Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Moira Darkwood was many things — a Keeper of ancient magic, the Hero of Hogwarts, a key figure in dispersing Ranrok’s rebellion of the 1890s, a Hogwarts alumna, and top of her class during her Auror studies.
A secretary she was not.

Yet she was expected to make a pot of tea for all her male colleagues and bring it to the morning briefing — ideally with some sort of refreshments. Otherwise, her older colleagues would reprimand her for not being nurturing enough and apparently wanting them to waste away.

She wasn’t the only woman in the office - just the youngest, which made her everyone’s favourite target for unsolicited advice about her ‘place in the world.

It didn’t matter that her curriculum came with a stellar recommendation from Aesop Sharp or that she’d received high praise for her Battle Instincts, Duelling the Dark, History of Dark Arts, and Field Training results.
She had graduated from the Aurorial Appraisal at the top of her class — and had quite literally been battling death since she was fifteen.

But no. She was too young, too ambitious, lacked connections, and — crucially — lacked that little something between her legs that made the world a better place.

By seven, she had already visited the bakery next to the Ministry building, had several kettles brewing, and prepared the meeting room for the 8 a.m. briefing.

The piles of documents on the table were colour-coded, sorted by investigator and case, and arranged neatly next to the Watchtower — the nickname they used for the strategic table where the Head Auror sat.

Moira detested him.
Giddeon Wattle, in her opinion, was a waste of space. His views belonged in the last century — and frankly, so did he.

It was the 1900s, for Merlin’s sake, and he still insisted that all female staff wear impractical skirts.

Half his men slept during working hours. Some had shady side deals with London’s lowlifes. Others cared more about their reputation than solving crimes.
But no — Mr Wattle thought the greatest threat to his department was the fairer sex dressing like men.

He also gave all the interesting cases to the “Old Guard,” as he called them — veterans of many fights with Dark witches and wizards, many of whom bore scars from the recent goblin uprising.

Which was absurd. Because she had scars, too.

Yet somehow, she was the problem — her trousers, her too-tight buttoned coat, and her hair, which was the colour of jade.

You are a Ministry official, Miss Darkwood. You have to represent. So represent. You might at least look the part!

She didn’t. And frankly, she couldn’t care less for a dress code enforced solely to boost some old man’s sense of superiority.

Her long plait hung over her shoulder, almost reaching her midriff — tighter than her usual updo — matching the sharply cut outfit that screamed practicality rather than frills and femininity.

She’d worn trousers and fitted jackets since she was a teenager.
You can’t outrun a beast in skirts and dresses.

The kettle whistled as she flicked her wand absentmindedly, pouring hot water into the teapots covered with colourful cosies.
Her head was already bent over the files, dutifully memorising new cases — on the off chance she’d be called into the field.

Like hot water in a pot, people slowly began to pour into the office, tipping their hats to her or waving as they passed.
Their day began at eight.
Hers began at six, when she collected the post from reception and sorted it into letter boxes by name.

Invaluable service, Chief Wattle said. We all had to do it.

Moira doubted that Reekham, Evans, or Fittleworth ever had to do their share of pencil-pushing when they joined.
Oh no — the old dogs came prepared, wands at the ready, catching Dark wizards from day one.
Or so they said.

Usually, between hearty laughs at her expense, especially when bright-eyed Moira raised her hand, just a week into the job, and boldly asked to be assigned to the case of the dark artefact trafficking.

Four years later, she was still sorting papers, making tea, and delivering post — with thrilling side duties like collecting the Chief’s laundry, buying gifts for his wife, running errands across the Ministry, or picking up his lunch when he was in a meeting.

Not quite the job she had envisioned when discussing her career prospects with Professor Sharp.

In fact, she hoped he was oblivious to her current situation.

Because she would rather turn to stone than admit that she’d apparently peaked during her Hogwarts days — and was now only good enough to play the part of a glorified secretary.

The briefing dragged, every word stretching like treacle.
Chief Wattle liked the sound of his voice— unfortunately, he had one of the worst speaking styles Moira had ever endured. He loved to ramble, especially while chewing on pastries that shed crumbs down his perfectly steamed and starched shirt — one she, regrettably, had picked from the laundry on Sunday.

There was still no movement in the case of the missing wizard from last month in Knockturn Alley. No breakthrough in the illegal potion ring in East End, either.

Evans delivered a quick report about a grave disturbance in Dorset. Someone had dug up a number of old graves — going for the bones, apparently. Moira had figured that out before even opening the file. The graves were empty!

The supposed Redcap attack on a squib and two Muggles in Snowdonia’s cave systems had been shuffled off to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures without a second thought. 

A Howler attack in Brighton had also been brushed aside — “not Auror-worthy,” according to Wattle — despite the fact that someone had hexed forty Howlers to assault an employee at the Magical Records Office. He was left mangled, shrieking, and chewed in places that made every man in the briefing wince. The MLE squad had to evacuate the building after multiple failed attempts to subdue the things. Any further spells would’ve triggered an explosion.

There was a sudden tempest in Skye that had lasted precisely seventy-seven minutes. It left a known druidic site scrawled in glowing runes — but Wattle dumped that one on the Department of Mysteries. The hikers who’d gone missing in the storm? An afterthought. Not his problem.

Moira yawned behind her knuckles. Case after case dumped or delayed. No progress. No accountability. This was why the Auror’s Office had become a joke. Wattle had no taste for anything “mundane,” and the top brass seemed to care only about headlines in the Daily Prophet — in the best light possible.

She let her mind drift, lulled by the dull churn of words, until something familiar rang out — sharp and sudden — and she flinched so hard she nearly toppled from her chair.

“...the murder case at 12 Wandsmere Crescent, Starling House, was announced some thirty minutes ago. Fittleworth will take over; there may already be press involved. High-profile case, so handle with care.”

Her breath stalled. The name echoed in her ears, and a stone settled in her stomach — cold, heavy, and final.

Her hand shot up like a schoolgirl afraid to be left behind. Chief Wattle’s eyes, watery and disinterested, skimmed the room until they landed on her. A bead of jam from his strudel clung to his beard.

He sighed. “Do you need a bathroom break, Miss Darkwood?”

Snickers from Fittleworth’s corner as a few of his cronies joined in. Elwood Fittleworth III, smug and swollen with self-importance and half a size too large for his pinstriped robes, bared a crooked grin and let out a barking laugh.

Moira straightened her spine. “No, sir. I would like to volunteer to accompany Elwood and provide my assistance. I’m well acquainted with the neighbourhood.”

Wattle’s mouth opened to object, but she pushed through.

“A classmate of mine lives in the same building. He’s meticulous, observant — and a writer. He might be of assistance.”

The room fell still. Cold seemed to pour in through unseen cracks, threading between shoulders and spines. Her voice died on her tongue — unfinished syllables dissolving under the weight of a truth too sharp to name.

Fittleworth was the first to recover. He scoffed, then nodded.

“You’re in, bird. Pack up.”

The Kensington-Wilting Ward was one of the more distinguished wizarding neighbourhoods tucked safely beyond Muggle sight. Historically home to diviners, spellwrights, and magical historians, the area still carried traces of old-world mystique — though the heart of the district, Wandsmere Crescent, had evolved into something sharper, cleaner, and unmistakably upper-class.

Marble-fronted townhouses lined the crescent in perfect symmetry, their façades adorned with ivy and flanked by gilded bird crests that glistened in the early autumn light. Each residence boasted a unique sigil — phoenixes, augurs, and sunbirds — perched high above the entryways like silent sentinels.

Golden wisteria, now blazing with autumn brilliance, formed delicate arches over iron-wrought gates, lending the place an air of cultivated grace. The overall impression was one of elegant modernity layered atop a foundation of magical heritage.

The crescent buzzed with activity. Not just the usual morning crowd of shopkeepers tending their enchanted carts in the small market square, but a growing throng of onlookers — neighbours in robes and overcoats, employees on their way to work, and curious passersby drawn by the commotion. Something had shattered the district’s polished calm.

Several uniformed MLE members patrolled the perimeter, wands at the ready in case of unrest. Though growing steadily, the crowd respected the invisible line the wizarding coppers maintained — curiosity tempered by caution.

The arrival of the Auror Office caused a ripple — murmurs spread like ripples on water, heads tilted together in hushed speculation, fingers pointing in recognition and surprise. They should have been trained for that, Moira thought. Observe the crowd. Take notes. The killer often watches, hidden in plain sight. Field Training 101.

But not Fittleworth and his lot.

They sauntered through the MLE-formed corridor like they were heading for a pint at their favourite pub. Fittleworth, Reekham, and Grimbly — the youngest of the three, though hardly fresh — tipped their hats to patrolling officers, exchanging pleasantries and jokes as if this were nothing more than a stroll.

Moira, by contrast, felt her stomach tighten the moment they turned toward Starling House and began the climb to the third floor. She knew that door — its peculiar sour-candy green, the way the paint chipped near the knob. She knew the flat behind it, once cluttered and warm in its own eccentric way, now likely twisted into something unrecognisable.

Her pulse spiked. Her skin, she imagined, had gone bone-white.

One of the MLE officers standing by the door caught her expression. His look softened. He touched her shoulder gently and mouthed, “First day?”

She blinked at him, not in confirmation, not quite in denial. Just stunned. It must have looked like nerves over seeing her first body, when the truth was much worse: she feared she’d recognise what remained.

Before she could muster a coherent response, Reekham elbowed her playfully in the ribs and hummed, “First day in the field, but this pet wanted it, right? Where’s the quill, Darkwood? We need the notes.”

Whatever nonsense went through that man’s head wasn’t worth her time. Nor was correcting the copper at the door.

Moira managed a weak smile, dipped her head in a silent thank you, and pulled a well-worn notepad from her coat — its corners dog-eared, the cover soft from years of use. Dutiful. Quiet. An assistant, just like she’d promised.

Then she followed Reekham inside and let the once-homely, now violated flat swallow her whole.

The smell hit first — not of death, but of something older. Magic scorched deep into fabric and flesh, tainted by the metallic tang of fear. It clung to the walls like smoke, even though no fire had touched them.

Moira crossed the threshold with care, her boots stepping over shattered glass and torn parchment. The flat looked ransacked — but not by someone in a hurry. This wasn’t chaos. It was a search. Deliberate. Controlled. Something, or someone, had gone looking for something precise, leaving nothing untouched in the process.

Books lay torn apart, their spines split open like hunted prey. Notes were ripped from pinboards, filing boxes overturned, and a satchel sliced clean through, as if the killer didn’t have time — or patience — to undo a simple clasp.

But the book nook was untouched. Amit’s published works, stacked neatly, sat undisturbed in the alcove by the window.

Someone had known precisely what not to look at.

The sitting room was the heart of the violence. Ink pooled across the carpet in thick, dried constellations. A broken quill lay near the hearth, its tip stabbed into the floor as if in warning. The desk had been cleared violently, but a few papers still fluttered in the air, caught in an Aresto momentum charm that fizzled out as Moira entered.

And then she saw him.

Amit lay on his back by the fireplace. His expression was unreadable — calm, almost — but his limbs told a different story. One arm bent unnaturally, the fingers scorched and curled inward, as though he’d tried to cast something in his last breath. His chest had been seared with a mark — a flame-like swirl of deep, iridescent magic, smouldering faintly.

Moira froze.

She knew that rune, knew it in her bones, a symbol for Ancient Magic. But this was something else, not a protective sigil; the symbol felt corrupted as it seared the flesh of Amit´s body. Her vision blurred for a second.

“Back up,” she heard Fittleworth grunt behind her, likely to an overeager junior officer. “We need identification and extraction. Reekham — check the desk.”

But Moira was already moving toward it.

There, beneath a stack of torn papers, she found a leather-bound notepad — worn, water-stained, edges curled. Amit’s field journal. It was flipped open, as though he’d been writing in it when death arrived. Scribbled halfway down the page:

Vespera (again) — offered cross-reference from the Great British Archive. Asked more questions than she answered. Unnerving.
Very interested in work. Possibly include her in the Acknowledgements and Special Thanks.

Another page had an unsent draft letter; her name was inked in the top corner. It was written in Amit’s looping, over-punctuated style.

M.—
I think I’ve found some interesting regarding your special extracurricular work in the fifth year.
Might be worth pursuing if your old hobby is still relevant. But guess this one is a keeper ; you can´t let go that easily.
There might be a family matter carried forward that didn´t, in fact,  end tragically as we thought.
I´ll explain more in person.
Our usual spot, Thursday afternoon?

The letter trailed off. There was a splash of ink — a blot like hesitation, or panic.

Moira turned it over. Someone had scrawled a single line across the back in a hand she didn’t recognise.

“She walks again. You cannot silence the sea. The Hollow comes.”

She blinked. Her fingers went cold.

A paper scrap fluttered from under the desk, nearly overlooked. It bore the tail end of an unfinished word — possibly a spell or name — but next to it, faintly smudged, was Amit’s final act:

M…

Not a spell. Not a plea.
Just her initial.

Moira stepped back from the desk like she’d touched something scalding. Her hand was still half-lifted, hovering above her coat pocket where the corner of Amit’s letter now burned like a brand.

She needed air. Or clarity. Or—

Her boot crunched over a broken quill as she turned sharply and began pacing the perimeter of the flat. Not aimless — not quite — but close. Her steps were quick, too loud against the floorboards, her fingers twitching like they were trying to cast but couldn’t decide on a spell.

Reekham noticed first.

“Alright there, Darkwood?” he called lazily from the desk, his wand poking at a stack of notes he clearly wasn’t reading. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or worse — paperwork.”

That earned a snort from Grimbly, who was rifling through a drawer with all the care of a drunken Niffler.

She didn’t respond.

Her eyes were scanning the walls now—the bookshelves, the scorch marks. Her jaw was clenched tight, every movement too sharp, too fast, as if she were trying to outrun something she couldn’t name.
Here, between the neatly stacked first prints of his Emberwand Chronicles , a ghost of days past grinned.

In a gilded frame—so out of place for his style—Amit smiled and waved. His Ravenclaw tie was cheerfully loosened, his robe sliding off one shoulder, where a dark-skinned Gryffindor girl lounged, grinning. Another Gryffindor—red-haired, face full of freckles—threw his hat into the air, while two girls beside him cheered.

On the very edge of the group stood Moira herself, in her Slytherin robes, her hair styled into a precise bun, her face bright and smiling next to another Slytherin. He bore an air of utter disdain for the cheering—until, at last, he smiled, just at the corner of his mouth. But it was enough for the others to see.

Moira could still feel the heat of that June afternoon, the warm press of bodies in the courtyard, the thrill of endings and beginnings. That was the morning she left for her Aurorial Appraisal, practically vibrating with purpose and promise. Amit had hugged her too tightly and slipped a little brass coin with a star into her pocket “for luck.” 

He’d made a joke about how she'd probably end up arresting him someday for breaking into a restricted archive for research purposes, and she’d rolled her eyes and promised to let him off with a warning.

Now the room smelled of ash and old paper. The bookshelves that had once held spell theory and obscure goblin histories were burned through, their spines blackened, some reduced to curled skeletons of parchment. The floor was scattered with shattered glass, broken ink bottles, and scorched quills. Blood—dried, nearly brown, marked the corner nearest the hearth.

There were signs of struggle everywhere. She knew Amit, who detested violence and feared every adventure out there, put up a fight with his murderer.

Her gaze lingered on the photograph. The frame had been knocked askew, its corner cracked, but it had stayed upright. They were all so young. So sure of themselves. So alive.

Moira swallowed hard. She didn’t reach for the frame—didn’t dare. Her hands, still trembling slightly, stayed at her sides.

Fittleworth frowned. He stepped closer, arms crossed, his eyes lingering on the photograph a second too long. It wasn´t like she was indistinguishable today—the same hair, same freckled face, same slightly crooked smile when she actually did smile. “Darkwood,” he said in a lower voice. “You knew the victim, didn’t you?”

She stopped dead. The silence stretched just long enough. She even swallowed a bitter remark.

Then replied: “Yes.”

One word: neutral. It was the bare truth told to the world. She knew the victim. No, not a victim, but her friend Amit, who wrote fantastic adventures because he was too anxious to live any adventures on his own.

Amit, who returned from America from his latest press tour for his new book Ashlight Covenant, which was another hit.

Fittleworth raised a brow. “How well?”

Moira’s gaze snapped to him — not angry yet, but not neutral either. “We were classmates in Hogwarts. We kept in touch.”

“Right,” he said slowly, his eyes drifting toward the body and back to the photo that spoke volumes, and even a half-witted Bundimum would deduce that. “Funny, then. That your name’s on the back of this letter,” he tapped her hand with his wand. “And that there’s no sign of forced entry.”

Reekham chuckled, not kindly: “Maybe you were the last to visit.”

Moira’s fists clenched at her sides. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Just doing our job, pet,” Reekham said with a shrug. “Don’t take it personally.”

Grimbly, trying to soften the tension, piped in: “She’s just spooked. First scene, and it´s her classmate. Let her breathe.”

But Moira didn’t breathe. Not yet. She turned her back on them again, walked over to the hearth, and stood there, motionless, staring down at Amit as if memorising every inch of the damage.

She walks again. The Hollow comes.

She’d felt like the walls were pressing in before — but now the real weight was behind her. In the shape of her colleagues. Watching and whispering and measuring her for something she couldn’t afford to be.

There was a message from Amit that she didn’t understand.

And then another — not from him, but left behind, as if someone felt the need to offer a warning… or a promise. As ominous as it sounded, she had no idea what it meant. She could barely process the fact that Amit, of all people, had become the target of such a gruesome crime.

Boastful as he could be, he was a gentle, curious soul who wouldn’t harm a fly. His only crime — if one could even call it that — was staying unmarried. Against the wishes of his family, he had remained a bachelor: well-suited, relatively wealthy, and wholly uninterested in changing that. They talked about it often, especially after Moira moved to London and their friendship rekindled — two old classmates, unwed, navigating life alone under society’s scrutinising gaze. She, the spinster; he, a man with little interest in the opposite sex.

Amit kept that part of himself private, and it would’ve been fine — if only his family had accepted it. But they hadn’t. The Thakkars treated their son — the celebrated author — like a faulty heir, terrified their name would die out like some fragile royal bloodline.

Still, that wasn’t a reason to kill a man.

It was barely a reason to write a letter. A long, weeping lament from Mrs. Thakkar about not having grandchildren from her beloved boy, maybe — but this?

The world tilted. Something hot and sharp settled in her stomach like molten stone.

Someone would have to tell Mr. and Mrs. Thakkar.

And preferably not one of the three men standing across the room, who looked unbothered — perhaps even bored — despite the horror around them.

Moira’s voice came out tight, her breath forced through gritted teeth. “May I step out, sir?”

Fittleworth flinched, as though surprised she still existed. He looked at her like she was a fly buzzing near his favourite treacle tart, and rolled his eyes.

“If you can’t stomach the view, Darkwood, you should return to the office.”

A low snort from Reekham followed — mocking, lazy. Moira’s fingers twitched behind her back, a hair’s breadth from her wand. Blood rushed to her face, burning red-hot. She had to physically stop herself from turning this into a double homicide.

“I thought I’d start questioning the neighbours,” she said sweetly instead — a calculated, clipped edge to her tone. “Help you save some time.”

She gestured toward the hallway, hoping she looked more confident than she felt. Professional. Helpful. The opposite of furious.

Fittleworth tilted his head, pretended to consider it, then gave a magnanimous nod. “You know what, Darkwood? Go with Grimbly. He’ll show you how it’s done. Somebody around here must have heard something.”

Violence, Moira mused, was beginning to sound like a very reasonable solution.

But she smiled. Nodded. Thanked him for the brilliant suggestion.

And then left — fast — leaving Grimbly behind like a forgotten puppy.

Chapter Text

The fog pressed low over Cairn Island, curling between shattered stones and half-sunken ruins like a living thing. Lanterns along the camp perimeter sputtered against the damp, casting an unnatural greenish hue that bled into the marshes. The ruins whispered — windless, wordless — and beneath the earth, something had stirred.

Aldric Vane moved fast through the broken catacomb passage, wand out, breath sharp in his throat. Blood ran from a gash above his brow. He didn’t feel it. He was already weaving shields with a practised flick, warding off the twisted spells hurling through the dark.

They had followed him.

There were three — maybe four — indistinct in the shifting light, cloaked and faceless. They moved with inhuman silence, their wands jerking like puppets. One fired a jagged sliver of black ice; another shattered the stone beside Aldric’s head with a burning rune. He ducked, rolled, and retaliated.

"Confringo!"
The explosion lit the corridor, scattering shards of ancient rock. One hooded figure shrieked — a sound too ragged, too wrong — and disintegrated into ash.

Aldric pressed forward, fingers clenched around the artefact tucked into the inner fold of his coat — a small, dull bronze device humming with layered runes. It was heavier than it looked. Older than it should be.

He made it to the threshold of the upper chamber. Just a few more steps and he’d reach open ground.

But a whisper came from behind. A breath he didn’t hear.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The green light was silent, final.

Aldric collapsed mid-stride, body falling forward with the brutal stillness of death. Once sharp and warm, his eyes stared wide and blank at the sky, glassy green in the lantern-glow. The artefact struck the muddy earth with a soft clink, his fingers still like claws clinging to its metal surface.

His pursuers faded back into the shadows. And from their midst, a figure emerged from the dense fog.

They wore a long dark cloak, face hidden beneath an enchanted veil. No sound accompanied their footsteps as they walked through the shredded remains of the Ministry’s camp — through wards that had been carved open with surgical precision, through blood and smoke and lingering traces of time magic.

They crouched beside Aldric’s body. One gloved hand reached out, pried the object from his cold fingers.

The artefact pulsed once — a faint golden flicker — then went dark.

The figure straightened and vanished into the fog without a word.

No wind stirred. No sound remained.

Only Aldric's body, alone in the ruins, eyes open to the night — and the spiralling, flame-like glyph beginning to scorch itself into the stone just behind him.

AUROR FIELD REPORT

Case ID: MLE-A/1905-271-CT
Date: 9 October 1900
Filed by: Elwood Fittleworth III, Senior Auror
Location: 12 Wandsmere Crescent, Starling House, Kensington-Wilting Ward, London
Classification: Homicide – use of Unforgivable curse

1. VICTIM INFORMATION

Name: Thakkar, Amit
Blood Status: Half-blood
Age: 26
Profession: Author, Independent Magical Historian
Affiliations: Former Hogwarts student (Ravenclaw, Class of 1892); known for publications on astronomical theories, druidic magic lore, and the Emberwand Chronicles fiction series.

2. TIME AND MANNER OF DEATH

Estimated time of death: Between 03:00 and 04:00 BST, 9 October 1900.
Manner of death: Inconclusive.
Signs of extensive magical trauma. Preliminary evidence indicates the use of the Cruciatus Curse for a prolonged period (estimated 2–3 hours).
No outward injuries indicative of the final cause of death.
Death likely due to systemic magical exhaustion or organ failure, secondary to sustained curse exposure.

3. LAST VERIFIED CONTACT

Mrs. Lettie Salzmeer (Flat 4B) reports meeting the victim at 20:15 BST on 8 October 1900. He appeared “in good spirits” and was not under visible duress . This time is corroborated by her pocket watch (observed and verified by attending officer).
She notes hearing disturbance around 00:00 BST , described as a “thump and sudden movement” from Flat 3B (victim's residence), but it ceased rapidly.
Silencing charm residue later confirmed by the Residuals Registry Unit.

4. CRIME SCENE ANALYSIS

The flat (3B) displayed extensive disarray , suggesting a targeted search rather than spontaneous violence. The following observations were made:

• Bookshelves emptied; research notes destroyed or missing.
  
  
• Satchel sliced open with precision (suggesting search, not theft).
  
  
• Published works untouched.
  
  
• Magical detection confirms lingering traces of unidentified magic (Dpt. of Mysteries involved).
  
  
• Desk cleared violently. Ink and blood pooled across the hearth rug.
  
  
• Victim found on his back, signs of magical combustion near the torso.
  
  
• A swirling, flame-like rune seared into the sternum (ongoing analysis, Dpt. of Mysteries involved).
  
  
• A handwritten letter addressed to Moira Darkwood was recovered, referencing “a family matter carried forward” and “your old hobby.”
  
  
• Reverse side of letter contains a cryptic message:
  
  

“She walks again. You cannot silence the sea. The Hollow comes.”

• Field journal recovered — includes mentions of a historian named Vespera, and recent contact with her.
  
  

5. PERSONS OF INTEREST
   
   a) Vespera [Penharrow]

• Historian affiliated with the Great archive of British isles at the Ministry of Magic.
  
  
• Cited by the victim in field journal as a consultant on latest research matters.
  
  
• Met the victim “several times” (per journal).
  
  
• Described as “unnerving,” “curious,” and “overly inquisitive.”
  
  
• Provided alibi: Ministry building security logs place her in her flat during time of death.
  
  
• Considered a person of interest, pending further interviews and verification of wand activity. Interview will ensue.
  
  b) Moira Darkwood

• Junior Auror, present at scene by request.
  
  
• Former Hogwarts classmate and close personal friend of the deceased.
  
  
• Letter addressed to her found at scene.
  
  
• Mentioned in victim’s notes by first initial (“M”), and again on a torn parchment with what appears to be a final incomplete word: “M…”
  
  
• Reported visibly shaken; emotionally compromised.
  
  
• No formal complaint filed, but behaviour on-site noted as inconsistent with standard protocol.
  
  
• No evidence of forced entry — possibility raised that victim willingly opened door to someone familiar.
  
  
• Status: Under internal review. Interview pending.
  
  

6. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS

• Residual analysis of the magical residue and the wand required.
  
  
• Full trace of wand activity in Flat 3B to be completed by RRs.
  
  
• Vespera to be formally interviewed under Veritas conditions.
  
  
• Darkwood to be temporarily reassigned pending evaluation.
  
  
• Public relations team advised of potential press interest due to the victim’s notoriety.
  
  
• Motive appears to be personal, pending further investigation.
  
  
• Recommend liaison with Department of Mysteries.
  
  

Filed:
Fittleworth, Elwood III
Senior Auror, London Division
Magical Law Enforcement Department
Ministry of Magic

The enchanted skiff skimmed across the black water, silent but for the rustle of reeds brushing its sides. Fog curled in thick bands over Cairn Island, swallowing the last traces of light. The two Aurors at the prow said nothing as they drew near the ruined shoreline.

The call had come just before nightfall: Unspeakable Vane failed to report back from a classified retrieval. No word. No sign. His team — an entire Ministry-sanctioned excavation crew — had gone silent. The island was marked as volatile. Aurors were dispatched for recon.

And then, Unspeakable Gaunt requested to join.

Ominis disembarked last, his wand extended in front of him like a blind man’s cane. He moved with slow precision, the wand’s tip whispering over stone and water, sending up faint threads of blue light as it brushed magical residue.

Auror Tierney shifted uneasily, whispering to her partner, “He’s using that like he can’t see.”

Her partner murmured, “He can’t, ye dimwit. Not with his eyes.”

They pressed forward in silence, boots sinking into wet moss and torn canvas. The Ministry camp was in ruins — shredded tents, snapped ward posts, spellwork scorched black across stone and bone. No sign of Vane’s support team. Not even blood.

“Something came through here,” Tierney muttered. “Tore the whole place like a rampant troll.”

They found the body a few paces beyond the collapsed dolmen. Aldric Vane, unspeaking and still, lay where he had fallen — one arm outstretched, face turned to the sky. His wand lay beside him. His eyes were open.

Tierney moved to kneel, but Ominis lifted one pale hand and said, “Don’t touch him.”

His voice was calm, not cruel, but clinical. Measured.

Instead, he stepped forward, wand still lightly brushing the ground. When the tip reached Vane’s boots, Ominis stopped. He stood perfectly still, as if listening to something no one else could hear.

“There was resistance,” he said. “A chase. Four hostile residues. No spoken spells. Cloaked. Coordinated.”

“How do you—?”

Ominis ignored her. He crouched beside Vane and extended his hand toward the wand — not touching it, just sensing the residue that hung in the air like cold breath. His other hand hovered over the stone behind the body, where a faintly scorched spiral flame-like glyph had begun to burn itself into the ancient surface.

“He died quickly,” he said. “Avada Kedavra. From behind.”

The Aurors exchanged a glance.

“There’s no artefact on him,” Tierney said. “Mission records said he was carrying something retrieved from the catacombs.”

Ominis tilted his head. “Then it was taken.”

“By whom? And where the hell are the others? We were told the island was under control. Warded. Staffed.”

Ominis slowly stood. He no longer used the wand as a cane — now it remained loose at his side, unneeded.

“The excavation team is gone,” he said. “Not dead — gone . No blood. No magical residue consistent with death. Whatever happened here removed them cleanly.”

Tierney activated her communication mirror, her hands trembling slightly as she called in the report: “Cairn Isle site. Two Aurors on location. Confirmed casualty: Unspeakable Aldric Vane. We monitor the use of an Unforgivable curse. The excavation team is missing. Camp destroyed. No artefact recovered. Requesting Residuals Registry deployment and vault clearance. Glyph present — unknown classification. Copying to Level Five.”

Glass echo chimed like a distant bell. “Glyph? Explain.”

Tierney’s eyes darted to Ominis. “Yes. Spiral configuration. Burned into stone behind the deceased. Nothing I´ve seen before.”

“…is Gaunt on-site?”

She hesitated. “Affirmative.”

A beat of silence.

“Hold position. Residuals Registry inbound. Do not engage the glyph. Do not pursue traces. Await further instruction.”

The mirror dimmed. Tierney let out a shaky breath. “What does this mean?”

Ominis didn’t answer her. His attention was on the spiral — still warm, still pulsing with a low, magnetic thrum. He lifted his wand, let it drift above the rune without casting. The lines rippled faintly in response.

“He came here for a retrieval job,” Ominis murmured. “Must have found the place already ransacked, so he pressed on.”

Then he turned from the body. 

“He failed to leave,” Tierney said, more to herself than anyone. “Didn’t even get the chance to Disapparate.”

“There´s no possibility do Disapparate from here, Officer. Hence the skiff. There are ancient wards all around the island that prevent any form of magical transportation.” Ominis replied as he returned his attention back to the dead. 

“If Vane were cornered, he would have put up a fight. And the catacombs would be a perfect place for a stand. Narrow and tight spaces, easy to defend. If he was running, it means he was trying to get away with a message.”

Tierney glanced down. “Message? You mean the artefact?”

Ominis gave no reply.

But as he stepped back into the fog, the glyph behind him flared—just once—and then faded.

“Check his pockets for his communication mirror and have it booked as evidence. And call the Echo Hall squad.”

Tierney gulped as the dense fog swallowed the Unspeakable, dampening his voice like a wet blanket.

“Sir? You shouldn’t... shouldn’t you wait—?”

A sudden rush of wings tore through the mist — not the flutter of birds, but the heavy, deliberate beat of something larger . Then came the sound of hooves against wet stone, muffled and wrong, followed by a low, guttural neigh that seemed to echo from no clear direction.

The Aurors flinched. Even seasoned as they were — trained to face death, darkness, and the echoes of unspeakable horrors — they each took an instinctive step back.

From the veil of fog, a Thestral emerged.

It moved slowly, like a vision half-remembered from a nightmare: hide stretched thin over a skeletal frame, its ashen mane hanging limp and sodden around its bony neck like strips of grave moss. Its wings folded close, still damp with sea mist. Its eyes — ancient, lidless, and unreadable — fixed on the Aurors with predator calm.

No harness. No bridle. No saddle.

Yet it stood perfectly still.

Ominis Gaunt sat astride it, one hand pressed to the creature’s flank. His other hand shimmered with pale magic, weaving over several open wounds that puckered and knit beneath his touch. The Thestral gave no sound of pain — only that same slow exhale, like air dragged from a tomb.

The Aurors stared.

Ominis looked almost amused. He turned his head toward Tierney, his voice composed, distant — not smug, exactly, but faintly amused by her fear.

“I am needed elsewhere,” he said.

And then, with a faint tug of his fingers through the Thestral’s mane, he added: “So I’ll be catching a ride.” The beast turned without a command, wings stretching once in the mist — impossibly wide, dripping with sea air and silence. It launched into the sky, hooves grazing stone, then vanished into the low-hanging clouds with a hiss of wind and fog.

Tierney didn’t speak for a long time.

Finally, she exhaled: “Still think he’s just a blind man?”

Her colleague swallowed, searching for his pocket flask, which was in his breast pocket and filled with firewhisky. 

“Oh, do shut up, will ye?”

It had been four hours.

Moira sat in the sterile room, one hand wrapped around a chipped teacup, the liquid inside long since gone cold. She hadn’t touched it and only stirred it, absently, as though the quiet clink of spoon against porcelain might tether her to the present.

The room smelled of old parchment and damp stone. No windows. Just four grey walls, a single table, two chairs, and the unnerving hum of magical dampeners woven into the ceiling. Her wand was not with her.

She'd found the note on her desk just after seven — standard Ministry parchment, unsigned, but stamped with Fittleworth’s wax seal. “Interview at 9. Mandatory.”

She hadn’t slept.

Instead, she had spent three hours in the bath — water cold by the end, her skin pruned. She hadn’t washed. Just slid beneath the surface and screamed until her voice cracked and her lungs burned. It was the only place she could make a sound without being heard. She learned to hide her pain in her early years in the orphanage in Whitechapel. Pain was a sign of weakness, and the other would´ve eaten her alive if they knew she had one.

She wore her pain hidden beneath her clothes like a locket with a picture of her sweetheart, always looking out for others. It helped her not to think about all that was happening in her life - the past and recent losses, old wounds that healed, but sometimes ached with the stabbing pain that reminded her of sins long past.

She watched the spoon rotate in her tea now, her knuckles white on the handle. Waiting in silence .

Amit had always hated silence.

The last time they met — almost a month ago — they’d sat at the far table in Viridian & Finch, that dusty little tea house near Knockturn Alley that claimed to serve thirteen kinds of Darjeeling. He’d ordered three scones and half-finished them all.

“I’m going to the States,” he’d said, fidgeting with his spectacles. “Press tour, can you imagine? And - oh, a research trip. Archives in New York. There’s a compendium of forbidden artefacts belonging to the estate of one Seán Fitzgerald, born Irish and moved to the land of the free after his mother died.”

Moira ordered them four scones and had almost eaten all of them. She gave him a quizzical look and mumbled, mouth still full of raspberry jam and clotted cream: “Should that ring any bells?”

“Might tie into your hobby, M.
- or at least give me an excuse for the next book. Once I finish this research, that is.”

He’d looked tired, but excited. Alive .

“You’re still at the Ministry?” he asked. “Making a difference?”

She had lied. Smiled, nodded. Changed the subject.

Now he was dead. And they were making her wait.

The door opened.

Fittleworth strolled in like he was arriving at a dinner party — smug, perfumed, and slow in yet a pinstriped robe that was definitely fitting him better many pounds ago. He dropped a thick file on the table with a solid thud and took the seat across from her, adjusting his sleeves with affected care.

“Moira Darkwood,” he said, voice full of mock surprise. “Didn’t expect to see you here, truth be told. Not every day you interview a colleague .”

She didn’t respond. Only looked at the file.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, tapping the folder. “Your record. From 1891. That mess in the Highlands — goblins, poacher ring, a dead professor and a ministry officer. You were right in the middle of it, weren’t you?”

He opened it and turned it toward her. Most of the pages were blacked out. Paragraphs swallowed by Ministry redactions, names blurred by charmed ink, entire sheets missing. But what was left still spoke volumes:

“Tied to goblin uprising in some way. Classified artefact interaction.  Witnessed the dead of both Ranrok and Victor Rookwood. It states the latter died by your own hand, curiouser and curiouser.
Permitted continued enrollment under review… And then a lot of redacted material.”

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers.

“An encounter with Ranrok the Relentless in some sort of ancient cavern; you and some Eleazar Fig, yet somehow you came out of it not only alive , but with commendations from a former Auror, the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, and several individuals of value and importance.
A fifteen-year-old late bloomer orphan from Whitechapel. You must be very special .”

She said nothing.

“I suppose that’s why your name turned up again at the murder scene. No forced entry. The victim knew you. A letter addressed to you. Your initial beside the body. Coincidence?”

Moira’s voice, when it came, was flat. “He was my friend. My classmate.”

Fittleworth nodded, slowly. “Convenient.”

He flipped the file shut and leaned back.

“He was using you as a model for his book character. This Callen Oriel guy, his books were all about. You didn´t agree to that. And when you found out what he did, you decided to press him a bit, at least for some money. He could be paying you a hefty sum for you to be silent, right?
And that poor chap decided to fight back, so you snapped....”

He was trying to bait her. His voice rose a fraction, edge creeping in.

“You kept quiet about your involvement with the rebellion, smart girl as you are. But now? It was too much with the press tour in the States, all the money and fame that could have - should have -  been yours.
This is a motive, Darkwood. And I guess you´re my number one suspect.”

Moira’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t speak. How this man had 253 closed cases under his belt was beyond comprehension. All this was a charade that would probably break a dimwitted lobotomised troll or a street urchin, but the plotholes in his theory were gaping at her with the force of a yawning Horntail. And she learned long ago that trying to argue and correct any mistakes in one´s narrative was just simply futile.

Fittleworth slapped a parchment down in front of her — a blow-up of the spiral glyph, scorched into Amit’s chest.

“What is this? Is this your little artistic signature?”

Silence.

Fittleworth’s voice dropped to a growl. “Tell me what it means. Tell me what you did. ” He leaned across the table, wand suddenly drawn — not raised, but present, crackling with tension.

“You’ve been lying to this office since the day you walked in the door. I won’t let some golden girl protected by Sharp’s old approval wreck my division. Start talking, or I swear—”

The door opened.

The room fell silent.

Ominis Gaunt stepped inside without invitation, wand loosely at his side, a Ministry seal in his other hand. He cut a sharp, tall figure in his all-black clothing and long coat, adorned with a silver brooch of clasped skeletal hands. His hair was slightly longer than usual, and his pale face bore the shadows of sleepless nights and too many coffees.

His expression gave nothing. But the air shifted.

Fittleworth didn’t move. “Unspeakable Gaunt,” he said tightly. “This is an internal inquiry—”

“This is over ,” Ominis replied, his voice quiet and absolute. He placed a scroll on the table between them. Wax-sealed. Ministry black.

“Effective immediately, Miss Darkwood is to be released to Department of Death custody. She is now a part of an ongoing classified investigation.”

Fittleworth’s fingers twitched. “You can’t just—”

“Yes, I can,” Ominis said softly. “You’ll find the authorisation in that seal. If you’d like to appeal it, take it up with your supervisor. Or the Minister. Or the Department of Mysteries, since they filed the override.”

Moira’s breath returned to her lungs. She sat straighter, eyes wary of the wand that slid into Fittleworth´s sleeve like a snake.

Fittleworth stared at her, then back at Ominis.

“This is obstruction,” he snapped. “I know you two are acquainted. That´s a conflict of interest.”

Ominis turned slightly, head tilted in that way that made it impossible to read his expression.

“This is containment,” he said. 

Moira stood up, moved the cold tea before Fittleworth, and nodded. Ominis stepped aside for her to pass, his pale eyes lingering over the file with her name a little too long for the older man to notice. As they left, Fittleworth’s glare stayed fixed on the table. The rune page curled at the edges as if scorched again.

Suddenly, the room felt colder, as if an unseen force had brushed against it. Fittleworth let out a slow breath, only then realising he’d been holding it. The hair on the back of his neck finally settled, and the cold sweat beneath his robes began to fade.

The room was unnaturally quiet.

The walls, charmed to suppress noise and block scrying, only amplified the sense of containment. Ominis’s office had no personal flourishes, no photographs, no clutter. Just deep-cut bookshelves and shadowed mirrors, scrolls sealed in arcane brass tubes, and a desk that looked more like an altar than a workspace.
Moira stood stiffly just behind the door, waiting for his voice, direction, anything. But he said nothing. Not at first.

Only once the wards shimmered around the walls and the illusion of silence blanketed the room did she realise: the formality was over. The shift was subtle — the way Ominis removed his coat without tension and tilted his head ever so slightly toward her before speaking.

“Sit down,” he said gently. “You’re shaking.”

She hadn’t noticed. But now, seated across from him at the long desk, she could feel the cold bite in her joints and the tremor in her fingers—the ache behind her eyes. She wrapped her hands around a cup of tea someone had set there before her arrival. It was still warm.

Ominis studied her for a long moment. Then whispered: “I’m sorry about Amit.”

Moira blinked. Her throat tightened. The words came slow.

“He was my friend,” she said. “Not a soldier. Not a hero. He wrote books. He feared thunderstorms and had to ask for help lighting a Floo fire once, because he read that the latest batches caused explosions. He was thinking about asking out this waiter in Viridian & Finch, because he always smiled at him and always waited our table, no matter what.”

She felt her eyes welling with tears, so she bit her lower lip till it bled to hold them at bay. Nobody wants to see a snotty, wailing mess of a woman.

“But he still—he still fought. He endured a Cruciatus curse for three hours. And now he´s a punchline in the Prophet…”

Ominis’s expression didn’t shift, but the air around him softened. He sat forward, elbows on the table, his fingers laced with hers in a warm gesture. A pale memory of dried blood clung to the cuff of his sleeve. He hadn’t noticed.

“Do you remember how we dared him in the sixth year to do the Moonstep Charm on the Astrology tower roof?” His voice was distant, his blind eyes fixed somewhere behind her, looking back to the memory he tried to paint.

Moira let out a breath, not quite laughter or a sob. “That was the fifth year, Ominis,” she corrected him, fingers tightening around his slender hands. “And I distinctively remember that it was Sebastian´s idea, after we drank a bourbon-laced bottle of butterbeer and found it extremely funny, trying to walk the thin air above the school.”

“And Sebastian bet you two galleons you couldn’t do it.”

Moira crinked her nose. “He cheated. Swapped out my shoes.” A faint, aching smile tugged at her lips. “I made him wear mine for a day after that. Said he owed me. Amit had a good day when he found out Sebastian was tiptoeing around Hogwarts in my heels.”

“You never gave them back. The shoes, I mean.”

“No.” A pause. “Still have them. Don’t know why.”

“Because you miss him,” Ominis said.

She looked down. “Because I miss all of us. Sounds like more and more of our friends turn to ghosts of our own making.”

He let out a small sigh and straightened his spine, gently releasing her hands. “Don’t be ridiculous, Moira. That wasn’t your fault,” he said, firmly but not unkindly.
He sounded like a father who was trying to correct a miserable child who may have done something wrong. He knew her too well. Knew how this would gnaw at her — just like it had before. That summer after fifth year had proven it: Moira Darkwood carried guilt like others carried bones. Ominis, unexpectedly, had become her tether. As unnerving as it was, he found new strength where he thought there was none.

“I believe there´s more to this,” he continued. A decisive Accio! brought a stack of grey folders from over the room, landing between them with a barely audible thump.

Moira´s eyes widened with curiosity. “What are those?”

Papers scattered like wingless birds, suspended mid-air and shuffling chronologically,  case by case, as the Unspeakable briskly flicked his wrist with his wand. 

He stood up, wand glowing next to his face, slightly touching his temple. “Separate cases,” he replied.

“See this one, that´s the oldest my secretary could find,” he pointed to a year-old report about a missing scholar in Edinburgh, who vanished during a thunderstorm. His journal was found at an old cairn, soaking wet with seawater and a spiralling rune of unknown provenience adorning every page. 

Moira raised a brow. “Oh, now Mr Gaunt has a secretary.”
He returned her smile with a slight, dry one of his own — unbothered. He’d earned his rise, not by his name or blood, but by merit. Moira knew that.

Other cases followed:
A dead body found floating above a bed, untouched by drowning, but lungs filled with black seawater. A spiral symbol was found later under his bed, carved by hand.

A missing child from Cornwall, last seen near a defunct circle of standing stones — a spiral rune carved into his toy wand, that was the only thing left behind. The kid was found two weeks later, severely malnourished and obliviated.

Several grave disturbances have occurred across Britain, some in old graveyards and some disturbing ancient druidic tombs and cairns. Missing bones and grave goods—most of the places had no significance. Follow-up investigation showed the same ancient rune hidden somewhere, sometimes in plain sight.

“Are these your follow-ups?” she asked quietly.

With another flick of his wand, a map appeared. Thin silver lines sprang to life between the locations — a spider’s web of isolated cases that looked like a starry sky.

“See, I have been working closely on an antiquarian ring that has been grave robbing and stealing many a dark artefact. It is tied to disturbances in the veil of the Dead, thus my job,” he explained. “Nobody wants an angry, dead risen from his grave, rampaging the countryside, because of a missing hexed family heirloom.”

Moira studied the map. “That´s Skye here,” she remarked. “There was a sudden isolated storm recently; we had it on the table just yesterday morning.”

Ominis nodded and pointed to the corresponding file. Druidic site revealed, runic scarring on the surrounding trees.

“Another fairly new case in Dorset, another grave robbery,” he added, leaning closer to point to another paper. “A rune carved into a skull fragment and missed by the team on-site.”

Amit´s case was one of the new ones, along with cases in Brighton and Cairn Island, just off the Highlands coast. She turned to him and slowly nodded. “So we have a case, walk me through it.”

Two glasses of firewhisky later, the table was a war zone of parchment, fading glyphs, and theories. There had to be a pattern, but the cases seemingly looked random, apart from the calling card in the shape of the ancient magic rune she was so well acquainted with. It almost looked like a calling card, a taunt.

People were either missing or turned up obliviated, or dead. Some seemed to be just bystanders on unwilling victims who might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

“And these are all archived, rejected or closed for convenience?” she asked, turning the empty glass in her hand. “Apart from Cairn Island, Amit´s case and the woman in Brighton.” She reached for the last-mentioned case and scanned the report:

Victim: Honorata Knottley, neé Bellwether
Manner of death: drowning
Lungs filled with seawater, found in a dry tub. No outward injuries. No signs of forced entry. Family missing, suspected abduction.

“Where was the rune this time?” she raised her eyebrows, looking over the table. Ominis had long lost his tie and shuffled in his chair to a more relaxed position, studying the scarce information about Amit´s case.

“The mirror,” he replied. “Mrs Knottley was known to enjoy long baths, according to her friends. So it was very much logical to look into the mirror. They brought it for the Echo Hall squad, but they found nothing.”

Moira slid from her seat to stretch her legs, chewing on a strand of hair, which earned her a scolding look from her friend. Pacing around the office, she picked up several scrolls and strategically located stones that Ominis usually carried around in his pocket to touch. His thinking stones, as he called them. She weighed two in her palm, then snuck them into her pocket.

She turned on her heel in a sudden realisation and walked back to the table, grabbing the victim's portrait. Mrs Knottley looked young and bubbly, with deep chocolate eyes and thin lips curled in a warm smile and a distinct heart-shaped birthmark just below her ear.

“Honey Bellwether,” she gasped. “Remember her? The Rawenclaw girl who was running around with her huge floating notepad. She was three years below us..”

Ominis´s eyes widened. “You think it´s her?”

She bit her lip and nodded. “I remember her birthmark, some of her Slytherin classmates made fun of her, calling her Honey sweet ! She wore it like a badge of honour. This says she worked as a clerk in the Magical Records Office in Brighton.

Wait -” she paused. “There was a recent attack with the exploding Howlers. If I remember correctly, some of their archives caught in flames.”

He replied with a tired smile: “That IS a connection. Someone is cleaning up after themselves. How about we head home? It´s getting late.”

She sank back into the chair. “I need to put this into a report…”

Home… 

Her half-empty flat in London that overlooked a row of ministerial buildings felt like a cage she wasn´t ready to return to. The emptiness would swallow her whole.

But Ominis, bless his heart, knew her well. “ Not tonight, we both need rest. Come with me to Manor Cape, Moira,” he didn´t hesitate. “We can continue, I promise, but you can´t be alone right now. And I need your sharp wits.”

She rolled her eyes. “Flatterer.”
He leaned back with a rare, warm smirk.  “Does it work?”

The Ministry’s marble steps spilt into the soft chaos of late-evening London — gaslamps flickering to life, carriages rolling over cobblestones slick with rain, and shopfronts throwing long, golden beams into the dusk.

Moira wrapped her coat tighter around her shoulders as the wind picked up. Beside her, Ominis walked with the unfazed elegance of someone who’d memorised the world without needing to see it. His wand tapped lightly on the pavement like a cane, though Moira knew better — he didn’t need it. It was more for show. A courtesy to crowds that didn’t understand what he was.

They passed a baker's stall steaming with cardamom buns, then a cramped shop window full of tea leaves labelled with ominous names: Seer’s Sleep, Widow’s Wake, Forget-Me-Not. Moira nudged his elbow.

“Any chance we can get that honey-lemon curd that tastes divine with hot buns?”

He smirked. “Only if you’re willing to carry the shopping bag this time. Last time you fed it to a magpie.”

“It was a very charming magpie,” she muttered.

They crossed into the stretch between Leadenhall and Holborn, where lamplight spilt from crooked bookstores and potion kiosks half-tucked beneath awnings. Just as they slowed beside a magical apothecary, a man bumped into Moira. Not hard — but purposeful. His shoulder met hers with just enough pressure to disrupt her stride.

“Oi! Sorry there, miss!” the man exclaimed. His accent was pure South Bank — cockney, laced with pub smoke and rain. “Didn’t mean to — ‘scuse me now, yeah?”

He moved on without pause, worn coat flapping behind him. She caught a whiff of wet wool, desperation, sunken cheeks, and a haunted gaze as he disappeared into the crowd.

Ominis had already turned slightly, wand gripped loosely but alert.

“You alright?” he asked. Moira nodded slowly, adjusting her coat. Her fingers brushed the inner pocket. Something nestled there. Folded. Crisp. Slipped in with precision.

A small square of parchment, waxed and still warm from the body heat. She tried her best not to act surprised.

Just met Ominis’s blind, waiting gaze and said, “Let’s get home.”

Chapter Text

The North Sea stretched like a graveyard of giants — restless, grey, and ancient. Clouds crawled low, bloated with salt and sorrow, their bellies skimming the frothing surface of the waves. A storm circled this part of the world like a predator, never leaving, never tiring. Thunder did not crash so much as groan, a deep, primordial sound that spoke of the weight of time and punishment.

And then it came into view.

Azkaban.

A jagged monolith of black stone, rising from the sea like the spine of some drowned god. No sails neared it. No birds flew overhead. Even the wind seemed to shy from its twisted spires and leering parapets, its windows empty like the sockets of skulls. The fortress had no natural architecture — it was a wound in the world, a place that had been built not with hands but with hate, carved by magic and sealed with agony.

The storm clung to it like a cloak, wind battering the towers, waves crashing against its foundations with the rage of ten thousand lost voices. Every cry that had ever left a prisoner’s lips had been stolen by those waves, swallowed in the roar and never heard again.

No sunlight got through the clouds and past rusted iron watchtowers and gargoyles whose faces had long since eroded into blind screams. Past lightning-blasted flagpoles and chains the size of tree trunks, clinking softly with the lull of the tide. Not through a shattered window, down a corridor where torches burned with greenish flame, and into the heart of the fortress.

The cold here was not natural. It lived in the stone. It nested in bone.

It did not numb. It hollowed .

The cells were stacked like coffins, stretching in endless lines up and down the stone walls of the prison’s core — a tower turned inside out, every scream echoing inward. Water dripped somewhere. Rats avoided the place. The scent was mildew, piss, blood, and something worse: despair , old and caked on every surface like grime.

But the worst part — worse than the cold, worse than the stink—was the silence . The kind of silence that wasn’t empty, but hungry .

It was the silence of men who had forgotten their names. The silence of women who no longer dreamed. The silence that crept into you peeled your joy like bark and replaced it with nothing.

And then they came. Not always seen. Not always heard. But felt .

Dementors.

They moved like smoke and grief, gliding along the walkways, trailing that awful stillness behind them — a deadening of warmth, of thought, of light. They did not speak, for there was nothing left to say. They fed. Slowly. Constantly. Not just on memory, but on meaning .

There was no laughter in Azkaban. No touch of another human hand that wasn’t a blow. No sun, no moon, just endless grey and the sound of waves gnawing at the stone like teeth.

In Cell 331 — third floor, western corridor — lay what remained of Sebastian Sallow.

Once a boy. Once a brother. Once a student of magic and hope.

Now, something else. Something quieter. Something colder.

Something waiting.

Sometimes he could almost feel the sun behind his eyes when he tried to remember how it felt to bathe in the sunlight. To feel the golden warmth creeping up your spine, melting you down like a popsicle in the summer afternoon. Those memories usually came with the price of false hope, which clung to his frame like a wet prison uniform. Hope of someday walking out of this hellish place and finding your place in the world again.

Sebastian didn´t dream often of good things. Most of those joyful memories and feelings were stolen by the silent presence of the ever-watching Dementors. So he didn´t try to feed them that often. For past years - ten years, by Merlin´s beard! - he learned how to empty his head, devoid of all the light he used to cling to in his first weeks here.

Hope, in a place like this, was a dangerous thing. A weakness he learned to hide under the loose stones, like very few personal trinkets, he bargained with other prisoners or guards. His body operated on well well-known routine, which kept him mostly sane. Head held down, no eye contact, no snappy comments, keep to yourself until you know whom you are dealing with.

It did help a lot that when he first arrived, the guards showed them the execution.
He hadn’t even learned the schedule yet — hadn’t figured out when they fed you, if they fed you, or where to piss without getting your ribs cracked — when they dragged him out.

“Come on, Sallow. You’ll want to see this.”

He thought it was a joke. He still had blood on his hands, dried and caked beneath his fingernails — not from murder, but from the scuffle at the gates, where he’d fought like a cornered animal. He’d bitten a guard. They’d broken his nose.

They marched him down a corridor of mossy stone and rusted bars. The stink was overwhelming — wet rot and old metal — but it wasn’t the smell that made his stomach twist. It was the sound. Or the lack of it. Every prisoner they passed stared through the bars, but none spoke. Not a whisper. Not a breath.

They reached the end of the walkway and shoved him against the railing.

The execution yard yawned open below.

A man knelt in the centre, chained to the stone floor — barefoot, half-naked, shivering. His lips moved in silent pleas, or maybe prayers. His eyes were wild.

The Dementor descended like a shadow slipping off a moonless night. It didn’t speak. It didn’t need to. The man screamed. Not words — just that raw , instinctive, animal scream that clawed its way out when the body understood something the mind could not: that it was about to die in a way far worse than death.

The Dementor lowered its face.

Sebastian didn’t understand what he was seeing, not really. He just knew that the world around him got colder , so much colder that it felt like his skin was cracking open from the inside. He wanted to scream, too, but the sound wouldn’t come.

Then he felt it — the pull . It was like gravity in reverse — like the breath being ripped from your lungs, except deeper. The man’s back arched. His body convulsed. And then — stillness.

Not death. Just… nothing.

The Dementor rose. The man slumped forward, slack-jawed, eyes staring at nothing. The body breathed. The chest moved. But it was empty.

Hollow.

Sebastian gripped the railing so hard his knuckles went white. His heart beat like a trapped bird in his ribs. He wanted to vomit. He tried to run. But more than anything — more than anything — he wanted to scream at them, at the guards who watched it like a play, grinning.

One of them leaned in close, breath hot against his ear. “Try anything, Sallow, and that’s where you’re headed.”

Sebastian didn’t respond, not out of defiance.

But because something had cracked inside him.
Something that had still believed, even then, that the world was just. That there were rules. If you explained yourself — if they knew why — they’d understand.

That version of him had died in that yard.

The body kept breathing. But it was never quite the same again.

He woke before the footsteps came.

The stones always whispered first — a faint tremble, a shift in pressure. Azkaban had its own rhythm, like the groaning of an old leviathan asleep in the deep. After a decade, he knew every creak in the bones.

Today, something was wrong.

The air tasted different — metallic, sharp, like blood on the tongue. He sat up on the narrow slab of stone they called a bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with fingers that felt too thin, too slow. Another tremor passed through the floor. Not thunder. Footsteps. Heavy ones.

He stood. Three seconds later , the door scraped open.

Light spilt in — or what passed for it here: a cold, grey torchglow spill that turned everything into corpse-colours. The guard filled the doorway, wrapped in his damp uniform like a man already halfway to being a corpse himself. They never made eye contact. They never spoke unless they had to.

Except now.

“On your feet, Sallow,” the man said, voice flat as rusted iron. “You’ve got a visitor.”

A pause. That word — visitor — was like a spell in itself. He blinked. The last time someone had come — come—had been her .

Moira.

Hair longer than he remembered, eyes harder. She’d stood on the other side of the iron bars, voice trembling like a wand that didn’t know which spell it wanted to cast.

“I’m starting my job at the Ministry next week,” she’d said.
“Good for you,” he’d replied.
But what he’d meant was You betrayed me.

She hadn’t. Not really. But it felt like it.

The memory surged so suddenly it burned — a vision of her gloved hand pressed to the bars between them, of how she’d tilted her head, as if memorising him in case he didn’t last.

The guard was still watching.

Sebastian’s voice cracked as he spoke — unused for days, maybe weeks: “Is it her?”

The man didn’t answer. Just stepped aside.

Two figures stood waiting in the corridor beyond. Both wore the grey linens of inmates — loose, grimy, threadbare. One was tall and skeletal. The other had eyes like chips of flint.

Neither of them was Moira. Sebastian didn’t move.

The guard smirked, just a little. “Go on, Sallow. Don’t keep your guests waiting.”

The door slammed shut behind them.

The two men stepped into the cell like they owned it. The tall one cracked his knuckles, slow and deliberate. The shorter man said nothing, but his hand twitched — like a spell waiting to be cast. Their eyes flicked to the corners. No guards. No chains. No reason to hurry.

Sebastian didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

The walls began to breathe again — not really, but in that way they did before the pain started. His hands curled into fists, just in case.

And then, he saw her.

Not the men in his cell.

But her .

She stood on the other side of the bars, coat soaked from the rain, wand still holstered at her hip. Her hair had grown longer, past her shoulders now, thick with storm-kissed curls. For a moment, he thought it was someone else. For a moment, he wanted it to be someone else.

Because this - this hurt too much.

“They told me you´re still sane so I could see you.”

That was the first thing she said. Not hello .  How  are you ? Just that flat, stunned admission. Like she hadn’t believed it until now.

He almost smiled. Almost.

“I was hard to break,” he said quietly, standing with his back to the wall, as the guard instructed him. No sudden movements, no contact.

“You still are.” She stared at him like she didn’t know what to say next. He didn’t help her. Finally, she cleared her throat, eyes dropping to the little folder she clutched in her hands, as if it mattered.

“I’m going to apply for the Aurorial appraisal. I have finished with most of my N.E.W.T.s in exceeding expectations. Professor Sharp even gave me a letter of recommendation.”

He laughed. A real one, sharp and quick. “Well, isn’t that rich?”

“Sebastian—”

“Good for you,” he cut in. “Save the world. Lock up the bad ones. Nice and neat.”

Her knuckles whitened around the file. “I didn’t come here to fight.”

He looked at her, and the words caught before they escaped. Her hair. It was long. Wild. Beautiful.

And suddenly, he was sixteen again, standing beside her in Hogsmeade, boots crunching in fresh snow.

“I’m thinking of cutting it short,” she’d said, teasing. “Like — short. The French chic.”
He’d shrugged: “Don’t. It’s beautiful.”
She’d blinked. And then smiled — that rare, uneven smile that always made his chest ache.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”

Back in the present — or whatever the memory now was—he let the words slip before he could stop them.

“You never cut it.”

Moira blinked, startled. “What?”

“Your hair,” he murmured. “You never cut it short.”

A long pause. Something flickered in her eyes. “I didn’t,” she admitted.

He swallowed. A question rose in his throat, sharp, stupid, and far too fragile.

“…Did you keep it that way because of me?”

She said nothing. And the silence was answer enough.

Back in the cell — present day — the taller inmate took a step forward.

Sebastian’s back hit the wall. His fists clenched again, tighter this time.

The memory slipped like smoke, as the first curse hit the wall just inches from his head.

“Expulso!”

Stone shattered beside him. Dust rained down, blinding. Sebastian dropped low, already moving, already calculating.

They’d been sent to finish him. There was no doubt in it now. Who he crossed, that was a question for another time.

Another flash — “Incarcerous!” — ropes lashed through the air. He rolled beneath them, shoulder slamming into the leg of the tall one. The man stumbled, and Sebastian latched on .

Years ago, he'd have reached for his wand. Now, he reached for the bone. He grabbed the inmate’s ankle and yanked , hard enough to twist it sideways. The man roared and toppled, wand slipping from his grasp.

That was the only chance he’d get.

Sebastian lunged forward , teeth clenched, elbow smashing into the man’s jaw, once, twice — a sickening crack echoed in the narrow stone cell. The man thrashed, stronger, heavier — but Sebastian didn’t fight fair. He fought filthy . He clawed, bit, and used his knees and elbows like weapons.

He got hold of the wand.

The second attacker shouted something — a spell — “Petrificus—” But Sebastian twisted , using the tall man’s own body as a shield. The spell hit flesh.

A grunt. Then silence.

But Sebastian twisted , dragging the tall inmate into the spell's path. It struck the man in the ribs — not fully, but enough to jolt him. Sebastian didn’t hesitate. He drove his knee into the inmate’s throat, once, twice, until the man gagged on his own breath.

Then he grabbed the man’s head and slammed it into the stone floor.

Hard.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Something cracked. The body went limp.

The wand was in Sebastian’s hand now. Slick with blood, trembling. He turned, just as the second attacker raised his wand.

“Stay down, you sick fuck.”

Sebastian raised his own. His voice was low. Flat. Final .

“No! CONFRINGO!”

The explosion was deafening — a column of fire and concussive force that blasted the man off his feet and hurled him through the open cell door. He slammed into the opposite wall with a sickening crunch, smoke trailing from his robes, before collapsing in a heap.

The corridor was silent again. Just the soft crackle of scorched stone, the stink of blood and burned flesh, and Sebastian’s breath — ragged, furious, alive.

His fingers ached around the wand. It wasn’t his, not really. Nothing in this place ever was. You took what you could. You kept what no one else could pry from your cold hands. He let out a breath. Sank to his knees. His skull throbbed. His ribs burned. The iron taste of rage was still in his mouth.

That wasn’t random.

This hadn’t been a fight over bread or stolen rations. It wasn’t just Azkaban’s usual chaos. No. They’d been sent. Like dogs off a leash. Too rehearsed. Too quiet.

But by whom ? And why now ?

He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist, smearing blood across his temple. His thoughts spiralled — not from panic, but something colder. Controlled. The same instinct that had kept him alive for ten years in this gods-forsaken tomb.

Ten years. Merlin!

Sometimes he forgot his own age. He still remembered Hogwarts so clearly — the crackling hearth in the Slytherin common room, the scent of parchment and firewhisky, the ache in his chest when Moira laughed, the snowball fights in the courtyard with Anne and Ominis.

That boy… the one with a sharp tongue and too much hope — he’d never have made it here.

He’d buried that version of himself in the first month. Not out of choice. Out of necessity.

He learned fast: wit didn’t protect you. Kindness got you gutted. Trust was a noose.

It wasn’t the dementors that had nearly killed him that first year — it was the inmates.

One of them had recognised him.

A poacher. One of Rookwood’s old crew. Broken nose, tattoo across his jaw like a branding iron. The man had stared at him in the showers one night and said, real quiet:
“You’re her little pet, ain’t you? That green-haired bitch who blew half my camp to hell.”

And then the beatings started. Subtle at first. A shove on the stairs. A fist to the gut when no guards were looking.

Sebastian didn’t run. He watched. He waited.

And then, one night, he acted . There was no spell. Just a length of chain, a loose stone, and the kind of silence that only Azkaban could teach.

He’d left the man with a shattered jaw and one less eye.

After that, no one tried him for a while. Word spread. The Sallow boy bit back.

Still, they came, now and then. Always someone new. Always someone older , meaner , emptier . He fought. He survived.

But every year took something was taken away.

His laugh, his warmth, his dreams.
Even his voice, some days.

There were mornings he didn’t speak for weeks. No need. No one worth speaking to. Just his own thoughts, the cold, and the whisper of the sea beyond the walls — mocking him with freedom he’d never taste again.

Until her.

Moira.

Every time she visited, it peeled open something in him he thought had long since rotted away. And every time she left, it festered worse. 

So maybe this was a gift. Maybe they’d finally stopped pretending there was anything left of him to save.

But he was still here . And he wasn’t done.

Not yet.

The second time she came, she smuggled in a photograph. She flicked it through the bars like contraband, eyes never leaving his. The photograph shimmered with silvery light, filling the air with her ancient magic that Azkaban never knew and could not react to.

“I’m not supposed to,” she said. “But I thought—”

He took it without a word. The image was small. A little wrinkled. Poor lighting.

But it was Anne .

Anne in white. Her eyes bright again — not like they’d been after Hogwarts, pained and dull, but like they used to be, before the curse, before the desperation. She was smiling. Smiling.

And next to her— Ominis.

Hand in hers. His face was a mixture of pride and stillness, like he couldn’t believe he belonged in that moment. They stood under an arch of wisteria in a courtyard Sebastian didn’t recognise.

It hit like a hex to the ribs.

Moira’s voice was quiet. Cautious. “They wanted you to know… she’s safe now. She’s loved.”

He didn’t respond. Couldn’t. He stared at the photo like it might breathe or speak.

Anne looked radiant. She was alive. She was happy.

And he was behind a wall of stone.

“Say something,” Moira asked, gently. “Please.”

He swallowed. And for a second — just a second—something warm flickered in the cold tomb of his chest.

“I’m glad,” he said, his voice hollow. “She deserved more than… all of this.”

He sent the photo back across the floor.

She hesitated. “Keep it.”

He looked at her sharply: “You think I won’t get flayed alive for having something like this?”

“I’ll handle it,” she said. “Let them come to me.”

His eyes lingered on her — on the line of her jaw, the faint dark circles under her eyes. She was older. Sharper. A full-grown witch now, with danger stitched into the seams of her robes.

But still her. Still, his Moira, with a plait reaching almost her midriff. Even if she didn’t say it. Even if she never would again.

“Don´t come back again,” he whispered, turning his back on her.

“That´s not up to you.”

And then she was gone.

The photo lay hidden behind a loose stone in the wall. He hadn’t looked at it in months. He didn’t need to — it had seared itself into his brain.

Anne, safe. Smiling. Gone.

The noise came without warning. Boots. Shouting. Steel on stone.

He turned — just in time to see the guards flood the corridor, faces masked, wands already drawn.

“Get him down!”

“Now, now—he’s still got a wand—”

The first stun hit him in the shoulder, light and pain crackled through his spine. He dropped the wand. The second hit came with a boot to the ribs .

He hit the floor, gasping, fingers scrabbling at nothing.

They were on him like hounds, fists and curses and the sick crunch of bone beneath reinforced boots. One grabbed his hair. Another slammed his face into the stone floor.

Blood filled his mouth. He tasted iron and dust and rage.

They were going to end it.

Not a trial. Not a hearing.

Just this.

This was the price for surviving. This was what you got for refusing to die when they asked you to. Above the ringing in his ears, he heard someone speaking. Low. Stern. Official.

“Sallow, Sebastian. AZK-331-1161847. Sentence amended by special decree. Dementor’s Kiss approved.”

No.

Another blow landed.

And the world began to blur.

The wards shimmered as they passed the front gates — not flashy, just a whisper of old magic brushing their skin like the breath of ghosts. Moira always felt it more than Ominis, who simply tilted his head and smiled faintly when they crossed the threshold.

The house had changed over the years.

What had once been a crumbling ruin by the sea — half-swallowed by salt and time — now stood proud against the cliffside wind. Its spine still crooked, its stones still scarred, but the windows were filled with light, and the garden had returned to life.

Moira slowed as they approached the door, her fingers still curled around the folded message in her coat pocket. It pulsed there like a second heartbeat.

Ominis noticed. Of course he did.

“Later,” she murmured.

“Later,” he agreed, voice soft.

The front door opened before they reached it.

Anne stood framed in the glow of the hall, wrapped in a thick shawl, hair silvering at the edges, her body fragile in the way that only long-suffering makes a person, not broken, but worn by years of stubborn survival.

Her face lit up the moment she saw them. 

“ Moira! ”

Moira rushed forward, catching her in a careful, gentle hug, afraid to squeeze too tight. Anne was thinner than she remembered. But warm. Alive. Still Anne .

“You look awful,” Anne grinned.

Moira laughed, blinking away sudden tears. “And you look like you’ve been knitting with your ribs again. Is that a third scarf I see behind you?”

“I’ve had time .”

They pulled apart, and Moira’s gaze flicked briefly around the entry hall — fire crackling in the hearth, soft music drifting from the study. The house breathed like a living thing now. It smelled like cedarwood and sea salt and mulled wine. Safe.

Ominis was already hanging up coats and murmuring to the house-elf in the kitchen.

Anne linked her arm through Moira’s and leaned close: “Tell me everything. Then tell me again. Slowly. So I can live vicariously while my husband makes me drink bone broth and stop cursing at the laundry.”

Moira let herself smile, truly smile, for the first time in what felt like weeks. For one golden moment, she let herself believe things could still be good.

But the message in her coat pocket weighed heavier than any winter wind.

The cell reeked of blood, old piss, and sea rot.

Sebastian spat out a tooth onto the stone floor, watching it bounce once before it settled like a white pebble in the dark. His ribs ached. His shoulder wasn’t right — popped out, maybe broken — and the inside of his mouth was shredded from where he’d bitten back the screams.

They hadn’t even asked questions.

Just three guards, no wands, all fists and boots. Like they were bored, like someone told them, he wouldn’t be needed much longer. He lay on his side for a long while, cheek against the stone, letting the cell throb around him.

Eventually, steps approached. Soft ones. Shuffling. Sebastian turned his head. One eye swollen shut, the other still sharp.

It was Fletcher — a scrawny halfblood snitch from the lower wing, all twitch and stink, the kind that always found a way to survive. Rumour was, he’d been caught helping his cousin charm a vault open. He was being released at sunrise.

“You,” Sebastian rasped, voice dry as gravel. “Come here.”

Fletcher hesitated just outside the bars, looking skittishly at the guards, who seemed not to care.. “What d’you want?”

“A favour. You’ll like it. It involves you walking out of here with all your teeth.”

The man grimaced: “Not keen on your favours, Sallow.”

Sebastian pushed himself upright, bracing on the wall like a drunk. His lip cracked open again, blood spilling down his chin.

“I need you to carry a message to the outside,” he said flatly. “To a Ministry Auror named Moira Darkwood.”

“What, you want me to send your regards? To a copper?” Fletcher sneered.

Sebastian gave a broken chuckle. “Hardly. Giver her this, no words, nothing . ”
He paused. Let the words settle, as he handed him a small folded piece of torn parchment. “I know you have swift fingers. Or you want me to tell the head Chief where his pocket watch went?”

Fletcher looked uneasy. “And if she doesn’t care?”

“Oh, she cares,” Sebastian said, smiling without warmth. “That’s the thing about guilt. You can drown it, drink it, bury it for ten years — it still finds a way to whisper in your ear.”

He stepped closer to the bars, a shadow of his former self — beaten, bruised, but very much still dangerous.

“You deliver it exactly like that. And let the stone settle in. She owes me. She knows it.”

Fletcher backed away slightly. “Alright. Fine. But if she hexes me for bringing it, I’ll tell her you begged.”

“Do,” Sebastian said, voice suddenly light. “Might even make her laugh.”

Dinner was simple, but perfect.

The kind of quiet perfection you only noticed after years of chaos.

Moira sat at the long oak table beneath the stained-glass window Ominis had salvaged from a ruined chapel. Warm lamplight bathed the space in gold and amber. The scent of rosemary and roasted squash filled the air, cut now and then by the sharper tang of pickled fennel from the little glass dish Anne insisted on adding to everything.

They talked about nothing important. That was the magic of it.

Anne teased Ominis about a failed attempt to charm the fireplace to clean itself (“ It caught the brush on fire, Omi. ”), and Ominis countered by reminding her that someone had turned the kitchen table into a galloping monster the last time it was charmed to clean itself.

Moira just listened, smiling into her cider. It had been years, and still, this never stopped feeling like home, even if it wasn't really hers.

Even if it never had been.

She wasn’t family, not by blood. But she’d built this place for them. Scoured the edges of the legal world, saved what came out of the bounty on Rookwood and his poachers, bartered in artefacts and treasures until she had enough to buy this broken estate clinging to the cliffs — and enough left over to make it beautiful.

Because they deserved that.

Because Anne deserved that.

They’d all lived together once, after the fifth year — in the crumbling Sallow house in Feldcroft, scraping through grief and guilt. But that was before Anne’s condition worsened. Before the nightmares. Before Moira realised that her presence, however loyal, was a shadow Sebastian had left behind.

So she left. Stayed in Hogwarts whenever she could, lounged in the shop with Penny, and then moved to London.

Let Anne and Ominis find peace in each other.

She’d watched them fall in love without ever needing to say a word. It had happened in glances, in hands held during curse episodes, in the way Ominis learned the rhythm of Anne’s breathing when she slept.

And when they told her they were going to marry, Moira had only asked one thing : “Let me give you a home.”

That home now held the sound of soft laughter, clinking spoons, and Anne’s voice gently rising in mock indignation.

Until the laughter faded. It always did.

Anne winced — subtle, at first, then sharp. Her fingers clenched against the table. The pain came like a wave: deep, ancient, lodged in bone. It hollowed her from the inside, a relic of a curse that refused to let go.

Ominis was at her side in an instant, voice low, soothing: “I’ve got you. Let’s go.”

“I’m fine—” she whispered, but her eyes shimmered with tears.

He helped her up, one arm around her waist.

“Talk in the morning,” he said to Moira with a half-smile. “I’ll make the tea.”

Moira nodded as she watched them go. Listened to the creak of the stairs as they disappeared into the bedroom above.

Then the house fell quiet.

She sat a little longer at the table, letting the silence wrap around her. No Ministry. No Auror cloak. No expectations.

Just her. And the envelope in her pocket.

She pulled it out slowly, breaking the wax seal with a thumbnail. The parchment inside was creased, smudged, and written in a hand she hadn’t seen in years.

Sebastian’s.

The fire crackled behind her. The sea whispered beyond the glass.

And as her eyes scanned the words, her breath caught — not from surprise, but from the weight of it. Her mind started racing like a herd of wild kelpies on the shore, spinning like crazy.

She stood up and grabbed a quill and parchment, words scattering on the paper with purpose.

Dear Professor Sharp,

I hope this finds you well. I’m writing in regard to a matter that may strike you as unorthodox — but I trust you’ll hear me out before judging too quickly.

I have been recently assigned to a sensitive case under the Department of Mysteries, working closely with Ominis Gaunt. We’ve recently encountered a development that might intersect with known ancient magic activity from our time at Hogwarts — activity that, I believe, Sebastian Sallow may be of vital assistance.

While I understand the nature of his incarceration and the gravity of the charges that placed him there, I believe it would be beneficiary to request temporary field release into my custody, under direct supervision, for the duration of this investigation. I will bear full responsibility for his conduct and reintegration under Ministry terms. However, given the recent circumstances of my assignment to another department, I am unable to do so on my own.

More importantly, I believe I can manage him. We’ve crossed worse fires before.

Professor, this isn’t a whim. I’m not asking for favours. I need him — not just for what he remembers, but for the way he thinks. There are patterns here I cannot see without him at my side.

I’m attaching the preliminary clearance request for transfer from Azkaban. I trust you still know which strings to pull. If you can accelerate the approval process, I’ll owe you a drink at the Three Brooms, or a life debt.

With all due respect (and perhaps a touch of reckless faith),
Moira Darkwood

Darkwood,

Request received. Paperwork will be expedited through the appropriate channels.

I trust whatever unspeakable business this pertains to will remain above my pay grade, as usual.

Try not to get yourself killed. 

– A. Sharp

The house had gone still long ago.

The fire in the study burned low, casting shadows across the sprawl of parchment and half-drunk tea cups strewn across her old desk. Moira sat cross-legged in the worn leather chair, sleeves rolled to her elbows, ink smudged across her wrist.

A dozen reports lay open around her — field sketches from Cairn Island, sigil rubbings, photos of ancient spiral carvings half-submerged in sand. There were timelines scratched onto napkins. Connections drawn and crossed out. The case spread wide into coiling tentacles across several months and different locations, and the more she tried to understand it, the more it reeked of something old , buried , and deliberate .

Tiptoeing around the house, she crept into Ominis´s office, borrowing a stack of reports neatly sitting at his table, all marked with the name of Veiled concordance - the antiquarian ring Ominis spoke about. Their thirst for dark relics linked with death magic sat in the centre of it all like a weird bloom that somehow didn't fit in. Could it be that they have uncovered some ancient magic relic that revealed what the Keepers had hidden?

The repository under Hogwarts has been sealed tight, the magic contained by not only wards done by ministerial officers from the Department of Mysteries, but also her own creations - the Guardians she made in the image of Beasts, that slept, waiting for the intruders to incapacitate them.

In the Map Room, she waged a war about changing the ways of the Keepers with the original Four. The teachings had to change. Should in the future someone like her, like Isidora, emerge, they should be educated on the ancient ways, not scared away by a cautionary tale of a woman who wanted to help people, change the world, and was driven to evil deeds, pride and death.

Somehow it reminded her of Sebastian - her own failure to help him and guide him, as she should as a friend and the Keeper.

She leaned back with a quiet groan, rubbing her eyes. The old photograph of Anne, Ominis and her on their wedding day lay propped against a stack of files. She caught herself looking at it more than once.

The message from Sebastian still sat unfolded on the edge of the desk. She hadn’t filed it away; she couldn’t. The ink had bled in one corner in a blood-like pool. It hadn’t said much.

But it had said enough .

She’d written to Sharp hours ago. Pushed the owl out into the storm before she could think twice. And then she’d returned to the desk like a soldier who didn’t know how to do anything but fight.

When she finally drifted off, it was with her cheek pressed to a map of the Scottish coast and a quill still clutched in one hand.

It was nearly noon when she woke up.

The knock was soft. Then the creak of the door.

“Moira,” came Ominis’s voice — calm, composed, always slightly amused. “You have an owl.”

She groaned softly and peeled herself upright, papers sliding off her lap.

“Dead or alive?”

“It survived the landing. Though just barely. I think the poor thing was afraid to interrupt your wall of conspiracy.”

She blinked blearily at him. He stood in the doorway with a tray: toast, fresh coffee, a folded parchment. He raised a brow: “I assume this is the part where you say ‘What time is it?’ ”

She muttered, rubbing her face: “Don’t.”

“Midday,” he said anyway, placing the tray gently beside her. Then, glancing at the parchment, added: “From the Ministry.”

That got her attention. She snatched it up, hands trembling slightly.

Ominis stepped back without another word, letting her read it in silence.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moira didn’t touch the coffee.

The Ministry seal burned crimson at the corner of the parchment like a wound, official, final, stamped with approval. One stroke of ink and the tide had turned.

She traced the words again with shaking fingers, as if they'd change under her touch. They didn’t.

...Temporary release of Inmate AZK-331-1161847, Sallow, Sebastian. D.O.B. November 6, 1847
Effective immediately.
Supervised field reassignment under Auror Moira Darkwood, Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

They had said yes.
A small victory - and somehow, it didn’t feel like winning.

She stood in the hallway for a long time, holding the letter like it might vanish if she moved too fast. The air in the house smelled like rosemary and smoke. She could hear Anne humming faintly upstairs — a ghost of a tune, half-lost to pain. Somewhere, the wind banged an old shutter.

Ominis would be in the study. Always the same chair. Always facing the fire, angled just slightly toward the window he couldn’t see through.

She didn’t knock, just walked in.

He was seated exactly as she expected, sleeves rolled, an open book balanced on his knee, untouched. The logs crackled in the hearth. The firelight curled gold across the polished floorboards and up the dark wood of the bookcases.

He didn’t look up: “You’ve been quiet all afternoon,” he said.

“I am just tired,” she replied. It wasn’t a lie.

“Let me guess,” Ominis murmured. “More red-string conspiracy walls? Should I check the pantry for missing pins?”

He was teasing — gently, affectionately.

And she was about to break it. Moira crossed the room. Slowly. Deliberately. She set the letter on the side table between them.

It made a sound when it landed — a soft whisper of paper, but it might as well have been a shout.

Ominis stilled.

He didn’t ask. Not right away. He reached for it, fingers brushing the edge, reading not with his eyes but the way only he could — the faint imprint of magic hidden beneath the words.

His brow furrowed. Then he stilled.

“Moira…” His voice lost its warmth. “Tell me you didn’t.”

He set the paper back down, neatly, like it was something fragile. Dangerous.

When he turned his face to her, his expression was unreadable. But his voice — his voice was already beginning to splinter.

“What did you do?”

She opened her mouth and told him everything. Well, nearly everything. About the bright idea to add Sebastian to the investigation as a means of saving him from his fate. About the guilt that was gnawing in her gut. She babbled — strings of justifications that had once sounded noble in her mind but now just sounded hollow.

“I thought if I saved him now, maybe I’d undo it what we did. What I let happen.” Her voice cracked. “I know it’s stupid. But I can’t just… leave him there, Ominis. Not like that.”

There was no sound for a while — only the crackling of logs as the fire slowly devoured them. Her breaths were shallow as she waited for him to react. To say — well, anything.

A letter lay on the table between them, written hastily, as if the author had been in great distress. The words were scribbled, smudged with what looked like water. It formed a barrier between her uneven breath and the quiet rage that radiated from him as he stood motionless, looking at her with the palest eyes she’d ever seen.

“Ominis, say something,” she finally whispered, searching his face for words or even a sound.

He remained still, like an ancient grave. His unfocused yet intense eyes seemed fixed on her face. His lips were drawn into one hard, pale line.

The outside world crept back in — waves crashing against the jagged cliffs of the Manor Cape. Beyond the closed door, the wind howled like a banshee, and she could hear the animals in the stables pacing nervously, as if they too sensed something had shifted. As if this house, haunted enough already, had just acquired one more shadow.

She might’ve thought it an ill omen if she were more superstitious — but superstition had no place in her life anymore. Ten years had stripped her of such comforts. Now, she believed in two things: being prepared… and that evil wasn’t born. It was made.

Ominis reached for the letter and crushed it in his fist. The edges seared, catching fire in his bare hand.

“It is out of the question, Moira,” he said at last, his voice calm but iron-bound. “I will not have him back. Not in this house. Not after everything he’s done.“I’ve spent ten years trying to build something stable for Anne. And now you want to invite chaos back into it?  You must be mad if you think I’ll sanction this investigation with him as our adviser.”

Ash drifted between them as the embers rose from his hand, floating like a veil of fire. Glowing letters burst from the smoke, branding themselves into the air with heat so fierce he flinched.

If you don’t get me out, it’s the end. I’ll get the Kiss, and that’s it. You should feel at least a little responsible. You’re the one who turned me in.

“Ominis…” Moira began, staring at the words as they dissolved into ash.

“I beg your pardon,” he cut her off, voice sharp. “Are you positively mad? I will not hand him a free ticket out of Azkaban. He is a murderer. You should know better.”

She paused. Folded her arms in front of herself. Defensive. He couldn’t see her, but he knew. It was her usual posture right before she started to argue.

But this time, silence pressed between them like a heavy quilt. Moira bit her lip, looked down at the table, and hugged her frame tighter.

There was an air of secrets. Ominis Gaunt might have been blind, but he was no fool. And he could read his friend like an open book in moments like this.

“Oh, bollocks. What did you do?” he snapped.

Moira flinched and looked away, though it would help nothing.

“I’ve already acquired the order for his release,” she mumbled. “Ominis, this is the best course of action right now. We are saving his life.”

She paused, diving deep to grab whatever calculating justification she could muster. To convince him-or maybe herself:
“And - and he was by my side for most of the fifth year through the goblin Rookwood´s gang fights and was never shy to draw the wand. He knows the kind of magic we’re dealing with. And he was studying the Dark Arts, he has first-hand experience with the type of people we´re dealing with. That matters more than a dozen safe consultants from the Department. I can’t just ask any Dark wizard to cooperate, can I?”

He drew a sharp breath and collapsed into a chair, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Who signed it? Who the hell approved that?”

“Quintessimus Bardock. Your boss. And before you start shouting, it came from above. I didn’t forge anything. Maybe I mentioned the possibility to a few people. That’s all.”

Maybe she’d run it past her old mentor, who may or may not have whispered the idea into the ears of old comrades on her behalf. Professor Sharp, bless his heart, knew well when not to ask questions about ancient magic. His tutelage during her Hogwarts years was more than helpful for her coming to terms with whatever that meant being a Keeper. In fact, he did more than the original Four. She trusted him completely, and in return, he knew she would make the right decisions.

Ominis sighed. Bardock was a moron. He had suffered under his “wise” tutelage for five years. Merlin knows why they made him Head of the Department of Mysteries — probably to keep him away from anything important. He was an idiot in a good coat with competent people under him. But this being said, only a complete and utter idiot would have agreed to release a convicted felon from Azkaban, based on a request from a junior Auror with practically zero field experience. 

And on the premise of deputising him as an official investigation adviser. There had to be something more going on.

And Moira… she was trying to look apologetic. That made it worse. He could feel it. She would've come to him first if she’d truly believed this was a good idea and not just a sudden pang of guilt that had driven her into a rash decision. They’d done everything together since they were fifteen. This spelt trouble, and she damn well knew it.

“You went behind my back,” he said flatly. She nodded.

“You went behind my back on my investigation. And I was foolish enough to request you as head investigator…”

Moira opened her mouth, but he stopped her with a motion.

“He is your responsibility now. I won’t save you again. Understood? I’ve done it enough, and I for sure won´t be saving him. We tried once, and it cost Anne a piece of her.”

She frowned. “When did I not manage him, Ominis?”

It had to be rhetorical. Otherwise, she really had lost her mind. When had Moira ever had control over their friend?

The only memory that surfaced — burned into his mind — was the one in the Undercroft. They’d sat on the cold stone floor, sobbing, fifteen years old and broken, deciding whether to turn in their friend for using an Unforgivable Curse, for killing his uncle.

Fifteen.

Moira crossed the room and knelt beside him, her hands resting lightly on his knees.

“I need this, Ominis,” she whispered. “I know it’s right. You must, too, after what we did! And if I´m going out there, I need someone to watch my back. He always did, even when he didn’t listen.”

That pause. Like a blade. No — he didn’t listen. And that was always the problem.

And maybe part of Ominis was still furious — not just about what Sebastian had done, but that he had chosen to trust her more than Ominis, his best friend, his almost-brother.

“I can’t have Ministry eyes on what I’m doing right now, after Amit. Not with my magic, not if this is tied to ancient magic,” she added softly. “Most of the Auror’s Office sees me as an accessory. A glorified secretary. They don’t take me seriously. Fittleworth thinks I am a murderer.”

Ominis sighed and cupped her hands.

“You chose to be an Auror, Moira. Sooner or later, they’ll see what you’re made of. It’s not like you’ve ever been subtle about it.”

She rested her head on his knee and shrugged. “But not now.”

He ran his fingers through her hair absentmindedly, like he used to when they were children and the world was heavy.

“Not now, when people are turning up dead. Amit is dead. Honorata of all people, drowned in a dry tub. I need to go out, investigate, and stop whatever is happening. I can't bring you with me — not while Anne is this weak. I need someone who knows me.”

He paused, his hand frozen above her head, then slowly sighed.

“And do you?” he asked quietly. “Do you think you still know Sebastian?”

Moira didn’t answer. Her fingers curled around the edge of the chair.

Because she didn’t know if it was true.

Footsteps.

Not the usual shuffle of patrolling boots or the drunk-lurch rhythm of a beating crew. These were different — clipped, deliberate. He heard keys turn. Wards hum.

Then the cell door opened.

Sebastian didn’t move at first. Just stared up from the floor, blood crusted beneath his nose, lip split, shoulder pulled tight with pain. He expected shackles. He expected the hood. Maybe even the rattling breath of a Dementor waiting to feed.

But what he got was silence.

One of the guards cleared his throat. “Inmate AZK-331-1161847. On your feet. Processing.”

Sebastian slowly stood, spine straightening inch by inch. No explanation. No cuffs. No final rites.

Processing.

The word rolled through him like cold water. He said nothing. Just followed.

Down the winding corridor past peeling stone and rusted torches. Past doors he’d only ever seen close, never open. No one told him where he was going. They didn’t have to. That word had only one meaning in this place.

Processing. Final documentation. Cell clearance. Kiss chamber.

He was going to die.

The guards flanked him, but not like before. No hands on him. No slurs or shoves. They kept pace like... escorts. 

The knot of confusion tightened in his chest. He walked steady, but his mind reeled. Something was wrong.

They reached the outer gate. One of the guards stepped forward and rapped twice on the stone — an old signal, older than the prison itself. The wards shimmered, then parted with a groaning sound like the breath of the dead.

And then he saw her.

Moira stood just beyond the arch, sharp coat pressed, hair damp from the storm, a Ministry folder tucked under one arm. Department of Magical Law Enforcement's badge gleamed at her shoulder, fastened with precise care.

Sebastian stopped short and stared.

One of the guards raised a brow. “Yes, that’s your new handler,” he muttered with mild contempt, then turned toward her. “You’re the one who filed the expedited release?”

“I am,” Moira said. Her voice was crisp. Measured. Official. “Moira Darkwood with the Auror´s Office of the Ministry of Magic, badge number 742-MD-AW-1951.”

He watched as the guards assessed her, not the girl she’d once been to him, but the young Auror standing before them, barely past twenty, rain-slicked and unshaken.

The older of the two cocked his head, clearly unimpressed: “You’re sure about this one? He's got a kill record longer than my wand. And the last bloke who tried to talk to him left with a dislocated jaw.”

Moira’s smile was small. Sharp. Deadly. She sized him up and down and gave him a wry grin.

“I hope you are not married then, that would be a fairly short wand,” she uttered with a cocked head. Then added: “And if I need your professional opinion, I’ll file for it in triplicate. Until then, you may return to your post.”

The guard’s smirk faltered. The other said nothing and tried to hide a barking laughter behind his palm and a cough.

With a flick of her wand, the official parchment unfolded midair, glowing with Ministry seals, signed, stamped, and countersigned. “Temporary release order. Under Clause 14.7 of the Departmental Override Act. Inmate AZK-331-1161847 is now under my direct custody.”

The silence stretched.

Sebastian’s throat worked. His voice came hoarse, uncertain: “What... is this?”

Moira didn’t look at him right away. She kept her gaze on the guards until they stepped back — reluctantly, but they did.

Then she met his eyes.

“This is your second chance,” she said. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Chapter Text

Moira didn’t speak. She just stood there, watching him.
The moment stretched like a held breath as the heavy doors groaned shut behind her, iron locking into iron. Only the distant echoes of footsteps and the ever-present sea reminded her she was still in the world of the living.

He stood there, beaten but upright — and that was the first surprise. She had expected to find someone broken.

But Sebastian Sallow was not broken. He was sharpened. He was already watching her — or rather, watching everything. His eyes flicked from the door to the guard’s shadow to the wand at her hip, calculating. Ten years had carved something lean and dangerous from the boy she once knew. There was no softness left in him, no idle stillness. He was all hard angles and sharpness, a man stripped down to instinct and resolve.

The hollows of his cheeks caught the gray light, cheekbones cutting stark beneath skin that looked too thin, too pale. His jaw was set like stone, tense with the kind of discipline that doesn’t come from willpower — but from necessity. His stare cut like flint. And his face, his whole bearing, spoke not of punishment, but of peril.

Everything about him spoke of a body kept alive by vigilance. Rope-tight muscles beneath threadbare robes. Stance braced just enough to spring.

She’d seen that posture before — in wounded wolves backed into corners.

He stood nearly two heads taller than her now, but the size wasn’t what made him imposing. It was the pressure that came off him, like heat before a fire. A hum of barely leashed energy, of someone who hadn’t rested in years. Someone who’d forgotten how.

The boy she remembered had been flesh, joy, mischief and stubbornness. The man before her was sinew and rope-like strength, a body hardened by hardship and hunger, sleepless nights stacked like bricks behind his eyes. Even the way he breathed — shallow, deliberate — made her skin crawl with quiet grief.

The last time she saw him, he was standing in the courtroom floor, remorseful, head bowed. Now, he looked like he could take down everyone in the room — or die trying. And maybe he’d prefer that. She wasn’t sure.

Watching her. Waiting. Like a wolf unsure if the hand before it offers food or the lash.

Moira swallowed.
“Hello, Sebastian.”
His name felt like something fragile in her mouth. Something he might not recognise anymore.

Sebastian tilted his head, gaze narrowing the moment she said his name.

“Officer Darkwood,” he replied, voice rough like it hadn’t been used properly in weeks — or used only for shouting. “You look…” He paused, eyes raking over her, then shrugged. “Unimprisoned.”

She didn’t smile. Just held out the long black overcoat she’d brought. “Put this on. You’ll freeze out there.”

He didn’t move at first. Didn’t take it. Then, slowly, he reached for it — their fingers nearly brushing — and shrugged it on. The sleeves were too short.

“Where’s my wand?” he asked casually, as though he were inquiring about luggage, not a weapon at this very moment, fishing in the coat pockets.

Moira met his eyes. “Not there,” she replied dryly.

That earned a snort:  “Afraid I’ll turn on you the moment we’re clear of the Dementor fog?”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, turning toward the exit. “Just not stupid.”

He didn’t answer. Just followed — boots scuffing against damp stone as they wound through the corridors in silence. The few guards they passed gave them a wide berth. None met Sebastian’s eyes.

There was something about him now — taut and feral—that made people instinctively look away. Like a caged creature that had learned how to bare its teeth without making a sound.

The wind hit like a slap as they stepped out into the open.

Moira tightened her coat against the cold, breath catching as the sea wind howled in from the cliffs. The mist rolled low and thick, curling around their feet like the island itself didn’t want to let them go. Behind them, Azkaban crouched in silence — squat, black, and pulsing with old sorrow.

Overhead, wings rustled.

Two Thestrals waited near the cliff's edge, their gaunt silhouettes barely visible through the fog. One pawed restlessly at the ground, bones clicking beneath slick hide. The other lifted its head the moment Sebastian stepped closer — and hissed.

He stopped short.

“Thestrals,” he muttered. “Fitting.”

His voice had settled into something quieter now, something scraped raw by memory. He didn’t look at her when he added, “You remember what I said about them?”

Moira turned toward the creatures, one hand already outstretched to Nocturna, the mare she helped to bring into this world. The Thestral leaned into her touch with a soft huff, its blind eyes focused solely on her.

“You said they were a bad omen,” she replied, running her fingers down the beast’s neck.

He gave a faint, crooked smile. “Good memory, even after the years.”

“Nocturna?” she asked, stroking the creature’s muzzle.

“You.” He snorted softly, the sound surprisingly human. “Ten points to Miss Darkwood.”

She adjusted the saddle straps without replying. The wind caught her coat and whipped it around her legs, but she worked in silence, fingers sure and practised. When she was done, she glanced back over her shoulder.

“Are you trying to make conversation?”

Sebastian shrugged, eyes flicking up to meet hers. “Maybe I forgot how.”

Moira raised one brow, mouth pressing into a thin line.

She didn’t smile. Just tugged the final strap taut and jerked her chin toward the other Thestral now watching Sebastian with clear suspicion. “That one’s Tenebralis. Don’t try to steer him off-course. He’s trained to follow Nocturna, but he spooks easy. One wrong move and you’ll be airborne in ways you don’t want to be.” 

Sebastian took a cautious step toward the Thestral. It let out a faint snort, lips curling to expose pale teeth. He paused, brow raised.

“He’s got excellent instincts,” he muttered.

Sebastian approached the stallion with care, but the Thestral bared its teeth at him anyway, head jerking back.

Moira was already mounting Nocturna, but threw a glance over her shoulder. “He can smell trouble, you know.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Almost.
“Some things don’t change.”

He swung himself onto the Thestral’s back — and for a second, Tenebralis jerked sideways, wings half-flaring as if ready to bolt. Moira snapped her head around.

“Sebastian—”

“I’ve got it,” he said, low. He didn’t look at her. Didn’t look at the island, either.

Moira watched him for a heartbeat longer, then tapped her heel against Nocturna’s ribs.

The Thestrals launched into the fog.

The wind howled around them as the beasts rose, wings silent but vast, gliding high above the churning black sea. Azkaban vanished behind them. Below, jagged rocks vanished and reappeared beneath the mist like waiting teeth.

Neither of them spoke.

Not because there was nothing to say, but because ten years of silence was loud enough.

They landed just after dusk.

The Thestrals vanished into the fog as soon as they dismounted, disappearing like smoke between the trees. The world here was quieter than Azkaban, but no less gray — mist curling through the heather, wet earth soft beneath their boots.

Moira led the way without speaking. Sebastian followed, coat flapping around his legs, eyes still scanning the horizon like he hadn’t left the prison at all.

Then, like something conjured from the moor itself, the shape of the old pub emerged ahead: The Hearth and Hound. Weathered stone walls hugged close to the ground, smoke curling from the crooked chimney. A wooden sign creaked overhead, barely legible, but the windows glowed amber with firelight — like a heartbeat in the dark.

Sebastian hesitated at the threshold, but Moira didn’t.

Inside, the warmth hit instantly — hearthfire, old wood, damp wool, and stew. It wasn’t fancy, but it was familiar. Lived-in and safe. A few heads turned as they entered — locals nursing pints at corner tables — but none stared. The kind of place where everyone knew better.

A woman behind the bar looked up, hands on her hips. Her sleeves were rolled to the elbow, apron was dusted in flour and ash. Grey curls fell from her headscarf, and her eyes narrowed when they landed on Moira.

“Well, well,” she said. “If it isn’t the Ministry’s finest little stormcloud.”

“Evening, Netta,” Moira said, pulling her gloves off with a tight smile. “I need the back room. And a bath. And probably something strong.”

The barkeep — Netta — squinted past her. Her expression didn’t change when she saw Sebastian. If anything, her voice dropped an octave, becoming something harder.

“Are you bringing trouble?”

“He’s family,” Moira replied without hesitation, not quite lying.

That was enough. Netta simply nodded, then tossed a key onto the bar. “Room’s still got hot water. Soup’s venison. And if he wrecks anything, he scrubs the hearth.”

Sebastian blinked. “I… honestly don’t know if that’s a threat or an invitation.”

Moira raised an eyebrow and said. “It’s both.”

The room upstairs was small but warm, its walls slanted with age, beams exposed like ribs. A kettle hissed in the corner over a rune-stoked stove. The tin tub stood steaming in the centre, freshly filled, curls of heat rising into the lamp-lit air. Towels, clean clothes, and a battered first-aid kit lay stacked neatly nearby.

Moira knelt beside the tub, pouring a vial of herbal tincture into the water. The scent of eucalyptus and wild sage bloomed instantly, chasing out the stale chill from Sebastian’s skin and clothes.

He stood at the door, unmoving.

“You can turn around,” he said, voice low. “Or not. Just—don’t fuss.”

“I’m not fussing,” she replied, eyes still on the tub. “You smell like salt, rot, and despair. I’m fixing a hazard.”

He didn’t laugh, but something flickered across his face — not quite amusement, not quite pain.

Sebastian hadn’t moved from the doorway.

“You’re sure this isn’t a trap?” he drawled. “Because I’ve had dreams that start like this. They end with me drowned.”

Moira didn’t rise to the bait. “The only thing you’ll drown in is eucalyptus and regret if you don´t get in.”

He stepped inside at last, shrugging off the coat. Beneath it, the remains of his Azkaban uniform clung to him in tatters. He peeled them off with grim efficiency, and when the last of the fabric hit the floor, Moira stood and turned her back.

“You don’t have to be delicate about it,” Sebastian said. “You’ve seen a naked man, no?.”

“I have,” she said. “But I’d rather not add this to the list of my liaisons.”

He snorted and lowered himself into the tub. The sound he made when the hot water hit him was halfway between relief and pain — a hiss between clenched teeth.

Moira turned slowly.

And froze.

He wasn´t the boy she knew once, but a man carved now by time, by punishment. His body was all lines and shadows, lean as a blade and covered in old wounds. The scars crisscrossing his chest and back told stories she didn’t want to read. One rested just over his heart. Another wrapped his ribs like a brand.

“You’re staring,” he said, eyes half-lidded as he sank lower into the water, up to his throat. “I charge for that now.”

Moira ignored the comment. She grabbed the kit and sat down beside him, dragging a stool near, picking up the salve and cloth. “Give me your arm.”

“Thought you didn’t want to look.”

“I don’t,” she snapped, harsher than she meant. “But I have to fix you, don’t I? Merlin knows no one else has tried.”

He raised an eyebrow but lifted his arm anyway, water trailing down his skin. She worked in silence, dabbing at bruises, at a cut that hadn’t fully closed, her fingers gentle but efficient. Some bruises were deep. The bones were thinner than she remembered. Ropey muscles held tension like a coiled curse. He didn’t flinch — not at her touch. But his eyes never left her. Watching. Measuring.

“Still bossy,” he said. “Stop pretending it’s just duty.”

Moira didn’t look up. “Still talking like you’re the victim.”

“I am the victim. Or have you forgotten whose testimony got me locked up?”

She paused. “It wasn’t my testimony that mattered. You confessed to what you did.”

“To save her. ” His voice dropped, sharp and quiet. “Everything I did—every step—I did for Anne. And for what? Ten years rotting. And now you're what, my parole officer?”

She set the cloth down hard on the rim of the tub. “No. I’m the one dragging you out of that hole, remember? You can at least pretend to be grateful.”

“Grateful,” he echoed, laughing under his breath. “Should I thank you here, or wait until I’m properly dressed?”

She stood then, suddenly too warm in the small room, turning away again.

“I brought clothes,” she muttered. “They’ll be dry by the fire.”

A pause.

“And if I stand up?” he asked, tone now deliberate, teeth flashing under the steam. “What then, Moira?” He watched her shoulders stiffen. “Stop pretending not to see me. Not really.”

Her hands clenched at her sides. “Don’t mistake care for invitation.”

Sebastian scoffed: “Don’t mistake guilt for kindness.”

Silence fell, sharp as glass.

The only sound was the quiet slosh of water as he sank deeper into it, pushing his hair back from his face. His jaw was clenched again — not in anger this time, but restraint.

Moira finally exhaled, long and slow.

“Your shoulder’s out of joint,” she said. “Let me fix it, or you’ll feel it for days.”

“Fine,” he muttered. “Do your worst.”

She came around the tub, knelt beside him. Placed one hand behind his back, the other bracing his arm. Their skin touched. He didn’t pull away.

“This will hurt.”

“Good,” he said.

She pulled. The shoulder snapped back into place with a pop, and Sebastian’s whole body arched momentarily. He bit down on a sound, not a cry, more like a breath cut short.

Then he stilled.

Moira sat back on her heels, looking at him — really looking now. The man before her wasn’t a ghost of the past. He was flesh, pain, anger, and memory, all tightly wound in the space of a single breath.

“When was the last time someone touched you not to hurt you?” she asked, the words escaping before she could stop them.

His answer was a long time coming. And when it did, it wasn’t really an answer.

“Why do you care?” he whispered.

Their eyes met.

And for a moment — just a breath — it felt like the whole world paused, waiting. Moira broke the spell first, standing a little too fast, stumbling back to the doors. “I´ll give you some privacy,” she muttered. “Merlin knows you probably didn´t have much of that…”

The door clicked shut behind her with soft finality — no slam, no drama. Just a clean break.

Moira stood there for a breath, then another, fingers still curled around the handle. She let go like it burned her. She didn´t notice how her hands trembled.

The hallway outside the room was dim and close, shadows clinging to the beams like dust. The warmth of the bath still clung to her skin, but it couldn’t chase the cold running just beneath it, tight across her ribs, tight in her throat.

She leaned back against the opposite wall, eyes closed.

This isn’t about him.

It was guilt. Guilt for ten years locked away. For letting it happen. For choosing rules over friendship. For choosing safety .

And it was practical. He was an asset — unpredictable, dangerous, yes, but still sharp. Still capable.

She needed him. That was all this was. Transactional. He knew dark magic, he could handle the people she had to deal with, and he didn’t flinch at blood on his hands.

She wasn’t here to save him, but to use him. Whatever they’d had — whatver flickered between them once—was dead.

But even as she told herself that, her memory betrayed her.

The corridors of Hogwarts came back to her in fragments — laughter echoing in the dark, shoes pounding on stone, breathless adrenaline. A closet door slamming shut as prefect footsteps passed, and then— that kiss.

Quick, urgent, just the brush of lips and the press of his hand against her jaw to muffle the laugh in her throat. They’d been almost sixteen. Reckless. Drenched in the thrill of secrecy. It had meant nothing. It had meant everything.

She shoved the memory away with a force that felt too close to panic.

“ No. ”

The word came out quiet and firm, her spine stiffening as if trying to will the past back into the box where it belonged.

She wasn’t that girl anymore. And he wasn’t that boy.

Now he was a man half-feral from Azkaban, bruised and bitter and smirking in a bathtub like none of it touched him. Now she was the one with the badge and the plan and too much riding on this to let nostalgia get in the way.

Still — her hand lifted, almost unconsciously, brushing the place where she’d gripped his shoulder. Where scar met skin.

She dropped it quickly.

A floorboard creaked farther down the corridor, and she straightened like she’d been caught.

One step at a time, she told herself, pushing off the wall.

She had a case to solve. Amit was murdered. Strange occurrences were piling, dead bodies and symbols of ancient magic appearing out of nowhere at places they didn´t belong. She didn’t have time to feel anything. Especially not this.

The clothing Moira gave him fit better now that he’d dried off and stopped shivering. It wasn’t the cold that clung to him anymore — it was the air of the place. Warm. Familiar. Laced with something like comfort.

He hated it.

Sebastian stood halfway down the narrow staircase, one hand on the bannister, staring at the firelit room below. The pub had emptied out. Chairs were turned upside down on tables. A lone lantern flickered above the hearth. The only occupants were her and him.

Moira sat nearest the fire, profile golden in the low light. Ominis was across from her, legs crossed neatly, posture as rigid as his jaw. They were talking quietly, too low to catch from here — but their bodies did the speaking.

The way she leaned toward Ominis. The way his head inclined when she spoke. The easy rhythm of it. They were close. Still close. And not just in the tactical way. It was the kind of closeness built from trust. From nights spent watching each other’s backs, from unsaid understanding. It was the kind of connection Sebastian used to have with both of them.

Used to.

Now, standing on the edge of that firelight, he felt like an interloper in the shadow of his own life. A stranger staring through a window at something he used to call home.

He didn’t move. Not yet. Just watched.

Moira said something then — something serious, by the way her brow furrowed — and Ominis responded with a slow shake of his head, his fingers tightening around the rim of his glass. There was tension there. Not about her — about him. Sebastian didn’t need to hear the words to know it.

The bile rose in his throat, bitter and familiar.

What do they want from me? It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t pity. Not after all these years. Not after what they’d done.
They didn’t break him out of Azkaban because they missed him. They needed something.
And he was just dangerous enough to be useful again.

Fine!

He stepped down, boots heavy on the creaking stairs, no longer bothering to be quiet.

Ominis looked up immediately, disturbed by the sound of unfamiliar steps. His expression didn’t change, but his spine straightened, and his jaw locked tighter. Moira turned too, eyes flickering with something unreadable.

“Finished with the spa day?” Ominis said flatly.

Sebastian ignored the barb, coming to stand at the edge of their little firelit circle. “You’ve got something to say,” he said, gaze locked on Ominis, “then say it.”

The tension snapped taut like a drawn bowstring — the room suddenly far too small for the three of them.
Sebastian came to stand near the hearth, but didn’t sit. He didn’t need to. His presence alone shifted the air.

Ominis didn’t stand either. He didn’t have to. He merely folded his hands neatly atop his knee and regarded Sebastian with that cool, unreadable gaze. Like he was calculating probabilities. Like he was dissecting him.

“I suppose we’re meant to thank you for coming,” Ominis said mildly. “How gracious of you to descent to us, Sebastian.”

“Try gratitude. It might suit you,” Sebastian replied, voice like flint striking stone.

“You’re here because Moira made a deal,” Ominis continued, tone flat, surgical. “Not because anyone missed you. Let’s not dress it up with sentiment.”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “A deal. Right. So what is it? You want something dead? Old catacombs broken into? Though that was always more of Moira´s pastime hobby. Someone to do the hard work for you, so your hands stay clean? I’m flattered, really.”

“We need information,” Moira cut in, but her voice was careful. Controlled. “And you’re one of the few people who understand what we’re dealing with and would know how to extract that information.”

“ Now I’m useful.” Sebastian turned to her. “But for the last ten years, I was—what? Too volatile? Too tainted to trust? I rot in Azkaban while the two of you build yourselves a cosy little safe house—”

“This isn’t about comfort,” Ominis snapped, still cold, but the edge was sharp now. “You murdered your uncle. And you want sympathy?”

“Add two inmates to your list,” Sebastian retorted with a snort. “So you can loathe me fully.”

Ominis turned to Moira, who was pale beyond recognition. Of course, she knew - the report on his last misdeeds that deemed him worthy of the Kiss spoke volumes of the brutal attack on the two inmates. There was no time to tell Ominis. But she didn´t expect that Sebastian would wield it as a badge of honour.

She opened her mouth to calm the situation down, but Sebastian continued.
“I did what I had to. The same way you both would’ve, if it had been your sister rotting from the inside. Don´t you dare to point fingers, Ominis. You were always scared of your own shadow. I took risks for both of us, always did.”

“You were warned,” Ominis said, voice dropping to ice. “We told you many times where that path would lead. Begged you to stop, but you didn´t listen. You used an Unforgivable curse- ”

Sebastian stepped closer. Shadows danced across his face, but his stare burned. “And I’d do it again. Because, unlike you, I don’t walk away when things get hard. I don’t hide behind lectures and Ministry walls.”

The pause after that was knife-silent.

Then Ominis stood. He wasn’t as tall as Sebastian, but he knew how to command a room — shoulders square, hands still.

“This isn’t about pride,” he said, deadly calm. “It’s about Anne. And what your presence could do to her. She’s finally safe. At peace. And I won’t have you unravel that just because you want to feel better about yourself.”

Sebastian didn’t flinch. “I want to see my sister.”

“No,” Ominis said. “Absolutely not.”

“You don’t get to say that,” Sebastian growled. “You’re not her jailer.”

“I’m her husband. ”

The words dropped like a bomb. Moira’s breath hitched.

Sebastian just stared. Not at Ominis. Past him. Like something behind his ribs had snapped and now rattled loose inside him.

“She’s my sister,” he said quietly. “You just married her.”

“Yes,” Ominis said. “And I protect her. From you, if necessary.”

Sebastian laughed. Short, sharp. No humour in it. “A husband,” he repeated, rolling the word in his mouth like it might cut him. “You protect her.” I was laced with bile like something he would spit back at his former friend.

He took a step back, away from the firelight. Away from both of them. “You look at me like I’m dangerous. Like I’m some monster you’re keeping on a leash.”

No one interrupted.

“Well, maybe I am. ” His voice cracked—not with weakness, but from pressure. Contained rage, betrayal, grief. “But if I am, it’s because you made me one. ”

Moira’s breath caught, but she didn’t speak. Not yet.

“I rotted in that place while the two of you played at being noble,” Sebastian went on, voice rising. “You went behind my back while I trusted you to watch it.  You handed me over to the Ministry and let them lock the door, while I was drowning, alone, scared.”

Ominis flinched, but said nothing.

“You think I walked into Azkaban already broken?” Sebastian’s jaw clenched. “No, y ou left me there to break. I did, and now you’re here, needing something—because that’s what I am to you now. 

Useful. Not a friend, not a brother. A bloody crowbar to pry open something too dark for either of you to face.”

He turned to Moira then. Her eyes were shining, lips parted like she wanted to speak, but he didn’t let her.

“What am I even getting out of this?” he demanded. “You want me to help? Fine. Tell me what I get in return.”

“We’re not bargaining with lives—” Moira began, but he cut across her.

“ Aren’t you?! ” His voice thundered in the empty room. “You want me to crawl back into the dark, risk my hide, face down whatever’s you are pursuing — and in return, I don’t even get to see my sister? No freedom, no forgiveness, just a pat on the head and a tighter leash?”

He laughed again. This time, softer. A bitter echo. “So tell me the truth. Why should I help you at all?”

Ominis took a breath, calm, deliberate. “Because if you don’t,” he said coldly, “more people will die. And you’ll be alone again, back in your cell. And this time, no one will come for you.”

Sebastian’s fists clenched. “Like you ever cared.”

“I did, ” Ominis said. “And I was the one cleaning up your mess. I was the one who watched Anne scream in her sleep every night after they took you away. I was the one who held her hand when the curse flared again, and she prayed you were not dead. I was the one who stayed.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to take her from me.”

“You took yourself from her,” Ominis said, low and final. “ I won´t allow you to break her again when she finally healed.”

A soft voice, trembling but clear, interrupted from the door: “Let me be the judge of that.”

The world went still.

Anne stood in the doorway, pale as candlewax, but upright. Eyes shining with unshed tears — not from fear. From fury.

Silence fell like a shroud.

Sebastian stood frozen, the last echo of his outburst still hanging in the fire-warmed air. The shadows on the walls danced around him like accusations. His chest rose and fell in short, uneven breaths, eyes locked on the figure in the doorway.

Anne.

For a moment, he didn’t move. Couldn’t. He stared at her like he wasn’t sure she was real — like one blink might erase her.

She was thinner than he remembered. Fragile, yes. The curse still clung to her in subtle ways — in the tremor of her fingers, the paleness of her lips, the occasional flicker of pain across her brow.

But her spine was straight. Her gaze was unflinching.

She was not broken.

Sebastian’s voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “Anne…”

She didn’t move.

His throat worked around a sound that didn’t make it out. He took a step forward and then stopped himself. His hands opened, then clenched again.

“You’re really here,” he said, voice fraying. “I thought… I didn’t know…”

The silence after Sebastian’s outburst was sharp enough to cut.

Moira didn’t move. Ominis stood braced as if ready for a duel. Sebastian’s shoulders were still heaving, but he no longer looked angry — just… lost . Like the weight of what he’d said had finally caught up with him.

“Unbelievable.”

Anne stepped into the firelight, wrapped in a shawl, her cane tapping once against the wooden floor. Her breath came fast, but not from weakness. From rage.

“You really thought you could do this without me.”

Ominis took a step forward. “Anne—”

“No. Don’t ‘Anne’ me,” she snapped, eyes flashing. “You’re all so bloody proud of your sacrifices, your secrets, your noble little bargains—but not one of you thought to ask me.”

Her voice didn’t rise. It didn’t need to.

“I’m not a child,” she said, gaze sweeping over all of them. “And  I’m not some precious artefact you tuck away in a locked cabinet while you decide what’s best for me.”

Moira opened her mouth, but Anne cut her off without looking. “You think I couldn’t have handled the truth? That I wouldn’t want to know you were planning to bring back my brother from Azkaban? ”

Sebastian inhaled sharply.

“You knew?” Moira asked.

“I followed you here, didn’t I?” she bit back. “What did you think — that I just sit home with tea and knitting while you rearranged my whole bloody life again? If my life taught me anything, that letters lying on the table should be read and then folded and tucked away.”

Ominis stepped forward, his voice low. “You’ve been unwell lately. You needed rest.”

“And you needed permission to make decisions about my family!” Her words hit like slaps. “Because let me be perfectly clear, Ominis — being your wife doesn’t make me your ward. I love you. I do. But I don’t need protecting from the truth. Not from this.”

She turned to Sebastian now, slower, gaze softer but still fierce.

“There is this one thing you need to learn. You all need to learn,” she said. “Everyone made choices for me. For years, be it Uncle Solomon, or you three. You did it with spells and curses and desperation. Moira and Ominis did it in silence. And all of you told yourselves it was for my own good. Because I need protection”

She stepped closer to Sebastian.

“That’s what broke us,” she said. “Not the pain. Not the sickness. Not even the curse. Control. That’s what ruined everything. Your need to control what happens in your life. Against uncle´s wishes, who wanted to control me.”

Sebastian opened his mouth — maybe to argue, maybe to plead — but no words came.

“I’m sick,” Anne said, voice gentler now. “Yes. And I am slowly dying. But I’m still me. And I decide who gets to be in my life.”

She turned then, not Ominis, but to Moira.

Her voice was quiet now. Level. “You brought him back. So tell me: do you want him to stay? Because this is also your family.”

Sebastian’s gaze locked on Moira like it was the only anchor left in the room. His breath was shallow. Waiting.

Moira didn’t speak at once. She turned to face the hearth, let the silence fill her lungs before she broke it. “I didn’t bring him here because of guilt,” she said at last. Her voice was low, but unwavering. “And I didn’t bring him for you, Anne,” she added, glancing at her. “I brought him because we need help.”

Ominis narrowed his eyes. “Help?” he repeated with a mocking tone.

“Someone is killing people who may be in some way tied to ancient magic,” Moira said. “Amit has been murdered. The Unspeakable at Cairn Island. Honorata - cases seemingly random. There’s a pattern. And Sebastian…” Her eyes shifted back to him. “From all of us, he’s the only one who ever truly understood what it meant to fight dirty. We need an unknown face.”

Sebastian blinked at her, and for a split second, it wasn’t fury or resentment in his face, but disbelief.

Moira went on, steady now. “This isn’t about saving him. It’s about stopping whatever’s coming next. And I’d rather have him with us, however complicated, than find out too late we needed him.”

Sebastian scoffed faintly, but it lacked venom. “You really know how to make a man feel wanted.”

“You’re not here for sentiment,” Moira shot back. “And neither am I. I’m tired. I’m overextended. But I know when I need help. I am done doing things alone. I was alone when Professor Fig died. I was alone battling Ranrok because I thought it was my burden. I tried to keep people around me from harm's way, and I failed spectacularly.”

Anne looked between them, expression unreadable — not angry now, just exhausted. And deeply, painfully human.

Ominis shifted, the tension in his jaw a visible knot. “But Anne,” he said, voice low. “You saw what the stress—”

Anne turned on him sharply. “Don’t.”

“Anne—”

“I’m not made of glass, Ominis. Stop treating me like I’ll shatter if someone raises their voice.”

She exhaled shakily, then looked back at Moira. “If this is you saying yes, Moira, then the case is settled,” she said with final decision.

Moira hesitated. Then she gave a single, tight nod. “I have just one condition,” she added, turning to Sebastian. “You follow my lead. No rogue actions because of your gut feeling. No Unforgivables unless I say so. You’re not a free agent. I am responsible for you, in every meaning of the word. I don´t want to have you dead just because you thought you knew better.”

A beat. Then, Sebastian dipped his head, just slightly.

“Fine,” he muttered. “I’ve had enough chains for one lifetime anyway, I guess I can survive a leash for a while.”

Anne looked toward the darkened window. “We need to get home.”

“The Thestrals are still at the edge of the property,” Moira said. “You can apparate to the West Coast, we´ll ride back. Netta will understand.”

She was already moving to collect her coat.

Ominis opened his mouth, but said nothing. He simply crossed his arms and turned away from the fire to his wife, who gave him a cold shoulder.

Sebastian lingered a moment longer. As shaken as he was with the turn of events, a warm feeling slowly crawled into his stomach, one of simple joy. A feeling he had long forgotten.

The Thestrals landed in the velvet darkness of midnight.

Fog curled thick across the cliffside, the sea below whispering against stone. Above it, the house stood tall and still, not the shattered ruin Sebastian remembered, but a structure whole. Quiet, sturdy and alive.

Sebastian dismounted in silence.

The last time he’d stood here, the manor had been collapsing in on itself — scorched by old curses, choked with weeds and broken spells, full of Inferi. A ruin fit for ghosts.

Now, lanterns glowed warmly beneath the eaves. The windows were enchanted to hold the heat inside, soft golden light bleeding through the curtains. There were planters on the porch, spelled against the frost. A heather wreath hung above the main door, frozen in time - the very one he´s seen on Anne´s wedding photo.

It didn’t look like a crumbling, decrepit skeleton of a house. It looked like a home.

He turned slowly toward Moira, who stood a few paces behind him, reins of her Thestral still in hand.

“How?” he said quietly.

She didn’t answer at first. Just brushed a leaf from her coat and exhaled into the night air.

“I bought it,” she said. “The land, the ruin, everything.”

Sebastian blinked. “With what money?”

She looked him square in the eye. “With the bounty on Rookwood´s head. With the gold from my shop in Hogsmeade. And with half a dozen treasures, I risked my life to drag out of tombs in the Highlands while you were busy chasing cursed artefacts.”

He stared.

“I gave it to them,” she added, voice even. “Ominis didn’t want to take it. He was above this, scolding me that they don´t need charity. Anne did. She said we needed something solid. Not a house, but a home. She made it a home for us, though I stay in London, not to be in the way.”

Sebastian swallowed hard. “So this… all of this…”

“It’s theirs,” Moira said. “But it was mine to give.”

She let the words land. Let him feel the weight of them. “This isn’t your home,” she continued, not unkindly. “You’re welcome in it — if you choose to be. But don’t mistake being let in for owning anything.”

He nodded once, stiffly. “Of course.”

She turned toward the door. “And don’t mistake that for punishment, either. I didn’t do it to spite you. I did it because I loved them. I still do.”

He didn’t answer. His eyes drifted to the window, where candlelight flickered behind a curtain.

“I remember standing here,” he murmured. “Thinking maybe one day I’d fix it all. That I’d clean up the mess, bring her back here. Make something new. Remember?”

“You were always good at big dreams,” Moira said softly. “Not so much with the follow-through.”

He gave a ghost of a smirk: “Some things never change.”

She stepped to the door, placed her hand on the iron handle. Paused.

“You can walk in like you never left,” she said. “Or you can knock and wait to be invited.”

Sebastian didn’t move.

So she opened the door.

Warmth poured out — the scent of tea and books and lavender polish. The hearth fire crackled softly. The wards shimmered like a memory too old to touch.

Anne’s laughter floated faintly from somewhere deeper in the house. And after a while, Sebastian stepped forward. Visitor to ghosts of familial bliss he barely remembered, and that lingered on the back of his throat like poison.

He was given a guest room large enough that he could share it with four other people. It was warm. Not oppressively so — just the kind of gentle, warded warmth that clung to the air, designed to lull. The hearth in the corner murmured softly, and the curtains glowed faintly with moonlight filtered through woven linen.

Sebastian stood in the doorway, unmoving.

The bed was already turned down. The quilt was heavy and soft, thick enough to drown in. A folded towel and a clean cotton nightshirt lay across the footboard — probably Anne’s doing. There was even a steaming cup of something on the nightstand. Mint and chamomile.

It was too much..

He stepped in slowly, not bothering to close the door behind him. His boots tracked dried mud onto the darkwood floors, but he didn’t care.

He sat on the edge of the bed. It gave under him like a sigh.

He stood back up immediately.

It was too soft. Too still. Too clean.

Ten years of Azkaban didn’t fade with one bath and clean clothing. Ten years of stone floors, cursed walls, cold meals, and colder stares. Ten years of silence broken only by screams — and not always someone else's.

He couldn’t lie on a bed like this. It didn’t feel real.

So he pulled off the coat, rolled it tight, and set it down by the hearth. Then he lay down on the floor. The stone was warm from the fire, but it was still solid. Still predictable.

He rested his head on the coat and stared up at the ceiling, counting each timber beam as if they might shift into bars. But the sleep didn’t come.

His mind kept dragging him back — not to Azkaban, but to somewhere far more dangerous.

Moira’s laughter echoing off castle corridors in the dead of night.
The rush of adrenaline as they ducked into stairwells to avoid being found while on their night prowls.
The brush of her hand when she passed him a stolen scone when he overslept the breakfast again.
The kiss in the cupboard, fast and breathless and unforgettable.

He closed his eyes.

It meant nothing. It meant everything.

Her hair wet in long plait, as she stood tall in that cold hallway. A woman they should fear as she carried herself with the confidence of somebody who knew how to fight.

The touch of her hand on his shoulder, tender yet firm. He wasn´t touched like this in a long time, and this memory threatened to unravel him from the tight knot of barbed wire he wrapped himself with.

No, they had chosen the law. The Ministry. Each other.

He remembered the look on Ominis’s face when he testified. Calm, composed, not even a tremor in his voice. He called him his only family, yet he did not hesitate to condemn him to a fate worse than death.

He remembered Moira’s silence more than anything. The way she wouldn’t look at him, ashamed.

He rolled onto his side, facing the fire.

He didn´t belong to this place, to this home that creaked and sighed like a sleeping giant. He was a creature from another world right now, of stone, cold, blood and claws.

And the worst part? Some bruised, half-dead part of him still believed there might be a way back.

The corridor was silent but not empty.
Moira moved barefoot through the dimly lit hall, one hand trailing along the panelling. A low charm kept the sconces burning low through the night, casting long shadows that shifted when she passed.

She paused outside the guest room. No light flickered under the door. But she didn’t need it to know he was awake.

There was a stillness to the air — not peaceful, but braced. Like something waiting to strike. She could feel it in her ribs.

Her fingers hovered near the wood, uncertain. She didn’t knock.

Instead, she lowered herself to sit just outside the door, back against the wall, knees drawn up. Not invading — just there . The same way she’d once waited outside the Hospital Wing after they lost against two Gryffindor sixth-year boys in the Crossed Wands club. He’d been too furious to speak about it. She'd just waited, silent and stubborn.

Now, it was like they’d aged a century.

The door creaked open a crack. Just enough for her to see the silhouette inside — not in the bed, but curled near the hearth on the floor.

Sebastian stared at her through the gap. Eyes shadowed his guard up.

She didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

But neither of them moved, either.

For a few quiet minutes, they just… existed together. Divided by the door, by a decade, by everything left unsaid.

Then the door closed again. Gently.

And Moira sat alone in the hall, her hands clenched into fists.

Chapter Text

The world was still when Sebastian opened his eyes.
No screams. No chains. No dark, damp stone pressing against his back.

Just warmth.

A steady fire still crackled low in the hearth, painting the guest room walls orange. The sky beyond the window was soft and pearled with the early morning hush.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. Only the strange ache of stillness — like every muscle had stayed braced for a blow that never came.

The door creaked gently open.

He didn’t move.

Anne stepped inside, a shawl drawn around her shoulders. Her hair was down — pale as ash in the soft light — and her breath caught when she saw him still curled on the floor.

“Is this a bad time?”Her voice was soft, but steady.

He said nothing, but pushed himself upright slowly. The coat he’d used as a pillow crackled beneath him. He was sore in the way Azkaban made you — not from exertion, but from learning how to rest again. 

“You tell me.”

A faint smile tugged at her lips as she stepped inside. “I figured you’d be on the floor.”

“The bed was… too much,” he admitted. “Too soft. Too still.”

“Yeah.” Anne sat beside the fire. Not on the bench, but directly on the rug, legs folded beneath her, the way she had when they were children sneaking sweets in the cellar.

 “I remember that part. Took me months to sleep normally again. The bed was too soft, and the floor felt like a fitting punishment.”

Silence stretched between them, but it didn’t hurt this time.
“I didn’t sleep,” she said. “I kept thinking about everything I wanted to say. Practised it in my head. None of it feels right now.”

He lowered himself beside her, not quite touching. “So don’t rehearse.”

Another silence. This one deeper. Then Anne looked at him — truly looked — eyes wide and ringed with tiredness. “I’m furious with you,” she whispered. “For all of it. For the spells, for the lies, for leaving me behind with all the broken pieces of our life.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“I’m also furious with them for deciding things without me. For thinking, I needed to be shielded. You both made the same mistake — you took my choice.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“So were they,” she said, voice soft but cutting. “And look what it did.”

He closed his eyes. “I didn’t know how to come back.”

“You didn’t think I’d want you to,” she replied. “But you were wrong.”

He opened his mouth — but the words were gone.

Anne watched the flames for a long moment. “You hate us a little. Don’t you.”

Sebastian looked at her. “Not you.”

“But Ominis. And Moira.”

He didn’t answer.

She nodded, like she’d expected it. “They made hard choices, Bas. Maybe the wrong ones. But I think they believed it was the only way.”

He didn’t speak — just stared at the fire, jaw tight.

“I wanted to see you,” she said after another prolonged silence. “When Moira visited  Azkaban after graduation, I wanted to see you so much. But they shut me away. Again. She stopped talking about you after that, like the silence would cover every memory like snow.” Her voice caught, but she pressed on. “That’s why I was so angry last night. Because it always starts with someone deciding what’s best for me. The rest - ” she waved her hand dismissively.

“I did the same thing,” he said, hoarse. “I made the choices for both of us.”

“I know.” She leaned her head gently against his shoulder. “But you never stopped being my brother. And I never stopped loving you, no matter how bad it got.”

His breath hitched — just slightly. He hadn’t realised how tightly he’d been holding everything in.
Anne reached over and took his hand. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was steady.

“I don’t forgive everything. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But I don’t want you gone, Sebastian.”

His throat clenched.

“I’m not the girl you tried to save,” she said. “And you’re not the boy who broke trying to do it.”

Sebastian’s breath caught in his throat. Something behind his ribs eased just slightly. A tension he hadn’t noticed was releasing its grip. He turned to her, eyes brimming, and for a long moment they just sat there, brother and sister, held together by threads worn thin — but not broken.

“You don’t have to be angry all the time,” Anne whispered. “Not with me.”

“I don’t know how not to be,” he admitted.

She gave a quiet, broken laugh. “Then I’ll remind you.”

They sat like that for a long while — the fire murmuring beside them, the dawn creeping slow and gold through the curtains. Her hand stayed in his.

No forgiveness was spoken aloud. But it didn’t need to be.

The morning light poured in like honey through the high windows of Manor Cape’s House study, gilding everything it touched — the old wooden floorboards, the slant of Ominis’s cheekbone, the edge of a teacup gone cold. Dust hung in the still air, catching the light like ash.

The long table was a battlefield. Slices of toasted bread sat untouched beside parchment maps marked with tight-inked annotations. Rune sketches curled at the corners, held down by stones and silver spoons. Between sugar bowls and jars of jam were glossy, grotesque photographs: a spiral, flame-like rune carved into a child’s toy wand; etched into floorboard, stone, and flesh; symbols drawn in dried blood; the edge of a pale wrist slipping from the rim of a bathtub, droplets of water clinging to the skin.
A pot of tea steamed quietly beside a half-open tin of clotted cream. The scent of bergamot mingled, absurdly, with that of iron.

Moira poured a cup with a hand that trembled. The teapot rattled softly against porcelain.

She was barefoot, her dressing gown loose, falling open enough to show the crisp line of a collared men’s shirt beneath. Her wand lay beside her plate like a butter knife. Her hair — down and half-twisted where she’d tried, then given up, on taming it — caught the light like the facets of polished jade. She looked comfortable in a way that wasn’t quite real. Effortless. And entirely, soul-deep tired.

Across the table, Ominis leaned back in his chair with the posture of someone trying not to pace. His arms were crossed, and his eyes rimmed faintly red, not from exhaustion but from something colder: frustration. His wand hovered mid-air, highlighting lines of text on one of the documents, casting an ethereal glow over the parchment to help him read.

Sebastian was the last to arrive. He said nothing, just leaned against the doorway for a moment before taking the empty seat beside Moira. His plate remained empty. His gaze flicked between her, the photos, and Ominis with a tension so quiet it became deafening.

Ominis didn’t look up. “Let’s begin.”

Moira nodded. “We know Amit’s death wasn’t random. He was targeted for a reason — probably his research for the next book.”

She passed a photo across the table. The glyph from the Starling House seared into his chest. Familiar, now. Unwelcome.

“He was a famous author, writing fiction about the Goblin Rebellion and ancient magic. I helped advise him — the root of the stories came from our fifth year,” she explained to Sebastian. “As the stories started to dry out, he went full-on historian and tried to find out as much as possible on ancient magic to continue his book series.”

The soft rustle of her shirt. The slow, deliberate movement of more papers across the table — this time, a copy of the unfinished letter he wrote her.

“We suspect this is about the Keepers and ancient magic,” Ominis continued. “But the investigation has yielded no plausible evidence to support that theory.”

“Amit was an avid scribbler, if you remember,” Moira interjected. “But when I was at the crime scene, I noticed stacks of his research were missing.”

Sebastian reached for a teacup and paused mid-air. “You two were close?” he asked, his voice flat and factual.

Moira nodded.

“And when did you see him last?”
Here was that curious boy she remembered from school, now stretched too thin over a grown man’s face. Looking for patterns in the same places she did.

She sipped her tea, eyes grim, looking down at the table, beyond the pictures of a body that remained after her friend was so violated.

“A month ago,” she recounted. “We met at our favourite café, our usual table, and the usual chat about our uneventful lives. Mine — mostly. Amit was beaming with excitement. He was going to New York for a press tour.”

Moira set the cup aside, straightened her spine, and frowned. “Nothing unusual, but this stuck with me — he said he would research some compendium of forbidden artefacts that belonged to Seán Fitzgerald that it might tie into my hobby. That’s what he called my ancient magic.”

Sebastian nodded, his sight distant for a while, like he tried to remember something from a long time ago, then said: “Do you mean Seán ‘The Mad Collector’ Fitzgerald?”

Her eyebrows rose, and she gave him a puzzled look.

“His portrait used to hang in the Defence Against the Dark Arts Tower,” he explained, reaching for the teapot. The smell of the freshly brew tea filled his nostrils with bergamot and sugar, something he had dreamt of for quite some time but didn´t remember very well. “ Do you remember? Red-haired, elderly wizard surrounded by taxidermy and strange knick-knacks? He often hung out with the twin dancers and the sleepy hunter. ”

Her eyebrows arched, and her eyes widened. “Who?”

A low chuckle escaped Sebastian’s lips, not quite as subtle as he probably wanted. With a shake of his head, he finally held his cup and sipped the tea sheepishly. “What would you do without me, Darkwood?” he asked playfully, but doubled down in tone when Ominis faked a cough.

“I’m surprised you don’t know, Moira. He was the Headmistress’s son. Taught at Hogwarts for a time before moving to the States with a First Nation shamaness he met during some event that also involved a Quilin, a Siberian wizard and a stolen pair of enchanted scissors. He told some bizarre stories when he was actually in his frame.”

“A family matter carried forward,” Ominis quoted from Amit’s letter.

Moira shrugged. “It’s worth writing to Professor Sharp, see if he can check the portrait and question it.”

Sebastian nodded and took the copy of the letter into both hands, studying it closely.

“ She walks again. You cannot silence the sea. The Hollow comes ,” he read aloud. “Any idea what that means?”

“Not a clue,” Moira admitted. “Sounds like a warning.”

“And the Vespera woman?” he pointed over the clotted cream to Fittleworth´s report.

Ominis sent another report file across the table. “Vespera Penharrow, historian working for the Ministry. Nothing special about her, she´s a law-abiding witch with a love for old tomes and secret histories of Welsh castles, as her ministerial profile says. Her colleagues deem her a trustworthy, hard-working and demure young woman, albeit a little too calm. So far, the AO hasn’t contacted her for interrogation.” He scoffed. “Deadbeat slackers, if you ask me.”

“She’s on the list of potential leads,” Moira added. “Guess Ominis should pay her a visit — I can’t actively participate in the investigation after Fittleworth’s accusation. Not officially, at least.”

The silence stretched thin — brittle as spun glass — after Moira’s words settled like heavy dust. Ominis had no words to add. Sebastian looked like he wanted to speak and couldn’t find anything helpful.

That was when the door creaked open with the sound of old hinges, and a small throat was cleared.

A squat figure in a perfectly tailored waistcoat stepped into the room, bowing so deeply that his spectacles nearly slid off his wrinkled nose.

Tiddle, who Moira had once rescued after his former master tried to sell powdered elf bone as a potion enhancer, took pride in serving not as a butler, but as a general of toast and strong opinions.
There was a time when all the house staff of Manor Cape house belonged to a rather nasty character, who did whatever he thought was his right to do to his house-elves. Until Moira had stepped in - literally, and shoved her boots down his ribs, and then his unsightly buttocks behind the bars for poaching, fraud and misleading advertising for potions against hairy backs.

All seven of them lived in Hogsmeade's haunted shop with Penny before they moved to the house as fully paid, free staff.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Moira,” came Tiddle´s piping voice, “but the staff felt you might require fortification for your... grim paperwork.”

He gestured behind him.

The table was already full of case notes, maps, and photographs of murder. But within seconds, the parchments and folders shuffled politely to one side, making room for the incoming brunch procession like courteous guests at a garden party.

Tiddle clapped once, and a stream of trays hovered in, levitating gently through the doorway.

“Hot crumpets with rosemary butter. Coddled eggs, soft-boiled just the way you don’t admit you like them, Miss Moira. Fresh bubble and squeak — and don’t you worry, the cabbage is discreet. The ham is from the spring roast, sliced thin. And a honey cake, for courage.”

Another clap. The tea refreshed itself, steam curling up into the golden light. Sugar cubes leapt cheerfully into mugs with quiet plops .

Moira blinked at the sudden splendour, her brows lifting in startled fondness.

“I didn’t ask for this,” she murmured.

Tiddle puffed up slightly. “No, but the house remembers. And so do we.”

The house-elf cast a wary, somewhat appraising glance at Sebastian — then softened, noting his tired eyes and untended hands.

“Extra toast with goat cheese and honey-roasted nuts for the guest. The kitchen staff is very sad, Mister Sebastian missed dinner,” he added. “And coffee. Strong as the Ministry’s denial of wrongdoing.”

That drew a startled laugh from Moira — the first in what felt like days. She reached down, ruffling the top of Tiddle’s head.: “You’re wicked, old bat.”

He beamed, ears twitching. “Only when Mis Moira is around.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving the three of them in the heavy quiet again — but now it smelled of warm pastries and bergamot, not blood and smoke.

Ominis leaned forward slowly, inspecting a glistening scotch egg as though unsure whether to eat or interrogate it.

Sebastian picked up a scone and stopped halfway through. Moira had gone still again, her fingers resting lightly against the side of her teacup, and her eyes locked on nothing.

The tea stirred itself, round and round. The scent of sugar and cinnamon was suddenly unbearable.

Sebastian looked down, cleared his throat, and said softly, “Do you think Amit knew he’d die?”

Moira looked away and bit her lip. Ominous gave him another long glare across the table, and Sebastian instead reached for a toast and began slowly biting off the crust in silence, as if he tried to munch down that question he so flatly asked.

The egg sitting in its little salad nest forgotten, Ominis cleared his throat. “Aldric Vane,” he continued, “died on Cairn Island. Killed with an Unforgivable Curse to the back. He was my colleague for three years and a great field agent. Capable and sharp-minded.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I received a report this morning,” he said at last, voice level but clipped. “Echo Hall sent information on Vane’s two-way mirror.”

Moira sat straighter. Sebastian, chewing absently on a slice of cold toast, froze mid-motion. Scarcely did anyone mention the Echo Hall Squad, or, as they were publicly known -  thanks to Daily Prophet´s monicker - The Seance squad. The Division of Memory Echoes and Terminal Impressions was a squad of highly trained seers and omen-readers who were trained in the art of retrieving last memories of deceased and reading the strongest memories of items tied to heinous crimes, often helping to identify the culprit in cases gone cold.

Ominis stood up, wand held loosely in one hand like a conductor’s baton.
“They ran it through containment protocols. It passed physical and magical integrity checks. Then they tested it with a trace-veil resonance charm.”

In the almost dramatic pause, Sebastian finished his toast and slowly reached for another one. He wasn´t even trying to be subtle about it, but he had enough decency left to bite slowly and without making too much sound.

“What they saw wasn’t a reflection. It was... an imprint. Thanatal residual energy, strong enough to preserve a moment.” Ominis stated.

Moira’s brow furrowed. “What kind of imprint?”

The Unspeakable flicked his wand. A shimmer lit the air above the table, and slowly, ghostlike, an image unfolded:

A narrow, stone-carved corridor. The Cairn catacombs. Walls weeping with moisture. Dust motes hanging like spores in the flickering torchlight. And there, in the corner of the frame, a mirror held by Aldric Vane’s trembling hand. The glass surface pulsed faintly, as if trying to breathe.

From the left side of the corridor, something moved. Something wrong.

It staggered forward through the fog, a humanoid figure stiff and jarring in motion, as though being yanked by invisible strings. Its skin hung in folds, ash-grey and puckered like brined parchment. Parts of it glistened wet; other patches had begun to peel or rot. And yet, its eyes were open—alive but dull and empty.

Moira drew in a sharp breath. Sebastian’s knuckles whitened.

Ominis lowered his wand slightly. The image held for a beat longer — long enough to watch the figure’s head jerk sideways, catching sight of Vane in the reflection.

Its mouth opened, slack-jawed—a soundless scream.

Then it lunged, straight through the frame — the spell broke, and the image vanished.

Ominis looked at them both. “The imprint ends there. According to the residual field left behind, it wasn’t a one-sided encounter. There were multiple attackers, and we have found signs of a struggle. Presumably, they were searching for the same artefact Aldric was.”

“Was that an Inferius?” Moira asked quietly. “That thing looked... recent. And well-dressed.”

Ominis shrugged. “That´s inconclusive. The RR´s detected no binding residue. No Dark Arts traces. No necromantic weave. This wasn’t just an animated corpse.”

Sebastian spoke, voice low and heavy: “That’s how people look after the Kiss. Their bodies still live, but the soul is no longer in them.”

Ominis’s mouth pressed into a line. “I agree. The Echo Hall squad and the Residual Registry concur that it’s the most viable explanation. But we’ve never encountered a victim of the Kiss who could move , let alone with purpose.”
Moira drew her dressing gown tighter around herself to hide a shiver as she caught a glimpse of Sebastian´s pale face.
Her tea had gone cold.

She looked up at Ominis. “Why was Aldric even there?”

Ominis’s jaw flexed. “We had an excavation team stationed on Cairn Island. Officially, he was on a retrieval mission for the Department of Mysteries. The excavation team apparently went silent some time ago. Aldric wen´t to investigate; he was the head of the operation. But it wasn’t sanctioned. He went off-registry. Didn’t log his departure. No backup, no formal recovery order.”

Sebastian frowned. “Then what was he looking for?”

Ominis hesitated, then waved his wand toward a folded dossier near the table's edge. It slid into Moira’s hands.

“He was after something called the Keeper’s Compass.”

Moira’s eyes narrowed as she scrolled through the papers, quickly scanning text and pictures. Another shiver ran through her, this time a visible one, and her breath hitched between her teeth. “I’ve never heard of it,” she admitted.

“You wouldn’t have,” Ominis replied. “It comes from the investigation on Ancient Magic after the battle under Hogwarts. They have been thoroughly searching through all the available sources for any and all mentions of this old art, trying to harness its power. Hats off to Headmaster Black, who stopped the Ministry from marching into the collapsed repository under the school.”
Moira tilted her head in surprise, but Ominis continued with a sharp, humourless breath — the closest thing to a laugh she’d heard from him lately. “He didn’t stop them out of principle. He just didn’t want to deal with the paperwork.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right decision,” she said.

“No,” Ominis agreed. “But it may have been the last good one he ever made.”

Sebastian swallowed the last bit of another toast and groaned. No love was lost between the Hogwarts students and Phineas Black; he didn´t think it was entirely relevant to the investigation.
“The Compass, Ominis,” he reminded him. “What the hell is that?”

“It was a private theory of Aldric’s — built on scraps from old Keeper records, mentions in the medieval archives, and cross-referenced legends that preceded the Original Four. He believed the compass was created to track disturbances in Ancient magic. Not locations exactly — more like... moments. Memories.”

Moira’s fingers paused on the clasp. “You think that´s why those creatures were at Cairn Island?”

“No,” Ominis said. “I think they were waiting for him to retrieve it. I have a reason to believe that Aldric was like you. That´s why he was able to reach the inner sanctum of the tomb.”

Sebastian leaned back slowly. “So he was chasing the artefact, hoping to find... what, another vault?”

“Possibly,” Ominis said. “Or a ritual site. Something preceding the Keeper era.”

Moira tilted her head. “Does this connect to your work on the antiquarian ring?”

Ominis gave a single, tired nod. “The Veiled Concordance has been sniffing around the same grave sites Aldric mentioned in his logs—the ones tied to the mentions of the Compass. There’s overlap in the cases — the missing Cornwall child at the druidic site, the many grave robberies, the floating drowned body in Ipswich, thunderstorm at Skye. They are all connected.”

With another flick of a wand, an eerie map of the British Isles appeared, adorned with silver constellations of locations and points of interest.

“These places have been somehow tied to the Ancient magic. And when I say ancient, I don´t mean just old. But the power Moira can use. The Department of Mysteries presumed these to have been hiding traces of it, but until recently we were not able to confirm it-”

“Until you have started to do the follow-ups on these cases with Aldric,” Moira gasped. “He must have reacted to these places, and you connected the dots, am I right?”

Ominis simply nodded. “I didn't want to impose,” he admitted. “It was enough, I was prying about his family because of the investigation. I hoped he would come clean one day, given that I was not hiding that the two of us are acquainted. He had high enough clearance to read the files with your name unredacted."

Moira sighed and nodded. The fact that there were probably stacks of information on ancient magic and herself didn´t bode well with the secrecy and sanctity of her mission as a Keeper. At the least, she was doing a piss-poor job.
“So they were looking for it too, the Compass,” she murmured.

“Yes,” Ominis confirmed. “And unlike Aldric, they probably didn´t care how many bodies it takes to find it.”

Moira exhaled slowly, eyes fixed on the dark grain of the tabletop. “And who are they? I have never heard of them. They don´t sound like your run-of-the-mill group of potion smugglers from East End.”

There was no bite in her voice—just weariness.

Sebastian glanced her way. “You think they would be having bi-weekly meetings in the Cauldron and then waltz around with recruitment leaflets? I don´t feel like they´d be so easy to find.”

“I think,” she said, voice thin, “that if they are responsible for Amit, I want them smacked around like an old barrel till their skulls crack like a sour candy.”

The silence folded in again, brittle and waiting. Somewhere on the tray, the jam had begun to crystallise.
Ominis reached for a file thick with creased reports and half-redacted summaries. He didn’t bother opening it — just ran a thumb across the frayed edge, jaw tight.

“The Veiled Concordance isn’t a formal group. Not in any way that matters. No insignias. No manifestos. Just overlapping activity. Same names showing up in different regions, linked to artefact theft, grave desecration, and the disappearance of more than one magical historian.”

He looked up, gaze sharp.

“They’re antiquarians. Scholars. Healers. Curse-breakers. People who should know better. Names linked to their circles have often been from the pure-blood families and old bloodlines, the finest of the wizardkind. That’s what makes them dangerous. They hide behind academic grants and museum donations but are obsessed with collecting trinkets resonating with Dark Arts and power that delves into them.
They used to call themselves collectors, intellectuals bound to gather old, dangerous knowledge—not to protect it, not even to understand it, just to use it.”

“Then why are they not in the hole like the rest of their lot?” Sebastian stated grimly. “If you have names, you must have some evidence.”

“Substantial at best,” Ominis sighed. “And their lot pertains to certain families tied to the Ministry and the bloodlines of the old Wizardkind. We have encountered several barricades of very polite but firm No! , when the leads pointed too close to names within the broader Ministry circles.”

Moira’s voice was quiet. “Have they killed before?”

“Yes,” Ominis said, without hesitation. “But carefully. Cleanly. They don’t like attention. The body in Ipswich might be their work. Probably a member who wanted to defect and was made an example.

Also, Aldric´s brother was one of theirs once — a fringe informant, nothing central. But the moment he went off-script, they ensured he wouldn´t speak again.”

Sebastian leaned forward. “Can…can you interrogate him then?”

“Very unlikely,” Ominis replied. “He´s been in St. Mungo´s for the past four years. His mind was shattered by Unforgivables. They don´t like loose ends."

Moira reached for a slim file stamped with the Brighton seal. “There’s one more.”

She opened it carefully, laying out a photograph of a woman with pale skin and dark curls floating like ink in water. Her body lay curled in a dry bathtub, the tiles cracked and mottled with mildew. Her face was serene, almost asleep — if not for the brittle blue hue of her lips.

“Honorata Knottley,” she said. “Found last week in her home. No sign of forced entry. No defensive wounds. Apparent drowning.”

Sebastian frowned. “But the tub’s dry.”

Ominis nodded grimly. “Her lungs were filled with seawater. Salt levels were consistent with Channel exposure. But no one saw her leave the house.”

Sebastian leaned over the photo. “Is that a glyph?”

“On the mirror,” Ominis confirmed. “Same flame-like spiral. Small. Drawn by hand — or wand on the mirror and visible only in steam.”

Moira sat very still. “Honey Bellweather.”

Sebastian looked up.

“She was three years behind us. Ravenclaw,” she said quietly. “After Hogwarts, she married and went to work at the Magical Records Office in Brighton — Department of Birth Certificates, if I remember right from the file.”

“She lived quietly,” Ominis said. “Married young. No enemies. Popular with both neighbours and co-workers.”

“Her mother remarried when we were still at school,” Moira continued slowly, fingers tracing the edge of the file. “She got an older stepbrother. Gryffindor. Amit dated him for a few months. She was thrilled . Treated it like the greatest thing that had ever happened; her family was proud. They adored Amit. After they broke up, she and Amit kept in touch. She was very fond of him. Amit mentioned that having her as a sister-in-law would have been his greatest achievement in a mediocre relationship.”

Silence fell.

Ominis broke it first. “That Records Office was hit recently. There was a Howler attack on an employee of the same MR office in Brighton. The Howlers were hexed to explode if tried to be removed. I have cross-checked the information from local law enforcement - there was an extensive fire in several parts of the archive”

Moira nodded. “Dozen injured, one clerk mangled and chewed up in places you don´t want to know. Files scorched, office collapsed.”

Her voice went flat. “They were covering their tracks.”

“No surviving next-of-kin to interview,” Ominis said. “Her husband, his younger brother, and the brother’s fiancée all vanished two days before she was found.”

Sebastian swore under his breath.

“She wasn’t the target,” Moira said, her voice distant. “She was a loose thread. Someone tied to Amit. To what he knew. What he shared .”

She looked up, eyes colder now. “Someone’s trying to erase their trail.”

“They’re not just cleaning up,” Ominis said. “They’re severing threads. Anyone who touched what they have been doing — Amit, Honorata, Aldric — is being erased.”

His voice lowered. “And that means they’re close to finding what they want.”

“And how do I fit in?” Sebastian asked finally.

Moira’s fingers tightened around her cup. A long pause. Then she exhaled through her nose. “We need someone to get in,” she muttered. “Pose as a potential seller, get their attention. None of us can show their faces, but yours have not seen the light of day in ten years. Ominis has some names of suspects that may be involved in their outer circle.”

Sebastian hummed in acknowledgement. “That seems like a sound start, given we are grasping on strands here.”

That silenced both of them.

“Give me the names. I might still have contacts — if they haven’t washed up belly-up somewhere around the Thames.”

He paused, chewing toast. “Fun friends we make in bad places, am I right?”

Moira’s head turned slightly, startled.

Their eyes met.

Neither of them spoke. Instead, he looked away — and caught himself staring at her. Hair down, sleeves rolled up, ink-stained thumb brushing her lower lip as she thought. Something tugged behind his ribs. Something familiar. Something buried.

The thin stretched silence was interrupted by a slam.

The owl hit the glass with a loud crack, enough to silence the world. All three of them flinched—a smear of blood, a tangle of feathers. Moira was the first to move.

She opened the window with a flick of her wand. The bird crumpled inward, one wing bent at an unnatural angle. Its body was damp — and not just from rain. There was soot on its legs. Burn.

Ominis was beside her instantly, inspecting the hospital crest stamped faintly in green wax.

“St. Mungo’s,” he murmured grimly.

Moira untied the scroll with fingers that trembled only slightly, but enough to be noticed. The parchment was rain-soaked and smudged with soot. She read it once. Twice. Her shoulders drew in, stiff and sharp.

Sebastian took a step forward. “What is it?”

She didn’t answer. Just closed her eyes for half a second and whispered, “I need to go.”

“Moira—”

“Poppy,” she said. “She’s been attacked at the sanctuary…”

The rest hung unspoken.

“She’s alive.” Her voice caught — a shallow breath, barely there. “But she wouldn’t have sent this if it weren’t serious.”

Ominis nodded, already conjuring a coat over his shoulders. “We’re going.”

Sebastian straightened. “Then so am I.”

Moira turned sharply. “No.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“I need you to wait. You just can´t walk into St. Mungo´s. I have not finalised the paperwork, you just have to…”

“Sit? And wait?” he snapped.

“You are a freshly released ex-con; I can´t be seen with you publicly!” Her voice was sharper than she meant. She regretted it instantly, but didn’t retract it.

Sebastian stepped closer, quieter. “Then tell me where this sanctuary is. I´ll scout there.”

“You don’t even know where it is.”

“Try me.”

She hesitated, then said flatly, “The Gilded Perch. Hogwarts Valley. Near Brocburrow.”

He blinked. “Gilded Perch? That place was a ruin. Last time I was there, it had more goblins and spiders than roof tiles.”

“It’s not a ruin anymore.” Her voice was still tight. “Poppy rebuilt it. With the centaurs.”

Sebastian tilted his head slightly, the sarcasm fading. “Of course she did.”

Moira looked down, the owl still clutched loosely in her arms.

“She used her grandmother’s money,” she added, softer. “And that stubbornness and love for beasts she always had....”

“I remember how fond you were of her. She said you were the only one who listened to her. Her only friend,” Sebastian said, observing her.

She didn’t reply. Just turned away, jaw clenched, throat working.

“I’ll check the sanctuary,” he said gently. “You go to St. Mungo’s. Divide and conquer.”

She flinched.

He stepped even closer. “Moira, let me help.”

“You want to help? Then wait. Just this once—”

“I have waited ten years.” The words dropped like a lead coin. “Let me do something that matters.”

Ominis watched the exchange silently, his eyes unreadable.

Sebastian extended his hand. “My wand.”

She didn’t move.

“I’m not running away. I’m not storming a fortress. I’m going to check on something you care about. Give me a way to protect myself while I do it.”

Her fingers flexed around the owl. It shifted feebly, letting out a hoarse little whimper of pain.

“Tiddle,” she said, voice cracking.

The air popped, and the house-elf appeared with a soft thump halfway into a bow.

“Yes, Miss Moira?”

“See to the bird. One of St. Mungo’s fleet—wing´s broken.”

Tiddle’s expression hardened like a cracked teacup. “Poor thing,” he whispered. “We’ll patch her. She’ll rest by the stove, nice and warm.”

He took the owl from her arms with infinite care and vanished again.

Moira turned back to Sebastian, who still stood with his hand outstretched, patient, stubborn, and unshakably there.

She looked at his hand and then at his eyes.

“Sebastian, please.”

Moira took a breath, but it broke halfway through. She tried again. The next one barely made it in.

He stepped back, letting the silence speak for him.

The parchment slipped from her fingers. She caught it midair, but her grip was unsteady now. She turned on her heel and strode out of the room, her bare feet hard against the floorboards, disappearing into the hall.

Ominis cast Sebastian a look but said nothing as he left for the stairs on the other side of the room.

Sebastian hesitated—then followed quietly after her.

The door to her private room was cracked open. He paused outside, hand on the frame.

Inside, the storm had passed — and something softer remained. Moira stood in the middle of the room, facing the cold hearth. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, not in thought, but in defence. Her posture looked brittle — the kind of stillness that precedes collapse.

Then she moved. Just a little. Sat down on the edge of the low bench near the window and folded forward, elbows on her knees, head in her hands.

Not crying, just… unravelling.

Sebastian waited a second longer, then stepped inside.

She didn’t look up, but she knew he was there. Her voice was raw when she spoke. “I can´t shake the image of  Amit,” she said. “His face. His chest. The rune was carved so deep it almost touched the bone.”

Sebastian didn’t speak. Just listened.

“Now, Poppy—” Her voice cracked, and she swallowed hard. “She was supposed to be safe. She raised mooncalves, for Merlin’s sake. She taught nifflers to return galleons. She kept a jar of emergency biscuits for spiders of all creatures.”

Moira lifted her head, looked toward the window, though she clearly wasn’t seeing it.

“If she dies,” she whispered, “I don’t know what I’ll have left. I can´t have more people dying on me.”

Sebastian crossed the room. Wordless, he lowered himself to the bench and wrapped his arms around her.

Moira didn’t resist.

She leaned into him, forehead pressing against his shoulder, her breath catching once, but no sob followed.

They sat like that for a long moment, the faint light painting long shadows across the floor. Finally, she exhaled and straightened. Pulled her hands back. Her voice steadied.

“You want to go?”

He nodded.

“Fine,” she said, rising and crossing to the drawer. “Take your wand.”

She opened the velvet-lined case and held it out without ceremony.

He took it gently.

“Don’t be reckless,” she added, eyes fixed on the dark wood in his hand. “You’re not made of stone.”

“Neither are you.”

A flicker of something passed between them.

Moira turned, rummaging for a key ring from the far shelf. “Take a thestral. Apparition might not work — the area has changed a lot. The place is not a ruin anymore.”

“Understood.”

“Do not engage if you’re alone.”

“I never do.” A pause. “Not unless I have to.”

Her jaw tightened. “Just find out what happened. Nothing more.”

Sebastian nodded. “I'll bring back word.”

He turned toward the door — but before he left, he glanced back.

Moira stood by the hearth, her back to him, her head bowed slightly. His heart might have tugged under his ribcage with a slight ache, almost preventing him from leaving the room, as he did, just a few inhales later.

Chapter Text

St. Mungo’s was bright.

Not clean in the sterile sense, but alive — all tile floors, bustling corridors, and floating parchments glowed faintly with charmwork. Children were laughing in the distance. A tea trolley sang lullabies to a sleeping man in a lime-green robe.

But Moira couldn’t feel any of it.

Ominis walked ahead of her, his Ministry badge clipped to his collar, speaking in that tone that brooked no denial. “Unspeakable on investigative protocol. Ward six. Now.”

They passed portraits that turned away, healers who paused mid-step, and patients who stared with quiet curiosity. Moira said nothing. Her boots echoed softly, but the silence in her chest was louder.

She hadn’t spoken since they left the manor. The guilt pressed on her ribs like a second set of lungs. When they reached the corridor outside Ward Six, she hesitated.

Ominis glanced back and paused. “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. I’ll ask.”

She shook her head. “She asked for me.”

He gave her a nod that wasn’t quite gentle — just solid.

The door to the private room creaked softly as it opened. Inside, the light was golden and still.

Poppy lay propped against a stack of pillows, her arm elevated and bound in a cast. Her other wrist was bandaged, fingers twitching now and then in sleep. A tray of untouched pumpkin soup sat at her bedside, steaming faintly.

Her face was pale beneath the bruises. But when she opened her eyes and saw Moira, she smiled. Weakly — but real.

“‘Bout time,” she rasped.

Moira moved to her side at once, perching on the edge of the chair. “You look like a cart ran you over.”

“Only half a cart,” Poppy said with a wry smile. “The other half was the sanctuary roof.”

Ominis remained near the door, quiet and watchful. Poppy looked at him, then back at Moira. “You both came?”

“Of course we did.”

“Good.” She shifted slightly and winced. “Would you sit? I feel like a chaperone with you hovering.”

Moira smiled faintly and sat.

Poppy reached for her hand with her unbandaged fingers. “Moira... I’m so sorry about Amit.”

The words hit harder than she expected. Moira didn’t answer right away. She closed her eyes briefly and held Poppy’s hand tighter.

“He sent me a package,” Poppy said, her voice quieter now. “And a letter.”

Moira’s breath caught.

“It was sealed,” she continued. “He said someone was watching him. That he had uncovered something, he didn’t want to say too much in writing.”

“Did you open it?” Ominis asked.

“No. He asked me not to. Begged me, really. Said it had to go into the inner sanctuary at the Perch. Hidden, sealed, under strong wards. Away from anyone who’d come looking.”

Moira blinked. “And you just did that?”

“Of course I did,” Poppy said simply. “I would do things for my friends. A lot… maybe help hiding a body. For you, mostly.” She let out a rasp of laughter.

A silence stretched between them.

“I tried to write him back. I meant to send it that night, after evening rounds.” She swallowed. “But before I could... I heard about Starling House.”

Moira’s voice was gentle. “Poppy, what happened to you?”

She looked down at her splinted fingers. “It was late. I was in the east stables, tending to some sick kneazles. Rain was coming in — you could smell it in the thatch.”

Moira nodded, waiting.

“Then they arrived. Four of them. All in Ministry coats, but…” Poppy’s eyes darkened. “Not right. Dusty, torn, like they’d crawled out of a storm. Faces like… like old wood. Brittle. And wrong.”

“Hollow?” Ominis asked quietly.

She nodded. “Their faces were stretched like old parchment, thin. Hollow, yes.”

“What did they say?”

“They asked for Amit’s belongings. Said the Ministry needed to retrieve any items he’d sent out before his death. They even knew about the letter.” Poppy’s voice shook a little. “I told them nothing left the Perch unless they had written authorisation.”

“And then?”

“They dropped the act. Drew wands with no warning.”

Her voice was raw now. “One hit me with a Confringo. I— I remember fire. Pain. Something collapsed — maybe the pillar beside the stable. My wand shattered when I hit the ground. I think my hand broke with it.”

Moira stared at her friend’s cast. The fingers were still swollen, tips tinged faintly blue.

“I saw them,” Poppy whispered. “Going into the building. I tried to get up. I really did.”

“You don’t have to explain,” Moira said.

“I do. Because if they got what Amit sent…” She trailed off, eyes wide. “If they got inside, they had to go through several pens full of injured beasts. Though niffler habitat and the aviary…”

Ominis stepped forward. “These people — if they were there — they didn’t come for animals,” he whispered, trying to reassure her.

Poppy nodded faintly. “But how did they know. I mean, the Ministry -.”

Moira rose slowly. Her chest felt hollowed too, just in a different way.

“I’m going after it,” she said. “Whatever they were looking for.”

“I know,” Poppy murmured. “I knew the moment you came through the door.”

She looked up at her. “Just promise me something?”

“What?”

“Don’t do it alone.”

The thestral’s wings beat steady above the forest canopy, slicing the early morning mist into ribbons.

Sebastian gripped the worn leather harness tighter than he meant to.

Below, the hills of Hogwarts Valley unrolled like something half-remembered from a fever dream. Familiar — but warped with time. Orchards where there had been bramble. Stone paths where mud once clung to his boots. The ruin near Brocburrow — that was new.

Or rather: not a ruin anymore.

The Gilded Perch had risen from its bones like some great silver-feathered beast. The rebuilt sanctuary shimmered faintly with containment wards. Open stables flanked the central hall, and glass greenhouses rose from what used to be half-buried cellars. The entire compound was ringed by dense and watchful trees. He could feel the eyes in the ancient branches turning to him.

The thestral circled once.

Sebastian leaned forward. “Down, girl.”

The creature tucked her wings and dipped into a slow descent, landing on the mossy path just outside the gate.

He dismounted, brushing dew from his cloak, and looked around. There was no movement or sound, but the gate hung open, not wide, just enough to betray intrusion.

Sebastian drew his wand. The wood felt heavy and natural in his hand, but he felt the hum of familiar harmony pulsing through him.

He moved through the main gate, every step calculated. A buzz of residual magic prickled against his skin. Faint traces of alarm spells — long since broken.

Inside, the courtyard was empty. A shovel leaned against an overturned bucket by the garden beds. A lantern lay smashed on the gravel. Nothing dramatic — but wrong, in the way still water feels bad when you know it should ripple.

He pushed open the door to the main hall.

The scent hit him first: singed wood, broken potions, blood  — not much, but enough.

Sebastian moved through the front corridor, wand raised. A scatter of feathers marked the threshold to the inner stables. One of the mooncalf enclosures had been shattered — beams split clean down the centre, as if torn from above.

A Confringo blast? No — the edges were too clean. Precision work. Something stronger. He crouched, tracing fingers through the ash-stained floorboards. Someone had fought here, but they hadn’t stayed long.

He followed the damage trail toward the sanctuary’s central wing. Along the way, he passed little signs of life: a knotted rope toy still damp from a niffler’s mouth, an empty feeding bowl, a broken comb half-buried in straw.

This wasn’t just a beast refuge, it was a home. And it had been invaded.

The gate creaked open with a tired groan.

Sebastian stepped through it slowly, wand lowered but ready, boots crunching against the gravel. The air smelled of damp hay and scorched wards. No one in sight — but the place wasn’t empty .

Not really  — a soft snort came from his left.

Then another.

From behind the nearest stable door, two thestrals emerged—cautious, skeletal heads low. Their wings twitched as they approached, and their hooves remained soundless on the packed earth.

Sebastian froze.

One of the creatures — young, eyes too big for its bony face — stretched out its neck to sniff him. Its nostrils flared once, then again. It didn’t shy away.

He reached out a tentative hand, and it leaned forward. The breath he’d been holding left him all at once.

“You silly thing,” he murmured, stroking its long neck fondly. Another shadow shifted behind them — a bright, slinking blur. A kneazle, fur streaked with soot, padded out from the barn and eyed him warily. A hippogriff in a distant paddock tossed its head and blew a low huff.

Alive, but tense. Watching him with a wary eye.

“Stop right there!”

A voice rang out, sharp and youthful, strained with fear.

Sebastian turned — and found himself facing a small line of wands, all pointed directly at him. There were six of them. Young, mostly. None older than twenty. Some wore dirt-stained aprons. One had a magical beast feed still clinging to his sleeves. Another wore a Hogwarts winter jacket — the crest faded but unmistakable.

And at the centre stood a centaur.

Young by centaur standards, but tall and commanding, silver-brown hair braided back from a wary face. His bow was slung but not drawn — yet his presence steadied the trembling hands around him.

“State your name and purpose,” the centaur ordered. “Now.”

Sebastian didn’t raise his wand, but didn’t drop it either.

“Sebastian Sallow,” he said slowly, unsure if he should even introduce himself. “I am a friend of Poppy´s. I came to check on the sanctuary after the attack.”

“Too late for that,” someone muttered behind the centaur — a girl with a bandaged forehead and cracked glasses.

Sebastian looked at them, not challenging, just honest. “I know Poppy Sweeting. She sent for help. We got her owl...”

The group didn’t lower their wands.

“I came alone,” he added. “You can search me. You’ll see I’m not here to hurt anyone.”

The centaur’s eyes narrowed. “I remember your name.” It was a simple statement. “The ruins of lost dead whispered of your deeds.”

“That was ten years ago,” Sebastian said, voice flat. “I came to help, if you let me . ”

Gazes were exchanged, and few of the wands wavered.

Then the centaur stepped forward, eyes sharp. “Turn slowly. Hands visible.”

Sebastian complied.

The centaur circled him once, silent, assessing. At one point, the thestral nosed at Sebastian’s arm again, as if vouching for him.

Finally, the centaur stepped back. “Lower your wands,” he said.

“But—” the boy in the Hogwarts jacket started.

“I said lower them.”

One by one, they obeyed.

Sebastian turned to face them again. “I’m looking for something Amit Thakkar might have sent here. A package. Hidden in the inner sanctuary.”

The centaur frowned. “That door’s sealed. We’ve posted guards.”

“Good,” Sebastian said. “Then maybe they didn’t get what they came for.”

The centaur glanced at him again, then gave a curt nod. “You’ll speak with Elder Fianna. She’s in the east greenhouse. Come.”

Sebastian followed, the young sanctuary workers still watching him as though he might unravel into smoke at any moment. Behind him, the thestrals lingered.
One followed for a few steps before retreating to the safety of the paddocks.

The hallway outside Ward Six was too quiet.
Not hushed with reverence — but emptied, as if grief had pushed the world a few steps back.

Moira leaned against the tiled wall, her arms folded tightly beneath her coat. The corridor’s enchanted windows glowed with illusory sunlight, but the light felt wrong. Too soft and too distant.

Across from her, Ominis stood by a self-warming tea trolley, pouring two cups with mechanical precision. He didn’t ask if she wanted one. He just brought it to her and handed it over, fingers brushing hers briefly.

She accepted it silently with a heavy sigh.
“She shouldn’t have been alone,” Moira said, not looking at him. “I should have checked on her more. I cancelled our monthly lunch twice!”

“She wasn’t alone,” Ominis said. “She has her sanctuary, the centaurs and the beasts.”

“She didn’t have us.”

A pause.

“She didn’t have me ,” Moira added softly. “I am a lousy friend.”

Ominis didn’t argue. Just stood with her in the quiet, the kind that wraps itself too tightly around the ribs.

“I am always late,” she murmured. “Always a step behind. And by the time I catch a wind of the trail, it’s all blood, smoke, and dead people.”

Ominis exhaled through his nose, long and controlled. “So what do you want to do?”

“I want to find out who sent those Ministry men to the sanctuary. I want to know how they knew about Amit’s letter. I want to know who is doing this.” Her voice cracked slightly, then hardened. “And I want to stop them before there’s nothing left to unravel.”

“You sound like you want war,” he said, not unkindly.

“I want clarity,” she replied. “And maybe a bit of vengeance.”

Ominis sipped his tea, then glanced toward the far end of the corridor. “I’ll stay,” he said. “Interview the staff. Cross-check work logs, floo activity, any chatter from the Magical Law Enforcement office here.”

She looked at him, finally. “You think this might have really been the Ministry?”

“I think it´s better to know I was mistaken than find out that we have no allies, but only enemies.” He paused. “If there’s anything to find, I’ll find it.”

She nodded once. “Good.”

There was a slight tension in his jaw before he added: “I’m also considering paying a formal visit to Vespera Penharrow.”

Moira’s brows lifted. “Already?”

“She’s on the list of those closest to Amit — and she hasn’t been properly questioned yet.” His voice was perfectly even. “If I approach under the pretext of reviewing historical holdings connected to another case, she won’t suspect much. Merlin knows there have been some reports piling on my desk.”

“You think she knows something?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t trust a Ministry historian who collects tales of ghost castles and conveniently fades into the wallpaper.”

Moira snorted. “You’re just mad someone might be better at lurking than you.”

He tilted his head in agreement. “Possibly.”

The moment cracked a little — not into laughter but something softer. Shared ground.

Then: tap-tap-tap — an owl landed on the high corridor window.

Moira turned and opened it with a flick of her wand. The owl was mud-spattered and stiff, but alert. It held out its leg.

No seal. No crest. Just her name, written in Sebastian’s clipped, almost-too-neat handwriting.

She slid the scroll free and read:

The sanctuary is secure.
Package protected.
Recommend an on-site assessment at your earliest.
I’ll remain for stabilisation and preliminary review.
—S.S.

Ominis, reading over her shoulder, gave a faint grunt: “Sounds like he’s trying to impress a parole board.”

“He probably thinks I am one,” she said, folding the scroll.

“You’ll go?”

Moira nodded: “The package is still there. That’s what matters.”

Ominis took a step closer, adjusting the fall of her collar like it was second nature. “Then go. I’ll handle things here.”

She met his eyes. “Be careful with your snooping, Ominis.”

“They’ll never see me coming.”

Moira gave a tired half-smile. “That’s what worries me.”

He offered his arm in mock chivalry. She ignored it.

But when she turned to go, he added — quieter, and not entirely professionally — “Don’t do anything rash, Moira.”

She didn’t look back. Just replied, “I never do.”

Then she disappeared into the lift, the scroll tucked neatly in her hand.

The greenhouse was unlike anything Sebastian had ever seen.

It wasn’t just a glass structure. It was living — vines wove through the beams like veins, and light shimmered at odd angles, like it didn’t quite follow the sun. Inside, the air was heavy with herbal smoke and the dry sweetness of crushed bark. Wind chimes strung with teeth and bone swayed in the still air. The scent of herbs, fur, and old magic wrapped around Sebastian like a forgotten lullaby — too heavy to be comforting.

At the centre, beneath a dome of glass etched with constellations, stood a centaur.

Elder Fianna.

Her coat was a storm-dappled grey. Her mane was braided with beads and feathers, and many burned black at the tips. She stood facing the sky — or rather, the stars etched into the glass—eyes closed, listening.

“The signs twist,” she said quietly. “Stars vanish before their season. Owls refuse to fly at dusk. The moon trembles like prey.”

Sebastian stood in the threshold, unsure if she was speaking to him.

“You’ve come for what they failed to take,” she said.

He stepped forward. “I came on behalf of a friend—”

Fianna turned to him.

“You do not belong here.” She studied him, not in suspicion, but in calculation. “You wear grief like a second shadow,” she said. “Not grief for the dead — grief for what you became to survive them.”

“I didn’t come here to be read like tea leaves,” Sebastian said, stiffly.

“No,” Fianna said. “You came to know. And that is a dangerous hunger.”

He didn’t argue.

“You are old wounds, echoes of screams, cold wind and forgotten joy,” she said, sizing him up and down like a small boy. She towered above him, her frame knotted tight like old roots clad in faded hunting tartan. "But you were a boy once, and there was life and joy in you. I tolerate your presence.” She stepped forward. “The thestrals marked you. They do not often offer kindness.”

“I need to know what happened. To the sanctuary. To Amit’s package.”
She beckoned him forward. “Come. I will show you what the beasts remember.”

She led him past herb-drying racks and silent kneazles curled in thickets of shadow, to a shallow stone bowl under a canopy of hanging roots and silver-threaded moss. A soft starlight shimmered across its surface — not from above, but within.

“This basin is not of your magic,” Fianna said. “It does not show truth. Only memory.”

He leaned in.

Images shifted in the surface: muffled footsteps, cloaked figures with pale, dirt-streaked faces. Then the water stirred: dark figures crossed the sanctuary’s threshold, pale and gaunt, eyes sunken. One carried a sealed reliquary. Another pressed their palm to the earth as if listening for a heartbeat. When the beasts cried out, the intruders didn’t flinch.

“The secret was not taken,” Fianna said. “It is still hidden — deep, where only silence knows the way.”

Sebastian exhaled in relief.

“But they left something behind,” she continued, her voice hardening. “They gave the ground a sickness.”

He frowned. “Who were they?”

Fianna’s eyes flicked toward the northern sky, toward something far beyond the walls.

“We do not know their names. Only their nature. We call them the Hollowed. ”

She stepped to the edge of the basin. “They were not born hollow. They were made, carved open by old power. They do not wield this ancient magic. They carry it — like an infection. Like grief.”

She traced a finger across the water’s surface.

“They brought something. Left it. And in return, took something from us.”

“What did they take?”

Fianna’s voice dropped. “A secret. One they did not earn.”

Sebastian gripped the edge of the basin. “Someone sent them.”

“We felt a presence behind them. Not a leader. Not even a shadow. More like a... pull. A place where threads gather but refuse to tangle. A crack in the weave.”

Sebastian looked at her, jaw tight. Fianna met his gaze.

“Tell the girl with the seafoam locks: the ground is restless. The beasts will not sleep. The stars avert their gaze. From the deep, something opened its jaws and stirred”

And just like that, she turned away — already gone from the moment, as if he’d been a whisper she was finished listening to.

Sebastian opened his mouth to ask what secret the Hollowed had taken, but closed it again. No point. He’d get another cryptic, tea-leaf-reading omen. Another riddle to carry in circles.

He turned to leave — and stopped.

The boy stood in the archway, shoulders squared in a way that only barely concealed how much he was shaking.

He had scratches along his jaw, soot in his hair, and the deep, metallic scent of blood clung to his apron. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen — maybe seventeen at most — and looked like he’d aged ten years overnight.

“Ye said ye knew Poppy?” he asked, voice rough, almost broken.

Sebastian nodded. “I used to. Yes.”

The boy’s expression darkened, though not at him.

“Good,” he said. “Then I hope ye find the bastards who did this. An’ I hope ye kick their arse— kick it real good, aye?”

Sebastian’s gaze softened. The boy’s eyes were rimmed red from smoke and sleeplessness, and maybe tears.

There was iron on his breath. Old blood on his sleeves. And he looked… so damn tired.

Sebastian stepped closer. “You need help?” he asked, quieter now. “You look like you've had a rough night.”

The boy let out something between a scoff and a chuckle — short, bitter. “Night? Ach , mate... It feels like a bloody year. ”

Sebastian reached into his coat, pulled out one of Moira’s spare Wiggenweld Potion — a strong one — and pressed it into the boy’s calloused hand.

“Here,” he said. “This’ll help. And show me where I can be useful.”

The boy stared at the vial like it was a miracle. Like no one had offered him kindness in days. He took it with calloused fingers, turning it once in his palm, then met Sebastian’s eyes.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

There was a pause. Just a breath. Then he added, quietly: “An’ if ye see her — tell Poppy she saved us, aye? Even if she cannae remember it. Tell her she was the best o’ us.”

Sebastian gave a single nod in return, solemn.

The Gilded Perch looked nothing like it used to.

The ruins were long gone, and a living sanctuary stood in their place — rebuilt with care, patched together from glass, timber, and vine. Stables shaped from reclaimed stone. Hanging herbs drying in soft sun. And beasts everywhere. Kneazles watching from rooftops. A hippogriff sunning its wings near the orchard wall. Bowtruckles peeking from a bird feeder.

Moira remembered the pride with which Poppy showed her all she had worked so hard to build—a place of safety and happiness.

But now the glass had shattered and been swept. Walls had burned but stood. Some vines wilted, yes, but others clung fiercely to the rebuilt beams, curling toward the light. In the hush of afternoon, with golden leaves spiralling down like confetti from the trees, the place looked like it was breathing again.

A mooncalf pressed against Moira’s leg. Then another. Three of them — pale, soft, and absurdly round — had gathered at her feet as she approached, trailing her like ducklings.

Moira didn’t move. She watched for a moment. Their soft fur tickled through her trousers, the scent of hay and sage clinging to them like old secrets. She stood quietly at the paddock's edge, watching the man she hadn’t expected to see like this.

Sebastian was hauling debris from a collapsed pen, sleeves rolled, coat flung over a low wall. His shirt was streaked with dirt and sweat, hair in disarray, and — predictably — he had a smudge on his cheek. His body moved with unthinking ease, memory built from past years in Feldcroft: lifting, fixing, doing. She’d forgotten that about him — that he had always been good with his hands.

Useful, in a way that didn’t require a wand or a spell. Something was comforting in that.

One of the younger workers spoke to him rapidly, gesturing at a snapped fence post, and Sebastian listened. He laughed at something another of the workers said. His voice rang out over the paddock — warm, rough, real. It made her chest ache unexpectedly.

He hadn’t seen her yet.

Moira stayed just outside the gate, half-hidden behind a low stone wall. A mooncalf nudged her knee, and she absently scratched its head and let herself watch a moment longer.

Then Sebastian looked up — spotted her — and his brow lifted.

“You know I charge for that now,” he shouted.

Moira blinked. Sebastian was walking toward her, wiping his hands on a rag. “Staring,” he added, smirking. “New policy. Grown-up version.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes. One favour per minute. Retroactive billing applies.”

Moira gave him a long, slow look. “You’re assuming I’d pay.”

“Oh, you will .” He stopped in front of her. “You already owe me six.”

“Cheeky.”

“I´ve been known to be rather confident,” he smiled. “You’re late.” Brushing sawdust from his arms, he leaned on the gate pillar, the corners of his mouth slightly twitching. “I owled you three hours ago.”

A breeze danced between them, tugging at the ends of her coat. She glanced past him at the sanctuary.

“I needed to speak to Omnis. He stayed behind, following up on the investigation. And I needed to… think.”

Sebastian nodded. “Figured.”

The mooncalves scattered toward the trough. Moira glanced at them, then back at him. There was a pause.

“It’s already healing,” he murmured, following her gaze. “Even Elder Fianna said the soil was sick, but -  it’s already trying.”

“Some roots don’t die easy.”

He looked at her then, steady. “Poppy saved this place,” it was a statement, a reassurance. A hopeful attempt at consoling her. “The people, the beasts… all of it. They said she fought like hell. Stood her ground and didn’t hesitate. Took down two Hollowed before they overwhelmed her.”

Moira swallowed. “As she would,” she murmured.

“They all say she saved the sanctuary. There’s damage, but the heart of the place is still intact. Mostly thanks to her.”
Moira nodded once, looking toward the stables — toward the quiet resilience still humming in the air.

Moira nodded once, quietly. “You’ve done well here.”

Sebastian shrugged. “I just lifted things.”

“You’ve always been good at that,” she said. “Country boy - muscles and all. But I mean with Elder Fianna. And the officer´s legwork.”

He smirked. “I’m still good with words.”

She gave him a long, dry look. “Yes.”

“Oh, now you notice.”

“Hard not to. You’ve got… something…” She gestured vaguely at her own cheek. 

“Here?” He smeared on the wrong cheek.

“No. The other side.”

He missed again.

She stepped in, reached up, and with a thumb, wiped the dirt away from the edge of his cheekbone — slowly, carefully.

Too carefully.

“There,” she said.

Sebastian didn’t move.

“Some things never change,” she said softly and stepped back.

He looked at her with something unreadable in his eyes. 

“They don´t.”

The mooncalves wandered past, curling beside the stable door. In the warm light, everything felt a little softer—even the silence.

“You mentioned something earlier,” she said, “about the ones who attacked. You called them Hollowed?”

Sebastian’s mouth tightened.

“That’s what the centaurs call them. The Hollowed. They’re not just dark wizards — they’ve been… carved out by ancient magic. Infected by it. Like they’re walking wounds.”

Moira felt the air shift. “The bodies?”

Sebastian shook his head: “They don´t like to leave evidence behind. The bodies were gone once the dust settled.”

“And they came for Amit’s package?”

“They did. But they didn’t get it.” He gestured toward the stables. “The inner sanctuary is sealed. Centaurs and charms kept it locked. But I spoke with their Elder, Fianna. And I might have charmed a few locks open. And I didn´t need to convince all the beasts and one exhausted boy to let us in later.” 

Moira smiled faintly. “You always did know how to talk your way into places you shouldn’t be.”

“And out of the ones I should’ve stayed in.”

Her smile faded into something softer. Not quite sadness, not quite hope.

Sebastian held her gaze.

From afar, mooncalves blinked up at them, wide-eyed and content.

“So,” Moira murmured, looking directly into his eyes, “does the staring fee double if I catch you staring back?”

Sebastian’s lips curved — slow and easy. Then, a flicker of something mischievous crossed his face “Triples, actually. Although I should warn you... staring rates go up after sunset.”

Moira huffed. “You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re still looking.”

She didn’t deny it. Just turned toward the inner sanctuary and began to walk, the mooncalves trailing after her like soft, luminous shadows.

“I suppose we´d better keep moving then,” she called to him. “Come on, country boy. Let’s see what you’ve unlocked.”

And behind her, she heard his steps fall into rhythm beside her — steady, familiar.

Chapter Text

The outer grove shimmered in amber light, the last warmth of autumn clinging to the birch leaves overhead. Around them, the Highland forest stood hushed, reverent, as if holding its breath. A centaur stood by the vine-choked archway, his hooves half-sunken into damp moss. He looked at Moira with a gravity no human ever quite mastered.

“The Sanctuary remembers all who enter,” he said. “Tread carefully, witch.”

She inclined her head. “We’re only here for the package. We mean no harm.”

“Sanctuaries often guard more than material things,” he replied. “They hold memories.” His voice was low. “Beyond this threshold, the path is yours alone. We will not follow.”

At his signal, the gnarled roots shifted, drawing back like a curtain. The stone door groaned open, dislodging centuries of silence.

Sebastian tilted his head. “You always take me to the nicest places.”

Moira stepped through first. “You didn’t seem to mind tombs and cursed vaults in fifth year.”

He snorted. “Back then, I thought you fancied the adventure.”

She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t answer. Her boots crunched on ancient, wet stone. The corridor ahead waited, still and dark. “I didn’t bring you here to reminisce,” she said, her voice catching slightly.

The forest behind them faded like a memory.
The Gilded Perch Sanctuary was all green — not spring’s fresh green, but the deep, breathing kind. Moss spread in thick carpets over cracked stone. Vines curled along the walls in restless loops, following the flicker of their wands.

But the inner sanctum was something else. Inside, the world was older. Darker. Not dead — but watching. Ivy crawled along the stonework, shifting with a breath too slow for the eye. The air pulsed wet and green. Footsteps echoed faintly, muffled by moss.

“Smells like a crypt,” Sebastian murmured.

Moira cast him a dry glance. “That would be the preservation magic.”

“I meant metaphorically.” He smiled faintly. “This place reminds me of Azkaban.”

That made her pause.

“The silence,” he said. “The way you start to imagine breathing behind you.”

She didn’t answer. Just pressed forward, wand casting a narrow Lumos down the corridor.

They turned a corner — and stopped. The passage ahead writhed. Thick, sinewed vines pulsed across the floor and walls. Devil’s Snare, dark and slick with dew, stretched before them like a sleeping beast. The chamber’s heartbeat echoed in the slow, steady motion of the vines.

Moira halted, jaw tight. “Bloody hell.”

Sebastian blinked. “Déjà vu.”

“Of course.” She swore under her breath. “I bloody hate this thing.”

“I thought you’d gotten over that,” Sebastian said, smirking.

“I hate this plant.”

“You said that in fifth year.”

“I meant it then. I mean it now.”

“Wasn’t this the one that nearly pulled you through the greenhouse floor?”

“I still have the scar.” She raised her wand. “Don’t tempt me to make sure you get one too.”

Despite the creeping dark, they both smiled — small, reluctant things, like smoke curling from old embers.

“I offered to cauterise the wound,” Sebastian said.

“With a Fire-Making Charm,” she snapped. “You’re lucky I didn’t throw you in after it.”

“That was the first time I realised you might actually like me.”

Moira gave a quiet snort. “You were wrong.”

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t.”

They moved carefully, wands trained on the vines. The Devil’s Snare recoiled — hissing, but parting just enough. One tendril curled around Moira’s boot. She jerked free, teeth clenched.

“Need help?” Sebastian asked.

“Never.”

At the end of the tunnel, half-sunken into the wall like an offering, sat the package. Wrapped in protective cloth, sealed beneath a runed ward — Amit’s last clue. Moira stepped forward, whispering a counter-charm. The magic lifted with a faint sigh. She slid the package into her satchel and brushed moss from her gloves. When she turned, Sebastian hadn’t moved. His eyes weren’t on the package.

“I didn’t think we’d ever walk together again,” he said quietly.

Moira froze, then looked away.

He stepped closer. “You and me — like before. We were friends. We could’ve been—”

“Stop.” Her voice hitched. “Don’t.”

“And you still handed me over.”

She turned to face him. Her tone was calm — but cold at the edges. “You murdered someone, Sebastian.”

“Yes. I killed my uncle. And you know why. I was trying to protect Anne. And you.”

“That doesn’t change what you did.”

“No.” His voice was shadowed. “But I thought you’d understand. I thought you would.”

“I did,” she said, voice cracking. “And it broke me.”

She looked at him — really looked.

“You were kind. And angry. And reckless. You wanted things. You would’ve burned the world to get them.” Her voice lowered. “We were fifteen. And I was scared.”

Silence thickened around them, the vines rustling faintly above.

Sebastian’s voice was softer. “You pulled away after the Scriptorium. After I— Was that because of it?”

Moira’s eyes met his. “I didn’t pull away because of the spell. I asked for it. I knew what I was doing.”

“Then why?”

“Because I saw something in you that reminded me of home.” Her voice trembled. “That ruthless, all-consuming wanting. The kind that burns through everything — even the people closest to it. You would’ve caught us both in the fire.” 

He looked at her like something inside had cracked open. “I never stopped wanting you to trust me.”

“I did trust you,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

The vines stirred again, like breath in the walls.

“I hated you for what you did,” he said.

“I know.”

“I wanted to keep hating you.” He exhaled. “But now I see you. And I can’t.”

Moira didn’t look away. But her voice was distant. “You shouldn’t forgive me.”

“I haven’t.”

She nodded once. “Good.”

They turned. Behind them, the Devil’s Snare slithered back into place, sealing the path in silence.

The air inside the Archives was still and dry, perfumed with a thousand years of parchment dust and ink. Dim lanterns floated near the ceiling like dying stars, casting pale halos barely reaching the floor. Shelves loomed overhead — not rows, but towers, precarious stacks of scrolls and tomes balanced on ancient charmwork, giving the impression that the whole place might collapse into silence if anyone dared to breathe too loud.

Ominis Gaunt walked without his wand drawn. He didn’t need it. His footsteps were steady, precise — the same quiet grace with which he’d crossed every room since childhood.

But even he felt watched in here.

The Archives were not a place for the living. They were a place for records . For the dead. For things that wanted only to be forgotten.

He paused at a cross-corridor. Somewhere nearby, a clerk coughed — soft and startled, like someone realising they weren’t alone. Then nothing. Just the faint crackle of binding glue drying in old spines.

Ominis adjusted his grip on his cane and continued.

He’d spent the better part of an hour tracing Vespera Penharrow’s paper trail — her employment records, project assignments, artefact checkouts. It all lined up too well . Every form perfectly completed. Every approval dated, initialled, and cross-referenced.

No red flags. No missed days — until last week.

“Personal leave due to stress from recent events.”
Signed, approved, stamped. Efficient. Almost like she knew the exact bureaucratic shape of grief.

He tucked the parchment into his folder and crossed the atrium to the personnel desk — a half-moon of black stone, flanked by two file witches and a goblin archivist who looked like he'd been pickled in boredom.

“Penharrow, Vespera. Department of Artefact Recovery, archive assistant,” Ominis said quietly. “I’m reviewing active personnel cases related to Department of Death cases. Would appreciate a few words from her supervising clerks.”

The goblin looked him up and down, unimpressed. “She’s on leave.”

“So I saw.”

“Then you’re not likely to find her here.”

“I’m not here to find her,” Ominis said, voice cool. “Just those who worked near her.”

After a long sigh, the goblin slid a slim stack of assignment slips across the desk. “Names and desks. But don’t cause a fuss. The Archives don’t like noise.”

He found two of Vespera’s coworkers on Level 4 — a junior field recorder named Elias Wren , and a senior restoration witch, Marietta Dorsey, who had worked with Vespera for over five years.

They were seated in the Staff Alcove, a shallow annexe where clerks escaped the dampness with tea, toast, and tired chatter. The room was quiet when Ominis entered. Conversations stopped — not from recognition, but instinct. He carried silence with him like a second coat.

“May I?” he asked.

Elias blinked, then scooted over nervously. Marietta set down her mug with a gentle clink.

“I'm reviewing personnel patterns related to some cases of mine,” Ominis said smoothly, as he lowered himself to the bench. “Vespera Penharrow’s name appeared. I’m not investigating her; however, I would like to gather some information.”

Elias nodded too fast. “Of course. Um—Vespera’s… she’s always been very proper. Very focused. Honestly, the kind of person you’d forget if she wasn’t so punctual.”

“That sounds like a contradiction,” Ominis murmured. “Forgetting someone who never arrives late?”

Marietta chuckled softly, though there wasn’t much humour in it. “You’d have to know her to get it. She’s polite to a fault. Pleasant enough, but never shared much. No office gossip, no drinks after work. Just books, files, and tea.”

“She ever talk about her past?”

Marietta shook her head. “Not once. Said she went to a finishing school in Avignon. Adopted as a child. I assumed war orphan, something like that. But she kept it quiet. Never answered personal questions.”

Elias leaned forward slightly. “There was one time — a few years ago — I asked if she had family back in France. She gave me this look.” He hesitated. “Not angry, not cold. Just… distant. Like I’d tugged on something buried deep.”

“She ever lose her temper?”

“Never,” Marietta said immediately. “Actually, I’ve never seen her get emotional at all.”

Ominis tilted his head. “That’s uncommon. Even in this building.”

A pause. Marietta toyed with the handle of her mug. “There was one thing.”

Elias glanced at her, startled.

“She once got very pale when a name came up in a field memo,” Marietta said slowly. “Something about artefact containment protocols at the Fitzgerald estate — you know the one, up in the northeast, with the relic locks?”

Ominis stiffened almost imperceptibly.

“She looked... off. Just for a second. Asked to be reassigned the same day.”

“Did she say why?”

“No.” Marietta looked down at her cup. “I didn’t ask.”

When the conversation drifted toward silence again, Ominis nodded. “Thank you. Both of you.”

He stood, then paused. His tone was casual — almost soft. “One last thing.”

They looked up.

“If you had to describe her in one word — not her work, not her manners. Her — the person she is beneath all that—what would it be?”

Elias frowned, thinking. “Careful?”

Marietta took longer. Her brow furrowed.

Then, almost reluctantly: “Unseen.”

He didn’t return to the lifts immediately.

Instead, he wandered deeper into the corridors, into the echoing quiet of Level 5 — where the records shifted from scrolls to memories. Here, things were older. Dustier. Truer. He stopped by a support column and let himself breathe for the first time since the conversation.

Unseen.

It wasn’t just a word. It was a posture. A discipline. A decision — or a wound. And Ominis knew it intimately.

He had learned to disappear before he’d learned to spell his own name. The Gaunt household had no room for softness, and his brothers had a particular cruelty reserved for weakness. So he learned to be silent. To move like smoke through rooms. To make himself smaller than attention.

He became invisible to survive.

And even now, in these marble halls, among robed officials and stiff-wanded Aurors, he still felt it — the echo of that training. He wore invisibility. Refined it. Made it useful.

So when he looked at Vespera, he didn’t see mystery.

He saw familiarity .
She wasn’t invisible by accident. She had crafted it.

Not as a strategy, perhaps. Not like he had — not to gather power from the shadows. But as a form of self-protection. She’d taken the sharp parts of herself and tucked them away , layer after layer, until even her coworkers couldn’t remember her laugh.

She reminded him of himself — not as he was now , but as he might have become, if he'd stopped trusting anyone entirely.

That familiarity drew comparisons somewhere else, too.

Moira was like that too.

But where Moira diminished herself with intent — to protect others , to shield something vast and dangerous beneath her skin — her ancient magic nad her Keeper status — Vespera’s vanishing act rang of injury . Of something cracked and covered long ago. A door shut not to keep danger in, but to keep the world out.

And the difference mattered.

Moira had been forged into what she was.

Vespera seemed to have folded herself to survive.

He didn’t want to turn her into a suspect. Not yet.

But the shape of her absence... it pressed at something in him.

She had flinched at the name Fitzgerald .
She had left the Ministry just before Cairn Island.
And her paper trail was spotless — too spotless .

He let out a slow breath, cane steady beneath his hand. The deeper the silence, the more it tried to hide.

And he had grown up in a house where silence was survival.

He turned and made his way down toward the genealogical vaults .
The air down here felt older still — heavy with wax dust and forgotten bloodlines. He passed cabinets of pureblood trees, charmed seals, revised paternity orders. In one alcove, a clerk sorted birth registries with a wand and a blindfold.

Ominis moved straight to the “P” shelf, running his fingers along the bindings until they stopped on one:

Penharrow — amended.

He opened the record. There wasn’t much to read. No biological entries. No family crest. Just a Ministry placement form — adoption approved for a Vespera Noelle Penharrow, orphan, age fifteen. Parents listed as deceased. Her only education record: Placement — École Pour Dames, Avignon.

It wasn’t what was written that disturbed him.

It was what had been removed .

No origin. No magical lineage. No school assessments. No childhood at all. She hadn’t existed — officially — until she was already a young woman. And someone had worked very hard to make that paper trail clean.

Ominis closed the file, slow and precise.

They met halfway to Manor Cape House — on a lonely rise of moorland where the wind cut low across the grass and the sea below roared like a distant choir.

Sebastian’s Thestral stood tethered beneath a crooked hawthorn, black and skeletal against the failing light. It shifted restlessly when it sensed the others approaching, its leathery wings twitching.

Ominis was already there. He stood still, robes brushing his boots, wand lifted lightly to his temple. His head tilted faintly, as though listening to something the wind carried from far off. He turned toward them before their footsteps even broke the ridge.

Moira and Sebastian approached side by side, but not close. Their silence was strained — not tension, exactly, but the brittle quiet of two people freshly scraped raw. Moira didn’t meet his eyes. Sebastian said nothing.

Ominis lowered his wand. “You’re late.”

“We had to take a slower route out,” Moira said. “The path was alive.”

“Devil’s Snare,” Sebastian added dryly. “Because, of course, it was. Large enough to swallow a Hippogriff.”

“You retrieved it?” Ominis asked.

Moira slipped the wrapped bundle from her satchel. “Amit’s field journal. Protected and sealed — he left it somewhere no one would stumble across it by accident.”

Ominis ran his fingers lightly over the cloth and nodded. “I’ll look at it later. Did you try opening it?”

Moira shook her head. “It seems coded.”

Sebastian crossed his arms. “You look like you’ve been somewhere worse than a vine-choked ruin.”

Ominis didn’t rise to the bait. “The Archives have their own kind of darkness.” He tilted his head again — then frowned. “You’re both quiet. Uncomfortably so.”

Moira glanced sideways. Sebastian sighed.

Ominis’s voice turned crisp. “What happened?”

“We talked,” Moira said.

“That much I gathered.”

Sebastian gave her a glance — then looked away. “We survived some reminiscing. That’s what matters.”

“I disagree,” Ominis said flatly. “What matters is that we face what’s coming next with clear heads. And you two look like a pair of storms circling the same bloody forest.”

Silence.

Moira tried to brush it off. “Ominis—”

“Don’t,” he said. Not unkindly — but firm. “I may not see faces, but I can feel tension like a shift in the wind. I hear it in your breathing. The way your feet hesitate when they land near each other.”

“You always could read a room better than anyone,” Sebastian muttered.

“Because I never trusted rooms to begin with,” Ominis replied.

That quieted them both.

He adjusted his stance, fingers trailing through the air like reading a map carved into the wind. “I don’t ask because I’m nosy. But we’re circling something dangerous, and if the past gets to one of us—”

“It won’t,” Moira said quietly.

“You’re sure?” His voice gentled. “Because I’ve seen what happens when you bury things too deep, Moira. And you’re already buried deep enough.”

She didn’t answer. Just looked out toward the sea.

He turned slightly more toward her. “I know you. You carry past like wounds. You’ve given up more than anyone knows to keep certain things contained. If he pulls you too far—”

Sebastian bristled. “I’m standing right here.”

“Are you?” Ominis shot back, cool. “Because the Sebastian I remember didn’t know how to hold his tongue when things mattered.”

“Neither did you,” Sebastian said tightly. “Still don’t.”

The wind tore through the grass. No one moved.

Sebastian’s jaw tightened. “This is not about you, Ominis.”

“Oh no,” Ominis said, sharp as ice. “Because everything was always about you.”

Moira stepped between them — not physically, just enough to shift the current. “Don’t.”

The word hung in the air.

After a long pause, Ominis turned slightly. His voice lost some of its bite. “I have something,” he said.

That caught their attention.

“There’s no record of Vespera Penharrow’s life before she was fifteen,” he said. “No family. No lineage. Just an amended file and a finishing school in Avignon.”

Moira furrowed her brow. “She’s an orphan?”

“Just like you,” Ominis replied. “But the record is too clean. I think it was scrubbed.”

Sebastian frowned. “Could be witness protection.”

“Could be a lie,” Ominis countered. “She reacted to the Fitzgerald name in a Ministry memo. Requested reassignment the same day. And she went on leave just before Cairn Island.”

“You think she’s involved?” Moira asked.

“I don’t know what she is. But I’ve seen people like her.”

A pause.

“She hides like I used to,” he added quietly.

He didn’t explain. But Moira felt it. And so did Sebastian.

The breeze shifted. Cold salt wind. A three-pointed silence stretched between them — each one carrying something unspoken.

The Thestral stamped once behind them, uneasy.

Then Moira cleared her throat. “Let’s get to the manor. Anne’s waiting.”

They turned toward the distant cliffs, where the dark shape of Manor Cape House waited like a sentinel in the falling dusk — three silhouettes against a storm-brewing sky.

The manor opened like a sigh around them.

It greeted them not with grandeur, but with the hush of a house that listened . No questions, no demands. Just warmth — the kind that seeped into bone. Its tall windows glowed faintly against the dusk, and inside, the scent of lavender and old wood floated on the air — warmed stone, herbs steeped in honeywater, firelight curling along the walls like an embrace. The sea hissed far below the cliffs, soft and steady, a lullaby with teeth. 

Lanterns flickered in alcoves along the curved walls, and from the hearth in the sitting room came the low, steady crackle of firewood that had already been burning for hours. Someone had simmered cloves and honey on the stove. The scent curled through the halls like memory.

They barely spoke when they entered.

Moira excused herself with a murmur, clutching the strap of her satchel like a lifeline. She vanished down the eastern hall without waiting for anyone to follow.

Sebastian turned toward the staircase, jaw set, shoulders tight. He didn’t say goodnight. He simply disappeared.

Ominis stood in the foyer for a moment longer, still and quiet, listening.

He could feel it like a change in barometric pressure — the invisible strain between the other two. It coiled along the edges of the house like an approaching storm.

Upstairs, the bath steamed like a cauldron. Moira sat with her knees pulled close, water near her collarbones. Her skin was red from scrubbing — more out of habit than cleansing. The herbs — rosemary, juniper, lemon balm — drifted around her like offerings from a ritual she didn’t remember performing.

Across the hall, Sebastian paced.
The room was wide and shadowed — sea maps on the walls, the bed untouched. He hadn’t lit the fire. The cold kept his thoughts quieter. Kept him from remembering what warmth used to feel like.

Moira leaned back, breath trembling. The diary sat unopened on the stool beside her. She hadn’t even undone the final ward.
Later, she told herself.
But that was a lie.

Sebastian hadn’t removed his boots. The Thestral was still in the stables. He’d meant to feed it. Meant to think. But he just moved — counting steps the way he had in Azkaban. One-two-three-four. Turn.

“I did trust you. That’s the problem.”

Her voice — from the sanctuary — echoed like glass breaking across stone.

She hated that she remembered how his voice had softened. How the vines curled at her boot and his first instinct was to ask if she needed help.
How she hadn’t wanted to pull away.
Not then. Not when his voice cracked something open.
But they weren’t children anymore. And there was nothing innocent left to reclaim.

He stopped at the window, palm pressed to cold glass. His reflection didn’t look like him. Too many lines. Too many shadows.
The boy he used to be still lived somewhere inside — the one who thought they could survive anything together. Who’d looked at Moira and seen not just a girl, but a partner.
That boy still waited for her to reach back.

Moira, submerged in lavender and rosemary, saw a stranger’s face reflected on the water’s surface. Grey-toned. Eyes too sharp.
She missed him.
She missed the ease. The way their banter always came like breathing. The way he made her laugh in places that should have broken them both.

She wasn’t supposed to miss him. She was the Keeper. The Auror. The one who had stood straight in the Ministry hearing while her heart howled.

She’d failed Fig. Failed Amit. Failed Poppy.

And Sebastian — she’d handed him over, even knowing what it would do to him. Even knowing what it would do to herself.
She whispered into the quiet: “I thought I could live with it.”

Sebastian stopped pacing. He stared at the dark sea outside.
She had let him see her. The raw, unguarded girl who hated Devil’s Snare and sour candy, and flinched when the world was kind.
And she’d walked away anyway.

Downstairs, the fire burned low.
The sitting room was golden with firelight, scattered with shadows, and held the hush of night. The walls were lined with books she’d read three times and kept for comfort. The scent of cloves and honey lingered in the air — a memory steeped into wood and wool.

Anne sat cross-legged on the settee, teacup in hand. Ominis sat across from her in the high-backed chair, fingers curled loosely on his knee, head tilted faintly as he listened — not just to her, but to everything. The fire. The old beams creaking. The sea wind sighing against the windows.

She watched him in the golden light, his expression unreadable but achingly familiar.

“You worry for her,” she said softly.

“I worry for both of them,” he answered, just as soft.

“But more for her.”

A pause.

“Yes.”

Anne set her cup down and leaned back. Her robe slipped slightly off one shoulder, the firelight tracing the hollow of her collarbone. She didn’t fix it. The moment didn’t ask for more words. Only presence.

“She’s not as breakable as she looks,” she murmured.

“I’m not afraid she’ll break,” he said. “I’m afraid she’ll bend until something vital inside her snaps.”

Anne studied him — not with pity, but the kind of deep knowing that only comes from years lived close.

“You see it, don’t you?” she said. “In her. In him.”

Ominis nodded once. “I’ve seen what happens when people bury things too deep. You bury it long enough, it doesn’t die — it ferments. Turns sharp. Moira’s spent years hiding from the fire in her.”

“And Sebastian,” Anne finished, “he’s been burned by his.”

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence, the fire snapping softly.

Then Ominis rose and crossed to her side of the hearth.

Anne shifted to make room, and he sat beside her without needing to ask.

Neither of them spoke at first. The fire hissed. The Thestrals outside stirred in its stalls.

Anne leaned her head against his shoulder. He responded without hesitation — his arm curled around her, fingers brushing her upper arm in slow, steady strokes. Not possessive. Not worried. Just there.

She sighed — not from exhaustion, but something softer. A settling.

“You think they’ll destroy each other,” she said.

“I think they’ll destroy themselves trying not to.”

She looked up at him. “What would you do?”

“I don’t know.” His voice dropped. “ I don´t know what they need. Clarity? Truth? A locked room?” He smiled faintly when she chuckled.
“But I know what you need.”

Anne smiled into his shoulder. “And what’s that?”

He turned his head, lips brushing her hair. “A place to rest. A hand to hold. Someone to carry the silence when it grows too heavy.”

She turned toward him, curling into his side. He shifted slightly, letting her settle with her cheek beneath his jaw.

“This house only feels like home because of you,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’ll still be here,” she replied, voice sleep-thick and wry. “I never wanted to be the one left behind. But I seem to be good at it.”

“You’re my heart,” he said simply. “You could never be left behind.”

Anne looked down at their hands.

“Someone has to be the quiet in the storm.”

“Oh, that you are,” Ominis said.

She smiled, this time a little more real.

“Then go on,” she said gently. “Let them have their storm. I’ll still be here when they come in out of the cold.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

She nestled closer, slipping one hand beneath his, resting over his heart — steady beneath the fabric of his shirt.

The house slept. The silence felt heavier after midnight, like the walls were holding their breath.

Moira stood at the kitchen counter, barefoot, hair still damp. The dressing gown hung loose, her wand discarded beside the half-open bottle from Ominis’s collection.

She stared at it like it might judge her. Or forgive her.

“I thought ladies didn´t drink alone.”

His voice was low, familiar.

Moira didn’t look up. “It doesn’t count as drinking,” she muttered. “And I am not a lady.”

Behind her, Sebastian stepped in from the shadows. The room shifted with him — not louder, just closer. He didn’t ask permission. He never had.

She poured a second glass and slid it toward him. He took it, fingers brushing the rim.

“You could’ve woken a troll with that pacing,” she said.

He took a sip. “You’re hurt, Moira. You just got better at hiding it.”

Her jaw flexed. “You don’t know what I’m hiding.”

“I do. I used to be the thing you hid from.”

That made her look up. Their eyes locked — nothing between them but a few feet and everything they hadn’t said.

“You think I don’t see it?” he said. “How you wear guilt like it’s stitched into your skin?”

“I carry what I owe.”

“You built yourself a prison out of it. Then locked the door from the inside.”

Moira turned away — not fast enough to hide the flicker in her eyes. The burn that wasn’t from the firewhisky.

“I let Fig die. I wasn’t there for Amit — or Poppy. And you—” Her voice caught. “You were a boy who needed saving, and I handed you to wolves.”

“I asked for it.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” Sebastian said, firmer. “I was reckless. I wanted to be right. And I hated you for stopping me.”

She swallowed. “Then we’re even.”

“No. I got years in Azkaban — and you got something worse.”

Moira blinked. “What’s worse than Azkaban?”

“Loneliness. The kind you choose.”

Her breath hitched.

He stepped forward slowly, like too much weight might shatter the ground between them. “I used to hate seeing you when you visited. All composed, distant. Like guilt was the only thing tethering you to me.”

“It was.”

“I know.”
He brushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. Not possessive. Just tender.
“But it helped. Even when I pretended it didn’t. Even when all I wanted was to scream at you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “That’s what made it worse.”

He let out a slow breath. His hand dropped. But he didn’t step back: “I don’t want penance, Moira.”

“Then what?”

“I want you. Just you. The one who used to laugh in catacombs. The girl who burned through every lie I told and still stayed until the end.”

Her shoulders trembled. “I don’t know how to be her anymore.”

“Then let me find her with you.”

She didn’t move. But she didn’t pull away when he stepped into the space between them.

“You don’t have to carry everything alone.”

“I’m afraid if I put it down, I won’t be able to pick it up again.”

“Then let me hold it for a while.”

This time, she didn’t look away.

The bottle sat on the kitchen counter, untouched now—two glasses beside it.

Sebastian hadn’t spoken in a while. Neither had she. The weight of what was not said pressed heavier than the words that had been.

He moved first—just a nod toward the door, as if to say enough for tonight . Moira followed him — not because she had to, not because it was wise — but because it felt… familiar .

They walked the empty halls like ghosts. Upstairs, the corridor stretched in silver-dark quiet, just like it had at Hogwarts. She remembered sneaking past tapestries with him once, long ago, both breathless with laughter and spells barely cast.

But tonight was quieter. There was no urgency, no danger of being caught. Just two people too tired to be alone.

He paused at the threshold of the guest room. The bed untouched, the hearth slowly dying.

She brushed past him without thinking — and stopped. The memory arrived with such clarity that it stole her breath.

A night in the highlands. They’d been chasing some mad legend of a cave that could amplify spellwork. Of course, it had been a trap — some puffed-up goblin enchantment or ancient decoy vault. By the time they realised it, the sun had already gone. They were soaked from the rain, too tired to return on time to slip into the castle unseen. So they’d found a hollow beneath a rock shelf, dried their socks with fire, and curled up under an emergency wool blanket from Moira’s satchel.

They’d lain like this: her spine tucked against his chest, one of his arms cradling her waist — not holding, just resting there. Warmth without a promise. Contact without a claim.

She hadn’t slept much that night. Not because she was uncomfortable. But because it felt too safe. Too good. And in her world, good things didn’t last.

Back in the present, Moira moved slowly to the edge of the bed. Her fingers toyed with the hem of her sleeve.

Sebastian said nothing. Just stepped inside after her, quiet as ever.
They undressed in silence. Not from modesty — but from weariness. The kind that settled in the bones. The fabric rustled, left on the floor like piles of dust. Her nightgown was almost sheer, making him turn away from the frame lit by a dim light of the dying hearth.

She slid beneath the covers. He followed, not touching her. Not at first.

Minutes passed. And then — like gravity — her body shifted toward him. Seeking something she hadn’t let herself reach for in years.

He didn’t speak. Just lifted the edge of the quilt, and let her curl into him. Like before. Only not quite.
This time, her fingers found the edge of his shirt and slipped beneath, resting against the skin of his chest. His heart didn’t race — it beat steady, slow. Real.

He exhaled, letting his chin come to rest near her hairline.

“I missed this,” he murmured, voice raw.

“We only did it once,” she whispered back.

“I still missed it.”

His hand settled on her back. No pressure, just presence . She didn’t answer. But the tension in her jaw loosened.

Skin to skin. Handprints like brands. Not from heat — but from memory.

They didn’t kiss. They didn’t move. They just held the shape they used to take — a shape that still, somehow, fit.

And somewhere between the hush of sheets and the breath at her nape, Moira let herself sleep. For the first time in what felt like years, she didn’t dream of blood, tears and failure.

The house woke slowly. Soft mist ghosted over the cliffs. The sea whispered at the windows like it knew a secret it wouldn’t yet share.

In the kitchen, Anne had the kettle singing and jam jars clinking gently on the table. Her shawl was draped around her shoulders, hair braided but half-loose. She’d tucked herself into the window seat with a mug and a smile that had been growing steadily for the last five minutes.

Across from her, Ominis sat stiff at the table, spoon resting accusingly in his untouched porridge.

“I’m simply asking,” he said, voice clipped, “if she’s awake.”

“It’s not yet seven,” Anne replied with saintly patience. “The sun’s still hiding.”

“She should be up.”

“She almost got strangled by sentient vines yesterday. Let her sleep.”

Pop.
Tiddle appeared, far too cheerful for the hour, tea towel over one arm.

“Good morning, Mistress Anne, Master Ominis,” he chirped. “I have checked, sir. Miss Moira is not yet up — nor likely to be for a while. She is still in the guest room.”

Ominis’s jaw tightened.

Tiddle continued brightly. “With Mister Sebastian. Very cosy. One quilt used. Two glasses of firewhisky on the counter in the night.”

Anne tried. She really did. But the laugh escaped behind her cup, shoulders shaking.

Ominis stared straight ahead. “She spent the night with him?”

“Well,” Tiddle said, ears perking, “not that I have pried. But definitely in the comforting proximity sense, sir.”

“Tiddle.”

“I’m only saying, sir, it’s rather sweet. Miss Moira’s been quite lonely, and Mister Sebastian has a very symmetrical—”

“Out.”

“Very good, sir.”

The house-elf vanished with a distinctive pop, whilst Anne gave up and laughed outright.

Ominis groaned. “This is why I drink tea without sugar. I deserve no joy.”

Anne patted his hand. “You’re just upset your speech didn’t terrify them into lifelong celibacy.”

“She’s not thinking straight.”

“She’s thinking, Ominis,” Anne said. “Maybe for the first time in years. About something she wants.”

His sigh could have blown out every candle in the house.

Upstairs, the sun crept in like a guilty thief.

Moira stirred first. Her nightgown clung in places, hair loose, one bare leg tangled over a familiar thigh. Her hand rested on Sebastian’s chest — inconveniently bare.

What was worse — he was awake. Eyes closed, jaw tense, but obviously awake.

She moved to pull her hand back. He caught it mid-motion.

“Don’t,” he croaked. “Just — give me a minute.”

She paused. “Are you—?”

He ran a hand down his face. “You’re warm. And soft. And I’m very, very human.”

She buried her face in the pillow. “This was a bad idea,” she hissed.

He groaned. “I was perfectly innocent until you curled up like a cat.”

“You spooned me .”

“I was unconscious!”

“Sebastian!” Her face went crimson. She retreated slightly, dragging the blanket higher. “You could have moved.”

“I didn’t want to. And neither did you.”

She groaned into the pillow. “This is exactly why I don’t do this.” She huffed and waved her hand.

Sebastian laughed — the first real one in some time: “If it helps, I’m currently mortified.”

“A bit. Slightly. No — not really.”

“I said I was human!” He sat up, dragging the quilt with him. “This is exactly why I didn’t move.”

She flailed out of the bed, wrapping her dressing gown around herself with what dignity she could muster. “Oh, Tiddle definitely knows.”

“Then let’s pretend we’re above caring.”

She snorted. “You’re already planning your defence speech, aren’t you?”

“Only for Ominis.”

As if summoned, a knock sounded.

Ominis’s voice, cool and disapproving, filtered through the door. 

“If the two of you are decent, we have a diary to examine. Unless, of course, there are other nocturnal activities requiring your attention.”

Sebastian dropped his face into his hands.

Moira sighed: “He’s never letting us live this down.”

Sebastian peeked over his fingers. “Well. At least we didn’t actually… You know.”

Moira gave him a dry look, adjusting the sleeves of her long nightgown. “Your dignity begs to differ.”
The ache in her shoulders reminded her of everything — the vines, the diary, the weight she still carried.

“I should get dressed properly,” she said softly.

Sebastian nodded, still propped against the pillows. “Yeah.”

At the door, she paused. “It meant something,” she said. “Last night. I don’t regret it.”

He met her eyes. “Neither do I.”

“But it doesn’t make it easier.”

“No.” He swallowed. “But it made the night bearable. And the silence less cruel.”

A long beat passed. Moira nodded once and stepped out into the hallway.

The quilt slipped a little further from the bed behind her.

Sebastian lay still, one arm draped across his forehead, the ghost of her warmth still clinging to the space beside him.

Moira stepped out of the guest room with care, fingers still tugging at the sash of her robe, hair unbraided and sleep-mussed. The manor was quiet — except for the sound of her own soft steps and the lingering scent of salt, old wood, and tea from below.

Ominis was waiting halfway down the hall.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just tilted his head slightly — wand pressed to his temple, listening.
“You look well-rested,” he said mildly. “Considering.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. “Tiddle told you.”

“I asked him to check on you,” Ominis said. “He returned with details I didn’t request.”

“Then don’t ask if you don’t want to know.”

His hand caught her wrist. Gently, but firmly. “I’m not angry,” he said. “Just… trying to understand what you’re doing.”
She met his gaze — or rather, the space where his gaze would be. “I don’t know. Is that a good enough answer?”

“No.” His voice was too soft to be scolding. “But it’s honest.” His head tilted slightly toward her. “You weren’t supposed to be alone forever, but I did hope you’d choose someone with fewer unresolved traumas.”

She gave him a flat look: “That narrows it down to... no one.” Moira shifted, defensive heat creeping up her neck. “And nothing happened.”

“I know.” He let her wrist go. “Somehow, I believe he still remembers his decent upbringing.”

Ominis didn’t move. His posture remained dignified, composed — but there was a crease between his brows.
He sighed. “Just promise me it won’t interfere.”

She swallowed. “I needed that. Ominis.”

“I know.” His voice broke slightly — and that made her chest ache. “But I fear for you. What was once my best friend is now somebody else, Moira. Stop chasing after a boy we have helped to destroy. He might be long gone.”

Silence.
Finally, Moira said quietly, “I don’t know what this is. But it feels right”

“Then ask yourself what it costs.”
Ominis took a slow breath.
“And whether it’s worth it. Not just for you. For him. What happens when this case is finished? Are you sure they won´t send him back?”

She stepped past him toward the sitting room: “Come on. Let’s see what Amit left us.”

Sebastian sat at the edge of the bed, shirt halfway buttoned, eyes distant.

The room smelled faintly of Moira’s hair oil — rosemary and something darker, like crushed pine. The pillow next to his was still dented. Her warmth hadn’t fully faded from the sheets.

He scrubbed a hand over his face.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Certainly hadn’t meant to stay; he would crash on the couch or floor. But when she curled against him — all quiet breath and trembling self-control — he hadn’t been able to move, not out of lust, not out of fear. But because it was the first time in ten years he hadn’t felt alone.

And now the bed felt cold.

The silence pressed in differently now. Not heavy like Azkaban’s. Not hollow.

Just... empty.

Sebastian stood slowly, buttoning the rest of his shirt, then tugging on his boots with the kind of care that had nothing to do with neatness — and everything to do with delaying the inevitable.

His mouth quirked upward. Then fell again.

He had no idea what she wanted. But he knew what he did. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He wasn’t looking for the thrill of stolen hours behind the greenhouse or a whispered dare in the Common room after dark. He wanted to be chosen — fully and without fear.

Even if she couldn't give that yet.

He picked up her wand from where Moira had left it on the stool. 

“Figures,” he muttered, then tucked it under his arm and headed downstairs.

The air was thick with the smell of tea and toast, the windows cracked just enough to let in the sea breeze. Anne sat by the window, watching gulls spiral beyond the cliffs, her shawl tucked close around her.

Moira stood near the far counter, back to the door, sleeves rolled up as she cleaned a knife unnecessarily — a leftover from slicing fruit. Her shoulders were stiff, like she hadn’t breathed properly since waking.

Ominis stood near the hearth, arms folded, radiating the quiet disapproval of a disappointed professor or a parent. He didn’t speak when Sebastian entered.

Sebastian just held up the wand. “Figured we should get to it. Might need this, Darkwood.”

Moira turned slowly.

Their eyes met. Hers were calm, unreadable.

“Let’s open it,” she said. She set the diary down between them on the long table.

It was wrapped in a protective cloth, the edges of the old leather cover worn from age. The rune that sealed it pulsed once as Moira reached out, wand in hand.

She didn’t hesitate this time.

“Finite Incantatem,” she murmured.

The ward shimmered — then broke.

The diary lay still.

Moira opened the cover. The first page was scrawled in Amit’s familiar hand — careful, deliberate, and underlined twice:

Moira didn’t move at first. The words stared back at her, sharp as glass.

IF YOU’RE READING THIS, IT MEANS I FAILED.

She turned the page. More text followed — tight lines in Amit’s tidy hand, but beneath them—

Her brow furrowed.

“Is that…?” Sebastian leaned in. “That’s not English.”

“It’s Gobbledegook,” Moira murmured, scanning with growing dread. “Some of it, at least. The rest—” Her eyes narrowed. “No, this isn’t standard. It’s a cypher.”

Ominis let out a sigh. “Of course it is. Why make it simple?”

Anne set her mug down and rose, moving to Moira’s side with a surprising steadiness. “Let me see.”

Sebastian looked wary. “Are you sure?”

Anne gave him a pointed look: “I’m married, not lobotomised. Besides - I have a lot of time on my hands and lots of books to read.” She pulled the diary gently toward her and adjusted the page beneath the morning light. “It’s not just Gobbledegook. He used a mirrored substitution. Cyrillic forms, maybe, or runic shifts. Typical Amit.”

Moira blinked. “You can read that?”

“I can try,” Anne replied, flipping another page. “He used to obsess over these combinations during third year. Claimed the goblins had better security systems than Gringotts, and he wanted to prove he could break them. We spent a lot of time trying to crack some of the old tomes in the library.”

Sebastian huffed a quiet laugh. “That sounds like him.”

Anne was already scanning the lines. “Some of this is cartographic notation — he’s referencing locations. Landmarks, maybe. And this symbol—” she tapped a faint spiral sigil drawn in faded ink, “—he repeats it in the margins. Three times.”

Moira’s mouth went dry. “That’s the symbol for the ancient magic.”

Ominis moved forward, voice low. “You sure it is?”

“Yes.” Moira touched the edge of the sigil. “Trust me, I know Amit´s handwriting.”

Sebastian glanced at her, then Anne. “Can you translate more?”

“I’ll need time,” Anne said. “And quiet. Possibly something stronger than tea.”

Ominis placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “You’ll have both.”

Anne nodded, eyes already dancing with concentration.

Sebastian crossed his arms. “If Amit used Gobbledegook and a cypher, then whatever he was trying to hide—he knew it was dangerous.”

Moira didn’t answer. Her fingers hovered over the next page.

She didn’t say it aloud, but they all felt it.

Amit hadn’t failed.

He’d known exactly what he was doing.

And whatever he found… was meant for them.