when the lights dimmed, like a lake-bottom sky.

“We get our timetables in the morning,” Theo murmured. “I hope we’ve got Transfiguration early. I want to see if the rumors about McGonagall are true.”

Hadrian chuckled under his breath. “I want to see if the dungeons really connect to the lake tunnels. I read something about them once, but the books were vague.”

“We’ll find out,” Theo said, already halfway to sleep, voice softer now. “We’re in the right place for secrets.”

Hadrian shifted, drawing the duvet towards his chin and over his narrow shoulders. The room was quiet, save the faint lap of water against stone beyond the windows. Beneath the lake, surrounded by ancient magic, he felt—not safe, exactly—but secure. Held. A piece of something old, and watching.

“Yes,” Hadrian whispered, eyes slipping closed. “We are.”

 

Hadrian stirred long before dawn, waking into stillness so deep it felt almost sacred. The lake beyond the windows was a dark, undulating blur, casting faint ripples of greenish light against the high ceiling of their chamber. Theo remained asleep across the room, his breathing slow and even, the soft rise and fall of his chest barely disturbing the folds of his duvet.

Hadrian turned his head slightly on the pillow, eyes catching the faint glow of the enchanted clock on his nightstand. 4:40 AM, it read in delicate silver script.

Too early for reason. Too late for dreams.

He lay there for a few minutes longer, watching the way the faint lake-light played across the carved runes on his bedposts, quiet and unhurried. Sleep did not return to him. It rarely did once his mind began to stir. Eris slumbered lightly, having ditched her enclosure—like usual—for his bed. She liked to sleep on his pillow with her head tangled in his hair. Hadrian would be lying if he denied that he enjoyed it, as well. 

Silently, he rose, carefully placing Eris around the nape of his neck, while she hissed, “Good morning, young Master.”

“Good morning, my love.” He hissed back, stroking her cool scales.

The floor was cool beneath his feet, the stone holding the night’s chill like a secret. He moved carefully, out of habit rather than necessity—Theo would not wake easily. Hadrian’s robes hung beside his wardrobe, pressed and ready. He slipped them on without lighting a lamp, letting the shadows do as they pleased. The silk lining whispered against his skin, and his wand found its way to his fingers as if summoned. 

Crossing the dormitory, he stepped into the small adjoining bath, his steps naturally quiet and smooth. The polished marble was cold beneath his bare feet as he leaned over the sink, brushing his teeth with slow, methodical strokes. He rinsed his mouth and then reached for the comb resting on the counter, turning to his reflection in the tall mirror.

His hair—dark, thick, and stubborn—had dried in gentle waves from his earlier shower. He ran the comb through with practiced fingers, coaxing the strands into smooth, structured lines. It was a style that suited him, neat but natural, reminiscent of something timeless and of generations before him—though he wouldn’t have known what. Something refined, classy, like it belonged to portraits and memory.

 

He didn’t bother with shoes. The castle wouldn’t mind, it would most likely be easier to understand  its magic while his bare skin connects with the sentient bricks. 

He paused by the window before leaving. The Giant Squid drifted past, slow and strange in its majesty, one enormous eye half-lidded as though it, too, had risen early to think.

Then, with one last glance at the stillness of the dormitory—the neat beds, the silver-dim lamps, the hush of sentient magic sleeping in the stones—Hadrian slipped into the hallway and let the door close behind him with a soft click.

 

The dungeon corridors were empty, echoing in that particular way old places do, as though they remember every footstep and whisper long after the speaker is gone. The torches were guttering low in their brackets, casting faint green light that didn’t quite reach the ceiling. Everything felt different at this hour—stripped bare of performance or presence.

Hadrian walked with slow, careful steps, not for secrecy, but for reverence. He was not sneaking. He was visiting.

He did not yet know the full shape of the castle—only the hints he’d gleaned from books and the observations he’d collected the previous day. But it didn’t matter. He wasn’t here to map it.

I’d like to feel the castle by myself, he thought.

His friends would understand. In fact, they’d be the first he told. He owed them that. Slytherins respected boundaries, yes, but they also respected trust.

Still, something about this morning felt… private. Not secret. But valued. An intimate moment.

They all knew about his relationship with magic—Blaise, Pansy, Daphne, Theo, Draco, even Greg and Vincent in their blunt, unvarnished way. Purebloods were raised with respect for ancient magic, for bloodlines and bindings and the quiet rules beneath spoken spells. But none of them had felt it like he had. They’d said so themselves.

Not even their parents, they’d admitted. Not like Hadrian did.

He’d tried once or twice to explain what it felt like—the way magic listened when he walked into a room, the way it breathed beneath the floorstones and shifted like a sleeping beast in the rafters. No one had understood, not fully.

And he liked it that way. The solitude of it. The intimacy.

Even among Slytherins, no one spoke of magic like a companion. Like a presence with will and memory. But Hadrian knew. He felt it. Hogwarts, especially, thrummed with it—a thrumming pulse in the walls, excited and waiting.

Sometimes, when he passed certain halls or ran his fingers along carvings half-buried in shadow, it felt as if something recognized him. Not by name, but by resonance.

His ancestors, perhaps, had known magic this way. There were fragments in the old journals and grimoires—phrases that hinted at dialogue, not domination. But Hadrian felt it ran deeper in him. Sharper. Stranger. Familiar in a way that could not be taught. He did not just wield it, he was it.

He wondered, as he turned a quiet corner and passed beneath an archway shaped like a serpent swallowing its own tail, if anyone else had ever been like this. If another witch or wizard had felt the magic answer before the wand moved. If forbidden magic—forgotten and feral—had ever come to their fingers as easily as breath.

If there was anyone else in the castle who belonged to magic, instead of merely using it.

 

Hadrian moved through the corridors with bare feet and an easy gait, the way a child might walk through a childhood home—one he’s never seen, but somehow remembers. There was no rush to his steps. He wasn’t looking for anything. Not really.

The air shifted as he passed beneath each archway, thick with the scent of ancient stone and the last traces of dream-sleep clinging to the castle’s spine. He paused beneath a stretch of wall veined with climbing ivy that had no business growing so deep below ground. He reached out and touched the stone, fingertips brushing against it lightly.

It was warm.

He let his palm rest there and whispered—not aloud, but in that quiet place behind thought, where words are shaped more by intent than sound.

Do you know me?

Silence answered first. A long, pulsing silence. Then, like the low hush of leaves rustling underwater, something stirred in the walls. The feeling wasn’t speech—it was different than that. Not in words, but a language nonetheless. And Hadrian understood it, as though it passed straight through bone and into blood.

Yes.

His breath caught.

The warmth beneath his palm spread, as though the stone itself had taken a breath in. The air around him stilled. A hum started low in the soles of his feet—not vibration, not quite. More like recognition.

“You’re alive,” he whispered aloud this time. The words echoed too loudly in the corridor, like an intrusion.

The castle did not answer in words again. Instead, a quiet awareness moved around him—like a thousand unseen eyes blinking open in the dark. He could feel them behind the walls. Not watching to judge, but to witness. Present.

He pressed his hand deeper into the stone.

Why me?   he thought. Why can I feel you?

Another pause. Then a curl of something—not an answer, but a feeling: deep water, old blood, runes inscribed in places no map had ever touched. Not hatred, not warning. Acknowledgement. Affection. One of ours.

Hadrian let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Will you keep me safe?”

A longer silence followed, one that stretched out into the shadowed corners of the corridor. And then, at last, a whisper in the back of his mind—not voice, not thought, but presence:

If you listen.

The torches along the wall flared faintly, then quieted.

He stepped back from the ivy-veined stone, the warmth receding slowly from his palm. The castle remained quiet now, but the sense of being accompanied lingered.

Not alone.

Not entirely.

As Hadrian continued on, he walked not like a stranger in a vast and haunted place, but like someone moving through the veins of something ancient and breathing—something that knew him, and had been waiting.

 

The castle breathed.

It did not sigh like a human, nor creak like wood—its breath was primordial. The kind of breath a forest gives when no one’s watching, the way a storm gathers in silence. Hadrian could feel it now, all around him, not in the walls but in the marrow of the stone. A heartbeat beneath the foundation. A whisper beneath the wandwork.

He stood in a small alcove, tucked behind a forgotten archway just past the fifth turning of the eastern dungeon passage. No torch burned here, and yet he could see—dimly, gently, as though the castle itself had opened one eye just for him.

The stone at his back was etched with a broken sigil—runes so old they were nearly worn smooth. His fingers traced the curve of one. The moment he touched it, a low thrum answered beneath his skin, a soundless echo. The air was heavy with quiet magic—unclaimed, unspoken, waiting.

He closed his eyes and let it wash over him.

This is what they’ve forgotten, he thought. Not spells. Not rituals. But the pulse. The bond.

No book in Diagon Alley had written of magic this way—not as power, but as presence. Not as a weapon to wield, but as a truth to protect. He wonders if Voldemort knew magic this way.

Hadrian sank to one knee on the cold flagstone, his hand still pressed to the rune-slick wall. He bowed his head—not in fear, not in submission, but in respect.

“I know what they’ve done to you,” he whispered. “The way they twist you. Command you. Break pieces off and call them spells.”

The air stirred—not wind, not movement, but attention.

“They think they own you. That magic is theirs to master. But they’ve forgotten what you are.”

His voice was quiet but steady. Beneath it, he could feel the faint tremble of the castle listening.

“I won’t use you like that. I won’t command you.” He paused, his breath clouding faintly in the cold. “I’ll protect you.”

A silence followed that seemed to stretch between seconds—between centuries.

“I’ll restore the balance,” Hadrian said. “Whatever it takes. Even if I have to do it alone.”

He wasn’t entirely sure where the words had come from, only that they’d lived inside him for a long time, waiting to be spoken aloud. Maybe they were his. Maybe they were his own magic.

The rune beneath his palm warmed. The light in the alcove pulsed faintly, not with brightness, but depth. A sense of being seen.

And in the marrow of the castle—deep and still and wordless—something accepted him.

Not with fire. Not with thunder.

But with silence. The kind that holds the most promises.

 

By the time Hadrian returned to the Slytherin common room, the lake outside the windows had only just begun to lighten—soft blue shadows drifting through the water like silk. The hour was nearly six, and the dungeons still held the hush of sleeping stone, cold and undisturbed. The low fire in the hearth crackled faintly, the only sound besides the soft scuff of Hadrian’s feet against the slate floor.

His robe flowed behind him in a quiet ripple, the fine black fabric catching the light of the flames with the faintest glint. There wasn’t a wrinkle in sight, not a strand of hair out of place.

He looked every inch the heir of something ancient and secret.

Still, as he stepped through the dormitory threshold and into the smaller shared common area, his movements remained unhurried. Thoughtful. He moved like someone who belonged not just to the castle, but with it.

The door to his and Theo’s room stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open with a quiet hand and stepped inside. The soft, steady breathing of his roommate met him at once. His magic was quiet, not thrumming, but a calm and undisturbed peace. Theo still lay curled on his side beneath the deep green duvet, one hand tucked beneath his cheek, a faint crease pressed into his forehead like he was dreaming something serious.

Hadrian stood at the foot of his bed for a moment, watching the slow rise and fall of Theo’s chest.

Then, gently—“Theo,” he said, voice soft but firm, the way you’d wake a sleeping owl. “It’s six. You’ve time to get ready before breakfast.”

Theo stirred at once, a hand coming up to rub the sleep from his eyes. His hair was tousled, face half-buried in his pillow.

“Mmh—six?” he mumbled, then cracked one eye open. “You’re already dressed?”

Hadrian gave the faintest of smiles, more amused than smug. “I’ve been up for a while.”

Theo sat up properly then, blinking at him with a bleary sort of suspicion. “How long is ‘a while’? You look like you’ve been awake since midnight. You look…” he squinted. “Perfect.”

Hadrian flushed but only shrugged. “I wanted to walk the castle before it got crowded.”

Theo shook his head slowly and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You’re mad.”

Still, he didn’t complain. He rose, stretched, and crossed to the wardrobe. Like Hadrian, he dressed in fine robes—a deep black with a faint emerald lining, his own Slytherin crest gleaming faintly over his heart. His tie was the same shade of green, knotted carefully, and his jumper crisp against his skin. The two of them mirrored each other faintly, though Hadrian always carried a sort of old-world sharpness, as though time hadn’t quite modernized him.

Hadrian left him to it, stepping back out into the small dormitory common area. He claimed one of the green-cushioned armchairs tucked beside the fireplace, its coals glowing faintly. From the satchel he had grabbed from his dorm, he pulled his Potions textbook—Magical Drafts and Potions—already worn faintly at the corners from use.

He’d read it cover to cover during his stay at the Leaky Cauldron, annotated it with a meticulous and reverent hand, and rewritten his notes three times. But he opened it again now with the same quiet hunger. There was something endlessly grounding about potioncraft—the cool logic of ingredients, the power of intention and transformation, and the sacred rhythm of stirring, cutting, balancing. It was alchemy and discipline woven into one.

And tomorrow, he would finally learn it in a classroom—under the guidance of his godfather. Severus Snape, Potions Master. Hadrian could hardly pretend that thought didn’t thrill him, even as he kept his expression still.

Across the room, the fire popped gently. Above, the stone ceiling shimmered faintly as currents from the lake caught the morning light. He could sense the magic in the walls— listening, breathing alongside him. He felt his housemates’ magic stir to life, one at a time. No one has trapezed down the dormitory stairs quite yet, but the dungeons were humming with magic.

Classes would begin tomorrow. But today, they were expected to explore the castle, to familiarize themselves with their routes, staircases, classrooms. Hadrian had already mapped most of it during his early morning wandering, tracing the bones of the castle like one would a creature they meant to befriend. Or understand.

Still, he would go with the rest of the Slytherins. It would be expected. And Hadrian quite liked their company, he fit in very easily even though the others have known each other for years, and Hadrian had just met them yesterday. It was like they’d always been friends. Like he’d known them for as long as he could remember. Grew up in manors across the country and had play-dates while their mothers sipped tea and gossiped.

For now, though, he turned a page in his book and settled deeper into his chair, the weight of complex words and careful ink drawing him down, down into a quiet world of glass vials, moonstone powder, and subtle power.

 

The common room stirred slowly to life, shadows stretching across damp stone as the older Slytherin wixen emerged one by one from their dormitories. Their voices were low, movements precise and deliberate. There was no chaos, no thunderous morning scramble like Hadrian imagined echoed through Gryffindor Tower. In Slytherin, even the early hours were composed—cool and quiet, like mist over water.

Hadrian stood near the hearth in the common room, When the time neared 7 AM, he packed his potions study and decided to wander the room. His  satchel rested over one shoulder, wand secure at his hip. Eris’s scales brushing softly against the nape of his neck as she assessed the students. During class and meal times, she’ll have to stay hidden beneath his robes, but in the House of the Snakes, it was truly her domain. Only his friends have seen her up-close, but this morning the others shall see her, as well. 

Hadrian looked more alert than anyone had the right to at this hour, the lamplight catching faintly on the sheen of his black hair. Theo appeared at his side a moment later, still messing with the ends of his hair, his collar slightly askew, eyes steady. Behind them came Draco and Blaise, the former fussing with his reflection in the polished onyx of a pillar, the latter watching with an amused expression. Pansy trailed them with her arms crossed and her braid neat, face unreadable as ever.

Daphne moved beside Pansy with that same quiet elegance she always seemed to carry. Her blonde hair hung gently upon her shoulders and her eyes were slightly hazed with sleep, but undoubtedly sharp. There was a calmness about her that reminded Hadrian of still lakes and library alcoves—quiet, but not silent. She had the kind of grace that didn’t ask for attention but commanded it anyway. She greeted Hadrian with a nod and a faint curve of her lips, and he returned it with equal reserve. She stepped closer and spoke a soft good morning to Eris as she brushed her scales. 

Greg and Vincent brought up the rear, looming like quiet sentinels, their footsteps heavier but not graceless. Vincent seemed as if he wasn’t aware of his own existence, which Hadrian was starting to gather that he was always in that state of consciousness—if one could even call it that, as he seems anything besides conscious. 

At a nod from Rosamund—who had descended from the upper years’ corridor with the cool precision of a falcon—the group set off together, winding through the stone corridors as the castle began to wake around them.

As they ascended from the depths, torchlight gave way to natural light—pale and rose-tinted, filtering through high windows. Portraits stirred in their frames, stretching and yawning, while the suits of armor clanked softly, adjusting their stances. Hogwarts, Hadrian thought, was beginning to breathe again.

When they reached the Great Hall, the enchanted ceiling mirrored a dawn sky—soft lavender clouds parting to reveal the faintest glow of morning sun. Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had already begun filling their tables, though just barely. The Slytherins moved in a seamless stream, all together, to their table beneath the emerald banners, seating themselves with practiced ease and grace. Gryffindors began to arrive a moment later, trailing noise and bright colors in their wake. There were no groups larger than two or three, but the ruckus was an unsteady force of rowdiness. 

Before any of the Slytherins reached for a slice of toast or a cup of tea, a soft flutter of magic delivered crisp timetables to each student, unlike other houses, who've grabbed their timetables with their grimy, food covered hands. Hadrian took his immediately, fingers brushing the parchment, eyes narrowing slightly as he read the elegant, inked schedule.

Mondays, Thursdays

7 AM-8 AM: Breakfast

8 AM: Charms (Flitwick, Charms Classroom, with Hufflepuff).

10 AM: Transfiguration (McGonagall, Transifiguration Classroom, with Ravenclaw).

12 PM-1 PM: Lunch

1 PM: History Of Magic (Binns, History Classroom, with Ravenclaw)

3 PM: Potions (Snape, Potions classroom, with Gryffindor)

5 PM-6 PM: Dinner

 

Tuesdays, Fridays

7 AM-8 AM: Breakfast

8 AM: Defense Against The Dark Arts (Quirrell, Defense Classroom, with Gryffindor).

10 AM: Herbology (Sprout, Greenhouses, with Hufflepuff).

12 PM-1 PM: Lunch

1 PM: Astronomy (Sinistra, Astronomy Tower, with Ravenclaw)

3 PM: Flying Lessons (Hooch, Quidditch Pitch, with Gryffindor)

5 PM-6 PM: Dinner

 

Wednesdays

7 AM-8 AM: Breakfast

8 AM: Potions (Snape, Potions classroom)

10 AM: Head Of House Open-Hours

12 PM-1 PM: Lunch

1 PM: Free Period

3 PM: Free Period

5 PM-6 PM: Dinner

 

Across the table, Theo let out a quiet breath. “Gryffindors in Potions,” he murmured, eyes flicking to Hadrian. “How predictable.”

“They’ll make fools of themselves,” Pansy said, inspecting her schedule like a ledger.

“Snape won’t tolerate it,” Blaise added with a lazy sort of certainty.

Draco, upon seeing the same pairing, muttered something about sabotage. Daphne simply tilted her head and said, “They’ll test him. They always do. Especially now.”

Hadrian offered a faint smile. “Let them.”

He was positively thrilled that the Slytherins had a period to themselves in potions. No need to worry about the obnoxious Gryffindors buzzing around the classroom. He already has so many questions to ask his godfather about potion theory and how exactly Felix Felicis causes luck. How does that work?! Is it a placebo effect? Does it cause you to think better thus make better decisions? There is simply no way to actually cause your luck to get better, right?

 

The Great Hall swelled with voices and movement, cutlery clinking gently against porcelain as golden platters refilled themselves at a languid pace. Light streamed through the enchanted ceiling—bright now, though pale, the morning sky above a calm, cloud-dappled blue. Students buzzed with the novelty of the coming day: new subjects, new friendships, new paths.

Hadrian sat with his housemates at the Slytherin table, posture composed, fingers curled around a porcelain teacup. He ate with a poised hand and a deliberate pace—pureblood etiquette and culture that he’d picked up during the welcoming feast the previous night. He realized there was more to being a pureblood than just what he’d read in books. He was listening—half to the low murmur of his friends, half to the sounds of the hall itself, but mostly to the castle, whose whispers had never truly left him since his morning walk.

Across the room, at the head table, Dumbledore was watching him.

The glance was not kind, nor warm, nor fleeting. It was the sort of stare that searched—picked apart, dissected, judged—and Hadrian felt it settle over him like dust. He did not return it, but the back of his neck prickled. A knowing. A chill. 

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of recognition—or suspicion. His fingers steepled beneath his chin, gaze hard behind half-moon spectacles.

Hadrian knew why.

He didn’t need a book or a professor’s whisper to understand the parallels being drawn behind those cold, thoughtful eyes. The Headmaster, with all his years and secrets, was making connections. Perhaps they had not needed to be drawn at all—perhaps they had never been forgotten.

A boy in Slytherin. A boy with black hair and pale skin, and eyes too sharp for eleven. A boy with half muggle blood. A boy from nowhere, raised unloved and alone. A boy fitting in with the purebloods. A boy with power. And Slytherin friends.

Hadrian cast a glance down the table. Draco was complaining about the brightness of the ceiling. Theo was thumbing through the day’s schedule again, memorizing it with quiet intent. Daphne and Blaise sat side by side, calm and aloof, like twin statues from some Roman estate. Pansy was stirring her tea in perfect circles. Even Greg and Vincent, quieter than usual, glanced toward Hadrian with unspoken loyalty. At least Greg was. Vincent was in his own world. Again.

They followed him—not like lackeys, but like friends. They admire the way Hadrian spoke of magic. As if it was sentient. As if he understood it. Even though they all met Hadrian yesterday, their years at Hogwarts will surely be spent together, even if their childhood was not.

It was the echo of something. A shape being repeated once again.

Their grandparents—Abraxas Malfoy, Magnus Nott, Giulia Zabini—they had followed another once. A boy who walked these same stones. A boy who had also made the castle whisper. A boy like Hadrian. Or Hadrian was like the boy.

Hadrian didn’t know Tom Riddle. Not yet.

But he felt the shadows of him in the cracks of stone, the curve of the corridor archways, the way the torches flickered when he passed. It was in the way Slytherins nodded to him in the halls—not fearfully, not worshipfully, but as if he were familiar. As if he were a boy whom their grandparents had followed, too.

Research him , the castle had told him, not in words, but in weight.

Voldemort. Not the myth. The boy. The student. The man. The name before the mask. 

Find him, Hadrian. Do as he once did. 

 

Hadrian had nodded once, quietly. He would find the books. The restricted archives. The places people forgot to look.

He would learn what magic had seen fit to remember. He would learn who Voldemort once was. He would do what he had done. He would bring back the man, not the monster.

 

At the head table, Dumbledore still watched, jaw tight, a look of long-harbored dread barely concealed behind his old-man serenity. He knew what the castle was remembering, too.

Hadrian lifted his teacup once more, deliberate. Calm. He still didn’t meet Dumbledore’s gaze. But he smiled. Just faintly.

His eyes found Snape’s further down that table, seeing the same man in Hadrian, but in a different light. In his eyes were surety and pride, not disdain and suspicion. Hadrian sent a beaming smile towards his godfather, a smile he could not hold back, determination written in his eyes, clear as the runes in the cracked and jacked stones of the castle. In return, Snape nodded gracefully, acknowledging him in a way that made his heart swell. His mouth drew a quick smile before a student or staff member could catch it. But Hadrian did, and that’s all that matters.

They would be exploring the castle together after breakfast—walking halls and staircases he had already memorized in solitude hours ago. But he didn’t mind. Let them explore. Let them marvel and learn. He would walk with them, silent and sure.

Hogwarts had already shown him her bones.

And he shall mend them.

Chapter 7: Tom & Hadrian

Summary:

sorry guys, I have NOT been in the mood for writing, but i got it done finally. next chapter is the first classes!!!!!

The castle was beginning to quiet as afternoon waned. Hadrian trailed behind his year-mates after their tour, feigning fatigue, but the truth tugged heavier than simple tiredness. The questions were loud in his mind, and the castle, though humming softly around him, offered no answers.

He slowed to the back of his friend group, and hoped to run off to Snape’s office. Behind his friends were the two other Slytherins that he hadn’t really met. Millicent Bulstrode, the one who was trailing Blaise this morning while heading to breakfast.  She had chestnut brown hair that was tied in an elegant updo. He believed the other girl’s name was Davis. Tracey Davis. 

He wondered if they had grown up beside his friends. They weren't sitting with them in the train compartment, but maybe they just weren't as close of friends. Maybe they were muggleborn or halfbloods like him.

Davis had mousy hair which flowed to her shoulders. She had glasses that were similar to his old pair, but they were silver and dainty. He thought they suited her quite well.

As he passed them, he shot them a cheeky grin, winked, and scuttled behind an arch way. He heard Davis giggle and Draco’s petulant whining about his finely hemmed robes that were now damp due to the dungeon tile. Once he was in the clear, he snuck off towards his godfather’s office.

 

The fire in Snape’s office had burned low. The air was thick with the scent of parchment, ash, and a faint trace of mugwort steeped into the stone. Snape sat behind his desk, half turned away, quill forgotten beside an open ledger of potion inventories. Hadrian stood beside a tall bookcase, fingers brushing lightly over the cracked leather spines as if he could feel the age and secrets within them.

“You seem more settled than most of your yearmates,” Snape said at last, his voice low and composed. “How was your first day?”

Hadrian turned, his expression unreadable, but something glinted behind his eyes—something knowing, something passionate.

“It was… nice,” he said quietly. “I liked seeing the castle through their eyes. Blaise, Daphne, Draco—they’re smart. But they look at the castle and see walls. A place to just learn their own magic.”

“And you?”

Hadrian stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “I don’t just see stone, sir. I feel her. The castle’s magic.”

Snape looked up.

Hadrian’s voice lowered, barely more than a breath. “I know it sounds mad, but she speaks to me. Not in words—but I understand her. It’s like a feeling. The magic that runs through these halls… it’s alive. She’s alive. She carries memories, from even before the castle was built. It hasn’t told me, but I just know. ” Snape didn’t interrupt.

“It doesn’t speak to everyone. It hardly speaks to anyone,” Hadrian continued, now pacing softly, as if careful not to disturb the slumbering will of the stone beneath his feet. “I think most students brush up against it without ever knowing. But I feel them—all of them. Each of the students. Their magic. It’s like… threads of light. Little currents. Unique, flickering, warm. Some more disciplined, others wild, but they’re all so small.”

He paused by the hearth, eyes distant.

“And the castle’s magic—it’s something else entirely. Deep and looming. Not cruel, but gentle and caring. Like the ocean. The students are only waves crashing on the shore. She doesn’t just hold magic—she is magic. And when I walk alone, before the students wake up, I feel like I’m inside her mind. I don’t think she sleeps.”

For a moment, there was only the sound of the fire, crackling softly, echoing like a heartbeat in the stillness.

Snape’s mouth parted, slightly.

“I have never,” he said slowly, “in all my years within these walls… heard anyone speak of magic like that.”

Hadrian looked over his shoulder and worried his lip. “Does that make me mad?”

“No.” Snape’s voice was low, reverent. “It makes you… extraordinary.”

Hadrian turned fully now, surprised by the softness in the man’s voice. Snape was still staring, but something had shifted in his gaze—no longer a professor appraising a student, but a man looking at something he had longed for and lost.

“You remind me of her,” Snape murmured.

“Of my mum?”

A nod. “Lily could feel things others missed. Not like this—not quite—but her magic was light and listening. And you… you’ve taken that and twisted it into something different. She could listen to it, but you can understand it. I don’t know where it comes from.”

“Neither do I,” Hadrian whispered. “In my Gringotts vault, there were parchments and journals of my family. They talked about magic like it was alive, they just couldn’t understand it. Not like I can, at least. But I think they knew that someone would be able to.”

Snape sat in silence, then reached into a drawer. His fingers hesitated before withdrawing a small object—an old, tarnished button. He turned it over once in his palm, as though steadying himself, then looked back up.

“You said your first word in front of me,” he said suddenly, voice unexpectedly quiet.

Hadrian blinked.

“I used to watch you, sometimes, when your parents were away. They trusted me—Lily did, at least. You were only eight months old, sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace at Godric’s Hollow. There was a moth. You were watching it, utterly fascinated. I knelt beside you and—” He exhaled. “You reached for me. Said, ‘Sevus.’ Not quite right, but close enough.”

Hadrian froze. A hush fell over the room.

“You only said my name when your parents were gone. You were a very clever child. Speaking by 8 months and walking by 10.

 You didn’t say another word for almost two months. Yet, when I’d watch you—talking was all you did.”

“Did you tell them?” he asked after a short moment, his voice thin with hope and sorrow.

Snape shook his head. “No. James would have found a way to mock it. He couldn’t bear the idea of you saying my name before his. He hated me.”

There was a strange tightness in Hadrian’s chest. His hands felt cold.

“Why did he hate you?”

“I believe it started when he developed a crush—or whatever you ridiculous children call it—on your mother. Lily and I had grown up together, in the muggle world. I grew up with your aunt as well.” Snape drew a face of disgust at the mere mention of Petunia. “I am absolutely furious at Dumbledore for making you stay with them. Petunia had loathed the fact that your mother was a witch, but she was not. It started as jealousy, but overtime it became hated for your mother. She hated all things magical by our fourth year at Hogwarts.”

“Yeah, she still hates magic. Me. She ripped up my Hogwarts letters when they arrived.”

Snape stared at him with pure hatred and anger, though Hadrian knew it wasn’t directed at him.

“Bloody little hag.” Hadrian heard Snape mutter under his breath. Hadrian muffled a giggle behind his pale hand.

“But as I was saying—your father and I were never on good terms. He played cruel pranks on others—mainly Slytherins, but especially myself due to my close relationship with your mother.”

Hadrian blinked. “He bullied you?! My dad was a bully?”

Snape rolled his eyes and groaned, “if that is what you’d like to call it, then yes.” 

“So all the books I've read and people who’ve talked about my dad like a hero were lying?” Hadrian said sorrowfully. “My dad was a bad person?” His eyes welled with silent tears threatening to fall. Sure, he’d never actually known his father. Hadn’t known his voice. Hadn’t known his laugh.

Hearing what his father was like—it reminded him of Dudley. How he always bullied Hadrian. How he played his game —Harry hunting. How he always hit harder when girls were around. 

“Your father may have been a cruel, insolent boy, but he was a decent man.”

Hadrian paused and looked up from his lap. He was fingering his Potter heir ring, though it remained hidden. All of them did. Inhaling the scent of fresh rosemary, he grounded himself. Don’t cry. Do. Not. Cry.

 

“I wish I could remember that. Growing up with you and my parents.” he said. 

“I know.” Snape replied, his voice laced with longing and sorrow. “You should’ve grown up with them. Me and Lily. And James. You would’ve been a quidditch prodigy if your father had his way.”

Hadrian sniffed and laughed, rubbing his suspiciously wet eyes with the cuff of his sleeve.

“Why did you decide to start going by Hadrian?”

“Well… the goblins told me that true names have power, but I don’t really need power. I don’t want it. I just want people to see me for me. Not the boy-who-lived, Harry. Just Hadrian.”

“Yes, the goblins are correct,” he said simply, a rare ease in his voice. “I’ll admit, I was surprised when you introduced yourself as Hadrian. But I’m… pleased you’ve chosen to use it. It’s your true name. It speaks also of strength—heritage. Aside from your mother and I, no one knows that we chose it together.”

Hadrian blinked, stunned. “You… chose it? And her?”

Snape gave a single nod, folding his hands atop his desk. “We spent an afternoon in the Potter library. Your mother was early in her pregnancy. She wanted something meaningful—something tied to magic, to legacy, and to family. James had no interest in that kind of thing.”

Hadrian furrowed his brow. “Why didn’t my dad care?”

There was a long pause before Snape replied. “James… rejected his heritage. He scorned anything that felt old or tied to tradition. Charlus Potter, his father, was deeply entrenched in the old ways. He raised James with structure—history, magical expectation. But James was too swept up in the world of the Marauders.” Marauders? “His best mate, Sirius Black had filled his head with stories of pureblood cruelty and old magic gone dark. James didn’t want anything to do with it. He had thrown himself in with Dumbledore and held disdain for anything even relatively dark.”

“But you and my mum did. Cared about your magic?” Hadrian asked quietly.

Snape’s eyes didn’t leave him. “We weren’t from old bloodlines. Not noble, not recognized. She was Muggleborn, and I was… what I was. But we both understood what it meant to be excluded. Looked down on. We thought—why destroy a legacy when you can redefine it? Reclaim it? We both wished that we could have legacies like the rest of our peers. So that there was truth of our magic. That it wasn’t just a fluke.”

He stood slowly, moving to one of the bookshelves along the wall, and pulled down a slim, timeworn leather folio. It was bound with an emerald ribbon, and when he opened it, the brittle edges of parchment whispered like breath.

“In the Potter family vault, Lily found a tapestry,” Snape said, voice distant with memory. “A record of the House of Potter, woven in runes and thread. There was one name that caught her eye: Hadrian. Hadrian Potter. Grandson of Linfred the Loon, the founder of the House of Potter. Mid-twelfth century.”

Hadrian leaned forward.

“Linfred’s son, Maxian, wasn’t like his father,” Snape continued. “While Linfred was known for his healing concoctions and gentle spirit, he had still worshipped and practiced traditional wizarding customs. Maxian hated all of it. He refused to acknowledge his father’s ways, and instead ran off, to a land far away. He was not seen nor heard of since.” He drawled. “Maxian’s son, Hadrian had a darker edge. Curious. Powerful. He delved into magic that unsettled others. Wielding this foreign magic, he tracked and found Linfred, and banded the Potter name once more. 

He spoke in strange and odd words and sentences. England at that age, had conversed and written in muggle runes, called the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. Hadrian had been accustomed to a similar language, but one that was an older version and less advanced. This was called the Elder Futhorc. These runes were different from the runes we have now and from the magical runes the wizen had used. The language was composed of lines only, no sigils or different meanings for the same rune.”

Hadrian listened intently, hardly breathing. 

“Hadrian was an odd man, the people said. That he meddled with the wrong things. Things he wasn’t supposed to. That he heard voices. Ones that no one else heard.”

Snape looked down at the open folio, fingers tracing the lines of script. “When Lily read about Hadrian, she said, ‘He sounds like our child.’ I agreed.”

Hadrian felt something warm coil in his chest. A quiet weight.

“She wanted you to grow up knowing where you came from,” Snape added. “To see your ancestry not as a burden, but a map. To understand your magic, your name, your legacy. Family mattered to her, even though she had so little of it left. She wanted to give you that—something lasting. Something sacred.”

Hadrian sat very still, his hands curled in his lap.

“It’s strange,” he whispered. “Even though I didn’t know her… I feel the same. About family. About magic. It’s important to me. Like it’s always been inside me. 

Do you have any books or scripts that describe the Elder Futhorc?”

“I believe there may be some in the library.” Snape replied with a knowing gleam in his eyes and a rise of an eyebrow. “Are you interested?”

“... I think, or at least want to see if that is the language our magic speaks.”

Snape looked absolutely dumbfounded. “I have never even considered that theory… I have read upon those runes, though I have never learned nor looked at them closely.”

He simply looked at the boy—his godson—whose face was James’s but whose eyes were Lily’s. And somewhere in the quiet, a pulse of old magic hummed, low and deep and enduring.

“She’d be proud of that,” Snape said at last, voice soft with weight. “Of you. If you do not find any information, I wish for you to come speak with me.”

Hadrian swallowed the lump in his throat. “Thank you… for telling me.”

Snape gave the faintest nod. “You deserved to know. And I wish I could have told you long ago.”

For a long moment, they sat there in shared silence, the air heavy with what had been lost, and what might still be restored.

“I’ve a question, sir,” he said. “About what you said… before. That Dumbledore wouldn’t let you raise me because you were ‘too close’ to the Dark Lord.”

Snape didn’t answer right away. He merely set his quill down and folded his hands atop the parchment.

“Yes,” he said at last. “That is what he claimed.”

“Was it true?”

“Hadrian, even though you were just sorted into Slytherin, do try to learn subtlety.” Shaking his head in exasperation. Hadrian shrugged sheepishly and scratched his neck. Meeting his godson’s eyes, Snape replied, “I was close to him. Once.”

Hadrian didn’t flinch. Instead, he stepped forward, eyes sharp with something more than curiosity—understanding, perhaps.

“What was he like?” Hadrian asked. “Before everything fell apart.”

Snape raised a brow. “And why do you want to know?”

Hadrian paused, considering the weight of honesty. Then he said, quietly but firmly, “Because no one tells the truth. They say he was evil from the start, but if he was truly mad, he wouldn’t have had half the country behind him. My friends… their grandparents followed him. Believed in him.”

There was no accusation in his voice—only clarity. Snape could hear it: this boy would not be led blindly. Not by the Ministry. Not by Dumbledore. Not by anyone.

“I know he fought for things the Ministry still ignores,” Hadrian continued. “The rights of dark creatures. Repealing laws that punish wandless magic. Teaching the Dark Arts as magic, not crime. That isn’t madness. That’s vision.”

Snape exhaled slowly. “You’ve been reading.”

“I have, sir. But I have only read about Voldemort. The terror he brought. How many people he’s killed. Including my parents… and he tried to kill me. I don’t know what he was like as a leader. As the man who people followed willingly. People who supported for a reason”

Snape studied him with something like wary admiration.

“Tom Riddle,” he said at last, “was a genius. Even as a student, he could silence a room with a glance. He knew how to read people, how to win them. He argued for reform when reform was unspeakable. He challenged blood supremacy and creature disenfranchisement in the same breath—he wanted the magical world to be ruled by strength and ability, not lineage or fear.”

Hadrian’s eyes glinted. “And then?”

Snape’s gaze darkened. “And then… he decided only his vision of balance was correct. He began removing anything that didn’t fit. People. Ideas. Families. He began hunting power for its own sake—magic that corrupted even him.”

Hadrian was quiet for a long moment.

“I want what he wanted,” he said softly. “Balance. Justice. I want to elevate the Dark Arts—to show the world they aren’t evil. That magic is not meant to be divided. There is no good or evil magic. All magic is supposed to be celebrated. But I won’t become what he became. I don’t want to be a murderer.”

Snape’s expression didn’t soften, exactly, but it changed. A flicker of something cautious, almost reverent, passed behind his eyes.

“You remind me of him,” he said, low. “But you’re not him.”

Hadrian looked down. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”

“It’s a warning,” Snape said. “He was brilliant. But he was broken. You aren’t broken, Hadrian. Tom Riddle craved attention and power, not just balance. He wanted to be a deity. Don’t let anyone do that to you—not Dumbledore, not the Ministry… and not the magic itself.”

“The magic wouldn’t do that, sir. It’s sad, it wants to be whole, again. It doesn’t need power, it needs someone to understand it. Protect it. I am that someone, professor.”

Silence stretched between them. “I trust you, Hadrian. If anyone could restore the harmony of magic, it would be you.”

Then Snape spoke again, more carefully. “If you want to understand what he was trying to build… not the horror he became, but the dream before it soured… you’ll need to read more than the school library allows.”

Hadrian’s head snapped up, breath caught in his throat.

Snape stood, walked to the far wall, and removed a key from a hidden drawer. He held it out. “Bottom drawer of that cabinet. You’ll find texts from the late 1940s—underground philosophy, magical reformist essays, his lectures and speeches, the early theory behind what became his doctrine. Read with discernment.”

Hadrian took the key gently. “Thank you.”

Snape studied him one last time. “If you lose yourself, you won’t save anything.”

“I don’t intend to lose myself,” Hadrian said. “I intend to find out who I am.”

Hadrian crossed his way towards the cabinet to skim through the resources on Tom Riddle. He picked up four promising-looking tomes consisting of lectures, Tom Riddle’s school times, and his efforts in politics.

 “I will be seeing you during potions come tomorrow morning. Do not let me down, Harry.”

“I will not, sir. Potions is my favorite subject, sir.”

Snape hesitated for just a moment. “Severus. You may call me Severus, in private… If you wish to do so.”

Hadrian beamed at his godfather. Severus. “I will see you tomorrow… Sevus .” He said with a cheeky grin and quickly darted for the door. “Have a nice evening!” He called while running into the corridor.

“You as well, Hadrian." He could practically hear the eyeroll in his voice. 

 

The torchlight in the dungeons flickered low, casting serpentine shadows across the stone as Hadrian descended the last staircase. His steps were slow, but not heavy—quiet, careful, like someone walking through a memory that hadn’t finished settling.

The conversation with Severus sat in him like smoke in the lungs. Not painful, not yet. But lingering.

He entered the common room with little fanfare. The door opened soundlessly, and the usual murmur of evening chatter filled the space—the rustle of pages, the quiet clink of teacups, Theo and Blaise arguing over a chessboard in the corner while Pansy perched nearby, looking bored. Draco lounged on one of the velvet settees, idly flipping through a book he clearly wasn’t reading.

Hadrian crossed the threshold, his expression unreadable. He didn’t slump or drag his feet, but something in his posture—too composed, too still—made his friends pause.

Theo was the first to notice.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Exploring,” Hadrian answered. His voice was even, but something about it had changed—softer, distant. Like his mind hadn’t quite returned with his body.

Draco sat up straighter. “You missed dinner.”

Hadrian blinked as if he hadn’t realized.

“Oh,” he said. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Blaise tilted his head. “Are you alright?”

A pause.

Hadrian nodded once, slowly. “Yes. Just… thinking.”

He didn’t elaborate. Not yet. They didn’t press.

He drifted toward the stairs without much ceremony, his footsteps nearly silent on the worn stone. But halfway up to the dorm corridor, he paused, turned back to them.

“I’m going to the library,” he said. “Just for an hour or so.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “At this hour? We haven’t even had classes yet, what could you possibly be going to the library for?”

Pansy squinted at him. “What are you researching?”

Hadrian glanced toward her, his expression calm, but in his eyes there was a quiet glint—a resolve like water wearing away stone.

“Something important,” he said simply.

Then, after a beat: “Tom Riddle.”

The room went still for a moment.

Draco exhaled softly, expression unreadable. Blaise narrowed his eyes. Theo looked intrigued, but not surprised. Pansy just leaned back, folding her arms. “Of course you are.”

Hadrian nodded faintly, then disappeared up the stairs.

In the first room of the first hall, his satchel sat neatly on his bed. The violet leather notebook lay untouched on the small desk beside it—its cover smooth and unmarred, still heavy with potential. He picked it up reverently, brushing his fingers over the edge. The stitching was fine, hand-bound, with a faint embossed border of flowering vines and old runes curling across the bottom. He’d told himself he wouldn’t use it until the right moment came. A special occasion.

This was it. This was the beginning of something other than rumor and deeper than memory.

He opened the notebook for the first time and wrote only a title at the top of the first page:

“Tom Marvolo Riddle – Initial Research”

Satisfied, he closed it again, tucked it gently into his satchel alongside his raven-feather quill, his Starling’s Wing ink, only seen under candle or moonlight—perfect for discretion, and the four books Severus had pressed into his hands before he left the office. Their titles were plain, but the weight of them was anything but.

The Riddle Years: An Academic Review of Magical Merit (1937–1944)

Student, Scholar, Shadow: The Rise of Tom Marvolo Riddle at Hogwarts

Language and Power: Riddle’s Use of Ancient Magic and Forgotten Speech

Before the Name: Political Echoes of a Young Revolutionary

Hadrian ran a hand over the worn cover of the last book. He wondered how much of Riddle’s madness had been myth. How much had been invention. And how much, quietly, had been vision.

He closed the satchel, straightened his robes, and left the dormitory with the same quiet focus he’d entered with.

As he walked the long corridor toward the library, footsteps silent on the stone, he made a list in his mind—not on paper, not yet. Some thoughts weren’t ready to be written.

Tom Riddle — the early years, the turning point, his beliefs before the spiral.

Elder Futhorc — the runes from his namesake, the potential language of the magic, and why it spoke to him as much as it did.

Hadrian Potter — not the boy he was named, but the man Lily and Severus had chosen to name him after. What magic might be hidden in that name? What had been stolen from it? What magic had he meddled with? Was it the same type as himself?

But tonight, he would only focus on the first.

Tom Riddle.

Because stories became monsters when left untold. And Hadrian was tired of accepting half-truths wrapped in unfaithful light.

The library was still and dim when he arrived, quiet as a cathedral. Dust hung in the air like threads of spellwork. The torches were low, and the high windows let in only a sliver of moonlight.

He found a table—tucked near the Restricted Section, hidden behind a towering shelf of magical theory. He unpacked his satchel with care: the books, the ink, the violet notebook. He set them out before him like tools for excavation.

And then he began to read.

Not as a student. Not as a child.

But as a force awakening inside him—some sharp, cold knowing that knowledge was the key to power, and that power had never frightened him.

Not really.

Chapter 8: Blaise's Mental Anguish

Summary:

an apology for the children acting like middle aged old gits!!!

Hadrian woke before the dawn had fully risen. Again. He had always awoken before the rest of the world. At the Dursley’s, he’d always been afraid of the dark. He’d make up in the middle of the night and his mind wouldn’t rest any longer.

The light in the dungeons was soft and silver, filtering through the green-tinged lake windows like diffused moonlight. The enchanted glass rippled faintly with the slow movements of water creatures beyond—long silhouettes and flickering fins that passed like ghosts. It was early, far earlier than anyone in the Slytherin dorms ever stirred, but Hadrian’s eyes snapped open with purpose. His body was a quiet hum of anticipation.

He lay still for a moment, listening to the deep silence of the sleeping quarters. Beside him, Theo breathed evenly, still caught in the soft, spellless dark of dreaming. The curtains around their beds were half-drawn, letting in the faintest of glimmers. Hadrian slowly sat up, reaching for the thick dressing gown folded neatly at the foot of his bed. Eris stirred lazily from her curled position near his pillow, emerald eyes blinking once before she slithered up his arm and coiled loosely around his shoulders like ink come alive.

“I’m going to Potions today,” he whispered to her, lips barely moving. “With Snape.”

Eris tasted the air with her tongue and gave no reply, only coiling tighter, warmer. She liked the dungeons—preferred their shadows and chill. Hadrian did too.

He dressed with care. The standard uniform had never felt like armor before, but today it suited him—the crisp lines, the silver serpent stitched near his heart, the black that offset the brightness of his green eyes. He fastened his robe slowly, then slipped his satchel over one shoulder. Inside were his notes, pre-brew diagrams, ingredient margins and correction codes he’d copied from ancient brewing texts. He had read the Book of Subtle Brews three times through and annotated every page of Introduction to Healing Potions, vol. I. He was ready.

The Great Hall was half-empty when he arrived for breakfast, but his friends joined him one by one. Blaise was elegant and still sleepy-eyed, Pansy sharp-tongued and already annoyed with her hair, Draco delightfully smug about beating the Gryffindors to breakfast. Theo sat beside Hadrian with quiet purpose, reading a thin dueling manual and munching on toast. Greg and Vincent flanked Draco like ceremonial guards, loyal and lumbering. And no—Vincent was not yet aware of his existence. 

“Excited for Snape?” Draco asked in a low voice, grinning as he sipped his pumpkin juice. “I heard he only starts with Boil-Cure for us. Thinks the others aren’t ready.”

Hadrian nodded, chewing a slice of tart apple, his thoughts already ahead of the conversation. “He’s right. If they haven’t read ahead, they’ll botch the base before it simmers.”

Theo raised an eyebrow. “You’ve made it before?”

“I’ve memorized it,” Hadrian said mildly. “And a few others. I like potions, okay?”

Theo blinked slowly. “You’ll make Head Brewer in three years, at this rate.”

Hadrian smiled shyly. His head dipped slightly and Eris laughed at him. Her too? He mentally groaned.

 

The descent to the Potions classroom was steep and cool, filled with the sound of robes brushing stone and the gentle echo of boots on flagstones. The air grew thicker the lower they went, laced with scents—old parchment, dried lavender, distilled iron, and the faint trace of something more volatile. The Potions corridor had no windows. The sconces flickered with green fire.

Professor Snape stood at the front of the room, tall and motionless as a statue, his black robes trailing behind him like spilled ink. The board behind him was already filled with script—sleek, slanted letters in chalk that spelled the full brewing instructions for the Cure for Boils.

Snape’s eyes swept over them as they entered. “No talking. Sit.”

They obeyed.

Hadrian and Theo chose the second table from the front, just to the left—strategically placed to avoid undue attention, yet close enough for clear observation. Draco and Blaise sat together near the center. Pansy paired with Daphne. Crabbe and Goyle predictably took the furthest bench, all elbows and uncertainty. Davis and Bulstrode sat on the other side of Draco’s table, looking at each other warily.

“Today,” Snape began in that slow, silken voice that always sounded vaguely menacing, “you will begin brewing your first potion: the Cure for Boils. A simple mixture, theoretically—if one is literate and not entirely brainless.”

A few students stiffened. Snape continued, unfazed.

“You will not work with any other House today because—mercifully—you are the only ones I trust not to ignite yourselves by accident. The instructions are on the board. Follow them exactly. Do not speak unless absolutely necessary. Should I hear giggling—” his eyes darted to Pansy and Daphne, though they hadn’t made a sound, “—you will scrub cauldrons with your toothbrush until your fingers blister. Begin.”

There was a low rustle as they stood and moved to collect ingredients—snake fangs, dried nettles, horned slugs, porcupine quills, and flobberworm mucus, which Hadrian collected with the grace of someone unfazed by mess or odor. His movements were swift, controlled. He measured delicately and precisely, and poured with a steady hand.

The dungeon warmed as flames flared to life under black cauldrons. The room filled with the soft hiss of steam, the bubbling of thick mixtures, the scent of crushed nettle and smoke. Hadrian leaned slightly over his work, adjusting the flame to a lower burn.

“Don’t stir yet,” he murmured to Theo. “Wait until the nettle dissolves completely. The base has to be clear.”

Theo paused, nodded. He wasn’t half-bad at brewing, but Hadrian had an instinct for it—something deep and quiet and sure.

At the front of the room, Snape stalked like a dark-browed panther between tables. His robes flared with each turn. He glanced into cauldrons, made sharp corrections, and sneered once when Millicent stirred counterclockwise instead of clockwise.

But when he passed Hadrian and Theo’s table, he paused. His black eyes narrowed slightly. He said nothing, only examined the potion for a fraction of a second longer than the others.

Hadrian’s potion was perfect.

It shimmered faintly in the firelight—a deep, cool blue with a hint of violet at the edges, exactly as described in Moste Potente Remedies. No scorch marks around the rim, no foam or film. It simmered cleanly, releasing a fine herbal vapor that made the skin beneath one’s eyes feel cooler.

Draco’s was nearly as good—his had a slightly brighter tint, a sign of the flame having been one degree too high—but only Snape would notice the difference.

“Davis, Parkinson,” Snape snapped from the far end. “Switch places. Parkinson, you are not to lift your wand again until Davis finishes the stirring. If you break another quill trying to crush slugskin, I will give you something else to stir.”

Some of the students snorted quietly into their sleeves. Hadrian didn’t react. He was watching the last bubble rise, then tapped the rim with his wand to test the viscosity. Perfect.

Theo glanced at him sideways. “How did you know how much heat to use? That isn’t in the instructions.”

“It’s not specified in our textbook, I found it in one of the books I've read, this is the recipe that I've got mesmerized." Hadrian said quietly, eyes focused ahead.

Theo looked faintly alarmed, then impressed.

They finished in silence, hands steady and eyes sharp. When the time came to bottle a sample of their brew and place it on Snape’s desk, Hadrian did so with effortless precision. The vial was clean, the cork sealed neatly, and the glass labeled in fine emerald ink: Hadrian J. Potter.

Snape barely glanced at it as he passed, but when the lesson ended and the vials were cleared, he lingered just long enough beside Hadrian’s table to murmur:

“Well done.”

Then he swept away without looking back.

Hadrian left the classroom with his satchel slung over one shoulder, Eris tucked back beneath his collar, and a small, cool smile on his lips. Potions was everything he’d hoped—and more. Here, in the quiet of flame and formula, he was not the Boy-Who-Lived or the son of Gryffindors. He was himself.

A Slytherin. A brewer. A scholar.

And the day had only just begun.

 

The Slytherin common room was unusually quiet, the sort of stillness that felt suspended in lakewater and silver light. Only the youngest students remained, the first-years left to themselves while the older Slytherins vanished off to upper-year lectures. The calm wasn’t uncomfortable—if anything, it felt luxurious. There were no eyes watching, no looming prefects correcting posture or behavior, and no professors calling them to attention. Just the soft sound of the lake moving beyond the enchanted windows and the occasional pop of the fireplace, its green flames flickering gently over velvet cushions and carved stone.

Blaise and Pansy had claimed the rug nearest the hearth, sprawling like spoiled cats. Pansy was flipping through a glossy issue of Witch Weekly with idle, unimpressed fingers, occasionally scoffing at a particularly offensive hat. Blaise had one arm draped over his eyes and the other splayed dramatically to the side as if he had died from sheer exhaustion. 

“I can’t believe they expect us to function before noon,” Blaise muttered into the crook of his elbow.

“You were up before all of us,” Daphne pointed out from a green armchair where she sat cross-legged, braiding her hair with idle grace.

“Besides Hadrian.” Theo said and rolled his eyes dramatically. Which earned him an elbow to the ribs from the devil himself.

“Yes, but only physically. Spiritually, I’m still in bed,” Blaise sighed.

Tracey Davis gave a soft snort of laughter from her spot on the sofa beside Millicent. Millicent, as usual, was quiet—hands folded neatly in her lap, dark eyes flicking between the speakers with shy attentiveness. Greg and Vincent were in matching armchairs, low conversation between them about The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, and whether or not it could be used to heat up treacle tarts.

Draco had claimed the center of the tufted green sofa, polished as ever despite the casualness of the morning. His robes were immaculate, his hair combed back with the same precision it had on the first day of the train ride. Theo and Hadrian sat on either side of him—Theo scribbling something into a little notebook with one of his specially sharpened quills, and Hadrian lazily stroking Eris, who had wrapped herself around his wrist like a silken black ribbon.

The air between them all had shifted these last few days. The formal stiffness of their first introductions—the posturing and measuring—had faded somewhat. They were still Slytherins, of course. There was elegance in their restraint and calculation in their silences. But now, there was also the kind of ease that came from familiarity. Inside jokes, shared glances. The smallest beginnings of something soft and solid.

Draco was watching the group with a pensive look. He tilted his head toward Millicent and Tracey after a lull in conversation. “I realized,” he said, almost casually, “that I haven’t met either of your families. Are you… pureblood?”

His tone was polite, genuinely curious, with none of the usual sharpness that question carried in pureblood circles.

Tracey’s expression flickered. “Why?” she asked, not sharply, but with a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. “So you can decide whether or not we’re worth talking to?”

Pansy looked up from her magazine. Blaise lowered his arm to watch. Even Vincent and Greg paused their tart debate.

Draco blinked. “No,” he said slowly, as though choosing his words with care. “No, I just wondered. And I… well, I think the magical world needs new blood. I’m not my father.”

That, more than anything, seemed to catch Tracey off guard. She studied him for a beat longer, then leaned back against the cushions with a small shrug. “Half-blood,” she admitted, with a coolness that didn’t quite mask the tension behind it. “Mum’s a Muggleborn, Dad’s from an old family. I’m not ashamed of it.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Draco said quickly. Then, after a pause: “It’s refreshing, honestly. Most of the old lines are so tangled, they’re starting to fold in on themselves.”

Millicent stirred beside Tracey. Her voice was very quiet. “I’m… half-blood, too,” she said, eyes downcast. “But… not like that. My dad’s a Muggle. Mum’s a Squib.”

There was a long pause. No one said anything cruel. No one even looked surprised. Blaise stretched an arm lazily behind his head and muttered, “Honestly, the Squib side probably makes you more magical than most of us.”

Millicent let out the smallest huff of amusement, the tension in her shoulders softening a little.

“I’m a half-blood too,” Hadrian said, tone light.

Everyone turned to him, and then—almost in perfect unison—rolled their eyes.

“We know,” Daphne drawled.

“You’re the most dramatic about it,” added Theo.

“What?” Hadrian said, raising his palms in mock innocence. “I’m just saying. Maybe it’s a half-blood thing.”

That made them all laugh. The first real, free laugh of the morning. It echoed off the stone walls and danced like sunlight through the green-glass glow of the water. It was the kind of laugh that made Tracey smile in full for the first time and Millicent glance shyly around with a flicker of pride. Even Vincent cracked a wide grin, and Blaise, still flopped out across the floor, held up a languid hand for a high-five from Hadrian, who delivered it without hesitation.

“You know,” Blaise said, folding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes again, “it’s almost frightening how nice this is. I keep waiting for someone to ruin it.”

“No one will,” Pansy said decisively, smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Not in here.”

And for the moment, they believed her.

In the cradle of the lake, in the safety of their green-lit common room, the Slytherin first-years were not the children of dark legacies, of bloodline wars, of whispers and politics. They were not pureblood heirs or half-blood strays or Muggleborn anomalies.

They were just children. Eleven, wide-eyed and already so old. And they were learning—slowly, carefully—that they could be themselves with each other. Not perfect. Not pure. Just real.

And for the first time, that felt like enough.

 

At some point—somewhere between Pansy’s monologue about how her older sister had hexed her eyebrows off for sneaking her dress robes, and Hadrian arguing with Theo over the pronunciation of a wand core manufacturer—Blaise stopped responding.

He had, up until moments ago, been very much awake, tossing in the occasional sly quip, smirking at the others from the rug where he was still splayed like a Roman aristocrat in the throes of artistic ennui. But now, his hand had gone slack over his chest, one long leg bent at a crooked angle, the other stretched out toward the hearth like he’d been mid-conquest and promptly keeled over from the effort.

Tracey was the first to notice.

“Um,” she said dryly, her gaze landing on him. “Is Zabini dead?”

Everyone turned.

Blaise’s chest rose and fell slowly, mouth slightly open in the most undignified sleep a Slytherin could possibly manage. A soft snore escaped him. Eris, who had slithered off Hadrian’s wrist to investigate the scent of ash by the fire, paused and flicked her tongue near his ankle before deciding he wasn’t worth her time and curling near Draco’s socked feet.

Hadrian squinted down at him from the sofa. “He’s actually asleep.”

Pansy burst out laughing. “You’re joking—he really is! Look at him!”

“It’s eleven in the morning!” Greg exclaimed.

Draco folded his arms, looking torn between horror and admiration. “He’s… drooling.”

“No I’m not,” Blaise mumbled from the floor, eyes still firmly shut.

That did it. Tracey clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her laugh, and even quiet Millicent gave a surprised little giggle. Theo shook his head, his usual composure briefly cracking into a soft, wheezing laugh.

“Blaise,” Hadrian said, amused, reaching down to stroke Blaise’s head. His hair was cropped in a celan, deliberate buzz, every edge sharp as if it were drawn by wandpoint. “How are you even alive?”

“Let him rest, he’s delicate,” Pansy said, reclining next to him as though they were co-stars in some tragic theatre piece.

“He’s unconscious,” Daphne replied. “That’s not delicate. That’s medically concerning.”

Blaise stirred just enough to nudge his head closer to Hadrian’s leg and grumble, “Don’t stop… that felt nice…”

Hadrian blinked, then glanced at the others and—half out of sympathy, half for the bit—went back to stroking Blaise’s soft, dark hair. “Like this?”

“Mmhmm…”

The others were half-horrified, half-dying with laughter, when the common room door slammed open.

It didn’t creak. Of course it didn’t. The doors in Slytherin were far too elegant for that. They simply opened, silently and ominously.

And in stepped Professor Snape.

Every child in the room froze.

Snape’s eyes flicked over them all, taking in the sight of ten first-years sprawled across the common room in varying states of repose and disorder. His gaze swept over Greg and Vincent—Vincent halfway through a biscuit Daphne had stowed from breakfast—then past Pansy’s raised eyebrow, Tracey mid-chortle, and finally—

To Hadrian, sitting calmly on the sofa, legs crossed, one hand stroking the sleeping scalp of Blaise Zabini like he was a very luxurious cat.

Snape’s brow lifted. Just one.

He didn’t say a word.

He turned around and walked back out through the door without a sound, his robes flowing behind him in a dramatic flare.

The moment it clicked shut, chaos exploded.

“Did anyone see his face?!” Daphne howled.

“Oh Merlin—oh Merlin—he didn’t even blink!” Theo said, wheezing.

“He saw everything, and just—left!” Pansy cried, flopping backwards onto the rug like she’d been slain.

Vincent clutched his stomach from laughing. “He looked like he was about to melt!”

Hadrian shook his head, laughing helplessly. “He didn’t even comment! No ‘what is the meaning of this,’ nothing!”

Draco, still chuckling breathlessly, ran a hand through his hair—and froze. “Oh no. No no no no no—”

The room went quiet again, attention snapping to him as his fingers hovered near his head.

“Did I—?” he whispered, darting to a small hand mirror on the table beside him. He held it up to his face.

His fringe had separated.

The gel had broken.

A single silver-blonde strand hung rebelliously over his forehead.

“No,” he gasped. “My hair.”

“Oh, here we go,” Daphne muttered, already grinning.

“It’s ruined, I—I look like I’ve just woken up, I can’t be seen like this—Hadrian, fix it—”

But Hadrian had doubled over with laughter.

And then—quietly, efficiently—Theo leaned over from the other side of the sofa and dragged his hand through Draco’s hair.

The result was cataclysmic.

Draco shrieked.

It wasn’t dignified.

It wasn’t princely.

It was the sound of a boy whose entire morning grooming routine had just been reduced to rubble.

“THEODORE!” he wailed, clutching at his head like Theo had scalped him.

The room erupted. Even Blaise—still flat on the floor—giggled in his sleep. Greg nearly fell out of his chair. Pansy was rolling, quite literally, across the floor. Millicent had both hands over her mouth, her eyes alight with amusement.

Draco leapt to his feet, his fringe hanging in chaos, face flushed. “I am going to comb this,” he declared with the gravitas of a general preparing for war. “And none of you are allowed to look at me until it is fixed. My father will hear about this, Theodore!”

He stormed toward the dormitory corridor with as much dignity as he could muster, which was not much.

“You’ll always be beautiful to me!” Hadrian called after him.

“I HATE YOU ALL!” Draco shouted back.

But even that had laughter in it.

And as the common room settled again—soft and gleaming, filled with warm firelight and half-tamed childhood—it was clear that something important had just been earned. Not status. Not power. Not legacy.

Trust.

In this hidden green heart of the castle, they were no longer strangers or heirs or enemies.

They were friends. Snake-children in the depths of the lake, laughing, real, and finally home.

Chapter 9: Feathers & Needles

Summary:

we got a full day of classes finally

The Great Hall hummed with morning chatter and the soft clatter of silverware. Above the Slytherin table, green-and-silver banners stirred in a draft that slinked through the rafters like something alive. The enchanted ceiling mirrored the soft grey skies outside, a dim drizzle dusting the world beyond the high windows.

The Slytherin first-years had gathered near the end of the table closest to the staff dais, most of them in varying states of sleepiness or excitement. Draco was the loudest among them this morning, sitting straight-backed with an air of smug delight as he buttered his toast with unnecessary flourish.

“Flying lessons are tomorrow,” he announced, cutting across whatever Theo had just mumbled. “And I, for one, cannot wait. I’m an excellent flyer. Father says I could’ve made the House team this year, but rules are rules.”

“You say that as if anyone’s surprised,” Blaise muttered beside him, his cheek resting against the table, a cup of tea balanced dangerously close to his fingers. He looked half-asleep but somehow still elegant in his posture.

“I’m serious,” Draco pressed on. “I’ve been flying since I was five. It’s in my blood.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Pansy groaned, stretching out on the floor beside Blaise with her arms folded beneath her head. “He’s going to be unbearable until tomorrow, isn’t he?”

“You lot will see,” Draco huffed, tossing his white-blond fringe off his forehead. “Tryouts next year—I’ll be Seeker, mark my words.”

“I like flying,” Blaise murmured, eyes still mostly closed, “but Quidditch is too much shouting and sweat for me. I prefer to stay beautiful.”

“Same,” Pansy chimed, glancing toward him with a little smirk. “I like flying, just not enough to ruin my face over it.”

“You’re all so dramatic,” Daphne said from her seat across the table, brushing a strand of pale hair behind her ear. “Astoria and I fly all the time. It’s fun. And useful. You never know when you’ll need to escape a duel.”

“I’d rather duel,” Theo said flatly, looking unamused. “My broom once smacked me right in the face. We don’t get along.”

Tracey, who had been quietly sipping her pumpkin juice and listening, lifted her chin slightly. “I like flying,” she said in her soft, calm voice. “I’m going to try out for Keeper next year. I’m good at blocking things.”

Greg and Vincent looked up from their plates with identical grins.

“Beater,” Vincent said through a mouthful of sausage.

“Definitely Beater,” Greg added. “We’re strong.”

“Very subtle,” Daphne noted, arching a brow.

Then, at last, Hadrian—who had been chewing a slice of pear and quietly watching everyone with amused eyes—spoke.

“I’ve never flown before.”

There was a pause. Then chaos.

Draco blinked. “Wait, what?”

“You’re joking,” Pansy said, sitting up slightly. Even Blaise cracked one eye open.

Hadrian shook his head and took a sip of his tea. “I didn’t have a broom growing up. I didn’t even grow up in the wizarding world, you gits.”

“I cannot wait for tomorrow,” Theo said, suddenly much more awake.

“Hadrian, I adore you,” Blaise yawned, stretching like a cat, “but if you fall off your broom, I will laugh.”

“Oh, we’re all going to laugh,” Pansy added, giggling.

“I’m not going to fall,” Hadrian said, serene and unconcerned.

“That’s exactly what someone who’s never flown before would say,” Tracey murmured behind the rim of her cup.

As their laughter died down, the topic shifted as quickly as it had sparked. Blaise, ever languid, muttered, “Ugh. We’ve got History of Magic later.”

“Tragic,” Pansy said, resting her head on Blaise’s shoulder like a cushion. He stilled instantly, and turned bright red.

“I heard Binns just floats through walls and reads aloud from a book,” Daphne added, sighing. “No visual aids. No duels. Not even an enchanted chalkboard.”

“I’d rather be hexed,” Draco said.

“I like History of Magic,” Hadrian offered, to immediate groans.

“Of course you do,” Blaise said, not unkindly. “You’re an academic masochist.”

Hadrian smiled faintly. “I like learning about magic just as much as I like doing it.”

“Well, at least someone’s looking forward to it,” Pansy mumbled, eyes closing again.

By then, breakfast was winding down. The hall thinned as students left in batches for their first classes. The Slytherin first-years gathered their bags and cloaks, making their way across the Entrance Hall and toward the marble staircase that would take them up to the Charms corridor.

Hadrian walked near the front with Theo, Vincent, Davis, and Bulstrode. Behind them, Draco and the rest strolled at an easier pace—Blaise yawning into his sleeve, Greg carrying both his own bag and Draco’s like it was nothing.

The sound of shoes echoed faintly in the high corridors as they climbed the stairs. Theo murmured something about which spells they’d be learning today, but Davis’s voice broke through the chatter as she turned slightly toward Hadrian.

“Are you actually excited for History of Magic?”

He nodded without hesitation. “Completely. I want to understand how things came to be. It’s one thing to cast a spell—it’s another to know who first cast it, and why.”

Davis tilted her head, a flicker of curiosity in her dark eyes.

“You’re very strange, Potter,” she said, but it wasn’t unkind.

“Hadrian,” he corrected smoothly, glancing between her and Bulstrode. “Call me Hadrian.”

Bulstrode blinked in surprise.

“Only if you call me Tracey,” said Tracey.

There was a pause. Then Millicent, quietly but firmly, added, “Same. Millicent.”

Hadrian smiled. “Alright then.”

Behind them, Draco’s voice drifted forward: “Greg, if you pull my robe like that again, I swear—”

Hadrian chuckled to himself. There was something soft and surreal about the moment—the quiet corridor, the laughter, the subtle exchange of first names like old formal robes being shed. They were Slytherins, yes. But in that moment, they were simply children, allowed to be human. And that, Hadrian thought, might be the rarest kind of magic of all.

 

The classroom for Charms was smaller than the grand halls used for Transfiguration or Defense, but warm and inviting in a peculiar way—sunlight filtered through high, diamond-paned windows, gilding the air in a faint haze of dust motes. The space was filled with neatly arranged desks, and the scent of lemon polish and old parchment hovered gently. The walls were lined with shelves of curious magical trinkets, charmed artifacts, and hovering lanterns that pulsed with a soft gold light.

Hadrian entered with Theo, Millicent, and Tracey. The rest of their group filed in after, joining the scattered Hufflepuffs, who greeted them with polite nods. Despite being grouped with a House stereotyped as mild and affable, the energy was quietly electric—everyone seemed eager for their first real Charms lesson.

Professor Flitwick, a tiny man with tufted white hair and a waistcoat that shimmered faintly with embroidered runes, stood upon a stack of books behind his desk. His eyes sparkled like bright buttons as he surveyed the room, then with a squeaky “Ahem!” he tapped his wand once to gain their attention. It echoed with a gentle chime through the air.

“Good morning, everyone!” he squeaked cheerfully, and the room responded in a hesitant, uneven chorus.

“I’m Professor Flitwick,” he continued, bouncing slightly on his stack of books. “I shall be your Charms Master for the next seven years, should you survive that long!” There were a few scattered laughs, mostly from the Hufflepuff side, and even Hadrian smiled faintly.

“I’m what some would call a half-goblin,” Flitwick added matter-of-factly, “which simply means I’m a little closer to the magical roots than most. Charms, you see, are the purest expression of intent-focused magic. Not brute force, not transformation—just will, funneled through words and movement.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing atop his desk like a general atop a battlefield map. “You’ll find that charms are everywhere: the Lumos that lights your path, the Reparo that mends your robes, the Silencio that keeps your roommates quiet—if only for a moment.”

Draco leaned over and whispered to Blaise, “He’s brilliant,” and Blaise just hummed, still blinking the last of sleep from his eyes.

“Today,” Flitwick said brightly, “we begin with the most elegant of all levitation spells: Wingardium Leviosa!”

The Slytherins and Hufflepuffs paired off as instructed, standing beside the desks with feather props laid out before them.

Hadrian paired with Theo, as always. Their feather was stark white against the dark oak of their table, as pristine as the page of a book before a quill.

“Wand at the ready,” Flitwick said, hopping down from his perch with surprising agility. “Now remember: swish and flick, not jab and poke, and pronounce it Wing-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SAH—unless you’re trying to lift a bucket of frogs onto your head.”

That earned real laughter. Even Theo chuckled under his breath.

Hadrian’s wand moved with smooth, practiced precision. “Wingardium Leviosa,” he intoned softly.

The feather lifted.

Effortless. Graceful. It hovered like a drifting leaf on a still pond, twirling slightly under his control. Theo raised his brows, impressed.

“Show-off,” he muttered, then grinned.

Flitwick bustled over, clapping his hands in delight. “Mr. Potter! Splendid execution! Ten points to Slytherin, and a fine example to the class!”

Around the room, more success followed in quick succession. Millicent, standing with Tracey, had managed to lift hers as well. Her wide eyes blinked in disbelief.

“I did it,” she whispered, almost to herself.

“You did,” Tracey said, smiling with quiet pride.

Further down, Pansy’s feather was floating with impeccable poise, her grip perfect, lips pursed in concentration. Susan Bones—rosy-cheeked and confident—was guiding hers in gentle spirals, giggling as it dipped and soared.

“I read the chapter twice,” she said to her partner, another Hufflepuff girl who was struggling with her flick. “It’s all about the wrist.”

Draco’s feather had begun to rise, though with a slight wobble. He frowned, then looked at Hadrian’s. “Alright, how did you make it look easy?”

“Swish and flick,” Hadrian replied dryly. “Not stab and scowl.”

Blaise’s was twitching on the desk like an irritated beetle. “Mine’s trying to escape,” he said lazily. “I think it hates me.”

“You’re supposed to charm it, not threaten it,” Pansy said, snickering.

Flitwick moved among them like a benevolent sprite, correcting wrist angles and coaching pronunciation. “Ah! Mr. Goyle, that was very close—remember, light wrist, no stabbing motion.”

Goyle grunted and tried again. Vincent’s feather lifted slightly and dropped, and he beamed like he’d just cast the Killing Curse on purpose.

After several more tries, the class finally began to quiet. Flitwick clapped his hands once more.

“Excellent work today! Most of you succeeded on your first spell, which is rare for a first Charms class. Ten points to Hufflepuff—for Miss Bones—and another ten to Slytherin—for Miss Bulstrode and Miss Parkinson. And, of course, Mr. Potter, whose feather is still floating.”

Hadrian glanced up; it was still hovering in the air above him, slowly turning like a petal on the wind. He lowered it gently back down, his magic precise, and caught Theo giving him a small nod of approval.

As they filed out of the classroom, there was a renewed buzz of energy in the air. Even those who hadn’t gotten their feathers to rise were laughing and comparing strategies. It felt, for the first time since the train ride, like they were all proper Hogwarts students.

And for Hadrian, who had read every chapter, practiced wand motions in the mirror, and dreamt of this exact moment since purchasing his wand, it was a small, private kind of triumph.

Magic was real. And he could do it.

Even better—he was good at it.

 

The Transfiguration classroom was a tall, airy chamber of polished stone and gleaming wood, with high-arched windows that looked out over the distant green slopes of the Hogwarts grounds. The desks were long and neatly arranged in rows, each paired with a set of brass candlesticks and jars of mundane objects—buttons, pins, corks, and matchsticks. At the front of the room stood an imposing mahogany desk with clawed feet, immaculately bare save for a single scroll and an empty inkwell.

As they entered, Theo practically dragged Hadrian by the wrist.

“Come on,” he urged, eyes alight. “Front and center—if she’s half as good as her reputation, I want to see every flick of her wand.”

Hadrian blinked at the boy’s enthusiasm, but followed without resistance. It was strange, seeing Theo so animated. But there was something oddly infectious about it. The two of them settled at the middle table in the very front row. One by one, their Housemates filtered in, flanking them instinctively. Blaise dropped his bag beside Pansy, who sat cross-legged in her chair with one ankle bouncing lazily. Draco and Daphne claimed the bench to the right, blonde heads bent together. Millicent and Tracey shared the seat behind Hadrian and Theo, both setting out their textbooks in near-silent coordination. Vincent and Greg claimed the back corner like two sentinels.

The Ravenclaws filed in next—quiet, composed, and already whispering about wand movements and transmutation ratios. Their voices were low, but not unfriendly. They radiated the kind of meticulous excitement that felt measured and scholarly. Hadrian liked that. The room hummed with a subtle, poised energy—controlled, but expectant.

As they unpacked their wands and books, the students glanced around curiously. A tabby cat sat neatly atop the teacher’s desk, its tail curled around its paws, green eyes sweeping the room with an oddly intelligent gleam.

Daphne leaned forward and smirked at Hadrian. “Feels good to be with your real House, doesn’t it?”

Hadrian looked up, bemused. “My real House?”

She tapped the corner of his textbook with her quill. “Please. You’ve probably already memorized all the wand movements. Bet you’ve practiced the incantation too.”

The rest of the Slytherins chuckled. Blaise, still reclined, added with a yawn, “He’s already halfway through the second-year textbook.”

“I’m not,” Hadrian said, deadpan.

“You are,” Theo said brightly, flipping to the correct chapter. “He was correcting a mislabeled diagram in the common room yesterday.”

Before Hadrian could retort, the tabby cat leapt down from the desk—and transformed mid-air.

There was a collective intake of breath. One moment, a feline silhouette; the next, a tall, austere woman with square spectacles, a dark emerald robe with precise pleats, and a no-nonsense bun coiled tight at the back of her head. Professor McGonagall.

She gave no dramatic flourish, no words of introduction about the transformation—simply clasped her hands behind her back and said, in a crisp Scottish brogue:

“Welcome to Transfiguration.”

The room fell perfectly silent.

“I am Professor McGonagall. You are here to learn the art of Transfiguration: the most precise, the most dangerous, and, I daresay, the most elegant branch of magic you will study at Hogwarts.” Her tone brooked no nonsense, but there was something proud in it. “It is not for the careless or the lazy. Waving your wand and hoping for the best will not suffice. You will need theory, discipline, and no small amount of patience.”

Theo, beside Hadrian, was absolutely beaming.

“Some of you,” she continued, “will take to it quickly. Others will struggle. I expect all of you to try. Your first task is to transfigure a simple matchstick into a needle. Do not expect immediate success. Precision takes time.”

With a flick of her wand, a small box floated to each desk. Inside were neat rows of identical wooden matches.

“You may begin.”

The class bent immediately to work.

Theo’s match twitched on the desk the moment his wand moved. His incantation—“Transfigura”—was quiet, focused, reverent. Hadrian glanced over just as the wood shifted, the edges narrowing, glossing into silver with a faint glint of steel.

“…You got it,” Hadrian said, genuinely impressed.

Theo looked up, stunned. “That—” He blinked. “That wasn’t supposed to happen that fast.”

But Hadrian was already turning to his own matchstick. His wand moved with practiced smoothness, the incantation flowing like breath from his lips. The match shimmered, flickered, and sharpened—then lay still, transformed into a perfect, gleaming needle.

He looked over at Theo’s. “Yours has a finer point than mine.”

Theo flushed with pride. “Yours is smoother. That’s rune-steady magic, that is.”

McGonagall’s quiet footsteps approached, her boots echoing slightly on the flagstone floor. She looked down at the two of them with a rare flicker of approval in her eyes.

“Well done, both of you,” she said. Her voice, though stern, was laced with something warm and pleased. “Mr. Nott—exquisite precision. Mr. Potter, equally so. I daresay your father would be proud. James was quite gifted in Transfiguration.”

Hadrian blinked. “Thank you, Professor.”

“If you’re ready,” she said, arching an eyebrow, “let’s see if you can lengthen the needle—then reverse the transformation cleanly.”

She moved on, leaving a trail of startled and reverent students in her wake.

Hadrian turned to Theo. “Race you?”

Theo grinned. “You’re on.”

They raised their wands again.

Behind them, Tracey and Millicent were making good progress, their matches warping gradually—though Millicent’s looked more like a bent pin. Draco and Daphne were neck and neck, both determined and muttering with the focus of siblings in competition. Blaise was quietly correcting Pansy’s grip, while she rolled her eyes and told him she didn’t need help.

“Needles are so last season,” she muttered, but she tried again.

The Ravenclaws were beginning to catch up—several had managed the transformation, and one boy had even managed to elongate his match into a shimmering hairpin. The air buzzed with concentration.

And at the heart of it, Hadrian felt… calm. Focused. Not just because he was succeeding, but because he belonged here. In this classroom, with his strange, dark-eyed friends. In a House that understood rules and secrets. Among people who, at last, didn’t expect him to be someone he wasn’t.

Magic was order. Magic was art.

And for the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, Hadrian Potter wasn’t alone with it.

The Great Hall was alive with the usual lunchtime hum—clinking cutlery, soft chatter, and the low murmur of owl wings overhead as post was delivered, though Hadrian’s table was more alive than most. The Slytherin first-years had clustered together at their usual spot, green and silver trimmed robes crisp and their expressions glowing from the thrill of their first real day of learning magic.

Blaise Zabini, ever the picture of composed grace, sat with his back perfectly straight, one arm elegantly curled beside his plate like a courtier at a royal banquet—and yet he demolished his lunch. Roast chicken, herb-buttered potatoes, wild rice, and blackberry tart vanished from his plate with alarming speed. And still, somehow, it was elegant. His motions were fluid, efficient, and as artful as they were ravenous. Not a crumb touched the collar of his perfectly pressed uniform.

“Are you even chewing ?” Pansy asked him, half-laughing, daintily lifting a spoonful of soup to her lips.

“Of course,” Blaise replied without missing a beat, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin like a nobleman. “I just chew with style.”

Meanwhile, Vincent and Greg were helping themselves to third portions. Their movements were a bit less refined, but still within the bounds of acceptable Slytherin decorum. Vincent grunted approvingly at the buttered corn, and Greg practically hummed at the treacle tart. Somehow, even their enthusiasm managed to fall into a rhythm that made them feel like an unshakable part of the house—strong, steady, protective. They were hunks, yes, but hunky gentlemen, as Pansy once declared.

Theo, seated beside Hadrian, was mid-ramble about Transfiguration—eyes bright, hands gesturing animatedly over his untouched pudding. “—and the control it takes to maintain the internal integrity of the object while converting the external texture—Hadrian, did you see the shine on your needle? That wasn’t just surface-level transfiguration, that was full-body material replacement—”

Across from him, Tracey Davis raised a brow and smirked over her cup of pumpkin juice. “Theo,” she drawled, amused, “do you have a crush on Professor McGonagall already?”

The effect was instantaneous. Theo flushed scarlet, his voice sputtering as his hand leapt defensively to his chest. “I—no—I mean—what? No! I respect her! As a—an educator! She’s brilliant and her form-to-shift transition was seamless and I just—”

Hadrian let out a quiet snort, lips twitching into a smirk as he cut into a slice of roasted lamb. “That’s not a no.”

Theo’s scandalized gasp only made the laughter around them grow louder.

What none of them realized—at least not yet—was that McGonagall herself had just passed behind them, on her way to the staff table, her wand discreetly stowed and a rather thick tome tucked beneath one arm. At Theo’s breathless praise, she paused ever so slightly, chin tilting upward in silent pride. Her mouth curled into the faintest smile, and her eyes glimmered.

Next to her, Professor Snape raised a brow in question.

She gave no explanation. Instead, she lifted the thick volume in her hand and gave him a firm but playful whack on the upper arm.

Snape stared at her in flat disapproval for a beat before looking away with a subtle, secretive smirk of his own. He swept silently toward the staff table, black robes billowing like a midnight tide behind him.

Further down the table, Albus Dumbledore sat with his usual twinkle-eyed grandfatherly presence—at least toward the Gryffindors, whom he watched like a kindly shepherd with his flock. But every so often, his gaze flicked across the hall to the Slytherin table. To Hadrian. His smile would tighten at the corners. The mirth would dull.

Hadrian did not meet his gaze. He was laughing softly, turning toward Tracey and Millicent with something witty to say, and the warm glint of the sun catching in his dark green eyes. Eris, unseen in the shadow of his robes, stirred slightly against his ankle.

“Do you think,” Millicent asked quietly, “Theo’s going to try to sit on her desk next time?”

“Shut up ,” Theo groaned, burying his face in his hands as the table erupted in more laughter.

As lunch wound down and golden plates began to clear themselves with gentle clinks of magic, the Slytherin first-years lingered at their end of the table, not quite ready to return to the rhythm of the day. Greg and Vincent were finishing off the last of the treacle tart, Theo was still animatedly recounting the subtle wand movements McGonagall had demonstrated, and Pansy was braiding a green silk ribbon into Daphne’s hair with careful fingers.

Blaise, who had been leaning lazily against the back of his chair for the past few minutes, arms folded and eyes half-lidded, suddenly let out a long, soul-deep sigh.

“I need a nap,” he announced, dragging a hand across his face. “I’m positively exhausted.”

A beat passed.

Nine pairs of eyes turned toward him in varying shades of disbelief and exasperation.

“You’ve been exhausted since we woke up,” Pansy said flatly, not looking up from the ribbon.

“You slept through half of Theo’s Transfiguration speech,” Tracey added with a snort.

“You didn’t even move during Charms,” Daphne muttered, amused.

Greg blinked. “You literally ate enough to feed a hippogriff.”

“Greg, darling, you’ve had enough food to feed three .” Pansy said in mock-annoyance. 

But Blaise just raised a brow, utterly unbothered, and tilted his chin in that imperious Zabini way. “What?”

There was a collective groan around the table.

“You’re so dramatic,” Pansy muttered fondly.

“I’m just misunderstood,” Blaise replied smoothly, already reclining further back in his chair as though daring the world to challenge him.

Hadrian shook his head, smiling faintly. “You’re just tired from being elegant.”

“Exactly,” Blaise murmured, eyes fluttering closed. “Finally, someone understands.”

“Dear, Merlin.” Draco muttered. 

As Blaise’s dramatic declaration of fatigue rippled through the Slytherin table like a pebble dropped in still water, the first-years began exchanging looks—some amused, some curious, and a few mischievous.

“I bet he won’t last fifteen minutes,” Tracey said under her breath, glancing sideways at Blaise, who had now draped his arms dramatically across the table like a fainting Victorian.

“Ten,” Daphne countered. “He was already halfway there before dessert.”

“Twenty,” said Theo stubbornly, “he’ll want to prove us wrong.”

“Thirteen,” Millicent mumbled, almost too quietly to hear.

Greg squinted at her. “Thirteen what?”

“Minutes.”

Draco raised a brow. “Very specific, Millicent.”

She only shrugged, eyes following Blaise, who now looked like he was already practicing for his impending nap.

They all smirked, and Tracey muttered something about getting a stopwatch charm for next time.

 

By the time History of Magic arrived, the entire Slytherin first-year cohort was teetering somewhere between dread and amusement. The classroom was high-ceilinged and lined with narrow windows, spilling golden autumn sunlight in warm streaks across the desks. A faint scent of old parchment lingered in the air, and the heat from the enchanted lanterns left the room feeling just cozy enough to be dangerous.

Professor Binns, of course, floated through the chalkboard without so much as a greeting and immediately launched into a droning account of the Great Goblin Rebellions of the fifteenth century—somewhere between a lullaby and a dirge.

Hadrian, who had chosen to sit next to Pansy this time, felt his posture relax despite himself. The room, combined with Binns’ sepulchral monotone, was like being wrapped in a warm blanket. He truly did find the topic fascinating—he’d already read three supplementary texts on Goblin insurrections alone—but even he had to admit: if anything was going to break his focus, it was this voice and this heat.

Pansy leaned over with a whisper so dry it could have been parchment itself. “He sounds like he’s been dead since the goblins were born.”

Hadrian stifled a laugh and whispered back, “He probably taught the goblins to rebel.”

Pansy’s snort earned a glare from a Ravenclaw seated two rows ahead, but she simply smiled primly in return and began sketching little crowns on the corners of her parchment. Hadrian smiled. She was excellent company.

Behind them, the real entertainment began.

“Thirteen,” Millicent mouthed to Tracey, who was seated beside Theo on the other side of the row. Tracey raised her eyebrows and subtly peeked over her shoulder.

Sure enough, Blaise—paired with Millicent for once—had slumped artfully in his seat, chin tilted toward the sunlit window, one elbow on the desk and the other hanging like a lazy aristocrat lounging in a portrait. His eyes were closed. Peacefully. Dramatically.

Theo leaned over and stage-whispered to Tracey, “How long?”

She glanced at her watch and sighed. “Twelve and a half.”

They both looked again. Blaise’s head lolled gently to the left, his brow perfectly smooth. He was, without question, asleep.

Millicent exhaled through her nose and offered Tracey a quiet, triumphant look. “Thirteen,” she said. “Exactly.”

Tracey passed her two Sickles from her robe pocket without complaint.

Meanwhile, Greg and Vincent—who had been whispering to each other about whether goblins could bite off a finger—had both collapsed over their desks somewhere around minute five. Greg let out a faint snore. Vincent twitched once and mumbled something about sausages. No one was entirely sure if it was a dream or a threat.

Hadrian glanced over his shoulder and then leaned toward Pansy again. “Three down,” he murmured. “Who’s next?”

“Daphne looks dangerously relaxed,” she replied without looking up from her crown doodles. “But Draco’s sitting so straight, it’s like he thinks McGonagall’s going to walk in and give him House Points.”

Draco was sitting rigidly beside Daphne, who looked vaguely amused by everything, her chin balanced delicately on her hand. Hadrian had the sudden sense that she was trying to see how many people fell asleep before she did. Likely a mental tally was already being kept.

Binns, meanwhile, droned on, unaware that most of his audience had departed the world of the waking. Somewhere near the back, a Ravenclaw with ginger hair began quietly humming a lullaby.

Hadrian blinked slowly, resting his cheek against his fist. Even as he struggled to fight off the creeping pull of sleep, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

This—this warm camaraderie, the subtle mischief, the low laughter, the quiet teasing—this was what it meant to belong. Even in a class where half of them were fighting off naps and the other half were actively losing the battle, he felt anchored.

 

The bell had not yet rung when Blaise Zabini stirred from his nap, a bit disoriented and still marked by the quiet heat of the History of Magic classroom. But before anyone could blink twice, he was smooth perfection again. A discreet finger combed over his dark, cropped hair, his collar was straightened with the elegance of a practiced motion, and he pulled a silver ring from his satchel to slip onto his finger with a sigh—composure restored.

“Zabini awakens,” Pansy drawled as the Slytherins began to gather in the hallway just outside the dungeons. She raised a brow as she looked him over with amusement. “Full resurrection achieved.”

“I simply refuse to be anything less than stunning in front of Professor Snape,” Blaise replied with a yawn that he stifled with the back of his hand. “You all may choose chaos, I choose dignity.”

As they walked toward the Potions classroom, Millicent adjusted the thick braid she had twisted into a regal bun that morning, her fingers brushing the nape of her neck with faint nervousness.

Blaise’s eyes flicked toward her, narrowed, and he reached out with swift precision. “One strand, right there,” he murmured, and without waiting for protest, delicately tucked the offending hair into place. “You looked like a queen being challenged by a breeze.”

Millicent blushed pink, murmuring a shy, “Thanks, Blaise.”

Pansy stepped a little closer to Blaise on instinct, her arms crossed but her lashes low. “She always does her hair nicely,” she remarked, just a shade too coolly. As her hand brushed against Blaise’s in passing, he glanced down and—just for a moment—his poise faltered. A flush rose on his cheekbones, the corner of his mouth tugged upward into something almost sheepish, and he didn’t pull away.

A few steps ahead, Theo and Tracey were mid-spirited discussion, voices low and full of the sort of calm intensity only potions nerds could maintain.

“I’m telling you, Valerian root stabilizes the dream properties—mixing it with asphodel ruins the balance completely,” Theo insisted.

“But only if you’re using crushed root,” Tracey countered, “Fresh valerian works differently—”

“It’s both of you,” Hadrian interrupted quietly, glancing back at them. “You’re each working from different assumptions. If the valerian root is dried, the reaction does in fact collapse the calming properties of asphodel entirely. But if it’s fresh and chopped, they’ll amplify each other—until you add fluxweed. Then the whole thing curdles unless you slow-stir counterclockwise and add the binding agent first.”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the tap of shoes on stone.

Tracey blinked. “That… makes sense.”

Theo looked slightly betrayed by how quickly she conceded, but nodded. “Well. Yes. That would explain the fumes in the Ravenclaw trial version. Hm.”

They reached the Potions door as a group, still in tight Slytherin formation. The room was dim, warmly lit with flickering amber sconces and the glint of glass. Snape stood at the front, his back to them, seemingly preparing for the mental anguish the Gryffindors shall surely cause. 

Without turning, he said in his smooth, deadly tone, “I’m glad some children know the importance of punctuality.”

The door creaked behind them.

In walked a bushy-haired girl in Gryffindor robes, clutching her books like armor. Her eyes locked instantly on Hadrian.

“I’ve read all about you,” she said, voice shrill with unfiltered curiosity and a trace of disbelief. “Why aren’t you in Gryffindor? Do you miss your parents? What was You-Know-Who like?”

The air froze.

Draco made a sound of deep offense. “How dare you,” he said icily, his drawl curling like frost. “Have you no decorum at all?”

Hadrian’s expression was blank as marble, but the tone in his voice cut. “You shouldn’t believe everything you read. And considering we’ve never spoken before, perhaps don’t presume to know who I am.”

The girl flushed crimson and stalked off to a bench near the front, practically vibrating with rage. A hush lingered in the air, then broke into murmurs as more Gryffindors began to trickle in. Two boys walked in next—a dusty blond-headed boy and his dark-skinned friend. The first was laughing far too loudly, complaining, “Flitwick’s voice is too squeaky, couldn’t take ‘im seriously.”

The second boy looked exasperated but sat beside him nonetheless. Two girls followed—loud, giggling, gossiping. Hadrian caught a flash of familiar features and frowned slightly. One of them looked uncannily like the girl from Transfiguration. A twin, perhaps.

A final figure shuffled in—small, round-shouldered, with a haunted look. The boy clutched his cauldron like it might try to escape him. He didn’t speak, simply took a seat at the far edge of the room.

Then the doors slammed open.

Ronald Weasley stood in the frame, flushed and panting.

Snape’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “Mr. Weasley,” he said, voice low and venomous. “How gracious of you to join us. Sit down, and do not speak.”

But he spotted Hadrian and strode forward anyway, grinning. “Hey mate! Haven’t seen you since the train—why don’t you come sit with me and not the slimy snakes?”

The silence that followed was thunderous.

Hadrian slowly turned his head, the frost in his expression practically a hex. “No, thank you,” he said flatly. “I’d rather sit with people who respect themselves and their house.”

Weasley’s eyes drifted down to the emerald green embroidery stitching in his robes and solid green tie. He paled dramatically. 

Snape looked like he might erupt. “Weasley. Seat. Now. Before I deduct points you don’t have.”

Weasley stumbled off toward an empty bench, sulking.

Hadrian made his way to his usual seat—beside Theo—and behind them the rest of the Slytherins fanned out in pairs. Pansy took the spot beside Blaise, elegantly composed, though he seemed a little pink in the ears.

The cauldrons gleamed. The room stilled.

Black robes snapped behind him as Snape came to a halt before the lectern, his presence heavy, cold, and immediate. His gaze raked across the room with slow contempt, lingering briefly on the Gryffindors before shifting to his own House, who sat poised and silent, wands and parchment already out.

“Potter.”

The single word cut through the stillness like a blade, and every head turned.

Hadrian raised his eyes slowly from the parchment he’d just finished aligning. His voice, when he replied, was soft but steady. “Sir.”

Snape folded his hands behind his back and began to circle—stalking, really, like a cat with a cornered bird. “Let us test your celebrity,” he drawled, eyes glinting. “Tell me, Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Hadrian didn’t blink. “You’d brew a Draught of Living Death, sir. A powerful sleeping potion.”

Snape’s steps didn’t pause. “And where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

“In the stomach of a goat, sir,” Hadrian answered, voice still even. “It neutralizes most poisons.”

Several Gryffindors gaped. Hermione Granger looked personally offended that she hadn’t been called on instead. Theo, on Hadrian’s left, had a growing smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Snape came to a stop directly in front of Hadrian’s desk. “And what is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

Hadrian tilted his head slightly. “There is no difference. They’re two names for the same plant. Aconite, sir.”

For a long moment, there was no sound in the dungeon except for the faint bubbling from a cauldron someone had lit too early.

Snape stared at him.

The tension, wound tight like string, finally released when he turned away with the faintest arch of a brow. “Well,” he said, voice almost mild, “at least one child came prepared.”

Hadrian caught the faintest twitch of amusement—almost approval—on Snape’s face as he swept back toward the front. “Ten points to Slytherin.”

Several Slytherins straightened with pride. Draco glanced at Hadrian with a look of grudging admiration. Blaise smirked. Pansy whispered something approving to Daphne, and Theo nudged Hadrian’s foot under the table, mouthing show-off with a grin.

Granger looked like she might faint from shock.

“Today,” the professor said, “you will brew the Cure for Boils. For some of you, this will be your first experience with potion-making. Do not embarrass yourselves.”

His eyes glinted as he scanned the room. “And no, Gryffindors, I am not holding your hand.”

 

Shadows pooled in the corners as Snape stalked between the rows of cauldrons, the flared sleeves of his robes whispering with each step. The instructions for the Cure for Boils were still etched in precise script on the blackboard, unchanged from when he taught his own House the day before.

Hadrian stood beside Theo, already setting out his ingredients with habitual precision. Around them, the Slytherins moved with quiet competence. Draco’s setup was pristine—polished scales aligned, silver knife gleaming beside his cauldron. Tracey adjusted the flame beneath hers with a measured flick of her wand. Even Greg and Vincent, who had been clumsy with their dicing the day before, now moved with far more confidence after Hadrian had helped them practice the evening prior.

Across the room, the Gryffindors were in a different sort of chaos.

Hermione Granger worked alone, lips moving silently as she read and reread the directions. Her cauldron was bubbling steadily, the right shade of dusky mauve—but her flame was too high, and Snape’s passing glance made it clear he’d noticed. Still, it was far better than the mess next to her.

Neville Longbottom had managed to splatter himself with stinging nettle juice, and was frantically wiping at his robes while Seamus Finnegan’s brew had turned an alarming shade of chartreuse. Dean Thomas was faring decently—his potion thick and a little slow to boil, but workable. The Patil twin Hadrian had seen in Transfiguration stirred hers with one hand while chatting with the other girl beside her, clearly not prioritizing accuracy.

And then there was Ronald Weasley, hunched beside Finnigan like a tragic warning in progress. He hadn’t chopped his snake fangs finely enough, and dumped the porcupine quills in before removing the cauldron from the flame. The explosion was inevitable.

There was a dull pop, then a sharp fwoosh! and a column of purple steam erupted into the air. Cauldrons clanged, robes were singed, and someone swore.

“Idiots,” Snape hissed, descending on them like a thundercloud. He waved his wand once, and the potion-stained smoke dissipated into nothing. “Ten points from Gryffindor for endangering your classmates. You—Longbottom—your fingernails are meant to stay attached to your hands. Weasley, your eyes should be open when adding volatile ingredients. Finnigan, get a mop.”

As the chaos was wrangled back into order, Snape’s gaze landed on Hadrian’s cauldron.

The boy hadn’t flinched during the eruption. His potion was still simmering perfectly, soft rose-gold and giving off a faint medicinal scent, as if it had come from St. Mungo’s supply shelves. Hadrian sprinkled in powdered horned slug last, then extinguished the flame with a whisper. The potion cleared into a pale, periwinkle—the exact hue described in Magical Draughts and Potions.

Snape’s face gave little away, but his eyes paused. A breath longer than necessary.

“Acceptable,” he said smoothly, then added, “Ten points to Slytherin.”

Hadrian didn’t smile. He just turned to Theo, whose potion had finished moments earlier.

“Yours is better than yesterday,” Hadrian murmured, examining the clarity. “You fixed the heat timing.”

Theo gave a small, proud nod. “I slowed it when I added the fangs.”

Nearby, Draco’s potion glowed with a sheen just a half shade darker than Hadrian’s—barely perceptible unless you were a Potions Master. He glanced sidelong at Hadrian, a wry smirk flickering across his lips. Competitive, but pleased.

Snape continued down the row, eyes sharp but approving. Compared to yesterday’s disciplined Slytherin class, the mixed group was a battlefield. But his own House shone—quiet, focused, excellent.

Even if he’d never admit it aloud, there was something reassuring in watching his snakes outperform.

At the back, Blaise leaned back in his stool, languid and unbothered, idly twirling his stirring rod like a conductor’s baton. His potion was done. It wasn’t as radiant as Hadrian’s, but it was steady and correct. He’d woken up not long ago, but there was still grace in his hands and a glint of sleep-fogged amusement in his eyes.

Pansy gave him a sly look. “Still awake, Zabini?”

“For now,” he murmured, flicking a drop of potion from his spoon with surgical finesse.

Snape raised an eyebrow from the front of the classroom, but said nothing.

Gryffindor’s table, meanwhile, had devolved into a mix of scorched hair, ruined brews, and silent brooding.

“Now,” Snape said, turning to face them, “I expect three feet of parchment on the properties of nettle and horned slug in boil remedies by Monday. Spelling and ink consistency will be part of your grade.”

As the bell rang, the Gryffindors fled with sighs and groans—except Granger, who was already making notes.

The Slytherins packed up in calm silence, heads high.

Hadrian slid his wand back into his sleeve, eyes alight.

That had been the best class yet.

 

The Slytherins arrived in the Great Hall as the evening sun sank into a haze of warm gold. The long house tables gleamed beneath enchanted sconces, and platters of roasted lamb, glazed carrots, and golden Yorkshire puddings filled the air with rich, savory perfume.

Hadrian took his seat between Theo and Blaise. Across from him, Pansy smoothed out her napkin while Daphne murmured something into her ear that made them both laugh. Greg and Vincent were already digging in with well-practiced gusto, but even they maintained the poised, calculated restraint that Slytherins were known for. Blaise ate like a prince, every motion fluid and elegant, though his appetite was no less voracious. He paused only to sigh, “I still think I deserve a nap,” before helping himself to a second slice of lamb.

Theo grinned. “You’ve had three naps today.”

“And they were all cut tragically short.”

The students were too absorbed in their meals and gossip to notice the quiet conversation taking place at the high table.

Professor Flitwick, seated between Sprout and McGonagall, leaned in with bright eyes. “He’s got a gift for Charms, no doubt about it,” he said cheerfully. “Cast Wingardium Leviosa perfectly on the first try. Just like his mother—her wand work was elegant, almost instinctual.”

McGonagall gave a prim nod. “He showed promise in Transfiguration as well. Turned a match into a perfect needle alongside young Nott. A steady hand, focused. Sharp mind. He sits with his back straight and doesn’t fidget—refreshing.” A trace of a smile pulled at her lips. “He has a scholar’s posture.”

“An acceptable brewer,” Snape said from McGonagall’s other side, sipping a goblet of something dark and viscous. “Precise. Methodical. Doesn’t waste motion or ingredients. And he listens. A rare trait.” His tone was dry, but from him, it was high praise.

Dumbledore, seated at the center of the table with his usual twinkling expression dimmed, stroked his beard. “And yet… he is not his father.”

“No, Albus,” McGonagall said sharply. “He is not.”

The older witch’s eyes lingered on the Slytherin table where Hadrian sat, deep in discussion with Tracey and Millicent about their History of Magic assignment.

“Frankly,” she continued, lifting her teacup, “he’s better.”

Snape smirked into his drink.

Dumbledore didn’t respond. He merely watched the boy—no, the young man—at the heart of the conversation, not as a symbol, but as a student. And Dumbledore frowned.

 

Later that evening, the Slytherin common room was warm with firelight and low laughter. The lake beyond the great windows shimmered with twilight blues and silvers, casting rippling shadows on the ceiling. The older students lounged in the deep emerald armchairs, their robes immaculate, their postures easy and confident.

Vaisley and Travers, the fifth-year prefects, had just returned from their rounds and found the common room buzzing.

“Well?” Marcus asked, raising a brow. “How did the first round of classes go?”

“Exceptionally,” Pansy answered before anyone else could. “We were practically the top of every class.”

Draco leaned back smugly. “Hadrian was,” he added. “Forty points, in a single day.”

Rosamund’s brows lifted. “Really?”

Theo leaned forward, placing a dramatic hand to his chest. “A complete show-off, I’m telling you. Knows everything already.”

Hadrian, without looking up from the parchment he was scribbling on, said mildly, “It’s not showing off if it’s accurate.”

Blaise laughed, stretching lazily on the rug. “He’s insufferable. I love it.”

Millicent was curled in one corner with her books open and quill poised, occasionally glancing over to Hadrian’s notes for reference. Tracey sat beside Theo this time, rubbing her temple as she considered the wording of her paragraph on potion acidity. “I’m just saying,” she muttered, “some of us need to check our textbooks. Potter just… recites the bloody index.”

Daphne, sprawled elegantly on a settee, flipped a page. “You mean Hadrian,” she corrected gently, smiling. “He doesn’t like ‘Potter.’”

Hadrian didn’t look up, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “Thanks.”

Greg and Vincent were off to the side sharing sweets they’d smuggled down from the table, but even they were working on their homework. In their own… Beater-brained way.

“You should’ve seen Granger today,” Hadrian said suddenly, glancing up from his work. “Cornered me before Potions. Started ranting about Voldemort and asking if I missed my parents—as if I’d tell her.”

“She’s insufferable,” Draco sneered. “I wish her cauldron had exploded.”

“It almost did,” Tracey said thoughtfully. “The dandelion root she used was under-boiled.”

“That’s what she gets,” Pansy muttered. “Nosy little bookworm.”

Theo snorted. “I’m a bookworm, and I don’t interrogate people in corridors.”

“You’re a polite bookworm,” Blaise said, looking up from the fire. “And you have better hair.”

A general chuckle passed around the room. The upper years nodded approvingly.

“You lot did well,” Vaisley said, arms crossed but clearly impressed. “Manners, presentation, academic rigor. You’re doing good things for our House.”

“And for yourselves,” added Rosamund, who was already scribbling an update to the Slytherin academic notice board.

Hadrian hadn’t stopped writing, but his attention was clearly still with them. His three-foot Potions essay—assigned just hours ago—was already nearly done. Not just filled with the standard instructions and definitions, but rich detail: annotated brewing techniques, historical context, cross-references to known antidotes. He barely glanced at the book beside him, using it only to cite specific phrasing.

Tracey peeked over his shoulder. “You didn’t have to include the properties of snake venom…”

“It was relevant to the base compound,” Hadrian replied mildly.

“You’re mad,” she murmured.

Pansy smirked. “He’s a Slytherin.”

The fire crackled. The lake shimmered beyond the glass. The castle—alive and watchful—seemed to hum quietly around them, as if pleased with how this first day had gone. It had seen the boy who walked its halls, the boy who had been a symbol for too long—and now, at last, was simply Hadrian.

And tonight, he was not alone. He was among friends.

And he was home.

Chapter 10: Rain & Refuge

Summary:

Hello, Im so sorry that this chapter took so long. I'd had half of it written, but I just now finished it. Its also very short, but Ill be writing again soon. Please let me know if there are any mistakes or clarifications that I need to make!

 

The Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was oddly cold despite the lingering warmth of early September. Its tall arched windows were only half-open, letting in the foggy scent of the damp courtyard. Shadows clung to the stone walls, and the torches burned with a greenish hue—like they hadn’t been lit properly. The space smelled of old parchment, cloves, and something metallic beneath it all, like blood and steel.

Shelves lined the walls, stuffed with battered books, cracked tomes, and a strange assortment of magical artifacts under domed glass—vampire teeth, a grindylow’s shriveled hand, a small mirror ringed with protective runes, even a mummified pixie. Most of the Gryffindors gave the room a wide-eyed once-over as they entered. The Slytherins, more composed, assessed it quietly.

Hadrian slipped into a desk beside Blaise, with Theo and Tracey just behind them. Draco and Pansy took the bench to their left, and Daphne was directly behind Blaise, sitting beside a yawning Millicent. Vincent slouched beside Greg, who looked around the room with open skepticism.

Professor Quirrell stood stiffly at the front, posture pinched, eyes sunken in the shadows cast by his purple turban. He flinched when the last student entered, and his fingers trembled around the stack of thin booklets in his arms.

“S-s-sit down, everyone,” he stuttered. “T-today, we w-w-will begin with an introduction to d-dueling etiquette. Very important, very—ah—yes, v-very important. One day, you may need to d-defend yourselves… against d-dark creatures or—worse—improper behavior.”

He smiled, but it came out wrong—an apologetic grimace stretched too wide.

He shuffled from row to row, passing out slim blue pamphlets titled: A Beginner’s Guide to Formal Magical Dueling. As he placed one on Hadrian’s desk, his hand grazed Hadrian’s wrist. A shock of warmth pulsed through his skin, and something in Hadrian’s scar prickled—not sharp, but a slow, crawling awareness.

He didn’t flinch, but he touched the lightning bolt absentmindedly.

“Are you alright?” Blaise whispered.

Hadrian gave a short nod. “Just a weird draft.”

Professor Quirrell continued in his trembling voice, explaining the difference between a formal duel and a defensive response, quoting half a dozen Ministry protocols. His speech was disjointed, but the content—Hadrian had to admit—was practical. By the time Quirrell clumsily demonstrated the proper wand salute, most of the class had given up on listening and begun reading the booklets instead.

Hadrian, however, watched closely. He appreciated the structure of the salutes—their precision, the almost ritualistic flow of posture and wand movement. He and Draco practiced in low murmurs, occasionally correcting each other.

Across the aisle, Weasley was partnered with Finnigan, and the pair of them were giggling as they made exaggerated bowing motions and knocked over their inkwells. Granger—of course—was in the front, arm perpetually raised to offer facts Quirrell didn’t ask for. Neville Longbottom sat behind her, wand trembling in his fingers.

Halfway through the lesson, Quirrell turned his back. Hadrian leaned over, smirking. “You’re not bad at this.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow. “Of course I'm not bad at this; my mother has trained me in dueling all throughout my life.”

Hadrian rolled his eyes. “Sorry for having eyes, Your Majesty."

Blaise smirked.

Hadrian had liked Defense Against The Dark Arts more than he had expected to. However, the class seemed very biased–of course. He believed that there was nothing wrong with the Dark Arts unless they were being used harmfully. You could hurt people with a light spell and heal people with a dark spell. So what’s the difference? Other than that, he truly liked the class, even though Quirrell was very odd and made him somewhat uncomfortable.

 

The greenhouses sat just beyond the castle, their glass walls glowing in the late morning sun. The path there was lined with creeping vines and fat puddles from the previous night’s storm. Dew clung to the edges of their robes by the time the class arrived, the Gryffindors heading off toward Care of Magical Creatures while the Hufflepuffs—cheerful and alert—filed into Greenhouse One with the Slytherins.

Professor Sprout stood waiting beside the door, gloved to her elbows, her wild brown hair pinned back under a sunhat. Dirt smudged one cheek, and she had a grin on her face that rivaled the sun.

“Morning, dears! Today we’ll be working with young Flitterfigs—lovely plants, a bit sensitive to change, so be gentle. Gloves on, please!”

They were paired across Houses—some awkwardly, others with clear enthusiasm. Hadrian ended up with Theo, which he was entirely grateful for. He was interested in Potions, and Herbology was a compliment of them. 

Their table was at the far left, beside a potting bench that held dozens of small Flitterfigs—pale green leaves veined with gold, pulsing faintly like breathing.

They repotted in silence at first, scooping loamy soil into deep planters, trimming roots, gently unwrapping the vines from their old pots. The scent of earth and wet leaves was calming, and Hadrian felt himself easing into the rhythm of it.

To their right, Blaise was partnered with Pansy and was meticulously grooming his plant as if it were a bonsai. Pansy, beside him, looked slightly disgusted to have dirt on her cuffs but was managing.

Millicent’s plant slapped her across the wrist once, and it growled at her. Tracey laughed so hard she dropped her trowel.

By the time Sprout called time, most of the plants had been safely repotted. Most. She circled around with murmurs of praise and small corrections.

Hadrian’s and Theo’s Flitterfig was perfectly settled, its leaves fluttering contentedly.

“Beautifully done,” Sprout said, beaming. “Excellent attention to the root system. Ten points to Slytherin.”

Theo blinked. “Ten?”

Hadrian smirked faintly. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Oi! You cocky twat!” Theo elbowed him in the ribs, but was laughing nonetheless.

 

They returned to the castle as the sun reached its peak, the hallways bright and humming with chatter. By the time the Slytherins reached the Great Hall, the Gryffindors were already halfway through their meals. They were such a rowdy bunch. He doubted even real lions could make such a mess, but hey–they were named after them for a reason. Hadrian noticed Hermione Granger arguing with Dean Thomas over something in their Defense booklet, and Ron Weasley picking mushrooms out of his stew with exaggerated disgust.

Hadrian sat beside Theo, across from Blaise and Pansy. Daphne and Draco slid in next to them, already locked in quiet conversation.

“I’m telling you, Hadrian,” Draco said, scooping mashed parsnips onto his plate, “you’re going to fall. Not gracefully, either. Splat. Face-first.”

Hadrian arched a brow. “We’ll see, Draco.”

“He’s just jealous because you got the wand salute right and he nearly stabbed himself,” Blaise offered between mouthfuls of roasted chicken. “Also, he’s dramatic.”

Draco ignored that. “Flying’s serious. You don’t get to fall gracefully when you’re ten meters in the air.”

Tracey leaned over from the next bench. “Bet he shows you all up.”

Pansy sipped her pumpkin juice. “He’s going to be better than Weasley, at least.”

“Low bar,” Theo muttered.

 

The Astronomy Tower spiraled high above the rest of the castle, a narrow climb that left most of the first-years winded by the time they reached the top. The stairs wound tightly, worn smooth at the center from centuries of student feet. Hadrian trailed near the back with Theo and Blaise, one hand brushing the stone wall, feeling for the castle’s magic. The magic recently had been thrumming—filled with energy and buzzing students. Hadrian hadn’t had much time to really interact with the magic, aside from his early morning moments.

Draco had run ahead with Daphne, claiming he wanted the best window view.

The moment they stepped into the open-air observatory, the view stunned even the Slytherins into silence.

The stone platform stretched wide, ringed with balustrades carved in lunar phases and runes of old—weather-worn but still faintly humming with ancient magic. The afternoon sky hung overhead, soft and blue and endless. Far below, the lake glittered like obsidian glass, and the Forbidden Forest lay dark and heavy on the horizon. Even the wind seemed quieter up here, as though reverent. The magic’s pull was almost as strong as the dungeons’ was. He could feel its aura in the air, cool and consuming. How does no one else feel this?

After a moment–a dozen brass telescopes stood mounted around the platform, their gears polished and lenses gleaming. Constellation charts fluttered from clips along the walls, and a massive orrery spun slowly in the center, planets gliding in their measured dance.

Professor Sinistra stood near the edge, her long black robes catching the breeze like shadowy wings. She had beautiful, cascading braids and a whimsical aura. Her skin was practically glowing. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and smooth—like wind over velvet.

“Astronomy is not a subject of haste,” she said. “Nor is it only memorizing names and numbers. It is patience. Pattern. Silence. Those of you who understand those things will do well here.”

Hadrian felt the words settle into him like rain soaking into stone.

He had set his telescope next to Blaise, and Pansy had hers on the latter’s right. 

“You may choose your own partners—groups of three. Please choose wisely and preferably close together, it would not do well to have your partners across the tower.” Sinistra said, walking slowly between the forming groups. 

The three snakes had looked to each other immediately, no question in their decision. Pansy had sauntered over and placed her arms around both boys. They shared a grin as they huddled together and turned their attention towards the professor. 

“Today we’re calibrating your telescopes,” Sinistra said, walking slowly between groups. Draco had paired with Millicent and Tracey, to Pansy’s surprise. 

“Im surprised he didn’t pair with Daphne, he has a little crush on her sister–thats why they’re always together.” Pansy whispered to the group. “You’ll use the sun’s position—not to observe directly, of course, but to measure its arc, and align your dials. We begin with the sun, because even the stars must rise after it.”

They recorded coordinates with scratchy quills on dark blue star charts. Hadrian worked quietly, letting Idris explain the finer mechanics while Blaise adjusted the dials with long-fingered precision. He liked it—liked the way the dials clicked, how the world seemed to slow to a hum of turning gears and drifting light.

At one point, Sinistra passed their group and paused.

“You calibrate well, Mr. Zabini,” she said, glancing once at his chart. “You have an eye for structure.”

Blaise blinked. “Thank you, Professor. It one of my mother’s masters, ma’am.”

Her dark eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than was usual, then she moved on. He watched her go, thoughtful.

Across the observatory, Draco had paired with Daphne and a Ravenclaw girl named Su Li. He kept elbowing her aside to make adjustments, and she kept pushing him back. Pansy and Theo worked with a pair of quiet Ravenclaws and barely spoke—just wrote and measured in practiced silence.

Farther in, Greg and Vincent were arguing over whether the sun had “moved again” when Vincent sneezed and knocked the telescope sideways. Tracey snorted so loudly from the next group that Sinistra looked up sharply.

Eventually, a bell sounded somewhere far below, echoing faint and silver through the high air.

“Very well,” said Sinistra. “Record your coordinates and close your charts. Your next lesson will be under starlight.”

Hadrian lingered for a moment before descending, hand resting lightly on the cool brass of the telescope. He glanced up. The sky looked unchanged, still and pale. But he could feel it now—the slow, invisible turn of the world beneath his feet.

Blaise nudged him with an elbow. “Come on, Hades. Flying time.”

“Hades?”

“What? It suits you.” Blaise said with a nonchalant shrug.

Hadrian rolled his eyes with fondness and smiled—a small one. He followed them down, the stone steps dark and spiraling as they descended back to earth.

Eris, his own bloody snake, hissed to him gently, but still teasingly, “he has a point, Father Hades, it even fits your name!” 

Hadrian groaned but he couldn’t deny that it lacked mirth. Father Hades, really? Why does a snake even know who Hades is? Ugh, that’s my fault for naming her after a Goddess.

 

The brooms had been laid out on the lawn in neat rows, their bristles twitching restlessly. The sky above was clear blue, a few wisps of cloud trailing across the horizon. The grass was freshly cut and scented the wind with green.

Madam Hooch, with her hawk-yellow eyes and silver whistle, blew once to summon them.

“Line up! Everyone find a broom. Stand on its left. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

The moment Hadrian reached his broom, he took a slow breath and held out his hand. “Up.”

It slapped into his palm with a snap.

Draco groaned. “Right. Of course.”

“Up!” Blaise barked. His broom rose with a lazy wobble.

“Try standing straighter,” Pansy offered, standing next to him.

Hooch was immediately drawn away by the chaos of the Gryffindor line. Ron Weasley was screaming at his broom, which refused to budge, and Neville’s was vibrating ominously.

“Lean forward like this,” Draco instructed Hadrian. “Not that far.”

“Keep your knees together!” Pansy added, a bit bossy.

“Relax your grip,” Blaise said. “You’ll overcorrect otherwise.”

Hadrian, half-annoyed, followed their instructions. When he finally kicked off—

The world dropped away.

He rose like he was born to it, the air catching under his arms, the rush of wind flooding through his hair and clothes. He turned, curved, dipped, looped, all with the ease of breath. He felt free. Alive. He laughed freely, slipping away from his destiny and fame. He was just Hadrian, here. Not The-Boy-Who-Lived.

Below, mouths dropped open.

“Bloody hell,” Blaise muttered. “He’s a bloody ringer.”

Hadrian grinned, dove into a tight corkscrew, and landed in a soft skid just in time to hear a scream.

Neville Longbottom had fallen, hitting the grass with a thud.

Weasley was laughing.

“Hey!” Hadrian strode forward, jaw clenched. “You taunted him. That’s why he panicked.”

“So?” Weasley sneered. “It’s his fault for being a coward.”

“You’re a prat,” Hadrian snapped. “And a bully.”

Madam Hooch arrived, kneeling over the boy as she summoned a stretcher. She turned to Hadrian. “What happened?”

“He egged Longbottom on,” Hadrian said, pointing at Weasley. “He laughed when he fell.”

Weasley’s ears turned red. “Snitch.”

Hadrian looked him dead in the eye. “Grow up. It’s your fault that he’s hurt. You shouldn’t have messed with him.”

At that moment, Professor McGonagall stormed the pitch with her face pinched in a stern scowl. She marched straight to Madam Hooch demanding an explanation. The women took a glance at Longbottom’s person which lay upon the stretcher and concluded he had a broken wrist. 

While Hadrian’s friends gossiped and stole fleeted glares in Wealsey’s direction, Hadrian slowly made his way towards Longbottom. 

“Are you alright?” Hadrian asked the boy softly. He cradled his left wrist, and had tears threatening to spill, but quickly wiped his eyes using his uninjured hand.

“Yeah, thanks. It hurts a fair bit, but I’ve had worse.” Longbottom chuckled self-degradingly. 

Hadrian gave him a soft smile in return, not giving away how much he resonated with that sentiment. 

After a short while, Madam Pomfrey arrived and quickly escorted Longbottom to the infirmary. Hadrian returned to his friends and muttered about Weasley’s insufferable personality. 

They all nodded their heads in agreement, and Draco was especially vocal of his own dislike towards the boy. 

I wonder why he hates Weasley so much? I mean I don’t particularly like him, but that seems excessive even for him. Hm.

Hadrian shrugged and began to walk aside Daphne. Her magic was calming and cold. After his contained row with Weasley, he was still trying to calm down and not snap angrily at anyone, especially not his friends. He had to control himself more than he thought he’d have to. He didn’t know why he got so mad, he doesn’t even know Longbottom. He doesn’t even like Gryffindors! 

But just being alongside the blonde-headed girl made him calmer and more relaxed, it was like her presence physically cooled him down. She sent him a soft smile, and Hadrian smiled in return. 

 

Dinner was a quiet affair—though only after Draco huffed in annoyance regarding Hadrian’s flying spectacle. Him and Blaise talking about his talent and being a natural.

“It doesn’t even make sense! I’m obviously a skilled and talented flyer, but I guess he did okay…”

“Are you jealous, Draco?”

“No, of course not. You were all just paying attention to him and didn’t see my perfect dive!”

“Yeah, okay.” Blaise said with a roll of his eyes in mock-annoyance.

Hadrian just watched the affair with amusement in his eyes. Why are they talking about me as if I’m not right here? 

For the rest of the meal, Hadrian sat back and watched the castle flow around him. The comforting storm reflected in the ceiling made the castle dreary and dark, but Hadrian found it grounding. It reminded him of the long nights in his cupboard—all of the spiders sought refuge from the rain. He’d taken to naming a few of them; only the ones who’d return every night.

His favorite was Luna. He didn’t know what type of spider she was, but she was the only one who wasn’t afraid to touch him. All the others ran and kept their distance, but they hadn’t left.

Chapter 11: Reflection & Fire

The evening’s thunderstorm carried on into the night, rolling and crashing like a chorus of tempests—loud and untaimed—yet to Hadrian, it was achingly beautiful. Each rumble was like the ocean’s waves striking a stubborn shore, forceful and relentless, yet shaping the sand with a quiet, inevitable patience. The sand yielded slowly, imperceptibly, yet the storm left its mark. 

Softness could endure and still be sculpted; gentleness could bend without breaking. Edges would form where needed, contours sharpened by pressure, yet the core remained unspoiled, carrying its quiet, persistent beauty. Growth was not abrupt, but slow, a natural yielding to circumstance, until strength and grace existed in equal measure, seamless and unforced.

Hadrian listened as the sky released it;s own magic, and the castle thrummed it’s own. He sat gracefully upon his chair, homework and essays sat neatly on his desk. He only studied by candlelight—conscious to not disturb Theo, while he slept peacefully.  Him and Hadrian had discussed the theory of why some people could wield magic and others could not, long into the stormy  evening. Theo shrugged, leaning back with his hands behind his head. “I don’t think much of it,” he said. “I grew up with it. It’s like… the sky is blue, or the wind moves through the trees. It just is. You don’t question it, you don’t wonder why it exists—you just accept it.”

Hadrian, on the other hand, found it impossible to accept so simply. His every instinct longed to dissect it, to understand its root and measure its extent. He wondered about bloodlines, about the hum of energy beneath his skin, about the intricate way intent and knowledge bent reality. “But there must be a reason,” he murmured. “Why some have it and some don’t. How it chooses—or if it chooses at all.”

Theo shrugged again, but his gaze softened. “Maybe some things are meant to be felt, not solved,” he said. “You’ll figure it out, though. If anyone could, it’d be you. With your freaky intuition or… connection with magic and stuff.”

Hadrian smiled faintly, but his mind was already racing, tracing invisible threads through history, through the ancient lineages he’d only just begun to uncover, seeking patterns, possibilities, answers to questions most wizards never bothered to ask.

Hadrian sought answers in his copy of Hogwarts: A History, yet he didn’t find anything that could contribute to his curiosity. Sighing, he sat back in his chair and admired the storm for a moment before turning back to his essay regarding the first goblin war. He noticed that goblins had old greetings, he desperately wanted to bring his question of if they were still used today to Professor Binns, but he knew he wouldn't answer. Or even register his presence…

 

Finally, surrendering to fatigue, he carried his small candle, the flame flickering like a tiny heartbeat, and padded quietly to his bed. The storm followed him into his dreams, a companion of distant drums and silver flashes, a lullaby both fierce and protective.

Morning came early, calm and rainy. He drew back the curtains of his dormitory window and gazed upon the lake, a dark mirror reflecting clouds swollen with rain. The castle itself seemed alive in the quiet—walls breathing, staircases sighing, portraits shifting their weight as if to acknowledge his presence. He moved through the corridors with the stealth of a shadow, the echo of his bare feet softened by the cold stone, feeling the pulse of Hogwarts in a way no casual student could.

The library welcomed him like an old confidant. Rows of towering shelves stood silent, wrapped in dust and whispers of long-dead wizards. The light of dawn sifted through the high, arched windows, scattering motes across the tables like tiny fireflies frozen mid-flight. For a while, he was entirely alone, the hush broken only by the scratch of quill on parchment and the occasional flutter of a page. He spread his books before him: treatises on goblin history, obscure notes on transfiguration theory, and his own midnight-leather notebook, edges gilded and corners pristine, continuing to be filled with insights and questions.

He thought of transfiguration as a language without words, a symphony written in intention. Each spell began as an image in the mind’s eye, not merely visual but tactile, auditory, almost tasteable in its completeness. Will imbued the object with the shape he imagined, and intent sculpted it further—each microdecision, each conscious and subconscious influence, a vector along which reality bent. He contemplated a match again, visualizing its splintered fibers elongating, twisting, condensing into a needle. Every detail had to be accounted for: the grain, the balance, the weight. The magic would obey, but only if the mind wove it properly.

Hours passed unnoticed. The storm outside had mellowed into a steady, soft rain, drumming against the library’s leaded glass. Hadrian’s quill traced furious patterns, notes nesting in notes, theories folding into themselves with a quiet elegance. He paused to lean back, eyes closing, listening to the castle breathe around him—the gentle creak of beams, the distant echo of pipes carrying water, the whisper of wind against stone. In that moment, Hogwarts felt like more than a school; it was a living repository, a heartbeat of history and knowledge, a silent tutor that watched and waited for the diligent, the curious, the unyielding.

The first flickers of sunlight caught on the edges of his scrolls, illuminating the ink in a soft, amber glow. Hadrian stretched, his mind alight with possibilities, his body warmed by the candle and the knowledge that for once, he was entirely in his element. Here, amid dust and magic and the quiet companionship of the castle, he was free—free to be meticulous, free to be curious, free to begin shaping the world around him in the way only he could, even if he was not entirely aware of it yet.

Eventually, Hadrian rose from the library, stretching limbs stiff from hours bent over parchment. The rain had softened into a delicate, steady sprinkling, mist curling around the castle turrets like a slow exhalation. He made his way out to the grounds, the familiar stones slick beneath his shoes, the hedges glistening with tiny jewels of water. A pale, gray light filtered through the clouds, and the air smelled of wet earth and faint magic, a perfume that always reminded him of possibilities yet unseen.

He found a large tree near the edge of the lake, its gnarled roots curling through the sodden ground, its broad canopy offering a fragile shelter from the rain. Beneath it, he seated himself, back against the rough bark, and retrieved his private notebook. Today, his thoughts wandered from historical wars and magical theory to traditions long neglected, and he had decided to explore one in particular: Mabon, the ancient celebration marking the autumnal equinox.

Opening his book he had purchased for personal curiosity, Hadrian began reading with careful attention. He learned that Mabon was a time of balance—day and night equal, a moment when the harvest was complete and the earth whispered of rest. Traditionally, witches and wizards marked it with offerings of apples, nuts, and grains, leaving small bundles of corn or miniature wreaths in fields, or upon household altars. Fires were lit, but not to scorch—rather, to warm, to honor the retreating sun. Music and storytelling accompanied the ritual, songs of gratitude for the earth’s bounty and reflections upon the cycles of life and death.

He scribbled notes in the margins. Observations flowed: Apples: red, crisp, symbolic of the sun’s waning warmth; grains—sustenance, a gift of life. Candles: light to acknowledge balance, not dominance. He paused, staring at the rain-slicked leaves above him. He imagined a small circle of candles around the roots of this very tree, offerings of fruit laid carefully, and perhaps a whispered incantation to honor the harvest. He imagined a gentle ceremony, alone or shared with those who understood—not performative, not rigidly codified, but alive and breathing.

He noted also that Mabon involved reflection, an assessment of what had been gathered, what had been lost, and what remained to be nurtured. It was a time to give thanks to the forces that sustained magic itself, to contemplate cycles, and to embrace both restraint and release. Balance, he wrote, is an art as subtle as the tilt of the sun, as precise as the arc of a spell.

Around him, the rain whispered against the lake, skimming the surface in silver arcs. He dipped his quill again, letting thoughts wander into the practical: arranging offerings, timing the lighting of candles with the sun’s descent, perhaps combining meditation with minor enchantments that acknowledged the rhythm of the natural world. He imagined what herbs might be burned to honor transition, which crystals could amplify gratitude, and how even the choice of words—spoken aloud or inscribed upon parchment—shifted the energy of the observance.

Here, in the quiet patter of rain and the solitude beneath the tree, Hadrian felt the thrill of connection: not to grades, not to teachers, not to expectation, but to magic itself, alive and pulsing through ritual and thought. He was aware of the subtle growth within himself—the curiosity that never truly slept, the care with which he approached the world, the capacity to immerse wholly in a thought or a sensation. He let the notes fill the violet pages, long, looping sentences and diagrams of circles and offerings, until the rain began to taper and the wind shifted, brushing against his face like a soft exhale.

Finally, he closed the notebook, pressed it to his chest for a moment, and leaned back against the tree. The world was wet and gray, but it was his world, and he was beginning to understand the contours of it—the quiet rhythms, the balance of force and reflection, the inevitability of growth tempered by care.

 

The days fell like leaves on the Hogwarts grounds, crisp and golden as September inched toward Mabon. Hadrian moved through them with a precision that was almost predatory—every class, every assignment, every fleeting opportunity to learn, he consumed as though time were a scarce and precious resource. Potions essays were completed before the ink had fully dried on the instructions; transfiguration exercises were mastered with an ease that left even the Ravenclaws impressed; Herbology observations were logged in exacting detail, the notes meticulously annotated, every variance in soil and moisture recorded. By mid-September, he had developed a rhythm, a quiet but persistent beat that carried him from morning breakfast through dinner and into hours spent in the library, and sometimes beyond, in the quiet corners of the castle where the candles burned low and the stone seemed to breathe beneath him.

Yet he did not spend all his time in solitude. Between lectures and assignments, Hadrian lingered in the common room with his friends, where laughter and teasing made the House a living, breathing organism rather than a rigid institution of rules.

“Do you think Weasley will ever learn to hold his broom upright?” Draco asked one evening, nudging Hadrian with a smirk.

Hadrian grinned, leaning back in his chair. “If he survives the year, maybe. But I wouldn’t bet on it.”

Blaise, sprawled on the floor with Pansy perched beside him, rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I think you’re secretly hoping he falls so you can lecture him.”

“I’m not,” Hadrian said, though a faint smirk betrayed him. “But someone has to enforce a little decency.”

Theo, quietly attentive as always, added, “I’d rather someone enforce it than him. The last time he tried to show off in Potions, I nearly lost an eye.”

“Lucky for you, it wasn’t mine,” Hadrian replied, and Theo laughed—a quiet, content sound that made Hadrian smile.

At meals and in between classes, Hadrian often found himself in quiet debates or thoughtful observations with Pansy and Blaise, particularly about potion ingredients or arcane magical theory.

“I still don’t understand why aconite neutralizes belladonna in that sequence,” Blaise muttered one evening, tracing the rim of his goblet.

Hadrian leaned over, pointing at the diagram in Blaise’s notebook. “It’s about the sequence of energy release. Aconite slows the cellular activity of the plant compounds, essentially delaying the oxidation that belladonna relies on to activate. If you reverse it, you risk the entire potion destabilizing.”

Blaise blinked, impressed. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is, if you know why you’re doing it,” Hadrian said softly, closing the notebook. “Otherwise, it’s just stirring ingredients and hoping for the best.”

Theo chuckled. “You make me feel like I should never touch a wand again.”

“Touch the wand,” Hadrian said. “Just… touch it with intention.”

Outside the common room, Hadrian spent stolen moments wandering the corridors or courtyards with Theo, tracing the lines of the castle in silent companionship. He enjoyed the quiet attention, the ease of conversation without pretense.

Evenings often brought him to Snape’s office, where he and his godfather engaged in long discussions that were as cerebral as they were subtle. Snape would preside over a small cauldron, carefully measuring powders and tinctures, while Hadrian observed, questioned, and sometimes experimented.

“Your timing is inconsistent,” Snape noted one evening, eyes sharp behind his spectacles as he measured powdered root. “Even when the ratios are correct, the release of vapor must follow the precise arc of heat application.”

Hadrian nodded, hands clasped behind his back. “It’s about intent,” he said slowly, “and the visualization of how the reaction will proceed. If I imagine the energy moving along the compound’s lines before it happens, the release is more controlled.”

Snape raised a dark eyebrow. “Most first-years would never conceive of treating a potion like a conduit of thought rather than a recipe to be memorized.”

Hadrian’s lips quirked. “I’ve never been most first-years.”

The corners of Snape’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. “No, I suppose not, you brat.”

These lessons with Snape were quiet, almost intimate, a subtle dance of instruction and insight. They did not talk about trivialities, nor did Snape spare Hadrian any measure of scrutiny; instead, they dissected the alchemy of magic itself—timing, force, and intention, the very currents that made spellcraft and potions function. And in these hours, Hadrian felt an intimacy of understanding that was rare in his life: a teacher who saw him, challenged him, and expected brilliance without pity or indulgence. One who he could also confide in, explain the intricacies of magic. And complain about the gryffindors. Especially Weasley.

Outside of instruction, Hadrian continued his personal inquiries. He revisited the vault, the violet notebook open at his side, tracing the etchings on the sword and rereading the letter from Fleamont Potter. He pondered Mabon, reading about rituals and balance, making notes on how one might perform such observances in secrecy, and imagining the quiet magic of reflection, gratitude, and deliberate focus.

All the while, his friends laughed and teased around him, and yet, in the quiet corners of the castle or beneath Snape’s sharp gaze, Hadrian’s mind roamed freely, untethered, weaving theory, practice, history, and ritual into a tapestry of magic that was wholly, completely his own.

As the equinox approached, he sensed the subtle shift in the air—the balance in light and dark, the tension in the leaves, the pulse of magic beneath the stones. And he understood that he was, in his own way, preparing for it: the balance of thought and action, of knowledge and instinct, of innocence tempered with power.

 

Hadrian found himself increasingly attuned to the subtle currents of the castle, as if the very stones exhaled a quiet, knowing pulse that resonated with his own magic. He noticed how the flicker of candlelight in the corridors seemed to bend slightly toward certain students, how a whisper of wind carried the scent of herbs from the greenhouses when Theo walked by, and how Blaise’s gestures, even in stillness, were precise and deliberate, a reflection of his carefully cultivated elegance. Pansy’s laughter, sharp and restrained, seemed to ring differently in each corner of the common room, revealing more of her character than words ever could. Even Millicent, usually quiet and watchful, had a cadence to her presence, a rhythm in the way she arranged her notes or held her quill that whispered patience and thoughtfulness. Hadrian drank it all in, letting the castle’s magic and his peers’ unspoken signals weave into his awareness, layering every interaction with nuance and meaning. In these moments, he felt less like an outsider trying to grasp a world he’d only just entered, and more like a thread in a vast, intricate tapestry—both delicate and essential.

 

The castle’s corridors were hushed, the only sound the distant echo of shutters rattling against the wind. Hadrian moved carefully, each step measured and silent, the polished stone beneath his shoes absorbing the soft press of his feet. He paused at the edge of the Slytherin stairwell, listening, and when he heard only the faint, sleepy sighs of those already asleep, he slipped past the guards of shadow and candlelight. His cloak, dark as the night sky, blended with the corridors, and the sharp tang of autumn air met him as he opened the door to the grounds.

The forest lay before him, damp and alive with the whisper of leaves, each tree a sentinel in the half-light. He moved with careful purpose, threading between gnarled roots and low-hanging branches, feeling the pulse of ancient magic in the soil beneath his feet. Every footfall was deliberate, every breath measured, as though the forest itself were judging his presence. Finally, he found a small clearing, protected by the arch of two leaning oaks, their limbs twisted like the arms of old guardians. The earth was soft from earlier rains, and he knelt to arrange his ritual: a ring of small stones to hold the fire, apples sliced and fanned like a sunburst, candles standing as sentinels of amber flame.

Everything has changed, he thought, fingering the smooth skin of an apple. I am not the boy who wondered what life could be; I am the boy who holds it in my hand. He struck a flint and watched sparks catch on the kindling. He believed that lighting the fire by hand, rather than using magic, would be the best. Though he is a wizard, he’d still like to embrace that he’d once lived without magic. Balance. The fire licked upward slowly, orange tongues dancing, smoke curling into the night sky. The smell of burning wood and crisp apples filled his senses, grounding him in a way he had never felt before.

He arranged the candles in a pattern he had read about, marking the four directions with careful intention. The air was cool, scented with damp moss and the far-off tang of distant pines. He settled cross-legged before the fire, letting his hands hover over the flames without touching them.

I am learning what it means to be myself , he mused. Not the one the world expects, not the one they whisper about in corners, but the one who chooses and shapes each action. The one who can wield magic and history, thought and will, with purpose.

Hadrian took a deep breath, inhaling the forest and the night, and closed his eyes. The sound of the rain, beginning to sprinkle again, pattered softly on leaves above, each droplet a tiny metronome to his meditation. He whispered the words of the Mabon ritual aloud, honoring the harvest, the balance of light and dark, and the turning of the wheel. Each apple he placed upon the fire was a token of gratitude, each flickering candle a statement of intent.

I have everything now, he thought, feeling the heat of the fire brush against his palms. Knowledge, friends, a home I can call my own—even if it is strange and shadowed. And I will not waste it. I will not fail.

As the ritual deepened, Hadrian let himself linger in the forest’s quiet, letting the firelight illuminate the contours of his thoughts. He traced the lines of his life in memory and intention: the letter that had led him to Diagon Alley, the vault with its heirlooms, the emerald-studded sword, the violet notebook in which he recorded wonders both mundane and arcane. Every step of the path had brought him here, to this clearing, to this night, to this act of reflection.

He felt the magic. Really felt it. It was more intense and alive than just the magic in the castle. 

This was magic itself. Not just the magic that had been around for millennia. Not just the magic that had built society or Hogwarts.

 

Finally, the candles guttered low, the apples blackening gently at the edges. He rose, brushing soil from his robes and stepping back to leave the forest as silently as he had entered. The rain had intensified, drumming softly on the canopy above, and he welcomed the gentle cold washing over him. The castle lights twinkled in the distance, a promise of warmth, friendship, and knowledge waiting beyond the shadows.

Tomorrow, I will learn more. I will grow more. And this—this night, this ritual, this fire—is the beginning of something wholly mine.

He disappeared into the shadowed paths, the forest swallowing him again, leaving only the echo of the storm and the whisper of the old magic that lingered in the soil.