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Chapter Text

Ginny Weasley watched London and King's Cross Station fade behind the horizon and the haze of the late-summer afternoon. The Hogwarts Express rattled forward with that same familiar rhythm, but it would be her final time leaving for the autumn term. The final time she hauled her trunk onto the platform (even if she was using magic to do her hauling from now on), the final time she caught up with her friends to talk about their summers before setting off on an adventure together towards something new.

This year would be different. It had to be. Not just because she was returning as Head Girl, or because she'd been handed a badge and a broom and the awful responsibility of setting the tone for a school of students still struggling to make sense of it all. But because she was different. They all were.

She lifted her owl's cage and set off down the corridor. Hootlebee trilled curiously at the crowd of students. Her owl , her coming-of-age birthday gift from Hagrid, her very own owl; the idea still made her grin. They'd always had their family owl, but Hootlebee was hers . The thought gave her a quiet sense of purpose; of being responsible for another creature. 

Sure, Hootlebee was an owl and could take care of himself just fine. But she would be there to make sure he did. 

"Let's go find everyone," Ginny said to the owl in the same quietly-excited voice that she always found herself using with him. With a satchel over her shoulder and Hootlebee in the other hand, she pushed her way through the throng to find her friends.

She found Hermione Granger and Demelza Robbins first, crowded around the opening of a compartment three carriages down. Hermione was gesturing animatedly with her hands, halfway through some explanation, while Demelza waved Ginny over with a grin once she spotted her. Inside, the compartment was already filled with familiar faces: Her four other dormmates had quickly found their seats in the compartment. Jocelyn Fairweather and Vivienne Greaves were wedged in beside Anya Wells, all three laughing quietly over something scribbled on a piece of parchment, while Cora Langley had taken up the window seat across from Luna, sketching absentmindedly with her wand tip in the condensation. In the neighboring seats, Ginny's summer-found cousins—Vignette Harris, Rycroft Harris, and Safia Weasley—were clustered together, exchanging whispered words with Hermione.

"So, there are an awful lot of us," Hermione said, glancing down the corridor with a frown. "And I don't think there's a compartment large enough."

Ginny nodded; that was an understatement. She knew that Hermione, Harry, and Ron had always looked for the smaller compartments instead of the larger open ones, they were usually a good deal louder and less private…and Harry's Hogwarts experiences were always the subject of gossip that he preferred to avoid. So when she suggested leaving their things in the smaller compartment to see if there were enough seats together in the larger ones, she was surprised with how quickly Hermione agreed. She sat Hootlebee's cage next to Crookshanks's cat carrier and led the way down the train corridor.

It was all so unbelievably quiet. The chaos of the Hogwarts Express had always been a comforting reintroduction to the return to school, a way to catch up with friends, share stories, and get excited for the year to come, a way to reorient around your independence. There had once been shouts and cackles tearing down the corridors. Rogue spells and devices from Zonko's (and later the Wheezes ) blasting overhead.

But there was nothing now. A rushing of whispers, and scraping shoes, but none of the life and unbridled joy that had permeated the train in years prior. Even last year's ride was more lively, before they truly understood the reality of what they were being carried into.

"Merlin, it's quiet," Ginny said, glancing pitifully at her cousins. She had hoped to introduce the three of them to all the great things Hogwarts had to offer. But four minutes in and they were all about to be let down.

Jocelyn coiled a finger anxiously through her long blonde hair as she looked around, craning her neck and standing on her tiptoes so that she towered over everyone else except Anya. "Everyone's scared," she said. "After last year."

Ginny nodded. Every compartment door was shut tight, and she'd bet everything in her meager new savings account that some of them were locked, too.

She turned to her cousins. "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "This is usually a bit more exciting."

Rycroft shrugged and glanced back to the compartment they'd just left. "I can always just get some reading done."

"And it's not like I know anyone in my year either," Safia said.

Safia's family—Dad's brother Bedivere's family—had returned to Britain from France over the summer. They'd moved there before the end of the first war to escape everything going on and Safia had been entirely homeschooled (unlike her older brothers) for her first two years of schooling.

Vignette and Rycroft, on the other hand, were the twin children of Mum's sister Sophie Prewett-Harris. She'd left England after her brothers Gideon and Fabian were killed and settled in America, where she met and married Ezra Harris. The Harris twins had spent their first five years of schooling at Ilvermorny before the second war ended and the opportunity to return to Britain became a realistic option for Sophie.

"Oh, but the first ride on the Hogwarts Express is so important," Hermione objected, and Ginny was almost shocked to hear how deeply Hermione felt about it. "It's where Ron, Harry, and I met for the first time. The two of them were best mates before the ride even ended ."

Demelza, leaning against the corridor wall to let another group of students pass, gave a low, theatrical sigh. "And we all know what kind of co-dependence came from that."

Hermione's mouth curved into a grin. "They insist you're just jealous." 

Demelza snorted. "They would ."

"Should we find the prefects' carriage?" Hermione asked, turning to Ginny.

Ginny tried to hide a grimace, but from the way Hermione's look soured it was clear she'd failed. "I don't mind putting that off for a few," she said hastily. Jumping into her duties as Head Girl wasn't something she was entirely ready for. She'd never even been a prefect!

"Well why don't I go to the prefect's carriage and let anyone waiting there know it will be a while longer," she suggested, setting off.

"Wait," Ginny called out, and grabbed Hermione by her arm. "You shouldn't go anywhere alone." Hermione gave her an incredulous look. "We learned—you can't be alone…after last year. And I think it's a good idea to keep with that until we're sure everyone else on the train is…you know…"

"Above board," Demelza said grimly.

"That's ridiculous," Hermione objected.

"You weren't here last year, Hermione," Ginny said, her voice quieter now. "It's not smart to be caught without someone to watch your back."

"I can go with her," Rycroft immediately offered, standing straighter.

Ginny shook her head firmly, trying to show appreciation all the same. "No offense, but I'd rather she go with someone who knows the lay of the land. Just until we can be sure where the Slytherins stand."

Before anyone else could speak, Demelza leaned forward. "I'll go."

"Thanks," Ginny said, her relief palpable.

Hermione gave them all unconvinced looks, but relented and went with Demelza to the other compartments on the train. Ginny tried to ignore the sour feeling in her stomach as she watched them vanish from sight.

Safia raised a hand halfway, her brow furrowed. "So…not hoping I get sorted into Slytherin, I guess?"

Ginny hesitated. She wanted to tell her what Harry had told that little boy once—the one who'd come up to Harry in The Broom & Badger and talked so excitedly about being sorted into Gryffindor just like him. Harry had reassured the boy that it was your choices that mattered more than where you were sorted. But she couldn't bring herself to say the same thing to Safia. Not honestly.

"I'd feel better if you weren't," Ginny admitted. "It's probably not fair, but…"

Vivienne cut in, sharp as ever. "Bunch of junior Death Eater cockwobbles."

Safia looked down. " Maman was in Slytherin."

Viv had the decency to look mortified.

Ginny reached out gently. "So was Professor Slughorn. So was Andi. Your house doesn't make you a good or bad person. But after everything…with a last name like Weasley, I think you'll be safer—and happier—in one of the other houses. If you get the option, alright?" 

Safia nodded, frowning thoughtfully. 

"So what did you guys do on your first ride up?" Vignette dared to ask.

A wry smile tugged at the corner of Ginny's mouth. "Spent half the ride looking for Harry and Ron," she said, casting a sideways glance at Hermione. "Only to find out later that they'd stolen Dad's car and flown themselves to Hogwarts."

Vignette blinked. "Wait—what?"

Ginny gave a tired, fond sort of laugh. "They crashed it into the Whomping Willow."

Vignette shot them an incredulous look. "What the actual fuck?" she whispered. She must have known about the Willow, or at least heard about it from Aunt Sophie.

"I played Exploding Snap," Vivienne offered with a shrug. "Pretty sure it was with…Rosalie and Lyra. They ended up in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, but we had a blast."

Cora smiled wistfully. "I watched Fred and George make an absolute spectacle of themselves."

There was a beat of quiet before Anya spoke, her tone softer. "Never a dull moment with those two." Her gaze drifted out the window, voice dipping to something more wistful. "They would definitely know how to liven this place up."

No one replied right away. For a breath or two, the corridor seemed suspended in that same kind of shared silence that came with funerals.

Ginny reached for the strap of her bag, adjusting it on her lap as if grounding herself. "Yeah," she said quietly. "They would."

But the quiet that followed left a hollow in Ginny's chest she couldn't quite shake. The train felt too subdued, too still—like it was carrying shadows instead of students. Fred would've hated it.

She stood straighter, her eyes burning with sudden purpose. "Alright. This is pathetic."

The others looked up, startled.

Ginny grinned mischievously…the way Fred might have. "Fred wouldn't have let the Hogwarts Express feel like a bloody funeral march. He'd have had half the train in fits of laughter by now…and the other half furious with them."

Vivienne tilted her head. "So what do you suggest?"

"We find whatever Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes people brought to try and sneak past Filch. Games, gadgets, fake wands, Extendable Ears, Dungbombs—Merlin, I'll even take a Nosebleed Nougat if someone's hoarding one."

Vignette perked up immediately. "You want us to knock on compartments?"

"Exactly," Ginny said, standing straighter, energized. "Split up. Ask around. If anyone has anything fun—anything Fred and George would've approved of—we'll pool it together and liven this train up. No one should have to start the year off like this."

The mood shifted instantly, a collective current of purpose running through the compartment.

"Are we still looking for a larger compartment to all squeeze into?" Rycroft asked.

Ginny shook her head, already swinging her bag over one shoulder. "Forget that for now."

The girls exchanged glances, then scattered with renewed energy, fanning out in pairs. Ginny turned to her cousins, planting her hands on her hips.

"You three are with me," she said, grinning. "Let's go see what kind of chaos is left on this train."

Vignette gave a little salute, Rycroft looked cautiously excited, and Safia fell into step beside them, her eyes bright with curiosity.

The first compartment they knocked on slid open to reveal a trio of who she recognized as second-year girls nestled close together, knees pulled up on the bench seats as if it would protect them. The nervous energy practically radiated from them. One of them clutched a chocolate frog box like it was a lifeline; another had a stack of books piled beside her that looked more like defense mechanisms than reading material.

Ginny leaned casually against the doorframe with a warm smile. "Hey there. Ginny Weasley. These are my cousins. We're trying to get some games going down the train—Exploding Snap, Gobstones, anything from Zonko's or Weasleys'. You lot have anything like that tucked away?"

The girls blinked at her, clearly startled by the attention. One of them, a girl with a long, messy braid, spoke up hesitantly. "Um…I think I have a deck of Exploding Snap. But…are we allowed to? I mean—won't we get in trouble for making too much noise?"

Ginny huffed a laugh. "We're not at school yet. No harm in being loud on the train. If my brothers were here, we wouldn't be able to hear ourselves think."

Another girl, quieter and with nervous eyes, murmured, "Last year we got…in trouble when we were too loud."

Ginny's smile softened, but she crouched slightly so she was eye-level with them. "Last year, I wasn't Head Girl. If anyone gives you trouble, come find me. Alright?"

That got her a tentative nod, and then a different girl—the one with the chocolate frog—leaned forward, wide-eyed. "Are you really dating Harry Potter?"

Ginny barked a laugh. "Did you see him on the platform in those Auror robes? How could I possibly help myself?"

The girls erupted into giggles, the tension in the compartment visibly breaking. Even the quietest of them managed a small smile.

"Well, if you do want to join in," Ginny said as she straightened up, "we're collecting games and things down toward the middle of the train. Come along when you're ready."

She gave them a final wave before turning back into the corridor, her cousins following close behind.

They continued weaving their way down the corridor, tapping on compartment doors, poking their heads in to chat, laugh, and coax out whatever fun the younger students had packed—decks of cards, a battered Gobstones set, even a pair of trick sweets from last year's Weasleys' end-of-term bundle—Ginny really didn't like the way her voice dropped in warning when she recommended not eating them: she sounded eerily like her mum. But little by little, the air on the Hogwarts Express began to shift, the hush of nerves and uncertainty slowly replaced with noise and motion.

But Ginny found herself skimming past a few closed doors, ones with silver-green trim on trunks and polished shoes poking out beneath benches. The Slytherin compartments. Her hand hovered by the nearest door before she let it drop to her side.

"I know," she murmured, not needing to explain the pause, and not wanting to meet her cousins' cautious glances. It was not at all very "Head Girl" of her.

Her cousins glanced at each other, and it was Safia who gently reached out and took her hand. "One thing at a time?" she offered.

Ginny looked down at their joined hands, then gave a tight but honest smile. "One thing at a time," she echoed.

They continued making the rounds, knocking on compartments and corralling younger students who looked lost or overwhelmed. Ginny was proud of how quickly their little self-appointed squad had come together. They were halfway down the second carriage when a raucous burst of laughter spilled from a compartment. Ginny slid the door open, ready to redirect whoever was inside—but instead found a familiar scene of lanky limbs, scuffed shoes, and Gryffindor colors draped over the benches.

Seventh-year Gryffindor boys: unmistakable from the posture, volume, and the pile of half-eaten sweets scattered over the empty seats beside them.

"Maddox Brightley," Ginny said, hands on hips.

"Ginny Weasley!" Maddox jumped to his feet to pull her into a hug before she could protest. She stiffened slightly—caught off guard—but before she could react, he stopped cold, eyes locking on the two figures just behind her.

He blinked. "Ry? Vin? What in Merlin's—?"

Rycroft grinned, stepping forward to clap Maddox on the back and take the hug for Ginny. "Mads! It's great to see you. I was hoping we might run into you!"

Ginny blinked. "Wait—what? You know each other?" The realization clicked into place. "Ilvermorny, right," she said, brows lifting. Maddox's parents had sent him to America to live with some distant relatives after Voldemort was seen at the Ministry, during their ill-fated attempt to rescue Sirius Black. He'd spent two years continuing his education at Ilvermorny, and had apparently become quite close with her cousins.

Vignette bit her lip, visibly unsure what to do with her hands. "Yeah…we, umm—"

"They dated for a bit," Rycroft offered cheerfully.

Ginny raised her eyebrows, now staring between Maddox and Vignette with new clarity. "Oh? Why didn't you say anything? I can't believe you knew my cousins!"

Maddox shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. "Well, it's not like you and I hang out a ton. Besides, I mean…that part didn't come up all too often." He turned to Vignette and Rycroft, still looking a bit stunned. "What are you two—how did—when?"

Ginny took the chance to observe Rycroft as the conversation bounced around. He looked thoroughly pleased, maybe even proud to be here and seen with people who knew him in different contexts. He hadn't had much time to connect with anyone his age—aside from family, the only bloke he'd really talked to since arriving was Harry.

Rycroft answered smoothly. "Dad landed a liaison gig with the British Ministry. And with ol' what's-his-face gone, Mum figured it was finally okay to come back. Been pretty wild, honestly, getting dropped into everything here after the year everyone just had."

Maddox nodded, the grin fading from his face. "Yeah…wild doesn't really cover it." His gaze dropped for a moment, and the mood shifted, an unspoken weight settling in the small compartment. Even the ever-present rustling of the train seemed to soften.

But then Maddox shook it off and turned toward his mates, lifting his voice. "Oh, right—these two are Rycroft and Vignette Harris. Know them from Ilvermorny. Err…Vin and I dated a bit."

The boys offered polite waves and greetings.

Maddox gestured to them. "This is Logan Drake, Sam Faulkner, and Liam Borthwick—my dormmates since First Year. You'll find them deeply unimpressive, but endearing enough," he explained, giving Vignette a sheepish grin.

"Speak for yourself," Logan quipped, reaching to shake Rycroft's hand. "Welcome to the mess."

"Cheers," Rycroft said warmly, while Vignette offered a small smile and settled into the corner beside him.

Ginny gave Logan a thoughtful glance. "You're still a prefect, yeah?"

Logan, tall and always a bit too confident, nodded. "Third year running."

"How long until the prefects usually meet on the ride?" she asked.

Logan scratched the back of his neck. "We usually try to get it out of the way early—first hour or so. Especially last year. Everything was so…tense. We mostly just focused on keeping people calm and preventing fights."

Ginny nodded. "Well, this year I want to try and bring things back to normal. Or at least closer to it."

Logan raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"Get people talking again," Ginny said. "Games, cards, something in the corridors. Maybe someone's got a few of George's products they're brave enough to try on a moving train."

Logan snorted. "You sure you're not just trying to drum up business for George?"

She rolled her eyes. "Please. Did you see the line outside the shop when he reopened? He doesn't need my clumsy attempt at marketing."

The Gryffindor boys took to the idea with unrestrained enthusiasm, Logan dubbing it "the Gospel of Ginny" as they piled out into the corridor with an almost missionary zeal. Within moments, their laughter and voices echoed down the train as they knocked on compartments and spread word of games, jokes, and the general notion that things didn't have to be so stiff anymore.

Rycroft drifted off with Maddox, the two already trading stories with the ease of old friends. That left Vignette and Safia trailing behind Ginny as they made their way back through the train, weaving between groups of students now emerging from their compartments in twos and threes.

"You alright?" Ginny asked quietly, glancing sidelong at her cousin.

Vignette gave a breathy laugh, rubbing the back of her neck. "Yeah, I just… I didn't expect to bump into Maddox. Kinda stupid, right? I should've put two and two together."

"Bad breakup?"

Vignette shook her head. "No, not at all. He was sweet. It's just—once his parents moved back here and then ours did too, I never connected the dots. Whole continent of distance just made it feel like a chapter that had already ended."

Ginny nodded knowingly. "Relationships can be tough."

Vignette gave her a sidelong look, her lips curling into a small smirk. "You and Harry don't seem to have that problem."

Ginny burst out laughing and slung an arm around Vignette's shoulders. "Oh, Vin. Let me tell you about the drama of my fifth year."

Somewhere down the corridor came the signature snap-pop of Exploding Snap cards, followed by a mock-howl of defeat. Another group had broken out Banshee's Bluff, the room ringing with laughter as students tried to keep straight faces through rounds of increasingly absurd lies. Gobstones hissed and clicked on a fold-out board just across the aisle, its players cheering at a well-aimed squirt of foul-smelling mist.

And then, of course, came the bangs.

Louder pops and squeals of delight signaled that someone had broken into a stash of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes—undoubtedly smuggled aboard in defiance of tradition and Prefect tolerance alike. A delighted shriek followed by a puff of lavender smoke sent a group of younger Hufflepuffs scurrying past the door, giggling.

Ginny paused by a compartment of first years huddled close together, their voices low and uncertain. The air around them still held the nervous tension of students newly unmoored from home, clinging to one another like lifelines. She remembered that feeling all too well.

She slid the door open with a warm smile. "Hi there," she said gently, quickly introducing herself. Calling herself Head Girl still left a strange taste in her mouth. "Just wanted to say hello and let you know there's some fun happening down a few compartments. Some games, a few tricks going off—nothing too mad. One of the Ravenclaw fifth years set up this massive board game-looking thing. He made it sound really complicated but…" She shrugged, hopeful. "Might be worth a look?"

One of the boys closest to the door, wiry and pale with dark eyes, cast a wistful glance out the window toward the sounds of laughter and commotion drifting from down the corridor. "Mum and Dad said I should keep my head down and behave," he said, almost apologetically.

"Mine too," said a girl across from him. "Dad told me not to draw attention. Not to get in trouble."

Ginny crouched slightly to meet their eye level. "Well, I wouldn't recommend getting into trouble—at least not once you're at school," she said with a sly grin. "But Harry and my brother Ron got in loads of it their first year. One time they helped smuggle a dragon out of the castle—lost fifty house points each when they were caught. But then they saved the Philosopher's Stone and got them all back. Something-something thwarting Voldemort, you know?"

The first boy's eyes widened. "Harry…you mean Harry Potter? Do you know him?"

"They're dating ," Safia supplied breezily, earning a quick glance from Ginny.

Another girl in the corner, smaller than the others and clutching a frog-shaped plush to her chest, frowned. "Are you sure Hogwarts is safe?"

Ginny opened her mouth, but Safia beat her to it.

"My mother wouldn't even let me go to Beauxbatons during the war," Safia said, calm and certain. "She homeschooled me for two years—kept me out of everything. But if she's okay with moving us back here and enrolling me at Hogwarts, then yeah. I'd say we're safe."

Ginny gave her cousin a small, appreciative look. The girl had a clarity about her—one Ginny didn't always expect from someone so young. "Well," Ginny added, tone lightening, "as safe as you can be with Peeves dropping dungbombs in the corridors."

All the first years recoiled with identical cries of "Ewwww!"

"Do you know what House you'll be in?" the girl asked Safia after the giggles subsided.

Safia shook her head. "No idea. My dad was in Gryffindor," she said, glancing at Ginny. "Most of our family was. But Maman …she was in Slytherin."

That earned a pause.

"Oh," said the girl quietly, her voice tinged with unease.

Safia shrugged, a little sadly. "I've been reading. About everything. Blood purity, Death Eaters…it just doesn't sound like Maman . Not even close. I think…maybe that's why she left for so long."

Ginny nodded slowly. "Houses…they shouldn't matter the way they have recently. I know a lot of good people from Slytherin." Though she supposed calling it "a lot" was a bit of a stretch. "And not everyone from Gryffindor is a paragon of virtue, either."

"Name one," the boy challenged, still dubious.

"Peter Pettigrew," Ginny said at once, voice steady. "He betrayed the Potters to Voldemort. Framed Harry's godfather for it. He was their friend. And in Gryffindor."

The first years winced, but the point landed.

Safia, after a moment of thought, said quietly, "I think evil just…twists things. Anything it touches. Maybe that's what happened to Slytherin. Voldemort—" she got it out with barely a hitch "—spent so much time there that he just…twisted it around himself to the point where…"

Ginny rested a hand on her cousin's shoulder, proud and more than a little impressed. "Also," she added, lips curving slyly, "Cormac McLaggen was a Gryffindor, and he was a total berk. Voldemort had nothing to do with that."

The first years burst into laughter, the tension finally breaking.

"I know the McLaggen family," said the girl. "They live down the way from me."

Ginny's face twisted. "Oh. I…err…"

The girl smirked. "Cormac's a plonker."

Ginny breathed a sigh of relief, and the compartment erupted again. With the tension easing away and the new first years slightly emboldened, Ginny and Vignette continued on. Though Safia stayed behind to chat excitedly with the first years about what classes they were most excited for and what house they thought they might end up in. 

Ginny and Vignette stepped back into the corridor. The laughter and bangs from WWW fireworks had drifted deeper into the train, leaving this stretch in a rare lull.

Vignette let out a low whistle. "That is a clever thirteen-year-old."

Ginny laughed, glancing over her shoulder toward the compartment they'd just left. "What do you say we keep her and Hermione apart for a bit? Otherwise, Hermione might try to adopt her."

Vignette smirked. "Poor Ron."

Ginny feigned a thoughtful expression. "Actually, I might be okay with it, then."

That earned a chuckle, but Vignette's face shifted into something more serious. "How do you do it, Ginny? Date your brother's best friend? Doesn't it get…complicated? Uncomfortable?"

Ginny shrugged. "We joke like it does—or at least I think we're joking. Ron gets on my last nerve sometimes, but…he's still the brother I'm closest to. At the end of the day, I'm—I guess I'm glad he cares enough to be that protective. He and Harry have been through everything together. There was even a stretch during the Triwizard tournament where they wouldn't speak to each other. If Ron's going to complain about me dating Harry, who wouldn't I get an earful about?"

She smiled faintly. "Not that I give him a say either way. And he could stand to be more mature, sure, but…I don't mind it as much as I used to. Why? Are you thinking you might get back together with Maddox?"

Vignette hesitated, her expression tightening. "No…I don't think so. 'Closed chapters,' right? And he and Ry aren't that close. Not best friends or anything."

"So what's the problem?"

Vignette gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I just worry it'll be awkward, you know? Having my ex around all of a sudden."

Ginny grinned and threw an arm around her cousin's shoulders. "It'll be fine. I told you about my fifth year—you remember Dean from Harry's birthday? He and I dated for a while. And Harry's in Auror training with my other ex, Michael."

Vignette turned to stare at her. " Damn , Ginny."

Ginny let out a snort and playfully punched her arm. "Stop it. I've dated two blokes other than my current boyfriend. Hogwarts isn't exactly bursting with options, especially when most people stick to their own Houses."

They were still laughing when familiar voices approached from the other end of the corridor. Hermione and Demelza were making their way toward them—Demelza peering into compartments curiously, and Hermione scanning the train like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

"What in the world is happening?"

Ginny grinned, ducking slightly as a fanged frisbee zipped past her ear and whirred off down the train. "You like? I thought things needed some livening up. Turns out a lot of people made a stop at George's shop before heading back to school."

Hermione blinked at her, then shook her head slowly, disbelieving but not disapproving. Ginny's stomach gave a small, anxious twist. Maybe she'd gotten too carried away—maybe all this noise and mischief wasn't the best way to start her time as Head Girl. Maybe Hermione was about to say as much.

But instead, Hermione gave a quiet smile. "Your dad was right," she said. "You are the girl for the job."

Ginny blinked, surprised. "Yeah? Think so?"

Hermione nodded. "I thought that calm was what people needed. That it wasn't ideal, but at least it was quiet, at least it was safe. I told myself that a soft return would be good—that I'd finally have a peaceful train ride, maybe even find a quiet spot to read for once. And I was looking forward to it."

She looked around again as a cheer erupted from somewhere behind them.

"But I missed just how badly everyone else needed it not to be quiet."

Ginny felt her chest loosen, just a bit. "Thanks, Hermione."

They hadn't gone far down the corridor when a lanky boy with windswept hair and a slightly mischievous expression ambled toward them, hands in his pockets like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Hey, Gingersnaps—" he grimaced pointedly and shook his head. "Nope, that's awful—doesn't work. Sorry—Hi, Ginny."

Ginny blinked, vaguely recognizing him from the darker days under Snape's headmastership. "Gareth, right?" He was Head Boy. Her official counterpart. And she'd had maybe all of three real conversations with him over the years.

"Gareth Croft, at your service." He gave a dramatic little bow, then straightened. "When did you want to call the prefects' meeting?"

Ginny hesitated. She'd been so focused on the fun—on rallying people and lightening the mood—that the idea of actually leading a formal meeting suddenly felt…heavy. "Err…"

"Only asking because Graham—one of the Muggleborn Ravenclaws—brought this game…book…thing called 'Dungeons and Dragons ,' and I was hoping to get in on that." He glanced longingly to one of the carriages behind him. "Supposed to be some kind of game with dice and quests and monsters and…I dunno, it sounds brilliant." He turned back to Ginny with a grin. "Awesome idea with the games, by the way. I think it's a real hit."

Ginny managed a bewildered smile. "Thanks. Erm…maybe twenty minutes? We'll send word down."

"Brilliant." Gareth gave her a quick salute and sauntered off again, already calling to someone further up the corridor.

Ginny shook her head as she and Hermione resumed walking. "He's…a lot."

Hermione sighed, but her tone was fond. "Fair warning about Croft. He's a…very nice young man, but a bit like a golden retriever."

Ginny grinned sideways. "I can see that. What kind of dog do you think you are?"

Hermione balked. "What?"

"Or what dog do you think I am?"

Hermione goggled at her. "Ginny…"

Ginny's grin widened. "Oh, c'mon, Hermione. You can't just drop a dog comparison and not have answers for everyone else. What's the point otherwise?"

Hermione looked like she was about to argue—and then, slowly, a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

By the time all twenty-four prefects had gathered in the front car, the mood had turned unmistakably tense. Ginny noticed the divide immediately: six Slytherins bunched together on the right side of the compartment, while the remaining eighteen prefects—representing Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff—clustered on the left. No one said anything about it, but the air was heavy with the kind of silence that came from carefully unspoken things.

Ginny stood near the front alongside Gareth, trying to remember the names as she scanned the faces. Some she knew—Hermione and Logan Drake. Ione and Vaughn, the sixth-years, looked vaguely amused by the situation. She recognized Eve Collingwood and Roger Malone—Hufflepuff seventh-years—as well, along with Simon Plumtree, a nervy sixth-year Hufflepuff who clutched a book to his chest like it was a shield. Ravenclaw's Ophelia Ainsworth sat ramrod straight, looking as though she'd rather be anywhere else, and next to her was a fifth-year boy Ginny only half-remembered—Dorian something. The rest of the Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw prefects she couldn't quite pair with their names, but she did remember them from whispered meetings last year.

Across from them, Ginny recognized Astoria Greengrass and Ronan Selwyn; both Slytherin sixth-years. Persephone Underbough, who Ginny remembered as cool and aloof, stood quietly behind them. The rest, she wasn't as well acquainted with. Which, she supposed, wasn't entirely a bad thing. She'd etched the names and faces of the worst of their Slytherin tormentors into her mind all throughout last year. These six were decidedly not among those. 

Small miracles.

Ginny cleared her throat and gave a tentative smile. "So…how do you normally start these things?"

A few Slytherins rolled their eyes in unison. It wasn't subtle.

Gareth, unbothered, stepped forward with an easy grin. "Introductions. Talking about our summers—well, not so much last year, I guess, but before all that. And usually a bit of chat about patrol schedules, any changes or concerns, that kind of thing."

Ginny nodded, grateful. "Alright. Any new developments we should be aware of?"

There was a beat of silence before Roger Malone snorted softly and Eve Collingwood, arms crossed, muttered, "Where do we start?"

A few people chuckled—humorless, weary sounds. There wasn't an ounce of real amusement in the room.

"Maybe with why Weasley was made Head Girl," one of the younger Slytherin prefects asked, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. "Was never a prefect. So what, she just gets to be Head Girl because of her boyfriend?"

There was a sudden silence, tense and bristling. Ginny fought the urge to draw her wand. Who the hell was this pillock?

Hermione broke the silence first. "Well, if you haven't noticed, it was Ginny's idea that got the rest of the students coming out of their shells."

The other seventh-year Slytherin prefect—Ginny didn't remember his name, but knew him from the Slytherin Quidditch team—leaned lazily against the wall and said with a curl of disdain, "Yeah, well I noticed no one in Slytherin got an invite to your little games."

Ginny's jaw tensed. The sheer nerve of it! It took everything she had not to snap. After what the students of Slytherin House had done—or at least allowed and watched —last year, it was staggering they had the gall to act slighted by a missing invitation to play games. She wasn't alone in her reaction either. More than one of the prefects on the other side of the compartment had turned sharply, bristling with irritation.

Before she could respond, Gareth raised a hand, unruffled. "Did any of you ask to join?"

The question landed like a thrown stone in a still pond. The Slytherins glanced at one another, hesitating, suddenly less bold.

"Er…" Ronan mumbled, clearly searching for a retort.

"As far as I understand," Gareth said, his voice carefully measured, "there are no rules preventing that. No reserved compartments outside this one, no rule saying who's allowed to socialize. As long as you're respectful, it's open."

Persephone snorted. "Yeah, sure. We'll ask to join just so someone can throw it back in our faces."

Gareth bobbed his head thoughtfully from side to side. "Some might. Would you blame them?"

None of the Slytherins answered. They didn't have to; their silence was answer enough.

"But then what would that even accomplish?" Gareth continued, still calm, still measured. 

"Payback," Astoria whispered quietly from her seat.

Gareth nodded slowly, as if giving the idea a fair shake. "Sure…though…do you think that's equal? It hardly seems comparable to the rampant abuse of power—and people —that Slytherin enjoyed all last year. I think if I were really going to get payback I'd abuse what I can do as Head Boy and tell all six of you to squeeze into that back row for the rest of the," he checked his watch, "seven and a half hour ride to Hogwarts. And then, if you don't, I'll penalize you say…fifty points each…to be deducted the first six times Slytherin reaches fifty points."

"That's bullshit!" Ronan snapped.

Gareth held up his hands, mock-conceding. "Sure. I suppose I could make it five hundred points each instead."

The outrage across the Slytherin side was immediate—and gratifying, if Ginny were honest.

"Would that make us even?" Gareth asked. Ginny watched his brow furrow and his eyes seem to focus on something far away. "Would it square everything away?" he continued. "Because I don't think it would. Not because I think you deserve worse. If that were the case, I doubt Professor McGonagall would have let you come back at all, much less as prefects. But honestly, I don't know how we move on from what happened."

A beat passed.

One of the Slytherin fifth years—a girl Ginny didn't know—said quietly, "We could all just…get over it? I guess?"

Dorian, the Ravenclaw fifth year, answered almost immediately. "Could you ?"

The girl paused. "I'd try," she answered softly

Ginny folded her arms. She fought back every urge to snap and snarl off a few well-aimed hexes. A summer of Defense Against the Dark Arts tutoring (to make up for their abysmally sub-standard instruction under Amycus Carrow) with Harry and Fleur had given her more confidence than ever before. But she stamped down that urge and instead—in a voice far more calm than she felt—said, "Tell that to Dennis Creevey."

The Slytherin girl blinked. "Who?"

Hermione's voice was cold. "That's the problem. You don't seem to appreciate the impact of what happened to everyone last year. Or maybe you've chosen not to."

The seventh year Slytherin boy from their Quidditch team leaned forward. "You weren't even here, Granger. What would you know?"

"I know enough," Hermione said, low and hard.

Astoria Greengrass spoke next, her voice quieter, and laced with weariness. "Not everyone in Slytherin wanted Voldemort. But our families…you don't understand."

Hermione's eyes sharpened. "I understand that your father defended the Malfoys in court over the summer. The same Malfoys who hosted Voldemort in their home. Who held people captive in their dungeon. Who watched as Bellatrix Lestrange tortured me."

The room fell silent. Then another Slytherin—this one with a more open, pleading expression—said with a hollow voice, "Everyone's trying to rebuild. My older brother's in Azkaban."

Ginny's temper, already wound tight, snapped. " My older brother is dead. Dennis's brother is dead. Maybe your brother killed them."

The boy flinched and looked down.

"Is that what this is, then?" said the snide seventh-year again. "The shoe's on the other foot and now it's our turn to get kicked?"

Ginny wanted to snarl "yes" but held her tongue.

Gareth exhaled slowly. "Like I said—what would that accomplish? You get punished. Your lives get harder. But then what? Does that bring back Fred Weasley? Or Colin Creevey? Does that make it easier for anyone who fought or suffered to sleep at night? Or does it just make everyone angrier, longer?"

No one answered. 

Gareth glanced down, ran a hand through his hair, and said, quieter, "I don't know about you lot, but I'm sick of it. This whole cycle—it's been going on for actual centuries . House battle lines, family names, the same arguments over and over. There are entire books dedicated to it. I don't want my little brother—he's a third year—to grow up with this same baggage. I don't want any kids of mine to inherit this kind of hate."

Roger Malone, the seventh-year Hufflepuff, piped up in a playful tone that helped ease the tension. "Who in their right mind would have kids with you, Gareth?"

That earned a ripple of laughter—thin but genuine.

Gareth smiled, then sobered. "We all watched Potter and Malfoy take shots at each other for six years. Until they nearly killed each other in a bathroom duel."

There wasn't a soul in the car who could dispute that, though Ginny fought the urge to clarify that Harry was defending himself and won that duel rather handily.

Hermione's voice was gentle. "So…what do we do?"

Astoria looked up at her, eyes lined and tired. "I know everyone wants their pound of flesh. But…there's only so much of us left. What would we be if we kept carving pieces off?"

Ginny's breath caught—unbidden, her mind turned to Harry's description of Horcruxes. Pieces of soul cut away over and over, until Voldemort's outside matched the twisted ruin he was on the inside. 

Gareth considered her words for a long beat. Then he turned to Ronan Selwyn. "You mentioned not getting an invite to the games."

Ronan shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah…"

"Well then," Gareth said lightly. "Would you like one?"

Ronan blinked. "What?"

"An invite."

"I don't get it."

"What's not to get?" Gareth asked. "When we're done here, I'm headed back to try this Muggle game—'Dungeons and Dragons.'"

Ronan squinted, skeptical. "What kind of game is that ?"

Gareth shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. Never played before. Apparently there's a dungeon…and at least one dragon involved. But Graham—he's the bloke who brought it—says it's fun." He paused and looked around the compartment. "Look. If I'm going to say I'm sick of this divide, I have to actually do something about it, right? So that's me doing something. I'm inviting you. You can say yes. Or you can say no. But don't tell me you weren't offered a chance."

Ginny looked out over the assembled prefects, her thoughts drifting to thoughts of Fred, with that crooked grin and unshakable confidence; to Colin Creevey: smiling, eager, loving magic with everything he had; to Remus and Tonks, who had fought so hard to find happiness; to Sirius, eyes shadowed but free; to Dumbledore, twinkle-eyed and ancient and kind.

She remembered burying them—some with a ceremony, others with a whispered name and an empty space. She remembered the weight of it, the ache of it, the rage and hollowness and how the world felt like it had cracked just beneath her feet.

But she also remembered the sunlight on her shoulders at Shell Cottage. She remembered Harry's hand in hers; remembered Ron and Hermione arguing in circles about something absurd and Harry insisting that was just how they flirted.  She remembered George laughing again, just once, without the weight of loss hanging over him.  She remembered the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there was a future after all.

"It's got to start here. With us," she said quietly, but with a fierce conviction. "It's not going to come from our parents' generation. They've tried. They've failed. They're too far removed—or too deep in their own damage. It has to be us."

She met Hermione's eyes, then Gareth's, hoping to find some of the same determination there. A tight nod from Hermione gave her the strength to continue.

"You heard Kingsl—the Minister," she said. "He said the future of our world is decided each and every day by the students of Hogwarts. That's us. We're at the top—we're prefects and heads now. We have to decide—before we leave this car—what this year is going to be like."

One of the Ravenclaw prefects—Ophelia—nodded slowly. "What kind of example we're going to set."

"Exactly," Ginny said, her voice gaining strength. "There's an entire year of students who only know Hogwarts as it was last year. And most of them hated it. But some of them…" she trailed off, her expression hardening, trying to keep her voice even; trying to swallow the year's worth of fury towards Slytherin house that she'd accrued. "Some of them liked it."

Murmurs passed through the room. Some nods. Some discomfort.

" We have to fix that. We can't let that become…" she shook her head in frustration. "And there's a whole other year's worth of students who don't know anything yet. They've never had detention for dueling someone in the halls. They've never been called 'Mudblood' or 'Blood Traitor' by their classmates." She noticed with grim satisfaction how the six Slytherin prefects had the good sense to look ashamed. "But they've also never played a Quidditch match. Never been to a Halloween feast. Never had a snowball fight between classes or snuck sweets into the library or laid out by the lake after exams."

She looked around the room, every word landing like the thrum of a heartbeat. "If we change things now, those kids—they only get the good parts. The lives we were supposed to grow up with."

Persephone raised an eyebrow from the Slytherin corner. "And how exactly do you suppose we do that?"

Ginny hesitated. "I don't know."

Persephone folded her arms. "You realize the House Points system is built to pit us against each other no matter what we do."

Vaughn, the sixth-year Gryffindor, quipped, "You're just saying that because Gareth threatened to dock a billion points."

There was a smattering of good-natured chuckles.

Hermione smiled faintly, but added, "It's not a bad point, actually."

Ginny nodded. "Yeah, well, I don't think even all of us together could get rid of the points system. That's a McGonagall-level decision."

Astoria spoke up, her tone thoughtful. "So we're still going to be competing for the House Cup. 

"Quidditch Cup, too," Ginny added.

Hermione gave Ginny an exasperated look that Ginny returned with force. If Hermione thought the lack of Harry and Ron meant she'd endure less Quidditch, she was sorely mistaken. "And trying to bridge a thousand years of division. Somehow," she said with a sigh. 

Gareth gave a helpless little shrug. "'Bout sums it up. But no pressure though, right?"

Ginny gave a short laugh, rubbed the back of her neck, and looked around the compartment again. "Does anyone know where to start?"

The rest of the ride passed more easily than it had begun. Tension still lingered, a quiet undercurrent beneath the chatter and laughter. Not all wounds could be smoothed over in one conversation, and there was still plenty of mistrust simmering between students. But Ginny felt more certain now—at least among the prefects, there was something like alignment. Not unity, exactly, but a shared sense that they had to try.

That counted for something.

The train finally pulled to a halt at the Hogsmeade Station later that evening, and the familiar, cool breeze of the Highlands swept through the open windows and doors. Students began filing out with a mix of nerves and excitement, some shoving trunks, others crowding the narrow platform, already craning to glimpse the castle in the distance, silhouetted against the darkening sky.

And then came the unmistakable voice of Rubeus Hagrid, booming above the din. "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

Ginny turned and broke into a grin at the sight of him. His great shaggy beard and wild mane of hair hadn't changed a bit. He looked just as massive and soft-hearted as ever.

"Hagrid!" Hermione called, hurrying over.

"Ginny! Hermione!" he beamed, opening his arms wide. He hugged them both, nearly lifting Ginny off the ground. "Good t'see yeh both!"

Hermione smiled. "It's good to see you at Hogwarts again, Hagrid. It really is."

He nodded, then looked around, scanning the crowd behind them. "Harry and Ron…how're they holdin' up in Auror trainin'?"

"They're doing well," Ginny said. "Hard work. Lots of physical training, but they're getting through it."

Hagrid chuckled. "Figures. They always were tough ones. I thought about writin', y'know, but I reckon they've got enough on their plate without me sendin' ramblin' owls every week."

"They'd love to hear from you," Hermione said warmly. "But I'm sure they'd understand if you wait until they're settled back in London."

Hagrid gave a grateful nod, then turned to the assembling crowd of new students. "Firs' years, this way! C'mon now, don't be shy!"

Ginny looked toward the group forming around him—Safia, Vignette, and Rycroft among them, their trunks hovering awkwardly as they lingered nearby. "All right, you three," she said, giving each a quick hug. "You've got this. And don't worry—just enjoy the ride."

"We'll meet you up at the castle," Hermione added. "Don't forget to look up when you see it. That first glimpse stays with you."

The three nodded, though Safia looked a little green as she eyed the small boats. Vignette gave Ginny a confident thumbs-up, and Rycroft seemed resigned to at least try and enjoy the trip.

As they turned to follow Hagrid, Ginny noticed they weren't the only older-looking students joining the group. It was hard to tell, exactly, but there seemed to be many more students filing onto the boats than usual.

"Is that normal?" she asked, nodding toward a pair of girls who looked at least twelve.

Hermione followed her gaze and nodded. "Some of them are probably Muggleborns who didn't—or couldn't—attend last year. This might be their first real chance to come to Hogwarts."

Ginny swallowed. The thought filled her with both sadness and a fierce protective urge. She glanced back at the boats bobbing in the dark water of the lake, the lanterns flickering over the smooth surface of the lake as the students climbed in. So much had been taken from those students, but at least now they had a chance.

The walk from the station to the carriages was slower and quieter than usual, the crowd of students ambling more than marching, laughter still hesitant as everyone adjusted to being back. Ginny fell into step beside Hermione and Demelza, but as they rounded the bend where the carriages waited, Ginny stopped dead in her tracks.

For years, they had been nothing more than carriages. Pulled, as far as most students were concerned, by nothing at all. Even after learning from Harry that they were pulled by unseen skeletal horses—even after riding one—Ginny hadn't quite wrapped her head around the idea. But now, for the first time, Ginny could see them clearly: the Thestrals.

Dark and skeletal, with great leathery wings folded like cloaks across their sides, they pawed at the earth with long, spindled limbs and blinked their pale, milky eyes. One turned its head and seemed to look straight at her. Ginny felt a shiver chase its way down her spine.

They're beautiful, she thought, with a strange ache in her chest. Terrifying…but beautiful.

"Ginny…" Hermione said softly, coming up beside her. "You see them too?"

Ginny nodded. "First time."

Demelza exhaled shakily. "Me too."

A low murmur began to rise among the crowd behind them. Ginny glanced back and saw other students—fifth-years, sixth-years, and above—beginning to react in alarm. Several of them had frozen, wide-eyed and whispering frantically. One girl near the front was crying, her voice a panicked squeak: "What are those? Where are the carriages? What's happening?"

Ginny looked around quickly. Hagrid was already long gone, down by the lake with the first years. There was no one else to explain—no one to step in and calm them.

So she did.

"They're Thestrals," she said, loudly enough for the crowd to hear. "They've always been here. You just couldn't see them before." That got their attention. The students turned to her, brows drawn and eyes still clouded with fear. "You can only see them," she continued gently, "if you've seen someone die."

A stunned silence followed her words. Then the panic began to shift—into recognition, sorrow, grim understanding. A few students looked away. Some bowed their heads.

"You're not going crazy," Ginny added, fighting to keep her voice steady even though her heart pounded in her chest. "It's nothing going wrong or some kind of curse. You're just…seeing the world differently now. Same as the rest of us."

Hermione moved to stand beside her and nodded solemnly. Demelza stayed quiet, her expression unreadable, but she placed a comforting hand on Ginny's shoulder. Slowly, the students began to load into the carriages. They were hesitant at first, but steadier with each step and with each successful carriage boarding. Ginny saw Luna run a hand gently along the side of one of the Thestrals as she passed—almost like she was greeting an old friend. 

Ginny, Hermione, and Demelza, ended up in a carriage with Dean and Luna. They squeezed together as the Thestrals shifted into motion. 

"I used to think they were moving with magic, you know? Wasn't hard to believe after everything I'd seen so far," Dean said, breaking the quiet as the carriage began to rumble uphill toward the castle. "Then Harry started going on about what they really were. Said you could only see them after…well. You know."

Ginny nodded, pulling her school robes a little tighter around her. "Yeah. I didn't see them until today either."

"How are Harry and Ron doing, by the way?" Dean asked. "Seamus says he can't tell me much, but he's said that the training is intense."

Beside Ginny, Hermione smiled faintly. "They've said the same to us. Not much detail, but I think they're actually enjoying it—mostly."

Ginny glanced out the carriage window, watching the winding path as they approached the gates of Hogwarts. "They seem good," she said quietly. "It's hard, you know? Knowing that they're so far away—again—but…"

Dean chuckled knowingly. "Can you imagine them going back to class after everything they've been through? Writing essays?"

Hermione scoffed. "Oh, please. I did everything they did, too…and wrote most of their essays for them anyway."

That got a chuckle from the others, and the tension in the carriage lightened a little more.

The outline of the castle emerged ahead of them, golden and grand in the falling dusk. It felt, for the first time in a long time, like they were returning to something worth calling home. The carriages rolled to a stop in the wide gravel drive before the gates of Hogwarts, and the students began to disembark, the chatter low but full of nervous energy. Ginny stepped out and tilted her head up toward the towering castle, her breath catching in her throat.

It looked…whole.

Gone were the scorch marks and rubble she remembered from the final battle. The stonework had been repaired, the ramparts clean and unbroken, the towering oak doors polished and gleaming beneath the warm glow of enchanted lanterns. The castle, as if determined to reclaim its former magic, stood proud once more. Alive.

They moved through the entrance hall, and her eyes swept across the familiar stone floor, now gleaming and polished. Whatever damage had been done, Hogwarts had been brought back to life. Bright, flickering torches lined the walls, and the house banners streamed from the archways, each one vibrant and freshly mended. Gryffindor's lion roared in gold and crimson above the stairway landing. The other house banners were similarly restored. 

She stepped with the others through the great double doors—and paused at the threshold of the Great Hall. The room was in near-total darkness.

Gasps echoed across the room as students filed in, slow and reverent. Overhead, the enchanted ceiling displayed a breathtaking expanse of stars, more brilliant than Ginny had ever seen it. The Milky Way stretched like spun silver across the sky, and a ribbon of soft green and violet shimmered near the horizon, a magical aurora threading through the heavens.

No candles floated above them. No feast adorned the long tables just yet. For a few heartbeats, it was just them and the enchanted sky above.

And then, as the last of the students entered, the wall sconces began to kindle one by one. Torches flared to life along the stone columns with a soft whoosh, casting warm light upward until the hall was fully aglow. The ceiling shimmered once more and gradually faded into its usual star-dotted midnight blue.

The Hogwarts professors stood quietly at the head table, dressed in formal robes of dark blue and silver. Ginny noted Professor McGonagall in the center, tall and dignified in her tartan-edged cloak, her expression calm but firm. Around her sat the professors, both the returning and the newly-appointed.

Ginny made her way to the Gryffindor table with Hermione and Demelza, the buzz of whispered awe still lingering in the air.

After they had all settled at their respective tables, the low murmur of conversation faded as the heavy side doors creaked open. Professor Flitwick emerged with a proud smile and a long scroll tucked under his arm, guiding a line of first years—and a few slightly older students who looked nervous but determined—into the Great Hall.

The Sorting Hat already waited atop its stool, quiet and still, its brim folded into a contemplative frown. The younger students moved with hesitant, shuffled steps toward the front of the room, glancing up in awe at the enchanted ceiling, the staff table, and the watching sea of students.

The ceremony began, and as names were called, cheers and applause rang out from the respective house tables. A girl with tightly coiled braids beamed as she was Sorted into Hufflepuff. A tall boy with slightly trembling hands grinned in surprise when the Hat shouted "Gryffindor!" after barely touching his head. Ravenclaw welcomed a pair of siblings with enthusiastic clapping and warm smiles.

But then, midway through the list, the Sorting Hat bellowed a new house for the first time.

"Slytherin!"

The Sorting belonged to a small girl with flyaway dark curls and wide, uncertain eyes. She sat frozen for a moment on the stool before slowly sliding off, her arms drawn tightly to her chest as she descended the steps and made her way toward the Slytherin table.

The silence was stunning.

A few half-hearted claps came from the Slytherin prefects. One student—likely a sixth year—gave a sharp whistle of encouragement, but it echoed uncomfortably in the stillness. From the rest of the Hall: nothing.

Ginny's gut clenched. It wasn't with anger this time, but sadness. This small, soft-footed first year hadn't done anything . She hadn't pledged loyalty to Voldemort. She hadn't sneered at Muggleborns or hexed classmates in the corridors. She hadn't made any of those choices. And yet, there she was, walking with hunched shoulders as though ashamed of the very house that had chosen her.

Ginny glanced across the Great Hall—and caught Gareth Croft's eye. His jaw was tight. His expression was conflicted, but not surprised. After a moment's hesitation, he nodded to himself, then raised his hands and began to clap.

Ginny joined in, her clap sharp against the silence. She glanced down the table at Hermione, who gave a solemn nod and added her own applause. Then Logan Drake. Then Demelza. Then Rosalie Meadows at the Hufflepuff table. Lyra Quince at Ravenclaw. One by one, the prefects began to clap—tentatively at first, then with growing conviction. The rest of the hall followed slowly, awkwardly. Not quite thunderous, but not begrudging either.

The girl paused, eyes wide, and blinked in disbelief at the sound. Then she resumed walking towards the Slytherin table and took her seat. And though her posture remained a little guarded, there was at least some lightness in her step.

Ginny let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was something. And though the applause wasn't deafening and the tension hadn't vanished, it had been broken—for a brief minute—by a moment of shared will to do better. And that, Ginny thought, might be all they could ask for right then.

As the last of the first years were Sorted, Professor Flitwick stepped forward once more, scroll in hand, his voice bright and cheerful. "Now then! Before we conclude this evening's Sorting, I'd like to welcome a number of transfer students who will be joining us from abroad," he said. "Some are entering their first year of magical schooling; others have received instruction elsewhere but have come to Hogwarts to continue their education. We're thrilled to have them with us."

He cleared his throat delicately and unrolled a second parchment. "First up—Harris, Rycroft."

Rycroft walked up with shoulders squared, his stride deceptively casual, but Ginny could see the tightness in his jaw. He glanced once toward the Gryffindor table, catching Ginny's eye before climbing the steps and sitting on the stool.

The Sorting Hat dropped over his head and paused for a moment—then called out, "Gryffindor!"

Ginny blinked in surprise. It wasn't entirely surprising, but nothing about Rycroft's quiet watchfulness or studied reserve had screamed Gryffindor. She had expected Ravenclaw, maybe Hufflepuff. But she supposed the old adage that some family lines followed houses more closely rang true. Still, she clapped loudly, and the Gryffindor table erupted in cheers. Demelza whistled. Maddox slapped the table. Rycroft gave a sheepish grin and made his way over, dropping into a seat between Maddox and Logan, who both greeted him with welcoming grins and an affectionate ruffling of his hair.

Next was "Harris, Vignette."

The moment the Sorting Hat touched her curls, it shouted "Gryffindor!" loud enough to startle a few of the younger students.

Ginny laughed aloud as Vignette bounded off the stool, beaming from ear to ear, and practically skipped to the Gryffindor table. She received a raucous reception—more than one student reaching to offer a high-five or pull her into a sideways hug as she sat beside Rycroft.

Flitwick continued down the list. A pair of French twins both went to Ravenclaw. A stocky, shy boy from Germany was Sorted into Hufflepuff. A tall, elegant girl was sent to Slytherin—this time met with a bit more polite applause than before—along with a bit more exuberant applause from the rest of the Slytherins.

Then, finally—

"Weasley, Safia."

Safia walked slowly, her shoulders tense and her face unreadable as whispers of "Weasley?" echoed through the student body. Ginny's heart thudded. Safia was stepping into Hogwarts with all the baggage—good and bad—that being a Weasley entailed. It wouldn't matter whether her side of the family had been involved in the war effort or not. She was a Weasley—and likely the last Weasley who would sit for her Sorting until the next generation came through. That was a whole lot of pressure for one small girl who had only just stepped foot into British wizarding society a few weeks ago.

Safia took her seat on the stool and the Sorting Hat was placed atop her head. It was silent. Longer than it had been for any other student. The Hall grew uncomfortable with the stillness, the air brittle with waiting. Finally, the Sorting Hat's brim opened, and with a voice both sure and quiet, declared:

"Ravenclaw."

Safia's lips drew into a quirked smile and a look of satisfied determination crossed her face. A Weasley in Ravenclaw. The first in…well…Ginny wasn't sure how long it had been since a Weasley had been Sorted into anything outside of Gryffindor. Hell, even Percy was in Gryffindor. 

But this made…a lot of sense. Even knowing her cousin as briefly as she did, Ginny could tell she wasn't one to shy away from the new, the paths untread. And their world needed people like that; people willing to break with tradition. 

Ginny stood and clapped loudly, letting out a rather undignified " Woo !" of support. As soon as the cheer left her lips the rest of Gryffindor joined in. Safia caught her gaze, and the quiet, please smirk transformed into a full-on grin.

Luna, who had been watching with a curious, patient expression, stood as well and began to applaud, her wide eyes tracking Safia's movements as she reached the bench. The rest of the Ravenclaws followed. Then the rest of the Hall. Safia sat beside Luna, who offered her a quiet welcome and a warm smile. 

Once the last new student was Sorted, the Sorting Hat was carried away and the stool removed. The torches along the wall flared slightly as the staff table rose. Professor McGonagall stepped forward, her expression solemn. She looked out at them all; hundreds of faces, both returning and new. Her eyes paused here and there, meeting students' gazes across the four long tables. McGonagall's gaze settled on Ginny, and she swore she saw the corner of the headmistress's mouth twitch.

"Welcome," she said, her voice ringing through the hall with purposeful strength. "Welcome back to Hogwarts. And to our new students—first years and transfers alike—welcome home. "

A few surprised murmurs fluttered at that word: home. But McGonagall let the moment settle before continuing.

"There is much to say. And there will be time to say it. This castle has seen more in the past year than most schools might witness in a century. We bear those memories—of what was lost, of what was fought for, and of those who gave everything to see us through."

The Great Hall was still. Even the first years sat rigidly upright, listening.

"This castle has stood for a thousand years—and in that time, it has seen its share of darkness. But it has endured, not because its stones are strong or because our spells are powerful, but because those who walk its halls have continued to believe in something greater than fear. In courage. In learning. In one another," she said. "We are here. And Hogwarts remains. Because of all of you. "

Ginny felt the weight of those words settle somewhere in her chest, deep and solid. She wasn't the only one—heads bowed slightly, shoulders eased. Even some of the Slytherin first years, who had been shrinking under the silence earlier, seemed to lift their chins just a little.

"I will not pretend this return is easy for all of you," McGonagall continued. "Some of you have come back bearing unseen and unknowable burdens. Others may fear how they'll be seen, how they'll be judged, or if they even belong."

The stillness in the hall sharpened, breath held in collective tension.

"Let me be perfectly clear: if you are here—today, in this hall— you are meant to be here. Hogwarts is a place of second chances, of growth, of learning—not merely of spells and incantations, but of who we are, and who we might yet become. And I say this with the full authority of your Headmistress: no student returning to this school is beyond redemption. There is no shame in coming back. There is strength in it."

There was a ripple then—not of sound, but of feeling, shared and understood. Ginny glanced sideways and saw Demelza nodding faintly. Down the table, a second-year boy blinked hard and straightened his posture.

McGonagall's gaze swept across the hall. "We must carry forward together—not by ignoring the past, but by choosing to rise from it. With dignity. With humility. And with hope."

Then, her voice lightened, just enough to shift the tone, "Now, to more customary matters—our staff this year includes several new additions, and I hope you will welcome them warmly." She gestured to the staff table behind her. 

"Stepping up to serve as Deputy Headmaster is—as you may have already surmised—Professor Filius Flitwick." The diminutive professor stood to loud cheers from the Ravenclaw table, then climbed upon his chair and waved playfully, earning more than a few good-natured chuckles from the students and a wry smile from Professor McGonagall. 

"Taking up my post of Transfiguration professor," she continued, "I am pleased to introduce Professor Cassandra Shiftwell, whose work in elemental transformation is quite well-known in academic circles and who I am more than confident will challenge you all to do your very best."

Ginny didn't miss the fond, meaningful look shared between McGonagall and the new professor, nor the determined nod that followed. 

"For History of Magic, we welcome Professor Calliope Harkspur. Professor Harkspur joins us from the Department of Magical Records and will, I hope, bring a fresh perspective—and perhaps a bit more engagement —to a subject often treated as dry parchment," McGonagall paused for a moment to let the smattering of polite applause die down before continuing. "In Muggle Studies, we are joined by Professor Concordia Rowle. Professor Rowle has spent years working with intermagical outreach and has much to teach us about empathy, understanding, and the world beyond these walls." 

The name—Rowle—sent a waver of murmuring through the Hall, but McGonagall's tone was steady, leaving no room for suspicion.

"And finally, joining us after distinguished service with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, I am very pleased to welcome Professor Alaric Vance as our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and head of Gryffindor House." 

Ginny looked toward the staff table again and found Vance—tall, silver-streaked, with sharp, keen eyes that likely missed nothing . He didn't smile, but he inclined his head respectfully as murmured whispers spread across the Gryffindor table.

Hermione tapped Ginny's arm impatiently, and Ginny nodded back. Alaric Vance's name had become an often-mentioned one among them, Harry, and Ron. He'd administered Harry's Apparition licensing test over the summer and introduced him to the basics of utilizing Apparition in a duel. Harry had later learned that he was the Auror who mentored Kingsley; Ginny knew he and Ron had been hoping to have Vance as one of their instructors during Auror training, but this was probably the last place she expected him to show up.

"I expect you all to treat your professors—and each other—with respect, compassion, and an open mind," McGonagall concluded. "Let this year be a new beginning. Let it be one shaped by your choices, not your pasts. Let us build something better—together."

There was a beat of silence, then the familiar final words:

"That is all. You may begin your feast."

With a collective exhale, the tension of the hall released—and the platters burst into existence.

Dishes of every kind, familiar and new, filled the long tables. Roast meats and buttered vegetables, Yorkshire puddings, steaming pies, golden chips, glittering pitchers of pumpkin juice and spiced cider. The delighted gasp of first-years made Ginny smile. She let herself sink into the hum of chatter and clatter, the joyous chaos of a proper Hogwarts feast.

She caught Hermione's eye across the table and they shared a small, tired smile.

Ginny glanced up at the enchanted ceiling. The stars still burned brightly overhead, the aurora fading slowly as the torchlight grew warmer and brighter. Last year, this hall had felt exposed, dangerous. Every inch of it was monitored and weaponized. Her family had mourned what it became in the final battle—a warzone in a place meant for joy. But they hadn't known; they couldn't have known. For her it had been a warzone since September. And yet now…now it felt almost like it used to. 

Ginny's eyes drifted down the Gryffindor table, scanning for her cousins amid the hum of conversation and the clinking of cutlery. To her relief, Vignette already seemed perfectly at ease, chatting animatedly with two other sixth-year girls—Willa Renshawone and Briony Cartwright. Rycroft was deep in conversation with Maddox, the two of them hunched slightly toward each other. And over at the Ravenclaw table, Safia appeared just as engaged—her eyes wide with curiosity, already gesturing as she asked a question of a fourth-year boy who looked delighted to answer.

Ginny let out a slow breath, a quiet warmth settling in her chest. They were going to be alright.

Her gaze flicked to Luna, seated just beside Safia. For the first time in six years, Luna didn't look like an outlier among her housemates. She wasn't being gawked at or ignored—she was being listened to. Included. Ginny watched as a Ravenclaw seventh-year leaned toward Luna with an easy smile, asking something that made Luna's eyes light up with that dreamy intensity Ginny knew so well. It only took six years , she thought, with a twist of irony and affection. But at last, they'd caught up.

The staff table, however, offered a far more somber contrast. The professors were eating, yes—but their eyes rarely strayed from the students for more than a second or two at a time. Ginny noticed Professor Vance quietly scanning the Gryffindor table like a tactician studying a map. It was the same look Harry and Ron wore when they talked Auror stuff. Professor Flitwick watched his Ravenclaws carefully. Professor Sprout, usually the warmest, had a tension about her as she watched the younger Hufflepuffs ladle mashed potatoes onto their plates. Even Professor Slughorn, typically the most unbothered of them all, seemed unusually vigilant. They were all on edge, even now. Or maybe especially now.

Beside her, Hermione had barely touched her food. Her fork pushed aimlessly at a pile of roasted parsnips, her eyes distant.

Ginny nudged her gently. "You alright?"

Hermione blinked and turned toward her, then shrugged half-heartedly. "I just…I've never done this part without Ron and Harry. And it's only really hitting me now." She offered a tight, self-deprecating smile. "It's stupid, isn't it? So many others had it worse."

Ginny's voice was soft but firm. "It's not a competition, Hermione. And it's not stupid."

Hermione's jaw tightened. She let out a shaky breath. "I didn't realize—I didn't even really think about it much this summer. There was so much else going on, you know? Trials and travel and repairs and planning. But now that we're here, in the castle again, I just… I always thought we'd finish this together."

Before Ginny could respond, a voice piped up from farther down the table.

"Well, we'll all stick together," Rycroft said brightly, turning from his conversation with Maddox and the other seventh-years. He gave Hermione a crooked, earnest smile. "Team Gryffindor and all, right?"

Hermione let out a soft huff of laughter, her eyes misting just slightly as she looked at him. "Right," she said. "Team Gryffindor."

The feast continued around them—desserts replacing main courses, pumpkin juice replenished jug after jug. When the last of the puddings vanished and the golden plates cleared themselves, Professor McGonagall rose from the staff table once more.

"Prefects," she called crisply, "please lead your houses to their common rooms. Miss Weasley, Mister Croft—stay behind, if you would."

Ginny exchanged a brief glance with Gareth, then rose alongside him as the rest of the Gryffindors began to shuffle out. Professor McGonagall descended from the staff table and approached them as the last of the students and professors filtered out of the Great Hall.

"So," she said, in that same briskly kind tone Ginny had grown fond of, "you have made it through your first day as Head Girl and Boy."

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "Did today really count?"

"Very much so, Miss Weasley," McGonagall replied. "Word has already reached us regarding the rather…unorthodox tactics you employed on the Hogwarts Express to ease students into the year. I am of the mind to award Gryffindor ten points for that kind of thinking."

"Told you it was brilliant," Gareth said, grinning smugly in Ginny's direction.

McGonagall's mouth twitched as if she might smile, but instead she continued, "In doing so, you've identified my primary concern for the year as well. I cannot say with certainty whether the division between the houses was exacerbated by the war or whether the war merely cast a light upon it, but we are now in the rare position to do something about a division that has plagued this school for nearly a millenia."

"Strike while the iron's hot," Gareth offered with a nod.

"Indeed, Mister Croft," she said. "At this moment, our world is quite taken with the idea of mending divisions within our society and becoming more inclusive. I've spoken with the staff—and though I doubt it would surprise either of you—we share that sentiment. However, we are also of the belief that, here at Hogwarts, this effort must be led primarily by the student body."

Ginny nodded slowly, her thoughts drifting back to the quiet successes and subtle tensions on the train. She exchanged a glance with Gareth and was glad to see a similarly thoughtful expression on his face.

"Octavia Drayton—Slytherin Prefect—brought up a good point," Gareth said after a moment. "That the house point system isn't exactly built for unity."

Ginny's eyebrows lifted slightly. She was impressed that he already knew the prefects' names. Was it because he'd been a prefect last year, or was Gareth just the sort of person who made it his business to learn everyone's names?

"Indeed it isn't," McGonagall said. "I have some irons in the fire myself, but I'd like the two of you to spearhead this effort from the student perspective. We'll meet regularly, so I may stay informed of what's truly happening among your peers."

Ginny couldn't hide her surprise.

"I recognize," McGonagall went on, her voice gentler now, "that for all his brilliance, Professor Dumbledore often remained aloof and unapproachable—except to a select few. But I am less politically inclined. I am not Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, nor Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. I am not the mightiest wizard of our time, nor does the defeat of a Dark Lord hinge upon my machinations. I am—singularly and solely— Headmistress of this school. And so this school, its students, and their challenges shall receive my entire focus."

Gareth let out a soft whistle. "Tall order for our N.E.W.T. year."

"It is," McGonagall said simply. "But I believe you two are up to the task."

Chapter Text

Harry's lungs burned as he pushed up the narrow forest path. The canopy overhead filtered the midday light into shifting gold and green, but there was nothing serene about the rhythm of pounding feet and sharp breaths all around him. Gnarled roots snatched at his trainers. Sweat stung his eyes. His glasses slipped down his nose. Branches snapped underfoot. A shout echoed ahead. Someone slipped behind him with a muttered curse.

He kept his eyes forward.

Four kilometers in and the incline had sharpened—so had the stitch in his side—but Harry pressed on. He could already feel the soreness setting in across his shoulders and thighs. Good. It meant he was still pushing hard.

There was something satisfying about the ache, the discipline of it. Training might've been grueling, but it had purpose—it gave him purpose. Something to throw himself against with a clear goal. It had been a long time since he had something like that to compare himself against, with an entire array of support behind him. And compared to what they'd all endured during the war, it was almost…clean.

But he was likely the only one looking at it that way. Their original group of thirty had already whittled down to twenty-five. Two weeks in, the attrition rate was no surprise. Ashcombe, Blackmere, Thornevale, Cindergate, and Norridge had already either been cut from the program or dropped out. They weren't shit wizards by any means, but it was immediately clear that their instructors weren't looking for adequate, they were looking for Aurors. The ones who could run on instinct, think under pressure, push through pain and keep going. 

No one made that more clear than their head instructor, Janos Starker: tall, silver-haired, and blue-eyed in a way that reminded Harry of Professor Dumbledore. But the resemblance ended there. Where Dumbledore had been serene, Starker was tightly coiled, a constant current of intensity. Dumbledore had offered warmth, patience, and quiet encouragement; Starker delivered sharp critiques with clinical, ego-destroying precision. Dumbledore had encouraged reflection; Starker demanded perfection. 

Even in action, Dumbledore had exuded calm and had a…resignation that he was forced to get involved. Starker radiated with purpose and the capability for violence like a furnace. 

Harry could still recall in vivid detail the explosive shouting match as Ashcombe failed to follow Starker's instruction and accused their instructor of singling him out. To everyone's surprise, Starker unabashedly admitted that he was: but only because Ashcombe was an entirely unremarkable wizard, and he was pushing him to see if "something remarkable would come. But you continue to disappoint me."

Ashcombe had said nothing; he'd just stared open-mouthed until Starker sent him to pack his bags. 

But that was nothing compared to what happened between Starker and Hector Blackmere. 

Upon arriving at Auror training, Hector had quickly established himself as Harry's least-favorite fellow cadet (and in a group that also contained Cormac McLaggen, that was no easy feat). Hector had all the same undeserved arrogance as Draco Malfoy; like he had never been told he was wrong or held him accountable for his actions growing up. It had been enough to grate on Harry's already-frayed nerves.

Hector had been paired with Seamus Finnegan, alternating between Relashio and Protego so that Starker could take stock of their form, skill, and—apparently—character. Seamus had sent over a more powerful jinx than Hector had anticipated. It bore through his shield and slammed into his knuckles in a shower of sparks.

"Mudfingers!" Hector snarled sharply, shaking out his smoking hand.

Harry didn't recognize the insult, but Ron's expression had instantly soured, his eyes narrowing with the same unmistakable distaste he usually reserved for someone like Malfoy. Apparently "Mudfingers" was a thinly veiled slur—an old pureblood insult disguised in softer tones, meant to sound less crude than Mudblood but no less vindictive. That sealed it for Harry: whatever small benefit of the doubt he might've tried to extend to Hector was gone.

Starker had heard it too. He'd said nothing. Didn't raise his voice. Didn't scold. He simply crossed the field with deliberate steps, expression like granite, and seized Hector by the collar of his shirt. The rest of the cadets fell into a stunned silence as Starker dragged him, wordlessly, toward the Portkey ring. A silver coin lay waiting on the stand. Starker pressed it into Hector's hand with such force the young man stumbled.

"You are dismissed," Starker said coldly.

The message was clear: he would stand for none of the former regime's prejudices. 

To Harry's satisfaction, every member of the former D.A. still remained. They weren't the fastest, or the strongest, or always the most polished, but they were tougher. No harsh words could hurt them after all they'd endured. They'd all even outlasted Norridge and Cindergate: two Ministry-selected recruits who'd arrived with spotless gear and lofty expectations…they'd dropped out by day eight. 

It didn't mean the remaining candidates were having an easy time of it, however. Not by a long shot. If anything, Starker had turned out to be even more relentless than Alaric Vance implied. His standards were brutal, his drills designed to break the soft edges off everyone. And he had a particular talent for sniffing out weakness like a bloodhound. Harry knew he couldn't afford to dial back and coast on his summer conditioning and any natural talent. 

He could still remember the first time Starker had torn him down.

It had been during their first week, after Starker had introduced them to the Relashio-Protego exercise to evaluate their baseline ability. Terry Boot had fired a well-aimed jinx him, and Harry had instinctively blocked it with a clean, firm shield. The hex ricocheted off, fizzing harmlessly into the practice wards behind him.

He'd looked up, hopeful. And Starker, arms crossed, eyes unreadable, had muttered a simple "Not bad," in his heavy Hungarian accent.

That was the best anyone had gotten from the silver-haired instructor so far. Harry allowed himself a breath of satisfaction.

"—It was terrible," Starker added flatly.

The moment had frozen everyone. No one had anticipated anyone tearing into Harry so early on. He was the hero of the wizarding world, after all, and consistently top-performing in their group. Terry shifted awkwardly behind him. Harry blinked, baffled, as Starker stepped forward.

"You always come back to neutral position," Starker snapped briskly. He circled Harry like a wolf. "It is fine for schoolyard duels, maybe. Not here. Not when it matters."

He nudged Harry's stance—adjusting his off-foot, repositioning his shoulders. His voice never rose, but it cut like a whip. "You are always reacting. Stop this. Read your opponent. Anticipate the spell. Prepare your counter. First spell must set up the second. Shield buys you time—it cannot be your only answer."

Starker stepped away, drew his wand, and faced the training dummy across the mat. "Do not waste movement returning to neutral," he'd said. "You sequence the spells. Layer the shieldings. Intermittent—structured. Know the flow of your magic. The combination. Like music."

He moved, firing off three spells. Harry was sure of that, but he couldn't separate them. They came in a single seamless surge: a burst of sparks, a twisting snare of light, and a blunt force impact. The training dummy reeled; bound, charred, and blown backward, a smoking hole where its chest had been.

Starker didn't lower his wand. It remained extended, downward, angled—shield still shimmering faintly before him.

"And still," he said, tapping the forearm of his wand hand with his free one. He held it firmly in front of him. "Shielded." He turned toward the group. "You. Macmillan. Disarm spell."

Ernie looked nervous but let loose his spell. It connected with a flash—but the shield held. Ernie's spell broke against Starker's defense with no more impact than a drop of rain on glass.

Starker turned back to Harry. "Get it better."

That had been the end of it. No praise, no berating, no follow-up. But it stayed with Harry. There had been rather little instruction in actual spellwork and new techniques: Starker had spent the first two weeks of instruction breaking down their habits in order to rebuild them to his liking.

He hadn't been coy with his reasons and had explained it so concisely that Harry was certain Starker had spent years perfecting his rationale in front of a mirror in every language he knew so that only a slight hint of his otherwise-thick accent shone through. 

"When a wizard develops a certain level of proficiency with a wand and gains reliable sense of situational awareness, a wider range of tactical options becomes available for any given scenario," Starker had announced, pacing between the cadets as they fired a variety of jinxes and curses at training dummies. "The decisions, therefore, must be directed by strategic judgment, which is subjective, and mechanical execution, which is precise and definable."

Harry shoved the memory away as the trail flattened again and his lungs dragged in more air. The ache in his legs was sharper now, but he leaned into it, lengthening his stride. For the first time in years, he felt like he was on equal footing with everyone around him. Everyone received criticisms from Starker—sharp, surgical, unapologetic. And oddly, it helped. The harshness wasn't personal like it had been with Snape. It was purposeful.

And it was working.

Not yet three weeks in, and already Harry could feel it: his wand movements were crisper, his spells were cleaner, his dueling stances had steadied. He didn't hesitate or second-guess the sequencing between his spells the way he used to, and found himself cutting out unnecessary movements and flourishes between spells that he might have gotten away with before. They hadn't progressed much beyond "hex the training dummy" drills yet—but Harry could feel it coming.

Harry jogged the final stretch down to the training yard where Starker and the other instructors were already assembled. The damp grass glowed under an overcast sky, and cadets huddled in muted conversation, their breath visible in the cool air. Harry paused for a moment before the circle, breathing steadily, waiting for the rest to catch their breath. He wasn't in the best shape among the recruits—Victor Pennant, the former professional Quidditch player, had the aptitude to prove it—but Harry's summer of conditioning and defense training was paying dividends. He could outpace most of the recruits during long runs and maintain his pace during extended drills to where he was still landing his spells…even if he was breathing evenly. 

Starker stepped forward, stern as ever. He cleared his throat, and the yard fell silent as he barked out: "We begin the next phase today: Stealth and Concealment."

A ripple of anticipation moved through the cadets.

"You will take a Portkey," Starker continued, voice sharp. "To wilderness location. You have exactly one hour to hide yourselves as well as you can. After that, I will try to find each of you." He paused and grinned, as if remembering some private joke. "If you stay hidden the full hour, you earn one more hour of sleep tomorrow. That means wake-up call is at six."

A collective cheer rippled from the cadets. Ron leaned over to Harry and muttered, "It's mental what we consider a lie-in now."

Harry's grin was brief—a flash of humor in their relentless schedule—but directly in sync with the group's unspoken relief.

The Portkeys were arranged in a tight cluster on a central dias: shining silver coins with the Ministry's sigil etched upon them. As they each stepped forward to grab hold, Harry braced himself for the familiar lurch. A tug behind his navel yanked him forward, and then the world slammed into motion.

He landed hard in a thick-boughed forest smelling of moss and dirt. Damp earth squelched beneath his trainers at the landing, sending birds scattering at their sudden appearance. The clearing where they'd landed was barely wide enough to contain them all, but contained an identical dais to the one they left, on which they each placed their Portkey coin for safekeeping.

Will Kennrith, tall and lean, was the first to speak. "We should split up," he said, brushing back his platinum blonde hair. "Cover more ground. Make it harder for Starker to pin us down in one area."

"No," Ernie Macmillan said firmly, already scanning the perimeter. "We should work together. We'll trip over each other trying to hide if we don't coordinate."

Rowan Kennrith, Will's twin sister, snorted. "You want us to just trample around together like a herd of Erumpents? That's stupid. He'll find us in minutes."

Susan Bones crossed her arms. "No more idiotic than scattering and letting everyone fend for themselves."

Rowan raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, glaring at them with icy blue eyes. "You're mad if you think sticking together makes us harder to find. The more of you moving through an area, the easier you are to track. We spread out, we leave less of a footprint. Simple."

"I think," Seamus said, stepping in with careful control, "some of us know a thing or two about staying unnoticed."

Will turned, his voice laced with exasperation. "Why? Because you hid at your school?"

Terry Boot stiffened. "Say that again," he snarled warningly

Rowan smirked. "Which part? That you were hiding, or that you're deluded?"

"Oi, fuck you," Seamus barked, jaw clenched as he shouldered his way menacingly through the throng of cadets. 

Will seemed unconcerned, and raised his hands placatingly. "Look, we've," he gestured to Rowan and himself, "done drills like this before. We've competed under pressure."

Michael Corner scoffed. "That's shit and you know it."

Will shrugged but didn't back down. "We've trained for situations like this—real challenges."

"Yeah?" Seamus snapped. "Well, we didn't fuck off to Amsterdam for a pot brownie holiday while there was a bloody war going on."

Will's face dropped and he frowned sympathetically. "I know it must've been hard—"

"Oh, come on," Rowan groaned, throwing her arms up in frustration. "They were at Hogwarts. Taking classes, snogging your girl in alcoves. We went to Hogwarts too. We know what it's like."

Seamus's face twisted in fury. "You fucking cunt," he snarled, trembling. 

Harry was certain it was just Neville's grip on his arm that held him in check. But Seamus shoved him back, his face contorting into an ugly snarl that Harry had never seen on him before. 

"I watched Greyback rip my girl's throat out. Watched her choke to death on her own blood. I had to hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay as she died in my arms. And where the fuck were you?"

Harry became distinctly aware of the proverbial line in the sand drawn between those that had attended Hogwarts during the previous year and those that hadn't; between those who had fought in the battle—in the war itself—and those who hadn't 

"Don't tell me you know what that's like," Seamus spat. He shook off Neville's grip, storming away from the group and disappearing into the trees, wand clenched in his fist. 

For his part, Neville didn't hesitate; he took off after Seamus, breaking through the brush without so much as a backward glance. Ernie and Susan exchanged a quick look, then followed, seemingly eager to escape the tension.

The cadets fell into stunned, tense silence.

Harry's heart pounded in his chest. He didn't move, just stared after Seamus, his own memories pressing sharp and threateningly at the back of his mind. Remus's blank eyes. Fred's blood on Percy's face while George screamed over his brother's still form. Ginny screaming during her barely-survived duel with Bellatrix. He turned to Ron, expecting a comment or at least a scoff, but Ron's face was unusually blank; stone-still and unreadable. The forest around them had gone quiet, too.

Harry swallowed hard, feeling something like broken glass settle in the pit of his stomach. He fought back his anger and sorrow and the feeling of emptiness that had hounded him in the weeks after the battle. It wouldn't do any good for him to get heated now; his disastrous misadventure tailing Slytherins through Knockturn Alley over the summer was fresh in his mind.

He remembered what Kingsley had told him: "That's part of the job now. Trusting your team. Trusting the chain of command. I know it's not easy. But it's necessary."

This was his team—it wasn't just him, Ron, and Hermione anymore. Hermione was on her own path that would probably culminate with her turning wizarding society on its head. He and Ron had a new team…and despite what he felt in the moment, the Kennriths were currently part of it.

"They fought a war at Hogwarts," Harry said quietly, forcing calm into his voice despite the lump in his throat and the anger tightening his jaw. "And not just the battle in May. For damn near a year. No one who wasn't there gets to tell them what it was or wasn't."

Will shifted where he stood, arms loose at his sides, gaze flickering nervously between Harry and the place where Seamus had vanished. "I'm not saying that you all didn't go through some hard times, but—"

"But that's exactly what you're saying," Victor Pennant cut in.

The former professional Quidditch player hadn't raised his voice, but the weight of it silenced the clearing all over again. He stood apart from the others, tall and solid, with a Beater's build and the weathered face of someone who'd taken too many Bludger shots to it—and maybe a few metaphorical ones too.

Harry glanced at him properly for the first time. Victor was around Percy's age, maybe a little bit older, but he looked at least ten years past that. His eyes were tired in a way Harry recognized from Kingsley's first visit to the Burrow after the war. The way people looked after losing something they knew they'd never get back.

Rowan crossed her arms, clearly not backing down. "So where were you then?"

Victor's gaze didn't waver. "I'm Muggle-born. I was on the run. And I'm…" He trailed off for a beat, then added softly, "I have to live with that every day."

Another cadet, Tobias Rosethorne—who Harry had learned was a year ahead of them in Hogwarts and had graduated following Dumbledore's death—snorted. "That's a lot of talk for someone who spent the war in hiding."

Victor didn't blink. "It is," he admitted, and Harry found himself appreciating Victor's candor. "I couldn't do anything except watch out for myself. I made a career out of being a tough guy, you know? Protecting my team on the pitch—off it, too, sometimes—but when it mattered…I ran. So now I'm here. It's my penance."

The words hung between them like heavy mist. No one seemed to know what to say—until Siobhan Kildare, one of the other recruits, stepped forward. She fixed her stormy grey eyes on Will and Rowan.

"By the time I heard what was happening at Hogwarts that night, the fighting was already done," she said, volunteering her own story. Her voice was taut with barely-restrained self-loathing. "I came in time only to help pick up the pieces. And what I saw…" Her lip curled. "Those students did more to end the war than most of the Ministry ever did."

Rowan looked down. Will rubbed a hand over his face in frustration.

Harry took a breath and sat back on his heels. His heart was still racing—not from the run anymore, but from the boiling edge of old grief and anger that kept flaring up whenever someone questioned what they'd gone through and survived. He caught Ron's eye and gave him a subtle nod. 

They broke away from the tense knot of arguing cadets without a word. The last thing they needed was another blow-up wasting their limited time to prepare. They slipped deeper into the trees, the air cooler beneath the thick canopy. 

"Bunch of wankers," Ron muttered. 

Harry hummed his agreement, but was all too happy to let the matter go. After a glance at his watch—ten minutes gone—they pressed forward. If Starker was serious about the whole "hide and seek" exercise, then they'd best figure out the lay of the land first.

It didn't take long; the trees thinned, giving way to a rocky beach. Beyond that, choppy grey water stretched in every direction. The whole forest, as it turned out, was nestled on a small rocky island in the middle of a wind-lashed lake. Waves pounded the shoreline, echoing up through the trees like distant thunder.

"Well, I'm not about to apparate without knowing where we are and how far we're going," Ron muttered, peering into the dark grey water. "And we're not swimming for it."

Harry snorted. "Not without some Gillyweed."

Ron gave him a curious look, but nodded. They turned back toward the center of the island. There wasn't much high ground, but a mossy ridge crowned by three thick oaks offered a good vantage point and enough cover to vanish from sight. It wasn't much of a debate—they fell into old rhythms easily, setting layered wards that shimmered briefly before sinking into the forest like mist.

Protego totalum. Salvio hexia. Cave inimicum. Muffliato. 

Harry traced the final spell in the air with his wand and stood, brushing his hands together. "That'll hold."

Ron flopped down beside a tree root, watching the clearing below. "Almost feels like cheating," he said with a joyless grin. "Those spells kept us protected from Snatchers and Death Eaters all year until someone went and broke the taboo."

Harry scoffed and rolled his eyes. "It's not cheating." There was no way Starker expected them to hide without magic, or he would have told them so deliberately. Starker never said, did, or excluded anything unintentionally or without purpose. 

"No," Ron agreed. "Just…I don't think I ever expected to use those spells again."

Harry bit his lip to hide his grin. Ron may not have used them much over the summer, but he and Ginny had tapped some of those particular spells several times over the course of their summer to get some semblance of privacy at the crowded—and thin-walled—Burrow.

The next half hour dragged, the adrenaline from earlier replaced by a heavy stillness. Twice, cadets wandered close, crunching through fallen leaves—but none of them so much as glanced in the right direction. One even stepped directly through one of the outer wards and kept walking, oblivious.

Ron grinned. "This might actually be easier than I thought."

Harry didn't answer, but allowed himself a flicker of hope. For all the physical exhaustion and mental pressure, moments like this—working in sync, figuring out problems—made the struggle worth it. This specific challenge was one that he and Ron were well acquainted with.

Then everything went quiet. Almost too quiet. No voices. No rustling of cadets in the underbrush. Just wind in the trees, the breaking of small waves, and the occasional gull calling over the water. Harry checked his watch and held up a hand. An hour had passed. Ron stilled, eyes scanning. The two of them hardly dared to breathe.

And then—footsteps. Measured, deliberate, but not intrusive as they crunched over the small stones and dried leaves underfoot. Starker appeared between two trees, not bothering to hide his presence. He walked slowly, wand in one hand, fingers of the other splayed wide.

Harry tensed. He'd seen movements like that before—Lysander Galloglass, at the mirror workshop, using his hand to sense magic in the air above Sirius's broken communication mirror. He remembered Dumbledore running his hands over the stone wall between them and Voldemort's locket horcrux. Not visual or wand-based detection, but some sort of…intuitive resonance—physically feeling the magic without any barrier or medium between you and it.

Harry's stomach sank. He shot Ron a grimace, already preparing for the worst.  

Starker stopped just a few feet from their position. He didn't look directly at them; he only let his shoulders sag as he sighed in dramatic disappointment. Then his wand made three sharp arcs through the air, and their wards unraveled like mist in sunlight. The clearing snapped into sharper focus. Harry and Ron stood exposed.

"Bloody fuck," Ron muttered under his breath. 

Harry could almost hear Hermione admonishing Ron's language in his head. But any levity that might have brought him was squashed by sharing of Ron's sentiment.

"Those are strong wards," Starker said, tone clipped. It sounded like a compliment, but Harry could sense the criticism coming. "Too strong. In the forest like this, such spell is a beacon."

Harry opened his mouth, but Ron beat him to it. "Worked well enough for us all last year."

Starker didn't blink. "Then I must be imagining this conversation, yes?" He didn't bark or belittle. Just gave them a look that managed to convey more disappointment than fury. "Back to the Portkey site. You are out."

They trudged back through the trees, wind whipping harder now across the island. The landing area had been cleared into a rough circle of packed earth and smooth stone. Will and Rowan were already there, leaning against a boulder.

Rowan raised an eyebrow when she saw them. "Well, look who it is."

Harry saw Ron's jaw tense, but before he could fire back, Will let out a sigh. "Just drop it, Rowan. He got us, too."

They didn't have to wait long before the rest of the cadets were flushed out and returned to the landing area, looking irritated and more than a little humiliated. Starker followed when the last of them—Moira Drummond and a recruit Harry only knew as "Mireholt"—were found. Starker let the silence stretch, arms crossed and expression unreadable; he drew every eye to him like iron filings to a magnet, and waited until the last of the grumbling cadets had stopped to pay attention.

"That was disappointing," he said at last, voice cold and clipped. "McLaggen," he added, pacing around the cadets toward Cormac, "you flailed through the underbrush like rampaging Graphorn. You left trail any second-rate Dark wizard could follow."

"Corner and Goldstein," he added, glancing at the Ravenclaws, "you did not even bother to hide your warding runes. Might as well left a blinking sign."

He continued, methodically dismantling each hiding place and decision they'd made, pointing out the tells, the weak points, the rookie errors. When he reached Harry and Ron, he barely glanced at them.

"And our resident war heroes," he said dryly, but without scorn. "Always together, always in sync. It is touching, really, and will eventually serve them well. But also—predictable. If I notice Potter, I know Weasley will be there, too. If I notice Weasley, then the other way."

Harry flushed slightly. Ron scowled. Starker let the words hang in the island's misty air.

"Which means we must try this again," he said, his tone sharp. "But now, the reward is lower. Only half hour more sleep for successfully avoiding me. I will return in one hour again. Use your time wisely."

With that, Starker turned and vanished into the trees as smoothly as if he'd melted into the shadows. The embarrassed silence he left behind for them to stew in was brittle and tense.

Victor glanced curiously at Harry and Ron. "So he found you because your wards were too strong?"

Harry gave a half-shrug. "Apparently." There was probably more to it, but he couldn't say well enough to answer.

Michael Corner let out a low groan and rubbed his face. "Ernie was right. We should've worked together."

Will looked skeptical. "You heard Harry—Starker found them because the wards stood out. What good would it do to shove all of us under one giant target?"

Michael shook his head more insistently. "Not one big ward. But we could've planned more, maybe. Gotten more done if we were all focused on the same task. Layered illusions. Spread our decoys. Forced him to waste time."

Ron rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "We only need to buy an hour. If he's busy tearing through wards hiding…well…nothing, that's time not spent on the real ones, yeah?"

Siobhan crossed her arms. "There's no way we'll be able to set up enough wards to buy time for a full hour. And even if we did, then what? We just hope not to be under one of the wards he breaks through?"

Rowan scoffed. "Still better than the cock-up we just pulled."

Susan turned on her. "You called it idiotic when we suggested working together. What, now it's your idea?"

Seamus joined in. "That's right. Why the bloody hell should we be trying to let you ride on our ideas after that?" Harry could feel the vindictive satisfaction in his voice.

Rowan's mouth opened in rebuttal, but Harry cut across her, his voice sharper than usual, hoping to end the argument before it began this time. "Because that's the point." Everyone stopped and turned to him. He took a step forward. "If we do it any other way, we fail."

Ernie frowned. "What do you mean, Potter?"

"Do you remember what Starker said?" Harry asked. "About what we're trying to do here?"

Will answered first. "Whoever avoided detection got more sleep."

"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "That's not what he said. Not exactly. He said—'If you can avoid detection for one hour, you will also earn one additional hour of sleep.' 'You.' As in all of us. Together."

Will's brow furrowed and his eyes took on a faraway look. "That...can't be intentional."

"You think anything Starker does isn't intentional?" Harry gave him an unimpressed scoff. "We've known him less than a month and I'm already pretty sure the man doesn't even blink unintentionally. He's got a pattern to the way he works us, right?" He counted off the list on his fingers. "He gives us a chance, lets us mess it up, he makes corrections, and then we have the chance to start incorporating that. Any other tries after that aren't because he's held things back, but because we're still working on those corrections." 

He glanced at Ron, who was nodding slowly. The others were quieter now, processing, but he could tell he was winning them over. Everything Starker did served a purpose—and usually more than one. In that way, at least, he was like Dumbledore. His lessons were layered, often looping back to reinforce ideas only fully understood later. The realization gave Harry the confidence to continue.

"He didn't pull us aside one-by-one to correct people," Harry went on. "He brought us all together and told everyone how we each failed. That wasn't to humiliate us. That was to share the mistakes."

"So we could all learn from them," Will acquiesced with a sigh of realization. 

"Collectively," Terry boot added, nodding enthusiastically. "Because he wants us to do it collectively."

Seamus let out a frustrated breath. "Fine. So we all suck together. Great. And how's that help us when he knows this island better than we do? Did you see the way he moved? He's faster, quieter, smarter—he's got the advantage. Doesn't matter how well we hide, he'll find us anyway."

Neville opened his mouth, but Seamus waved him off. "No, listen—I'm not—I'm not whinging just to whinge. Even spread out, we're going to make mistakes. Noise, broken leaves, disturbed dirt, rushed spells. We're gonna leave a trail."

Ron gave a lopsided grin. "Not if that's all we leave."

They gathered tighter as Ron laid out the core of his idea. The plan was simple in theory: they'd flood the island with false signals. Layers of decoy wards would crisscross the woods, leading Starker down winding paths to heavily warded thickets only to find nothing inside once he was done breaking through. They'd transfigure patches of brambles and shrubbery into twisted, thorny nightmares—anything to snarl up his progress or irritate his footing. Their goal wasn't to evade him forever; it was to waste his time.

Siobhan added her piece quickly, her sharp voice focused and pragmatic. "We should move as many of the trail markers and identifying points as we can. Nothing too massive or dramatic, just enough to mess with his memory, make him second-guess his bearings. Keep his eyes and mind on where he's going, not on the magic."

Seamus, catching on fast, thumped Neville's arm. "What about the tripwire charms we used last year? The ones that alert us when someone's near? If we set up a network—"

Harry, remembering the way Starker had seemed to sense the magic in the air, cut in. "That's good, but we have to be careful. He can probably trace back the magic in those charms if we're not smart about it."

Michael turned toward Terry and Anthony, the other Ravenclaws already one step ahead. "We can modify the trigger pathways," he said. "Instead of the alert going to us, it'll redirect the signal to a…something further away. Give him even more to chase."

Ron nodded. "Good. The more time he spends chasing false trails, the less he has to find any of us."

Victor crossed his arms, his brow furrowed. "Fine. But if we're scattering decoys all over, where are we actually going to hide? We still have to make sure no one gets caught."

Ron glanced at Harry and smirked in a way Harry only saw him smirk when he'd managed to get one over on Hermione. His answer came with a wry grin. "Well since we don't have any Gillyweed…how's everyone's Bubble-Head Charm?"

Harry and Ron worked quickly, darting from one edge of the island to another, setting up ward fields roughly large enough to hide a single person. They arranged them in odd patterns—some isolated, others in close clusters—anything to keep Starker guessing. By the time they were done, dozens of faint magical pulses flickered across the brambly terrain.

Elsewhere on the island, Seamus, Ernie, and Susan were crouched low behind brush and rocky outcrops, working rapidly to lay down tripwire charms in carefully selected paths. With the Ravenclaws' help, the charms had been modified: instead of sending alerts back to the cadets, the triggers would spark off minor hexes and distractions—cracking branches, rustling noises, harmless jets of steam or colored light. All of it designed to disorient and frustrate Starker

The rest of the team took to the terrain with focused spellwork. Clusters of plantlife were transfigured into gnarled thickets and briar-strewn gullies. Stones were shifted just enough to disrupt familiar paths. Even the shoreline had been subtly altered in spots—nothing too obvious, but enough to make the ground feel subtly wrong beneath the foot.

As the final minutes ticked down, the group reconvened on the rocky shore of the island's small lake. A sharp wind cut across the water, and the sky above had grown steadily greyer. One by one, they slid into the icy depths, casting Bubble-Head Charms and swimming for the lakebed.

Harry checked his watch, nodding at Ron and then Victor as the final seconds of the hour ticked away. Starker was on his way.

They settled at the bottom, huddled close together for warmth, a tight ring of bodies pressed into the lake's silty floor. The cold seeped in immediately, even through warming charms, but none of them moved. They stayed as still as possible, shoulders brushing, breaths slow inside their enchanted bubbles. Speaking was out of the question. Too many words meant too many bubbles rising too fast: too many risks of their position being given away. Time crawled. Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into what felt like hours. They checked their watches obsessively. They waited. And shivered. And waited. An hour ticked by, but they still waited—Harry's idea—just a few minutes more shivering on the lakebed to make certain they were well past Starker's time limit.

Then, one by one, the cadets surfaced, spluttering and shivering as they hauled themselves out of the chilly lake. Their clothes clung heavily to their bodies, water streaming from sleeves and hems as they trudged up the rocky beach. No one spoke at first, too focused on casting drying and warming charms, steam rising from shoulders and heads as magic pushed the cold from their bones.

Just as they began to gather themselves, a figure stepped out from the forest—Starker, his wand still in hand, sharp eyes sweeping the group with that same sort of inscrutable look.

"Very clever," he said at last, his voice neither warm nor cold. Harry couldn't tell if it was a compliment or not, until Starker continued. "Very well done. You have earned extra sleep…if you can tell me what you learned and why you succeeded."

There was a pause, then Victor stepped forward slightly. "We need to be a team," he said. "We need to be able to rely on one another."

Starker gave a single nod. "And why you won…?"

Michael, still drying off his sleeves, offered, "Because our plan was good."

Starker shrugged. "Good plan fails every day. Why did yours not?"

Harry looked up, meeting Starker's gaze. "Because we didn't play the game we were expected to play."

"Correct, Cadet Potter." Starker let the silence stretch a moment. "As Auror, you must be able to rely on your team and the Auror Office. You must contribute to larger plan. But also, you must approach the plan from many angles. The Dark wizards you hunt, they want you to play their game. But if you do, you already let them win."

He paused, eyes scanning each cadet in turn.

"You are in control. You are Auror. You must make them play your game. This is not a job with single formula. Train yourself to break the usual thinking."

With that, he turned and disappeared back into the trees, leaving behind only the soft sound of water lapping against the shore.

The group stood for a beat longer, letting the moment settle. Then, still tired but grinning now, they gathered their things and began the walk back to the Portkey drop. The instructors left them alone that evening, no lectures or drills, just the hush of satisfied fatigue and the occasional clink of tea mugs in the mess hall.

Later that night, the cadets lounged around the barracks—a single, large room packed with rows of bunk beds and lock boxes. Most of the room had gone quiet, the energy of the day drained away after that long dip in the lake. Harry could hear Cormac snoring on the far end of the barracks, and could make out a few half-whispered-to-be-polite conversations between some of the other bunkmates. 

Harry sat with Ron and the rest of their Hogwarts year group—plus Victor and Siobhan—clustered near the center of the barracks. No one had much energy left to say much, but they passed around a tin of biscuits that Molly Weasley had sent in a care package, and let the silence fill in the gaps between them.

Victor and Siobhan had joined them without hesitation—an unspoken invitation had followed naturally after the way they'd stood by the group during the earlier arguments. Their presence felt earned, not imposed.

It was into that exhausted quiet that Will and Rowan Kennrith approached, slow and uncertain. The twins paused at the edge of the group, glancing between the faces that turned toward them.

Will cleared his throat. "In full honesty…you're right," he said quietly. "We were hiding. Not…not intentionally or specifically. But we were. We could've chosen to do something, to get involved. But we were so far away. It didn't feel real."

Seamus looked up from where he was perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair. "It was bloody real for us," he said, no real anger left in his tone.

Will nodded slowly, his expression open. "I know. And I'm sorry I made light of that."

Rowan stepped forward, chin lifted just a little. "Me too," she said. "You know…without all the pomp."

Will let out a tired, exhausted sigh that told Harry this was not the first time Rowan had undermined his efforts at diplomacy with her straightforward, no-frills style. For a moment, no one said anything. Then Seamus gave a small shrug and nudged a spot open on the edge of his bunk. Ernie shifted over to make more space on the floor.

Wordlessly, the Kennriths sat down. The tension didn't vanish entirely, but it eased—just enough. Harry felt the circle around him expand, just slightly, at their inclusion' so that for the first time since meeting them, Harry felt that he and the Kennrith twins were on the same side. They would never understand what those who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts had been through…but that was okay. The Kennriths were suffering on the same critical instruction now, being trained towards the same goal. 

He shared a look with Ron, who sighed and passed the tin of Molly Weasley's biscuits over to the twins.

Victor turned casually to the Kennriths, the motion smooth but his intentions a bit obvious. "So, you two did some dueling."

Will caught on almost instantly. "Certainly," he said, smiling good-naturedly

Rowan didn't hesitate to follow. She gave a smirk that hovered somewhere between pride and performance. "Took gold in the 1992 European Wizarding Dueling Championship—junior division—when we were fourteen. Youngest ever semi-finalists in the '94 International Dueling Congress in Casablanca. Winners of the 1996 Belgian Duelling Open. Silver medalists in the '96 European Championship. And we won the '97 Valais Invitational."

Siobhan gave a mock sigh, throwing up her hands. "Alright. We get it."

Michael Corner blinked. "How'd you even find time for all that with a full school schedule?"

"We did our first few years at Hogwarts," Will replied smoothly. "At least until the debacle with the Chamber of Secrets."

Harry's brow furrowed at the mention. The memories of the dark chamber came sharp and sudden. The images of Ginny, pale and nearly-lifeless, flooded through his mind.

Will continued, apparently unaware. "It exposed Lockhart as a fraud, and we were already skeptical of the Defense instruction we were receiving. Our father's German—he arranged for us to transfer to the Schattental Akademie für Magie. That's where he studied."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of it."

"Not surprising," Will said. "It's rather small, even by magical standards. But they've got a dedicated dueling instructor and a top-tier Defense curriculum."

Susan Bones leaned forward slightly. "Are you saying we didn't have a good Defense education at Hogwarts?"

Rowan scoffed. "Are you saying we did? Lockhart was a disaster even before he was outed. And Quirrell taught Muggle Studies before taking over Defense."

Victor, a little defensive, offered, "He was a decent Muggle Studies professor."

Harry gave him a look. "Also, he was possessed by Voldemort."

Will blinked. "What? Really?"

Victor swore under his breath. "Fucking hell."

Terry Boot piped up. "So how does that compare to what we're doing now?"

Will shrugged. "Very different. Circuit dueling emphasizes flair—showmanship, really. You can win your match, but if your style points are low, you're at a disadvantage in the scoring."

Anthony Goldstein glanced over his shoulder towards the barracks doors, as if willing their instructors to materialize. "Doesn't seem like Starker gives that much weight."

Rowan let out a short snort. "Definitely not."

Ron grimaced. "Doesn't seem like he should, you know?"

Will nodded, adopting a decent—if not slightly exaggerated—version of Starker's clipped accent: "You do not get credit for bringing in Dark wizard with style. It. Is . Distraction. And it can kill you."

Ron winced. "Yeah, that one was hard to watch."

Rowan's tone darkened, matter-of-fact. "He's not wrong, though."

Harry leaned back slightly. "Still surprised we haven't done more actual dueling."

Victor shook his head. "I'm not. Starker's trying to break our old habits first. Coaches do it in Quidditch too—tear you down to build you up."

Harry hesitated for a beat, then glanced at Victor. "Alright, I've got to ask. Why leave Quidditch? My girlfriend—when she heard—she was flabbergasted. Was it really…" he thought back to what Victor had said during their wilderness excursion, "penance?"

Victor looked torn for a moment. "Part of it, yeah. Beaters have shorter careers anyway—hazard of the job, you know? But…" He exhaled sharply. "I could've gone back. Kept playing, donated to Muggle causes, set up scholarship funds, all of that…"

He paused, shaking his head, frustrated. "But none of that matters if we can't stop these motherfuckers. Because then what does anyone really care about what one Muggle-born Quidditch player thinks?"

Harry nodded slowly, filing away the answer, but he wasn't entirely convinced. If he'd learned anything it was that one person with the right drive and ideas could change everything.

Ron broke the moment with a dry grin. "Yeah, well…that definitely wouldn't convince Ginny."

Harry said nothing, but he found himself quietly grateful—not just for the glimpse into Victor's thinking, or the Kennriths' attitudes, but for the growing sense that he was beginning to understand the people he'd be working with, and the feeling of finally belonging.

Chapter Text

For a moment, Ginny felt nothing but that warm comfort of that cozy spot halfway between sleep and wake. The bed was soft, the air still, and dawn hadn't quite touched the windows yet. Her mind floated somewhere quiet and half-formed, not quite awake, not quite dreaming. There was a blanket tucked under her chin, her pillow cool against her cheek. Her school bed had always been so remarkably comfortable. For the briefest second as her eyes fluttered open, everything felt…fine.

Then came the ceiling. Not the low, slanted beams of the Burrow. Not the soft weathered canopy of Shell Cottage or the high, newly-painted ceiling of Harry's room at Grimmauld Place. It was stone, and high-arched windows. 

The sight of it dropped into her chest like ice.

She jerked upright, heart slamming against her ribs, breath caught halfway between sleep and scream. She knew that ceiling. She knew the bed. She knew the room. Gryffindor Tower. It hit her all at once, sharp and suffocating.

For a panicked, agonizing heartbeat, Ginny couldn't breathe; couldn't think. She scrabbled instinctively for her wand by her bedside as her mind raced to catch up, to explain why she was back in her dorm, why everything felt so horribly normal.

Had the last four months been a dream? The battle? Fred, Tonks, and Remus gone? Harry, Ron, and Hermione safe and alive? The end of it all? Was she still in sixth year, still fighting underground battles between essays and detentions, still dodging the Carrows in the hallways and pretending not to care while everything burned around her?

She pressed a hand to her chest and drew in a horrid, jagged gasp to ground herself against the thud of her own pulse. Slowly, her memory began to right itself. The war was over. They had won. And she had come back.

Demelza sat on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, staring blankly at the far wall. Vivienne and Jocelyn were whispering softly near their wardrobes, not gossiping, but trading murmured thoughts like passwords. None of them had really slept. Ginny could see it in the way their shoulders sagged, the faint purple smudges beneath their eyes, the dullness in their movements. They weren't just tired, they were bone-deep and soul-thin weary in a way only war could carve into someone. Whatever jubilance they had drawn from the first-night festivities had drained out of them in the darkness.

Hermione, Anya, and Cora were still asleep, their breathing slow and even behind the soft drape of their bed curtains. Ginny envied them for that. For the small mercy of one more moment in dreams. Anya and Cora, while not spared the Ministry's hatred and persecution of Muggleborns, had gone into hiding and escaped the worst of it. Both of them refused to tell anyone anything more about how and where they'd hidden, and Ginny silently suspected that was in case they had to hide there again.

For Hermione, Hogwarts had never become a place to fear. It had stayed what it always was: the place where she found her footing in the world, where her books and her brilliance gave her a kind of shield no spell could take away. It was where they'd fought their final battle—and won. For Hermione, the war had come to Hogwarts, but it hadn't hollowed it out. It hadn't taken it from her. It had been a place of victory.

But it hadn't been that way for the rest of them. For Demelza, for Jocelyn, for Vivienne…Hogwarts had been occupied. Twisted. A castle full of silence and screams. For Ginny, it had become a battlefield long before the final charge. Classrooms turned to cages. Detention rooms reeked of blood and copper. Hallways had echoes she still sometimes heard in her sleep.

And though the banners now hung bright and the floors were scrubbed clean, she couldn't shake the sense that was still lingering beneath the surface.

She swung her legs out of bed and sat still for a moment, bracing her elbows on her knees. The cold floor kissed her feet and the hush of the morning pressed around them, fragile and uneasy. She stood slowly, careful not to wake Hermione, and crossed to the window beside Demelza. The sun had breached the horizon now, casting long rays of gold through the glass and across the dormitory floor. It bathed the room in warmth, touched the worn bedposts, and glinted off the nameplates on their trunks like hope trying to take shape.

"Yeah. We couldn't sleep either," Demelza muttered. 

Ginny nodded. "I'm going on a run."

Demelza scoffed and rolled her eyes. "First day back and you're already running," she snarked. 

"Was gonna invite you to come along," Ginny sniped back. "Unless you want to keep sitting in the dark feeling miserable."

Ginny and Demelza slipped out of the dormitory a few minutes later, pulling on trainers and light jumpers as they moved through the quiet corridors of the tower. Neither of them spoke until they were through the portrait hole and out into the open air, the castle rising pale and ancient behind them in the early light.

The lake shimmered in the distance, mist curling along its surface like breath. The path around it was still damp with morning dew, the grass brushing against their ankles as they started off at a slow jog, letting their limbs stretch and shake out the stiffness of sleep…and the bitterness of memory.

By their second lap, Ginny's lungs burned in a way that felt good. Real. Routine. Familiar. It grounded her in the present better than anything else had since she woke. The world narrowed to the rhythm of their feet on the packed earth, the rustle of wind through the trees, and the growing warmth of the sun on her skin. When they finally turned back toward the castle, sweat clinging to their temples and sleeves rolled to the elbow, Ginny felt lighter somehow. Not fixed, not whole, but like she could breathe again.

Back in the Great Hall, the long Gryffindor table was already half-filled. The rest of the girls had beaten them there, heads bent over their new schedules, toast in hand and pumpkin juice sloshing quietly in goblets.

"Look who finally decided to join us," Jocelyn said, scooting aside to make room.

Ginny slid onto the bench with a grunt, reaching for a slice of toast as Demelza poured them both water from the nearest jug.

"Double Transfiguration," Vivienne moaned, holding up her timetable like a death sentence. "Nothing says 'welcome back to Hogwarts' like double Transfiguration on day one."

"With a brand-new professor," Anya added, wrinkling her nose. 

But Cassandra Shiftwell was very different from Professor McGonagall. For one thing, she was young; easily the youngest professor Ginny had ever had. If she was older than Bill, it wasn't by much. She was elegant and fashionable in a way that seemed effortless, with deep emerald robes tailored sharp at the edges, and long, ash-blonde curls swept to one side in a loose, artful twist. 

There was something striking about her; something in the way she held herself. She carried herself like a woman who didn't need to raise her voice to be obeyed, who knew exactly who she was and made you want to know too. Ginny wasn't sure what to make of her yet, but she was paying attention.

Where McGonagall's first lectures had always begun with sharper warnings: emphasizing the gravity of the subject and its ever-increasing difficulty, the severity of her teaching style, and the unacceptable nature of foolish wand-waving, Professor Shiftwell's approach was…softer. Not unserious, but personable in a way that felt almost strange at the front of a Transfiguration classroom.

"It's a daunting challenge, teaching this course," she began, pacing casually in front of the chalkboard, her deep emerald robes swishing at the ankles. In that, at least, she was very much like Professor McGonagall. "Perhaps even more so than passing it. Professor McGonagall is an incredible woman—an incredible teacher. No one knows that better than I do."

Ginny blinked at that. There had been a strange sound to that last bit. "Better than I do." Like she was in on some self-deprecating joke. 

"Transfiguration at the N.E.W.T. level," Professor Shiftwell continued, "is tremendously difficult. That's not a warning. It's a promise. But I want every one of you to know that I have an open-door policy for all my N.E.W.T. level students. If I'm not actively in the middle of teaching a class, you are always welcome to come find me. Whether you're stuck on theory, practical technique, or just trying to wrap your head around the maddening elegance of an unstable matrix…I'm here. Ask. Don't flounder."

There was a murmur of half-relieved, half-anxious acknowledgment from the class. A few quills scratched tentative notes. Then, without so much as a breath between subjects, Professor Shiftwell tapped her wand to the board and launched straight into the first topic of the year: Localized Multi-Object Transfiguration.

Within five minutes, she was diagramming wand arcs and reaction chains so complex that Ginny's stomach tightened. Three interconnected transfigurations, happening simultaneously, with separate stabilizing charms held in place mid-cast. One mistake, and the whole sequence would collapse—sometimes messily.

Ginny scribbled furiously, trying to keep pace. Beside her, she could feel Vivienne lean ever so slightly forward as if trying to physically follow the thread of logic being mapped out in chalk and midair diagrams. She could already tell she'd be making use of that open-door policy. Frequently.

Charms, at least, felt like something familiar. Professor Flitwick was just as bright-eyed and buoyant as ever, standing atop his stack of spellbooks with a cheerful wave as the Seventh Years filed into the classroom. His presence cut through the lingering nerves that Shiftwell's lecture had left behind.

"Seventh Year Charms," he squeaked brightly, clapping his hands together, "is a little different from what you've seen before. By now, you've all learned more individual spells than you can probably remember."

That earned a few tired chuckles.

"The focus this year," he continued, "isn't so much about what you know, but how you use it. Layering charms. Weaving enchantments together for stability, duration, and precision. Practical applications. And—if we're feeling bold—a little introduction to wandless spellwork to end the year."

That got everyone's attention.

Wandless magic. It was something most students whispered about with awe—rare, difficult, and usually the domain of the extremely talented. Ginny exchanged a quick glance with Hermione, whose quill was already poised for diligent notetaking and whose eyes were sparkling with a bit of the wild scholastic intensity Harry and Ron had so often complained about. This was going to be a very busy year.

Still, despite the challenge, Ginny found herself sitting a little straighter. Flitwick had a way of presenting even the most intimidating material like a puzzle waiting to be solved—never impossible, only intricate, and always exciting.

But by the time Hermione and Vivienne packed up their things to head off to Arithmancy, Ginny's confidence had started to fray.

Her notes from Transfiguration still swam in her bag, half-organized and largely mysterious. Her wand arm ached slightly from Flitwick's practical drills. And the thought of diving straight into another high-level theory course was enough to make her temples throb. She slumped slightly at the table as the others dispersed, watching Hermione disappear down the corridor with her usual determined stride and Vivienne close behind.

Ginny had never been so grateful to see the words Free Period printed on her schedule.

She let out a breath and pressed her palms against her temples. A full hour before lunch, and nothing to do but breathe and try to feel human again. It felt like a luxury. And she planned to take advantage of every second of it.

By the time Ginny made it back to the Great Hall, the long tables were full again and the clatter of cutlery and conversation echoed off the high, enchanted ceiling. She slid into her usual seat beside Demelza and reached for a pitcher of pumpkin juice, only half-listening to Jocelyn and Cora's running commentary about Shiftwell's lesson.

It wasn't until she glanced across the hall that she noticed the tension.

One of the Sixth Year Gryffindor boys—Bernard Foswick, all long limbs and stormy eyebrows—was hunched forward at the far end of the table, his eyes fixed on the Slytherins with thinly veiled fury. Two of his mates leaned in close, whispering low and fast, their shoulders drawn tight. One of them slammed a palm down on the table hard enough to rattle the goblets. A few younger students flinched.

Ginny frowned. "What's going on with Foswick?"

Demelza followed her gaze and shrugged. "No idea. He was already worked up when I got here. Hasn't touched his lunch. Looked like he wanted to hex someone."

Cora, farther down the bench, snorted lightly. "It's probably the Prophet."

Ginny turned. "What about it?"

"You two were on your sunrise jog, remember?" Cora said, passing a folded corner of the paper down the line. "Missed the morning post. Front page—they think it's a werewolf attack. First one since the battle."

Ginny's stomach sank as she unfolded the paper.

The headline was big, bold, and awful: "ATTACK IN NORTHUMBERLAND". Below it, a grainy photo showed Aurors securing the perimeter of a crumbled fence, the ground beyond blackened and disturbed, as if scorched by fire.

HALTWHISTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND — The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has launched an urgent investigation following a brutal attack late last night in a rural Northumberland village that has left a Muggle family gravely injured and two children missing. Early reports confirm a sighting of notorious werewolf Fenrir Greyback, raising widespread alarm across the wizarding community.

The attack took place just outside Haltwhistle, near the edge of the Northumberland National Park, in a secluded hamlet with no known magical residents. Ministry officials have confirmed signs of deliberate magical concealment at the scene, suggesting the victims were intentionally targeted and the attack premeditated.

Her thoughts leapt immediately to Harry and Ron. They were in training for exactly this kind of thing. She didn't know how far along they were—she didn't think they'd be sent into the field yet—but the risk felt suddenly closer, pressing cold against the inside of her chest.

Foswick and his friends were still seething. Across the room, a few Slytherins had clearly noticed, though they were doing a decent job of pretending not to. Ginny caught the glint of a Prefect badge from Astoria Greengrass and shot her a concerned look that went unnoticed. Ginny watched her expression: wary, but not combative.

It wouldn't take much, she knew, for that to change. For the powder-keg of anger and resentment to ignite. And to her shame, Ginny found herself almost wishing something would; boiling over would be easier than the feeling of impending explosion she was feeling now. She pressed her thumb into the edge of her plate and exhaled slowly through her nose, hoping to settle her nerves. 

One thing at a time. 

She gave the Slytherin table one last glance before turning back at the paper, resolving to check in with Hermione as soon as they both had a free moment. 

Ginny arrived at her last class of the day expecting something modest. Muggle Studies had always been one of the smaller, quieter subjects—an elective often overlooked or dismissed. Which, to be honest, was a fair way to look at the course. Despite taking it since Third Year, her knowledge of Muggle society was horribly outdated; her few forays into the Muggle World had certainly confirmed that. 

Her brothers—save Ron—had taken the course because of her father; his excitement over Muggles and their inventions had been a constant source of entertaining discussion around the dinner table growing up (though only Percy had pursued the subject for any rigorous, academic purpose). Ginny, on the other hand, had taken it for entirely different reasons. Though she would never admit it, Third Year Ginny had desperately hoped to impress her brother's Muggle-raised best friend with her knowledge and find some common ground with him that might be hers alone.  

But the amphitheater caught her off guard. The classroom had been magically expanded—rows upon rows of semicircular benches rising like a tribunal gallery. It was more of a lecture hall than a typical Hogwarts classroom, the kind of setup she'd expect from a Wizengamot proceeding, not a school subject.

She slid into a seat beside Demelza. The room was already filling. Every Pure-blood student in her year was present—most of the Half-bloods, too. The Muggleborn students she'd shared classes with throughout the day were noticeably absent. This wasn't just a class—it was a message.

Her eyes flicked to the woman at the base of the amphitheater, standing alone at the central lectern with an austere elegance that reminded Ginny vaguely of Andromeda Tonks…if Andi had been a few years younger and considerably more severe. Tall, with sharp features and curly greying brown hair. She wore flourishing layered robes of dark violet and ink-blue, and carried no books or case. Her presence, though quiet, was commanding.

"Welcome," the woman said, her voice smooth and carrying easily across the room without magical amplification. "I am Professor Concordia Rowle and this is Muggle Studies."

There was a smattering of whispers from among the students. A long pause followed. Not icy, but bracing.

"I expect," she began, voice calm and resonant, "that this course may feel…different than those of years past."

There was a slight stir in the seats. Ginny didn't move. She could already tell that everything about this class—this year—was designed to be a statement.

"The Ministry," Rowle continued, "has restructured Muggle Studies in full. This is now a mandatory course: all students not born into or raised within the Muggle world are required to complete this course at an O.W.L.-equivalent level in order to graduate."

The entire class was sitting just a bit straighter now. Murmurs rippled through the room. A few students shifted in their seats. From somewhere above, Ginny heard a quiet intake of breath—surprise, maybe protest—but no one spoke. Ginny caught a sideways glance exchanged between two older Slytherin boys in the front row. 

"For those of you who have already received your O.W.L. in this subject," Rowle went on, "and have completed a portion of your N.E.W.T. coursework last year, the exam required for graduation will also serve as the determinant for your N.E.W.T. qualification."

Ginny's stomach tensed. That meant her. She hadn't exactly coasted through last year, but under Carrow propaganda, the subject had been basically meaningless—more rabid propaganda than a test of knowledge. This year, apparently, that would no longer be the case. 

Rowle clasped her hands behind her back and looked up toward the top rows. "Those of you expecting a survey of electrical appliances and Muggle banking should disabuse yourselves of that notion now. This will be a study of culture, law, media, language, infrastructure, history, and identity." Her tone remained even. "In short, you will be expected to understand the Muggle world as they live it—not as we caricature it."

Ginny felt something shift in her chest. There was steel in Professor Rowle, but not cruelty. It was the kind of steady determination Ginny had only ever seen in people trying to put something broken back together. It was the same look she had seen in her parents' eyes at every family dinner since the war ended; the same look she'd seen in Harry's eyes as he set off for Auror training.

"I want to be clear," she said. "This is not punishment. This is not an attempt to shame or lecture. This is education, and it is long overdue. Any student who wishes to discuss their placement, or believes their prior experience with Muggle culture qualifies them for exemption, may do so during office hours. But I advise against trying to avoid this class."

She didn't smile. She didn't threaten. She simply let the silence speak for itself before continuing. "This course begins where most of you never thought to start: with a question so simple it's often overlooked—What is a Muggle?

"For centuries, magical society has defined the non-magical world by its limits. This class will ask you to redefine it by its complexity—its history, its laws, its culture, its media, its languages and infrastructure, its identities.

"We will examine how words like Muggle, Muggleborn, and Squib have been used as more than labels—as tools of exclusion and justification. And we will study how ignorance, even well-intentioned ignorance, creates the conditions for prejudice to thrive.

"This isn't a novelty class. You're not here to marvel. You're here to understand. Because in the world we are rebuilding, the cost of misunderstanding is too high."

Ginny followed the rest of the class up the stone steps and out into the hall after Professor Rowle's lecture ended, still turning her words over in her head. It wasn't at all what she'd expected from a class like Muggle Studies—or from a professor named Rowle, for that matter. But she couldn't deny it: under Kingsley, the new Ministry had made a choice.

And for once, it felt like the right one.

"That was…more than I expected," Demelza murmured, brows drawn tight.

Ginny nodded. "Yeah. But I think she's the real deal."

They rounded the corridor bend just outside the lecture hall—and nearly collided with a knot of black-robed figures flanked by two Ministry officials.

Ginny froze mid-step, every nerve in her body snapping taut.

Draco Malfoy.

Flanked by Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott on one side, Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode on the other, Goyle lumbering at the rear. Each of them wore plain black robes, no house colours, no crests. They looked almost…shabby by comparison. Each of them carried themselves with a strange combination of arrogance and humiliation. Something between students and prisoners.

Ginny's wand was in her hand before she'd consciously realized it. So was Demelza's.

All around them, the corridor erupted with the sharp sounds of incantations half-breathed, the shuffle of shoes and cloaks as other students emerged from the lecture and caught sight of the same group.

One spell was shouted—Ginny didn't see who cast it—and a flash of pale blue light shot toward Draco. He jerked backward, ducking behind one of the Ministry officials, who threw up a shield with fluid ease.

"You wouldn't be so quick to start a fight if I had my wand," Draco snapped, teeth bared behind the safety of the Ministry agent's shield. "Enjoy it while it lasts, because I won't be helpless forever."

Ginny stepped forward, wand still raised, fury blooming hot in her throat. "Don't talk to us about helpless, you fucking bellend."

Draco opened his mouth, eyes narrowing, with something cutting just behind his Voldemort-fellating tongue—

"Drop it, Draco," Daphne Greengrass said flatly from behind him. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the tension like a knife. Draco turned, glaring at her, but said nothing more.

The corridor was still. Suspended. Charged like a dueling ring just before the first spell.

Demelza was the one who finally broke the silence. "Who the fuck let you in here?"

Before things could escalate further, Professor Rowle swept out of the lecture hall, her robes billowing behind her as she raised both hands to de-escalate the confrontation. "That's quite enough," she said sharply, her voice firm. "Wands away…all of you."

The gathered students hesitated, but slowly began to lower their wands—though not without suspicious glances still traded between both sides.

Professor Rowle's eyes swept over the crowd before she turned her attention to the new arrivals. "As many of you are already surmising, part of the terms of these individuals'...lenient sentencing required them to complete an equivalent educational course to your Muggle Studies O.W.L. within the year."

Draco gave a smug little smirk as he stepped forward, shrugging past the Ministry official that accompanied them. "You see? We were invited."

Demelza scoffed. "Yeah, by the fucking Wizengamot."

Ginny, jaw tight, turned toward Professor Rowle, unable to keep the fury from her voice. "You know he watched Professor Burbage get murdered, right? Just stood there while she was tortured in front of them—just to make a point. Do you know how many students they beat and hexed last year? How many of us they helped carve up for fun?"

Professor Rowle didn't flinch. She regarded Ginny carefully, almost respectfully, her voice softer but no less direct. "I'm well aware, Miss Weasley. And hard as it may be to believe, I may actually have access to more of that information than you've been given. But the legal judgments have already been rendered. It's not my place to judge them further. I'm here as an educator—and my responsibility is to help these young men and women unlearn a lifetime of prejudice and bigotry."

From the edge of the group, Draco rolled his eyes.

Professor Rowle didn't miss it. "Mister Malfoy," she said sharply, "I would have expected you to take this more seriously. The leniency extended to you is contingent upon the satisfactory completion of this program. As I understand it, failure to do so will result in your original sentence being reinstated."

A flicker of discomfort passed over Draco's face, though he quickly masked it behind another sneer.

Without waiting for a reply, Rowle gestured toward the classroom doors. "Inside, all of you. Let's begin."

The Slytherin graduates filed past reluctantly, some avoiding Ginny's eyes altogether, others holding her gaze with varying degrees of guilt, disdain, or indifference. Only Daphne gave a brief, unreadable glance in Ginny's direction before disappearing inside.

Ginny stood motionless for a moment, pulse still pounding, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.

Demelza muttered, "Unbelievable," before tugging gently at Ginny's arm. "Come on. Let's get out of here before I say or do something that earns me detention."

Ginny didn't think that sounded all that bad.

By the time Ginny and Demelza rejoined the others for dinner, the story of the hallway confrontation had already swept through the castle like Fiendfyre. Students were abuzz with speculation and outrage; some scandalized, others furious, and a few, mostly Slytherins, cautiously silent. The former students—Draco, Pansy, Blaise, and the rest—had long since disappeared back through whatever shadowed corridor had allowed them in, but their presence lingered like a bad smell.

At the Gryffindor table, Ginny spotted Bernie Foswick once agan in deep conversation with a cluster of upper-year students, all of them visibly seething. They kept casting dark looks toward the Slytherin table, as though daring someone to defend what had happened. Ginny caught fragments—"can't believe they're here," "should be in Azkaban," "bloody injustice." 

And didn't disagree with a word of it.

The next morning's Potions lesson brought a different kind of tension—one she could at least manage. To her relief, Professor Slughorn seemed back to his usual self: cheerful, expansive, and clearly delighted to be dazzling them with a particularly tricky potion theory that Ginny struggled to keep up with. He moved through the lesson with a jovial flourish, throwing out names of obscure ingredients and historic potion masters with the kind of ease that reminded her exactly why people tolerated his eccentricities.

She'd take his eccentricities to Snape's sneering derision any day of the week.

Ginny glanced across the room more than once, to see if Slughorn's words were lost on anyone else. Hermione, predictably, was nodding along with every reference, occasionally scribbling notes at breakneck pace. Ginny forced herself to stay sharp. Slughorn, for all his puffery, knew Gwenog Jones and half the Quidditch-connected people in Britain. If she wanted to play professionally, keeping on his shortlist wasn't optional.

As the class wound down, Slughorn held her and Hermione back with a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye. He extended an invitation to the first Slug Club gathering of the year, set for the end of the month. Ginny accepted with a smile, even as she privately braced for another round of rich food, tedious flattery, and strategic small talk.

Still, if it helped open the right doors, she'd endure it.

After class ended, Slughorn held her and Hermione back with a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye. He extended an invitation to the first Slug Club gathering of the year, set for the end of the month. Ginny accepted with a smile, even as she privately braced for another round of rich food, tedious flattery, and strategic small talk.

History of Magic, to Ginny's surprise, felt like an entirely different subject without the ghostly drone of Professor Binns. The new professor, Calliope Harkspur, was very much alive—and keen to remind them of it. She swept into the classroom with a rustle of vibrant gold-and-yellow robes and the sharp click of polished heels, silver hair swept back into an elegant twist. She was a woman around Professor McGonagall's age, though she carried herself with a dramatic flair. Her presence crackled with energy, and her voice rang clear and impassioned as she launched straight into her intentions for the course.

Gone were the endless recitations of goblin treaties and medieval statutes. Instead, Professor Harkspur talked about connections between magical events and Muggle revolutions, between policy changes and public perception, between fear and power. They would be studying the rise and fall of institutions, how propaganda functioned in both magical and non-magical wars, and how easily progress could backslide when people weren't paying attention.

Some topics would be uncomfortable, she warned them gently. "Given what you've all been through," she added, "some lessons may cut close to the bone." But Professor Harkspur didn't apologize for the weight of the material. "History is not meant to soothe," she told them. "It's meant to wake us up."

Ginny found herself listening more closely than she had in years. Professor Harkspur's words stoked a familiar, slow-burning anger in her chest. The war was over, but everything the Professor said made it clear that the story wasn't finished. There were still choices to be made, still patterns to break. It was immediately clear just what Professor McGonagall's agenda was for her first year as Headmistress.

By the end of the class, Ginny had already filled two pages of notes—not out of some sense of dutiful obligation, but because she didn't want to forget anything. When they left the classroom, she caught Hermione's gaze and saw the same thoughts mirrored there: sober, thoughtful, and sharply aware that their education this year might matter more than ever.

Wednesday morning brought Ginny's first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson—a class she and Hermione had both been particularly eager to start. The subject had always been important, of course, but now it felt essential, emphasized by the war and the scars it had left on them all. Even Jocelyn, for all her summer talk of dropping the course—understandable given their last year of "instruction"—had decided to stick it out and seemed eager for the lesson.

Ginny hadn't shied away from talking with her friends about Alaric Vance. Their spotty record with Defense professors had made everyone rather wary of each successive one…which was only worsened by the fact that all but one had been a monster, incompetent, or some degree of both. But Harry—her Harry, savior of the Wizarding World Harry-bloody-Potter—had only great things to say about Alaric Vance. He'd managed to convey to Harry how to incorporate Apparition and Disapparition into dueling…all apparently within the span of thirty seconds.

And he'd also mentored their current Minister in the Auror Office. So…no big deal.

When she and the others arrived, Professor Vance was already waiting at the front of the classroom. He was put-together and sharply dressed, every inch the former Auror Harry had once described. His left sleeve was rolled neatly to the elbow, but his right ended in a clean fold—his arm missing from just below the elbow. 

Ginny caught sight of a younger woman, likely no older than Tonks had been, standing beside him, watching the class quietly and dutifully. She had sharp features and cool grey eyes, her blonde hair cropped short in a choppy, deliberate cut that made her look both effortlessly modern and faintly dangerous. She took a seat in the front row of the class as the rest filed in.

"Welcome to Defense Against the Dark Arts," Professor Vance began, sending the class scurrying for their seats. His voice was steady, clipped but not harsh. "My name is Alaric Vance and I will be your professor for your final year of instruction in this subject, which has been—at best—fragmented."

He paused, eyes scanning the room. Ginny noted the weariness in his face, a kind of quiet gravity she recognized from others who had seen too much. Around her, she felt the tension ripple through the classroom; wary glances, folded arms, students leaning slightly away, as if bracing for something unpleasant.

"And—at worst—abusive," he continued. "You were placed at the mercy of some horrible individuals. You have no reason to place your trust in me. I respect and appreciate that more than you know. But I will endeavor to earn that trust and remain worthy of it throughout our time together."

That earned him a few more attentive stares. Ginny could almost feel the collective tension of the students ease its way out of the room. She sat straighter.

"You'll find my approach to Defense is a bit…different from what you've had before," he said, voice steady as he paced restlessly in front of the class. He was like a caged wolf. "I'm not particularly interested in whether you can rattle off a list of jinxes or memorize a dozen obscure counter-curses. That's all useful—but it's not enough."

He stopped and turned to face them fully.

"What I care about," he continued, "is whether you can think. Can you spot a threat before it truly becomes one? Can you evaluate a situation under pressure, decide what to do, and act quickly enough to make it count? That's what this course is going to be about. Not just spells. Strategy. Instinct. Judgment."

He paused, letting that settle.

"An old friend of mine had a saying—one I think all of you would do well to remember." His gaze swept the room. "Constant vigilance. It served him well. And if you take nothing else from this year, take that."

Ginny's breath caught at the phrase. Moody.

Lisa Turpin raised her hand when Vance asked for names and questions. "Are you saying you're not going to teach us any spells?"

Ginny glanced at Lisa, noting the tension in her posture, the shadow of old fear in her voice. The question reminded Ginny instantly of her experience with Umbridge's teaching style: no wands, just silent, dutiful reading. And she could only imagine what lingering trauma thinking of Umbridge must have dragged up for Muggleborn students like Lisa.

There were some muttered reactions across the classroom—confusion, maybe even concern—but Professor Vance didn't seem shaken.

"Hardly, Miss Turpin. And ten points to Ravenclaw for the courage to question the decisions of authority and not follow blindly," he said with an appreciative nod. "I'll be evaluating each of your abilities, maintaining a careful balance between advanced defensive methodology and its practical application. This curriculum is one I personally designed after years training new Aurors."

Justin Finch-Fletchley spoke up next, curious. "You're an Auror?"

"Until rather recently," Professor Vance replied, raising what remained of his right arm with a dry smile. "Though the mindset is hard to break."

He chuckled and shared a wry smile with the woman in the front row. Ginny had the sense it was a private joke between the two—something sardonic and grim.

"What happened?" asked a voice from the back of the room that Ginny couldn't place. A few students groaned or gave him exasperated looks, but Professor Vance didn't appear offended.

"I dueled a…rather formidable Dark wizard," he said in a measured way that made it clear there was absolutely more to the story. "He proved to be more than I could handle. But I survived…where very few others had."

Someone else from the back—Ginny thought it was Maddox—asked the obvious follow-up. "Who were you dueling?"

There was a beat of stunned silence as Professor Vance seemed to visibly consider the question—though whether he was mulling over the best way to answer or whether to answer at all, Ginny couldn't be certain. But after a moment, he sighed and said: "Voldemort."

There was another beat of stunned silence.

"You dueled You-Know-Who?" Maddox repeated, his voice laced with disbelief.

"Not alone, mind you," Vance said. "But yes."

Justin blinked. "When?"

Vance's face darkened. "Four months ago," he said, his eyes going distant. "To the day." 

Ginny did the math without needing parchment. That was the Battle of Hogwarts. "You were here," she said quietly.

Vance nodded once. "I was."

Hermione leaned forward. "But you weren't part of the Order of the Phoenix."

"No, Miss Granger," he replied smoothly. 

Too smoothly, Ginny thought. Hermione hadn't introduced herself. He already knew her name. That shouldn't have been surprising

"We felt it important to maintain a measure of plausible deniability. Should the worst happen—as it did—we wanted a presence within the Ministry to help with the war effort. Kingsley and Moody worked with Dumbledore and the Order. Gawain Robards and I operated independently from within the Auror Office. We were able to disrupt some of Corban Yaxley's investigations"—he all but spat the name—"and pass critical information to the resistance. But when Kingsley sent word that the time had come, we dropped all pretense and came straight to Hogsmeade."

Dean Thomas spoke up, voice filled with lingering confusion. "How did it happen? How did things get so bad so quickly? A whole government…fell, overnight. And…" He trailed off, looking lost.

Vance's reply came carefully, his voice tinged with regret. "I think—though many of us are ashamed to admit it—that it didn't happen quickly, Mister Thomas. We became complacent. We either didn't notice the sinister rot eating away at our society's heart…or we ignored it…until it was too late."

Dean pressed further, frustrated. "Then why didn't we know? Why didn't anyone tell us?" He gestured helplessly to the students in the class.

There was a long pause. Ginny could see something shift in Vance's expression—a kind of pain that didn't come from injury.

"Adults often withhold information from our children," he said finally, after a long moment of consideration, "hoping it might protect you from the ugliness in this world until you're better equipped to confront it. Had Professor Dumbledore lived, had the Ministry held, had Voldemort been defeated by more conventional means…that decision might have seemed justified."

He exhaled sharply, rubbing his thumb along the edge of his remaining sleeve. "As it stands, however, all those things did happen. And you were placed directly in the center of a war. Too many placed their faith in a system that was failing them long before it broke."

Hermione spoke again, her voice carefully neutral. "And were you one of them?"

Vance didn't hesitate. "I'd like to believe I wasn't. 'Constant vigilance' and all. But the truth is…from top to bottom, we all failed to prevent this from happening."

Ginny saw the unvarnished honesty in his face just before he added, more quietly, "It's what compelled me to accept this post. Rather than enjoy a quiet, one-armed retirement, or some administrative job in the Auror Office."

Professor Vance strode to the center of the room with the same composed intensity that had silenced the class upon his arrival. "Now, before we begin our lesson," he said, his voice cutting cleanly through the somber mood, "I would like to introduce Assistant Professor Evelyn Pentaghast, who will be providing her wand and expertise during our time together, and will also serve as the primary instructor for students in years one through three."

He gestured genially to the young woman seated towards the front of the classroom. A soft wave of murmurs rolled through the class. Ginny exchanged a glance with Demelza, who raised an eyebrow. This was the first time any of them had seen a Defense class introduced with a second professor—especially one who wasn't a substitute or temporary hire.

Vance seemed to read their confusion. "Unusual, I understand," he acknowledged calmly. "Given the history of this post, however, the Headmistress and I felt it prudent to prepare a backup plan in the event that I was somehow…incapacitated during the course of my duties."

Demelza's hand went up immediately, her brows knit together. "Do you mean because of the curse?"

Vance turned to her, considering. "Miss…?"

"Robins, Professor Vance."

"Miss Robins," he said with a nod. "Thank you. And indeed—it is no secret that for nearly half a century, no professor has held this post for more than a year. Given the frequency and cadence of these appointments, it would be no small leap to conclude that the position itself is cursed. This is a widely accepted theory—but only a theory. Can anyone tell me why that is?"

Hermione's hand shot up before he'd finished the question.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Because it's nearly impossible to identify a curse without something to examine," she said matter-of-factly.

Vance nodded, pleased. "Correct. Five points to Gryffindor. Over the years, the Board of Governors has brought in curse-breakers from all over the world to investigate. Hogwarts was searched from tower to tunnel, and no cursed object—or traceable curse—was ever identified. In the end, many concluded that it was the concept of the position itself that had been cursed."

Ginny blinked. They'd heard the rumors for years, of course. Everyone had. But to hear it said so plainly—to have it confirmed by someone like Vance—put a chill up her spine. Still, it didn't explain how it was possible.

Hermione leaned forward, her voice tight with interest. "How does someone curse an idea?"

Before Vance could answer, Justin Finch-Fletchley chimed in, "Maybe they were wrong. I mean, they never found the Chamber of Secrets either—until second year. But we all know how that turned out."

Ginny couldn't help but wince.

"Excellent observation, Mister Finch-Fletchley. Now, can anyone offer a theory?" Vance asked. There was a beat of silence as no one answered. "Come, think: what are the differences in the way curses are identified and behave as opposed to magically concealed items and locations that contain those curses?"

The class hesitated. Ginny glanced around, then lifted her hand, pulse quickening as Vance nodded to her.

"The Chamber wasn't a curse," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "It was a purposefully-triggered attack—someone had to open it. But cursed objects are different. They leave tells. Traces. Curse-breakers can sense them—sometimes just by the way it feels when you're near one."

She thought of Bill, of the way he described working in tombs, his hand brushing over stone with that quiet, focused look that fell across his face when he was dealing with dangerous, heavy magic.

"My brother Bill—he's a cursebreaker—says he can tell a lot about a wizard just by the feel of a curse they left behind."

"Exactly right, Miss Weasley," Vance said with a nod, his tone approving. "A magical fingerprint, if you will. And as for the theory that Voldemort cursed the position—despite the lack of any traceable spellwork, artifact, or location?"

Hermione spoke again, more cautiously this time. "No professor lasted more than a year, but none of them left in the same way. Some had accidents. Some were fired. At least one was killed. But all in different ways, at different times, in different places. It would take an extraordinarily powerful wizard to curse a concept like that and leave no trace."

"Well said." Vance moved to the chalkboard and picked up a piece of chalk. "Now what if I told you that in 1955, a young wizard applied for this very position? Despite his significant magical talents, he was refused the position by the newly appointed headmaster…Albus Dumbledore. And from then on, no professor has held the post for more than a year.

"That wizard's name was Tom Marvolo Riddle," he said. There were a series of uncomfortable gasps and restless shuffling. "I see some of you recognize the name."

He scrawled a name in large block letters: Tom Marvolo Riddle. A hush settled over the room as Vance turned, raised his wand, and flicked it toward the board. The letters shifted with fluid precision, rearranging themselves into a chilling anagram:

I Am Lord Voldemort

Ginny felt her skin prickle. It was exactly as Harry had described the Diary-Tom's actions in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago. 

"Circumstantial evidence, of course," Vance said. "And I would never advise an Auror to build a case solely on conjecture. But consider the pattern. It is no small leap of the imagination to surmise that a young Voldemort, denied what he believed was rightfully his by the one wizard he could never manipulate, might well have lashed out the only way he knew how—by drawing upon his prodigious magical talents to place a curse upon an idea."

It wasn't just a theory anymore. Ginny could see it clearly: Vance hadn't been indulging them in some fanciful origin story or bragging about his credentials and accomplishments; he'd been walking them through the logic of building a case. Teaching them to not only look for magical evidence, but to weigh motive, pattern, the mindsets needed to better defend themselves against dark wizards. She realized, with a start, that they were already in the middle of their first lesson.

"This," Vance said, resuming his pacing, "is not something most of you will encounter as you go about your everyday lives. Given that Voldemort has shuffled off this mortal coil, the number of wizards capable of producing such a curse has greatly diminished." He stepped back from the board. "Standard cursed objects, however, are another story entirely. So, if everyone would take out your wands—"

There was a shuffle of motion as wands were drawn from robes and satchels.

"—we'll review your current repertoire of curse-detection spells—and perhaps I'll introduce a few new ones as well."

Chapter Text

Harry's tired eyes blurred as he tried to focus on what was in front of him. The training room smelled strongly of disinfectant and the faint metallic tang of sterilized surfaces. Every wall and desk was spotless and the air vibrated with the low thrum of enchantments keeping the place locked down and free of outside contamination. It was a cleanliness that would have made Petunia Dursley blush like a schoolgirl, but it did nothing for his ability to focus.

His sleep schedule was wrecked beyond recognition, Starker had made sure of it. Some nights they were kept awake until nearly dawn, drilled mercilessly on every line of the Auror Handbook—on surveillance procedures, arrest protocols, interrogation tactics—until Harry thought he'd start reciting the clauses in his dreams (and indeed there were some nights where Harry wasn't sure when training stopped and his obsessive dreams began). The brand new copy Kingsley had gifted him for his birthday now lay edge-worn and dog-eared with all the notes he'd scribbled in the margins. 

On the good days—if they could be called "good days"—Starker dismissed them just in time for a few solid hours of sleep before lunch. On the more regularly-occurring bad ones, the man barely cleared the barracks door before he was back, waltzing in and hauling them out for a run before breakfast. Harry suspected, only half-jokingly, that a time-turner was involved.

The caustic fumes and sharp, medicinal tang of the room, paired with his own bone-deep exhaustion, made it nearly impossible to follow the lecture. But if there was ever a time to grit his teeth and push through, it was now. Two more cadets—Sam Vexley and Dominic Alderglen—had been cut without ceremony, unable to keep pace with the relentless pressure of the program. That left twenty-three of them. Twenty-three out of the original thirty, and they were only a month in.

The pressure was only building. It was their first day of solely classroom instruction; huddled around a central table where an old crime scene was magically reconstructed in ghostly miniature for their educational purposes. Their instructor, a DMLE forensics analyst named Dovin Baan, couldn't have been more different from Starker and the rest of their field instructors if he'd tried. Instructor Baan was slight of frame, shorter than most of the cadets, with a narrow build that made him physically unimposing. His deep brown skin was unmarked, his close-cropped hair neatly lined, and his square spectacles perched low enough on his nose that he could peer over them when making a point. His robes were blindingly-white and pressed so crisply they could almost cut. 

There was a faint air of superiority in the way Baan carried himself; not arrogance exactly, but the certainty of someone who'd measured himself against the room and found everyone else wanting. The difference between him and the haggard, perpetually-exhausted Auror cadets was striking. 

"Most of you came in here thinking you know what it means to 'solve a case.' You find the clues, follow the trail, get your answers…right?" He let the question hang, scanning the room impassively. "Wrong. That's investigating a case. And it's only half the job."

He gestured to the table before him and continued, "Investigating is the process. It's taking statements, gathering evidence, testing theories, following leads. It's finding out what happened and who did it," he explained. "Solving a case means that the person responsible is brought to justice, lawfully and securely."

There was something emphatic about those last words that hung in the air; as if he was daring each of them to challenge it while at the same time leaving no room for argument.

"When they are in custody, tried, sentenced, and no longer able to commit the same offense again," Baan said. "That's the point when you can finally close the file. Not when you think you've got the right wizard, not when you have a hunch, and not when you've written your report."

He didn't pace, but stood straight, watching them with barely-blinking eyes. He didn't look like the sort of man who could win a duel. But those eyes—dark, quick—missed nothing. His manner was precise, movements economical, his every word clipped and deliberate. 

"If you mistake investigation for resolution, you leave gaps. And gaps are where the criminals slip back into the shadows," he said, his voice steady but edged with impatience. "That's when you fail. That's when you get headlines about how the Ministry had the suspect in custody last year and let them walk. That's how you get into a situation where everyone claims the Imperious Defense and are allowed to walk away."

Baan moved seamlessly, his wand flicked with a precise repeated zigzag motion before ending with a vertical slash, an overhead circle, and a second, downward slash. Harry leaned forward slightly, watching Baan's movements. There was no wasted motion; every flick, every rotation of the wrist had a deliberate purpose. Harry watched as the entire area shimmered again, the air within taking on a faintly distorted quality, like heat rising from the road in the dead of summer before coalescing over the crime scene in miniature.

"This is the Saint-Saëns Evidence Preservation Sequence, found on page twenty of your Auror handbook," Baan said, his tone even but authoritative. 

Harry nodded absently. Starker had already drilled them on the required spellwork, and Harry had filled the margins of his handbook—especially the section on handling evidence and maintaining chain of custody—with his own notes. He was beginning to understand why the copy from Tonks that Andi had gifted him for his birthday was so well-worn…and why Kingsley had insisted on presenting him with a brand-new one all the same.

Tonks's notes and annotations had helped, especially when it came to spell sequences and how to better plan your wand positioning, but she had an entire array of different quirks and habits than he did. Only half her comments on the spellwork made any immediate sense; the rest referenced conversations or lectures with instructors Harry had never met, like one boldly-circled, infuriatingly vague note in the margin next to Dark Object Containment: "Purcell #5 second motion, 1st position"...along with a doodle of what looked like a fried egg. 

Harry supposed he should have spent more time deciphering her notes before Auror training began. But in those last precious days before leaving, he hadn't been willing to waste a single moment of his remaining time with Ginny.

He imagined Hermione might have been able to make sense of it, but asking her was out of the question. Writing about anything Auror-related in letters was strictly forbidden, at least beyond vague lines like "it's hard" or "I think they're trying to kill me." Those claims—while certainly cause for concern with Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley—didn't seem to worry the Auror Office very much. Anything more detailed came back stamped in bright red, then went straight onto the "Wall of Shame" in the mess hall. The board was already a chaotic gallery of confiscated letters and immortalized blunders—each one permanently stuck there with a charm so no cadet could quietly make it disappear. It wasn't meant to mock them—at least not entirely; it was a reminder that carelessness, even in something as simple as a letter home, could make you a cautionary tale for the rest of the class.

"The Saint-Saëns is your first line of defense against losing your case before it begins," Baan lectured. "Evidence can be fragile. Mishandling it—or worse, contaminating it—can undo weeks of investigation in an instant."

"You will not always arrive to find a crime scene intact," Baan continued, pacing slowly along the edge of the tables. "And you will not typically be the first on scene. But as new Aurors you will often be assigned to secure it, which means you will inevitably come into contact with uncataloged evidence. Assessing the scene is as important as preserving it—deciding whether there are leads to follow, and whether the danger has truly passed."

Baan stopped, turning to face the class fully. "One of your most valuable tools will be the Bubble-Head Charm," he said. "It will allow you to maintain the integrity of your scene and protect yourself from any toxic or poisonous hazards. And yes—" he added, his voice dipping a shade drier, "—it will also spare you from the…odors that tend to accompany certain crimes."

Baan gave them a wry look. "Now, I have it on good authority that you're all well versed in that charm—utilizing it underwater for an entire hour is no mean feat."

A ripple of uneasy chuckles ran through the trainees as they recalled their concealment exercise that had earned them an extra lie-in. But Harry didn't laugh. His mind had flashed, unbidden, to the Chamber of Secrets—the musty bacterial smell of shed and rotting snakeskin, the sour scent of a dead Basilisk, the cloying metallic tang of his own spilled blood. He could imagine all too well what kind of scenes Dovin Baan was talking about.

"Study the Saint-Saëns, I'll be evaluating your proficiency in our next session." The words hung in the air like a threat, but Baan quickly brushed past them.

"But charms and counter-hexes will only ever take you so far. An Auror's work depends as much on what is seen—and remembered—as it does on what is cast," Instructor Baan continued. He made a sharp gesture with his wand and sent an overly-large Pensieve floating down onto the table at the center of the room. The silvery liquid within swirled lazily, catching the light.

"Which brings us to memory work," Baan said. "Extraction. Preservation. Interpretation." He motioned to the Pensieve on the table before him and gestured for the cadets to gather closer. 

Baan rested his hand lightly on the rim of the shallow stone basin. "This is called a Pensieve," he said, his voice low and deliberate. "Do not mistake it for a parlor trick or curio shop novelty. A Pensieve is one of the most valuable investigative tools we possess—an anchor for memory. It allows us to draw recollections from the mind, preserve them in their original state, and examine them as though we were present ourselves."

His expression sharpened. "But understand this as well: Pensieves are not harmless. They reveal events, yes, but without context. What you witness inside one can be manipulated by omission, or even weaponized if misapplied. Too much exposure to another's memories can disorient you, cloud your judgment, even leave you vulnerable to suggestion. And—" his gaze swept the room, weighing each trainee—"a memory willingly given is one thing. A memory ripped out by force is another entirely. Those can cause wounds that do not heal easily."

Silence pressed close for a moment before he continued more evenly. "Now, are any of you already familiar with this device?"

No one stirred. A few cadets shifted in their seats, but hands stayed down. After a beat, Harry raised his own.

Baan's eyes fixed on him at once. "Only you, Potter?"

Harry nodded once, trying not to squirm as a ripple of interest passed through the others.

Baan regarded him carefully for a moment before seemingly shelving his curiosity. "Memory is not truth," he continued, reiterating his earlier point. "It is perception. And perception, as you will continue to see, is always filtered—by fear, by bias, by emotion, and by what the subject believes to be important at the time."

He let the words hang, then drew a slim vial from the table. Its silvery contents swirled, luminous under the sterile lighting of the room. Harry recognized the preserved at once. "Observe closely. This memory comes from a field training exercise conducted last year. One witness. One perspective."

Baan tipped the contents into the Pensieve and activated the spell to draw the cadets into the memory. The silvery surface rippled and pulled them in. Harry found himself standing in a dim corridor, following after a figure in dark red robes ahead, the gleam of a Ministry sigil on the man's lapel. Clear, sharp, as though the details had been etched in glass. But the rest—a wall clock missing its hands altogether, the shadowed shapes of other figures in the background, the hallway itself—remained indistinct, smudged, and unfinished; shifting color and density as though the memory could not entirely decide on the details. 

A blink, and they were pulled back into the training room.

"Did you notice?" Baan asked, once the cadets had shaken off the vertigo of dropping into and out of memory. "The man in red robes—strikingly detailed. The sigil on his clothes, plain as day. And yet, only vague silhouettes where others stood. Entire details of the surrounding physical setting were left incomplete. Understand that this is not degradation of the memory. What the subject noticed is what the memory preserves with clarity. Everything else blurs to the edges; our minds fill in the gaps. Multiple witnesses may have seen the same scene. But their recollections will never be identical. One may focus on the attacker's wand. Another, the cries of a bystander. A third may recall the smell of blood before they recall the layout of the room."

Harry's mind tugged elsewhere—back to Dumbledore's circular office lined with spindly-legged tables and silver instruments, back to the silvery basin in which Dumbledore so often sifted and studied his own memories. The headmaster had used the Pensieve to organize, to return to past clues with fresh eyes. Even then, Harry had understood it was a way of fighting the fog of perspective.

Baan's voice sharpened again. "This is why memory analysis is as much an art as it is a science. It requires training—not only in extraction but in interpretation. And it is why Aurors are required to examine their own memories with some frequency. The more familiar you are with your mental terrain, the more precise and dependable your recall will become."

Harry spoke before he thought better of it. "But memories can be altered," he said quietly. Slughorn's face came unbidden to his mind—the thick fog of the tampered memory he had once given Dumbledore, trying to obscure his part in Voldemort's dark studies. "Changed, even falsified."

Baan's head turned, eyes narrowing with something like approval. "Excellent point, Cadet Potter. Memories can be altered. Trimmed, rearranged, distorted, even replaced—though not easily. That is why memory evidence is no longer admissible in court. A wise decision, though painful in certain historical cases. But do not mistake inadmissibility for uselessness."

He stepped closer to the Pensieve, his voice low but edged. "Even when tampered with, a memory reveals much; about the person who crafted it, about what they feared, about what they sought to conceal. Altering a memory requires extraordinary discipline: precision, focus, magical control, and—most crucially—foreknowledge that the memory will be examined. Most witches and wizards cannot touch a memory without leaving traces. A warble in the light. A fog across the surface. A disjointed transition. These are not merely imperfections. They are tells. And tells can be followed."

He let that sink in before continuing. "That is why we cross-reference. When multiple memories of the same event are examined, and one diverges significantly, it is rarely a simple error. It is interference. The dissonance between them is the evidence. We cannot use it to prosecute, but we can use it to further guide our investigation."

Harry was glad for the modicum of approval that Baan sent his way. He'd been trying to impress upon all of his instructors just how serious he was about his training since they had started, but most of them didn't seem to know what to make of him—Harry Potter, vanquisher of Lord Voldemort—suddenly being under their charge and subject to their critiquing. And Starker didn't seem to care one way or another who Harry was when, for the first time in his life, Harry so desperately wanted to be noticed and acknowledged.

He'd been striving for that acknowledgement since they walked into the training room that morning, but Harry could feel his attention slipping and his eyes losing focus. He was always more action and instinct than procedure and analysis, and Instructor Baan seemed entirely too focused on the latter. Harry knew keeping his eyes from glazing over was going to be more and more difficult the longer Dovin Baan spent on the correct forms and specific scenarios where memories-extraction warrants could be requested.

Baan continued droning on about the intricacies of Form 7-M: Pensieve Access & Memory Extraction Warrant Application, and its tangle of sub-forms. Harry had taken a few lines of notes; marking down that Section One covered applicant details, Section Two dealt with the subject's identity, and that there were addendums for voluntary consent and chain of custody. The rest of Baan's lecture blurred into the same Ministry jargon that seemed designed to make everything sound twice as dull as it already was.

He sighed heavily and stifled a yawn, fighting against his recurring tiredness, and hoping that Baan's instruction would get to the part where they had the opportunity to test out their wandwork before his disinterest in the subsequent forms became too difficult to hide.

"Are we boring you, Cadet Potter?" Baan asked sharply. 

Harry's vision snapped back into focus and he locked eyes with Baan. He swallowed hard and shook his head, blinking his heavy eyelids rapidly to try and inject some life back into his expression.

"No, Sir. Sorry, Sir," he muttered pathetically.

Baan gave him a long, withering look not unlike the ones he'd received from Professor McGonagall when running late to Transfiguration. But then, just like that, he moved on and was back lecturing about Form 7-M(c), something called a "Dark Artefact Adjacency Waiver" that was required in the rare case when a memory was suspected of containing magical contamination.

"Now," Baan said, clasping his hands behind his back, "I'd like you to work on your reports detailing the memory we just witnessed."

Harry glanced down at his parchment and felt a twist of regret. Somewhere halfway down the page his notes had given up and unraveled into owls and Snitches swooping between scraps of sentences and abbreviations for terms he'd never be able to connect to one another. Exhaustion had steered his quill more than diligence, and now the scattered fragments in front of him were no use at all for piecing together a coherent report.

And this time there was no Hermione to help him stitch everything back together.

Across the room, Baan's voice lifted in approval as he moved between desks—praising Anthony Goldstein for his precision, Michael Corner and Terry Boot for their thoroughness, and Will Kennrith for a clear, balanced analysis. Harry wasn't remotely surprised. Ravenclaws always had a gift for turning lessons into neat order, and Will had always seemed the steadier of the twins. Expecting them to falter here would have been like expecting Hermione to hand in a blank roll of parchment.

Harry rubbed at his temple, glancing sideways. Ron's parchment looked no better than his own, and Rowan Kennrith's quill dangled lifelessly between his fingers. The three of them shared a weary, defeated look as Instructor Baan's praise kept rolling. It wasn't hard to tell who was keeping pace—and who was floundering.

When Dovin Baan reached his desk and scanned the scrawl Harry had managed, the disapproval on his face was instant. Harry could almost feel the weight of it pressing down harder than any detention glare McGonagall had ever given him. His rough field instincts—scribbled fragments of impressions and gut-feelings—stood in obvious contrast to the rigid neatness Baan seemed to expect.

Harry bristled before the man even spoke. "I wasn't even on the scene," he said, trying to defend himself. "All I had to go on was the memory, and you've just spent half an hour reminding us that memory testimony is unreliable."

Baan's eyes narrowed, and his voice cracked like a whip. "And I would grant you that much, Cadet Potter, if your report were not sloppy! You switch tenses in the middle of a sentence. Your pronoun use is vague and nonspecific. You muddle through subject and object all at once. it's unreadable—unenforceable!"

Harry rolled his eyes before he could stop himself, thinking sourly that Dovin was enjoying the chance to put him in his place. It would have been a Snape-like move…if Dovin wasn't right. 

"The details matter," Baan insisted, his tone cutting and precise. "If you cannot collect and organize your evidence in a clear and concise way, you cannot guarantee a conviction in a court of law."

Harry's voice rose in frustration. "We know who we're after!"

Dovin's expression hardened further. "We know now. But what happens after that, Potter? When we have apprehended the remaining Death Eaters and you are tasked with gathering evidence against, identifying, and tracking down suspects in entirely new situations? Most cases are not solved by a duel in a courtyard with the whole of society watching."

Harry's jaw tightened. The words landed sharper than he wanted them to. Resentment and embarrassment burned hot on his neck—he'd faced worse than any parchment assignment, hadn't he?—but guilt followed close behind. Kingsley had warned him over the summer, that he'd have to earn his spot among the Aurors. Here, among cadets who had never fought in a war but could write reports that read like polished essays, he was both respected and embarrassingly unrefined. 

And now everyone knew it.

"Don't stress out, mate," Ron whispered, giving him a gentle nudge. "Didn't seem that impressed by mine either."

"Ravenclaw Paperwork Bias," Susan Bones muttered under her breath.

She said it like it was an old and recognized phenomenon. Harry, remembering that her aunt had been Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, wondered if it was one of those old Ministry refrains that carried from department to department.

"Hundred galleons says Baan was in Ravenclaw, too," Rowan teased, pushing back from her desk and parchment like the report was poisonous. "I swear Will can smell it on someone else."

"Will was in Ravenclaw?" Ron asked.

Rowan goggled at him like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "What the fuck other house could he have been in?"

"What about you?" Susan asked.

"Gryffindor, obviously," Rowan said with a proud flip of her hair. 

"Great, there's more of you," Susan groaned, her mock-glare dancing from Harry, to Ron, to Rowan, and back. 

"At least we know who to go for when we have questions on paperwork," Ron said with a dramatic sigh. 

"You mean now that you can't rely on Hermione anymore?" Susan quipped teasingly.

"Just about," Harry muttered.

Baan dismissed them for breakfast not long after. Harry couldn't remember ever feeling more relieved to be released from a lesson—his brain felt like it had been wrung dry and then stuffed back into his skull sideways. For once, even the thought of a Starker-ordered morning run sounded preferable to another minute of parsing paperwork procedures. 

"Once you have some food and your wits about you we'll move on to the more difficult subjects," Baan explained as they filed out of the training room.

Harry fell in with Ron and the rest of the cadets on their way to the mess. Twenty-three of them all told, hardly a crowd, yet the corridor still felt crowded with muttering and shuffling. The Ravenclaws up ahead had a bounce in their stride, no doubt still riding the glow of Baan's praise over their spotless paperwork. Harry clenched his jaw, swallowing the lingering bitterness. The sting of Baan's critique hadn't worn off yet, sharp as it had been in front of everyone. Starker's barked corrections might have been rough, but they always landed like lessons for the whole group. Baan's, though—Baan's had felt like a scalpel aimed at him and him alone.

They filed into the mess hall and found the morning spread waiting: porridge, toast, and a pot of tea that looked like it had been boiled sometime yesterday. By Weasley standards—by Molly Weasley's standards, especially—it barely counted as a meal. Harry sat down with Ron, who muttered something under his breath about how this couldn't even be called breakfast. Harry didn't disagree.

As they dug in, the low hum of instructor voices carried over from the staff table. The word "incident" surfaced more than once, just loud enough to cut through the scrape of cutlery. Harry leaned back, trying to catch more, but the talk dropped into careful tones the moment cadet ears tilted their way.

Victor Pennant rose from their bench and strolled over, his easygoing nature smoothing the tension. It was always easier for him—older than the rest of them, a seasoned professional, and still carrying that natural authority from his days flying with the Kenmare Kestrels. The instructors rarely shut him out when they weren't "on-task"…and of course they hadn't saddled him with the same messianic weight Harry seemed to drag everywhere he went.

When Victor returned the whole bench leaned toward him. "Confirmed Greyback attack," he said quietly. "Haltwhistle, up in Northumberland. Family mauled. Two children missing." He paused, face grim now. "And signs of intentional magical concealment. Not just a random attack."

The mess hall shifted with the news, a ripple of unease that moved through the cadets like a draft of cold air. Harry could feel it in the silence that followed Victor's report—forks stilled over plates, eyes flicking between one another, the scrape of quills as some of the Ravenclaws immediately bent over parchment, already scratching out theoretical profiles of Greyback as though he were another academic exercise. Harry's spoon stilled in his porridge. Their detachment made Harry's stomach drop in a way that had nothing to do with the food. Across from him, Seamus looked stricken, his shoulders tight, his jaw locked.

Will broke the quiet, his voice mild but cutting into the tension: "That's rather unusual, isn't it?" Curious looks darted his way. "The full moon isn't for another two days. Which means…he would've had to attack them without transforming."

Ron gave a humorless snort. "Not a problem for Greyback." When Will turned that same curious gaze on him, Ron made a vague clawing gesture at his own face. "He's got…wolfishness, all month. Teeth. Claws. Just not the full wolf form."

"Fascinating," Will murmured. "Has anyone ever tried to study that? I've never heard of a case like it before."

That was the wrong thing to say. Seamus froze, then snapped, voice breaking through the room like a curse. "Study it? You think this is something to study? While people are getting torn apart—kids taken—you lot are sitting around building bloody profiles and calling it fascinating?" His voice rose, raw and furious. "What good are procedures and theories when there are monsters out there killing people right now?"

The hall went still again, but this time from shock. 

"Seamus," Neville tried placatingly.

But Seamus didn't hear him…or pretended not to. "We're wasting our time," Seamus snarled. His breath came in short, hard bursts, his face blotched red with anger. "Sitting around, learning forms and spells and filling out bloody paperwork—we should be out there. Every minute we're in here is another minute Greyback's free to rip apart someone else's life."

Harry let him burn out the worst of it. He knew that fire—that anger—had lived with it himself for almost a year. "I get it," he said quietly. "I do…more than you know."

"Don't give me that," Seamus snapped. "You don't get it."

But Harry was already on his feet, a hand closing on Seamus's arm. "Come on," he muttered, tugging him toward the corridor before the shouting turned into something worse.

"What the fuck, Potter," Seamus snarled once they reached the outside hall. 

Harry's voice hardened. "I do get it, Seamus. Sirius, my godfather…he let anger push him straight into a trap. The night Voldemort came for me—the first time—Sirius went after Peter Pettigrew without thinking, and it cost him twelve years in Azkaban. One of his biggest regrets."

Seamus's mouth worked, but no words came. He wanted to argue—Harry saw it—but there wasn't anything to say. Harry wasn't even certain Seamus knew who Pettigrew was and why he was important to the story.

Harry pressed on. "And I did the same damn thing. The Department of Mysteries, back at the end of Fifth Year. Everyone told me not to go, that I was rushing in blind. But I didn't stop to think they might understand something I didn't. I put Ron and Hermione in danger…again. I put Neville in danger. I put Luna in danger…I put Ginny in danger. Even knowing all the mistakes people had made before me, I never slowed down to think. Just like Sirius when I was a baby." His chest tightened, the memory sharp even now. "I know what it's like to want to act without waiting. To feel like stopping for even a second will cost someone their life."

Seamus's eyes burned, his voice a low growl. "That's all well and good, Harry. But I'm not in this to…I don't have a godson I should be prioritizing, or other people trying to follow after me. I want to kill this fucker. And I feel like every minute I'm not out there looking for him is just another minute wasted."

"I know," Harry said again, softer this time. "But we've got to be smart. Greyback's not like Voldemort. He isn't afraid of dying."

"Neither am I." Seamus's voice came out feral, teeth bared. The irony wasn't lost on Harry.

"Damnit, Seamus," Harry muttered under his breath. "Will you bloody listen? I'm saying Greyback's fighting for something, not just himself. That means he has a cause." He gave Seamus an expectant look, but Seamus didn't seem to register his meaning. "That means the worst way you can hurt him is to throw him into the deepest, darkest hole we can so he can live out the rest of his days knowing he failed and there's nothing he can do about it. Knowing he'll never get the chance to finish what he started."

Seamus gave a bitter, dangerous little laugh. "Oh, right. Like you did with You-Kno—Voldemort? He rotting away in some dungeon where the rest of us don't know about it?"

Harry shook his head, calm but unflinching. "I spent two years afraid that might be true; that my only option was killing him. And when I finally faced him, I asked him not to fight. To try for remorse." His throat tightened, but he forced the words out. "I knew he wouldn't—he couldn't…couldn't even conceive of it. But that's the point. We didn't make it through all of this just to become like them."

For a long moment, Seamus just glared, chest rising and falling like he was still half-ready for a fight. "Ever think that's why they won?" he asked finally, voice hoarse.

"They didn't," Harry said, firm now. "We did."

Seamus's mouth twisted. "And what if they try again? What if we're not enough next time?"

Harry met his gaze, steady. "That's why we have to be better. So there isn't a next time."

After word of the Greyback attack reached the Auror Academy, the cadets were marched back to their barracks while most of the instructors were summoned straight to the Office. It drove the point home—just how thinly stretched the department really was, if even their instructors had to be pulled from training to chase a lead.

The barracks felt tense when they returned. The memory of Seamus's outburst still lingered, and Harry could tell by the way Seamus kept his eyes down that he was embarrassed. Luckily, no one seemed inclined to give him grief over it. A few cadets had pulled their wands and were practicing the Saint-Saëns sequence. 

Terry Boot, struggling through the transitions, groaned. "What am I doing wrong? I can't get the shift right between the Veritas and the Impressio."

Harry hummed absently in acknowledgment, only half listening. His mind kept drifting outward—to the world outside their little bubble. To Ginny, Andi, Teddy, Hermione, and the Weasleys. So with their instructors pulled back to the Office and a rare pocket of downtime, he set to writing his long-neglected letters instead. 

He and Ron had been piggybacking theirs throughout the end of the summer when writing to the same people. They sent shared envelopes stuffed with letters to the Burrow for Ginny, Arthur, and Molly, to Grimmauld Place for George, or to Hermione at her parents' flat in London. But they hadn't yet sent anything since seeing the girls off from King's Cross. They'd been at Hogwarts for almost a full week, going to classes, keeping a lookout for Filch and Peeves, probably already clashing over how they were going to split time between revision and Quidditch…all without him and Ron. And that felt…wrong.

He'd never been to Hogwarts without either Ron or Hermione. And now Hermione was there without them both. And Ginny…she'd done an amazing job holding it together over the summer. She'd shared with him just how terrible her sixth year had been. He couldn't imagine how difficult it was to go back to that same place. He just hoped that—whatever clashes she and Hermione had—they were also looking out for one another. 

He had just finished his letter to Ginny, keeping his descriptions vague enough to slip past the Auror censors while still dropping hints she would recognize. Complaining outright about instructors was out of the question, but he'd learned he could lace in subtle references that Ginny would catch—and if she missed one, Hermione certainly wouldn't. 

We went swimming this week. I don't think anyone expected that (I'll have to thank Fleur for her swimming lesson) and the day after we got an extra lie-in: a full half-hour because we did so well! Our usual instructor (the one that's a bit Moody) gave us a break today. Instead today had us in a classroom. Our instructor for today would give McGonagall a run for her money. No surprise: classroom stuff isn't where I shine.

He and Ron had been far too pleased with themselves when they'd hit upon the scheme: a way to keep sharing their experiences even when distance and regulations seemed determined to cut them off. It was a game, a workaround that kept the four of them connected, trading the satisfaction of recognizing a clue and knowing they were all still in it together.

Harry folded his letter to Ginny, setting it aside as he stretched out the ache in his fingers. He was about to start on his next letter to Molly and Arthur when he caught the tail end of Will Kennrith correcting Terry's stance.

"You need to pronate your wrist more," Will said, demonstrating. "Otherwise you break the sequence—the spells cast separately instead of compounding."

"It's stupid uncomfortable," Terry muttered. "The last motion in Custodia leaves you wide open."

"The Saint-Saëns isn't meant for dueling," Harry said, not taking his eyes from his letter. "It's just for securing a scene."

Terry snorted. "Try arguing that with Starker."

Harry smirked. "I thought you were smarter than to try that."

"I think we're all smarter than that at this point," Ron muttered from behind his own letter.

Michael Corner, wand in hand, sighed. "Would be nice to do more dueling, though. Especially with everything going on out there." He gestured vaguely at the world beyond the walls. "Feel like practice couldn't hurt."

Cormac McLaggen leaned back on his bunk. "Maybe Starker doesn't want you to show him up, eh, Potter?"

Harry couldn't tell if McLaggen was joking or not, so he only shrugged.

"I mean, whole lot of people saw you out-duel You-Know-Who—"

"You should say his name," Harry interrupted flatly. "Voldemort. Tom Riddle. Doesn't matter anymore—he's gone."

He didn't miss the pointed looks shared by the cadets that hadn't come up with him through Hogwarts. In a group filled with potential Aurors, all with curious and puzzling inclinations…If he were being honest, he was surprised they'd gone three whole weeks without broaching the whole Voldemort discussion. 

McLaggen gave him a two-finger salute. "My point exactly. Not a lot of other people willing to talk about him so candidly," he said. "I'm betting Starker is a bit intimidated."

Harry shook his head, swallowing the flicker of irritation McLaggen always seemed to bring out in him. "I don't think Starker is nervous about Voldemort, me, or anyone else at all. You all saw what he did to that training dummy."

McLaggen leaned back in his chair, mouth twitching into a half-grin that Harry couldn't quite read. "What's the matter, Potter, don't think you can take him?"

It was the way he said it—too casual to be serious, too pointed to be harmless—that made Harry wonder whether McLaggen was needling him or trying to butter him up. Either way, the other cadets' attention was on him now, waiting to see if he'd rise to the bait.

Harry met McLaggen's gaze and gave him a tired look. "That's the wrong way to look at it. It's not about dueling at all. I just…" he thought back to Instructor Baan's criticisms, and then his own conversation with Seamus. "I need to learn, right? There's so much further to go."

That seemed to take the air out of it. A couple of the other cadets exchanged glances, disappointed there wasn't going to be a spectacle. With no fresh bragging or gossip, they drifted back to their own conversations, but it would only be a matter of time before the Voldemort topic arose again. And he'd eventually need some sort of an answer when it did. 

That's part of the job now. Trusting your team. That's what Kingsley had told him. 

As daunting as it felt, Harry knew he'd have to widen his circle of trust beyond the handful of people named Weasley or Granger. When he glanced down the row of bunks, he caught Ron's eye. The look they exchanged said enough—Ron had come to the same conclusion.

Victor Pennant, though—ever aware of the tensions in the room—took a look at Harry's stack of parchment and tried to redirect. "That's a lot of letters, mate. You getting your fan mail coming through the Auror Office? They told me they weren't going to allow mine."

Harry chuckled, holding up his stack of delivered letters that he had yet to respond to. From Ginny, Hermione, Molly (and Arthur, though he'd had far less to say), and Andi (packaged with a Muggle polaroid of Teddy). "No. But I've never been good about writing people, so after everything…I'm trying to be better at it."

"Writing to your girl, then?" Victor teased. "The one who said I was mental for giving up Quidditch."

"Just finished," Harry said without thinking. "This one's to Ron's mum."

The laughter was explosive, breaking through the gloom like a firework. It startled the room into sudden brightness, and for a moment it felt as though the shadow of the morning's news had lifted. The shift was jarring—only moments before, the cadets had been stiff and subdued, whispering about the reports from Northumberland, or stressing over evidence preservation, or anxious about whether to talk more about Voldemort. 

Harry froze, realizing what he'd said. He gave Ron a horrified look. "Wait—"

Ron winced and shook his head. "C'mon, mate," he groaned. "You can't just say things like that."

Seamus smirked, his grin cutting through the anger and anxiety from before. "Yeah, you're already shagging his sister," he said, his sharp teasing wit finally resurfacing.

Victor was nearly doubled over. "Wait, Quidditch-Girl is Weasley's sister? We've been here together for three weeks! How am I just hearing about this now?"

"Because Harry's a respectful bloke," Ron said grandly, "and out of consideration for our long and enduring friendship, we've agreed not to talk about certain things with each other."

Victor tilted his head thoughtfully, then, after a beat: "So you didn't know about him and your mum, I guess?"

Ron cursed, Harry groaned, and the barracks erupted again.

"Why don't we all just go back to talking about Voldemort?" Harry muttered.

Chapter Text

The final class of the week ended, and Ginny felt the relief sliding off her shoulders like a physical weight. She gathered her Muggle pens and stationary from the workbench, still somewhat in disbelief in her freedom to use them again at Hogwarts. They'd been banned last year, an honor usually reserved only for items from George's shop or the most dangerous of magical artefacts. Ginny had still used them, of course, in a show of defiance.

But it had earned her her first taste of the Cruciatus curse.

Across the room, Hermione was already launching into talk of weekend revisions—not even waiting until they'd left the dungeon classroom.

"—Especially Transfiguration," Hermione said briskly, as though the essay due first thing Monday were a matter of life and death. "If we set aside some time tomorrow afternoon, we can compare notes and polish them properly."

Demelza groaned, slinging her bag onto her shoulder. "You'd think we could survive at least our first weekend without quills in hand," she muttered.

Vivienne wasn't far behind, grumbling something under her breath that sounded suspiciously hostile, before sighing and admitting, "I do need to get this one right. Transfiguration is still my weakest."

Ginny slid her hand into her bag and found her essay there, plenty satisfied with her efforts. She was confident hers would hold up well enough. After all, if Quidditch was her professional future, a perfect string of N.E.W.T.s didn't matter half so much. Not that she was about to admit that aloud to anyone but Demelza at the moment.

Demelza, as it happened, caught her expression anyway and shot her a wry, jealous look—half accusation, half admiration. Ginny did her best to ignore it politely, fastening her bag with deliberate care.

The classroom door creaked open, and Gareth Croft strode in, offering Slughorn a courteous greeting as he did.

"Ah, Mr. Croft!" Slughorn's booming voice carried across the room. "What a treat. I don't suppose you've come to rejoin my class?"

Gareth ducked his head, looking a touch sheepish. "Sorry, Professor. I'm actually here to collect Ginny. Professor McGonagall wanted a word with us."

"I shall restrain my disappointment," Slughorn declared, pressing a hand theatrically to his chest. "Though the effort will be positively heroic, I assure you."

Gareth chuckled, though Ginny couldn't help but think there was something just slightly rehearsed about the sound. "For the safety of students, staff, animals, physical structures…general emotional wellbeing…probably best I stay far away from any cauldrons."

Slughorn's eyes twinkled. "A shame. Your mother was an excellent student in her time."

Gareth gave a small shrug. "I think I inherited Dad's talent—or lack of it—for Potions. Mum's the one who keeps her shop running."

"An apothecary, if I'm recalling correctly?"

"That's right."

"And your father?" Slughorn leaned in with the interest of a man who always had another name to file away. "What's Richard up to these days?"

"Department of Magical Cooperation. Trade law, mostly, if I've got it right."

"Must be a busy man these days."

"You don't know the half of it," Gareth said with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm surprised I saw him at all this summer."

"Well, do give them my regards, won't you? And if you should feel the urge to try your hand at Potions again, you've another week before you'd be too far behind."

"I appreciate it, Professor."

"And even if I can't tempt you back," Slughorn added slyly, "feel free to stop by. I've heard pleasing things from my Slytherin prefects about how you conducted yourself on the Express…though I think we could have done without the threat of docking hundreds of House points?"

Gareth tilted his head wryly. "Honestly? Wasn't even sure that was something I could do."

"Clever! I do hope to see more of you, Mr. Croft."

"I'm always open to a bit of elbow-rubbing, Professor. Just name the time and place."

Ginny watched the exchange with a kind of muted astonishment. Gareth seemed to fall into step with professors so easily, like it was second nature. Where she usually had to navigate her words with care, he made it look like a game he'd been playing his whole life.

Ginny slung her bag over her shoulder and waved off Hermione's talk of essay revisions, following Gareth out of the dungeon. The two of them wound their way through the corridors, past straggling students making their ways back to their dormitories, until they reached the spiraling staircase that led up to the Headmistress's office.

The gargoyle leapt aside at Gareth's muttered password—which, Ginny noted, sounded nothing like the "Morgana" password McGonagall had issued her—and the staircase carried them upward. When the office door opened, Ginny expected McGonagall's usual sharp composure; the crisp efficiency she'd seen since term began. Instead, she found the Headmistress mid-laugh, seated across from Professor Shiftwell in the glow of late afternoon light.

"…and the poor boy was nearly in tears," Shiftwell was saying, her hands miming little arcs of tears down her cheeks. "Utterly heartbroken that he had to transfigure a mouse into a snuffbox. Kept whispering that he didn't want to hurt it. I had to swear on my life that the mouse would be perfectly fine—even if I had to make sure of it personally."

Ginny smiled despite herself, remembering the same assignment from years prior.

"And you know what?" Shiftwell added, her eyes glinting with mischief. "When I counted the mice at the end of class, one was missing!"

McGonagall groaned, though her lips twitched as if fighting a smile. "Cassie! Now we'll have mice in the dormitories."

Shiftwell only laughed harder. "Well, it's a good thing our Headmistress can transform into a cat."

That earned the tiniest slip of a grin from McGonagall before it was immediately buried under a pursed expression like she'd bitten into something sour.

"Oh, come now, Aunt Minnie," Shiftwell teased, leaning back in her chair. "What was I meant to do? March into the Hufflepuff dormitory and demand the boy hand back a mouse?"

Ginny stopped short as she stepped through the doorway, staring at the two professors in disbelief. She turned toward Gareth, who looked just as caught off guard. "Aunt Minnie?" she mouthed.

He gave her the same bewildered look back, brows raised nearly to his hairline.

McGonagall cleared her throat with brisk precision, rising from her chair as though nothing unusual had happened. "Ah. Good. You're both here. I trust we didn't keep you waiting?"

Gareth shook his head. "No, Ma'am. We were just chatting with Professor Slughorn."

"Oh!" Shiftwell's eyes brightened. "Has he announced the first gathering of the Slug Club yet? Those were always quite fun."

McGonagall made a small, noncommittal sound in her throat. Ginny caught it at once, sharp and dismissive, and couldn't help noticing the eye-roll Shiftwell gave in response. The easy familiarity between them made Ginny frown slightly—why had she never heard of McGonagall's niece, or whatever Shiftwell was, until now?

"Well," McGonagall pressed on, her tone brisk again, "thank you both for coming. I shan't keep you long this evening. You both, of course, know Professor Shiftwell." Ginny and Gareth both nodded. "Cassie—err…Professor, I expect you've already noticed Miss Weasley and Mister Croft in your lessons."

"Of course," Shiftwell replied, her voice formal but her eyes amused.

"Excellent," McGonagall said. "I want to continue our discussion from the Welcome Feast."

Ginny tilted her head. "Those 'irons in the fire' you mentioned?"

"The very same," she said with a nod. "I asked Professor Shiftwell to join us because—and I'll ask you to keep this in confidence—Professor Slughorn will be gradually passing his duties as Head of Slytherin House to her over the course of this year."

"Wow!" Gareth broke into a grin. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you, Mister Croft," Shiftwell said warmly.

"Do the Slytherins know yet?" Ginny asked.

Shiftwell nodded. "Yes. Professor Slughorn and I have had several meetings with our House in that regard." She glanced at McGonagall. "Now, about these 'irons' you mentioned…"

"I'm more curious about this whole 'Aunt Minnie' business," Ginny cut in, unable to help herself.

McGonagall shot Professor Shiftwell a look sharp enough to slice through troll hide.

Shiftwell grimaced, flushing. "I…hadn't meant for you to overhear that."

The glare softened, but only slightly. "Professor Shiftwell is my goddaughter," McGonagall explained crisply. "But I'd thank you not to share her…affectionate nickname with the rest of the student body." Her gaze pinned both of them in place. "Including former students."

Ginny's grin came automatically. "You mean Harry?"

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall said flatly, "has better sense. I am far more concerned about your brothers."

"Which ones?" Ginny asked, though she already suspected the answer.

"All of them," McGonagall deadpanned.

Shiftwell laughed lightly. "Ah—those must be the Weasley twins I've heard so much about."

The laughter in the room faltered. Ginny felt the breath catch in her chest, hot and aching as thoughts and memories of Fred came rushing to the forefront. His name didn't even need to be spoken for the hollow to open inside her, sudden and sharp. The mischief and warmth he'd carried through every corridor of this castle; the way their professors, even McGonagall herself, had to struggle not to smile at his antics. All of that joy seemed to swell in the silence, as if daring her to acknowledge how absent it now was.

The air in McGonagall's office grew heavy, stifling. Ginny shifted where she stood, fighting the burn rising in her throat. Fred's presence was everywhere: in the brilliant inventions he and George sent from their shop, in the faint laughter that still seemed etched into the stone walls, in the way her family carried themselves differently now, missing a piece that couldn't be replaced.

"Miss Weasley?"

Ginny blinked, throat still tight, her mind clawing back from that sudden, searing emptiness Fred's name had left behind.

"Ginny," McGonagall repeated, sharper now, though the concern in her eyes softened the edges. "Are you alright?"

"What? No—I mean…yes." She swallowed hard, forcing the dread back down. "I'm alright."

She caught the quick, silent exchange between McGonagall and Professor Shiftwell, and hated that she was being so transparent.

Before the air could grow heavier, Gareth jumped in. "So…those irons?"

Ginny didn't miss the flicker of relief that crossed McGonagall's face as she turned back to business.

"Yes, of course." McGonagall straightened, her voice brisk, all business. "As you know, during Voldemort's—well, let us call it what it was—his occupation of the Ministry and Hogwarts, his supporters took pains to elevate Slytherin House above the rest. Some of the students were emboldened by that. And others—those whose families were not directly tied to the Dark Lord's cause—were, at the very least, willing to turn a blind eye. That complacency was dangerous. And it has left no small measure of bitterness in the school, and beyond. For many, Slytherin has become synonymous with complicity."

Ginny noticed Professor Shiftwell's gaze sink toward the floor, shame softening the brightness in her face.

"Oh, stop it, Cassie," McGonagall said, dismissively but not unkindly. "None of this is on you. There were many failings…and not just by Slytherin House. What matters is what we do next." She turned her attention back to Ginny and Gareth. "When we talked last, Mister Croft brought up a very valid point: that the House Cup naturally breeds competition between the four Houses. Now, there's nothing wrong with competition—"

"Until it escalates as far as it has," Shiftwell added quietly.

McGonagall nodded. "Exactly. I cannot simply abolish the House Points system—it's written into the original founding charter of this school. But what I would like to do is provide alternative outlets for this competitive energy."

Ginny frowned, cautious. "You don't mean like…the Triwizard Tournament, do you?"

A rare spark of dry humor crossed McGonagall's lips. "Hardly. That was a bit too focused on individual achievement. Even if it was dressed up under the guise of school unity. No—I'm proposing some new initiatives. And I would like your help gathering support from the student body."

"What sort of initiatives?" Gareth asked, leaning forward.

McGonagall's lips curved almost imperceptibly. "I thought you might ask." She reached for a stack of folded papers on her desk, sliding them toward the pair of them.

Ginny unfolded the packet of pamphlets McGonagall had pushed across the desk. She unfolded it and let her eyes skim across the top lines, her heart giving a small jump as she read the bold headings:

The Hogwarts Exhibition of Spellcraft

The Colloquium on Wizarding Careers

Wizarding Apprenticeship Convocation

The International Symposium for Magical Innovation

The International Student Summit on Wizarding Unity

Each leaflet went into greater detail, outlining dates, locations, aims, and opportunities, but what struck her most wasn't the promises written there—it was what was missing. Not a single mention of Houses pitted against one another. In fact, it was quite the opposite.

"You're looking to…distract everyone from inter-House competition?" Shiftwell asked, glancing up from her reading with a tilt of her head.

"Not so much distract as demonstrate that there is a world beyond the distinction," McGonagall replied, her tone exploratory but steady. "For far too long, a student's House has determined more than their quarters or their colors—it has dictated their associations, their prejudices, even the opportunities afforded them long after leaving these halls. That must end. And if ever there were a year to begin that change, it is this one. Hogwarts is, first and foremost, a school. And as such, it must provide the opportunity."

Gareth leaned back slightly in his chair, frowning as if weighing each word. Then, with a thoughtful nod: "The future is determined here every day."

A knowing smile flashed across McGonagall's face. "Yes. I heard about the Minister's speech. And I would like to prove him right."

Ginny lowered the pamphlets into her lap. "So what do you need from us?"

"I will post this information publicly and make an announcement to the student body next week during breakfast," McGonagall said, folding her hands on the desk. "But I would like you and Mister Croft to discuss these events with the prefects beforehand. And I would appreciate it if you spearheaded this initiative from the student perspective."

"Yes, Professor," Ginny said, her voice crisp, though she felt Gareth's easy confidence in the room contrast with her own still-developing grasp on authority.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed slightly, as though she had caught the flicker of doubt. "Speaking of prefects—I haven't yet been given the patrol schedule. Is there some reason…?"

Ginny winced inwardly. "We're…meeting Sunday to hash that out," she admitted.

The Headmistress gave her a long, level look—the kind that suggested she could see the exact root of Ginny's delay, right down to her reluctance to wade into tedium and responsibility when it was so much easier to focus on Quidditch. "Good. See that you do. The staff will cover patrols until then."

Ginny ducked her head, cheeks warming, certain that McGonagall knew precisely how far she'd been putting it off.

The silence that followed felt like dismissal. Ginny stood slowly, shaky despite herself; still jarred by the earlier mention of "Weasley twins." Fred's name hadn't been spoken aloud, but the absence was deafening all the same. His memory still shimmered at the edges of her days, bright and mischievous, impossible to ignore, and infinitely painful.

She had been keeping herself busy all summer, doing everything she could do to keep from thinking of the "Weasley Twins," building a wall of routine; of Quidditch games, Defense revisions, lazy afternoons, and time with Harry.

The school term had brought new distractions: new professors, new term jitters, essays, her nerves about prefect business—all of which kept her from letting thoughts of him in too much. But Shiftwell's casual mention had slipped through her defenses, ambushing her. And now his laughter, his pranks, the irrepressible energy he had woven into every corridor of Hogwarts pressed against her chest until the office felt too warm, too close.

"Before you go," McGonagall said briskly, breaking through Ginny's thoughts, "am I understanding correctly that you've already booked the pitch tomorrow for Gryffindor's Quidditch tryouts?"

Ginny nodded.

A small, satisfied smirk tugged at the corners of McGonagall's mouth. It wasn't the expression of a Headmistress—it was too biased, too familiar—but of the old Gryffindor Head of House who had once guarded her players and her students like a lioness. The favoritism was obvious, and Ginny almost smiled at the sight of it.

McGonagall knew. She always knew. The subtle redirection towards Quidditch was exactly what Ginny needed. She felt the knot in her chest ease, just slightly.

The Gryffindor common room was unrecognizable by the time Ginny returned. Someone had dragged a wireless in from Merlin-knew-where, and the air was alive with music and bursts of laughter. Butterbeer bottles clinked as they passed from hand to hand, sparks from wayward spells fizzed like fireworks near the vaulted ceiling, and the room pulsed with the reckless joy of release. It was loud, messy, chaotic—the sort of party that only Gryffindors seemed capable of conjuring without a moment's planning.

For the older students, it was a kind of homecoming. Third Years and up had been carrying a week's worth of tension like invisible weights, waiting to see if Hogwarts would feel like Hogwarts again or something else entirely. And now, with lessons behind them and no detentions yet to dampen their spirits, the dam had broken. Their laughter was louder, their magic flashier, their relief contagious.

Music pounded from the corner where someone had bewitched the wireless, the familiar rasp of the Weird Sisters clashing now and then with bursts of Muggle songs Ginny didn't recognize—some fast-paced, jangling sort of rock that had to be popular with Muggles this year, though it felt almost alien to her. Over it all rose the shouts of upperclassmen, their voices carrying above the din as they passed Butterbeers around with a kind of shameless cheer.

The younger students weren't so quick to join in. Ginny noticed the Second Years clustered in a nervous knot near the fireplace, eyes wide, expressions caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. It was no wonder. Their only frame of reference for Hogwarts was last year's nightmare—the Carrows strutting about like jailers, Snape's cold indifference, the constant fear of saying or doing the wrong thing. The sight of upper-years shouting over music, tossing back Butterbeer, and charming cushions into airborne battles must have looked like some forbidden rebellion.

The First Years, meanwhile, lingered on the edges, pressed close to the walls as though afraid to step too far into the current. Their shyness was expected, though Ginny guessed it went beyond that. They'd arrived at the castle already carrying stories from the Prophet, hushed warnings from parents, reminders that Hogwarts hadn't been safe. And now here they were, surrounded by roaring Gryffindors letting loose like the war had never happened. The First Years watched with wide, owlish eyes, torn between wanting to belong and fearing that belonging might mean trouble.

Ginny took it all in, weaving her way through the throng with the confidence of someone who had grown up, and thrived, in noise and chaos. The sheer sound of it—the shouts, the off-key singing, the occasional crack of a misfired spell—burned pleasantly in her chest. For her, this was familiar, comforting: life reasserting itself, wild and loud, against the silence of last year and the hole in her heart.

Hermione had chosen the farthest corner she could find, a fortress of parchment scrolls and ink bottles spread across the small table in front of her (Ginny still couldn't imagine choosing quill and ink over the convenience of Muggle pens). Every so often, she glanced up, her eyes sweeping the common room with equal parts disapproval and resignation. Inevitably, her gaze found Ginny, fixing her with a frown that seemed to say, Really? You're Head Girl and you're letting this stand?

So she tried for diplomacy, weaving through the crowd with a glass of the fizzy pumpkin-and-apple concoction that had been passed off as a special treat for the night. Hermione accepted it without looking away from her essay, muttering a distracted "thanks" before setting the glass down, untouched.

"You know," Ginny said lightly, planting a hand on the table, "you could at least look like you were enjoying yourself."

Hermione huffed, dipping her quill again without answering. Ginny sighed, settling back. Clearly, a peace offering wasn't going to win her over tonight without further convincing.

Hermione's quill finally stilled. She looked up, her eyes sweeping the chaos around them—the spells bursting against the ceiling in harmless sparks, the wireless screeching through another Weird Sisters chorus, students dancing clumsily on the tables. With a sharp little frown, she reached out and plucked a bottle from the hand of a startled First Year hurrying past.

"Ginny, this is a bit much, isn't it?" She sniffed the contents like it might be poison.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Hermione. It's Butterbeer."

Hermione pressed the bottle back into the First Year's hands, shaking her head. "There's alcohol in it."

"Barely," Ginny scoffed.

"That was a First Year," Hermione said pointedly, the words edged with disapproval.

Ginny arched an eyebrow, suspicion curling into her smile. "Are you telling me you hadn't dran Butterbeer at that age?"

"Not until I was allowed to go to Hogsmeade!" Hermione shot back.

The look Ginny gave her said plainly she didn't believe a word of it. "But you had no problem sneaking past Hagrid's three-headed dog and brewing Polyjuice in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom?"

Hermione flushed scarlet, stuttering, "Tha—that's entirely different and you know it!"

Ginny leaned against the table, grinning. She'd landed the hit. Hermione ducked her head, muttering something under her breath and covering her embarrassment with a long sip from the fizzy drink Ginny had brought over earlier.

Ginny took the gesture as a quiet surrender—and acceptance of her peace offering.

"This is hardly appropriate behavior for Head Girl," Hermione admonished gently.

Maddox Brightly, clearly hovering near the edge of tipsy, came stumbling over with a wide grin. "Yeah, but it's spot-on for Quidditch Captain!"

A round of cheers followed from the seventh-year boys clustered nearby, the usual mix of hopefuls and diehard Quidditch fanatics. Even Rycroft was among them, looking more reserved than the rest but undeniably enjoying himself.

Vignette had already claimed her own circle, chatting easily with a mixed group of sixth years. Ginny wasn't surprised. The girl was quick with a joke, quick with a story, and—unlike most of them—hers weren't shackled to the war or Voldemort. It was no wonder she was popular.

Maddox shoved a metal flask into Ginny's hand. One sniff was enough: Firewhiskey. She passed it right back without taking a sip.

"I've got Quidditch tryouts to run tomorrow," she said firmly. "I'm not looking to get pissed tonight."

"C'mon, Cap!" Maddox slung an arm around her shoulders, grinning lopsidedly. "You're a shoe-in!"

Ginny extricated herself neatly from his grip, polite but unmistakably done with the gesture. She caught Hermione stiffening like a cat spotting water. Ginny herself didn't mind a party, but the casual arm-around-the-shoulders from her cousin's ex-boyfriend was not something she planned to indulge.

"That makes one of us," she answered coolly.

"Aww," Maddox groaned, already scanning for reinforcements. His eyes lit on Demelza. "Dee! Help me out here! Our fearless leader won't take shots with me!"

Demelza broke off from their circle of friends—Viv, Jocelyn, Anya, and Cora—and leveled him with a flat look. Ginny caught her meaning in an instant; they didn't need words.

"Who can blame her?" Demelza said evenly. "No one wants to be hung over on a broom at eight in the morning."

"Eight in the—well—I mean—" Maddox turned in desperation toward Hermione. "Granger, I'm sure you could whip up a hangover potion, right?"

Hermione's glare could have peeled paint. "If you can't overindulge without a magical cure, perhaps you should have continued taking Potions."

Maddox rolled his eyes and tried to smirk through the sting. "Oh, c'mon. I bet you'd brew a potion for Potter and Weasley."

Ginny smirked, eyes flicking toward Hermione. "Shows what he knows."

For the first time, Maddox faltered. The grin slipped, replaced by a lost, blinking look—like he was only just realizing the joke wasn't landing.

Ginny glanced away, finding steadier ground in the little signals of her team: Demelza with her first Butterbeer, Jimmy and Ritchie each nursing Muggle fizzy drinks. Responsible, ready for tomorrow. She gave them a small approving nod. Maddox followed her line of sight, and the wind seemed to go out of him all at once.

Rycroft came over, elbowing Maddox in the ribs with practiced ease. "Is this dork bothering you guys?"

Hermione didn't look up from her corner, quill scratching steadily across parchment. "Well, I am trying to work on this essay for Ancient Runes. I'd really like to get it done so I can go to the Quidditch tryouts."

"Oh—excellent!" Rycroft's whole face lit up. "I'm taking Runes for my N.E.W.T.s, too. Do you mind if I pick your brain on a few things tomorrow while we watch?"

Hermione gave a distracted nod, already sinking back into her essay.

Maddox squinted at her. "Didn't think you were a big fan of Quidditch, Granger."

"Well, no," Hermione answered absently, her eyes dancing back and forth from her notes, to her textbook, to her essay, "but I promised Ron I'd let him know how the team shapes up." Her eyes flicked to Ginny. "I assume you and Harry planned the same?"

Ginny smirked, a teasing lilt in her voice. "Ron, too."

Rycroft's eyebrows pulled together in something that sounded almost like an accusation. "Why? Does Ron not trust Hermione to do it right?"

Maddox gave a loud, exaggerated "oof," as though Ron's absence had just landed a blow.

Hermione, apparently deaf to the undercurrent, kept writing. "Honestly, it's smart he did. I know the rules, but I don't follow the rhythm of the game the way Ginny does. She'll notice things I'd miss—how the Chasers are meshing, or whether a Keeper's confidence is slipping. Ron wanted a clear picture, and it makes sense to get it from someone who actually sees those subtleties."

Rycroft blinked, a little taken aback. Ginny, meanwhile, found herself increasingly weirded out by how invested he seemed in the whole matter.

But Hermione looked up just then, utterly oblivious to the tension. "Do you think the Egyptian hieroglyph M31 aligns more closely with the Elder Futhark Jera rune, or with the Fehu rune?"

Both Maddox and Rycroft froze like an owl in wandlight, too startled to summon even a guess.

Mercifully, the portrait hole banged open and Dean Thomas stepped in, trailed by a small knot of visitors: Luna Lovegood, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and a Hufflepuff girl from Hermione's year whose name Ginny couldn't immediately place.

A cheer went up as Dean and Luna made themselves known, the sound rippling across the common room. Both had acquired a sort of celebrity shine among the Hogwarts students—word had spread of the Malfoy dungeons, of their return to fight in the final battle. They spotted Ginny and Hermione almost at once, heading over before Maddox or Rycroft could press further into the earlier conversation.

Luna folded Ginny into a warm hug. "Hello, Ginny! How are your classes?"

Rycroft leaned back, a teasing edge in his voice. "You're in most of the same ones, aren't you?"

Luna nodded with bright enthusiasm. "Yes. That's why I'm asking," she said before turning back to Ginny. "I think they're rather interesting, don't you? Although I do wish we would cover more of the Rotfang Conspiracy in History of Magic if we were really going to expand our thinking."

Rycroft blinked. "The what-now?"

Maddox grinned, clearly thinking himself clever. "Loony Lovegood's got some crazy theories. You gotta give her some slack."

Rycroft's brow furrowed, genuine confusion tightening his face. Ginny knew he'd seen Luna at enough gatherings over the summer to know better. "Loony?"

The air shifted at once. The noise around them softened, tension drawing in like a tide. Ginny felt herself bristle. Even Hermione's quill stilled, and she cautioned a disappointed glance up at the swaying Maddox, her essay forgotten.

Dean's voice carried quiet disappointment. "Mate."

Maddox looked around, baffled. "What? What'd I say?"

Luna's hand found Ginny's arm before she could bite out a retort. Her tone was mild, her expression serene. "That's all right, let him be. It's really quite unfortunate, you know? It must be rather boring, always choosing the smallest thought in the room when you could try a bigger one."

Hermione choked on her fizzy drink, spluttering through a laugh and cursing as the spill splashed her parchment.

Luna, unbothered, continued smoothly. "I do hope you try a bigger thought one day, though. They're much more interesting, and sometimes they even come with friends you didn't expect."

Maddox's mouth worked soundlessly, stammering, stunned into silence.

Dean chewed his lip, shoulders shaking. "Bloody hell, Luna. I think you killed him."

Rycroft, still blinking around, looked utterly lost. "I'm clearly missing something."

"People used to call me that quite a lot; 'Loony,'" Luna explained, tone light but with steel in its center. "But most everyone's been quite kind since last year. I suppose it's because, after everything we've been through together, they've learned there are better things to do than make up names for people they don't understand."

Rycroft's posture softened, caught off guard. "Oh. That's…"

Ginny cut in before he could stumble further. "A lot has happened since Maddox went to Ilvermorny." She left it at that, though irritation burned under her skin. Maddox was proving more tiresome than charming—too familiar with her for her liking, a past with her cousin he'd never bothered to mention, and now dragging Luna back into old cruelties. Harry had been right at the Leaky: Maddox fancied her. But to Ginny, that only made his carelessness sting sharper.

Maddox was spared further humiliation when Logan Drake—seventh-year Prefect and fellow Gryffindor—appeared at his elbow and hauled him away toward a cluster of boys starting up some drinking game. Logan shot them all an apologetic grimace over his shoulder.

Rycroft lingered, brow furrowed. "So…what's going on?"

Hermione studied Luna for a moment, as though weighing how much to share, before she finally answered. "It was rather…common practice to torment Luna."

Luna tilted her head, unconcerned. "I wouldn't call it torment. They just hid my shoes for weeks at a time, or charmed my things to float away when I reached for them. Sometimes they pretended I was invisible and spoke through me as if I weren't there."

A flash of shame crossed Rycroft's face, and his voice cracked with horrified embarrassment. "God. Luna, I'm so sorry. I had no idea that—"

"Of course not," Luna interrupted gently. "Maddox couldn't have known that things had changed. I think it just reminded everyone else of how cruel they used to be."

Silence followed, heavy and uncomfortable.

Ginny felt it pressing into her chest. Her own memories stirred unbidden—the careless way she'd once used the word Loony herself, a thoughtless echo of the wider school. The way she'd stood by, silent, as others mocked Luna through their second and third years. She'd been desperate back then, raw from her first year and desperate not to be singled out again. Joining in—or at least not standing against it—had been the easiest way to keep the spotlight off herself.

It wasn't until later, after Voldemort's return, after Cedric's death and Harry's abduction, that she'd forced herself to reckon with it. That she'd admitted how she'd failed Luna when Luna had been the one person who might have understood.

Dean broke the silence, his voice steady. "You're new. No one blames you for not knowing."

Rycroft exhaled slowly, some of the stiffness leaving his shoulders, though awkwardness still clung to him. He offered Ginny a polite nod. "Good luck at tryouts tomorrow." Then, glancing at Hermione, he added, "I'll see you in the stands."

With that, he slipped away into the crowd, leaving Ginny with the uneasy churn of memory and the warmth of Luna's unshakable calm beside her.

The next morning dawned sharp and clear, and Ginny was already awake before the faintest light touched the windows. Demelza stirred at the same time—whether from habit, nerves, or Ginny's restless movements, she wasn't sure. They dressed quickly and slipped down to the kitchens, where the elves pressed warm bread rolls and fruit into their hands, wrapping up enough for a proper breakfast later.

By the time they stepped onto the Quidditch pitch, the mist was still curling low around the grass, and the hoops loomed like shadows in the early light. They mounted their brooms for a few warmup laps, cutting smooth lines through the cool air, before sliding into the easy rhythm of Chaser drills. It felt familiar, like the weeks of practice they'd stolen over the summer, just the two of them.

Demelza caught the Quaffle cleanly and tucked it under her arm, calling out, "I don't suppose we can count this as my tryout?"

Ginny grinned, circling back around. "Would hardly be fair. Besides, Harry made Ron do it."

Demelza rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that's our model." Her tone carried just enough sarcasm to soften it into teasing. "But how many times did Wood make the team try out once he settled on them?"

Ginny shrugged, helpless. "Not sure. They tagged me to play Seeker when Umbridge banned Harry. I think Angelina just wanted to keep a high number of Weasleys on the team, you know?"

"Ugh. Nepotism." Demelza's eyes sparkled even as she groaned.

Ginny laughed, shaking her head. The truth was more complicated. Wood hadn't wasted time making the proven fight for their spots, and Angelina had only run tryouts for Keeper that one year. Why would she challenge what worked? Harry had been the youngest Seeker in a century, catching Snitches in storms, one-handed, and half-blind. The Chaser trio—Angelina, Alicia, Katie—had been nearly flawless together for a full five years. And the twins—

Her chest tightened, the thought unfinished. She cut it off before it could draw her into memories of laughter, of chaos, of happier, easy days, and of two identical grins that didn't exist in the world anymore.

This was her team now. She wasn't here to inherit anything—she was here to build it; new and better.

Movement caught her eye, drawing her back. Students were drifting down from the castle, some with brooms slung over their shoulders, others walking empty-handed and curious. She nudged Demelza and pointed. Jimmy Peakes and Ritchie Coote led the group, shoulders squared, clearly determined.

They landed to wait, the crowd swelling slowly into a mix of hopefuls and spectators. And then she spotted Dean, dressed in Quidditch gear. That surprised her—and pleased her.

"Decided to join us after all?" she called, raising her voice just enough.

Dean shrugged, playing casual, though his eyes betrayed more. "Yeah. Coming back here…it's tough without…you know."

Ginny did know. Dean stood there alone, without the friends he'd grown up alongside—Seamus, Neville, Harry, Ron—all of them off in Auror training, stepping into the adult world. She had enough trouble swallowing the feeling of being left behind herself; she could only imagine how much sharper it must cut for Dean, watching the rest of his crowd move on without him.

Her gaze shifted as the stragglers appeared from the castle. Maddox was one of the last, swagger muted this morning, his steps dragging as if the party still clung to him. He looked worse for wear, though she suspected he'd try to bluff otherwise once they were airborne.

She blew her whistle, calling everyone to order. The cluster of brooms and eager faces shuffled into a line.

"Looks like everyone here is from Gryffindor this time," Ginny announced.

That earned a ripple of laughter—those who remembered Harry's year as captain hadn't forgotten when Ravenclaws and even a Hufflepuff or two had shown up to take their chances.

"Alright, let's see what we're working with," she said briskly, and sent them off for the basics: laps to check control and stamina, sharp dives and climbs on her command to test nerve.

She hovered overhead, sharp eyes tracking every wobble, every risky move. It didn't take long to sort them in her head. A few were winded before they'd even completed their second lap. Some veered too close to others in their dives, reckless in a way she knew she couldn't afford on her team. But then there were the standouts.

Demelza, Ritchie, and Jimmy—no surprise there. They moved in near-perfect sync, instinctively aware of one another without so much as a glance. Harry's drills were still working their magic.

Dean, though—he was rusty. Too rusty. His grip and movement on a broom was fine, but his reflexes were dulled; his broom didn't respond with the same kick it once had. Ginny bit back her disappointment. He'd been through hell. Still, it stung for the team.

And then there was Maddox.

She wanted to roll her eyes at the sheer confidence rolling off him, but there was no denying it—he flew like someone who had just carried his House to a championship. Every turn was crisp, every dive deliberate, every climb bursting with force. He flew like he talked: loud, sure of himself, leaving no room for doubt.

Ginny had to admit it, grudgingly—he was good. Maybe even as good as Demelza.

Still, sentiment had no place here. She clipped her whistle again, called them down, and made her first round of cuts, crisp and fair, based solely on what she'd seen in the air.

Next came the position drills.

She started with Beaters, charmed Bludgers whizzing across the pitch while moving targets shimmered in and out of view. It was one thing to hit with power, another to do it with accuracy. Jimmy and Ritchie, unsurprisingly, were steady as ever—clean swings, clean strikes, always with an eye on the following target and how their hits might cascade through to the next.

Bernie Foswick and Briony Cartwright, both Sixth Years, showed some promise too. Briony wasn't the strongest, but she had a knack for timing her hits, redirecting with surprising precision. Bernie, on the other hand, was built like he belonged on a professional pitch already—big, strong, and fearless. His aggression showed in every swing. But he had tunnel vision, eyes fixed on the Bludger in front of him without always tracking the rest of the play. Ginny marked it down; a Beater who lost sight of the bigger picture was a liability, no matter how strong his arm.

Then came the Chasers. She sent them into passing triangles, the Quaffle darting between three players while she mentally subtracted points for sloppy throws or dropped catches. After that, an obstacle course—tight turns, hoops, and sudden stops—testing how well they could handle the Quaffle under pressure and still keep it moving.

By the time they'd finished, she was already spotting patterns. Demelza excelled when someone matched her pace, sharp and unstoppable at top speed, but she struggled to slow down for less adept partners. Maddox, irritatingly, was proving himself as a reliable all-rounder, smooth under every test. Dean wasn't quite at their level; his passes lacked the snap, his reflexes just a fraction behind. But it wasn't a gulf. Ginny found herself thinking that if he could shed the rust, he might still close the gap.

Cuts followed, then mini-scrimmages—Chasers versus Beaters in shifting combinations. Ginny kept her eyes sharp, noting not only who shone individually, but who clicked together. Chemistry mattered just as much as raw skill.

For Keepers, she kept things simple. Each one faced ten attempts against randomized Chaser trios. Ginny barked out orders and mixed the line-ups to keep them guessing. She watched for agility, for split-second decisions, for that essential calm when the Quaffle came flying from an unexpected angle. Most faltered.

Only two proved worth serious consideration: Thaddeus Hawthorne and Reid Carrick. Both flew with sharp, quick movements, recovering even when a shot slipped past. The rest crumbled too easily under pressure, panicking when they were caught wrong-footed and failing to recover through the next set of Chasers.

When it came time for her next round of cuts, Ginny hesitated over the Chasers. She kept her list broad, trimming only where she had to. Sometimes the ones who looked average in drills came alive in scoring play, and she didn't want to miss a spark.

Still, the standouts were obvious. Samuel Faulkner—Maddox's friend—had speed and sharp instincts, and Natalie McDonald, the Fifth-Year Prefect, showed more poise and clever passing than some of the older candidates. Ginny filed both firmly to the top of her list.

Finally, it was time for the Seekers.

Ginny released the Snitches, watching the pitch dissolve into instant chaos—broom handles clattering, elbows flying, near misses as hopefuls darted after flashes of gold. Exactly as she wanted it. Seeking wasn't like the other positions; it demanded a player who could tune out noise and pressure, chase a single thread of motion while the world unraveled around them.

It struck her that this was the first time in years that Gryffindor had actually needed a Seeker tryout. Not since Charlie played the position, at least. Harry had been scouted suddenly and without ceremony by McGonagall herself, the youngest in a century. Ginny had only ever been filling in when he'd been banned or assigned detention. The position had always felt decided. Until now.

She hadn't expected the number of hopefuls; and among them, Dennis Creevey.

He'd been quiet all morning, so much so that she'd almost missed him entirely. He'd kept to himself on the sidelines while the rest of the candidates buzzed with barely-contained excitement. It nagged at her—she remembered Dennis always glued to Colin's side, both of them hovering around the edges of Harry's crowd with wide-eyed admiration. Was it that his brother's old friends didn't know how to speak to him anymore, or had Dennis pulled back all by himself?

The thought tugged something sharp in her chest. Colin had loved flying, but no matter how hard he tried, he never managed the skill to match his enthusiasm. Ginny regretted not dragging him out to practice more, making the time when she had the chance. Dennis wasn't the same—he had better instincts on a broom, more athleticism, even if it was obvious he'd started later than most. Smaller than the rest, yes, but wiry and quick, with a kind of stubborn focus she respected—and a Seeker needed.

She was so fixed on watching him weave after a Snitch that she almost missed the moment. A streak of motion at the edge of her vision—a girl tiny enough to make Denis look giant, maybe Second or Third Year, shooting between two older flyers without hesitation. One hand stretched, precise and unflinching, and the Snitch was hers. She banked hard to avoid a collision with another hopeful, still clutching the fluttering gold.

Ginny's eyebrows shot up. Dazzling, she thought. Absolutely brilliant.

With the roster narrowed, Ginny set up the final test: a full-pitch scrimmage. She kept herself to refereeing, hovering along the sidelines to call fouls and rotate players, making sure no one could claim favoritism.

After twenty minutes, she blew her whistle and ordered a sprint drill. From one end of the pitch to the other and back—again and again. She wanted to see what happened when bodies burned and lungs screamed, the way they did at the tail end of a match. Some flagged immediately. Others dug in.

When she returned them to scrimmage conditions, the differences were stark.

Demelza and Maddox were clearly her top Chasers—though for opposite reasons. Demelza gave the Quaffle away almost as soon as the opportunity arose, building play for her teammates, feeding chances. Maddox, on the other hand, barked orders like he already wore the Captain's badge, demanding the ball as if it belonged to him alone. Ginny marked that down—leadership or arrogance, time would tell. Dean, though less flashy, impressed her in a different way: he kept going long after Maddox's flying started to tighten from fatigue.

Her Beaters were obvious. Jimmy and Ritchie read one another's movements so instinctively that she barely needed to watch the Bludgers; they were always where they needed to be.

Seekers proved trickier. The little girl—Aria Warrick, she learned—was hyper-focused, almost lacking basic preservative instincts even, but her eyes never stopped searching for the Snitch, and when it counted, she had the burst to get there first. Dennis, by contrast, still got distracted by the ebb and flow of play. His instincts weren't wrong—he wanted to help—but he lost track of the one job that mattered.

After thirty minutes, Ginny called time.

The decision had settled in her bones before she even touched down. For the starting lineup: herself, Demelza, Maddox, Thaddeus, Jimmy, Ritchie, and Aria. And for her Reserves: Dean, Samuel, Natalie, Reid, Briony, Bernie, and Dennis.

Confusion rippled across the pitch. Hogwarts had never run with Reserves before.

"There's no rule against it," Ginny told them, voice firm. "Think about how many times someone's been hurt or incapacitated these past few years. I don't want to scramble for substitutes, or worse, play short. We train like a full squad."

Dean frowned. "So…we just sit back, then?"

"Not a chance," she said, with an almost-feral grin. "Both lineups come to practice. We'll mix and swap every session. Tryouts decided who starts today—but practice, and matches, might prove otherwise. About any of us. Even me."

That last bit earned raised eyebrows. Maddox leaned forward. "You'd be alright sitting out a game?"

"If three others can bring it better? Absolutely."

He blinked, clearly baffled. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of being Captain?"

Ginny leveled him with a look. "The purpose of the Captain is to lead the team to victory. Even if that means stepping aside." She let the silence stretch, then added, "But don't expect me to ease up anytime soon."

Her tone made it clear: this was her team.

By the time she dismissed them for the day, satisfaction thrummed through her. She'd built something—her own, not a hand-me-down from Wood or Angelina or Harry or anyone else.

The Prefect's bath was her reward. She sank into the steaming water for nearly an hour, sighing as if the warmth itself crowned her Captain. Merlin, why hadn't anyone told her how good this was? If she'd known, she might have fought harder for a Prefect badge just for the baths. If it felt this good after just tryouts, she knew the baths would feel even sweeter after a hard practice or brutal games.

Later, she joined Hermione and the other girls in a sun-drenched courtyard, dutifully bending over parchment while the weather still allowed it. She tried to focus on her essays, but her thoughts kept circling back to the pitch, the choices she'd made, the team that felt like hers. She wanted to put them through their paces more than she could articulate. And her essays paid the price for her distractions.

That night, the Common Room roared with Quidditch celebrations. Maddox and Samuel led the charge, turning the gathering rowdy fast. Ginny smiled, raised a Butterbeer when pressed, but her mind tugged elsewhere.

Captaining felt natural; like she'd been training for it her whole life without realizing. The rhythm of the pitch, the balance of personalities, even the weight of authority—it all fit, as comfortable as gripping a broom handle. She could see a path forward there, clear and sure.

The prefect meeting was another matter. That was uncharted territory: curfews, discipline, the responsibility of being the one to enforce instead of rebel. She knew how to fight, how to resist, how to lead when stakes were life and death. But standing in front of her peers with the Head Girl badge pinned to her chest? That left her feeling exposed; like trying to command respect in a language she'd only just started learning.

And tomorrow she'd have to speak it fluently.

The first prefect meeting of the term was only marginally less tense than the one on the Hogwarts Express. Ginny had reviewed the prefect roster with Hermione that morning, but now that she was staring around the room she found it difficult to attach names to the faces she didn't already know.

There was at least a flicker more goodwill between Houses—supporting the first Slytherin student during Sorting had created a fragile bridge. But beyond this circle, resentment still simmered in the corridors, stoked by news of Fenrir Greyback and the return of the previous year's Slytherins under Ministry-mandated education.

Logan Drake reported first, arms folded tightly: "Things are…tense. No fights yet, but it feels inevitable."

Roger Malone cut in, turning toward Ginny and Gareth. "You could've warned us about Draco."

Ginny lifted her brows. "We were just as surprised as the rest of you."

Roger immediately swung to Astoria Greengrass. "Your sister was there. You should have told us, at least."

Astoria looked stricken. "I…didn't know everything would be happening so soon."

Natalie snapped, anger sharp in her voice. "You should have told us anyway. Do you know what it's like? After everything that happened last year? Hearing that Draco-bloody-Malfoy and his cronies are wandering the halls again?"

Gideon Vex, the Seventh Year Slytherin prefect, tried to sound reasonable. "It's not like they're wandering alone. Ministry escorts shadow them everywhere."

Persephone, the other Slytherin prefect, muttered darkly: "Not helping, Gideon."

"I'm not excusing them," he said helplessly. "Just pointing out they can't get up to anything under the DMLE's nose."

Ginny wasn't so sure.

Before the argument could reignite, Gareth cleared his throat and shifted the room's focus. "Ginny and I met with Professor McGonagall on Friday. She's determined to bridge the gap between Houses, and she's asked for our help."

He drew a sheaf of leaflets from his bag, duplicated them with a neat wave of his wand, and began passing them around. The prefects bent their heads over the pamphlets in silence, and Ginny took another few moments to refamiliarize herself with them.

• The Hogwarts Exhibition of Spellcraft – a team contest for Years 1–4, testing obscure or ancient spellwork.
• The Colloquium on Wizarding Careers – a post-war fair spotlighting ways to rebuild society beyond Ministry tracks.
• Wizarding Apprenticeship Convocation – competitive placements with healers, curse-breakers, potioneers, and other specialists.
• The International Symposium for Magical Innovation – a forum for research, inventions, and theoretical magical work.
• The International Student Summit on Wizarding Unity – a diplomatic conference between schools on law, reconciliation, and cooperation.

Ginny watched as Hermione's eyes flew across the text, bright with excitement. "This is…fantastic. Some of these are international events."

Octavia Drayton, the Slytherin Sixth Year prefect, tapped a finger against her leaflet. "It shifts the focus away from House rivalries—onto the school, maybe even the country."

Veronica Hawthorne, Ravenclaw prefect, added thoughtfully: "And some of these prize individual achievement, too. Or at least teamwork across Houses. Look—the Spellcraft Exhibition requires one student from each House."

"Clever," Octavia agreed.

Ronan Selwyn snorted. "But will anyone actually step up?"

"If we're behind it," Gareth said firmly, "the others will follow."

Simon Plumtree grinned. "I wouldn't mind a trip to Italy."

They chuckled, tension easing. Eventually, they agreed to let McGonagall make the formal announcement, while positioning themselves as points of contact in their Houses.

"What if we host interest meetings?," Hermione asked, already strategizing. Ginny could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. "Students considering these events could come, ask questions, see us united."

There was general agreement and a rough drawing-up of plans, before they turned to the dreaded patrol schedule. Ginny was perfectly happy to let Gareth take charge—she'd never done patrols in her life. He and Hermione, predictably, volunteered to take the first. They agreed to mix-House patrols for the first few weeks.

When Astoria Greengrass quietly offered her name, though, the silence was deafening.

Persephone rolled her eyes. "Don't all volunteer at once."

Ronan added dryly: "So much for unity."

Ginny grimaced. The words stung—especially after all their lofty talk. "I'll patrol with you, Astoria."

Astoria's tight smile carried genuine gratitude.

Natalie broke the moment awkwardly: "Not to change the subject, but…we need to keep an eye on Bernie Foswick and his lot."

Ginny blinked, caught off guard. Bernie had seemed surly about the news of werewolf attacks and Slytherins returning, but nothing that had tripped her alarms.

Natalie pressed on, looking meaningfully at her. "After Quidditch, he seemed a bit too eager to play Slytherin. And Maddox is a bloody instigator."

Gideon groaned. "Oh, brilliant."

Ginny inclined her head. "Thanks, Natalie. I'll keep it in mind if I need to change the lineup."

Natalie didn't relent. "I'm more worried about what he'll do if he doesn't get to play."

Ginny bit back a curse. She could brace herself for trouble from Slytherins. She expected it. But from within her own House?

How did you defend against your own?

Chapter Text

Chapter 6 - Uneasy Allies

Harry had never known days could stretch so long. Training consumed him until time itself seemed to warp—weeks collapsed into each other, days bled into nights, and it felt like he'd been at it for ages. Rationally, he knew it had only been only a few weeks since he'd watched Ginny board the Hogwarts Express at King's Cross, but that memory felt like it belonged to another life entirely. Here, under the Auror Office's relentless eye, there was no room for anything beyond the next drill, the next lesson, the next test of will.

Three more cadets had dropped that week—Joseph Harrowind, Ian Loxley, Adelaide Thatch. No explosions, no accidents, nothing dramatic like the earlier washouts. Just the sudden breaking point of people who couldn't take the pressure. The instructors had given each of them a chance—private talks, encouragement, warnings—but it hadn't been enough. Twenty cadets left now, and Harry could feel the screws tightening. The Auror Office had no use for mediocrity. Certainly no room for anyone who thought a famous surname would shield them.

The days were merciless. Hours on end of physical conditioning until their bodies begged for rest, only to be ordered up again. Miles of running through the secluded training grounds, interval sprints that turned his legs to rubber. Pushups, pullups, deadlifts, squats; functional strength-building for dragging rubble, breaching doors, carrying the wounded when their magic wasn't enough. Obstacle courses that became urban pursuit simulations: wall climbs, crawl spaces, leaps across pits. Training in explosive bursts meant to mimic the split-second timing of dodging incoming curses and hexes.

And just when exhaustion dragged them to the edge, when their bodies screamed in protest and rejected movement entirely, Starker would dose them with a rejuvenating potion to flush the lactic acid from their muscles, forcing recovery in minutes instead of hours. 

Then they started over, only this time harder. Stress circuits—a 400-meter sprint followed by casting intricate charms or dueling while barely able to breathe. Weighted pursuits—chasing each other with sandbags enchanted to double their load. Breaching runs—sprinting to a door, kicking it in, then executing precise spellwork on the other side.

The logic was cruel and simple: learn to fight when your body is failing. Cast with accuracy when your lungs are burning. Hold a Protego against a barrage for minutes on end. Recover from a Portkey or an Apparition and get your wand up before your balance steadied.

"I will turn you into Aurors who can bring down Dark wizards with nothing but your own strength! No wand. No spell. Just will! When you do draw your wands, they will know what's coming," Starker had barked, watching them heave and pant in the early morning sunlight. "The sight of you on the street will make them flinch. The sound of your boots will make them run. And when you finally stand before them, they'll be too busy cowering in a puddle of their own making to raise their wands at all."

And then it was back to the classroom with Baan. No reprieve, just another battlefield for the mind. They had torn through the Auror Code of Conduct, warrant and evidence procedure, magical forensics, and now into the real heart of it: Dark Arts theory. They learned to identify curses by sound and aftereffects. To read malefic runes and symbols, the kind cultists scrawled at ritual sites. To detect the reek of dark potions—residues, signatures, the faint metallic tang left in the air. To detect the presence of forbidden rituals—blood magic, inferi creation, the foulest spells that scarred the world.

But what made it brutal wasn't the content—it was the way it was woven together. There was no neat separation of subjects like at Hogwarts. Forensics bled into potion analysis, which looped back into curse theory, which tied into rune recognition. Each piece demanded the last. Harry had no choice but to keep up, to hold it all in his head at once, or risk being left behind.

And still the pace never slowed. The sheer volume of information they were expected to memorize and then immediately apply felt inhuman. Terry Boot had even taken to brewing everyone Wit-Sharpening Potions on the sly, a makeshift cauldron bubbling away in the corner of the barracks. For a few days, it worked—minds buzzing, thoughts clear as crystal—but the headaches afterward were brutal. Worse, Harry found himself unable to recall half of what he'd learned once the potion wore off.

That, he realized later, had been the point. Starker hadn't bothered to stop them because the lesson would only stick if they discovered it themselves: that shortcuts might help in the moment but would only leave you less prepared in the long run. It was the Auror Office's way of hammering home that enhancing their performance artificially would only be a detriment when everything was taken into account.  

Perhaps that was why the next morning felt so strange. Breakfast passed without the usual barked orders or the looming promise of another run until their legs gave out. No obstacle courses or no body-breaking drills. Just food and an unusual amount of time to sit with it. Harry kept waiting for the trap—for Starker to storm in and shout them out of their seats—but it never came.

It was almost worse than the exhaustion. The lack of direction made every cadet quiet and uneasy. Silverware clinked against plates too loudly; they shared looks of suspicion, but no one dared to voice their concerns for fear that their easy morning might be taken away from them. Even Ron, normally happiest with extra breakfast and a chance to breathe, kept glancing toward the doors as if the reprieve itself might be a test. By the time they were told to assemble at the Portkey platform, the tension had already coiled tight in Harry's chest.

Portkey platform gatherings always led to additional drama.

The air already felt different. The instructors stood stiffer than usual, tension sharp in the set of their shoulders. Harry caught the unease instantly—it prickled at the back of his neck. He muttered as much to Ron, who only gave him a lopsided grin.

"Maybe we'll finally be doing some proper dueling," Ron said. "And not just blocking stunners while running laps."

Harry only nodded. He hoped so. Anything would be better than another day of collapsing obstacle courses.

When Starker called for their attention, the murmur of speculation died on the spot. He looked at them with a look that Harry had come to recognize over the last month: the grim satisfaction of a man about to ruin their day.

"Today's assignment will be conducted in the Muggle world," he announced, his accent thick but no longer hard for Harry to understand. "You will be paired off. Half of you will be designated hunters, tasked with finding and tagging one of the other pairs. The other half will serve as runners, tasked with evading capture for one hour. The exercise begins the moment you arrive. Do not fail to grasp the seriousness of this test."

Harry felt his shoulders tighten. The Muggle world. His stomach turned at the phrase. He had a sudden, vivid memory of Dementors stalking Little Whinging, of Death Eaters in Tottenham Court Road. Of a snake behind a cage in a zoo.

Starker's eyes swept the group, stopping on each of them. "There are rules," he said, his voice hard. A hush fell. Even Ron stopped fidgeting. "No breaches of the Statute of Secrecy. You do not cast magic in front of Muggles, you do not give yourselves away. If you fail here, you will be dismissed from the program. For a year, at minimum."

He ticked off the rest with the type of clinical precision that made Harry think he'd rehearsed this a dozen times before—each rule cut down to its sharpest edge, every word designed to leave no room for misinterpretation:

"No Apparition, no broomsticks. You travel like Muggles do—walking, escalators, lifts. No Compulsion or Memory Charms. If you botch your cover, you talk your way out of it. No magical communications—no Floo, no owls, no Patronuses. Use what Muggles use. Civilian safety—Muggle or Magical, it's all the same—is your first priority. Better to lose your target than endanger a bystander. The duration is one hour, no more, no less.

"You will be graded on stealth, tracking, teamwork, and professionalism. At the end of the day you will submit a report. It must be detailed and precise. Anything less will be treated as failure."

Harry exchanged a quick look with Ron. His best friend's smirk had slipped, replaced by the faintest glint of nerves. For once, Harry didn't feel like teasing him. His own palms had gone clammy.

This was the real thing—testing not their spellwork, their footing, or their fitness, but whether they could walk through the world unnoticed, blend into it, carry the weight of secrecy that their job demanded, and get the job done. And that would be harder than any duel.

But after a moment of consideration, Ron's confidence was back in force. He nudged Harry's ribs with his elbow and flashed him that familiar, lopsided smirk. The two of them had gotten through tougher spots than this. Harry had spent his childhood and summers in the Muggle world; he'd spent years with the Dursleys trying to not be noticed and not stand out for fear of reprisal. Between that and Ron's crash-course summer in Muggle Australia—plus all the weekends Hermione had dragged him and her parents through London—they'd be a strong pair. 

But Starker had other ideas.

The instructor's eyes swept over the cadets like he was picking his prey, fixing them with a look that reminded Harry of the way Buckbeak looked at dead ferrets. 

"Weasley and Kildare."

Ron blinked, thrown for only a moment before shooting Harry a helpless look and clapping him on the shoulder. Then Starker's gaze shifted, and Harry felt his stomach plummet even before the words landed.

"Potter and McLaggen."

It was like being dropped into a freezing bath. He hadn't spoken more than a handful of words to McLaggen in the entire month since training began, and had managed to avoid being cornered into anything resembling a one-on-one. And now? Starker was handing him the person he trusted least in the entire program, on the highest-stakes assignment they'd been given so far—an exercise where one slip could cost him not just points or pride, but his place in training altogether.

"Ah," Starker added, as if reading Harry's mind. "You thought you'd be paired with Weasley maybe. No. The two of you are becoming overly reliant. You must be with agility and to be working efficiently with anyone. "

Harry didn't bother hiding the tightness in his jaw. He caught Ron's eye as the cadets broke off to gather their things, and Ron gave him another sympathetic pat on the back—quick, rough, and not much comfort. Then he was gone, walking off beside Siobhan Kildare, leaving Harry with McLaggen.

The parchment slips were handed out, crisp with assignment details. Harry took his, feeling McLaggen sidle up uncomfortably close, and before he could even glance at the scrawled instructions the familiar tug yanked behind his navel. The world blurred into a whirl of color and sound, and he and McLaggen were gone, spun out of the training grounds and hurled into the Muggle world.

The landing jolted Harry straight into a metal partition, and he only just caught himself before sprawling on the filthy tile. He shoved open the stall door, stepping out into the dim, echoing silence of a deserted public lavatory. A second later, the stall beside him creaked, and McLaggen stumbled out, brushing himself off like this was all perfectly normal.

"Well," McLaggen said too loudly, glancing around. "At least they had the sense to drop us in an empty one, yeah?"

Harry forced a tight nod, his jaw aching from how hard he clamped it shut. "Yeah."

McLaggen held up his slip of parchment between two fingers, squinting at the scrawl. "So. Rowan and Macmillan, right?"

Harry's stomach dipped. He checked his own, half-hoping for some clerical reprieve, some different names. But of course not. Starker didn't make mistakes. His parchment spelled it out in neat, damning ink:

Pursuit. Target: Rowan Kennrith and Ernest Macmillan.

No escaping this situation, then.

He stuffed the parchment away, and together they pushed out of the toilets—straight into a wide, glaring stretch of glass and polished tile. Harry blinked against the flood of light, the endless rows of shops, the hum of Muggle voices and footsteps echoing from the atrium several levels above and below. A shopping centre. Massive.

McLaggen gave a low whistle, spinning in a slow circle. "I love Muggles." His voice carried like a trumpet blast.

Harry winced. Perfect. The first thing McLaggen did in public was draw every eye within a hundred yards.

"Let's keep it down," Harry muttered, tugging his sleeve. "We need to blend in. First priority—different clothes."

McLaggen glanced down at his uniform. "What's wrong with these?"

Harry stared at him. The dark training kit practically screamed team issue. "We match. We look like we've wandered off from a football club."

McLaggen grinned. "Well, we kind of are, aren't we?"

A throb began in Harry's temples. "We'll stand out too much. Makes it easier for them to find us."

Instead of arguing, McLaggen thumped him on the back—hard enough that Harry stumbled a step, the impact an ugly reminder of the Quidditch pitch years ago. "Smart idea, Potter."

Harry rubbed his shoulder, muttering as his mind spun through incantations. "I think I can transfigure the training gear well enough. Maybe a disillusionment layer if it doesn't hold."

McLaggen's brows rose. "Won't that leave us wide open to a Finite?"

Harry's throat bobbed. "Err…sure. I suppose." He hated admitting it, but McLaggen had a point. A badly timed counter-spell would strip them both down to regulation black before they could blink. And worse, if anyone spotted a flicker of magic…he'd be answering to the Improper Use of Magic Office before Starker had the chance to fail him.

Suppressing a sigh, Harry shrugged out of his lightweight overshirt, indicating for McLaggen to do the same. McLaggen raised an eyebrow but obeyed. They shrank the dark shirts to pocket-size, leaving them in plain grey undershirts and trousers. It wasn't perfect, but at least it looked less like a uniform.

McLaggen tugged at his collar. "Why don't we just…buy some clothes? Isn't that what Muggles come here for? We'd blend in properly."

Harry hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. As much as he hated to admit it, the idea made sense.

"Great," McLaggen said, leading the way out into the mall—then froze. "Only problem. Don't have any Muggle money. You?"

Harry grimaced. Brilliant. He'd been so focused on the task itself that he hadn't considered the practicalities. His pockets were as empty as McLaggen's. And something told him Starker wouldn't be handing out credit for breaking Muggle laws.

"Some," Harry admitted grudgingly. "At my…house."

The word slipped out before he could stop it. He didn't know how much of his life he wanted to hand over to McLaggen, who'd been nothing but an annoyance at school. But then again—McLaggen hadn't taken a shot at him since the start of training. He'd even kept his distance most of the time. Maybe Harry was the one holding onto Sixth Year too tightly.

"Accio would be too obvious, I'm guessing," McLaggen said, only half-serious.

Harry stared at him. Did he honestly—?

McLaggen grinned and punched his shoulder, a playful jab that still rattled his bones. "Oh, lighten up, Potter. I can joke."

Heat rushed to Harry's face—frustration, embarrassment, he couldn't tell which. He rubbed his shoulder as McLaggen added, "Besides, rules say we can't just pop off and pick it up."

That gave Harry pause. He tapped a finger against his thigh. "True. But maybe…we can pop it over to us."

McLaggen frowned. "Eh? What do—"

Harry shoved him back into the lavatory before he could finish.

"Again? Merlin's beard, Potter—let's make up our minds whether we're in or out!" McLaggen grumbled, but Harry ignored him, bolting the door. "Err…Potter?" McLaggen asked, bewildered.

"Kreacher," Harry said firmly.

McLaggen's face twisted. "That…feels undeserved."

There was a loud pop, and Kreacher appeared before them, bowing low. Harry forced himself to take a steadying breath. He was in a rush, but if there was one thing he'd learned over the summer, it was that barking orders at Kreacher only undid the progress they'd made together. One wrong tone and the elf could slide right back into old habits, muttering about "blood-traitors" and "Mudbloods." Patience and respect mattered more than speed.

"Hello, Kreacher," Harry said gently. "I'm sorry to drag you over like this."

Kreacher bowed so low his nose nearly brushed the tiles. "Kreacher is thankful for every opportunity to serve Master Harry."

"'Master Harry'—what?" McLaggen blurted, goggling at them. "You've got a House Elf, Potter? Granger made such a fuss about freeing them all and you've—"

"It's a long story," Harry cut in quickly, shooting him a look. "I'll explain later." He turned back to Kreacher, keeping his tone even. "How are you doing?"

"Kreacher is well," the elf croaked. "Kreacher is maintaining the Master's house and assisting Mistress Andromeda with the Young Master Edward, as instructed."

Harry couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "Good. And how is everyone?"

"Master Harry's friends are in good health," Kreacher said with a stiff nod. "Though Mister George tries Kreacher's patience. Wandering in at all hours of the night and early morning. Making a mess."

Harry's smile faltered. He'd written George a handful of times in the past month but had only got back a few short notes, mostly about shop sales or mail orders. Most of what Harry knew came second-hand from Molly and Arthur. Kreacher's complaint left him unsettled. Maybe he ought to write George directly, ask more than polite questions about the shop. But would that be overstepping?

He shook the thought aside. There wasn't time for it now. "Kreacher, we've got a job for Auror training. It would go a lot quicker if we had some Muggle money. Can you grab what I've got from my room and bring it here?"

Kreacher bowed again. "At once, Master Harry." With a sharp pop, he vanished.

"So," McLaggen said after a beat. "You've got a House Elf."

Harry's jaw tightened. "I inherited him from my godfather. I offered to set him free, but Kreacher wouldn't hear of it."

Before McLaggen could get another word out, Kreacher popped back, holding a thick wad of notes.

McLaggen let out an impressed breath. "That's…a lot."

Harry blinked, taking the bundle. "You understand Muggle money?"

McLaggen looked faintly offended. "I got an E on my Muggle Studies O.W.L., Potter."

"Oh," Harry said, eyebrows raised. "That's—"

McLaggen smirked, rolling his shoulders back with smug ease. "Tell you what, mate—Muggle-born girls'll think you're twice as fit if you can drop a line about football or their favorite bands."

Harry's expression cooled. "Ah." He turned back to Kreacher instead. "Thanks. That's all we need for now. Better head back before someone spots you."

Kreacher bowed deeply and vanished with another loud pop.

Harry exhaled, stuffing the notes into his pocket. "Alright. Let's get moving."

They pushed back through the door, checking the coast was clear before slipping out into the mall's flow of people, ready to try blending in.

"This place," McLaggen said with a low whistle as they merged into the current of shoppers, "is like Diagon Alley on Invigoration Draught."

Harry ignored the remark, keeping his eyes moving, scanning the crowd.

McLaggen leaned in just enough to be heard. "We should split up. Not far—just enough so it doesn't look like we're together. Our targets'll be looking for a pair, not two singles."

Harry hesitated, but he had to admit it made sense. He gave a curt nod, drifting a few paces away until they were close enough to keep each other in sight but not close enough to draw notice.

When he caught McLaggen's eye again, Harry tilted his head toward a clothing shop. McLaggen followed, still whistling under his breath, as Harry ducked inside.

They started pulling things from racks at random—shirts, trousers, trainers. Harry kept his voice low as he flipped through a rack. "Don't get the hoodie."

"What? Why not?" McLaggen held up a dark one as though it were a stroke of genius. "I can put the hood up and hide my face. Brilliant."

Harry shook his head. "Sure. Just… don't get it yet."

McLaggen's face twisted as if Harry had just accused him of skiving off. "I'll pay you back!"

Harry rolled his eyes. "No, I mean—if we need to change things up while we're being hunted, we'll need a reason to shop again. Different store, different cover."

McLaggen blinked, then gave him a long, appraising look. "Smart. Blend in." His mouth quirked. "This is how you survived last year, isn't it?"

Harry's silence was answer enough, but McLaggen took it as encouragement.

"It's what I'd have done. More Muggles around you, the harder it is for anyone to attack you without breaking the Statute."

Harry didn't bother hiding his scowl. "We couldn't risk Muggles being caught in the crossfire."

McLaggen gave a dramatic shake of his head. "Mate, the rumors about our Ministry were dead right. The international lot thought the place had gone rotten. The Death Eaters would've been desperate to look legitimate. They couldn't have risked exposure."

Harry's jaw tightened. They'd argued the same point, over and over, in cold fields and cramped tents during their most desperate hours last winter, but their decision not to always came down to one thing:

"Voldemort wouldn't have cared," Harry said confidently. "He never cared about statutes or legitimacy. If killing a shopping mall full of Muggles meant getting me, he'd have done it."

That earned him a pause. McLaggen studied him, mouth working as though trying out different replies. Finally he asked, almost cautiously, "So… where did you go?"

"Camped," Harry said shortly. "Mostly. Outskirts of towns, forests."

A strange look crossed McLaggen's face before he smirked, eyes glinting with mischief. "Blimey. You mean you had to listen to Weasley and Granger shagging in the same tent as you? I'd never have lasted."

Harry's ears burned. "That's not—they weren't—"

 "Let's get out of here." McLaggen tucked a bundle of clothes under his arm.

Harry let it drop, more eager to move on than dignify it with a retort. They paid for their things and changed into jeans and button-ups in the fitting rooms, ditching the uniform look.

Back in the mall, Harry's gaze swept the crowd, searching for any sign of Auror uniforms or anyone familiar. But there was nothing; no flash of platinum hair. No sign of Rowan or Ernie. But Neville and Anthony passed nearby, heads bent together, clearly tracking their own quarry. Across the way, Ron's unmistakable ginger hair bobbed above the crowd. For a moment Harry's pulse jumped at a flash of blond, but it was only Will alongside Susan.

They kept moving through the mall, threading around clusters of shoppers and stretching the distance between them just enough to look casual. But Harry realized the approach was rudderless; they were wandering aimlessly, hoping Rowan or Macmillan would simply wander into them. He tugged McLaggen aside near a quieter corridor.

"There's a lot of ground to cover in one hour," McLaggen muttered, glancing around nervously.

Harry nodded. "I don't think we're meant to explore it all."

McLaggen cocked his head. "So how are we supposed to find Rowan and Macmillan?"

Harry let out a thoughtful breath. "I think…we're meant to figure out where they'd go based on what we know about them."

McLaggen frowned, squinting as if this were a particularly complex puzzle. "Sounds about right. So…"

Harry ran through possibilities in his mind. "What do we actually know?"

McLaggen tapped his chin, thinking aloud. "About Rowan? Not much, right? Macmillan…he's a bit full of himself, I guess."

Harry raised an incredulous eyebrow, silently wondering how someone could be that self-absorbed and clueless.

McLaggen shrugged. "He's Pureblood though, so this is probably a bit of a shock to him."

Harry tilted his head. "You think so?"

"Oh yeah," McLaggen said confidently. "My uncle—he married a Muggle-born witch. They live close to her parents in a Muggle neighborhood, so most of their stuff is Muggle. No Floo connection because it's a Muggle home. Anyway…my uncle has a hard time with all the Muggle stuff, even years later. Like…he'll forget to use the remote when he's watching the telly. Reached for his wand one night and blew a hole in their wall. My dad still doesn't let him live that down."

Harry considered this, his curiosity piqued. "So…you're saying Ernie probably has the same problem?"

McLaggen nodded. "Even if he doesn't use magic, all of this—so many people, so many Muggle things—it's a lot. Imagine a Muggle-born walking into Diagon Alley for the first time…with five times as many people."

Harry let out a small laugh. "It's not like that with you, though."

"Yeah," McLaggen admitted. "But I don't think he took Muggle Studies. Not a lot of people in our year did. Professor Burbage complained. Said you lot weren't doing your part to bridge divides between cultures."

Harry was flabbergasted. He had never had this kind of conversation with McLaggen before. "But you did take that class?"

"Yeah," McLaggen said easily. "Like I said…wanted to impress Muggle-born girls."

Harry's mind leapt. Surely, there was more depth there—maybe a specific girl? "Any…one girl in particular?"

McLaggen shrugged, completely casual. "Nah. All of them—any of them, really."

Harry stared at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and mild amusement. He couldn't help but wonder how Cormac McLaggen could be simultaneously infuriating and strangely, occasionally…human. Harry let out a long breath. He hadn't expected wisdom from Cormac McLaggen today, but then Auror training had a way of leveling surprises into routine.

"Right. Let's get back on target," he said.

"Sure, sure. We should look for them in tucked-away places, though." And at Harry's confused look he continued. "If you don't know the Muggle world, it's overwhelming. You look up, you gape, you make a spectacle. Rowan wouldn't let Ernie wander like that."

Harry felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He pictured Rowan Kennrith—sharp, loud, impossible to ignore when she wanted to be—and, yes, she wouldn't loiter in full view like a lamb to the slaughter. He remembered Ron and Ginny's early trouble shopping with Muggle money and, for a second, the whole ridiculous family tableau softened the edge of his annoyance with McLaggen.

"Right." He rubbed his thumb thoughtfully along his jawline, an earlier conversation jumping suddenly to the forefront. "But Rowan is very Gryffindor; headstrong, outspoken…she wouldn't want to hide away and not see us coming."

"Well we better get moving," McLaggen said, gesturing to a large clock face in the middle of the walkway. "We've spent a lot of time buying clothes already and they just need to wait us out."

Harry's eyes lit. "Which means anywhere she perches has a quick escape to run out the clock."

McLaggen punched his arm with boyish excitement. "Oh! The…the-err—the Dining Hall! You know? With the food!"

Harry's sternness cracked. "Food court."

"Yeah!" McLaggen leaned forward, conspiratorial again. "It's wide open and they can face each other to see in all directions without looking suspicious. And it's familiar enough that Macmillan won't be too overwhelmed."

Harry found himself impressed despite himself. The plan had the merit of common sense and an eye for how people behaved under pressure—the very things they were supposed to be learning. "Sitting down, they'll be less visible," he said. "We won't be able to pick out their training uniforms as easily. You're tall and big; you stand out, so—"

McLaggen preened. "Don't say that like it's a bad thing. Girls like tall blokes."

That was the sort of thing that should have made Harry snarl. Instead he had a momentary, ridiculous image of McLaggen standing astride the food court like some clumsy statue of masculinity. He shoved it away. "I'm saying they'll have picked their spot for a reason. High vantage, quick escapes, a place where people can come and go without drawing attention. And Rowan will pick somewhere she can spot you over the heads of most other people. "

"You're not exactly Professor Flitwick yourself, Potter," McLaggen said, with the same earnest bluntness that had made Harry want to throttle him in the past.

"No, but you're bigger than I am," Harry pointed out.

McLaggen beamed like it was the compliment of the century. "Thank you."

Harry had to laugh, despite the stakes. McLaggen's obtuse sincerity was oddly disarming—part comic relief, part a reminder that not everyone here wanted to needle him for past glories. Still, there was business to be done. He squared his shoulders. "Right. Split up, like you suggested. They won't be expecting it."

McLaggen's face lit with the confidence of a man who'd just been handed stage directions. "Yes! I'm big, like you said." He thumped Harry's arm hard enough that the older boy nearly staggered. "So they'll see me coming first. And I'll make a big show of calling out to something away from where you really are so they think you're there and then run more towards you!"

It was a crude plan, but it was a plan. The lesson of the day, after all, was not that magic solved everything. It was that thinking, observation, and a capacity to improvise under pressure mattered as much as a perfect spell. Starker had salted their training with failure as much as triumph; if Harry, for all his instinct and history, couldn't learn to plan, to adjust, to use people and places to his advantage, then his reflexes weren't enough.

They split, keeping just enough distance to appear separate but still within sight. McLaggen lumbered toward the escalator, swaggering like he owned the place, while Harry slid into the lift. The glass doors shut, giving him a brief view of McLaggen's broad shoulders rising slowly on the moving stairs. Harry tapped his fingers against his thigh, already shaping the play in his head.

The food court opened up before him in a blaze of neon signs and open-mouthed chewing. He spotted McLaggen ambling in with unmissable-forced nonchalance, scanning around with his head tipped too high. 

As McLaggen wove his way noisily through the seating area, Harry felt a sudden inspiration strike. Instead of wasting time guessing which way Rowan and Ernie might run, he angled himself so McLaggen stood opposite and the escalators were at his right. If McLaggen's hunch held true, Ernie wouldn't risk his hand at Muggle machinery. That left only one real gap between them. All McLaggen had to do was sell the act loudly enough to pull their attention left—then Rowan would do exactly what Harry was counting on: drive straight toward him.

He leaned against a pillar, scanning. People milled about with trays, clutched shopping bags, bickered over seats. And then—two figures, sitting stiffly across from one another. No food, no drinks, no words. Rowan's platinum hair caught the overhead lights, unmistakable even from the corner of his eye. Ernie sat with his hands clenched on the table like he wasn't sure what to do with them.

Harry caught McLaggen's gaze and tilted his head, just enough of a signal. McLaggen's face brightened, and then he threw himself into the act with gusto—waving broadly, calling out, motioning for the phantom Harry he was pretending to spot.

It worked. Rowan and Ernie exchanged a wordless glance and shot to their feet. Moving briskly away from McLaggen and the phantom Harry, careful not to make a scene but hurrying all the same. They seemed to move more urgently as McLaggen pushed his way closer through the crowd of Muggles.

Harry slipped behind a mall map stand, crouching just out of their line of sight. His heart thrummed with the same old rhythm Starker had drilled into them: wait, judge the situation, make his move. As they passed by, quick-stepping toward McLaggen's ridiculous pantomime, Harry slid out from behind the stand, quiet as a shadow.

"Got you," he said, tagging them both on the shoulder before either could whirl around.

Rowan groaned, throwing her head back in frustration. Ernie sighed like someone watching a tower of books collapse.

McLaggen came jogging over, grinning ear to ear. "Nice job, Potter."

Before Harry could reply, a new voice cut in, low and measured.

"Yes. Good job, both of you."

Starker stood a few feet away, hands clasped loosely behind his back, as if he'd been there the whole time, watching from the crowd. His expression gave nothing away, but his eyes lingered just long enough for Harry to know he'd seen everything.

Harry had no idea how Starker had managed it—how he'd known where they were, or what they were doing, or how he'd followed without being seen. The man's sudden appearance left him feeling amateurish, like he'd been caught out despite pulling off the capture.

Without explanation, Starker corralled the four of them into the food court and motioned for them to sit at a table. A quick, subtle flick of his wand—and Harry was fairly certain he'd just cast Muffliato or something very much like it—told him this was about to turn into a lesson.

Starker's sharp gaze landed first on Rowan and Ernie. "You suffered lack of familiarity."

Ernie slumped, speaking up before Rowan could. "It's my fault."

Starker inclined his head. "It is. Yes. Tell me why."

Ernie blinked, caught off guard. "Er…well, it's like you said. I'm not as familiar with the Muggle world."

"No." Starker turned, pointing to Rowan. "Tell me why it is your fault also."

Rowan faltered, her composure cracking. "I…let McLaggen herd me into a trap."

"Yes. But you both did this. What is your fault specifically?" He let the question hang, and when she stammered too long, he answered himself. "You let weaknesses control you. You became predictable. I watched Potter realize this. He repositioned himself so you would run right toward him."

Ernie bristled. "But we could have gone the other way and made our escape. He got lucky." He glanced at Harry with a sheepish cringe. "Sorry."

"Not lucky," Starker snapped, his voice clipped with irritation. "They had a plan and they took chance on a plan."

Ernie shifted uncomfortably. "The chance might not have paid off."

"Yes," Starker allowed, his voice turning cool again. "And this is why I am also having them hear this discussion."

Rowan, still defensive, leaned forward. "If you're always worried about what the enemy is thinking about what you're thinking or planning around your planning, every decision just becomes an infinitely complicated mess."

To Harry's surprise, Starker nodded as though she'd just unlocked something profound. "Yes. This is exactly correct."

Rowan frowned. "So…what? We just go round and round in our heads, tying ourselves in knots to figure out what they might think we might think they might do?"

"Yes." Starker's mouth twitched—almost a smile. "Or…surprise."

Rowan nearly rolled her eyes but managed to catch herself halfway through, clearly remembering who she was dealing with. When she spoke, her voice was edged with suspicion. "Surprise them. Really?"

"Surprise yourself," Starker corrected. "Potter surprised himself when he changed his positioning. The ability to plan and to surprise yourself with new plan is critical for working in the field."

The words left Harry uneasy. He hadn't thought of it as anything more than a gut decision in the moment, not some grand lesson. But Starker clearly had. With that, Starker dismissed them in pairs, keeping Rowan and Ernie behind. Harry and McLaggen were sent back into the mall, told to prepare for the next phase.

They had barely stepped clear of the food court when Harry leaned toward him. "Split up, go buy that hoodie, and head to the cinema."

McLaggen raised his brows. "The cinema? Really?"

"I'll explain when we get there."

Harry ducked into the nearest shop and pulled a plain jacket off the rack, something neutral that would blend well enough. But then he stopped, Starker's words echoing in his mind. Surprise yourself. Why should he grab the same kind of clothes he always wore? That would be predictable. Too easy.

He slipped out of the shop and wandered into the one next door, scanning until something caught his eye—a black leather biker jacket, glossy and heavy, the kind of thing Bill might've worn on some daring night out, or Sirius in one of his wild, rebellious moods. Harry shrugged into it, checked the mirror, and nearly laughed out loud. He looked ridiculous. Like a boy pretending at being someone impossibly cooler than he'd ever be. Which, he decided, made it perfect.

On his way back to the main concourse, he spotted McLaggen across the crowd and angled toward the cinema. They didn't walk together, but kept the necessary line of sight between them, arriving at the ticket counter within moments of each other. Harry scanned the listings for the soonest showing, half-focused, when McLaggen gave him a pointed look.

"So…?"

Harry blinked, remembering he'd promised an explanation. "It's like you said. Ernie doesn't know much about Muggle stuff. Rowan'll have to keep him steady, if she's any better. That's their weak point."

McLaggen nodded knowingly. "You must've done a lot of this Muggle stuff growing up, eh?"

The question hit him sideways. Harry's jaw tightened before he answered, careful. "No. I…didn't do things like this at all." A bitter taste crept in at the back of his throat. "But I always wanted to."

"Yeah, it's fun," McLaggen said cheerfully, as though that explained everything.

They bought tickets for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels—McLaggen's pick. "I've been meaning to see it," he explained, brightening. "Oh! We should also get some popcorn."

In the concession line, Harry found himself considering what he knew about Cormac McLaggen. He was a strange mix—tolerable in some moments, frustratingly obtuse in others. He wasn't the belligerently arrogant prat Harry remembered from school, not exactly. The arrogance had burned off, leaving behind a different kind of blunt, belligerent cluelessness.

"Why are you here, McLaggen?" The question slipped out before Harry thought better of it.

McLaggen frowned. "Mate, I'm following your lead."

"No, I mean—why are you here? In Auror training. I never got the sense you wanted this."

McLaggen shrugged. "Well, you and I never really talked about all that, yeah?"

Harry felt a flicker of guilt at that. True enough—they hadn't. But then again, McLaggen had nearly cracked his skull on the Quidditch pitch. Hard to talk after that.

And as if reading his mind, McLaggen mimed swinging a Beater's bat, giving him a sheepish look. "Though I guess after I—well—there wasn't too much left for us to talk about. I'm sorry, by the way…for…" He mimed the bat again. "Y'know."

Harry blinked at the absurdity of it. Then, against his own expectations, he laughed. McLaggen grinned, clearly relieved, as though that single shared laugh had lifted something heavy from between them.

"Anyway…after what happened with the attack and the Headmaster…" McLaggen's tone shifted, all the bluster pared down into something quieter. "And then what the papers were saying about you…I knew it was all rubbish. I mean, it'd certainly be easier to believe it, yeah? Convince myself they were right about you. That you were the villain, I was the good bloke, and that's why we never got on in Quidditch. That you were as mad as they said."

Harry blinked at him. That sounded…almost reasonable.

McLaggen gave a short laugh with no real humour. "But they'd already tried that with you before. When…y'know. He came back. Said you were a nutter, wanted attention, some—other rubbish. But you and Professor Dumbledore were right all along. Then the Headmaster's murdered and they're trying to blame you for it?" He shook his head.

The words tumbled out of him, faster now. "My uncle Tiberius—different uncle than the one in the Muggle neighbourhood—knew Minister Scrimgeour. He was convinced dark things were going on. Said after everything with the Headmaster, Scrimgeour was frustrated. Complained about you being 'Dumbledore's man through and through.' So that whole 'wanted for questioning' bit? I didn't buy it. No one who was with you at Hogwarts did. And if they're trying to convince me you were in the wrong—again—trying to pin the Headmaster's death on you…then it can only mean there's a reason for it. That the whole thing, top to bottom, was rotten. That year was just…trying to figure out what was really going on, you know? Until I heard it was all happening at Hogwarts. And I just…came right to Hogsmeade. We heard you'd been killed and then…what else was there but to fight back? Make one last stand?"

Harry sat frozen, astonishment pressing the air out of him. That was the most he'd ever heard McLaggen say in one go. And certainly the most coherent. 

"Really?" Harry managed at last, his voice faint.

McLaggen gave him a sheepish look. "Yeah…well…I don't know if I've ever been accused of thinking things through."

Harry almost wanted to laugh again—because that sounded exactly like thinking things through. More clearly than most people managed.

"So when Minister Shacklebolt started putting together the next group of Aurors…well," Cormac shrugged, almost embarrassed. "You're either part of the problem or part of the solution."

They slipped into the theatre, choosing seats at the very back. It gave them the best view of the entrance, and by sitting on opposite ends of the row they avoided presenting an obvious target. Starker's voice lingered in Harry's head—surprise yourself—but right now it felt more like a waiting game than anything clever.

The lights dimmed, and the film began. Harry tried to watch, but his eyes kept straying to the doors, tracking every late arrival. His hand, sticky with butter, hovered near his wand pocket out of habit. Time stretched. Just as the edges of the screen blurred and he nearly lost himself in the noise of gunfire and quick-cut dialogue, there came a tap on his shoulder.

He whipped around, half-convinced Rowan or Ernie had somehow slipped past them. Instead, one of the instructors sat in the last row, giving him a quiet nod before tilting his head toward the exit. Harry glanced at his watch—half an hour had passed. They'd made it.

They followed in silence back through the corridors, through the cinema doors, back to the public toilets where this whole exercise had started. One Portkey tug later and they were standing on solid ground again, the familiar sprawl of the Auror training compound snapping into place around them.

Most of the other cadets were already there, gathered in expectant clumps.

"There they are," Seamus crowed. "You two get lost, or did McLaggen smack you upside the head again?"

Harry rolled his eyes, tossing Cormac a look. "He's just jealous it took so long for them to find us."

Cormac, grinning, raised the half-empty popcorn bag. "We stopped to catch a film. Didn't get to finish, though. Shame, really. I'll have to wait for it to come out on video."

Rowan groaned like she might hex herself. "A film? Ugh." She shot Ernie a sharp look. "We should've—"

"Wait," Victor interrupted, brow furrowing. "You know about videos and cinema releases?"

Cormac opened his mouth, but Harry beat him to it. "He got an E on his Muggle Studies O.W.L."

Seamus barked a laugh. "You took Muggle Studies, McLaggen?"

Cormac nodded without shame. "To meet Muggle girls."

The group erupted in a collective groan.

Cormac spread his hands. "What? It works!"

Ron's eyes narrowed, his gaze snagging on Harry's new leather jacket. "Where'd you get the new clothes?"

"Kreacher," Harry said, keeping his face as straight as possible.

Ron's glare sharpened. "Oi! That's not—"

"That's cheating!" Ernie cut in, voice rising. "You can't do that. Starker said no Apparition."

Harry shrugged innocently. "I didn't Apparate."

Every eye turned toward Starker. The instructor stood with arms folded, his face unreadable. The silence stretched. Finally, he gave a single shrug, like even he couldn't be bothered to untangle the loophole.

"He is correct. He did not break any rule. The Statute is intact. And they broke no Muggle laws."

Ernie threw up his hands in defeat, muttering under his breath. Ron scowled, grumbling something about getting Kreacher to help him next time. The dismissal came soon after, and the cadets began filing back toward the barracks, their time their own again.

Rowan gave Harry a sidelong look as she passed. "Nice jacket, Potter. Very cool."

Harry glanced down at the black leather, half-expecting her to be mocking him. "Yeah? Think so?"

"No," Ron said flatly from just behind.

Harry blinked at him, unsure what to say, but before he could answer Victor clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Potter. I'm betting there's another Weasley who will love it."

Ron groaned loudly, throwing his head back. "I live with him. Please don't give him any ideas."

The group's laughter carried as they moved off, leaving Harry smiling faintly—until Starker's hand landed on his arm, halting him.

"Potter. A word."

The others drifted out of earshot. For the first time all day, Starker's voice wasn't sharp or commanding. It wasn't the clipped tone of an instructor addressing a class, nor the hard edge of a field commander delivering critique. There was something different in the way he spoke now—something quieter, measured, and oddly level. For the first time, Harry had the distinct sense Starker wasn't addressing a cadet at all.

He was talking to him like a peer.

Starker's eyes flicked to his new jacket, then back to Harry with something like amusement dancing in them. "This was clever today—using your elf."

Harry didn't answer. He wasn't sure what to say, and something in Starker's tone told him the thought wasn't finished. 

"But," Starker continued, raising one finger as if to drive the point home, "for three reasons, I will warn against doing this too much."

A knot tightened in Harry's stomach. Maybe he had cheated. If not in the letter, then in the spirit of the exercise. But if Starker thought so, why hadn't he called him out in front of the others? He'd never hesitated with anyone else.

"One." Starker's gaze hardened, his raised finger stiffened. "The point of Auror training is to sharpen a wizard. And you? Three years worth in less than three months. Your time to become sharper is limited. Do not take shortcut. Today I allowed it. Because what you used the elf for was only money for your disguise. In a real operation, this would be provided to you by the Auror Office. You understand, yes?"

Harry gave a single, tight nod.

"Good." Starker raised a second finger. "Two. The legend of Harry Potter is known. Everything you do will be watched. Your standards will always be higher. If Harry Potter succeeds, defeats Dark wizard…" he gestured briefly, searching for an example, "Geyadrone Dihada—of course you are victorious. Your are the Chosen One. But if Harry Potter fails? Then you are only legend. One who could not live up to himself. You understand this also?"

Harry's throat worked. He nodded again, though the agreement came heavier this time. "I do. Though it doesn't seem fair."

"It is not." Starker shrugged, as if that were simply the nature of things. He lifted a third finger. "Three. This is most important. House-elf is bound to you. In a real operation, there is always risk. A House-elf cannot choose risk. He can only obey."

Shame burned hot in Harry's chest. He hadn't thought of it like that—hadn't thought beyond the quick fix, the desire not to fail. Kreacher hadn't been a helper, he'd been a tool Harry had forced into the game without choice.

Starker's eyes narrowed, reading him. "You are ashamed. This is good."

Harry forced back a bitter laugh. "Yes, sir."

A hand settled firmly on his shoulder. "Good," Starker said again, softer this time. "It means the legend of Harry Potter is true." He gave him a long look. "It is rare to see a man match his legend."

Then, just as abruptly, he clapped Harry's arm hard enough to sting and sent him on his way.

As Harry rejoined the other cadets, the jacket suddenly felt heavier across his shoulders. He couldn't stop wondering how he'd ever manage to live up to the expectations of an entire world.

Chapter Text

Life at Hogwarts had become somewhat normal again. The sense of constant unease that had shadowed the first weeks back—of waiting for whispers in corridors or glances over shoulders—was finally beginning to fade. Students still preferred to travel in small groups, never alone if it could be helped, but the old rhythm of classes and common-room chatter was returning.

It helped that Professor McGonagall was everywhere. Without a Dark Lord's defeat hinging singularly upon her strategies she was able to spend more time with the students and teachers. Hardly a day went by when Ginny didn't see her walking the halls, sitting in on lessons with some of the new professors, or pausing to remind a prefect about rounds. Without the weight of a war to win, she seemed freer somehow, lighter and more approachable. And the students noticed. 

Ginny had just sat down for breakfast when the first owls arrived. The sound hit all at once, hundreds of wings cutting through the Great Hall, feathers scattering like snow. Ginny ducked her head instinctively, guarding her plate from the flusterstorm of grey and brown that descended on the tables. A handful of students groaned as they were struck with letters; others lunged to catch their family's owls before they crashed into the piles of bacon and sausages that littered each of the House tables.

Among the chaos were the familiar copies of the Daily Prophet. A few fluttered to rest between plates; others were passed down the benches.

Hermione had one open almost at once, her eyes flicking over the headlines. Ginny didn't bother to ask—she'd know that look Hermione got when she found something troubling. For now, it was just nice not to be combing through the Prophet for names of the dead, like they'd done all last year.

She caught only snippets as Hermione flipped through: speculation about Fenrir Greyback and the Death Eaters still at large. Then, on the lower fold, she saw it—Harry's name, followed by a moving photograph. The first image was an old one from the Triwizard Tournament: Harry at fourteen, smaller, before his major growth spurt, his expression caught somewhere between uncertainty and determination. The second, newer, showed him and Ginny together in Diagon Alley, caught mid-laugh outside Quality Quidditch Supplies.

A few glances shot their way down the table. That always happened when Harry's name appeared in the Prophet. It had been worse in the first week back—whispers, sideways looks, people asking questions she had no interest in answering. But by now, most students had learned that if they wanted to know the truth about Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley and Hermione Granger were far more reliable sources than the Prophet. And neither of them had much patience for gossip.

Hermione's brow furrowed. "There's an interview with one of the Auror cadets who dropped out," she said, tapping the page. "Hector Blackmere. Do you remember him?"

Ginny shook her head. "Doesn't sound familiar."

Harry and Ron never gave names in their letters—not of the people who were struggling, at least. The Ministry screened outgoing post from the training program, and both of them were careful not to say anything that might get redacted or delayed. It made sense, but it meant there were still gaps—people who existed in the periphery of Harry's world, known only through implication.

"Anything worth reading, or just fluff?" Ginny asked, reaching for her pumpkin juice.

Hermione shrugged without looking up. "Mostly fluff. Although this Hector is…something."

She folded the paper in half and slid it across the table. Ginny took it, feeling a few too many eyes flick toward her as she did. Normally, she ignored anything about Harry printed in the Prophet—a quick glance at the headline, then nothing more—but the subtle shift in the Great Hall's noise told her others were paying attention.

AUROR TRAINING UNDERWAY — POTTER AMONG NEW RECRUITS

By Reginald Amorim, Security Correspondent

LONDON — The Ministry's newly-reformed Auror Office has begun its first full training cycle since the war, and public interest is at an all–time high; due in no small part to the presence of one particularly famous trainee: Harry Potter.

Potter, widely celebrated as The Man Who Won, joined the accelerated Auror program earlier this summer alongside a select group of promising candidates drawn from across Britain. Ministry officials have declined to release the full roster, but sources inside the Department of Magical Law Enforcement confirm that this year's class is the smallest and most rigorously vetted in recent history.

Despite the secrecy, rumors swirl around the trainees' progress, and Potter's place among them. Some suspect that his inclusion is purely symbolic, a gesture of gratitude from Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt. Others insist that Potter's participation was the only foreseeable outcome for the young man who had defeated the greatest Dark wizard of all time by the age of seventeen.

The Prophet spoke with Hector Blackmere, a former trainee dismissed earlier this month, for insight into the competitive nature of the program.

"I've got nothing against Potter personally (though in this reporter's opinion, his tone suggested otherwise). I just don't see what makes him so special. Half the candidates there fought in the war too. Some of us actually had proper experience before all this. But I suppose if you've got a famous name, the Ministry's willing to look the other way."

Blackmere, whose expulsion was officially attributed to "conduct unbecoming of an Auror," declined to elaborate on the circumstances of his dismissal. He did, however, offer sharp criticism of the Ministry's new vetting standards.

"They're all about appearances now. Public image over competence. You make one comment they don't like, suddenly you're out. Meanwhile, Potter gets hailed as the future of law enforcement because he survived a killing curse fifteen years ago."

Officials from the Auror Office refused to comment on Blackmere's claims but reiterated that the program's standards remain "exacting, merit–based, and entirely apolitical."

Potter himself has remained tight–lipped, declining all interview requests since well before his victory over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Those who have encountered him in the Ministry describe him as "focused" and "determined." 

For now, the public can only speculate about what role The Man Who Won will play in shaping the next generation of Aurors. Whether Harry Potter proves to be a prodigy in practice—or merely a symbol of postwar optimism—remains to be seen.

Ginny frowned as she handed the paper back. "Blackmere sounds like a prat."

"Small wonder he was cut," Hermione agreed crisply, folding the paper shut.

Before Ginny could reply, Hermione's attention snagged on something else—a thick, cream-colored envelope bearing the Ministry's sigil in deep red wax. The sight of it was enough to make Ginny's pulse quicken.

"Is that—?"

Hermione nodded, eyes wide. The Prophet was forgotten in an instant. Together, they tore open the flap. Inside were two separate envelopes apiece, their names written out in Harry and Ron's familiar scrawl.

Ginny blinked and grinned widely. "Two letters! Hermione, I feel very honored."

Hermione gave a small laugh, still scanning the familiar handwriting. "I've known Harry for seven years. I can count on one hand the number of times he's written more than one letter in a week."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Don't act like Ron's some sort of prolific novelist," she said. "Mum was always on his case."

Hermione waved her off dismissively as she buttered a slice of toast. "Oh, please. Ron wrote plenty—just not always to your mum. It's not Harry's fault. Ron just had more…people at the time."

Ginny grinned. "Well, these are just the ones he's writing to us. I know he's been sending letters to Mum and Dad, and to George, and to Andi."

Hermione arched an eyebrow, brandishing her toast like it proved her point. Then her gaze dropped to her letter again, and her expression shifted—curious at first, then bemused. Ginny glanced down at her own, scanning quickly to see if she'd missed something.

Hermione looked up. "Harry's says something about their training. They…swam?" She frowned. "And got a lie-in for it?"

Ginny snorted. It wasn't often that Hermione was flummoxed by the written word, but if anyone could do it, it was Harry and Ron. She folded her letters closed with a grin and glanced over Hermione's shoulder to read along with her. "That can't be right."

Eventually, between Harry and Ron's differently-vague letters, the two of them pieced together the general idea. From what they could tell, Harry and Ron had managed to win themselves a half-hour lie-in after doing something underwater involving a Bubble-Head Charm. The Head Instructor had then sent them off for classroom work (though it wasn't entirely clear whether that was all on the same day or not) where their lecturer hadn't been nearly as impressed.

Hermione chewed her lip, rereading one of the letters. "Is it bad that a part of me—a small part, mind you—is just a bit glad to have them sitting in a lecture for once? After all those years of using my revision guides, all the years of me pestering them, and the endless talk about how they can't possibly go back to classrooms…"

Ginny snorted into her pumpkin juice. "Serves them right. I just wish they didn't have to be so vague about everything. It makes me worry we'll miss something important."

"Yes! Exactly!" Hermione said, sitting up straighter. "Can you imagine if it turns out…they actually had to trek through a swamp, and the Bubble-Head Charm was to block out the smell? Or if 'classroom work' is code for some advanced field exercise? And then, when we finally talk freely again, we'll make fools of ourselves by misreading all of it!"

Ginny grinned. "Yeah? That'd be…funny?"

"It'd be mortifying."

"Harry would think it's funny."

"Your brother wouldn't."

Ginny tilted her head, thinking about it. "Maybe not at first. But the Ron that fought a war with you isn't the same Ron who got bent out of shape every time someone corrected him. Or he wouldn't have lasted this long in Auror training."

Hermione's mouth twisted, but she didn't argue. She just sighed and flicked through the letters again. "It's all too vague. Open to interpretation in every direction. There has to be a clearer system they could've used—a proper cipher, something we all could've learned beforehand. Why didn't they think of that before they left? A simple keyword shift could work, or maybe numbers—assigning each letter a value. Then the message would look like nonsense unless you knew the key. But would Harry and Ron actually stick to something so structured? Ugh, it's infuriating. Why do they always have to make things so unnecessarily clever?"

Ginny blinked at her, amused. "Hermione, that is the definition of unnecessarily clever. If they tried any of that, the Ministry would never let their letters through."

Hermione's shoulders sagged, genuine disappointment on her face. "That's true. And I imagine the last thing Harry and Ron want to do after a full day of drills is remember a cipher."

Ginny patted her shoulder sympathetically. "Sure. That's the only time they wouldn't enjoy that."

Across the table, Demelza made a dramatic gagging noise. "You two are so lovesick it's gross," she said, flicking a stray bit of toast across the table.

Ginny swatted it out of the air before it hit her. "Very mature, Dee."

"I think it's sweet," Jocelyn said mildly.

Demelza made a face. Ginny caught Jocelyn's eye and they both rolled theirs in unison. Across from her, Hermione's cheeks had gone pink, her lips pressed together in what was very obviously an effort not to smile. She pretended to be entirely absorbed in Ron's latest letter, though the slight twitch in the corner of her mouth gave her away.

Just then, Maddox strolled past with a small knot of his Sixth and Seventh Year friends. He peeled off from the group, waving them off, and Rycroft followed a step behind. 

"It's because Dee thinks she's too cool for the rest of us," Maddox said, grinning as he reached their end of the table. "Every bloke in here's intimidated by her. No one's daring enough to make a move."

Demelza snorted, reaching for another slice of bacon. "There's plenty willing. I just haven't scared off anyone I didn't mean to. And there's none I'm going to lose my wits over."

Her eyes flicked toward Ginny, a smirk tugging at her mouth, before darting back to Maddox, who, oblivious, looked rather pleased with himself. Ginny recognized the mischief in Demelza's look instantly; she was being catty, and Maddox didn't even know it.

Merlin, that boy could be obtuse.

"Well, you can't blame the Captain, can you, Dee?" Maddox said, clearly assuming she'd been talking about Ginny. "Savior of the Wizarding World and all that." He turned toward Hermione with a teasing grin. "Now, Granger and Weasley? That one I'll never understand. It was like oil and water, those two. Always at each other's throats."

Ginny caught it—the briefest flicker of tension across Hermione's face. Her eyes paused mid-scan of Ron's letter, sharpening for a heartbeat before she forced them back to the page, composed again as if nothing had happened.

Rycroft, perhaps sensing the shift, jumped in quickly. "I mean, yeah, they're pretty different," he said, with a nervous laugh. "But it didn't seem like that at all over the summer."

Maddox chuckled, undeterred. "All the time. She was always nagging at him," he said. "And he was always sniping back. We couldn't believe they were even friends—never mind best friends."

Rycroft shot Hermione a small, awkward glance, the kind that was meant to be sympathetic but only made things worse. Ginny wasn't sure if he realized Hermione had noticed. "Well, you know what they say about opposites attracting," he added hastily, with a weak smile. "Can't really fight that, can you?"

Maddox leaned forward in his seat, nodding as though he'd just arrived at a profound conclusion. "That must be true; look at her." He gestured broadly toward Hermione. "Smartest witch in her year—and ours, too, now that I think of it—and then look at Weasley and tell me that's not a case of—"

The rest never left his mouth.

Hermione's hand came down flat against the table with a sharp smack. The look she leveled Maddox with could've peeled paint from the walls.

"Ron Weasley," she began, her voice cool and cutting, "is a more thoughtful and intelligent man than a boy like you could ever understand. He is patient, and kind, and generous. And he's the one person who consistently calls me out when I'm being stubborn, unreasonable, or just too bloody certain of how right I am." Her eyes narrowed. "He challenges me to be better than I was the day before—the same way I hope I challenge him. And I will not stand for you speaking about him that way."

The room fell into stunned silence.

For several agonizing seconds, the only sound was the faint scratching of Vignette's spoon against her porridge bowl as she tried—desperately—to look busy with something. Maddox looked as though he'd just been hit over the head with a Bludger. Of all the things he might've expected over breakfast, a full verbal flaying from Hermione Granger was not one of them.

To his credit, he recovered quickly. Raising both hands in mock surrender, he offered a sheepish grin. "Sorry, didn't mean anything by it. Just joking around, really."

Hermione's icy glare could have chilled Fiendfyre. Ginny sat back, half in awe, half in admiration. She shouldn't have been surprised, really. Over the summer, she and Harry had leaned on each other through grief and healing, holding each other upright when the world seemed to tilt. Why should she expect anything less of Ron and Hermione? It warmed her, that fierce protectiveness, knowing her brother had someone who loved him that fiercely.

Maddox reached out, perhaps hoping to smooth the tension, and laid a hand lightly on Hermione's forearm. The contact was brief but sharp—Hermione flinched, more from confusion than fear, but it was enough.

"I didn't mean anything by it," he said quickly, his tone softening. "I promise, Hermione." A tight smile, a nod to the rest. "I'll get out of your hair. See you at practice, Captain."

And with that, he bolted—almost literally—leaving Rycroft standing slack-jawed in his wake. For a long, awkward moment, no one moved. Then Vignette huffed, grabbed Rycroft by the sleeve, and yanked him down into the empty seat beside her.

Rycroft leaned toward her, his voice low and sheepish. "I didn't know what to do."

Vignette's sigh was equal parts exasperation and amusement. "Then next time," she muttered, "try shutting him up before he digs his own grave."

The silence returned—thick and uncomfortable. Ginny could feel the heat of Hermione's anger still hanging in the air over the table, could see it in the way Maddox's abandoned seat seemed to repel every other student walking by.

But before the quiet could stretch too far, Jocelyn leaned forward and broke it neatly in half. "You're right," she said to Demelza, in a tone of exaggerated resignation. "They're sickeningly sweet."

Demelza slapped her hand down on the table, triumphant, sending a spoon clattering. "You see!" she said, gesturing wildly toward Ginny and Hermione with her other hand. "All summer I dealt with it—every bloody day!"

Laughter rippled weakly down the table, relief disguised as amusement. Even Hermione managed a small, embarrassed smile as the tension finally began to ease. Then, mercifully, McGonagall's voice—clear, commanding, and magically amplified—rang out across the Great Hall.

"May I have your attention, please."

Every head turned toward the staff table as the Headmistress rose to her feet, saving them all from the last shreds of awkwardness. 

"This year, Hogwarts students will have the opportunity to participate in the Unity Initiatives," she began. Her voice carried over the Great Hall again, firm and authoritative, but with just enough warmth to make the students lean forward in their seats. "Each is designed to reconcile lingering tensions between Houses, to foster collaboration, and to prepare you for the wizarding world that awaits beyond these walls."

As she spoke, Ginny let her gaze wander over the tables, listening and summarizing each initiative in her mind. The International Student Summit on Wizarding Unity, set for springtime in Zurich, Switzerland, would bring select students from schools across the world together to discuss post-war reconciliation, magical law, and international cooperation. Then there was The International Symposium for Magical Innovation in Florence, Italy, an academic faire where Hogwarts students could present research, prototype charms, enchanted devices, and theoretical essays.

The third initiative, The Wizarding Apprenticeship Convocation, was a competition for coveted apprenticeships offered by top figures in healing, curse-breaking, potion-making, and other magical professions. The Symposium on Wizarding Careers would act as a reimagined post-war career fair, focused on rebuilding wizarding society and broadening the scope of magical careers. Finally, The Hogwarts Exhibition of Spellcraft would challenge younger students, Years 1–4, to perform or dissect obscure and ancient spells under pressure.

"Any student interested in participating should speak with their Prefects, Head Students, or Heads of House," McGonagall concluded. "Interest meetings will be scheduled to discuss the initiatives further."

Ginny could feel Rycroft and the girls leaning toward her and Hermione, whispering quickly enough for her to catch pieces of their questions.

"Why didn't you say anything about this?" Rycroft asked, eyebrows raised and eyes practically dancing with excitement.

Ginny glanced at Hermione, who shrugged. "McGonagall asked us not to until she could announce it herself," Ginny explained. "She wanted everyone to hear it at the same time."

Ginny's gaze drifted to the other tables. At the Ravenclaw table, Safia was deep in conversation with another housemate, gesturing so wildly that Ginny felt a pang of guilt for not checking in with her sooner. She made a quiet promise to herself to do just that.

Among the Hufflepuffs, Gareth was already being mobbed with questions, his hands fluttering as he tried to answer. The Slytherins were more reserved, still, but they were talking too, heads bent close together, cautious but curious.

The chatter spread like wildfire: How long do they have to prepare for the symposium? What's the difference between the Wizarding Careers Colloquium and the Apprenticeship Convocation? How will they choose who goes to the Student Summit?

McGonagall's voice cut through the clamor once more, reiterating that Prefects, Head Students, and Heads of House would organize interest meetings to answer these questions.

"And," she added, a small lift in her tone, "I am pleased to announce that this year we will hold a Winter Solstice Ball. Those who remember the Yule Ball of 1994 will find it familiar, though the structure will be somewhat looser. Fourth-years and above are invited, and they may choose to invite a younger student if they wish."

Ginny's stomach gave a little flutter. She hoped, against her better judgment, that she might be able to invite Harry. But the sinking feeling in her chest whispered that this would be a students-only event. Still, she let herself imagine for a moment: dancing at the ball, music swirling, and Harry there beside her—even if just in her mind.

The last lesson of the day—Care of Magical Creatures—wrapped up under the pale autumn sun. The air was sharp with the scent of damp grass and lake water. Around the paddock, clusters of Seventh Years were hastily scribbling notes while the last of the Dugbogs slithered sluggishly back toward their muddy pools.

"Now, Dugbogs," Hagrid said, clapping his massive hands together, "they're mostly harmless—bit of a nuisance, sure—but yeh've got ter respect 'em. They eat small fish, frogs, and suchlike, but what they really fancy is Mandrakes."

That earned a few groans and curious looks.

"Professor Sprout's had a bit o' trouble now an' again," Hagrid went on cheerfully, "with Dugbogs wanderin' up from the swamps when they catch the scent o' maturing Mandrake. It's like chocolate to 'em, poor things. Nothin' quite so sad as a Dugbog dreamin' of a Mandrake stew."

Several students laughed uncertainly.

Hagrid's expression darkened slightly. "Course, there've been exceptions. Back some hundred years ago, some Dugbogs were affected by…well, dark contaminants. Made 'em mean, proper aggressive toward humans. Nasty business, that. But we haven't seen any like that in a hundred years or so."

He paused, stroking his beard, eyes drifting toward the Forbidden Forest. "Still—what with the battle last year, all the Dark magic saturatin' the grounds—it's hard ter say how the local creatures'll react. Some o' the bigger Dugbogs might come wanderin' further than they used to, lookin' for new food sources."

Ginny could already feel the warning forming in her stomach.

"And that's where you lot come in," Hagrid finished proudly, chest puffing. "If it happens, I've volunteered my N.E.W.T. students ter help with relocation and observation. Great opportunity, tha' is!"

Around Ginny, a low murmur rippled through the class. "Volunteered" sounded suspiciously like pressed into service.

She eyed the wide, drooping face of the Dugbog nearest her. It stared back through half-lidded eyes, the perfect picture of amphibian gloom. The thing's mouth hung open just enough to reveal a few blunt, algae-coated teeth. Ginny grimaced. Dugbogs were decidedly more unsettling than any of the garden pests she'd grown up chasing off the Burrow's vegetable patch.

She shot a pleading look at Anya, hoping for solidarity, but Anya only grinned, clearly thrilled at the idea of chasing potentially aggressive swamp beasts. Luna, meanwhile, was crouched beside a shallow pool, cradling a juvenile Dugbog in her hands as though it were a kitten.

Ginny sighed. "You alright, Luna?"

"Of course," Luna said serenely. "But I think she needs a name. What should we call her?"

Ginny groaned inwardly. She loved Luna—she really did—but naming a Dugbog was not on her priority list. Still, she tried to play along. "How about…Slimesquelcher?"

Luna cocked her head thoughtfully, turning the creature in her hands. "That's a very moist name."

Anya made a face. "Please never say that word again."

Luna ignored her. "I think she likes it," she said dreamily.

Ginny mustered a wry grin. "I'm so glad."

"You really do have a knack for naming, Ginny," Luna mused, still peering fondly at the Dugbog. "Do you think you'll name your children, or will you let Harry toss in a few? He strikes me as the sort who might come up with something more practical."

Ginny sputtered, her face going hot. "Luna—!"

That was definitely not the topic she was prepared to discuss in front of her classmates, let alone while a half-rotted amphibian blinked up at her from Luna's hands. She could practically hear Demelza laughing already if word got out.

But with her last class of the day wrapped up, Ginny was more than ready to get back on her broom. She made her way down to the changing rooms, changed quickly into her Quidditch kit, and made her way down to the pitch, broom slung over her shoulder.

Anya and Luna joined her. They settled into the stands, bundled in scarves and light jumpers and chattering animatedly about the Dubgogs they'd just finished with. Anya pulled out a parchment and quill, already excited about finishing an essay before the weekend, while Luna seemed to be sketching something that involved a Dugbog wearing earmuffs.

Ginny dropped her broom by the benches and began her stretches, rolling her shoulders and shaking out her arms. The pitch was quiet at first—only the whisper of wind sweeping across the grass and the soft rustle of parchment from her friends on the stands.

But as she reached down to touch her toes, her thoughts betrayed her, wandering back to Luna's words from earlier.

Children. Her children.

She exhaled slowly through her nose and straightened, rubbing her arms as if to banish the thought. Why was that even in her head? She was seventeen. Barely an adult—in fact, still a student. No one at the Auror Office was likely asking Harry about future children. They probably weren't even asking him about steady relationships.

Still, the thought lingered stubbornly, looping in her mind as she started on a few off-broom drills. Her mother had Bill just a few years after leaving Hogwarts—before she'd turned twenty-one. Andromeda had Tonks not long after that. Harry's parents were even younger. 

By comparison, Tonks having Teddy at twenty-five almost seemed late.

But none of it felt distant, not anymore. Those weren't the far-off adult milestones she'd once imagined for her parents' generation. They were creeping closer; tangible, almost real. And Ginny's own life, after all the chaos and loss and war, felt like it was only just beginning. Or maybe, finally beginning to belong to her.

Thankfully, the staggered arrival of her teammates rescued her from her spiraling thoughts. First came Demelza, laughing with Jimmy and Ritchie; then Maddox, already tossing a Quaffle from hand to hand as though he couldn't bear to stop moving. One by one, the rest trickled in, their chatter and energy filling the air.

Ginny also noticed a scattering of students making their way into the stands. Some had clearly come to watch for the fun of it, clutching pumpkin pasties and sketchpads, while others looked suspiciously like scouts from the other Houses, eyes tracking every warm-up with too much focus.

She was half-tempted to shout for them to clear off, but she couldn't very well do that with Anya and Luna still seated up there; and besides, it wasn't exactly in the spirit of McGonagall's grand "Unity Initiative." As Head Girl, she was supposed to encourage inter-House camaraderie, not bark people off the pitch for curiosity.

So she swallowed her irritation, brushed a strand of hair out of her face, and mounted her broom. If she couldn't banish her thoughts—or the spectators—then she'd outfly them instead.

"Alright, team!" she called, voice sharp and steady as the wind carried it across the pitch. "Up in the air—formation drills first, then precision passing. We're not leaving until every last one of you flies clean."

The Gryffindor team scrambled into action, a flurry of red and gold streaks rising into the air above the pitch. Ginny hovered near the center circle, arms crossed, watching them spread out and loosen up. The air was crisp, the wind steady, a perfect evening for practice. And she was determined to make it count.

The first fifteen minutes passed in a blur of motion; warmups and conditioning drills that left her every muscle humming. Ginny pushed them through laps around the pitch, increasing the speed with each circuit until even the most seasoned flyers were red-faced and windblown. It was good work—honest and exhausting and distracting.

By the time she blew the whistle again, half the team was panting and red in the face, sweat glinting even in the cool evening air. Ginny gave them only a short breather before her next command. 

Then came the agility runs; zigzagging through obstacle rings, quick turns, braking drills, dives, and bursts of acceleration meant to sharpen their reflexes. Ginny rode the line between encouragement and beratement, adjusting formations and correcting posture mid-flight.

With their second practice fully underway, she allowed herself to observe instead of merely manage as she had during their first. Samuel and Maddox were the first to draw her eye. They were talented, certainly, with instincts and speed to rival any other pair on the pitch; but they couldn't go five minutes without trying to outdo each other—looping higher, diving lower, throwing no-look passes that, more often than not, ruined her carefully planned drills. It wasn't that they were reckless, it was that they disrupted everyone else's focus. Ginny clenched her jaw watching them exchange another round of show-off dives.

She made a mental note to rein that in—firmly—before next week.

Her gaze shifted upward to Aria, the tiny Third Year darting between the rest. The girl was fearless, weaving in and out of formation in a way that seemed the exact opposite of Maddox and Samuel's aggressive showboating, but with an intensity that made Ginny's heart swell with pride and her pulse quicken with excitement for the first game of the year. Aria dove like she had no sense of self-preservation whatsoever—exactly the kind of Seeker who could win a match before the other team even realized the Snitch was in play. 

She'd need a few years yet to learn the nuances of the game, but the potential was unmistakable. Given time—and without the threat of a genocidal Dark Lord stalking her every match—Aria might even outfly Harry someday.

Once everyone was stretched, flying cleanly, and breathing steady again, Ginny took command. She called the team in, hovering just above the grass, and began assigning position drills. The Beaters were split into two pairs—one group to attack, the other to defend—testing their timing and coordination against Bludgers that darted and swerved with deliberately unpredictable enchantments. The Keepers rotated through the goalposts, blocking rapid-fire shots from the Chasers in two-on-one and three-on-one formations. Up above, the two Seekers were turned loose after nine battered old Snitches, each moving with its own erratic speed, leaving flashes of gold glinting in the dim light as they darted across the pitch.

Ginny joined the Chasers, keeping half her mind on the drills and the other half on the team as a whole. The choices she'd made for positions felt sound—she could see it now, in motion—but there was plenty of work ahead. Briony and Bernie made a fine Beater pair, strong and sharp, but they lacked the seamless intuition of seasoned partners. Jimmy and Ritchie were getting there—she could see it forming—but no one had that effortless, wordless sync Fred and George once shared. 

That specific thought hit like a Bludger to the chest as she caught a pass from Natalie. Grief and sorrow struck her, sharp and sudden, and before she knew it, her next shot went wide, sailing straight between two hoops.

Thaddeus barely shifted from his spot before the central goal, his brow furrowing just slightly as he met her eyes. Ginny gave a small shake of her head, forcing down the ache that was threatening to bloom into something worse.

"Yeah, I can miss, too," she called lightly, more to herself than anyone else. "Let's run it again."

She buried the sting beneath motion.

The drills continued—fluid, fast, punishing. She and Demelza fell easily into rhythm, their passes sharp and instinctive, every movement built from a summer of relentless practice. Maddox and Samuel had their own kind of chemistry, though Ginny noted how often Sam deferred the finishing shot, slipping the Quaffle to Maddox instead of taking it himself. Maddox's play was strong, but Ginny filed away the observation for later; that kind of hesitation could lose them matches.

In the three-on-one rotations, her trio with Demelza and Maddox tore through Thaddeus's defenses—swift, strategic, almost unbeatable. When Dean joined in, the dynamic shifted—more creative, less predictable, flashes of brilliance tempered by rust. He was shaking it off bit by bit, each run stronger than the last, and by the end, he was starting to look like his old self again. Natalie, meanwhile, proved steady and adaptable—not a star yet, but solid and reliable, the kind of player who could become great with time and trust.

After one last sequence of passes and a clean score through the left hoop, Ginny checked her watch. They'd pushed hard, and the light was starting to fade toward early evening. Their playing time was beginning to slip away. She blew her whistle, circling once above the team before calling them to land.

"Great job, everyone!" Ginny called, hovering above the pitch as the last of the players touched down. "Water break and then we're back up in ten."

A few cheers went up, and the team broke formation, flushed and wind-tousled, and dipped toward the grass. They landed and unstrapped gloves, laughing and shaking out sore arms. Ginny drifted down toward the grass and spotted Aria and Dennis standing a few yards apart near the benches, both looking a bit winded and sheepish.

She set her broom aside and walked over. "How many have you two found?"

Aria straightened up, clutching one of the battered old Snitches in her palm. "Um—three," she said quickly, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "But Dennis got four."

Ginny blinked, surprised. Dennis, grinning modestly, held up his own catches like trophies. She hadn't expected that. It made sense, though—Aria was daring, sharp, quick as lightning in match conditions, but this wasn't a match. The Snitches were sluggish and erratic; no Bludgers or players to weave around. Dennis's odd habit of losing focus before snapping back to the chase had probably helped him here.

Aria's eyes flickered uncertainly, as if she was bracing for criticism. Ginny smiled instead and gave her a friendly bump on the shoulder. "Just means you've got some work to do," she said, warm but firm. "And I've got no doubt you'll put in the hours."

Aria's shoulders eased, and Dennis gave a small, approving nod.

Even as she turned away, Ginny's gaze swept over the team again, quietly watching how they spent their break. Were they still talking strategy? Cooling off responsibly? Or letting the energy of practice turn into distraction and jokes? She knew she was probably being too hard on them—it was only their second week back—but she wanted to win. 

Demelza flopped down beside her on the grass, groaning good-naturedly. "That was killer," she panted. "I don't think I've run drills that hard before."

Jimmy plopped down next to them, grinning. "Yeah. Harry's got nothing on you, Ginny."

That earned a few laughs from the others. 

Ritchie leaned his broom against his shoulder. "This team is seriously good. We're going to flatten Slytherin in that first match," he said.

"Cheers to that!" Maddox called, raising his water bottle. "Can't wait to show them what we can do."

Ginny smiled faintly, but her stomach twisted a little. Of course she wanted that—to hear the roar of the stands chanting their colors again—but there was something else tugging at her now. The weight of the Head Girl badge tucked into her gear; a reminder that she wasn't just a captain, or a player. She was supposed to be setting an example, bridging divides, helping the school heal.

Could she do both—play to win and still lead fairly?

Her thoughts wandered to her dad, to the way he always seemed to carry everyone else's burdens without letting it dim his warmth. Maybe she'd write him tonight—ask how he balanced it, how he handled the constant rebuilding and the quiet, invisible tensions at work and at home.

Movement on the edge of her vision caught her attention. Bernie Foswick stood a little apart from the others, a dark, furious look flashing across his face—there and gone in an instant. Ginny frowned, unsure what had sparked it, but made a mental note to keep an eye on him, especially after Natalie's comments the other night.

For now, she stood, brushing grass from her knees and clapping her hands to call the team's attention back. Whatever doubts she had, one thing remained clear: Gryffindor needed its strength again. And she was going to build the best Quidditch team the House had ever seen.

When the water break ended, Ginny gathered her team back into the air and called for a full scrimmage—Starters versus Reserves. This time, it wouldn't just be practice dummies and tamed Bludgers. She wanted to see how they handled real pressure. Two fully enchanted Bludgers, a Snitch released from its case, and all of them moving at full speed.

The moment she laid out the plan, the air filled with excitement and nervous energy. Ginny motioned for her Starters to huddle close while the Reserves gathered a few yards away. She used the quick moment to run through a few last-minute plays, but her eyes kept flicking toward the other group, curious to see who would take charge on their end.

It didn't take long to find out. Sam stepped forward, all grins and wild energy, clapping shoulders and firing up the others with fast talk and swagger. His voice carried across the pitch, rallying them like a showman before a brawl. Dean, by contrast, was quieter—steady, thoughtful. He nodded encouragement, offered positioning tips, and smoothed out Sam's rough edges without ever trying to overshadow him. Together, they found an odd sort of balance.

When she blew the whistle and released the balls, chaos erupted immediately. Bludgers shrieked through the air, Chasers streaked between goal hoops, and Ginny found herself trying to play Chaser, captain, and referee all at once. It was impossible to see everything—the Quaffle zipped past her peripheral vision, shouts and cheers echoing over the wind. She caught sight of Demelza making a brilliant feint, only to realize too late that she'd missed her cue to get into position.

She cursed under her breath, darted in to chase after the fallen Quaffle, but then finally had enough.

"Time out!" she yelled, raising a hand. The players slowed, breathless and red-faced. Ginny rubbed her temple, exasperated. "Look, I can't be ref and play at the same time," she said, half laughing despite herself. "Just—don't kill each other, alright?"

A few chuckles broke out, and even Bernie cracked a grin. So with that said, she tossed the Quaffle back up and called for the restart.

This time, with the burden of watching every little foul off her shoulders, Ginny could focus on her own squad. And it felt good—natural, like slipping into rhythm. She and Demelza moved as one, passing wordlessly between them, ducking and weaving through the Reserve defense. Ritchie and Jimmy's coordination was sharper every week; their positioning almost intuitive now. She didn't have to call plays—the four of them just knew.

Aria darted far above, a streak of red and gold, and Thaddeus hovered in goal, commanding his space with quiet confidence. They'd both found their footing. Ginny trusted them to know their roles well enough. Seekers typically operated separately and Keepers were usually the play-starters.That left her with just one variable: Maddox.

At first, she kept an eye on him, watching how he adjusted. But he surprised her—quick-thinking, sharp instincts, a willingness to adapt that made him fit right into the rhythm of the Starters. He might not have Demelza's finesse or her experience, but he made up for it in sheer energy.

The Reserves fought valiantly—Sam's relentless spirit driving them forward, Dean's focus holding them together—but they were simply outmatched. The Starters' synergy, built from weeks of work and familiarity, held fast and blew through every defense and counter-play the Reserves could put together.

When Ginny glanced at the magically-charmed scoreboard tracking their progress near the stands, the gap had stretched wide—more than two hundred points. Neither Aria nor Dennis had managed to catch the Snitch, but it didn't matter; the sun was dipping lower, and exhaustion was setting in.

She gave one last sharp whistle and waved her arm. "That's it! Good flying, everyone!"

As the players descended, sweat-soaked and laughing, Ginny hovered a moment longer, letting the wind whip her hair back. For all the chaos, for all her doubts earlier in the day, this—right here—felt right. Her team. Her House. Her pitch.

She landed, and Aria touched down hard beside her, her boots kicking up divots of grass as she slid to a stop near the others. Her face was flushed from the wind and the chase, eyes bright with frustration.

"I saw it, Ginny, I promise," she said breathlessly, scanning the sky as if the Snitch might still be flitting somewhere just out of reach.

Ginny smiled, letting her broom rest against her shoulder. "Good. That's what I like to hear."

"I would have had it in just a few more minutes," Aria pressed, determined. Her fingers twitched slightly, as if they still itched to close around the golden wings.

"That's alright," Ginny said, tone even. "Starters were ahead by enough that the Reserves weren't likely to catch up anyway."

Aria's shoulders slumped. "Does that mean you're going to start Dennis instead of me?"

Ginny shook her head and softened her voice. "This is only our second practice. We've got loads more before the first match. Don't worry."

Aria nodded, though her expression stayed tense. Ginny bumped her gently with her shoulder, trying to lighten the mood. "Hey. This was just a thirty-minute scrimmage. Most matches go twice that, easy. You did great." A grin tugged at her mouth. "You know how many times Harry didn't catch the Snitch during practice?"

Before Aria could answer, Demelza—who'd just flopped onto the grass beside them—snorted. "Are we counting the times he wasn't paying attention because he was too busy staring at your arse?"

Ginny let out a sharp tsk and shot her friend a warning look, darting a quick glance toward Dean, who was leaning casually on his broom a few paces away. She and Harry hadn't exactly avoided their early history, but there were parts of that tangled timeline she didn't love revisiting—especially not with Dean standing right there.

But Dean just chuckled, shaking his head as if to wave off her silent worry. "Harry and I are good, Ginny." He turned toward Aria with an easy smile. "Potter definitely spent more time—let's call it 'evaluating Chasers'—than was strictly necessary."

Maddox strolled up beside him, grinning. "Wait—you dated Weasley, Thomas? I didn't know that."

Dean raised an eyebrow, amused. "Well…it was a while ago. And a lot happened since then."

"You mean her and Potter's epic love story?" Maddox said with a lazy smirk. "Yeah, I caught that in the Prophet."

Dean's smile flattened, unimpressed. "Sure. That—and, you know—the entire Second Wizarding War? Might've read about it. I think the Prophet mentioned it once or twice, too."

"Sure you weren't reading Witch Weekly, Maddox?" Briony teased, leaving the rest chuckling after her.

Maddox rolled his eyes good-naturedly, holding up both hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm just saying—if it were me, I might still be carrying a grudge."

Dean snorted softly and leaned his broom over his shoulder again, looking every bit the older, wiser seventh-year among them. "Then it's a good thing it wasn't you," he said simply.

Ginny frowned, jaw tightening. She was standing right there. Why in Merlin's name did Maddox think he could talk about her like she wasn't? The nerve of him—half smug, half oblivious.

Luckily for him, Dean chose the high road. He stood, stretching lazily, that calm, unbothered grin returning. "Well," he said, tone light but edged just enough to land, "I guess it's lucky for us all that I'm not you, then."

Ginny bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, a sharp bark of amusement fighting its way out anyway. Demelza didn't bother trying to hold hers in; she burst into a loud laugh that made Maddox blink in surprise and look faintly embarrassed.

Before anything more could come from it, Dean gathered his broom and gear. "Good practice, everyone," he said, already half-turned toward the exit. "But I've got a double Alchemy bright and early tomorrow that I need to finish some work for." He gave Ginny a casual salute, easy and friendly. "See you 'round the common room."

One by one, the rest of the team followed—some chattering, some dragging their feet with the slow exhaustion of a long practice. Ginny lingered a moment, watching them go, her muscles humming from the effort and her mind whirring despite the fatigue. Then she headed off with the girls toward the changing rooms.

The steam from the showers hung heavy in the air when she entered. She peeled out of her muddy robes, feeling the ache in every joint, and scrubbed the dirt and sweat from her skin until she felt almost human again. By the time she was lacing her trainers back up, her whole body throbbed with that strange, satisfying soreness that came from working hard and knowing it had meant something.

It had been a good practice—better than good, really. The drills had been sharp, the scrimmage productive. She'd kept the peace between players, and even if the occasional tension still flickered beneath the surface, it was holding. She wasn't as far behind on her coursework as she'd feared, either. For once, she felt like she might actually be balancing it all.

Demelza was waiting for her near the benches, hair damp and curling, while Briony stepped out from the showers, towel wrapped snugly around her. 

"Great practice, Ginny," Briony said, though there was hesitation in her voice. "But…is there really a chance the Reserves get to play in one of the actual games? Or are we really just here to help you train?"

Ginny looked up sharply. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Natalie pause mid-motion, clearly listening.

Briony rushed to explain. "I just—I mean, there are only three games, right? I know we'll practice a bit, and have some fun, but…what are the odds that we get time on the pitch in one of the actual games?"

Ginny stayed quiet for a long moment, the question hanging in the steam-filled air. She tugged the knot tight on her laces, mind turning. If she was being honest, she hadn't really thought about it. The Reserve team had always been about preparation—an extra layer of readiness, more people to train against. A way to simulate the chaos of a full match. That had been her logic, practical and unromantic.

But looking up at Briony's hopeful face—and the quiet attention of Natalie behind her—she suddenly realized how little she'd considered what it felt like for them.

Ginny leaned back on the bench, brushing damp strands of hair from her forehead, and gave a slow, thoughtful nod. "Honestly, I'm not sure," she admitted. "Three games isn't a lot. But…a lot can happen. We've been down players before, and it's been rough, so I didn't want that to happen again."

Briony's shoulders slumped slightly. "Of course. I get that."

Ginny caught the dejection and pushed on gently, trying to frame it as encouragement rather than reprimand. "Look, Jimmy and Ritchie are good—no avoiding that. But they're not—" She faltered, the words she wanted lingering unspoken. "Fred and George" felt like a name she couldn't bring up, and she swallowed hard, forcing herself to continue as if nothing had happened. "They're not perfect. If you want time on the pitch during a game, watch what they do—how they do it—during practice, and keep working at it. I meant what I said during tryouts: Starters, Reserves—it's all just words. The way I see it, I've got two Keepers, two Seekers, four Beaters, and six Chasers. And I'm going to pick the best for the job."

Briony's face brightened, a spark of determination returning to her eyes. Natalie stepped up beside her, tossing her gear onto the bench.

"So you're saying all I have to do is get better than Maddox, though, yeah?" Natalie asked, a grin tugging at her lips.

Ginny shook her head slightly. "Sam and Dean, too."

Natalie's grin widened. "Yeah, but Mads's better than either of them, so if I want a shot, that's my real target."

Briony piped up, a little hesitant. "Plus, Dean's Muggle-born, right?"

Ginny blinked at her, caught off guard and almost affronted. "So?"

Briony waved a hand vaguely, trying to clarify. "I'm not saying anything against that, just—Muggle-borns are inherently less…I don't know, prepared? They didn't grow up with all of this. Magic. Quidditch. It's not their fault, but it does make a difference, doesn't it?"

Ginny's jaw dropped. "Hey! What? Are you kidding?"

Briony shrugged. "Come on, you know I'm right. I don't hate Muggle-borns. I'm just saying they have to work harder to catch up and maintain that kind of proficiency. Natalie's been around magic her entire life; it'll be easier for her to make up the difference and swing the gap in the opposite direction than it'll be for Dean to maintain it."

Ginny felt frozen, her chest tightening and her hands trembling with anger. They had just fought a war against this sort of thinking, and here was someone—from Gryffindor, from her team—spouting nonsense as if it were fact. The urge to reach for her wand flared, but she bit it back.

Luckily for Briony, Demelza didn't hold back.

"That's a stupid fucking take, Briony. Especially for someone in the same House as Hermione Granger," she said, matter-of-fact and sharp.

Briony rolled her eyes, exasperated. "I'm not saying Granger isn't brilliant. But wouldn't you say she's the exception?" she asked. "And there's a difference between knowing the theory and being able to fully live with and integrate magic into your life."

Ginny's voice was low and dangerous. "You don't know what you're fucking talking about."

Briony persisted, gesturing vaguely. "Come on. Look at Quidditch. Name one all-star professional player?"

Instantly, Ginny shot back, proud of how quickly it came to her. "Victor Pennant."

Briony waved a hand. "Okay, sure. But he's not active anymore. Can you name any that haven't switched careers and are in the top tier of active players?"

Ginny's indignation flared. "Leah Townsend."

Demelza chimed in. "Connor Briggs."

Ginny rattled off more: "Charlotte Hughes. Devon Clarke."

Natalie added, "Marcus Doyle."

Briony sighed. "Okay, maybe a bad example, but you're not hearing me. Think about everything else. You—"

Ginny cut her off triumphantly. "Harry-fucking-Potter."

The air seemed to leave the room, though Briony still looked unconvinced. "He's not Muggle-born," she countered.

Ginny's glare sharpened. "Might as well be; he didn't know magic existed until he was eleven. Youngest Hogwarts Quidditch player in a century. Won every game unless he was being attacked by Dementors or Cormac McLaggen."

Demelza, unamused, added, "Beat Voldemort. Twice, actually."

Briony raised her hands, bewildered. "Just so I have this straight, your counter-example is a half-blood…and the Chosen One?"

"Only because you keep moving the bloody goalposts," Demelza snapped.

Briony's voice wavered, almost desperate. "Look, I don't hate Muggle-borns or anything, alright? I'm just—I dunno! I'm just trying to encourage Natalie!"

Ginny's fury boiled over. "Well figure out a better way to build someone up without disparaging half the school."

"They're not half the—"

"Not the fucking point, Cartwright!" Ginny's voice rang with raw intensity. "We just finished fighting a war about all of this. My brother died fighting against people who believed that load of horseshit. Collin died, Professor Lupin died! How many people did we lose because of people like—"

Demelza's hand came down gently on Ginny's arm, pulling her back before she could say—or do—something she might regret. Ginny's pulse was racing, her breath uneven, face flushed. Her palms were slick with sweat, her muscles trembling. And it wasn't from practice.

She exhaled through her nose, hard, and waved Briony off, turning toward the exit.

"Am I—are you kicking me off the team?" Briony's voice came out small, uncertain.

Ginny sighed, shoulders tightening. Of course that was her first question. She turned back just long enough to meet Briony's wide eyes.

"No," she said, voice even but firm. "I appreciate what you were trying to do for Natalie—as stupid as you went about it. I do. But I think you need to take a hard look in the mirror. Think about what just happened here, right where we're standing. Think about who isn't standing here anymore. And think about why."

Briony's face paled. Ginny didn't wait for a response. She turned and walked out, Demelza falling into step beside her. Natalie and Aria followed quietly behind.

The anger hadn't left her—it simmered in her chest, hot and nauseating. She was caught between wanting to hex Briony into next week and the sudden urge to cry. How could someone still think that way? After everything—after everyone—they'd lost.

Demelza blew out a low whistle, trying to break the tension. "That…was awful."

Ginny didn't answer. She glanced back just in time to see Briony trudging out of the changing room, head down, shoulders slumped. Good.

"I think I've lost my appetite," Ginny muttered.

Demelza gave her a sidelong look. "And for a Weasley, that's saying something."

They walked in silence for a few long moments, their footsteps echoing faintly on the stone path up to the castle.

Then Aria spoke, her voice quiet but trembling with something raw. "Is it…do you think it's going to be like last year again?"

Ginny shook her head sharply. "No. Not a chance."

Natalie hesitated. "You sound so certain."

Demelza snorted, half amused, half admiring. "Head Girl, first-name basis with the Minister, father and brother in key Ministry positions, boyfriend and other brother joining the Aurors…" She threw Ginny a meaningful look. "I wouldn't bet against her."

Natalie tilted her head. "Think you'll end up at the Ministry next year then?"

Ginny hesitated, ignoring the meaningful glance Demelza shot her way. Of the group, Demelza was the only one who knew about her plans—the dream she'd clung to since she was eleven—to go play Quidditch professionally after Hogwarts. But the more she saw of the world outside the pitch, the more uncertain she became. Briony's careless words still echoed in her head, cold and sour, like a slap she hadn't been expecting. There was so much still broken, still raw. Wanting to chase Quaffles for a living suddenly felt…frivolous.

For the first time, she truly understood what Harry had written about Victor Pennant—the legendary Seeker who'd left the professional leagues to become an Auror. She used to think that decision was madness. Now, she wasn't so sure. Still, no matter how conflicted she felt, she'd never been more herself than when she was flying. The thought of giving that up left her feeling hollow.

Finally, she exhaled and said quietly, "I don't know…I don't think so. Hogwarts I understand. But the rest of it…"

Demelza bumped her arm with a grin. "Leave it to eggheads like Percy and Hermione, then?"

Ginny laughed, the sound bubbling up lighter than she expected after everything that had happened. "Yeah. Sounds about right."

Demelza smirked. "Does that mean you're not going to break into that bottle of Witchfire Mead I got you for your birthday?"

Ginny groaned. "I just might need to after today."

Natalie chuckled. "Count me out. I've got patrols tonight."

Ginny frowned, trying to remember. "Who with?"

"Kevin Whitby," Natalie said.

Ginny nodded. "Still have your D.A. coin?"

Natalie reached into her pocket and pulled out the battered, scuffed Galleon, holding it up proudly. "Never leave home without it." Her tone softened. "You're patrolling tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah, with Astoria," Ginny replied.

Demelza made a low noise of sympathy. "Well, in that case—you definitely better get that drink now."