Chapter 1: Chapter 1 - Enter the Wolves
Chapter Text
Hogwarts is taking attendance. Tonight, Lyra Lestrange answers.
The Durmstrang ship cut the lake clean. The air smelled of iron, cold and cutting. Lyra’s palms pressed against the rail until the wood imprinted her skin. The castle loomed from the cliff, windows blazing in straight lines, arrogant, untouchable.
“Finally,” said Kolvsky, low, precise, gloves clicking at each finger. “You are trembling.”
“I am not.”
“Let them think so. People only ever see their own fear.”
She almost laughed. “Not very Durmstrang.”
“Neither are you.”
Boots rang behind them, disciplined rhythm. Irina, sharp hair and sharper spine. Sacha, darker, broader, scar pressed pale against her skin, eyes that demanded silence. Their uniforms didn’t fit, they were carved into them.
“Ten galleons Beauxbatons blinks first,” Irina said flatly.
“Not unless they practice their walk harder than their wand,” Sacha answered.
They spoke loudly. People obeyed.
Lyra didn’t look back. She remembered summers in Lestrange Manor: Rabastan crashing through the doors at dawn, drunk on Rosier’s liquor, a strange girl pressed to him, perfume staining the carpets. Rodolphus parading his new fiancée: Bellatrix Black, delicious and poisonous, smile like a knife, gaze that inventoried everything she wanted to own. Nights belonged to missions, boots leaving, voices hushed, blood rinsed from basins. Lyra listened from the stairs and learned. At ten she pressed her mouth into her arm when the train left without her. Steam lifted from the platform and scratched her throat with coals. Rabastan had already taken the window, grin easy, a boy who would never again ask permission for anything. Sirius Black beside him, hair wrong in the right way, mothers tense and daughters curious. Evan Rosier leaned down and ruffled her hair. Little creature. His voice was lazy and amused in a way that did not include her. She did not swat him away. She stood still and learned the exact sound of his laughter leaving with the train. A letter slid from Rabastan’s pocket as he waved; she kept it in her palm all the way home as if paper could hold a door open. The next morning the owl brought one line. Slytherin. Of course. Her father grunted something that counted as approval. Her mother folded her mouth into a smaller shape. No one asked if she was pleased. That evening he put the rest in order. She is soft. You want another disgrace. Durmstrang followed. Winter taught control. Drill taught economy. Nights taught how to keep warmth small enough to fit in a fist.
The ship struck stone. The landing shivered under their boots. Kolvsky brushed her shoulder. “Look once,” he said. She obeyed. The windows glared like rows of eyes. “Let us go.”
The Great Hall unfolded like a theatre: banners heavy with pride, candles in military rows, silver reflecting too much. Heads turned because they remembered they were meant to. Slytherin sat angled to own the view. Evan Rosier didn’t take space; rooms adjusted. He glanced once at the doors and the table forgot to breathe.
The Pureblood heir leaned back, elegant cruelty in every line. Blue eyes cool and bright, collar perfect, mouth sharp with possibilities. Rabastan lounged beside him, all virile impatience, gaze tracking the hall like prey. Barty Crouch Jr. sat coiled, a match waiting for flame. Regulus Black was carved precision, every gesture exact, every silence deliberate. Across them Narcissa shone like still marble, stillness weaponized, gaze that moved rooms by degrees.
Dumbledore raised his arms. The hall quieted, obedient. He spoke of guests, honor, the Goblet, destiny wrapped in theatre.
Evan’s eyes slid toward Gryffindor where Sirius Black laughed too loud with James Potter. Family resemblance, attitude inherited. Evan’s mouth curved, vicious. “Cousin. Tell your golden retriever to stop wagging. It’s exhausting.”
Sirius smirked back, but James clapped him like a prize, Prewett whooped, and the Gryffindor table roared.
“Look at them,” Evan said softly. “Heroes rehearsing for their funeral.”
Rabastan smirked, magnetic. “They’ll die for applause. I prefer women.”
Barty’s grin cut open. “I prefer fire.”
Regulus sipped water, flat. “Save your theatrics. Dumbledore isn’t finished explaining rules he’ll break.”
Under cuffs, under silk, their marks prickled. Not a promise. A belonging. They were not playing with darkness, they were its chosen.
Dumbledore spread his arms. “And tonight, we welcome Beauxbatons.”
Blue silk flooded the hall, perfume and choreography. Eighteen-year-old boys became predators, mouths parting, spines straightening. Girls stiffened their shoulders, pretended not to care, eyes betraying them.
“They choreograph their breathing,” Rabastan murmured.
"Right insult. Wrong target,” Evan said.
“Twenty galleons,” Evan said lazily, “the blonde with the braid begs for me in French before Christmas.”
“I don’t bet on certainties,” Barty smirked.
“I’ll keep the brunette,” Rabastan added. His eyes followed the swing of her hips, his voice low, virile. “Those could start wars.”
The brunette adjusted her bodice with deliberate fingers. Across the room, a Ravenclaw girl flushed, another from Hufflepuff whispered behind her hand. Rabastan’s smile caught them and they blushed harder.
At the end of the Beauxbatons line, a wand twitched. Evan’s goblet cracked, pumpkin juice spilling across his cuff. The girl didn’t glance back.
Rabastan dipped a finger into the spill, tasted it slow. “French manners. Predictable.”
The blonde with the braid flushed, bit her lip, and smiled directly at Evan, deliberate, indecent.
Evan’s jaw shifted, air tightening. “Change of bet,” Barty murmured. “She wants him to win.”
“Everyone does,” Evan said softly, and the table hated him for being right.
“Messy,” Narcissa murmured, eyes on his ruined cuff, then lingering on the bones of his wrist. “You’re untidy.” Narcissa’s stillness did more work than most men’s tempers.
“Only where it counts,” Evan replied.
Her mouth curved half a degree. Electricity simmered, familial and dangerous.
And then the doors opened again.
Durmstrang didn’t glide. They stormed. Boots struck stone like a verdict. Kolvsky at the front, Irina and Sacha behind, each body an armory. The hall straightened without meaning to.
And then her.
Lyra Lestrange. Rosier looked up like he’d heard his name. He hadn’t. He looked anyway.
Her hair spilled chestnut, mouth set, eyes sharp. Her sun-kissed skin mirrored Rabastan’s, a softer echo of his burnished gold. She carried pain like it was stitched into her uniform. On the third step, her knee caught a raised stone. A slip the size of a breath. She caught it before the room could. She reset her balance like nothing had happened. Accuracy first.
Regulus’s goblet froze halfway. His voice was exact, cold. “That is Lestrange. That is Rabastan’s sister.”
Narcissa’s eyes narrowed, the faintest smile at the corner. “Pretty,” she said, “But not precise.”.
Rabastan hadn’t moved for a breath. Then he did. Fury sharpened his face. “She didn’t tell me. She never does.”Before adding, lower “Secrets don’t protect her. They provoke me.”
Evan’s gaze pinned Lyra, bright, unreadable. “Of course she didn’t. That’s why she’s interesting.”
Kolvsky bent to murmur at her ear. She gave a quick smile, habit. Her eyes flicked to Regulus for the briefest moment, sharp, recorded, undeniable.
Evan’s fingers closed around his wand before he forced them loose. His eyes did not leave her. He didn’t smile. He adjusted the cuff he’d already adjusted. The hall learned where to look.
He should have looked away. He didn’t. He never did when something felt like danger.
Rabastan tensed, his voice cutting the room. “One of you touches her and I break the right bones.”
“Predictable,” Barty sang.
“Precise,” Evan corrected. “He means the ones that matter.”
Regulus’s mouth was a blade. “Why Durmstrang, Rabastan? She should have been here. In Slytherin. With us.”
Rabastan’s eyes burned. “Because Father feared softness. He thought she’d shame us. The way your brother shames you.”
Regulus’s hand tightened on his goblet. His voice stayed calm, lethal. “My brother chose his disgrace. You didn’t choose your leash.” Evan’s gaze pinned her, bright, unreadable. His mouth curved the smallest degree. “Lyra,” he said, quiet and deliberate, tasting whether the name was his. The name cut the air like a claim. Rabastan’s head snapped. “Say her name again,” he said, voice low, lethal, “and I’ll break you where it counts.”
“Relax,” Evan murmured, gaze dragging back to her. “I prefer my conquests with teeth.”
Narcissa set down her goblet, crystal singing. “Boys,” she said, velvet over steel, “the world adores you when you’re cruel. It despises you when you’re sloppy. Do try not to humiliate us.”
“We don’t do sloppy,” Evan answered.
“Then prove it.” Her mouth curved half a degree.
The hall exhaled when Dumbledore ended his speech. Plates clattered into place. Laughter rose, too loud, conversations too bright, first years with wide eyes. Lyra sat straight with Durmstrang, lifted her cup, metal cool against her mouth. The tremor in her hand stilled. She ate carefully, hunger disguised as composure.
Her back ached from sitting too straight. She would not allow her hands to shake twice in one night.
Across the hall Evan tracked every refusal, counted them like cards. Rabastan’s voice cut low. “Do not.”
“Do not what,” Evan asked politely.
“Do not turn her into something you can win.”
“I don’t play games,” Evan said. “I keep score.”
“Touch her,” Rabastan said, “and choose the part of yourself you can live without.”
Barty’s smile gleamed. “Dinner and death threats. Finally, some flavor.”
Regulus’s eyes never left Lyra when he said, “Eyes up. You’re being watched.”
“We always are,” Evan murmured, and finally reached for his knife.
Lyra lifted her chin, steady, defiant. The castle stared. She let it.
She felt his attention reach her from across the hall. She let it happen. She didn’t let it win.
I did not come to be chosen. I came to choose. Potions. Two o’clock. Let the castle keep score.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2 - Pretty Things Break
Chapter Text
The feast ended, but the castle didn’t loosen its grip. Whispers clung to stone. Pretty things break fastest when the lights go out.
Beauxbatons girls still touched their skirts and hair as if applause hadn’t ended. At the far end of Slytherin, Durmstrang sat apart, black and red, backs straight, mouths closed.
Lyra at the edge of their row looked like a line the room could measure itself against. Torchlight kissed the gold in her skin, traced the stubborn curl at her mouth that seemed like poise and felt like defiance. She drank from her goblet as though she set the time.
Rabastan stood. No scrape of bench. No warning. Silence went with him like a cloak. Students shifted aside without daring to look. Barty leaned toward Evan, grin sharpened. “Little Lestrange is about to meet Father’s voice in her brother’s throat.”
Narcissa’s gaze flicked once, amused, venomous. “Careful, Rabastan. You look like you care.”
Evan Rosier didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. Blond hair, too perfect to belong to anyone who hadn’t been born into power, caught the light like it had been designed for it. Blue eyes glinted like cut ice, bright, cold and merciless. He was beauty carved into weapon: cheekbones sharp as glass, mouth curved with all the cruelty of someone who never had to ask twice. He leaned in his chair as though the room bent toward him. He never forced space; space obeyed.
His gaze slid over Lyra, slow, deliberate, her throat, her shoulders, the grip that trembled then stilled. His mouth made the smallest movement, almost a smile, almost not. “My money’s on her,” he murmured.
Rabastan stopped behind her. His voice was law. “Come.”
Lyra didn’t flinch. She set the goblet down without sound, rose. Kolvsky’s eyes tracked them to the door. He didn’t move.
Rabastan led her no further than the threshold. Old families always knew theatre. Stone remembered every syllable.
“What are you doing here.”
Lyra lifted her chin. “Eating. Breathing. Admiring architecture.”
Rabastan’s hand closed on her sleeve. “Do not try me. Not here.”
His grip eased, but his eyes stayed merciless. “Father called you soft. Don’t make me prove him right. You think Durmstrang hardened you. I’ve seen harder things break.”
”
She stared until his grip loosened. “You could have asked me when I was eleven.”
“You should have sent word.”
“Would you have read it.”
His breath cut sharp. “You don’t know this place.”
“I know rooms like it. Doors that open when names are spoken. Daughters who pay the toll. I learned to stand where I wasn’t wanted.”
“You cannot put your name in that Cup.”
She laughed once, stripped of warmth. “This isn’t about the Cup. Gregorievich pulled me from the line before we sailed. I lead what needs leading. Father signed for that.”
Rabastan’s face shifted as if her shape had changed. “He signed you over.”
“He signed me inside. What I am there—I choose.”
He searched her for softness and found only steel. “You’ll stain the name.”
“Then wear the stain, Rab. It suits you.”
She didn’t blink, but her jaw ached from clenching. Her breath came too shallow. He didn’t need to know.
“I already did. At least now you’ll have to look at it.”
His voice dropped lower. “The worst here don’t duel. They don’t shout. They eat.”
“I don’t freeze.”
His hand twitched, but he didn’t reach. “Does Father know.”
“Of course. He adores rooms where his surname is coin.”
Rabastan’s throat rasped a sound too bitter to be laughter. “You’re of age. That makes you trade. Dress the girl, shake the hands, barter her for reach.”
Lyra’s eyes cut sharper. “And what do you fear, Rab. That I’ll ruin your little games with Rosier? If you’d spoken to me this summer, I could have told you a few things. Those curses you botched at midnight: I’ve practiced them since I was eleven.”
Fury burned behind his eyes. “Stay away from him.”
Her answer was a knife. “Which one. Evan, or Father.”
The silence drew blood. For the first time, he looked at her not as sister but as rival.
“We are not finished,” he said finally, voice flint. “Watch the ones who never raise their voices.”
She tilted her head, a mimic of his arrogance. “If you’ll excuse me, I have company.”
She reentered the hall as if it owed her something long due. At eleven, she’d waited for an owl that never came. At seventeen, she walked through the door anyway. The shift came before words. Evan’s attention turned the air molten. She felt it crawl over her skin. She despised the way her pulse obeyed.
Barty whistled low. “Think Rab survives this.”
Evan leaned back, eyes glittering like a dare. Somewhere in the castle, a Ravenclaw girl still remembered screaming his name into stone, too loud, too raw, a prayer turned curse. She had stumbled out of the greenhouse barefoot, mascara streaked, robes half-buttoned, dignity shattered. Narcissa had found her on the path, glanced once, and whispered, bored and merciless, “You thought you were the exception. How naïve.”
The girl had fled. Evan had not cared. He never did. His shirt had still smelled of her perfume when he returned to dinner, and he had smiled at nothing.
He rose now, deliberate. Rabastan blocked him, jaw tight.
“You don’t move toward her.”
“You forbid me,” Evan said, voice silk over a blade. “How ambitious.”
“Your type sits two seats down.” Rabastan cut his chin toward Narcissa.
Evan didn’t glance. “She looks at me like the answer’s already written. I prefer questions.”
Rabastan’s hand crushed his collar, shoved. Cloth wrinkled. Air hissed.
Regulus’s voice cut sharp. “Enough. You’re already a spectacle.” His gaze slid cold to Rabastan. “Careful. Shout any louder and they’ll smell how much you care.”
Barty’s grin widened, poison sweet. “And you, princess—if Rosier doesn’t ruin you, your brother will.”
Rabastan let go. Evan smoothed the fabric until it looked untouched…
Narcissa’s gaze lingered on Lyra, jealousy sharpened to diamond. She leaned close to Evan, voice velvet and venom. “Pretty. But pretty things break. You’ll tire of her before the season ends.”
Evan’s mouth curved, almost a smile, too dangerous to be gentle. “You’ve always been jealous, Cissy.”
Her breath caught just once, a ripple under the marble mask. She leaned back, composed, sharper than before.
He didn’t follow Lyra. Not yet.
—
Midday burned hard on the lawns. A ward dome sparked under strikes, glass tested to breaking.
Gregorievich stood still, scar white across knuckles. His voice came in a Russian growl: “Быстрее. Faster.”
Durmstrang moved as one—no flourish, no waste. Irina smiled only when someone faltered. Sacha never smiled.
Lyra’s lungs seared. Her casting hand trembled but held. Irina struck cruel. Lyra caught it, shield screaming in her bones, twisted the angle an inch.
“Vociferatus.” Irina flinched at the scream only she heard.
“Lamiae vincula.” Shadow bound her wrist.
Gregorievich’s answer came in Bulgarian, sharp as glass. “Точност! Precision!” Then, in English, voice like a knife: “Mercy does not exist. Proceed.”
“Hesitation,” he added in Bulgarian, “is the language of corpses.”
Lyra pressed. “Somno ferre.” Irina dropped. Lyra softened the stone beneath her head. “Mercy is optional. I’m choosing it.”
On the balcony, Rabastan’s knuckles carved dents in the rail. Barty leaned in, wicked, eyes fever-bright. “They call him the Death Wolf of Siberia. Grindelwald’s hound. Ate men alive for less than hesitation.”
Regulus’s mouth curved cold. “Fitting. Durmstrang always breeds monsters and then names them professors.”
Evan didn’t look away from Lyra. He looked like ruin made royal, the kind of boy who broke you and left you grateful. “The best kind,” he said softly. “The kind who leaves teeth marks.”
Gregorievich barked again. “Скорость! Faster!” The Durmstrang line snapped tighter.
Below, Lyra felt eyes on her skin, gave it one heartbeat, then set her stance again.
“Precision first,” Gregorievich called. “Pain once.”
She dismantled her next opponent in three moves.
Rabastan muttered low. “She’s good.”
Evan already knew.
—
By lunch, Hogwarts had new stories. Some centered Lyra. Some Evan. A few Narcissa. None matched.
Narcissa found Evan beneath the greenhouse arch, where the air smelled of soil and sharp green. She turned her ring until the edge cut her palm and stopped before it looked like effort. Her voice was velvet, poison beneath. “Do not embarrass the people who matter.”
“Obligations remember me.” Evan leaned against stone, every line of him aristocracy sharpened to cruelty. Blond hair gleamed pale in the shade, blue eyes bright and unreadable. He looked like sin sculpted into prince.
“Your fascination will pass,” she said, tone like ice breaking.
“Perhaps,” he murmured, “after it has done its work.”
She leaned closer, perfume like steel and lilies. “She won’t survive you.”
His smile was slow, dangerous. “Or I won’t survive her.”
“Don’t be romantic.” She pulled back before he could answer, but not fast enough to hide the flash of something else: Envy , sharp and quick.
Evan watched her leave, mouth curved, eyes still lit. He looked like he could burn the world for amusement, and the world would still beg to be chosen.
—
Evening drained the lake of color. Durmstrang kept its circle. Lyra stood at the window, chocolate steadying her hand.
She repeated the thought.
I did not come to be chosen. I came to choose.
Gregorievich passed the fire. “Правило,” he said. The rule.
“Precision first.”
He waited.
“Pain once.”
He moved on.
The castle folded into night. Portraits pretended to sleep. Doors waited to decide. Lyra walked as though she belonged.
At the last stair before the dungeons, Evan waited. He stepped aside, letting her choose distance or closeness. She passed close enough that his sleeve brushed hers. Neither spoke.
It was not silence. It was a wager. And it would end with someone breaking first.
Chapter 3: Chapter 3 - Get her Out of My Way
Chapter Text
It began with a sound. Not a shout. Not a laugh. The soft, unmistakable hush of something forbidden. The second-floor corridor knew how to hold its breath. Moonlight slipped through a narrow window and scored a thin, merciless line across the floor. Shadows turned to watch.
A scent hung in the air, warm and expensive, cinnamon threaded with something darker. It drew the nerves tight, then loosed them again. If curiosity outweighed caution, you followed the pull because you could not help it.
Rabastan Lestrange had a Beauxbatons girl pinned neatly between arm and wall. She was eighteen, clear-eyed, braid loosened by running; she had come to meet him and had chosen where to stand. One of his hands held her wrists high against the stone. The other slid beneath the hem of pale blue wool and hesitated, the question plain.
“Say it,” he told her.
“Yes,” she said, steady.
He pressed his palm where heat pooled. She rocked into it, breath catching not from surprise but relief. “If you want me to stop,” he murmured, words for her alone, “tell me.”
“Don’t,” she breathed. “More.”
He smiled without softness. He brought one of her hands down from the wall, guided her wrist between her thighs, covered her fingers with his and pressed exactly where she needed them. The moon washed her features in silver. Her mouth opened on a sound she tried, unsuccessfully, to swallow.
A precise cough traveled the stone.
Narcissa Black stood in the slice of light as if night had agreed to wear her shape. Tie straight. Sleeves immaculate. Chin high. Rabastan did not turn his head. He kept his eyes on the girl.
“Taste,” he murmured.
The girl lifted her hand. He did not help her. She touched two slick fingers to her mouth, gaze never leaving his, and drew them between her lips.
Silence breathed. Rabastan turned to her, not close enough to touch, but close enough that heat coiled between them.
“You look at me like you want to cut me open,” he murmured. “Or climb inside.”
“Do not flatter yourself,” Narcissa replied. Words like polished marble, throat taut with control.
But her pupils betrayed her. He saw the dilation, sharp and sudden, and his smile curved like a wolf scenting prey.
“You repress it well,” he said. “But you cannot hide what your body already answered.”
Her voice was velvet stretched over steel. “Careful, Rabastan. Some predators end up chained. Some are put down.”
He tilted his head, hunger flickering beneath aristocratic ease. “Predators eat first. And you, Cissy, are starving.”
“Starvation teaches restraint,” she said. “You might try it.”
Her breath caught once, too shallow, too fast. She smoothed it away with elegance, but he had already seen it. He always saw.
“Remember this,” she whispered, stepping back into moonlight so it washed her clean. “You do not get to ruin me. That privilege belongs to someone else.”
His laugh was quiet, dangerous. “No, Narcissa. That privilege belongs to me. Whether you admit it or not.”
She hated how close he was to right. That some nights, in the silence between perfection and sleep, she remembered the weight of his breath behind her.
Moonlight cut her cheekbone to a sharp coin. Anger burned cold in the poised column of her throat, and beneath it something fiercer, older, harder to name. She exhaled through her nose and set her expression back to perfect. Resolve walked into place beside it. Evan Rosier was power and polish and access. She had built a future on the geometry of those facts. She would not watch it tilt because a girl who did not know the steps had decided to dance too near the center.
The castle breathed. The hush uncoiled and went looking for other secrets to keep.
Below, the steps down to the dungeons cut the air colder. The walls kept more promises than people did. Lyra Lestrange moved fast along the passage, jacket open at the throat for air, braid damp at the nape. She did not look like someone who had lost anything today. She looked like someone who had decided not to.
“Lyra.”
Her name, in a voice that had never spent itself on her before. She stopped, not because she was told to but because she was curious who dared.
Evan Rosier stepped out of the shadow like a habit the corridor had been saving. Torchlight drew a pale line along his shoulder and left the rest for imagination. He was perfectly put together and slightly undone in the way pressure undoes people who enjoy it. Blue eyes bright and merciless. He wore polish like armor and temptation like a habit.
“You waited,” she said. She liked owning the obvious.
“I was curious,” he said. “Poor habit. I indulge it when it pays.”
“And does this.”
“I am checking.” His hand lifted a fraction. “May I.”
“The jaw,” she said. “Only that.”
He touched her as if she were a new instrument he already knew how to play. Fingertips along the line of her jaw. Not a caress. A measure. He paused at her pulse and did nothing with it, which did something anyway. He let his hand fall.
“Better,” he said.
“For whom.”
“For me,” he said. “For you later.”
Her mouth almost curved. She canceled the thought. “You speak like someone who expects to win.”
“I speak like someone who understands cost.” His eyes brightened, wicked. “Curiosity is a dangerous drug. You already look addicted.”
“Addictions are only tragic,” she said, “when you can’t price them.”
A pause stretched, sharp as glass. He almost smiled. “Jealousy suits your brother, though. Almost as much as losing.”
Footsteps turned there, hurried and off-key. Barty Crouch arrived with a sheaf of parchment that had not been his an hour ago tucked under one arm like contraband. “Am I interrupting practice,” he asked, bright as a coin.
“You are interrupting nothing,” Evan said, eyes not leaving Lyra. “But you may still leave.”
“Love, lust, loyalty, it’s all rot. What matters is who makes you bleed prettiest—and how long you thank them for it.”
“Go,” Evan said.
“Make me,” Barty sang, and wandered on because obedience is sweetest when he can pretend it was his idea.
Lyra let out a breath she had not intended to hold. Evan registered it without triumph. “Sit to my left in Potions,” he said, as if arranging cutlery. “I am untidy with anyone else.”
“You will ask,” she said.
She liked the edge in his voice too much. The suggestion of ruin wrapped in civility.
He did not often say please. He did not mind it when he had to. “Please.”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Left seat. Precision only.” He stepped aside enough for politeness and not enough for comfort, leaving her to choose how close to pass. She took the close line. His sleeve brushed her knuckles. The contact was so small it could be denied later and would still feel true.
She did not look back. He did not call after her. The corridor kept the rest.
By the time the castle surrendered to curfew, the story on the second floor had already grown new endings in three common rooms. In Slytherin, the laughter was soft and pointed. In Beauxbatons’ borrowed dormitory, the girl with the crooked ribbon washed her hands and smiled at her reflection without shame. In the Durmstrang cabin at the docks, Wladimir Kolvsky set out practice chalk and, for once, left it unused. There would be other nights for drills. Tonight belonged to people who understood appetite and aim.
Narcissa wrote a single clean line to a contact who liked tidy alliances. She sealed it in green and did not send it yet. Rabastan walked the upper corridors until the heat went out of his body and the need to break something eased. Evan watched the empty stretch of dungeon where Lyra had passed moments before and put his hands in his pockets as if he trusted them there.
Lyra lay awake under crisp sheets and counted the places in the castle where she had stood a little too still and a little too long. She thought of a corridor cut by moonlight, of a voice saying her name like a decision, of the particular calm that comes when fear does not win. She did not pray for outcomes. She planned for them.
Tomorrow would arrive with lists and whispers and the slow work of making rooms behave.
Tonight, the castle filed its secrets away like debts.
And somewhere between one breath and the next, a girl who had never been chosen tightened her grip on the right to choose back.
In the dungeons, Evan Rosier traced the echo of her voice like a cut he hadn’t noticed until it bled.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4 - The Death Wolf’s Lesson
Chapter Text
The Defense classroom had been stripped to its bones. Desks shouldered against the walls. Chalk circles scored the stone floor until the rings looked older than the slabs themselves. Four wards hummed in white light, ready to swallow anything thrown at them. Gryffindor and Slytherin pressed shoulder to shoulder on one side, pretending not to itch for blood. Durmstrang claimed the back, red and black in disciplined rows, boots on the same beat. Beauxbatons sat by the windows, silk and perfume arranged like armor.
Professor Woodcroft stood with his hands folded behind his back, calm as a man who trusted parchment more than instinct. Beside him, Gregorievich carried his coat slung over one shoulder, white hair tied, the pale scar across his wand hand catching torchlight. He watched the room the way winter watched fools crossing ice.
“We will run controlled demonstrations,” Woodcroft announced. “Pairs only. Audible incantations. No Unforgivables, no lasting damage. You will stop when ordered.”
Gregorievich’s reply came in Russian, his voice a growl. “Если они не остановятся, мы узнаем, кто умеет хоронить быстро.”
If they don’t stop, we’ll learn who knows how to bury fast.
The wardlight thickened. The chandeliers sharpened. The castle held its breath.
Rabastan Lestrange lounged at the Slytherin benches, shoulders loose, jaw set, dangerous in stillness. Barty Crouch Jr. leaned forward like a boy waiting for someone else’s pain to amuse him. Evan Rosier rested against a carved pillar, pale hair immaculate, waistcoat undone just enough to look deliberate. He didn’t fill the room. The room bent toward him.
“Neck’s tight, Rab,” Barty murmured, wicked. “Guardian looks worse on you than sin.”
Rabastan didn’t flinch. His gaze was locked on the Durmstrang line. On the girl with the braid. His sister. “Say it again,” he said, voice low, “and you’ll be drinking soup through a straw.”
Evan’s glance skimmed the crowd, counting exits instead of faces. “Relax,” he said, voice smooth as silk over steel. “She isn’t glass.”
“You don’t touch her.” Rabastan’s tone was lethal.
Evan didn’t blink. His voice was soft, merciless.
“You mistake me for someone asking permission. I’m a Rosier. You should be honoured I even look.”
Rabastan’s jaw tightened, fury swallowed whole.
Barty leaned in, grin sharpened to cruelty. “That’s the thing with Rosiers. When they take, everyone else learns to watch—or bleed.”
Narcissa sat marble-straight, stillness polished until it gleamed. Her eyes flicked once when Evan’s attention angled toward Lyra. She didn’t speak. She never needed to. Her fingers tightened on her signet until crescents cut into her palm.
Woodcroft lifted his hand. “We begin. Potter.”
James jumped into the circle as if applause had been waiting for him since birth. Mulciber followed, heavy-footed. Sparks. Shields. A Stunner so clean it dropped Mulciber to one knee. James offered a hand like a punchline. The room exhaled.
Gregorievich clapped once. “Pretty,” he said, unimpressed. “Stop dressing for a ball.” His chin cut toward blue silk. “Marchand.”
Élodie Marchand rose, bow satin-bright, eyes sliding not to the circle but to Rabastan.
Gregorievich’s order was simple. “Durmstrang. Lestrange.”
The Durmstrang line straightened. Approval, not applause.
Barty leaned closer, delighted, voice carrying just enough. “She screamed your name last night, Rab. Today she’ll scream for another Lestrange. Brother in bed, sister in blood, education in two languages. French yesterday. Pain today.”
Rabastan’s jaw twitched. Lyra stepped forward.
The wardlight flared. She walked into it with her back straight. “Audible incantations?” she asked.
“For safety,” Woodcroft replied.
She tilted her chin. “Shall I send an owl too? Wax seal, ribbon?”
Laughter rippled from Gryffindor. Gregorievich’s mouth almost twitched. Evan’s did too. Lyra hated that she noticed.
Élodie curtsied with a smile sharpened for cruelty. “We play nice, yes?”
“I don’t play,” Lyra said.
The duel snapped open. Blue light tore the air, wind catching Lyra’s braid. She slid, shield shrieking in her palm, twisted the angle. “Vociferatus.” The scream detonated only in Élodie’s ear. Her rhythm fractured.
Lyra struck. “Lamiae vincula.” Shadows climbed and bound her wrists above the vein. Not unforgivable. Not gentle.
“Miss Lestrange,” Woodcroft barked.
Gregorievich didn’t turn his head. In Bulgarian, sharp as broken glass: “Не се извинявай. Режи.” Don’t apologize. Cut.
Lyra answered without looking at him. “Аз броя.” I count.
Élodie rallied, glass-bright magic arcing wide. Lyra broke it into stinging glitter, narrowed the sightline. “Somno ferre.”
Élodie collapsed, lashes shuttering white. Stone softened beneath her skull. The bindings melted. Lyra lowered her wand. “Mercy is leverage,” she said. “And I don’t waste leverage.”
Half the room gasped. The other half stared.
From the Beauxbatons row, a girl with a pearl comb hissed, “Vous n’avez aucune élégance.”
Barty applauded once, vicious. “Translation: she hates you. I love when insults travel.”
Her wand slashed. Blue script bloomed across his cuff imbécile.
Barty’s grin widened. “And calligraphy too. Charming.”
Evan spoke, voice lazy, precise. “Right insult. Wrong target.” The letters bled away as if ashamed.
Woodcroft stiffened. “Durmstrang walks too near the line.”
Gregorievich smiled, thin and cold. “You invited wolves. Don’t whine when they bite. We train precision. We graduate consequence. Magic obeys whoever dares to use it. Decide if you want hesitation—or victory.”
Slytherins recalculated. Gryffindors whispered like sinners at chapel. Sirius Black leaned forward, grin feral, finally interested.
“Black,” Woodcroft snapped, desperate. “Step in.”
Sirius rolled his sleeves. Not for show. Because that’s who he was. He bowed like a man promising to ruin politely. “Ready, Little North?”
“Always.”
They didn’t circle. They clashed. His magic thundered, reckless, fast. Hers cut cold and exact. Sparks screamed against stone. He fought like a dare. She fought like an answer. Rope hissed; she burned it midair. He grinned mid-duel; she drove him into a corner he didn’t see coming.
He almost reached for a word he could never cast. He swallowed it, jaw tight, color high in his cheekbones. The silence around him knew.
“Don’t touch darkness unless you mean to bleed for it,” she said, voice calm as knives.
Before shame could crack him, she gave him noise to hide in. “Percutio.”
Not bone—nerve. His wand faltered. His shield dropped. Her Stunner skimmed his chest and struck stone. She tapped his shoulder neat.
He dragged air, grin wicked. “Marry me.”
“Learn to lead first.”
Laughter, scandal, shock. Narcissa’s knuckles bled white on silver. Evan didn’t look at her. He was watching Sirius’s hand linger too long on Lyra’s sleeve.
Rabastan’s voice was a knife. “She fights like you, Rosier. Sharp. Final. No second chances. Signs death warrants.”
Barty leaned forward, ecstatic. “Two blades, one style. A duet. Same song, different knives.”
Evan’s smile tilted, dangerous. “Except she hides hers in silence. I prefer mine to sing.”
Gregorievich clapped once. “Още един.” Again. His gaze locked on Evan.
Every head turned.
Evan straightened from the pillar, pale hair catching torchlight. “Applause is cheap,” he said. “I prefer results.”
Narcissa moved at that exact moment, fingers brushing his sleeve like a claim. “Rosier houses keep score. Our ledgers punish indulgence.”
“Results outweigh ledgers,” Evan murmured, eyes never leaving Lyra.
Gregorievich turned to her. In Russian: “Северът не живее на милост. Покажи ми жестокост.” The North doesn’t live on mercy. Show me cruelty.
Lyra’s answer came cold. “Аз решавам цената.” I set the price.
Gregorievich’s mouth twitched once. Approval.
Rabastan’s silence was violence.
The benches scraped. Students spilled like weather.
Rabastan blocked Evan at the door. “Pick another victim. If she falls, my name bargains from the dirt. I don’t bargain from the dirt.”
“You guard her like treasure,” Evan said. “But treasure shines brighter when thieves reach for it.”
Rabastan didn’t answer. He stared past Evan like a man watching the sea eat a ship he built with bare hands.
“Reach,” Rabastan said, low, “and count your bones.”
Barty slipped between them, eyes alight. “Brother. Sister. Wolf. Fox. Lust and loyalty cracking like ice. Delicious. Somebody bleed before I starve.”
Sirius cut through, grabbing Lyra’s elbow. “Don’t hex me. Potions at two. You’re with me.”
“Slughorn will bore you to tears,” she said.
“He’ll tear your points apart if you sit near Rosier,” Sirius snapped. “You’re younger. You don’t partner with him.”
“I already did.”
“You don’t know him.” Sirius’s voice roughened. “He empties people and leaves them smiling.”
“You hate him.”
“I do. And I’ll break him before he breaks you.”
“You don’t choose,” she said. “I already did.”
His jaw locked. “Then I stand closer.”
Evan arrived like heat. He didn’t touch. He didn’t need to.
“Black.”
“Rosier.”
Evan’s eyes fell to Sirius’s hand still on her sleeve. He said nothing. He looked until Sirius remembered to let go.
“You confuse noise with authority,” Evan said. “She doesn’t need guardians. She needs accuracy.”
“You’re not it.”
“I’m the only one who pays before the game begins.” His eyes burned into hers. “Two o’clock.”
“We’re partners,” she said.
“Perfect. Precision, not possession.” His mouth curved, venomous. “Though I could possess you if I wanted.”
“Then you’d learn the cost of keeping me.”
Air went razor-thin.
Narcissa stepped from shadow like a blade. She didn’t look at Lyra. She looked at Evan, voice like glass. “You have appointments.”
“They can wait.”
She turned away before her mask cracked. Ballrooms remember debts better than classrooms.
The crowd scattered. Lyra didn’t check who watched. She knew. They all did.
Some lessons shout. Some whisper. She thought she had chosen. Across the hall, Rosier’s smile promised otherwise. Two o’clock would decide who broke first
Chapter 5: Chapter 5 - Family debts
Chapter Text
The lower field behind the castle cut the earth into a V, a clean wound of frost and black soil. Wind ran through it like a metronome for people who preferred pain neat. Kolvsky stood on the ridge, coat unbuttoned, wrists bare, posture as exact as a theorem. Lyra waited at the hinge of the V where the ground had surrendered its snow.
Gregorievich watched from the path above, hands folded behind his back, white hair bound, scar across his wand hand catching the morning. His attention weighed like winter—merciless, patient.
“Again,” Kolvsky ordered. His tone was clipped, iron striking iron.
Lyra cast. He canceled in mid-flight with a small, perfect parry and sent a gust that forced her half a step back. Her right hand wanted to betray her. It remembered who owned it and obeyed.
“No one told you to cast,” Kolvsky said, coming down the slope without slipping.
“You said—”
“I said again. Not now.”
Up close his gaze was unkind in the way clarity often is. “You were arrogant in Defense. Pretty work. A child blinked and you enjoyed the noise. What did it teach you?”
“That I can move a room if I must.”
“You already knew that. Try again. This time make it count.”
She waited his count. Cast. He let it land, stepped through the seam, caught her wand hand with two fingers. Not pressure. Ownership.
“If you offer a pretty mistake,” he said, “they will spend it to buy your throat.”
“I know.”
“You act superior. Maybe you are. But you crack when no one looks.”
Wind scoured the slope. Gregorievich didn’t blink.
“You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. Yesterday you told the world you’d put your name in the Cup.”
“I said it so they’d stop treating me like furniture.”
“You won’t distract a castle with noise. You’ll control it with results.” His chin tilted toward Gregorievich. “He doesn’t send letters. He sets clocks. Durmstrang shows its teeth or it stays home.”
“I’m not the champion,” Lyra said. “You are. Everyone knows the Goblet will spit your name.”
“Yes. And I still expect you to survive.”
She laughed once without warmth. “I don’t want to parade.”
“I didn’t ask you to enjoy it. I asked you to live through it.” He released her wrist. His mouth shifted, almost thoughtful. “I remember your first hex. It wasn’t power. It was desperation.”
“I’m not desperate.”
“You’re hungry. Not because you want to be pretty. Because control was all you had left, and you were losing that too. Stop pretending otherwise, and you’ll improve.”
She swallowed hard. “Why me? Durmstrang doesn’t waste time.”
He didn’t answer. He pressed her wand back into her palm, tapped twice. “Again.”
She gave him a curse that would have ended most boys. He split it neatly, stepped into the break, took the space before she could. The shield squealed in her palm. Her hand shook after she stopped.
“Sufficient,” he said. “Don’t stop until you can afford to. Two mouthfuls. Four hours of quiet work. Back to stone. That steadies the hand.”
“Two mouthfuls. Four hours of quiet work. Back to stone,” she repeated.
Gregorievich turned away at last, satisfied, or bored. Kolvsky watched him go like a man measuring patience. Then he shrugged his coat across her shoulders as if he had always planned to. “I didn’t say I believed in you,” he murmured. “I said you were the only one worth wasting time on. Finish the count. Eat. Don’t give the school a spectacle it didn’t pay for.”
⸻
By breakfast the story had already undressed itself. They said she had been seen at dawn, barefoot on the Durmstrang pier, hair unbound, nightdress snapping in the wind. No one could agree on the boy’s name. Only that he hadn’t come back for breakfast. None of it was true. But truth rarely lingers where desire has already passed.
The Great Hall seethed. Lyra sat in the Durmstrang row, hands neat, goblet steady. Kolvsky didn’t look at her. He never did at tables. Irina ate like a soldier who respected rations. Sacha cut bread like a contract.
Rabastan Lestrange arrived like a curse: shoulders, stride, silence. He set a square of dark chocolate by her cup without breaking the sentence he was pretending to share with a seventh-year. “Eat,” he muttered, family code. His eyes never left the boy across the aisle who had stared too long.
She didn’t thank him. She ate it when no one looked. The tremor eased.
At the far end, Evan Rosier leaned back, pale hair neat, collar open one finger too far, blue eyes unreadable. He saw everything and let no one see what he chose. Across from him Narcissa Black polished her stillness like silver.
She rose, glided, stopped at Rabastan’s side. The table adjusted around her.
“The Dark Lord already has two Lestranges,” she said, her voice silk wrapped around acid. “The last should have stayed buried in the North instead of disgracing the name here.”
Rabastan’s jaw tightened. His voice cut low. “Say it.”
Silence spread. The younger students bent their heads as if avoiding weather.
Narcissa tilted hers, pale hair glinting under the candles. “I did.”
For a moment the space between them burned hotter than fire.
Evan’s mouth curved. He set his goblet down with a soft click. “Family debts always come due,” he said lazily. His eyes lingered on Rabastan, then slid to Narcissa, then to Lyra. “And they’re always paid in full.”
Narcissa pressed her signet hard enough to mark her palm, then smoothed it away as if nothing had happened. She returned to her place. Rabastan stayed still. Everyone else pretended to eat.
⸻
Later, Lyra left the hall alone. Stone corridors stretched cold and clean. She kept her chin level, braid heavy down her back.
“Lestrange.”
The word came like a decision. Evan Rosier stepped from the shadow, posture immaculate, a little undone, as though pressure suited him. Torchlight cut his jaw and left the rest for imagination.
“You waited,” she said.
“I was curious,” he murmured. “Poor habit. I indulge it when it pays.”
“And does this?”
“I’m checking.” His hand lifted a fraction. “May I?”
“The jaw. Only that.”
He touched her like a measure, fingertips along her jawline, pausing at her pulse and doing nothing with it, which did something anyway. He let go.
“Better,” he said.
“For whom?”
“For me,” he answered. “For you later.”
Her mouth almost curved. She killed it. “You speak like someone who expects to win.”
“I speak like someone who understands cost.” His eyes catalogued her. Her throat, collar, wrist. “Tell me who hurt you,” he whispered, “and I’ll decide if they deserve thanks… or a grave.”
“I’m not a game.”
“I never said you were. You want power. I want to see what you do with it.”
“You’ll watch me fail.”
“I don’t bet against outcomes I can help shape.” He extended a hand. “Give.”
She set her wrist in his palm for one count. Took it back. He did not push.
“I don’t touch unless you choose,” he said.
Her ribs caught a breath. “Then we talk.”
“Then we talk,” he echoed.
A cough cut the air. Slughorn waddled from the stairwell, cheeks pink, arms full of parchment. “Rosier! Miss Lestrange! Haven’t you somewhere to be?”
Evan smiled without warmth. “Always, Professor.”
Slughorn passed. The moment went with him.
Night carved Slytherin’s common room into stone and shadow. The fire burned low in the grate, flames writing crooked hieroglyphs against the vaulted ceiling. A bottle of firewhiskey sat uncorked on the mantel, no label because none was needed. Everyone who mattered already knew where it came from.
Evan Rosier poured with a hand too steady to belong to someone his age. The crystal caught the fire and bled light across his wrist before he passed the first glass to Rabastan. Rab didn’t thank him. He drank.
They stood as men who had stood shoulder to shoulder before, not in schoolrooms, but in places no one else in this castle dared imagine. They had cut through the same screams, burned the same bodies down to silence. The Mark inked into their forearms bound tighter than family.
Evan swirled his drink, pale eyes fixed on the fire as if it amused him. “You’re tense.”
“You talk too much,” Rabastan answered, voice low, dangerous.
“And you brood too much.” Evan’s tone was light, deliberate, the kind of lightness men used to veil steel. “We fight together, Rab. We kill together. Let’s not fight over whose blood we fuck.”
The words landed like sparks on dry timber.
Rabastan’s jaw flexed, the line of his throat tight. “Careful.”
Evan’s smile sharpened. “She’s your sister. Narcissa is my betrothed. Both worth bleeding for. Both worth burning for. But one of them looks at you like you’re a sin she hasn’t confessed.” His glance slid toward the door Narcissa had passed through earlier, her perfume still faint on the air. “And you don’t deny it.”
Rabastan swallowed the firewhiskey like venom he meant to weaponize. “Say that again.”
“I did,” Evan murmured. “And it tasted sweet.”
The room went cold. Severus Snape sat in shadow, book open but forgotten. His eyes, black and unreadable, flicked between the two older boys. He didn’t breathe too loud. He didn’t move. He learned.
Rabastan’s voice was rough stone. “I could have any girl.”
“Then why not her?” Evan asked softly. “Why not Narcissa? Unless you prefer the one thing you can’t have.”
Rabastan’s hand twitched near his wand, then stopped. He had seen Evan fight. He had seen him cut down a man with three words and no hesitation. He had seen what blue eyes looked like when the curse finished its work.
“You’ve killed for less,” Rabastan muttered.
“Yes,” Evan said simply. No boast. No apology. Just fact.
Rabastan’s breath came harsh. He tipped his head back and drank again. His gaze cut sideways, toward the dark waters of the lake pressing against the windows. “She was supposed to be safe. Married off. Forgotten. Out of England. That was the plan.”
“Plans,” Evan said, tone like silk dragged over a blade, “don’t survive appetites.” He leaned closer, his voice a whisper meant for the fire. “Family debts always come due. You know how they’re paid. In daughters. In alliances. In blood.”
Rabastan’s fist closed tight over the stem of his glass. His knuckles whitened.
Evan tipped his own glass back, throat working once, twice, then set it down without sound. “She’ll choose, Rab. And when she does, I win either way.”
Rabastan hurled his glass into the fire. It shattered, sparks leaping like shrapnel. Flames swallowed it whole. His jaw locked, shoulders rigid, teeth clenched against words he couldn’t afford.
Evan only smiled, lazy, untouched. “Don’t break yourself over debts you can’t pay.”
The fire hissed. The silence weighed. Severus sat very still, engraving every word into the ledger he kept in his head. He had just learned the truth of hierarchy: Rabastan was feared. Narcissa was dangerous. But Evan Rosier was inevitable.
Chapter 6: And Made Her Holy
Chapter Text
The dungeon smelled of damp stone and crushed root, air heavy enough to cling. Cauldrons sweated on low flames; copper hissed like a warning. Seventh-years already filled the benches: Slytherins composed at the front, Gryffindors pretending not to care at the back.
The door opened. Durmstrang entered in one beat of boots, a single drum the room mistook for its own heart. Slughorn beamed, hands spread.
“Ah—yes. Durmstrang drops Potions after fifth year, of course, but the Tournament demands breadth. Miss Lestrange will remain with her senior cohort here. A seat—”
Wood scraped. Evan had already slid the empty stool out with the side of his shoe: minimal effort, maximal claim. He hadn’t otherwise moved: shoulders relaxed, posture bred, one hand loose on the desk as if he owned both it and the girl he expected to sit there. His eyes didn’t leave hers.
“Here,” he said, soft, absolute.
Then for the room: “You’ll work better with me. Everyone does.”
He let the silence stretch. “Results are loyal. People aren’t.”
Rabastan’s jaw locked. Sirius muttered, “Fetch.” James snorted; Slughorn shushed.
Narcissa’s quill stopped, but her face did not change; the pause itself was commentary.
Barty grinned like someone waiting for the spark to take.
Lyra sat. The stone was cold beneath her palm. The heat from his body bled across the narrow gap, deliberate as a test. He leaned, just enough for her to feel the shift of air.
“I’ll see our contract honoured,” he murmured, words brushing skin before sense.
She kept her gaze forward. The cut of his presence stayed.
Scales. Knife. Flame.
“Margin?” he asked, private.
“Half a leaf. One breath.”
“Foam off on the tenth.”
“Eleven clockwise.”
“Three back.”
They worked. He counted hellebore like coin. She shaded the flame with a wrist-flick that left no smoke line. At sixty-two degrees the brew cleared; at sixty-four it soured. They never crossed sixty-three. When she drew one sharp inhale, he poured. He timed the pour to her breath; the surface stilled as if her lungs decided the temperature. When he tapped twice, she slowed.
Her knife slipped once, edge stalling on the grain. His hand shifted the flame a fraction lower, the other steadying the mortar. Not possession. Not courtesy. Technical intimacy.
The nick left a pale crescent on her fingertip; he lowered the heat before the sting could bloom.
Her pulse betrayed her—one beat caught high, as if his correction had happened under her skin instead of at the flame.
“I protect performance,” he said, not people.
It struck exactly where softness still lived. She locked it behind her teeth. Something in her steadied anyway.
je
Heat pricked along her fingers where the handle bit. She flexed once under the desk and stilled.
A brush: the edge of his sleeve against her wrist. Not accident. A code. The scent of cologne, clean and sharp cut through root and copper. She hated that she catalogued it.
Slughorn hovered, delighted.
“Exemplary! Texture—ah, the diffusion! Mr Rosier has hands, Miss Lestrange, that would make an apothecary weep.”
Then, beaming: “There’s a rhythm between you. Unusual—and profitable.”
Narcissa’s quill clicked; the room heard the pin come out.
Across the aisle, Sirius murmured, “Careful, Lestrange. Stories breed in dungeons.”
“Only when people talk during brewing,” she said, clear enough for the row to hear.
Barty clapped once, delighted. Evan didn’t look up. “Crouch,” he said, smooth as a signature on vellum, “eyes on your knife. Or shall I remind you why I don’t take prisoners?”
The parchment in Barty’s hands stopped whispering.
⸻
Class ended on the scrape of benches and the swell of noise. Their rim shone clean. Other cauldrons smelled like work.
The corridor outside gave back footfalls like coins in a coffer.
Rabastan stepped in. Evan didn’t slow.
“You parade her,” Rab said.
“I place efficiency,” Evan answered.
“You place yourself.”
“Only where results improve.”
Wands lifted by instinct, not theatre. Green sheared the air; the hairs on her wrist stood. Silver unpicked it mid-flight. No scorch, only coin on the tongue.
Barty slid in, grin stitched on with wire. “Not here. Save the obituary for someone who tips the Prophet.”
Evan didn’t look away from Rab. “When a Rosier looks at something, it stops belonging to itself.”
Rab’s voice was flint. “She hasn’t watched you end a duel the way you end a war.”
Lyra’s wand was already drawn. “Enough.”
Rab didn’t turn. “She doesn’t know what we’re capable of.”
Lyra laughed once, sharp. “You have no idea.”
She holstered the wand. Cape. Boots. Exit. The corridor changed weight around her.
Barty let silence ring, then, softer: “Childhood makes habit. Habit makes you miss the knife.”
Evan’s voice stayed level. “Childhood makes debt. I’m settling mine.”
For half a breath his eyes flicked: anger, yes, but something rawer underneath, the first grudging recognition that his sister no longer needed guarding, only reckoning.
Rabastan held the stare a count longer, then turned, shoulders a closed door.
“We don’t argue in public,” Rab said. “We set prices.”
Three paces later, Evan caught Barty by the sleeve with two fingers, exact, polite as violence.
“Next time you put my name in your mouth with hers,” he said, low, merciless, “I’ll remind you what a Rosier does on a battlefield. We don’t leave bodies breathing.”
For once, Barty’s delight curdled to caution. He smiled anyway, because he never knew how to do anything else.
⸻
The Great Hall roared. The Goblet burned steady blue. Names went in like wagers.
Kolvsky waited at the base of the steps, coat open to the cold. “I thought this was the last thing you wanted.”
Lyra drew the slip from her pocket. “I’m done letting men want for me.”
“So Gregorievich gives the order, and you obey.”
“No. I price it. I pay it.”
She climbed. The blue threw dry heat at her cheeks; it felt like opening an oven on an empty pan—no comfort, just consequence. The parchment vanished into flame like a debt cleared in fire. No smoke. Just heat. Just a rumor learning her name.
When she turned, Narcissa was waiting.
The Black heiress never needed rooms to open for her; they remembered on their own. Posture exact. Smile precise, courteous in the way of traps. The air smelled faintly of lilies and wax.
“You mistake the Goblet for emancipation,” Narcissa said, soft, polished. “It crowns champions; it does not alter ledgers. Girls from our world are instruments, not outcomes.”
“That’s your world,” Lyra answered. “Your disillusion. Not mine.”
“This isn’t debate. It’s arithmetic. Entail doesn’t faint; settlements don’t blush. Charm depreciates. Escrow endures. When the season ends, where will you dine—and with which name on the place-card?”
Her gaze sharpened. “Doors are ledger entries, Lestrange. Some close without a sound.”
“Do you know how long a Lestrange name lasts when it isn’t written into a Black ledger?” she asked, serene as arithmetic.
“Do try not to look provincial in triumph.”
Heat rose unbidden to Lyra’s face. She hated that it did. She counted to four until her skin forgot to betray her.
“Don’t mistake me for your reflection,” she said. “I won’t break for you.”
“Be expensive while you try,” Narcissa murmured. “Rosiers are generous with attention, but never without cost. You’ll learn that.”
Lyra held her ground. “Then I’ll decide the price.”
Narcissa turned her ring once against her palm. “Champions pass. Accounts endure.”
Lyra left first. The Goblet hummed behind her. Kolvsky wrote nothing and understood everything.
Attention followed—light as a hand that hadn’t closed.
Halfway down the stairs, Evan looked back—once. Admission is still a kind of power.
Later, stone cooled the story. Rabastan walked the long way to the lake and did not punch anything. Evan smoothed a line that was already perfect and did not smile. Barty laughed into a wall until the sound came back wrong. Narcissa sealed a letter and didn’t send it.
Lyra ate without shaking. Two mouthfuls. Four hours of quiet work. Back to stone.
Precision first. Pain once.
The Goblet had eaten her name.
And made her holy.
⸻