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Chapter Text

Chapter 1.

 

Harry was exhausted.

Not just tired, but the kind of exhaustion that felt big, strange, and wonderful.

He had met goblins. Had touched piles of gold he didn’t know belonged to him. He had seen cauldrons, owls, wands, spellbooks! And still, somehow, it didn’t feel real.

Every shop window buzzed, every wand vibrated, every owl blinked like it knew a secret. People looked at him like he was the secret.

He wanted to feel excited, but the stares and whispers were exhausting. Not to mention the strangers who came up to him, trying to touch or shake his hand.

He hadn't known the magical world could feel so loud.

Hagrid kept booming beside him, talking about spellbooks and house dormitories and something called “Pumpkin Pasties”but Harry drifted. His feet hurt and his head buzzed.

“Why dont you go in and get yeh robs sorted Harry, I just need to step out real quick”

Hagrid had ushered Harry inside Madame Malkin’s store and there Harry met a peculiar boy.

That’s when he heard it:

“You’ll be at Hogwarts too, then? Do you know which House you’ll be in?”

The pale boy with silver blond hair and expensive posture stood beside him. Smirking slightly, but not unkindly.

Harry blinked.

“No. Do you?”

The boy lifted his chin as if rehearsed, polite arrogance.

“Father says I’ll be in Slytherin. All our family has been.”

He said it like a title. Like inheritance.

But there was a flicker brief, tightness in his eyes.

Like it wasn’t a choice.

Harry didn’t know why, but he disliked the boy. It wasn’t because he was rude-he wasn’t. It wasn’t the expensive clothing or the elegant way he spoke. It was something quieter. The boy had spoken about “our kind” and “proper wizard families” with the same voice Uncle Vernon used when talking about “proper people.”

And Harry recognized that tone immediately.

It wasn’t cruelty.

It was a certainty.

Certainty that some people were born to belong and others were not. Harry wasn’t sure which one he was, but he knew which one the boy had decided he was. He didn’t know how to respond. Communication had always been hard for him. His own family barely talked to him and when they did they let him feel awkward, freakish. The boy waited for approval that Harry didn’t know how to give. He turned to leave, muttering something that felt awkward even to himself.

He didn’t see the boy’s face fall.

He was starting to feel overstimulated. That boy probably found him oddish. Every brick, every flickering shop sign, every owl hooting overhead...It was magic. And yet-He still couldn’t quite feel it yet.

Not until he saw her..

She was sitting alone.

Breathing like she belonged to magic

On a narrow stone bench between Madam Malkin’s Robes and Flourish and Blotts. Legs crossed properly.
Wavy black hair, half pinned, half undone, like it couldn’t decide which world it belonged to. A book rested open on her lap. Not like she was reading it, but like it naturally belonged there. She didn’t look like the other witches rushing past with their arms full of parcels. Or like the girls giggling at lantern displays in shop windows.

She was still.

As though she was part of the place.

Not visiting it.

There was something about her. Not her long dark lashes, or the way her porcelain skin seemed to sparkle under the sunlight. Nor the way she tensed when someone walked too close. But something else. Something quietly humming.

Harry couldn’t place it.

Not with logic.

Not with words.

Only with feeling.

She looked up, not at him, just looking.

Her eyes weren’t curious. They were knowing.

Harry didn’t feel stared at.

He felt seen.

Not special.

Just a boy.

He had never felt more human. And that whatever she was, felt like real magic.

“Harry! Come along, you've got yeh wand to get!” Hagrid’s voice snapped him out of trance.

Harry blinked, but she was still there. Still reading, calm, and composed.

But now, as though some invisible wind had changed direction, she looked up once more.

Just briefly.

Not at Hagrid.

Not at the crowds.

At him.

Green eyes met silver, curious eyes, not startled or shy. Just… knowing. As if she had seen him before. As if she recognized something in him…maybe something he didn’t even know yet.

She didn’t smile.

She didn’t look away immediately.

She only blinked, softly, then lowered her gaze, a page turning between her fingers like a whispered secret.

Harry’s heartbeat felt different.

A little louder.

Strangely warm.

Hagrid was already walking.

Harry turned to follow. But he looked back once more. She was still there, still reading. But this time, Harry noticed…Her fingers weren’t moving. She wasn’t reading at all. She was just…thinking. And Harry didn’t know how, or why, or what it meant. But for the rest of that very strange day, among vaults, and goblins, and wands that sang. The moment he remembered most was the girl on the bench, who made magic feel real. Even before he ever cast a spell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2.

Growing Up

Elara Malfoy had her own persona she donned just as her twin did. While Draco tried to be like their father, proud, domineering, privileged. She was quiet but observant, poised but sharp. As their father were who Draco aspired to be, she took to her mother. Her mother was a creature of elegance, she could sneak the tiniest poison on her tongue but fully captivated a room.

So when the first day of Hogwarts appeared, her parents knew she was nervous. Clutching her fathers hand as they walked down the platform. Or when she allowed her mother's hand to linger and smooth the collar of her traveling cloak. Because letting go was too hard.

She tried not to fidget. It was not that she was afraid of Hogwarts. But she did not know if she belonged to it.

Her mother was a loving woman and her words warmed Elara’s heart. “You are not a Malfoy because of our name,” Narcissa said quietly.“You are a Malfoy because you were chosen in love.”

Lucius stood nearby, composed, unreadable but Elara noticed: his hand hovered slightly, like he wanted to hold on, but didn’t. His gaze lingered, proud, steady, soft in a way he would never name.

Elara never answered with words when they weren’t enough. She only nodded and something deep in her steadied. Draco however pretended to be annoyed by the crowd. He held his trunk like it offended him personally.
But Elara saw the way he stayed too close to Narcissa. The way his hand trembled slightly as Lucius walked away.

The way he looked both proud and very, very small.

She didn’t hold his hand.

She simply brushed her sleeve against his.

That was enough.

————-

It was overwhelming, the station was loud with laughter, owls, and families clinging too tightly.

They boarded the train. The air smelled of peppermint, parchment, and fear.

Draco was being loud. Performing confidence with posture, hair perfectly styled, voice trained to sound unimpressed by everything. While Draco performed with confidence, Elara wore her persona quietly like silk. His eyes darted, searching, impatient, until he spotted one familiar figure sitting alone by a luggage trolley.
Theo.

Pretending not to wait for anyone. Sitting alone in a carriage, legs stretched out, reading as though trains were always quiet and safe.

He looked up. Their eyes met.

He didn’t smile.

But his shoulders dropped with relief.

“You’re late,” he said to Draco.
“You’re here,” Draco answered.

That was how they said I’m glad you came. Elara felt it too. The knot inside her chest loosened. She was no longer the only quiet person.

Draco had originally wanted Theo to spend the night, so he didn't have to enter alone. He was complaining, which was ordinary. But the softness in his eyes when he looked at Theo…that wasn’t.

"-should’ve come to the manor last night,” Draco muttered, trying (and failing) to make it sound casual. “We would’ve all gone together.”

Theo closed his book slowly, meeting Draco’s gaze with that quiet, unreadable calm he always had once he was back from Nott Manor.

He didn’t argue. He rarely did. It took awhile to get back to his loveable chaotic sense, whenever he came back from his fathers.

Elara didn’t say anything either.

Because she remembered that night too.

(Flashback) Malfoy Manor, the night before

Theo’s father had arrived uninvited to the manor the previous weekend. He had spoken loudly with too much anger in his voice and too little restraint in his hands. Elara remembered hidden glances exchanged between her parents, unspoken fury restrained only for the sake of their guests.

No curses were cast.

Not then.

After he left, there was a heaviness in the house.

Draco had insisted Theo should stay at the manor that night but Theo had only shaken his head, eyes lowered, and said it would only make things worse.

Draco had been furious. Then quiet. Then just… worried.

That night, Narcissa entered Draco’s room with a folded blanket, but found both her children already there. Draco wide awake, Elara half curled beside him, both silent.

He had been pouting, which would have been comical, if not for the small crease of anxiety between his brows.

“Mother,” he whispered, “He shouldn’t have to go home.”

Narcissa had paused, then placed a hand on his cheek.

“It is proper for Theo to leave for Hogwarts with his father,” she said softly.

They knew she was lying.

Protection, even when wrapped in etiquette, was still protection.

But it soothed neither of them.

When Narcissa left, Elara leaned her head back against the pillows, staring at Draco.

“What if I’m in Ravenclaw?” she whispered quietly.

Draco sat up straighter, chest puffing, chin lifted like he was becoming father shaped.

“Every Malfoy has been in Slytherin.” He said it with certainty, like a line memorized. She had looked at him…not mocking, not sad…just truthfully.

“I’m not technically a Malfoy.” He blinked. Then frowned.

“That’s dumb, Elara. You’re my sister.”

She hit his arm for calling her dumb. He rubbed it, pouting dramatically. That made her feel a little less insecure.

After a while, his voice got smaller.

Just quiet enough for the dark to hear.

“What if Theo isn’t? What if he ends up somewhere else? What if no one sees when he’s….when something’s wrong?”

Not loud or panicked. Slow. Fragile. Barely spoken.

Elara didn’t hesitate.

“Theo is a Slytherin,” she said. “Patience is cunning. Quiet is cunning.”

Then after a beat.

“And if Uncle Tiberius were to cause an issue again. I'll just have to simply remind him how tarantula venom behaves when stirred into tea. Fascinating…the things that fall into cups.”

Draco stared at her.

Remembering the way Uncle Tiberius had gone rigid and fallen face first into their mothers rose bed. Paralyzed for hours, muttering about eight-legged demons. His sister was conveniently missing at the time…

Draco blinked.

And then he laughed.

Not cruel or mocking. Warm. Bright. The kind that melted static in the air.

“This is how I know you’ll be in Slytherin,” he grinned.

“Truly cunning.”

They fell asleep side by side.

Elara wasn’t sure whether it was courage or fear that made it easier to close her eyes.

Maybe both.

(Back to the Train)

Draco was still talking, more to himself than to Theo.

Theo didn’t argue. He never had to.

He simply sat there, present, steady, familiar.

They didn’t know yet which Houses they’d be in.

But Elara knew one thing: They wouldn’t be alone. Not really.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3.

A Lost Toad?

The train lurched forward.

Theo opened a book.

Draco pretended to be annoyed at Theo’s book.

Elara simply stared out at the blur of countryside, counting birds for no reason.

Then…Knock, knock.

The compartment door slid open.

A girl stood there. Her hair frizzed, expression alert, amber eyes full of questions she hadn’t even asked yet.

Bright, nervous, certain.

“Have either of you seen a toad? Neville’s lost one…also, have you practiced spells already? I’ve tried a few, they’ve mostly worked…”

She said it breathlessly, hopeful, not yet realizing how different they were.

Theo blinked.

Draco scoffed.

Elara simply watched.

She introduced herself as Hermione Granger.

Elara watched her brother straighten, his voice taking on that polished Malfoy tone. Not cruel, but dripping with
pedigree.

“Granger? As in Dagworth-Granger?”Hermione blinked. Not offended. Just earnest.

“I don’t believe so. I’m Muggle-born, actually. But...Perhaps Hogwarts has books about this Dagworth-Granger?”

And just like that…The air didn’t simply go quiet.

It braced.

Theo blinked once, slowly.

Draco paled, shifting almost unconsciously closer to Elara, as if proximity would offer explanation.

Elara didn’t look away. She studied Hermione. Not in a judging or dismissive way. Just curious. She wasn’t ill mannered or dirty like Elara’s cousins described Muggle-borns. She wasn’t trying to prove she belonged. To Elara, she simply did, full in that way unpolished magic is. Raw, potent, like a held breath waiting to become a spell.

Something unspoken passed between them.

Not friendship.

Not rivalry.

Just….Recognition.

And perhaps, in some unnameable way…Relevance.

The stiff silence lingered too long, so Hermione, blissfully unaware, attempted to fill it.

“You should change into your robes soon,” she said helpfully. “It’ll be rather embarrassing to arrive unprepared.”

As if she hadn’t just detonated centuries of pureblood expectation with a single sentence.

Theo made a choked sound that might have been laughter.

Draco looked like he needed to sit down.

Elara only watched Hermione a moment longer, intrigued, unsettled, though unmistakably interested.

Then Theo thanked her politely, Elara nodding towards her gesture. Draco however looked personally offended that she misunderstood how purebloods handled robes.

When the train finally shuddered to its stop, the platform bustled with students spilling out like colour and noise, trunks dragging, voices calling.

Hermione passed again, carrying far too many books for a normal person.

Theo watched her go, amused.

“She frightens me,” he said mildly.

Elara didn’t look away.“She fascinates me.”

Draco snorted.“She’s a walking library.”

Theo shrugged.“So is Elara.”

She flicked his sleeve at that, not enough to hurt, but enough to register.

Ahead, they heard a boy with bright red hair yelp very loudly, painfully.

“ARGH! GERROFF, SCABBERS! I SAID NO BITING!”

Theo blinked.

Draco stared.

Elara hid a smile.

That was their first impression of Ron Weasley.

And then:“Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here!”

A voice, large and warm and deeply familiar, rose over the platform.

The half-giant stood ahead, lantern swinging in one huge hand, coat the shape of a bear skin, eyes kind beneath tangled hair.

Rubeus Hagrid.

Draco squinted, unimpressed.

“That man is the gamekeeper? He looks like he bathes once a decade.”

Theo made a low humming sound, the warning kind.

Elara didn’t look at Draco when she spoke.

“He looks like the kind of man who would keep secrets for children who have nowhere else to put them.”

Theo looked delighted by her words.

“If Draco’s head gets any bigger, we’ll need a separate boat just for his ego.”

Elara hid another smile. Draco looked betrayed.

They weren’t alone for long.

A girl with glossy dark hair and razor sharp poise approached, Pansy Parkinson. Perfect posture, beautiful in a calculating way, already annoyed by the crowd.

Daphne Greengrass followed quietly, softer than Pansy, more thoughtful, posture elegant but never severe. She greeted Elara with a nod, as though they had been continuing a conversation that began years ago…because, in a way, they had.

And finally, Blaise Zabini. Silent, steady. Eyes that missed nothing. Not arrogant, he was just deeply uninterested in anyone not worth noticing.

He noticed Elara. And nodded. That was enough. There were no hugs. No squeals. Just familiarity. A hush between old names.

-The Boat Ride-

The moment felt like something between endings and beginnings.

The lanterns reflected in the black water, shimmering like fallen stars. The six of them stepped into two boats,

Draco, Theo, and Elara in one; Daphne, Blaise, and Pansy in the other.

Harry Potter, somewhere behind them, stepped into another.

Elara looked at the lake and felt something quietly ancient settle in her chest.

The boat drifted forward cold and silently.

Hogwarts revealed itself the way magic often does, not all at once or loudly. Just slowly unfolding through mist.

The castle rose against the sky like a memory waking up. Towers like quiet silhouettes, windows lit with warm amber, reflecting the trembling water below.

Elara stared ahead, neither smiling or blinking, just allowing the moment to still.

Theo leaned back, knees up, staring openly.

“It feels…” he said softly, “like something is waiting.”

Elara didn’t answer.

Blaise, from another boat, spoke without turning.

“Or watching.”

Draco, who had always known Hogwarts would be magnificent, still fell silent.

Pansy looked like she had expected something grand.

Daphne looked like she had expected something holy.

Elara just felt like something in the air recognized her. It did not claim or call for her, but recognized her.
And somewhere a little behind them in another boat Harry Potter was staring too, feeling less alone, for reasons he didn’t yet understand.

-The House That Watches-

The castle doors opened with a breath of cold, ancient smelling air. It didn’t feel unwelcoming. It felt aware.
They gathered in the Entrance Hall, four groups that didn’t know yet how loudly they would shape each other’s stories.

Theo stood silently.

Daphne looked reverent.

Blaise looked unimpressed.

Pansy perfected her posture.

Draco kept his chin high but his foot tapped, only once, very quietly.

Harry Potter looked like someone trying very hard not to stare.

Ron looked like someone trying very hard not to be stared at.

Hermione looked like she was trying to memorize the ceiling.

Elara looked at everything.

Draco moved toward Harry like someone approaching an opportunity, not a person.

“You’ll soon find…some wizarding families are better than others. I can help you there.”

Draco’s words sounded like that, smooth, learned, inherited.

Harry looked at Draco’s offered hand.

Then at Draco.

And said:

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.”

The sentence wasn’t loud.

It landed loudly.

Draco’s face didn’t show hurt.

But Elara felt it.

Theo quietly winced.

Pansy muttered something about him being messy haired and uncultured.

Hermione looked slightly horrified at everyone’s behavior.

Even Ron looked surprised.

No one spoke-

So Elara did.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

“Don’t worry, Draco,” she said mildly.“Some people take longer to recognize good company.”

It was not a defense.

Not a comfort.

Just, balance.

Theo made a small, almost invisible smirk.

Draco’s shoulders loosened. Only Elara noticed. Draco was deflated. He’d strutted up to Harry Potter with all the confidence a Malfoy could muster, perfect posture, chin up, hair immaculate…and got rejected like he’d just offered him boiled flobberworms for lunch.

He was still frozen there, hand hanging awkwardly in midair, like it hadn’t gotten the memo that pride had died.

Elara gave him a sympathetic pat between the shoulder blades.

Not mocking.

Not pitying.

Just a sisterly correction.

“It appears,” she murmured lightly, “that The Boy Who Lived prefers to remain The Boy Who Does Not Shake Hands.”

Draco groaned.

She hid the smile threatening to ruin her dignified expression. Somehow knowing this would be the outcome.

After all, Draco had spent entire summers playing “Wizards & Warlocks” with Dobby, pretending to be Harry Potter rescuing imaginary hostages (usually teacups and old socks). He didn’t want to befriend Harry Potter, but meet the legend. And instead, he met a bewildered, skinny boy who looked like he’d fallen into magic rather than been born to it.

As Harry stepped away, Elara studied him carefully.

She knew him.

Those were the same astonishing green eyes she had noticed weeks ago in Diagon Alley…the boy who had looked at the world like it was magic unfolding, breath by breath. Only now…He looked absolutely confused and kind of stunned…Possibly hungry.

Definitely Gryffindor.

Disappointing, she thought.

Beautiful magic in his eyes, but a dunce, no doubt.

“Come, brother,” she said, gently tugging Draco’s sleeve as he continued to stare after Harry like a cursed Victorian widow.

“Today is not about you.”

He scowled and she smiled.

Together, they swept into the Great Hall, two Malfoys, heads held high, waiting to be sorted. And just before she stepped through the archway, Elara looked back once more at him. And wondered, why those green eyes still felt like a beginning.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4.

The Sorting Ceremony

McGonagall appeared, stern, crisp, and untouchable. Going over the sorting hat instructions. They followed her through the towering double doors, and suddenly, silence settled like velvet. The Great Hall was not loud magic. It was old magic. Candles floated midair, hundreds of them, softly swaying as if breathing with the castle itself. The enchanted ceiling stretched endlessly above, starlit and cloud brushed, mimicking the night outside. The room felt both open and intimate, like stepping into the world and into a secret at the same time.

Long tables glowed with silver plates and goblets, but no one was eating yet. The upper years had turned to watch them, all the first years, as though they were new chapters in a very old book. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin. Four tables…four ways of belonging.

Draco straightened unconsciously.

Theo looked like he was filing away every detail.

Hermione’s breath caught softly at the ceiling.

Harry looked up, and didn’t look away.

Elara didn’t gasp, didn’t stare, but simply listened. Because the Great Hall didn’t just look old. It sounded old. Not with noise but with memory. Like echoes held in stone. Like every laughter, every plea, every name ever called by the Sorting Hat still whispered in the walls.

They stopped at the front.

The Hat, sitting on its stool, looked almost ordinary.

Almost.

And then…

It sang.

Not beautifully.

Not musically.

But truthfully.

Elara didn’t listen for instructions.

She listened for intent.

Harry looked confused, Ron amused, Hermione thoughtful, Draco unimpressed and Theo curious. But Elara? She noticed that the Hat never said where one should belong. Only where one might be understood. And when the song ended, the silence settled again. Not a single first year moved. Because somehow, without explanation, it began to feel real. This wasn’t entering Hogwarts, but was being seen by it.

Names were called:

Granger, Hermione.

She looked like she might faint when the Sorting Hat barely touched her head before shouting:

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Ron looked betrayed.

Draco scoffed.

Theo blinked.

Elara wondered, what else had been certain in Hermione’s life, until now?

—

Zabini, Blaise.

The hat didn’t bother trying.

“SLYTHERIN.”

He walked without comment.

—-
Parkinson, Pansy.

The hat considered:

Her mother’s voice lived in that pause.

“SLYTHERIN.”

She sat beside Blaise, shoulders held like armor.

—-
Nott, Theodore.

The hat took its time.

Theo looked calm.

He was not.

Elara could feel it.

Suddenly:

“SLYTHERIN.”

Draco exhaled. He hadn’t realized he had been holding breath.

—-

Malfoy, Draco.

No hesitation.

“SLYTHERIN.”

He walked more confidently, his eyes searching for his sister. Elara’s eyes met his and saw the flicker of relief, not pride.

—

Potter, Harry.

The Hall held its breath.

Elara didn’t know why.

But something in the atmosphere changed.

Students leaned forward… Teachers watched…

Harry sat.

Nothing was said.

The Hat thought. Stirred.

Finally:

“GRYFFINDOR!”

The Hall exploded.

Draco stiffened.

Something about the world felt final.

Harry looked relieved and unsure.

Elara noticed that too.

—-

Malfoy, Elara.

It wasn’t unfair. She had known.

But she hadn’t felt prepared to hear it.

The hat brushed her hair.

And didn’t shout.

Instead, it spoke softly. Just to her.

“Not black. Not white.”

“Not loud magic but felt magic.”

“You belong where they listen.”

And then-

“SLYTHERIN.”

She stood.

She did not feel smaller.

She did not feel larger.

She just felt … seen.

Theo shifted to make space beside him.

Draco didn’t smile.

But his shoulders lowered…As if something had finally slotted into place.

—-

Weasley, Ron.

The hat yelled Gryffindor before it even settled.

Ron ran to the table like a firework.

Harry laughed.

Elara watched.

Not disapproving.

Just learning.

—-

That night, four Gryffindors laughed for the first time together.

And six Slytherins sat side by side, not as allies, not yet as friends. But with something extremely rare among pureblood children:a sense that they would get to choose who they became.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5

Belonging isn't loud

 

Elara woke to soft green light shimmering against the stone ceiling. The faintest ripple of water from the Black Lake casting movement over Daphne’s sleeping face. She had slept perfectly, hands folded delicately, curls resting softly against her cheek. Daphne slept like someone who trusted the dark.

Pansy did not.

Her blanket was half off the bed, her short hair wild, her arm thrown dramatically over her head, and Merlin help her…a small, unladylike smudge of drool on the pillow.
It was strangely… comforting.

For once, Pansy Parkinson looked eleven.

Elara sat up, knees tucked beneath her, letting the silvery green light wash over the dorm. It did not feel cold or eerie. It felt ancient and alive, like it was listening. She found herself smiling, not loudly, but honestly.

Last Night - Slytherin Common Room

They had entered the common room tired, overwhelmed yet buzzing in a way they’d never admit out loud. Theo had wandered the edges first, eyes quietly cataloguing passageways and patterns in brickwork like moving puzzle pieces.

“There are concealed stairwells here,” he murmured to Draco. “I swear they shift.”

Draco’s eyes lit immediately.

“We should map it. The whole castle.”

Elara didn’t even look up from folding her cloak.

“The school already gives out maps.”

Theo stared at her, scandalized.Draco looked genuinely betrayed, as though she had insulted tradition itself.

“Yes,” Draco said impatiently, ignoring his sister. “A proper enchanted one. With cunning passages, escape routes, to display the living magic!”

Theo nodded vigorously.

“Your intelligence, and our questionable ideas. It's an ideal partnership.” He said nearly bouncing at Elara.

Blaise gave Theo a knowing smirk, smoothly replying:
“Meaning, They want you to do all the work.”

Elara raised a brow. “Indeed.”

Theo exhaled dramatically.“Draco’s large head gets him lost in the manor. He needs help.”

Draco slung at him and missed.

Pansy had, of course, been ready.“Correction: the one who got lost in the manor and started crying was you, Theodore.”

Theo froze.

Daphne covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Elara’s smile threatened to betray her entire face.

Theo blinked twice.

“I would like that stricken from all future records!” He exclaimed, pointing at her. Pansy just smirked.“As would I, if my mother didn’t have photographic proof.”

They laughed, not loudly, but together. And that mattered more than Elara expected.

They had discussed the Forbidden Forest. The third floor corridor. Daphne’s voice had been quiet when she asked if the dangers were real. Pansy, without hesitation, took her hand, soothing the tension they both had. Elara, calmly, and simply said,“Uncle Sev-No Professor Snape would never allow us to be blindsided. If there was real danger, he would have told us himself.”And somehow, that was enough, for all of them.

Back to Morning - Slytherin Dorms

Elara rose, brushing fingertips along the cool stone windowsill. The lake outside flickered, a shadow drifting past. A flick of a tentacle, soft, drifting silver. She wondered how many creatures lived down there. If they watched them sleep. She found herself oddly comforted by the thought.

Daphne stirred gently.“Is that the squid?”

Elara nodded.

Pansy groaned into her pillow. “If it isn’t delivering silk pillowcases, I don’t care.”

Daphne stifled a laugh. Elara did not.

They dressed, then padded through the common room, simple, early, soft. And for the first time, the castle felt less like stone.

Great Hall - First Breakfast

The boys were already at the table. Theo waved lazily. Draco looked smug.“Theo and I have beds right next to each other,” he announced like he’d achieved a diplomatic treaty.

Elara nodded. She understood what he really meant. He was not worried for Theo anymore.

“Draco snores like a dying owl,” Theo added.

Draco looked horrified.

“Ela!!! Tell him I don’t!”

Elara simply blinked. “I would, but you hooted at me when I tried to wake you the other day”

Pansy nearly smiled, nearly.

“Cease all noise,” Blaise muttered. “Some of us are not morning people. We are mourning people.”

Pansy motioned discreetly toward the Gryffindor table where Ron Weasley was eating like the food might flee.

“If he continues that… display. I may faint in revulsion.”

Daphne frowned gently. “Do you think he isn’t fed properly at home?”

Elara didn’t laugh. She only watched Harry, Ron, Hermione, for a moment.

Then they turned as the morning post arrived. Owls filled the Hall like raining parchment. Two landed before Elara.One held their schedules.The other, wrapped in silver ribbon, their mother’s handwriting. Her brothers, dark green ribbon, elegant seal, he didn’t open it, yet. He looked at Elara. She didn’t open hers either. Not yet. Instead she gave Theo his half.

“Mother always sends enough for both of us,” she said simply to the others as she too gave them part of her treats.

He froze, the quiet kind of stillness when thoughts become feelings too fast to say anything at all. Draco, without comment, broke open his parcel, and began dividing spoils without being asked. They weren’t close friends yet. But Hogwarts, it seemed, had begun.

—-

Elara had read the letter again that morning. Not because she had forgotten it but because it felt different every time she did.

“We are proud, not because you wear green, but because you chose it. Whatever house you stood in, our loyalty would stand behind you.

Millie would like you to know she cries every time she walks past your room. She says it echoes too loudly without children’s footsteps. The manor is too quiet without laughter. Come home safely. We miss you dearly, my darling girl.”

It ended with Narcissa’s familiar looped signature, and below it Lucius’s, written in tidy, restrained strokes that said more than he ever spoke aloud. She folded the letter carefully and tucked it away. She would never admit it to anyone, but her heart felt softer because of it. Even Draco.

The common room was nearly empty when Draco arrived, tie half done, hair suspiciously perfect.

He sat beside her on the sofa, not looking at her, which is how Malfoys said I’m sharing something personal.

“Did Mother write about Millie crying again?”He tried to sound annoyed. He did not succeed.

Elara nodded. “She says the house is too quiet without children.” Draco blinked, then looked away too quickly. He didn’t trust his voice enough to answer.

So instead, he asked:“Do you think Father is doing anything interesting today?”

Without looking up, Elara replied, deadpan: “He’s probably pruning the peacocks.”

Theo, who had been quietly eavesdropping, made a choking noise. Elara continued,

“And Mother, no doubt, is ordering an entire new wardrobe for us to model over winter holidays. I’m already dreading the fashion parade.”

Now Draco looked ill. “She’ll bring the silk cravats again.”

Elara nodded gravely. “With lace.”

Theo looked genuinely pained.

A rare, soft laugh escaped Draco.
Just once.

But once, for Draco Malfoy, was enough.

Potions-

The dungeons were cool, silent, and alive in a way most rooms were not. Magic lingered here not bright, not playful but old and yet warm. Snape moved like he wasn’t walking but cutting through air.

Harry Potter looked fascinated.

Hermione looked ready.

Ron looked bored.

Draco wore practiced arrogance.

Elara….

Elara felt something complicated.

Some days, she thought of him as an uncle.

Some days, a shield.

Some days… a warning.

Snape didn’t look at her.

Not yet.

He looked at Harry Potter, who sat oddly upright for someone with messy hair and a heroic past he did not understand.

And Snape began, word for word, just as Harry would always remember: “There will be no foolish wand waving here…”

Elara felt it while he spoke. The other students were hearing his warning. She was hearing his weariness. He moved through the lecture with the same sharp grace he always had, voice low and cutting, syllables clipped like carefully brewed poison.

But something was different.

The sharpness was there…But the cruelty wasn’t.

Not quite.

It was… performed.

She watched him closely.

He avoided Harry’s eye too deliberately.

He ignored Elara too deliberately.

He withheld softness too deliberately.

And when his gaze finally flickered to her, she smiled. Just a little, soft smile. Private and fleeting, just for them. No one else saw it. Except for two people: Snape and Harry Potter.

Harry didn’t know why that felt important. He just knew, it made Snape’s stare sharpen. Not with anger. But recognition.

Snape turned back to the lesson.

“Mr. Potter, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”
Harry hesitated.

Draco smirked, too quickly.

Theo winced.

Hermione’s hand shot up fast and predictably.

Snape ignored her.

Harry stammered.

Elara didn’t look away.

Snape’s eyes flickered.

Harry felt, not seen. But evaluated.

Like Snape wasn’t teaching him Potions.

He was teaching him something else.

Class ended with scraped chairs and quiet whispers. Most students left confused, frustrated, or intimidated. Elara had left understanding something they didn’t. Not about Potions but about her uncle. Not all sharpness was cruelty and not all silence was indifference. Not all masks were worn gladly.

Harry Potter looked back once before leaving the room at Snape and then at Elara. He didn’t know why. He just knew they both looked like they understood something he didn’t.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6.

The Art of Becoming

The classroom smelled faintly of chalk dust, candle smoke, and something older, magic that didn’t hum like Charms or simmer like Potions. Transfiguration was quieter. A sharper, more forgiving environment. Draco looked unimpressed until Professor McGonagall turned her desk into a pig.

Then back again.

The entire class gasped.

Except Hermione Granger and Elara Malfoy.

Hermione sat upright, bursting to speak.

Elara sat still, pulse steady, but her fingertips tingled. She simply felt something like recognition.
Old magic.

Precision. Purpose over power.

Draco slouched.

Theo whispered, “Brilliant.”

Pansy sighed, “Disgusting.”

Draco leaned toward Theo, whispering loudly enough to be heard, “Father says Transfiguration is useful but terribly dull to watch.”

Elara stared at him.

A desk just became livestock.

Draco ignored this, sensing his twins piercing glare.

Professor McGonagall explained the dangers of Transfiguration, voice clipped and unapologetically stern. She warned they would not transform furniture or living beings until they mastered the basics. On the Gryffindor side, Hermione raised her hand so sharply she nearly levitated out of her seat, after McGonagall had asked the importance of transfiguration.

She explained the theory, conjuration vs transformation, wand precision, concentration, elemental redirection. Across the room, Ron was complaining that Hermione was being “a show off,” even though she had been right, and McGonagall awarded her two points to Gryffindor.

Today’s class's task was to transform matchsticks into needles.

Draco rolled his eyes.

Theo practically vibrated with enthusiasm.

Blaise stared at his matchstick as though it might transform itself if he waited long enough.

Pansy examined hers with a grimace.

“I’ve seen sewing needles. This”she held up the match“is not fit for fabric.”Daphne smiled softly. “I don’t think it’s meant to be, Pans”

Hermione’s matchstick turned silver first. The class whispered. Her face flushed, but she looked proud. Even Elara nodded, barely, even though Hermione never saw, instead she was showing Longbottom the steps.

Ron groaned dramatically. “You’ll wear away your lips if you don’t stop talking, Granger.”

Hermione froze.

The words weren’t loud.

But the silence after them was worse.

Elara looked up.

Not because she was offended.

Because she was surprised.

She had assumed Gryffindors were… loyal.

Loudly loyal…

Hermione blinked quickly, fighting embarrassment. Elara could see it clearly, the way she swallowed too hard, the way she was pretending not to care.

Theo frowned.

Pansy looked almost offended.

Even Draco looked confused, not malicious, just puzzled.

“But… she earned them house points.” Theo murmured, almost to himself.

Silence stretched.

McGonagall didn’t intervene.

Hermione looked away.

Ron shrugged, unbothered.

Draco shifted slightly, discomfort making him louder than he intended. “Probably an inferiority complex,” he declared to Theo.“Poorer families must need to feel noticed.”

Hermione stiffened.

Ron went red.

Elara didn’t wince.

She just… responded.

Not loudly.

Not confrontationally.

Just Malfoy-like…

“Or perhaps,” she said smoothly,“some people simply dislike excellence when it isn’t their own.”

The class didn’t gasp.

But they heard.

Theo smiled into his textbook.

Pansy’s eyes sparkled dangerously.

Even Draco went still, because she hadn’t taken his side.
She had taken rightness.

Ron opened his mouth, to argue, to defend himself, to do something. But nothing came out.

Hermione didn’t look at Elara.

But she didn’t look quite so alone.

Professor McGonagall’s gaze flickered.

First to Elara, then briefly thought of Severus Snape at dinner last night. Something unspoken shifted.

Theo tilted his head. “Isn’t loyalty a Gryffindor trait? Shouldn’t they be… happy?”

Elara quietly watched Hermione, not with pity.

With calculation.

Hermione felt alone in a full house.

Funny how many people felt that way.

——

Theo watched Seamus carefully.“I swear,” he whispered, “that one’s going to set fire to something.”

Elara didn’t look up.

Fwoomph.

Seamus’s matchstick burst into small violet flames.

Theo clapped. Gleefully.

“See? Genius!”

Blaise looked almost awake.“Explosion magic has potential,” he murmured approvingly.

Pansy scoffed.“It has soot.”

Daphne giggled. “I don’t think anything’s ever going to satisfy you.” Even Pansy smiled at that, reluctantly.
As the class moved on.

Draco may have complained loudly to Theo about wand quality. Theo may have reminded him he transfigured his matchstick into something that looked more like a toothpick.

But Elara?

She just focused on the wand in her hand. And the quiet understanding that magic did not always reveal itself loudly.

Sometimes, It simply waited.

Draco flicked his wrist too dramatically and managed to crisp the tip of his matchstick. He still smirked like he’d transfigured a dragon.

Theo arched his brow. “Impressive. It’s smoking.”

Draco looked deeply proud.

Elara barely moved her wand, and her matchsticks shifted in one fluid motion, into a slender, gleaming needles.
Silent.

Precise.

Exact.

Professor McGonagall paused mid-step.

Not smiling.

But noting.

Which, from her, was far better than praise.

Even Draco stopped bragging.

Hermione looked over, just once, and didn’t look away as quickly as usual.

Harry Potter noticed something too. Not just the transfiguration. The way Elara did not gloat and did not perform. Magic wasn’t loud in her hands. It was confident.

Theo stared at Elara’s needles like it held secrets.

Blaise nodded slowly, murmuring,

“Controlled. Efficient. Dangerous.”

Pansy looked offended on behalf of all needles everywhere. “Well… At least someone understands the value of proper craftsmanship.”

Daphne just smiled at Elara and warmly and soft, so proud. Elara felt a subtle, gentle way with them that felt more like belonging than anything else this week.
The class went on.

Harry’s matchstick quivered. Ron’s caught fire. Draco’s turned slightly silver, and he looked like he might declare victory anyway. Hermione’s needle held shape. Elara gleamed with quiet intent. Seamus’s combusted a second time.

Theo clapped again.

When the bell rang, the corridor filled with chatter.

Ron complained of favoritism. Hermione ignored him, lips thin but dry of tears. Harry glanced once over his shoulder not at Draco or at Theo, but at Elara.

She didn’t look back.

She was already reading the next chapter.

_____

-Airborne Truths, Flying Class-

The Great Hall buzzed with chatter, floating candles swaying gently overhead as house tables filled with noisy, hungry, eleven year olds.

The Slytherins, however, were not noisy.

They were elegantly judgmental.

Theo and Blaise sat with identical looks of disdain toward the Gryffindor table, where Ron Weasley was loudly discussing exploding beans with Seamus Finnigan, who, judging by the scorch mark on his sleeve, had lived up to his reputation.

Draco flicked crumbs off his plate like they offended blood purity.

Pansy was quietly horrified at how loudly people chewed.

Daphne softened everything by simply laughing.

Elara listened. She liked laughter, when it didn’t feel like a performance.

They had just sat down with pumpkin juice and platters of roast chicken when Daphne spoke, eyes flicking toward the Gryffindors:

“That girl, Hermione, from Transfiguration. She did well. She looked… proud…Then so sad…Why would they be cruel to her? She’s in their house.”

Theo set down his fork.

“We met her on the train, she’s… Muggle-born.”

He never announced her lineage disgustingly, or cruel, just curious.

Blaise propped his chin on his hand.

“So she doesn’t know our ways, but she learns them faster.”

Theo nodded thoughtfully. “My father has told me that muggles can't be trusted, that they're filthy, and dumb….but I think magic doesn’t seem to… care where someone comes from. Since even the most cruelest beings can wield it”

The table grew silent with understanding, Theo’s quiet meaning. Elara watched Hermione across the hall. Sitting straight. Trying to look unbothered. Trying to hide how much she cared.

She stared at Hermione, not with pity, but with understanding.

Some magic was learned.

Some remembered.

Some were inherited.

Some… just arrived.

Draco, who had been strangely silent finally muttered,
“She’s clever. Brilliant, even. Makes half the class look like…well. But Mother says… cleverness isn’t everything.”

Elara looked at him.

Gently. “No. But it is something.”

Theo took the silence to threw a bread roll at Blaise.

Blaise caught it without looking up.

And then lunch ended.

And it was time for flying class.

-Harry’s POV-

Harry had never touched a broom. Not really. Not a “magical” broom. He could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips, and strangely, in the broom beneath them. Like it was sensing him back. Like it wanted to rise.

Madam Hooch paced like a guard dog.

Twenty school brooms lay in the grass like tired sticks.

“Stick out your right hand,” she barked. “And say: Up!”

“Up!” Harry called.

The broom smacked into his hand.

He blinked.

Hermione’s broom rolled over lazily.

Ron’s whacked him in the face.

Draco’s broom snapped to his hand, of course, and he smirked accordingly.

But then, he noticed her.

The dark haired girl from the trains.

The one Harry didn’t quite know how to look at.

Elara.

She didn’t command the broom.

She didn’t order it.

She simply extended her hand.

And the broom drifted, elegantly, into her palm. Like it had always belonged there. She didn’t even seem fazed.

Harry looked away first.

- Elara’s POV-

Madam Hooch blew her whistle and twenty second-hand school brooms lurched off the ground like injured sticks.

Elara didn’t flinch.

Of all Hogwarts classes, this was the most pointless.

She and Draco had spent their childhood summers soaring across Malfoy Manor grounds on custom Cleansweeps, enchanted by Father and hand polished by house elves. They had learned posture from their mother (“Good form is a birthright, not a skill”) and flying physics from Uncle Severus. He was a terrible flyer, but he taught Elara the physics of the sky, wand enchantments, and healing spells for when Theo and Draco got too enthused during quidditch.

This?

This was… pitiful.

She eyed the brooms with mild disgust.

One was shedding twigs like it had fleas. Mother would've fainted.

Neville Longbottom, bless him, did not make it three feet before launching himself into accidental orbit. He promptly crashed into the ground with a noise like a dying accordion. Madam Hooch took him to the Hospital Wing, shouting instructions.

And that, in Draco Malfoy’s mind, was his cue, much to his sister's dismay. He sauntered to the dropped Remembrall, twirling it lazily. Pansy watched him like a poet watches a sunset.

Hermione watched like she was preparing a legal case.

Harry watched like he was preparing to punch him.

Draco smirked.

“You know, Potter-if the fat lump had given this a shake, he might’ve remembered to stay on the broom.”

Some Slytherins snickered.

Elara did not.

Not because she disagreed, but because she understood. Draco wasn’t being cruel for fun, he was performing. Still raw from Potter’s rejection on the first day. Still hoping to provoke something…maybe recognition? It was all too pathetic, not the brother she was used to. She almost pitied him. Almost. Until he tossed the Remembrall in the air, and Potter kicked off the ground after it.

-Harry POV-

The wind tore through his hair.

The world fell away.

And it felt like…

Like magic had been waiting for him.

Not learned.

Not practiced.

Called.

The broom didn’t carry him.

It answered him.

-Elara’s POV-

Every head snapped up, except Elara's; she lifted hers slowly. She found that Potter wasn’t just flying. He belonged in the air.

No posture lessons.

No wand precision.

No theories.

Just freedom.

He didn’t understand magic, it seemed to understand him in that moment. And that was power.

Not control.

Not lineage.

Instinct.

Raw and unfiltered.

Draco stopped performing.

Hermione forgot how to breathe.

Theo leaned in, “5 Galleons he gets expelled”

Daphne giggled “5 he gets worshipped” watching the swooning girls.

Pansy scoffed “Obviously Draco’s going to win”

Blaise smirked. “I’d like to see which one Hogwarts prefers.”

Elara’s answer was silent.

But certain. He doesn’t understand magic…but it understands him.

And in that moment, Harry Potter, who had never believed he belonged anywhere: Belonged to the air.

Draco Malfoy, who had always believed he was meant to shine…Worried he never would.

Hermione Granger, who believed every problem had an equation…Realized this one did not.

And Elara Malfoy…Felt something shift.

Not affection.

Not destiny.

Not even curiosity.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7.

When Magic Chooses You

-Hermiones POV-

It was supposed to be a quiet afternoon.

Hermione knew she should be happy.

She had answered every question in Charms correctly, had mastered wand swish precision better than anyone in her year, and had already earned Gryffindor seven house points.

And yet, she felt strangely heavy.

She stood at the edge of the courtyard, watching Harry Potter being hurried away by Professor McGonagall, looking confused, nervous, and oddly hopeful.

Word traveled quickly.

By dinner, it had spread across all four houses:

Harry Potter had been made Seeker.

A first-year.

Not just made Seeker.

Chosen by McGonagall.

Hermione sat very still.

Not angry.

Not jealous.

Just… unsettled. As she hadn’t missed it. He didn’t spend days studying broom control. Didn’t practice wand stabilization while flying. Didn’t read One Thousand Magical Quidditch Strategies. He just flew, the way some people breathe.

Magic didn’t test him.

Magic met him.

And that, it turned out, hurt in a way she didn’t expect.

Not indignation.

Not bitterness.

Just not belonging.

She overheard Fred and George whispering excitedly.

“First-year Seeker! Just like James Potter, did you know his dad was legendary?”

Hermione froze.

His father.

A Seeker too.

Brilliant.

Harry didn’t even know.

She did.

She could have told him.

And for the first time, she didn’t want to.

Not out of spite, but because it felt like she was always carrying facts, while everyone else carried magic.

She looked across the table. Ron was laughing at something Seamus had exploded. Harry looked overwhelmed, but soft around the eyes. People leaned toward him when he spoke. As if magic wasn’t just something he had. But something he brought into the room.

Hermione looked down at her hands. She had studied magic for weeks. And yet, she did not feel magical. This was one of the many moments Hermione felt small. She had always had trouble making friends, they thought she was too snobby, and “know it all”. Not understanding this was the armor she held up, to shield her from people. She had thought that once she was introduced to the magical world, she'd feel like she belonged, but once again she felt unseen, uncomfortable. Which was rather confusing as she finally felt that magic made sense to her, it made everything around her finally make sense.
Tears welled in her eyes as she excused herself to the washroom, not catching the silver molten eyes that watched out for concern for her.

-

-Slytherin Table-

Harry Potter was officially the talk of Hogwarts.

The Slytherin table, naturally, had opinions.

Theo stabbed a potato dramatically.

“He throws himself into the air in violation of at least three safety decrees and is rewarded with a sports title and probable glory.”

Blaise, looking thoughtful rather than annoyed, muttered, "McGonagall's a Gryffindor, of course she'd bend the rules on purpose.”

Draco made a noise between disbelief and offense.

“She didn’t bend the rules, she created new ones for him.”
Theo snorted.“There goes my 5 galleons.” Glaring at Daphne as she just smiled and cut her potatoes.

Draco scowled, staring off deeply . Blaise leaned back, eyes flicking toward the Gryffindor table noticing:

Harry is pale and clutching his forehead.

Ron stuffing his face as per usual.

However, unusually Hermione Granger was nowhere to be seen.

“Hogwarts is watching him,” Blaise said calmly.“And I don’t think it plans on looking away.”

Elara didn’t look impressed.

But she didn’t look dismissive either.

She simply observed.

Potter did not understand magic.

But magic seemed entirely intent on understanding him.

That was when Quirrell burst into the Great Hall, face white, turban askew.

“TROLL! In the dungeons! TROLL-in the dungeons!”

A scream.

Students rose.

“Thought you ought to know-” He fainted.

Harry’s hand clutched his forehead.

Hard.

Elara noticed.

Not because it was dramatic.

But because whatever magic was watching Harry Potter had just opened its eyes.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8.

Things That Hurt Arent Always Spells

-Hermione’s POV-

Hermione Granger had never been good at not caring.

She had tried, for exactly three minutes and forty seconds.

It didn’t work.

She had heard them.

Heard him.

Ron Weasley, whispering too loudly in the corridor after Charms.

“It’s no wonder she hasn’t got any friends.”

He hadn’t said it to her face.

That almost made it worse.

She didn’t cry right away.

She sat in the last stall of the deserted bathroom, hands clenched in her lap, back straight, trying to reason with herself.

“I am logical. I am prepared. I do not cry over careless words.”

She cried anyway.

And in the heavy echo of the tiled floor, she remembered…

-Flashback- Charms Class (Wingardium Leviosa)

Theo (observing Seamus and Neville):

Seamus Finnigan’s feather exploded in sparks.

Neville’s caught fire.

Theo applauded. “At this point, I believe Gryffindor should just submit a hazard report instead of homework.”

Blaise, nodding serenely: “We could start a gambling ring. Take bets on when they accidentally blow up the school.”

Theo cheered:“My gold is on Finnigan. Before Christmas.”

Hermione’s feather lifted.

Gracefully.

Effortlessly.

Heads turned.

Elara’s feather rose a moment later, clean, poised, perfectly controlled, with no unnecessary showiness.

Two different kinds of magic.

Hermione’s, studied, rehearsed.

Elara’s, intentional. Natural. Like steady breath.

The only two feathers floating without drama.

Draco was trying very hard not to look impressed by the both of them. “She’s terrifying,” he muttered.

Theodore: “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Daphne tried the wand movement, Hermione had voiced to Weasley. She smiled when it worked.

Pansy and even Draco copied, begrudgingly, and their feathers twitched obediently.

Hermione tried not to look too proud.

She failed.

Ron, frustrated, exclaimed,

“She’s a nightmare, honestly. It’s LeviOsa, not LeviOsa.”

Hermione looked directly at him.

He flushed.

Harry looked between them, and did not laugh.

That surprised her.

Elara turned from her desk, voice even, poised: “You cannot simply swish your wand and expect results. Proper pronunciation and fluid, purposeful movement are essential as Granger has demonstrated.”

A beat.

Then cool, with Malfoy precision: “She is Muggle-born. This is her first introduction to magical society. Some of us,”her gaze flicked lightly to Ron, “have had decades of magical heritage and still haven’t mastered wand conduct.”

Ron went scarlet.

Theo whispered, delighted,“I don’t believe he gets it!”

Pansy chuckled, “Careful El, you’ll overload him.”

Ron’s face twisted , belated understanding dawning.

Blaise exhaled. “I don't know, it seems like a direct hit.”

Daphne just shook her head, smiling.

Draco watched Elara.

Then Hermione.

And something, not dislike, sparked.

Harry, quietly, raised his wand.

No drama. No commentary.“Wingardium Leviosa.”

His feather floated.

Lightly.

Harry looked stunned.

Hermione looked proud.

Seamus’s feather exploded dramatically again.

There was a sudden fwump.

Then, with perfect deadpan timing, Harry turned to Professor Flitwick: “Professor… I think Neville’s is on fire again.”

Theo cheered.

Blaise calmly moved two galleons to the “Finnigan: imminent disaster” jar.

Hermione laughed, but only a little.

Harry would remember that laugh.

-Back to Present-

She sat on the floor, hugging her knees.

She wasn’t angry or even embarrassed. Hermione just didn’t understand how some people belonged so easily. How Harry just flew or how Elara just glided through magic like it was listening.

And Hermione?

Hermione earned every inch of belonging. But she still didn’t feel like she was chosen by magic or by her Gryffindor peers. She tried to be understanding, some people had known magic their own life. It wasn't fair to compare, especially when she knew there were students as studious as her. Her mind drifted to a dark haired girl, with mysterious steel eyes. But then she snapped back to Ron's cruel remarks, tears welled up in her eyes once more. Hermione cried until she couldn’t hear her own breathing.

Then, she heard a different sound. A deep, ugly, grunting rumble….Not human or safe!

That was when the door shook.

And a troll’s club smashed through the stone.

—

Harry and Ron were already sprinting through the corridor.“She’s in the bathroom,” Harry panted. “She doesn’t know about the troll!”

They burst in.

The troll was enormous.

Gray. Massive. Dumb yet dangerous.

It was raising its club! Headed directly for Hermione, who was frozen. She looked too scared even to scream.

Harry didn’t think.

He ran.

And magic, again, answered him.

Hermione never planned on being brave.

She was logical. Prepared. Always correct.

But fear didn’t care how clever she was.

The troll’s shadow swallowed the doorway.

Its club scraped along the stone.

And Hermione Granger, who always had the answer, finally understood what it felt like to have nothing.

She couldn’t scream or run, but only think “I don’t want to die”

Harry however didn’t think and just ran. Straight at the troll, because some things don’t wait for courage. Some things just happen. And Harry, reckless, untrained, stupidly brave, moved with it. “Oy! Pea brain!”

The club swung toward him.

The floor shook.

Hermione gasped, finally able to feel her voice, even if she couldn’t use it.

Ron held his breath, he had never believed wandwork could save him. Until suddenly, it had to. Hermione had once snapped at him in class: “It’s Leviosa, not LeviosA!”
And for the first time ever…He copied her, hearing her voice correctional and precise.

And he listened. “Wingardium… Leviosa!”

The troll’s club levitated, then crashed, right onto the troll’s skull. The beast fell hard, and silence rang. Harry looked at Ron like he had never seen him before. Hermione looked at Ron like she finally did.

Elara wasn’t there when they fought the troll.

She didn’t see Harry run.

She didn’t hear Hermione gasp.

She didn’t watch Ron make a choice.

But she heard the story unfold in whispers.

She saw the results.

Consequence speaks louder than storytelling.

Hermione Granger stood in front of McGonagall, face streaked with dirt, hands trembling, hair disheveled, but voice steady. “It’s not their fault, Professor. I went looking for the troll. I thought I could fight it. They came to save me.”

Silence.

No one interrupted.

Not even Draco.

She had lied.

Not for house points.

Not for glory.

Not because it was clever, but because it was right.

Magic flickered differently around her when she said it.

Not wand magic.

Not blood magic.

Something else.

Choice.

Elara felt it before she understood it.

She watched from her the corridors, expression unreadable, as Harry and Ron stood beside Hermione, not like classmates but something chosen.

Pansy raised an eyebrow.

Theo blinked slowly, observing.

Draco muttered, “She’s mad.”

Blaise just said, “Or very, very loyal.”

Elara didn’t react, but she had thought: Magic bends for different people in different ways. For Harry it had open skies, Hermione magic had opened trust, and for Ron it opened courage. Magic hadn’t chosen Hermione for power, it had chosen her for loyalty. And something about that…felt older than spells.
——

Chapter Text

Chapter 9.

Things That Don’t Make Sense (Yet)

-Gryffindor Boys Dormitory, Late Night-

Ron was still buzzing.

“The whole school’s talking about it,” he said, arms flung behind his head on his pillow. “A troll. A real, full-sized, mountain troll.” He sounded almost proud. “And we fought it. Well…sort of.”

Harry didn’t answer at first. Just stared up at the canopy above his bed, thoughts flickering like lantern light.

Hermione’s terrified face, dirty, trembling. But her voice turned steady as she lied for them. Choosing them when she didn’t have to. Especially since it was their fault she was in the washroom, alone. His stomach clenched.

He whispered, “She saved us.”

Ron scoffed lightly. “Well…we saved her first.”

“We didn’t have to go after her,” Harry said quietly.

Ron exhaled. “No.”

A pause.

And then, almost reluctantly. “But it wouldn’t have been right if we didn’t.”

That hung in the air.

Not heroic.

Just true.

Harry closed his eyes.

“I saw her before school.”

Ron blinked.

“What?”

Harry hesitated, then spoke slowly, like pulling thoughts from somewhere deeper.

“In Diagon Alley. With Malfoy.”

“Draco?” Ron grimaced. “Pointy-face, slime-haired, insufferable-”

“Yes,” Harry murmured, thinking back.

“I met him at Madam Malkin’s. You know that part. But when I left… I saw her.”

Ron froze.

Harry didn’t say her name first. He just remembered.

Long wavy black hair.

Cold grey eyes.

Sitting alone, reading. Entirely untouched by the chaos of the wizarding world.

Not looking around but looking inward.

“She didn’t look like the others,” Harry said quietly.
“Didn’t even look up. Just… calm. And very—”He paused, searching.“—aware.”

Realization bloomed across Ron’s face.

“Elara Malfoy.”

Harry nodded.

Ron almost groaned.

“No, Harry. No. She’s a Malfoy. Her father was a Death Eater. Confirmed. My dad says Lucius only got off because he bribed the Ministry. Claimed he was imperiused!”

Harry didn’t argue.

He just thought.

Of Draco.

Loud. Showy. Constantly speaking, aristocratic.

And of Elara, who said very little, but seemed to notice everything. Her words always left an impact with him.

“Her brother wants people to look at him,” Harry murmured.

“And what? She doesn’t?” Ron scoffed.

Harry hesitated, she did look at everyone but just never to be seen herself.

“They don’t seem the same,” Harry admitted.

Ron sat up, alarmed.

“Harry,” he said firmly, “There’s never been a good Malfoy to exist.”

Harry wanted to believe that.

It would be easier that way.

“Yes,” Harry murmured, lying back.

But as Ron turned away, already settling to sleep, Harry stayed awake longer.

Because some things were grey.

Even when everyone tried to make them black and white.

He turned onto his side. Saw Neville’s empty bed, still in hospital.

Thought of Hermione and how she had been alone in a bathroom, crying because of them. Yet loyally lying to protect them.

He even thought of Elara. The way she looked at people, not cruelly, but carefully. Like she knew something he didn’t. And just before he fell asleep a sharp , splitting pain, cut through his forehead. And as he closed his eyes, he didnt dream of trolls or spells but of a squeamish man in a turban and even deeper in his dreams he saw a pair of piercing ashen eyes.

—-

Slytherin table breakfast

Days passed, and Hogwarts began to feel less like a mystery and more like a maze of schedules, homework, and dangerously enthusiastic staircases.

Breakfast at the Slytherin table had become familiar: silver platters, steaming tea, Blaise reading the Prophet with world weary patience for an eleven year old. Theo trying to charm extra jam out of the house elves (“For academic reasons”), Pansy critiquing everything (“This butter is defensive”), and Draco behaving like a well dressed storm cloud.

And, of course the topic of the week:

Harry Potter.

“Oliver Wood,” Blaise said calmly, flipping a page as though discussing weather. “A Keeper. Captain. Took Potter down to the Quidditch field before sunrise. I watched from the astronomy tower.”

Theo looked up, eyes bright. “Did he fall?”

Blaise took a sip of tea. “No. Actually…” He hesitated, which was rare enough that even Daphne lowered her fork. “He looked…”Blaise frowned, choosing his words carefully.“…adequate.”

Silence.

Dangerous silence.

Draco’s fork clinked against his plate.

“Adequate?” he repeated, horrified. “Adequate?”

Theo nudged Blaise, whispering, “Should’ve said tragically incompetent.”

“I use faultless language,” Blaise replied, offended.

“Oh,” Draco muttered, voice wounded. “So we’re complimenting Gryffindors now.”

Pansy, without looking up from buttering her toast, murmured,“The day we praise a Weasley, I’ll wear polyester.”

Daphne choked into her tea.

Draco didn’t even blink. “Don’t be ridiculous, Pansy. Even Weasley wouldn’t be caught dead in polyester.”

They all, almost instinctively, glanced toward the Gryffindor table.

Ron Weasley was shoveling sausages like a starving Kneazle. Elbows out, crumbs everywhere, eyes glazed with breakfast ecstasy.

Draco watched for half a second.

Then grimaced. “Actually,” he amended flatly,“I take that back. He absolutely would.”

Theo snorted.

Blaise didn’t deny it.

Elara didn’t contribute.

She only stirred her tea, calm, detached, thoughtful.
She had not laughed at Draco’s outrage, nor joined the betting pool of When Will Potter Fall From His New (Unfairly Granted) Broomstick?

Because Elara had seen something different.

Something the others hadn’t.

Not Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

Not even Harry Potter, the Seeker.

But Harry Potter, watching Hermione Granger in the library like he was seeing her in a new light.

And Hermione watched Elara like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. She didn't seem like a friend or enemy but something between.

-Library flashback-

The library had been quiet as not many students filled the room during this time. It wasn't empty, but comfortable. Hermione could immerse herself in her studies. She sat at her favourite long oak table, parchment and books spread around her like shields. She was whispering to herself, a habit those who didn’t understand her called strange however Elara recognized it: Memorization. Reconstruction. Integration.

She was learning.

Not for grades.

Not for praise.

But because knowledge, to her, felt like control.

Hermione reached for a book.

Ancient Tombs and Magical Theories, Volume I.

Not first year material.

Elara mulled it over, she had read that book twice…

She approached Hermione, and the wild haired girl took notice and straightening involuntarily, like she expected to be corrected.

Elara said nothing at first.

Then quietly placed another book down beside her.
A Compendium of Magical Law and Theory (Foundational Runes Edition)

Hermione blinked.

Elara spoke, voice light, composed.“Not required reading. But the runic theories connect to Transfiguration in fourth year.”

Hermione stared at the book.

Then at Elara.

“You’ve read it?”

Elara didn’t smile, but her eyes softened, just a fraction.

“My uncle teaches Potions. He recommends early foundation. Runes are useful for… enchantment clarity.”

She didn’t mention Severus by name.

Hermione’s eyes lit up.

“That makes sense! Oh! And spell architecture! like binding runes and shaping spells through intent?”

Elara nodded.

“You’ll likely understand it better than most.”

Hermione’s cheeks colored. She gave an awkward little laugh and then shoved another book halfway under her parchment…one with a large diagram of a three headed dog…Badly sketched.

Elara blinked.

Hermione, flustered:

“Just making…fun notes.” She said breathlessly, face squishing uncomfortably.

Elara just stared blankly.

Hermione squeaked: “Lots of hidden things in the wizarding world haha yes.”

Elara blinked again and quietly pondered “I assume you’ve discovered secrets you’re not fully prepared to explain.”

Hermione froze.

Elara walked away.

They didn’t speak again.

But Hermione kept reading the book.

-Herbology Class: Things That Grow Quietly-

The greenhouse smelled of damp earth and early morning light.

Neville Longbottom came alive here.

He spoke softly, but in Herbology, his voice had shape with purpose. “This one,” he murmured, pointing to a pale blue blossom, “is a moonkissed lily. Rare. Only blooms under star dipped soil.”

Daphne chimed in, excitedly. “Lady Malfoy grows them, I think. My madre says hers are the finest in Europe.”

Elara blinked. Quietly, gently, something in her chest moved. It was with homesickness, she had not realized how deeply she had missed the manor gardens. She missed the white peacocks. Missed her mothers quiet humming while pruning charmed rosevine and the smell of night-blooming asters. Missed…“Lady Malfoy,” Pansy added softly, “is said to sing to them. That’s why they bloom so bright.” Nevilles eyes light up, curious questions appearing in his mind. He had never met anyone else so informed about plants.

Elara didn’t speak and knowingly Daphne touched her arm. It wasn't anything extravagant but Elara appreciated the warmth. And, Pansy, admirably delicate for once, did not mock.

Theo, however, ruined it.

“Do you think Potter can fall into a flowerbed and explode?”

Blaise grimaced, offended with the soil under his nails, and said serenely, “If he crashes, I’d prefer it be into a mandrake. Equal suffering.” Draco sniffed. “If Potter blooms, I drop out.”

Elara didn’t laugh.

Her eyes flickered toward the Gryffindor table, where Potter, Weasley, and Granger sat like something newly bound. Herbology had been quiet, comforting. Soil and sunlight and white lilies that almost smelled like home. It felt… safe.

That didn’t last.

Because the moment peace dared to exist, Theo Nott attempted to pet a Chomping Cabbage, with Draco enthusiastically encouraging poor decisions.

The cabbage bit him.

Theo screamed.

Elara merely inhaled.

Yes. Some things never changed.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Rivalries & Promises

The stands were electric, silver and green banners rippled like living serpents. While scarlet flags flared through cold November wind. Lee Jordan’s voice boomed through the stadium, gleeful and unapologetically biased.

“And Potter takes off-look at that speed-Merlin’s beard, he’s actually quite good-”Professor McGonagall:“Jordan.” “-for a first year, I meant! Clearly needs posture work, but still-look at him go!”

Theo leaned back, unimpressed.“Adequate.”

Blaise:“Above average, unfortunately.”

Draco, arms crossed so tightly it looked painful: “He’s breaking all kinds of regulations. First year students aren’t even allowed to-”

Pansy, bored:“Complain louder, darling, Potter might hear you from fifty feet in the air.”

Elara said nothing.

Her gaze lingered, not on Harry but suspiciously on Professor Quirrell and her Uncle Sev. Her Uncle was staring fixedly at Potter. Not blinking. Both he and Quirrell's lips moved…almost silently but with the same urgency..She could also see the confusion and frustration on her uncle's face.

Quirrell may have satseveral yards away, pale, twitchy, nervous. However his lips were moving too. Even with Professor Quirells hands slighlty concealing his lips. Elara knew the tell signs of enchanting, the way his eyes shifted and jaw pursed with purpose.

Not in panic.

Not in prayer.

Something… else.

Magic, Elara thought.

Magic without wands.

And that was never harmless.

She watched.

Her Uncle still expression: Sharp. Taut. Focused. She wished she could brush the tension along his brow. Show him what she saw. Quirrell’s behind him: trembling, sweating, muttering.

A ripple of unease stirred under her ribs.
Something was wrong.

Lee Jordan (gleeful, shouting): “Potter’s spotted the Snitch-no-YES-no-YES HE HAS-POTTER’S DIVING-MERLIN, HE’S REALLY GOING-“

Draco stood.

Not out of excitement.

But horror. “He’s going to crash.”

Theo merely shrugged.“So is his reputation.”

But Potter did not crash.

He flew like falling and flying were the same thing.
He caught the Snitch…with his mouth.

The stands erupted.

Lee Jordan:“HE’S GOT THE SNITCH! HE’S GOT THE SNITCH IN HIS MOUTH, I REPEAT, THAT IS HIS MOUTH-”

McGonagall:“JORDAN!”

“-BEST SEEKER IN A CENTURY AND I’M NOT BIASED!”

Scarlet roared.

Green quieted.

Draco sat.

Silent.

Stone-faced.

Elara looked once more toward the stands-

Quirrell was shaking.

Snape was still. Very still.

But both had stopped moving their lips.

She stored away the flash of brown fuzz under her uncles feet, and the smoke that followed.

Slytherin Common Room -After the Match-

Mood: Dark. Sulky. Offended.

Theo had nearly declared the day a day of mourning.

Draco was pacing.“First year. First year. First year. Can you imagine the favoritism-”

Pansy crossed her arms, upset with all the attention Draco was giving Potter:“Yes, Draco, we’ve heard. Twice.”

Blaise didn’t sulk.

Blaise steeped tea like they had attended a funeral. Theo sighed glumly “Potter didn’t win. He just… didn’t lose properly.”

Draco glared. “He’s an overpraised squib.”

Elara looked at him. Calm, quiet.

“No,” she said softly. “He isn’t.”

Five heads turned.

Not accusing.

Not angry.

Just waiting.

She continued, simply:
“He has something we don’t. He has opportunity.”

Theo blinked.

Draco frowned.

Elara’s voice remained level, not angry, not emotional, just thoughtful:“We just haven’t had ours yet.”

Draco stopped pacing.

Elara turned to him, then to Theo and Blaise:
“When we step onto the pitch next year-“She said it like it was fact. “-People will know. They’ll see precision. Control. Not luck. Not chaos. Skill.”

Draco paused.

Chest lifted.

Theo straightened.

Blaise gave a small, satisfied nod.

Pansy smirked.

Daphne quietly smiled behind her cup.

And just like that, the mood lifted.

Theo sprang up first, quite dramatically twirling an imaginary quabble.

“Just you wait,” he declared loudly.

“Potty Potty Pants is going to cry next year-”Blaise grimaced but not upset :“For Merlin’s sake, don’t call him that in public.

Draco joined in, grinning despite himself: “We’ll wipe that smug Keeper grin off his face-”Pansy interjected :“That’s Oliver Wood, not Potter-”Theo:“Whatever, I’ll wipe them both-” Daphne stood up and raised her arms laughing:

“Elegant as always, Theo.”

Elara felt serene, amused, unbothered. She was dragged reluctantly into their little mock victory dance.

For a moment…Homesickness eased.

Opportunity, she thought.

Magic always had favourites.

But skill made its own

——

-Potions Classroom-

The classroom was quiet, still and shadowed. Light lit only by a single lantern and the simmering green cauldron that always felt more like a companion than an object.

Elara knocked, softly, though she already knew he heard her before she reached the door. Professor Severus Snape was not surprised to see his niece.

He looked resigned, staring at the potions book she had in hand. Severus knew it was a cover up for more dubious questions.“You have precisely thirty seconds,” he said dryly, “to convince me you are not here to request sixth year curriculum material.”

Elara didn’t miss a beat.

“Then I must be very quick,” she replied, “as I only need ten.”

He slowly lowered his quill.

They stared at one another.

He sighed first.

They always knew that was his form of surrender.

Elara blinked, far too innocently.

“I simply wished to discuss the Draught of Living-”
“-Death,” Snape finished. “Which, coincidentally, is a potion not taught until your sixth year.”

Elara’s lips curved, unrepentant.

“Some of us are advanced learners.”

Snape stared.

She stared back.

He sighed, defeat always seemed to taste like family.

“Now, Elara,” he said, voice softening, just perceptibly. “While I do admire your aspiring mind… I know this is not why you’ve come.”

Her poise stilled.

Her shoulders softened.

The act dropped.

She looked down, hands clasped, suddenly very young. And for the first time in weeks, Elara Malfoy looked eleven.

“Hogwarts…” she murmured, gaze lowering, “…is not what I thought it would be.”

Snape was silent.

She continued, quietly.

“There’s magic, yes. More than I expected. But it’s not the kind that lives in books.”

She bit her lip. “It’s in people. And that’s…not always pleasant.”

Something flickered, very briefly, in Snape’s eyes.

Something old.

She continued.

“I saw you at the match. With Professor Quirrell.” Her voice was small, uncertain. “I… was worried you were hurt, Uncle.”

It was not a question.

He did not answer immediately.

Instead, he rose from his desk, crossed the room, and rested a hand over hers. Stilling the ladle she had been absently stirring in the empty cauldron.

Too old an instinct.

Too familiar a comfort.

“So many eyes in this castle,” he murmured, “and yet yours are always the first to notice. You see more than you should,” he murmured, “and understand more than most.” She remained still. He added very quietly “You need not worry, child. Not about me.”

She nodded, but her hand remained beneath his.

“Some things move beneath the surface here,” he said carefully. “Some are dangerous. Some are foolish. But most are merely-” A pause. He searched for a word he rarely used. “Human.”

“And Professor Quirrell?” she ventured softly, unable to fully hide her shiver, “his magic… feels wrong. Thin. Like something wearing someone else’s cloak.

Snape’s jaw tightened, just slightly.

“You would do well to observe,” he said slowly, cryptically, “but not to interfere.”

Her lips parted, ready to protest…then stopped. He did not elaborate. He never did. Snape’s gaze flickered towards her just once, and in it was something that looked almost like a lost memory or a ghost.

Long ago.

Of someone else who had seen things too clearly too young.

He did not answer her next question.

He didn’t need to.

His silence was the answer.

So she simply said,“Draco is listening to Hortense again.”
Snape groaned.

“Hortense is a catastrophically idiotic man,” he muttered, “and Lucius needs to stop inviting him to dinner.”

Elara huffed a small laugh, one of his rare victories.

“Father never told us how people can be so different,” she said quietly. “He taught us what purebloods were like. But not what people were like.”

“You taught me how to think for myself,” she continued, accusing softly, “but never taught Draco.”

Snape’s mouth gave something that might have been the ghost of a smile.

“Yes,” he muttered, “I noticed. One day, he too will learn there is more to bravery than noise.”

She absorbed that.

Quietly.

And something in her straightened.

He watched her-

Not because she was a Malfoy.

Not because she was clever, promising, strategic, or magically gifted…

But because she had that rare, unsettling quality:the ability to see truth before she had the words to name it
He would have once said something similar to Lily, he thought suddenly. She would have been proud of this child. But he did not say it.

“I hear your brother has been roaming about,threatening midnight duels and making Crabbe or Goyle his second,” Snape said, voice returning to its usual scathing tone. “I am contemplating resignation.”

Elara covered her face with her hand.

“Oh, Merlin…”

“Yes,” Snape exhaled. “Exactly.”

They sat with that thought.

Shared horror.

Eventually, he let her go, with a quietly rare gift:
A dried moonflower bud. Rare. Luminescent.

“For your collection,” he said quietly.

It meant more than he knew he’d allowed.

-Slytherin Common Room-

Theo and Draco were halfway through a dramatic game of wizard chess (Theo losing magnificently), Blaise was reading posed like a regal prince, and Pansy and Daphne were happily reconstructing someone’s disastrous Yule Ball gown in Witch Weekly.

The room was alive with a comfortable noise.

Until Elara walked in.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t even move toward anyone.

She simply sat.

Folded her hands in her lap.

And looked at Draco.

No narrowing of eyes.

No raised brow.

No sigh.

Just…Quiet.

Draco lasted a full three seconds.

Four.

Five.

He fixed his gaze on his chess piece.

Shifted it. Swallowed.

Six seconds.

His hand twitched.

He straightened his sleeve.

Adjusted his collar.

Seven seconds.

Theo noticed first.

His eyes flicked between them, slowly, as though watching a Niffler approach a jewelry case.

Eight.

Draco’s foot began to dance just slightly.

Nine.

He attempted to continue playing, but kept missing half the board.

Ten.

Everyone in the room had gone quiet.

No one said anything.

But everyone was watching.

Eleven.

Draco cleared his throat.

Loudly.

“If you’re going to stare-” he blurted, voice inching towards defense, “-at least say something, Elara!”

He tried to make it sound annoyed.

It mostly sounded nervous.

Elara didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

She simply inhaled. “That,” she said calmly, “was eleven seconds.”

“What does that mean?” he demanded.

Elara crossed one leg over the other, queen-like, unconcerned.

“It means,” she said simply, “I have your attention.”

Theo quietly slid his chess pieces back into the box.

“No one’s winning this game,” he whispered, despondently.

She folded her hands, primly.

“I was just enjoying a lovely academic discussion with Uncle Severus,” she said sweetly, “when I discovered you’ve made… new friends.”

Draco blinked.

Theo looked up.“Raising Itty bitty flowers with Longbottom?”

Draco went red.

“I would rather let a mandrake babysit me than spend time with Longbottom.”

“Oh, is that why you scheduled a midnight duel with Potter, Granger, and Weasley?” Blaise said calmly, not looking up from his tea.

The board fell silent.

Draco froze.

Theo stared.

Pansy, whispering, delighted: “Scandalous.”

Daphne whispered confused, “Crabbe and Goyle were your seconds?”

Theo was offended on a spiritual level.

“You replaced me with those two walking potatoes?”

“They can’t even spell ‘duel,’” Blaise added.

Draco, realizing he’d been cornered, lifted his chin and spoke with the air of a Malfoy preparing a speech for the Prophet.

“I wasn’t actually going to duel him,” he said, trying to be dignified but landing somewhere near defensive.

“I just… arranged for the possibility of a duel happening, should Potter choose to show up.”

Theo blinked.“So you challenged him-”
“-but you weren’t going?” Blaise finished.

Draco scowled. “Of course not. I only implied there might be a situation worth investigating at the South Tower. Strategically.”

Blaise’s eyebrow twitched.“That’s not a strategy. That’s instigating and abstaining.”

Theo grinned.“Ah. So you’re a spectator general.”

Draco ignored him, smoothing his hair with too much precision.

“Besides, I knew Potter would go. He’s Gryffindor, he can’t resist charging into danger for no reason.”

Elara finally spoke.

“But you didn’t go to meet him… you went to tell Filch.”

Draco froze.

Just for a fraction of a second.

Pansy winced and clenched Daphne's hand.

Draco flushed. “I did not tell Filch. I simply suggested a rumor that may or may not have involved Potter.”

Daphne:“A rumour?”

Draco waved dismissively.

“Potter has proven he's above the rules. He’d probably enjoy the attention.”

Elara didn’t raise her voice.

She didn’t need to.

She just said, softly, like stating the answer to a riddle Draco hadn’t realized he’d been asking.“Tattling is a Hufflepuff trait.”

The silence that followed was instant and brutal. Even the fire crackled more quietly. Draco paled, as if she had spoken something truly unforgivable. Theo’s jaw dropped in brutal shock. Blaise actually looked offended on Draco’s behalf.

Pansy softly whispered, “Elara, take it back.”

Even Daphne flinched.

Draco stared at his sister, eyes wide, wounded, almost childishly confused. “You-” he started, voice cracking.
“You think I’m-?”

Elara didn’t blink.

“I think you are choosing the wrong weapons,” she said simply "Magic isn’t loud, Draco. It isn’t ego, or noise, or attention. It’s awareness. Control. Knowing when not to strike.”She looked at him, not harshly, just plainly.“You have that. When you’re not performing.”

Draco stood.

Hurt and angry 11 year old pride, lashed out.

“You talk like it’s so simple,” Draco snapped, frustration shaking his voice.“Like you always know when to be quiet, when to listen,when to step in.”He laughed once. Bitter.
“You never panic. You never slip. You never even look unsure.” His eyes were bright now, not cruel, but raw.
“Do you have any idea how irritating it is knowing I have to fight twice as hard just to keep up with you?”

Silence.

Blaise looked up.

Theo stared knowingly, like this was a pent up storm waiting to be unleashed. Now that it was, he couldn't stop shaking.

Even Pansy looked frightened.

Draco seemed to have sobered up right as it left his mouth.“Elara- I didn’t-”

She didn’t yell.

She didn’t argue.

She just looked at him.

Eyes glassy, but calm.

“I never asked you to keep up,” she said softly, “I only asked you to stand with me.”

And she stood.

No dramatics.

No storming off.

Just walked away.

Theo whispered, stunned:“…Draco. That was too far.”

No one disagreed.

Not even Draco.

And in the corner, the moonflower she had placed on the mantel glowed faintly and dimmed.

—-

-Mirror of Erised-

Harry wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there. The room was cold and dusty, forgotten. Windows latticed with frost, but he barely felt it. His eyes stayed fixed on the mirror, hungry and hopeful and full of something he didn’t have a name for. His parents smiled back at him, neither speaking nor waving. Just there in silence with him, as if they knew he needed this…As if they had always been there.

He pressed his palm to the glass, it met only icy smoothness.

No warmth.

No heartbeat.

No mother’s hand reaching back.

He remembered Ron’s laughter, when Ron stood in front of it, telling him he was covered in badges, Quidditch Cup in hand, looking proud, adored, even important.

Harry hadn’t laughed.

He hadn’t known how to explain that his reflection didn’t look proud. It looked…real and what his life would have looked like loved.

He swallowed hard.

He had never seen his mother’s smile before. Not moving. Not alive. Not looking back at him. He wondered if she would know him.

If she would like him.

If she would be disappointed.

Her reflection didn’t look disappointed.

She looked like she had been waiting for him.

That… that was the worst part.

Because now, he couldn’t stop thinking…If I stay here long enough… will I start to believe it?

He felt foolish. Angry, even. Wanting something this badly felt embarrassing like confessing a secret that made you suddenly smaller.

He imagined Ron’s voice: Must be mental, going around looking for your dead family in a mirror.

He imagined Draco’s drawl: Pathetic, Potter. Even for you.

Harry didn’t know which stung more.

He felt something strange then, not sadness, but a quiet, low ache. The kind that didn’t hurt enough to cry but stayed heavy in the bones.

He had never felt more alone.

And yet he didn’t get up.

Because here, he wasn’t an orphan.

Not a symbol.

Not The Boy Who Lived.

Just Harry.

He whispered into the cold, empty space:
“I miss you. Even though…I’ve never even met you.”

That’s when he heard footsteps.

Not hurried.

Not hesitant.

He didn’t turn.

He thought it was Ron.

It wasn’t, he should've known, Ron would've caused a scene.

It was Elara Malfoy.

He only noticed her when her reflection appeared beside his parents. He flinched, instinctively stepping in front of the mirror, as if guarding it, the one precious thing that made him feel less hollow.

Elara Malfoy did not sneer.

She did not scoff or smirk or call him delusional.

She only stared at the mirror quietly, curiously, as one would study a page in a forgotten book.

Then, softly: “You found the Mirror of Erised.”

Harry blinked. “The…what?”

Elara’s eyes did not leave the glass. “Erised… ‘desire’ spelled backward. The Mirror of Desire. It shows not the truth, not knowledge just… what the heart longs for.”

“How do you know all that?” Harry asked it quietly, not suspicious, or challenging, just genuinely curious.

Elara didn’t look at him right away.

Her gaze lingered on the glass, not at her reflection, but at something deeper, something behind it, as though the mirror showed more than even it intended. “There’s a book,” she murmured. “A wizarding children’s book given to me, actually. My mother had it once.”A pause.“Or someone who loved her did. It made me scour the Manor library, there was a hidden book between the other grimoires and ledgers. No title on the spine. Just a hand drawn inscription inside.”

She didn’t recite the inscription. Just held on to it instead, softly, like a secret still beating.“It mentioned a mirror ‘that doesn’t show what is, but what is most wanted.’ That idea… stayed with me…So I looked for more.”

“How many books?” Harry asked, almost smiling.

She huffed out something like a laugh.“All of them.”

The mirror glowed faintly, a silent witness.

Harry smiled then, a little helplessly.

“Didnt think anyone actually read the stuff Hogwarts didn't teach, besides Hermione”.

Something softened, almost delicately, at the corner of Elara’s mouth. She didn’t look away from the mirror when she answered. “I could see that.” It was the smallest exchange, barely two sentences each but something… shifted.

Not a friendship.

Not agreement.

But understanding.

A first thread.

He swallowed.

She didn’t ask what he saw.

She already knew he wouldn’t say.

Instead, he said: “Ron told me he saw himself holding the Quidditch Cup, wearing prefect’s stripes, Head Boy badge, school cheering for him.”

There was no mockery in her expression, only observation.“It sounds silly,” he continued quietly.

“It isn’t.” She replied.

Harry blinked.

Elara wasn’t looking at him. She was looking in the mirror. “Some desires may look small,” she murmured,“but sometimes they define a whole person.”

Harry had no reply.

She surprised him then, by lowering herself to the dusty stone floor beside him. Not gracefully, not dramatically…just quietly. Simply. As though it were the most natural thing in the world. The Slytherin princess in secondhand dust.

They sat in silence.

His heart beat too loudly.

After a while he spoke.“Why are you here?”

She huffed a breath, almost amused, almost sad.

“Had a fight with my brother. He seems to have developed… an increasing fixation with you.” Her gentle eyes laying on him.

Harry snorted. “Doesn’t everyone? The Boy Who Lived, or whatever-”

She didn’t laugh.

She only looked at him, really looked at him, like no one had in a very long time.

“From my understanding,” she said softly,“people lost so much during those years. They’re still healing. So when they look at you… they don’t see fame.”A pause.“They see proof that darkness can be survived.”

Silence.

Something hot rose in Harry’s throat.

He didn’t know what to do with it.

Elara’s face had turned toward the mirror.

Soft. Unprotected. “Sometimes,” she whispered,“hope becomes a distraction from pain.”

Harry wondered, why did that sound like something she knew first hand? He didn’t want the moment to end. So he did something brave.

“What do you see?”

Elara stared at the mirror.

Not smiling.

Not crying.

Just quiet.

“Not a memory,” she murmured. “Just…something I’ve never had, but somehow miss.”

And Harry, for reasons he didn’t understand, felt not sorry for her but connected.

“The mirror doesn’t show what we’ve lost, Harry. Sometimes… it shows what we were never allowed to have.”

They didn’t speak, and neither did the mirror. It didn’t shimmer or whisper or change. But Harry had the strangest feeling that the mirror had heard them.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin, sitting in the dust of a forgotten room, both staring at something that could not love them back. Harry looked at their reflections. She didn’t look like she belonged beside him. But somehow… she did. He wanted to ask her what it meant. About pain, and craving, and mirrors that showed wishes..But Elara, with what felt too soon Elara Malfoy had already stood. As though she understood that some desires were too sacred to stare at for long.

At the door, she paused. “Don’t stay too long, Harry.” She stood still for a moment. As if deciding that was all she would allow the mirror to take from her tonight.

Harry watched her, uncertain if he should say something else.

As she hadnt left immediately.

At the door, wandlight dim against the dark, she said without looking back.

“Be careful how long you look into it, Harry. Some reflections start to look more real than your own.”

He stared at her reflection in the mirror rather than at her directly.

Somehow, it felt truer.

“Will you come back?” he asked quietly. He didn’t know why he asked it. Elara paused and looked him in the eye in wonder “Perhaps not,” she said. “The mirror gives answers. But not the truth.”With a final look at the mirror, not pleading, not yearning, just… acknowledging, she left.

And for the first time, Harry didn’t look back at his parents right away…He looked at himself, stood up…and then walked away.

——

The dungeons were silent at night.

Hogwarts felt different in the dark, less like a school, more like something ancient and breathing. The stones held secrets after midnight. The torches flickered lower, as if careful not to wake anything.

Elara stepped through the common room entrance, wandlight low, footsteps quieter than thought.

She had nearly made it across the rug when: “You’re back.” Draco’s voice, soft, not accusing, drifted from the couch nearest the dying fire.

He looked strangely small in it. Slumped sideways, legs curled awkwardly beneath him, an abandoned chessboard on the table. One lone knight stood upright in the centre, defiantly, or forgotten.

She blinked. “You’re… awake.”

He scoffed, but it was tired, not sharp.

“Hard not to be. You weren’t here.”

There was no ‘annoyance’, no ‘where did you go’, no harshness.

Just truth. Just: I noticed.

She didn’t answer. Instead, her eyes lifted to the green flames flickered against the ceiling. The underwater light from the lake shimmered faintly across the walls. She didn’t expect that coming back to the common room would feel lonelier than leaving it.

Draco watched her quietly.

He didn’t ask where she had been.

He didn’t tease.

He didn’t smirk.

Instead he asked,“Did you find what you were looking for?”

Her breath caught.

Not because of the question, but because he didn’t know how close it was to the real one.

She sat in the chair beside him. Her twin could always sense her unease, always knew when she needed to be comforted.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully.

Draco looked at her for a long moment.

Something softened. “You always know,” he said quietly, not accusingly.

Elara didn’t smile.

Didn’t correct him.

For once, she allowed him to be wrong.

His voice, when it came next, was small.

“Are we…” He hesitated. Words usually came so easily, so dramatically, so loudly. But not this one. “Are we… alright?”

The question wasnt are you angry or did I hurt you? Just unspoken, are we still us?

The fireplace hissed softly.

Elara looked at him and saw the sleepy eyes, the rumpled hair, the way he had clearly tried to wait without meaning to fall asleep.

And still failed.

She smiled softly, reaching over, and flicked the chess knight upright.

Not checkmate.

Not victory.

But still standing.

She gave her brother a knowing smile. The kind only a twin could give. A You hurt me, but you didn’t break us smile. A You are still mine and I am still yours smile.
She reached forward again and now straightened the dropped chess piece between them.

“We never stopped,” she whispered.

Draco didn’t smile but she saw his shoulders ease, his jaw unclench. The space between them, unmended, but safe.
He didn’t say I’m sorry.

She didn’t say I forgive you.

They didn’t need to.

They were still them.

And so, like they had when they were younger, before house colours, before expectations, before words could wound, the twins fell asleep side by side.

Safe.

Quiet.

Two halves of the same beginning.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11.

The Winter They Chose Eachother

The castle thinned before Christmas.

Steam rose from trunks being dragged through the Entrance Hall floor. Owls swooped in and out in feathery blurs. House elves hurried about with wreaths of holly, trays of spiced apple cider, candied pine nuts. And laughter echoed through corridors that had been cold and quiet for weeks.

Elara sat by one of the long windows overlooking the lake, fastening her traveling cloak. Daphne sat beside her, folding hers with the care of someone who liked neat things, not for appearance, but for comfort.

“Potter’s staying,” Daphne said, watching Harry and Ron down below. Ron gesticulates wildly with two candy canes, Potter listening with small, quietly amused smiles.

“For Christmas.”

Elara followed her gaze, her expression unreadable.

“Hogwarts is his home,” she said softly. “For now.”

Daphne hugged her knees, chin tucked over the fur lining.

“I’d stay too,” she admitted. “If I didn’t have Astoria waiting. She’ll be up late, pretending she’s strong enough to help decorate the tree.” A smile, soft, full of something fragile and bright. “And Mama will pretend not to notice. Papa will panic and try to charm indoor sunlight again so we would stay warm decorating."

Elara looked at her friend and searched.

“You love them,” she said, simply.

Daphne nodded, eyes warm.

“Ron,” she added after a moment, “is still a bit rude. But it’s… good of him. To stay with Harry.”

From the hearth, Blaise said dismissively. “Granger’s probably made them a twelve page holiday schedule. Ron’s doomed.”

Theo, sprawled upside down in an armchair, considered this.

Blaise added, as he had been pretending not to listen, snorted lightly. “Gryffindors and their sentimental attachments.”

“If it were me,” he said, “I’d stay too.”

Draco, who had been dramatically rearranging his gloves for the past ten minutes, stopped.

“…You’d stay? At Hogwarts? For Christmas?”

Theo didn’t blink. “If it were me.”

It was silent for half a heartbeat.

Then Draco announced, loudly, like a prince making a proclamation.“Well, then you absolutely don’t have to stay, because you, Theo, are coming to Malfoy Manor.” He flicked an imaginary lint off his cloak. “So is Zabini. Mother said I’m allowed to have companions this year.” He sounded both noble and smug.

Theo blinked.

Blaise looked faintly alarmed.

Elara smiled a genuine smile, small, knowing her mother was intuitive enough to have already written a request to host them.

“Blood,” she said quietly, “can only hold so much power.”

She glanced at both Theo and Blaise.

“Family is a choice too.”

Pansy entered just in time to hear this, rubbing frost from her sleeves.

“Yes, well,” she said, unbothered, “if my parents don’t get me a proper gift after surviving the first term, I may simply disown them.”

“What kind of gift?” Daphne asked, giggling.

Pansy’s eyes lit up dramatically.
“Something sparkly. Preferably cursed.”

Theo clapped. Blaise looked vaguely concerned for humanity. Draco smirked. Elara laughed.

And just like that Christmas began.

—-

-Malfoy Manor-

The Manor never looked warmer than at Yule.

Icicle chandeliers. Floating snowflakes that never melted. Frosted garlands wrapped around marble pillars. Wreaths charmed to hum soft Yule melodies. Narcissa’s touch was everywhere with velvets, silver, warmth, elegance.

She greeted each of them as if greeting royalty, though she only kissed Draco and Elara’s foreheads.

Elara paused in the corridor later, watching falling snow through a tall window. The boys were on their brooms, charmed to stay warm. Millie was down there too, scolding them for not wearing proper jackets or gear.

Narcissa had been arranging winter roses in a silver vase when Elara spoke, breaking the trance. Her voice was quiet, the way the snowfall began.

“Mother?”

Narcissa turned, soft and alert. Elara wasn’t fidgeting. But her fingers lightly traced the frost on the windowpane.

“At Hogwarts,” Elara said slowly, “there’s a mirror… in one of the old unused rooms.” She didn’t look at her mother, only at the boys below starting to charm snowballs at Millie in retaliation.

“It doesn’t show you your face. Not really.” A pause, breath held. “It shows… something you didn’t realize you were looking for.”

Narcissa said nothing, but her gaze sharpened.

Elara’s voice softened. “I saw a woman,” she whispered.

“She looked at me like she knew me. But I… didn’t know her.” Her brows drew faintly together, almost ashamed.

“And yet… I missed her.” There it was, the fragile, exposed truth, but not broken.

Narcissa approached.

No dramatic gestures.

No sudden embrace.

Just a calm, graceful presence.

She didn’t ask Who was she?

She didn’t ask Was she me?

Instead, she brushed a loose curl from Elara’s cheek and murmured “Sometimes,” Narcissa said softly,“love remembers us before we remember it. You saw your mother,” she said gently. “In that mirror.”

Elara didn’t move.

“I didn’t recognize her.”

Narcissa rested her gloved hand over Elara’s.

“She laughed softly, your mother. Always from the chest and never just the mouth.”

A pause.

“And she believed, inexplicably, that magic was simply love behaving strangely.”

Elara’s breath caught.

Narcissa’s hand stayed over hers. “You have her way of watching the world as though it’s about to tell you a secret.”

Something inside Elara, something cold, small, fragile had settled.

Just a little.

“She also wore boots to a pureblood dinner,” Narcissa said suddenly, eyes softened with distant amusement.“Your mother. Beautiful, radiant…and entirely uninterested in impressing anyone.”Narcissa’s voice warmed.“Lucius nearly fainted. I think that’s when I decided to like her.”

Elara’s lips curved.

Elara didn’t laugh.

But something in her eyes softened, something thoughtful, something quietly grateful.

She met Narcissa’s gaze…not questioning, not searching, just present.“She must have been easy to love,” Elara murmured, almost like a realization.“I can understand why you did.”

Narcissa didn’t startle.

But her breath caught, just slightly.

She didn’t speak right away.

She only rested a gloved hand atop Elara’s, not to comfort.

Not to soothe.

Just to be there.

Which, for Narcissa Malfoy meant everything.

____

-Fear, Family, and Pink Brooms-

The boys had been insufferable.

First, enchanted snowballs that chased Millie the house elf for two hours straight. Then, mud tracking footprints across Narcissa’s glass tiled winter atrium. (Father nearly fainted.)

But the final straw, the unforgivable offense. The crime against decency, dignity, and Malfoy pride. The self appointed Lords of Useless Chaos had charmed her broomstick…pink.

Not pastel pink.

Not elegant rose gold.

Neon, screaming, aggressively unrepentant pink.

The boys nearly died laughing.

So did Father.

Which was even worse.

Pink broomsticks were not a betrayal.

They were just the reminder.

So Elara Malfoy smiled.

Very calmly.

Very politely.

And began planning.

Not revenge.

Not punishment.

But to clearly correct a wrong that occurred that night after the Forbidden Forest.

-Detention-

The memory still flickered, dark, cold, uninvited.

Harry, Hermione, Neville, Draco, and Elara are sent into the forest with Hagrid.

Looking for a unicorn.

It was supposed to be detention.

It became something else entirely.

Draco had been complaining. Loudly. Dramatically.

“It’s a unicorn. Can we not just wait for it to come to us?”
Neville trembled. Hermione glared. Harry walked quietly.

The forest did not feel like the rest of the world.

It felt older.

Older than Hogwarts.

Older than wands, or houses, or names.

Even the air felt aware.

Elara Malfoy was silently fuming, a rare occurrence as Elara did not do detentions. Not because she was well behaved (though she was). Definitely not because she didn’t break rules (she simply didn’t get caught). No, Elara avoided detentions because she had mastered the ancient art of not being an idiot.

Which, apparently, was not a hereditary skill.

Because here she was.

In the Forbidden Forest.

At night.

In mud.

Chasing something that bled silver.

And worse, she hadn’t even been present for the idiocy. It was, in fact, the purest form of injustice. As even if she broke rules, she simply broke them correctly. Quietly. Elegantly. With planning, plausible deniability, and no witnesses.

Which was why this felt, frankly, unconstitutional.

All because her brother, her tiresome, theatrically dramatic twin, had spotted some familiar Gryffindors. Overheard something about a dragon, and immediately sprinted to Professor Mcgonagall in what he boldly called a public safety intervention.

And somehow…Potter got detention. Granger got detention. Longbottom got detention. She got detention alongside her traitorous twin, because somehow Professor Mcgonagall has it in her head that she is her brother's keeper.

There should be a clause in Magical Law.

Article 37: Protection Against the Consequences of Someone Else’s Stupidity (Sibling Amendment).

But alas, no such amendment existed.

Elara inhaled.

Very slowly. “I will not kill my brother,” she told Fang quietly. “It would only prove him right.”

Fang whined in agreement.

So now, children, and a trembling boarhound named Fang were alone in the Forest, following eerie trails of unicorn blood. All while Draco was… complaining. Like he did not feel the sinister, ancient, or bone chilling situation they were in.

Elara exhaled slowly, rubbing her chilled arm.“I am never letting Draco plan anything again.” Fang again whined softly in agreement.

Neville clung to his wand. Draco followed, pale and annoyed, but, if one looked closely, also uneasy.

Hagrid lifted his lantern higher.“There’s unicorn blood all over this place…Summat bad’s been here.”

Neville’s breathing hitched.

Draco made a nervous sound that he tried to pass off as a cough.

Harry stared at the ground.“What would hurt a unicorn?” he asked.“Nothing good,” Hagrid muttered. “Nothin’ good at all.”

Elara didn’t speak.

She only listened.

The air was cold…but not naturally.

Not wind cold.

Not night cold.

Something else.

Something that felt like… cruelty.

Harry’s scar flickered with pain.

They reached a silver puddle.

Unicorn blood.

Spilled like moonlight.

Hagrid sighed.“It’s been wounded bad… we’ll have to split up.” He turned towards them.“Harry, you and Fang go east. Elara—go with ’im. He’ll be safe wi’ you.”

Something in Draco’s head snapped. “She’s my sister—why can’t I—”

But Hagrid had already moved.

Draco was sent with Hermione and Neville.

Harry and Elara stepped into the trees.

Fang lumbered nervously between them.

——

He said it loudly at first.

“My father will hear about this,” like a shield, a promise, like he believed his surname could outrun the cold, dark forests and silver blood, lurking creatures with more teeth than eyes.

But when they were deep in the trees, under that strange, shivering silence…The Forbidden Forest. Freezing, mud soaked, their wands drawn. In a detention his sister hadn’t earned, but because Draco couldn’t mind his business.

He contemplated writing to his father about this.

He actually thought about it.

Not postured. Not announced.

Not because it was unfair.

Not because he’d been humiliated.

But because for the first time he couldn’t quite name what he was afraid of. Draco felt guilty, his sister should not have been in the Forbidden Forest.

There’s no way this was just punishment.

It didn’t feel like rule breaking or consequence.

It felt like something older.

Darker.

Watching.

He dared a glance at Elara, ahead of them, her wand lowered, calm where he was rattled.

She wasn’t posturing.

She wasn’t shaking.

She was listening.

Not to Hagrid.

Not to Fang.

To the forest.

And that, Draco thought, was far more terrifying than anything his father had ever warned him about.

She had not smuggled a dragon.

She had not broken curfew.

Just Draco, breathless and overdramatic, dragging her along the corridor, insisting McGonagall needed to know Harry Potter was “smuggling illegal magical creatures across Hogwarts grounds—possibly dragons—possibly explosive.” Professor McGonagall had stared at him. Stared at Elara. Then declared that both Malfoys would serve detention. For “irresponsible rumor spreading, disruption, and wildly inappropriate use of school authority.”

“Mr. Malfoy, detention for rumor spreading.”

“Miss Malfoy, detention for enabling it.”

Draco sputtered.

Elara blinked.

McGonagall simply said, “Miss Malfoy, I expected better judgment from you.”

In his defense he felt that he needed to be the one to save Hogwarts. Calling it a “purely civic minded act of heroic duty and obligation.” In his defense he was right, potter and his cronies were breaking curfew.

However, McGonagall just stared:

First at Draco.

Then at Elara.

His father would be so disappointed in him.

Hagrid pointed toward the dark. “We’ll split up.”

Draco had opened his mouth first to object, or complain, or make it everyone’s problem.

But then he noticed the blood.

And stopped speaking.

He didn’t look pale.

He looked alert.

Focused.

Even Hermione noticed.

For once, Draco Malfoy did not look like a boy trying to be impressive, she thought. He looked like a boy listening to something dangerous. His eyes glued to his sister, as she retreated with Harry, with only a cowardly mutt to guard them.

—

For a long stretch, the forest was painfully quiet except for their footsteps and Fang’s uneasy whining. Elara walked like she was listening to something Harry could not hear. He thought back to that night.

The mirror. Why did she always look like she was searching for something she couldn’t name?

Elara didn’t fill the silence.

She studied it.

Harry had seen Hermione think before.

He had never seen someone listen like Elara did.

It was as if she heard something beneath the trees, not voices, not whispers, something older. A kind of magic that didn’t live in wands. Harry wasn’t sure if it made him uneasy or safe.

He stole a glance at her.

She didn’t look afraid.

Not like Neville would have.

Not like Draco probably was, wherever he was.

She didn’t cling to her wand.

Didn’t step cautiously.

She just watched and Harry suddenly understood, without knowing why he was not afraid for her.

He was afraid of what might try to face her.

There below between the trees, a fallen unicorn and a figure, hooded, hunched over it.

Drinking.

Except when it came neither of them were ready.

The unicorn was lying in starlight.

Still.

Too still.

And over it something wrong.

It wasn’t how it moved.

It was how it didn’t.

It slid, soundless, across the leaves not walking but gliding. Something about the angle, the sound, felt wrong.

Horribly, horribly wrong. Harry felt his head split open, felt pain slice through his scar. He staggered and Elara stepped forward, not to grab him but to shield him.

Then he heard her “Harry,” she whispered “do not run.”

It was not loud.

But it felt like a spell.

Not magic.

Control.

Harry saw it, for one suspended breath, the hooded thing turned. Not toward Elara, but towards him. At that moment, Harry realized, with sudden clarity, he did not see an enemy. Nor did Harry see a wizard, his scar burned once more. As his eyes clenched, Elara stepped into its path.

Not firing spells.

Not screaming.

Just looking like she did in class when something did not fit.

Her lips moved, barely.“That blood was not yours to take.”

She said it like a fact, not a threat. And that thing stilled in its path, like it recognized her…Or worse forgot her.

And only looked at Harry.

A slithering sound, Harry staggered. Elara’s hand snapped up, not to grab him, but to signal: Stop.

Harry froze.

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t look at him.

Raising her wand, Harry, realized she was not trying to fight.

She was studying.

Watching.

Calculating.

Like she had during the mirror night.

Like she was listening to something he could not hear.

But her voice was controlled. Low and certain.“Wand up,” she whispered.“And do not run.”

The figure turned.

It didn’t walk.

It slid.

Gliding across dead leaves without a sound.

And Harry knew it saw him.

Not as a boy.

As a prize.

His scar split again with pain.

Elara stood very, very still.“Harry,” she said softly-“you need to-”

But before she finished, Fang bolted. Harry stumbled forward and the figure moved closer, straight for him.

“Elara!” Harry yelled.

But she didn’t scream.

She stepped between him and it.

Then all of a sudden thunder, hooves, a Centaur.

Quick as lightning, the centaur went to grab Harry and Elara, fang bolting ahead. Tail between its legs.

“Are you mad? Do you know what that was?” Firenze thundered after saving them.“Harry Potter, do you not know who is drinking unicorn blood?”

Harry shook his head.

Firenze’s voice was grave.“One who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain.” Elara listened to the meaning between the words “An existence… half life. A cursed life.”
He looked between them. “But not for long.”

Elara’s eyes widened the slightest bit.

Not fear.

Recognition.

Not of the hooded monster.

But of something far more dangerous:

The world was changing.

And it would not wait for them to grow up.

—

When Hagrid came crashing through the trees with the others, shouting“Harry! Elara! Are yeh alright?!”

Draco reached them first.

Draco Malfoy cared very deeply about decorum.

Hair. Posture. Tone. House reputation.

He did not care for mud.

Or trees.

Or being ignored.

But right now, none of that mattered.

Because something in his blood conveyed. Something inside him had snapped his senses. It wasn’t when they heard the centaur. Nor when he saw the herd of centaurs. It was when he didn’t see Elara... He had felt her panic earlier and felt a shift change in him.

His voice when it came, was not soft.

Not prim.

Not dramatic.

It was cold.

Clear.

“Where,” he said tightly,“is my sister?”

Harry and Elara emerged then, mud streaked, pale, shaken but walking and alive.

Harry had never seen Draco move that fast.

He didn’t run.

He crossed.

Faster than Harry thought he could.

He didn’t ask Harry what happened.

He didn’t ask about the centaurs.

He went straight to Elara.

His hands found her shoulder.

Not rough, not panicked, and asked quietly:“Were you afraid?”

She looked at him, her lashes brimmed with unshed tears.

Elara didn't nod or say anything, but he knew she was.

Just like when he felt her fright, his blood thrummed coldly. It wasn't the tremble in her hand, or ooze of anxiety only his twin senses could pick up. Draco didn't speak, he just held her hand.

Hermione saw it.

Neville saw it.

And so did Harry.

He swallowed and turned with surprising authority to the trio.

“Granger. Longbottom,” he said (not snarled),“go with Potter. Now. Don’t let him walk alone.”

Hermione blinked.

Neville obeyed first.

Even Hagrid stared.

As they walked together, close.

The siblings didn’t look proud.

Or powerful.

Or pureblooded.

They just looked like children.

Who had finally seen that danger was not just a story.
And magic would not always be enough.

Harry found this was the first time Draco had ever sounded human or even worse like a leader. That night, Harry Potter realized: Elara Malfoy was like Draco in this sense. And Draco Malfoy would burn the world before he let something touch his sister again.

Hermione would later tell Harry that was the first moment she realized Draco Malfoy was still a child. Despite their confusion, Draco's concern was only with shielding his sister. For, Elara Malfoy, had already seen something children were not supposed to see.

—

-Slytherin Common Room-

They hadn’t seen it themselves.

None of them had been there.

They had only heard the retelling pieced together from Draco’s version, Hagrid’s casual horror, Neville’s traumatized blinking, and Harry’s too long silence.

Draco’s retelling was… theatrical as if he was there that moment with Elara and Harry. And not just heard Harry retell to Hagrid..

Elara gave no clarification, she knew this was to ease the tension in the air. She only listened.

Theo dramatically reenacted it anyway, a wand held like a flimsy sword.“Wands up. Do not run.”he whispered with reverence, as though quoting scripture, Blaise clutched his heart.“That blood was not yours to take.” He teased and Theo nodded solemnly, while Draco laughed encouragingly.

“A very polite assassin, I dear say.” He barked.

They weren’t entirely wrong.

The story had already become legend. Elara Malfoy, calm in the forbidden Forest. Silver blood. Unicorn moonlight. Something ancient and wrong slithering across the roots.

Draco had allegedly screamed,

Neville had absolutely fainted,

Fang had deserted them all, and Elara, Elara had simply said,

Wand up. Do not run.

Was it true?

No one knew.

But Draco told it like gospel.

Except…In Draco’s version, her hand never shook.

In Draco’s version, he was by her side, not half a forest away, searching for her in blind, panicked terror.

In Draco’s version, he was not afraid.

The truth had far less vanity.

No one asked Elara for her version.

And she never offered it.

Downstairs, Pansy and Daphne were decorating a tree in the common room.

Pansy hummed thoughtfully.
“You know,” she said, watching a snowflake charm glow on a branch,“teasing a Malfoy is one thing…”
She paused, letting the thought hang.

Daphne smiled.“teasing Elara…” she finished softly,“is another.”

A breeze moved through the room.

Theo and Blaise shivered upstairs.

They didn’t know why.

But they should have.

Present-Malfoy Manor

The scream echoed down the marble corridor at precisely 9:14 a.m.

“ELARA. MALFOY.”

A peacock, glittering, enchanted, and deeply unbothered. Strutted past the doorway carrying one of Draco’s shoes in its beak.

Blaise was the next to stumble out of his room, barefoot and blinking, his hair now an aggressively shimmering emerald. It was glowing faintly in the dim morning light like a festive yet deeply unwilling Christmas ornament.

He opened his mouth to comment, but what came out was: “Bonjour mes baguettes, WAIT-WHY AM I FRENCH?!”

Theo appeared, chased by three enchanted peacocks shrieking loudly!“WORTHY MATE! WORTHY MATE! WORTHY MATE!” Theo was red faced, horrified, and trying to reason with them-“I am not your-GAAH-stop evaluating me!”

Which only made them circle him more approvingly.

From down the hall, Draco stumbled out, furious, disoriented, hair, not pink and glittery like Theodores, but carrying a single elegant streak of silver through it.

Not obnoxious.

Not humiliating.

Stylish.

Tasteful.

Borderline regal.

Which, of course, made it worse.

A house elf passing by clapped and whispered,“Young Master looks very dignified today.”

Draco nearly died.

Elara entered the hall wearing winter robes and perfect composure.

She glanced at the scene.

Blaise glowing, and choking out mismatched french. Theo being pursued by romantic peacocks attracted by his pink hair. His ribbons made him look like a perfectly wrapped offering to them. Draco’s silver streak shimmering in the light his hands covering his ears as their shoes were charmed to follow them around the manor, singing carols.

She blinked once at the chaos in-front of them.

Eerily calm..

Unhurried.

Then sipped her tea.“I suppose one might call this… educational.”

“Educational?” Draco sputtered. “My HAIR is-my shoes are singing!”

Elara raised an eyebrow. “You charmed my broom pink.”

Theo, using a Scottish accent now for no reason, uncontrollably mumbled:“Aye, but that was artistry.”

Another peacock squawked: “VIABLE PARTNER! COMPATIBLE DNA!”

Theo nearly wept.

-The Adults-

Lucius stood at the foot of the grand staircase, watching.

Mildly horrified.

Quietly impressed.“One would think,” he said slowly to Severus,“that she has inherited some of Narcissa’s flair.”

Snape’s mouth twitched.

Dangerously close to a smile.“Flair is one word for it.”

In the solarium, trimming winter roses, Narcissa did not look up.

She didn’t need to.

She simply said,“Careful, dear.” She hummed “It’s dangerous to get on a Malfoy lady’s bad side.”

A peacock strutted past, dragging one of Theo’s socks like a trophy.

And so that winter, Malfoy Manor was louder.

Warmer.

Less polished.

Less perfect.

More alive.

There was laughter and chaos.

There was glitter.

There were peacocks screaming “WORTHY MATE!” at Theo for three days.

And somehow, it felt like protection.

Like healing.

Like family.

————-

-Meanwhile at Hogwarts-

Harry had never had a Christmas like this.

Warm fires crackling in nearly empty common rooms, gold ribbons twined through the banisters, enchanted carols drifting faintly through the castle halls. No shouting Dursleys. No cold cupboard. Just blankets. Presents. Food. Magic.

And Ron.

Who woke him up by dropping half a Chocolate Frog on his pillow.“Happy Christmas, Harry!”

“Happy Christmas,” Harry mumbled, rubbing his face, though something fluttered in his chest.

They tore into presents.

Ron groaned when he saw another maroon jumper.

“She thinks maroon is festive.”

“It is festive,” Harry grinned.

Harry received candy, a hand carved flute from Hagrid. His heart warmed looking at his own matching weasley sweater. He hadnt wanted to admit to Ron that this was the first sweater he owned, eyes shining with his own engraved “H”. At the bottom of his spoils was a note, written in green, with no signature, alongside the shimmering, silvery cloak.

Your father left this in my possession before he died. Use it well.

Harry didn’t speak for a minute.

Didn’t need to.

Some things were felt, not explained.

Ron’s eyes were wide. “Blimey, Harry, that’s an invisibility cloak! Think of all the places we could go- Not the Forbidden Forest though.”

Harry had been thinking about the Forbidden Forest.

He still heard hooves.

Still felt coldness.

Still remembered, Elara Malfoy stepping in front of him, not with panic, but with precision.

Ron pulled at Harry’s sleeve, face scrunched up confused, talking through bites of leftover pumpkin pastries. “Just-start over. You, Fang, mud, dead unicorn, cursed thing- Elara Malfoy apparently didn’t blink? And Draco thought someone would hex her? And then Firenze…a centaur, Harry? I missed detention with centaurs?!”

Harry almost laughed.

Almost. “It wasn’t fun.”

Ron blinked.“But Malfoy definitely fainted, right?”

Harry shook his head slowly. “No, Ron. Malfoy didn’t faint. He… was busy looking for his sister.”

Ron frowned.

Harry didn’t explain.

He didn’t know how.

—

He remembered that breakfast after, Harry noticed Malfoy further down the Hall. Malfoy was feigning boredom, but his chair sat two inches closer to Elara’s that day.

Harry thought of the forest. Of blood. Of danger.

And of her voice.“Wand up. Do not run.”

Ron threw a bit of bacon at Harry’s head.“Stop brooding over Slytherins, mate. It’s Christmas.”

Harry blinked, smiled.

For now, his mind stayed on cloaks.

Not creatures.

Not mirrors.

Not Malfoy siblings.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12. Malfoy Manor Yule Ball

They arrived in waves. The first knock came just after breakfast, Daphne, calm and composed, with little Astoria bundled in pale blue fur, wide eyed and shivering with excitement.

Astoria had one question.“Is it true? You made peacocks chase Theo while screaming ‘worthy mate’?”

Elara only smiled.

Theo groaned audibly from somewhere inside.

The second arrival was louder.

But not because of volume.

Because of complaints.

“This dress is a war crime,” Pansy declared, entering the marble foyer like someone entering a courtroom.

She lifted a portion of her glitter drenched, voluminous silver skirt with two fingers. The same way someone might hold a contaminated rag.“I look like a well funded chandelier.”

The boys (still recovering from emotional peacock-based trauma) winced in sympathy.

Theo, voice still unstable from the accent curse (Scottish? Possibly Irish?), muttered: “It’s… very reflective.”

Blaise nodded gravely.

“Opulent,” he said.

He did not say it like a compliment.

Pansy glared. “My mother called it ‘tasteful’.”

Daphne sighed. “Which explains everything.”

Astoria giggled. That was enough.

The twins descended the stairs a moment later.

And even Pansy stopped complaining.

Elara in black silk, elegantly structured, subtle silver beadwork at the sleeves and collar. Her dress robes matching Draco’s formal robes, tailored, crested, and reluctantly refined.

It was unmistakable, Narcissa Malfoy’s work. Regal.
Controlled. Understated, yet striking.

The kind of clothes that did not shout for attention, but quietly commanded it.

Pansy’s eyes widened. “You look…like portraits.”

Theo nodded. “In an expensive way.”

Blaise muttered,“Worth a small kingdom, at least.”

Draco grimaced.

Elara only said, quietly, clearly displeased “Mother nearly put me in lace gloves.”

Draco shuddered.

“Father said it was ‘tradition.’”

Theo looked like he might faint.

———

Down the hall, Lucius and Narcissa watched. Lucius whispered in his wife's ear. “Remarkable. One would think they made those outfits difficult on purpose.”

Narcissa didn’t look up from her wine. “Oh, they did.”

There was pride in her eyes.

But also something quieter.

Something Elara didn’t see.

And Draco tried not to.

—-

The boys had begged.

Respectfully at first.

Then dramatically.

Theo, on his knees in the snow, accused Narcissa of “endorsing magical warfare against innocent adolescents.”

She had not blinked.

It wasn’t that Narcissa Malfoy couldn’t remove the enchantments.

She simply chose not to.

Not when they were funny.

Not when they had deserved it.

Not when their crimes included muddy atriums, harassed elves, and an aggressively pink broomstick.

During the first day, Theo’s hair glowed gold and sparkled every time he spoke too loudly. Blaise developed a temporary “truth curse” that forced him to say horribly honest, deeply inconvenient thoughts. Draco’s hair… only had a striking silver streak. Elara did not deny favoritism. She simply didn’t confirm it.

Narcissa watched their chaos unfold over breakfast like one watches a stage production.

She sipped her tea.

Lucius tried to intervene.“Cissa, they’re… your guests.”

She didn’t look up.“They’re safe. They’re warm. They’re fed.” Sip.“And they’re learning.”

Lucius blinked.“Yes but, learning what?”

Narcissa’s smile was soft.“Boundaries.”

The second day, the boys appeared in the dining hall.

Theo's hair was now softly curled, and as he tried to speak. He would instead burst into accidental Shakespearean monologues.

Blaise walked in, paused at the mirror, and whispered, “I look magnificent and I don’t know how to cope with this information.”

Draco, mortified, tried to distance himself, only to be followed by his own shoes shouting, “SIR, RETURN TO YOUR FOOTWEAR.” Lucius nearly choked on his tea.

Narcissa simply dabbed her lips with a napkin and said,“Good morning, gentlemen.”

By the third day, they cracked.

Theo approached Narcissa like a defeated soldier.

Snow glitter in his hair. Slightly trembling. “Auntie Cissa… please… mercy?”

She turned a page of her book.“Two more hours.”

Blaise closed his eyes, fists clenched.“Two… whole… hours?”

“Three,” Narcissa corrected, not looking up.“We do not negotiate with pranksters.”

Draco groaned.“I hate this house.”

Narcissa didn’t even lift her gaze.“And yet, you always come back.”

The truth was, she could have undone the charms the moment she saw Blaise’s hair turn emerald. However she didnt because she saw something else, beneath the glitter and chaos. She saw laughter and friendship.

She saw her home warming.

Living.

Finally, on Yule morning, she had waited until the breakfast table was set, the fire crackling, and all four children seated in dramatic, exhausted silence. Then, with a gentle flick of her wand, the enchantments dissolved. Theo collapsed over his plate. Blaise exhaled like a man released from prison. Draco slumped back in his chair, muttering, “Never again.”

Narcissa smiled.

Perfectly. Maliciously. Lovingly.

“Try not to charm your sister’s broom pink next year.”

Theo shivered.

Blaise whispered “I will never provoke her again.”

Lucius breathed,“I will never provoke Narcissa again.”

Narcissa just sipped her tea.“My boys. You have not yet learned what real magic is.”

And somewhere in the hall, Elara smiled.

Across the ballroom, Theo and Blaise sat solemnly, like men who had survived harrowing things.

Theo whispered,“We vowed never again.”

Blaise nodded gravely.

“Never prank her. Never mock her. Never… provoke… her.”

Draco rolled his eyes.“You two are being dramatic.”

Elara passed by.

Calm.

Poised.

Terrifying.

Theo whispered,
“See?”

Draco… said nothing…

The evening glittered, not with perfect elegance, but with laughter. With pranks. With stories. Astoria giggled, dancing with Pansy, Narcissa smiling behind her glass, with Severus pretending not to enjoy himself, with Lucius defeated in wizard chess by Blaise.

With warmth.

With noise.

With life.

And if anyone asked her later, Elara would say it was the first time she realized: Malfoy Manor had always been beautiful. It had not always been alive.

——-

Malfoy Manor, Well past midnight.

The children were finally asleep. Theo’s curls had returned to normal. Blaise’s hair was no longer emerald. Draco, exhausted from indignity, slept on the wrong side of the bed.

Elara had curled, as she always did toward her twin. They all decided to have one big sleepover before they returned. Snoring away in a bed charmed to fit them all.

The manor was silent.

Except for the drawing room.

Three figures sat in soft candlelight, surrounded by velvet and low burning flames. Narcissa was poised, the flames giving her an ethereal glow, perfectly composed despite the hour. Lucius was elegantly tired, robes loosened, cravat undone (a sign of deep emotional exhaustion).

Severus had his long fingers curled around a glass of elf made aged wine, hair as dramatic as ever, silence as sharp as any wand.

They didn’t speak at first.

Not of politics.

Not of duty.

Not of war.

But of the children.

Lucius exhaled, looking at the doorway where laughter had echoed not even an hour earlier.

“I had forgotten,” he murmured, “what it sounded like.When a house is… alive.”

Narcissa’s smile was soft. Uncharacteristically soft.

“You mean noisy,” she corrected gently.“Muddy. Undignified. Righteous.”

Severus’s lip twitched. That was, for him, equivalent to a full laugh.

“They are a force,” he said quietly. “A small one. Loud. But a force.”

Narcissa tilted her head, thoughtful.“They change things,” she said.

Lucius nodded, slowly, as though understanding something too delicate to hold with words.“Yes,” he murmured. “Not with spells. Not with power. Just… by being.”

Severus stared into the fireplace, eyes distant, unreadable. “They remind the Manor it is a home,” he said.

They sipped their wine in contemplative silence.

For a moment, they looked like the people they once were. Before masks, before politics, before choices.

Then very softly Narcissa spoke.“Elara asked me,” she said quietly, “if a person can miss something they never truly had.”

Lucius’ fingers froze around his glass.

Severus did not move.

“She saw something,” Narcissa whispered.“In the erised mirror at school” staring at Severus pointedly.

Severus set down his glass and sighed, his hands clenched.

Lucius stared into the fire, eyes colder, sharper, but carrying something like grief.“The girl,” he said quietly, “has her mother’s spirit.”

Narcissa looked at him, a question in her gaze.

Lucius didn’t elaborate.

Severus did.

But only one measured line.“Some grief,” he said, “remembers even when we forget.”

Silence.

Narcissa inhaled softly. Chin lifted.

Not cold.

Not stunned.

Knowing.“We do not forget,” she said softly.“We protect.”

Lucius’ voice was a low murmur in agreement “Not allegiance to a Dark Lord. Not to blood. Not even to a name.”He paused. Quiet.“Just… to the children. Always for the children.”

Severus watched the flames.

He did not speak.
But his expression said everything, grief, guilt, devotion, and something else.

Something almost like hope.

Narcissa lifted her glass.“To what matters,” she said.

Lucius touched his gently to hers.“To the ones who believe in something better.”

Severus, after a long pause, raised his too.“To the children,” he said quietly.

And in the dream soft hush of Malfoy Manor, where secrets slept as deeply as its heirs, three adults sat awake. And silently chose, not allegiance or salvation but love.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13.

Logic, Bravery, & Uneasy Respect.

The library was nearly silent, just the soft echo of turning parchment and the occasional hum of quills. Candles flickered overhead, their flames stretching thin shadows between towering shelves.

Elara sat nestled by the arched windows, a pile of Charms essays and silver sealed parchment at her side. The late autumn light made her hair look like spun gold and ink, though she was too absorbed to notice.

Hermione stood at the end of the table for nearly ten seconds before speaking.

“Can I… sit with you? I-I work better in quiet places. And everyone else keeps calling me ‘Professor’ whenever I correct their homework. Which…rightfully, I did-but-anyway.” She stopped herself before she could unravel further.

Elara didn’t tease, didn’t roll her eyes, didn’t ignore.

She simply smiled. “I know. Sit.”

Hermione blinked and with no hesitation she slid into the seat.

For thirty quiet minutes, they worked together and something easy formed. Hermione handed Elara her Potions draft, hesitant.

“This part,” Hermione murmured, “I know it’s correct, but Snape keeps circling it in red, and Ron said that means ‘you may be correct, but you’re also irritating him,’ which isn’t helpful.”

Elara glanced at it. “It’s correct, however you explained why in your method. With him, you need to state it. You can't convince him.”

Hermione stared, then scribbled. Something like pride and relief glowed beneath her ribs.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Elara only nodded.

Then, two shadows blocked the light.

Draco strolled in with Theo at his shoulder, looking as if the entire library had been constructed for his dramatic entrance. He stopped short when he saw the table.

More precisely, when he saw Hermione at the table.

His brow lifted, slow, disbelieving, almost offended.

Hermione’s quill paused mid-air.

“You are here,” Draco said, as if it were an accusation.
Hermione, trying not to bristle, smiled too sweetly. “Yes. Some of us like to read as it is a library , Malfoy.”

Theo nearly choked a laugh.

Draco opened his mouth, paused, eyes flicking to Elara, then back to Hermione.

“You’re… sitting in her spot,” he said, chin tilting.

“It’s just a table,” Hermione countered, steady. “I think Elara would prefer someone sitting in it to work, not gossip.”

Theo’s eyes flickered between them. A slow smile formed, as a spectator at a match he’d definitely paid admission for.

Elara was also smiling into the page she wasn’t reading.
Draco’s retort came slowly, thoughtful. Not cruel, but curious.

“You’re rather bold these days, Granger.”

Hermione didn’t fluster.

“I think,” she said, softly but firmly, “I’m finally being useful, not just correct.”

It landed differently.

Draco tilted his head.

Theo raised his brows.

“Are we quite finished with the theatrics, Draco, or shall we actually get to work?”Theo said, taking the seat next to the amused Slytherin princess.

Elara watched with that warm, knowing look, the one that said she could already see the thread being spun before any of them could.

Something was changing.

-Slytherin Common Room-

Most nights at the end of term were loud. As chess matches began, gossip, warm fires crackled beneath emerald lanterns, but tonight, the laughter felt thin. Like faint light stretched over a brewing storm.

Blaise, Draco, and Pansy were smug. Slytherin was in the house points lead, and they made sure everyone knew it.

But Elara…She was quiet. Playing with the corner of her parchment, distracted, breathing just a little too slow, eyes distant. Theo noticed it first. Her tells were subtle, a tapping of her thumb to wrist, exhaling twice before speaking. A kind of stillness, not peace but unease. She was sensing something. Draco, lounging across from her, pretended not to watch, but his gaze flicked back every few minutes.

“You’re quiet,” he finally muttered. Too casual. Too observant.

She didn’t answer. She just stared into the fire. The flames reflected in her eyes, but not warm, not golden.

Just… red.

Like the forest.

Like that night when shadows felt alive.

Professor Snape swept into the room. His cloak trailing like storm clouds.

He didn’t speak softly.

“Effective immediately, everyone to their rooms. Now.”

Shocked murmurs. No explanation.

Students began rushing toward the staircases, but Elara stood. Hands trembling, just slightly.

She opened her mouth, unexpectedly dry. “Uncle, is it-?”

Snape didn’t look at her. Not fully. But the brief flicker of his gaze was sharp, protective, but also warning, telling her enough.

“This is not the night to explore curiosity,” he said quietly. “To bed.”

Pansy tugged her wrist. “Elara, come on, before he deducts points!”

Draco didn’t tug.

He just placed a steady hand at her back.

Guiding her forward.

Like he did at the courtyard.

Like he did when she went still.

And Elara thought something was brewing….

And it has to do with a certain scarred boy.
—-

——
-Trials of Stone and Shadows-

Harry stood before the open trapdoor, the dark hole yawning beneath his feet.

His hands were shaking, badly enough that he had to grip the edge of his wand to steady them. His stomach twisted, tight and sick. It wasn’t just fear. It was the horrible awareness that once he stepped through, there would be no undoing it.

Behind him, Ron shifted, nervous. Hermione’s breathing was too fast.

For a moment, Harry’s mind snagged on something small and grounding , a memory of calm spoken once in passing, long ago enough that it felt like it belonged to another lifetime.

Being scared doesn’t mean you don’t go.

He swallowed.

“I’ll go first,” he said, his voice thinner than he wanted.

Then he jumped.

⸻

-The Devil’s Snare-

The fall knocked the breath clean out of him.

For one terrifying second, Harry thought he was dying, then the ground moved.

Vines whipped around his ankles, his wrists, his chest. Pressure closed in from every side. The air felt suddenly far away.

Ron shouted. Hermione screamed.

Harry panicked.

He thrashed hard, heart racing, lungs burning, the plant tightening like it could feel his fear. Spots danced in his vision. He thought wildly of cupboards. Of Dudley sitting on him. Of not getting free.

Then, through the terror, a sliver of memory cut through the noise.

Just the feeling of stillness. Of stopping.

He heard her voice, not really, but memory like: calm, certain. “Wands up, don't run.”

 

“Don’t fight!” Harry gasped. “It-it makes it worse-!”

Ron froze mid-struggle. Hermione’s cries hitched and stopped. The Devil’s Snare hesitated and loosened.

They dropped a few inches.

Hermione’s wand jerked up with shaking hands. “L-Lumos!”

Blue light burst into life. The vines recoiled instantly, slithering away from the heat like wounded snakes.

They collapsed in a heap on the stone floor, gulping air.

Ron stared at the retreating plant as if it might lunge again. Hermione looked pale and close to tears. Harry’s legs wouldn’t quite stop shaking.

They had almost died.

That was the only thought in his head.

⸻

-The Chess Sacrifice-

The chessboard was alive in the worst possible way.

Every time a piece shattered under attack, Harry felt it in his bones, the crash like thunder, the sound of stone on stone echoing in his chest. The game moved too fast. It was too loud. Too final.

Ron’s face changed as the board shifted.

Harry saw it happen in real time, the moment Ron understood what had to be done.

“No,” Hermione said quickly. “Wait!”

Ron didn’t look at him.

He looked at Hermione and whispered, “He thinks it’s the only way.”

Ron moved his knight.

Everything happened at once.

The queen struck. Stone exploded. Ron was thrown back violently, hitting the ground with a sound that made Harry’s stomach drop straight through the floor.

“RON!”

Harry ran to him, dropping to his knees. Ron’s skin was cold and gray. He wasn’t moving.

For one awful second, Harry thought he was dead.

His chest hurt. His eyes burned. He didn’t remember getting up, only that Hermione was crying and shaking and gripping his sleeve like she would fall apart if she let go.

Ron had done it for them.

Not to win.

For them.

And Harry felt something tighten painfully in his chest, something that would never quite loosen again.

⸻

-The Potion Logic Trial-

Fire roared at both ends of the room.

The heat pressed in on Harry’s face. The flames were too real, too alive, and suddenly he felt very, very small.

Hermione dropped to her knees immediately, eyes flying over the bottles and the riddle. Harry hovered beside her, useless, his thoughts tangled and loud.

Too many choices. Too many ways to die.

Minutes stretched thin.

Hermione’s breathing slowed as she worked. Her lips moved silently as she reread the riddle again and again.

Harry felt the weight of waiting, the kind that crawls under your skin. He thought of Ron lying pale on the chessboard. Of the trapdoor above them, so far away now.

Finally, Hermione’s eyes lit with certainty.

“It’s logic,” she whispered. “Not magic.”

She handed Harry a small bottle. The liquid inside shimmered faintly.

His hand shook when he took it.

The bottle felt heavier than it should have.

“Only one of us can go on,” Hermione said softly. Her voice cracked at the word only.

Harry looked at her. Then at the fire. Then back at the bottle.

He was terrified but he trusted her judgment.

He drank.

——

Harry stepped into the final chamber.

Cold rushed over him at once- not the sharp cold of winter, but the deep, aching chill of something old and watchful. The kind that slipped beneath skin and settled into bone.

The Mirror stood at the far end of the chamber.

And before it,

Quirrell.

Every instinct in Harry screamed wrong.

Then the ache in his scar flared, hot and blinding, and he staggered back with a sharp breath. The room tilted. That same sickening pull wrapped around him, the same unnatural wrongness he had felt in the Forbidden Forest beside the unicorn’s blood.

Quirrell turned slowly.

“There you are,” he said softly.

Harry’s mouth went dry.

Quirrell’s back straightened. His shoulders squared in a way they never had before. When he spoke again, the voice was colder. Older. Curious in a way that made Harry’s skin crawl.

“Funny, Potter… when I first sensed you… I thought the girl would be with you.”

Harry went very still.

Quirrell’s lip twitched. “The one with the strange light. Marked by older magic like you. She reminded me of… something long forgotten.”

For a heartbeat, Quirrell’s expression faltered.

Then his face contorted.

A second voice rose through his mouth, thin, ancient, sharp with memory.

“She walked like someone who should be gone.”

The temperature in the room plummeted.

“Unicorn blood was spilled,” the voice hissed. “And she did not tremble.”

Harry’s chest tightened painfully.

“That blood was not yours to take,” he whispered, the words ripping free before he could stop them.

Quirrell -no, the thing inside Quirrell- jerked violently.

“She said that to him,” the voice snarled.

Harry didn’t know how he knew.

He just did.

“Enough,” Quirrell snapped suddenly, his own voice returning in a harsh snarl. “Get me the Stone, Potter.”

Harry’s heart slammed violently against his ribs.

He turned slowly to the Mirror.

The glass flared with silver light.

His reflection vanished.

He saw his parents.

His mother smiled at him, warm and whole. His father’s hand rested steady on her shoulder. They looked alive. Proud. Safe.

His throat closed. His eyes burned.

And for the briefest, inexplicable second…

He saw Elara.

Not fully. Not clearly.

A shape of light at the edge of the reflection.

Not behind him. Not beside him.

Slightly in front.

Like a warning.

Like a shield.

Harry’s breath hitched.

He swallowed hard and lied.

“I see myself,” he said, voice shaking just enough to sound real, “winning the House Cup for Gryffindor.”

Silence.

Then-

“He lies,” the second voice said whispered.

Harry’s blood turned to ice.

“Unwrap your turban,” it commanded.

Quirrell’s hands trembled as he obeyed. The cloth fell away.

And where the back of Quirrell’s head should have been…

A face stared at Harry.

Red eyes burned into him. A mouth twisted in pleasure.

Voldemort.

Harry stumbled back with a sharp cry.

“So,” Voldemort whispered, breath curling through Quirrell’s mouth, “there is the boy who lived.”

Harry’s hand brushed his pocket.

The Stone was there.

“You have it,” Voldemort said lazily. “You feel it, don’t you? Give it to me, Harry… and I will spare you.”

Harry shook his head, terror roaring in his ears.

“Join me,” Voldemort coaxed. “Or die as your parents did. Begging. Helpless.”

“No!” Harry yelled, the word tearing out of him. “I won’t!”

“Then seize him,” Voldemort ordered coldly.

Quirrell lunged.

His hands closed around Harry’s arm-

And blistered instantly.

Quirrell screamed.

Harry cried out as pain flared through his scar, brighter, hotter than anything he had ever felt. On instinct, blind with terror and agony, he grabbed Quirrell’s hands and held on.

Quirrell shrieked as smoke poured from his skin.

“Let go, you fool!” Voldemort roared.

But Harry couldn’t.

The pain in his hands was unbearable. The pain in his head was blinding. The world narrowed to heat and screaming and the burning smell of skin.

Fire roared through Harry’s veins.

White hot agony seared his hands.

Quirrell convulsed violently, collapsing forward as if his body could no longer contain what lived inside it. Smoke choked the chamber. Stone cracked beneath their feet.

“THIS CANNOT BE!” Voldemort screamed, not in pain, but in furious recognition.

Harry felt himself losing strength.

His fingers slipped.

The room spun violently as he fell.

Darkness rushed in.

And Harry!

Harry did not feel like a hero.

He felt like a child who had survived on instinct alone.

Like he had stumbled along a path he barely understood.

Like he had only followed courage that had once been shown quietly, without spectacle.

A quieter kind of bravery.

The kind that never asked to be seen.

Chapter Text

Part 2. Waking Up

The first thing Harry heard was the soft clink of glass and linen moving. Harry woke to soft sunlight warming his face. Glasses were folded neatly on the bedside table, beside a stack of chocolate frogs and a tiny box of Every-Flavour Beans.

White sunlight, blurry through bandages and gauze-wrapped windows. And there, in a squashy armchair too small for him, sat Professor Dumbledore. Reading a medical chart upside down and pretending it made perfect sense. As though he had always been waiting.

“You’re awake,” he said gently..

Harry blinked. He reached for his glasses, Dumbledore quietly passed them to him.

Harry’s voice cracked before it fully formed.

“Are-are Ron and Hermione!?”

“Quite well,” Dumbledore smiled lightly, eyes twinkling “Miss Granger has been most insistent that I let her visit you, though I suspect she really wants to interrogate Madam Pomfrey on bezoars. While Ron is still boasting that he sacrificed himself quite gallantly."

Harry let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. It sounded like his friends were okay.

“Professor… how did I survive? Voldemort h-he said he couldn’t touch me. That there was magic. Old magic. Something he didn’t understand.”

Dumbledore’s smile faded, but his eyes grew warmer.

“Ah, yes. That is something he has never understood.”     

He leaned forward, voice softer.“Your mother died to save you.”  

“Not because she had to, but because she chose to. A choice that created a protection Voldemort cannot possess. Because he cannot comprehend it.”  

Harry stared.  

Dumbledore did not answer immediately.  

Instead, he looked at Harry the way one looks at starlight. Not directly, but knowingly.                

“Most who are truly brave,” he said softly, “never feel like they are.”    

Harry didn’t look convinced.  

“But! Professor Quir-Voldemort. He said my parents died begging him for mercy.”  

There was silence. Not empty.  

“Ah,” Dumbledore said gently. “He would mix up truths when confronted.”   

He folded his hands.   

“Love won tonight, Harry. Not the warm, gentle kind alone, but the kind that protects. The kind that notices suffering and refuses to remain still.”   

Harry stared.   

A memory flickered.  

Not of Hermione.   

Not of Ron.   

Someone quiet. Someone who once stood between a creature and harm without thinking of herself.   

He didn’t say her name.   

But he felt it.   

Dumbledore watched him curiously, as if he might somehow know who Harry was thinking of.   

“Some people,” Dumbledore added softly, “cast that magic without knowing they do. It is an ancient protection… and it does not come from books but sacrifice.”   

Harry felt something in his chest pound, not pain.   

Did that mean….  
 
Could she…also have been…?    

No. No, don’t be silly. He shook his head. It was just the leftover fragments of a battle he didn’t understand.    

“Voldemort doesn’t understand love?,” Harry question again.    

“No he does not understand a sacrifice made with love. Or any kind of love be it a soft kind or fierce. Love can stand between danger and someone else.”    

His gaze held Harry’s…searching, knowing.   

“Some people,” he added quietly, “carry that protection naturally. Not learned, not taught. Just there.”   

Harry looked back up.   

“Sir… did I really stop him?”   

Dumbledore’s gaze softened.   

“Yes,” he said gently. “Not with strength. Not even with bravery.” He paused, “but with your mothers love. The kind Voldemort underestimated.”      

Harry didn’t say anything.   

But he thought about it.   

Of someone who stood between danger and a unicorn.  

Of someone who simply knew when something was wrong.   

Of someone who didn’t seem surprised when the forest felt… different.   

Of also a mother…he knew nothing about but loved him fiercely. His heart ached.   

Dumbledore watched the flicker of thought cross his face but said nothing more.  

Instead, he gently pushed the box of Every-Flavour Beans toward him.  

“Care for one? I once had the misfortune of tasting a vomit flavoured one in my youth, and so naturally assumed I’d never risk another.”  

He picked one up, squinting at it.  

“But, I suppose when one is over one hundred and fifty, one must be brave.”  

Harry smiled, faintly.  

Dumbledore popped it in his mouth.  

A long, thoughtful pause.   

“…Earwax,” he declared.   

Harry laughed, a real one.   

Then, a quieter moment.   

“Sir… I didn’t feel brave. Not once. I just… I just didn’t want to walk away. I just knew someone had to do something. Even though I didn’t know what.”   

Dumbledore’s gaze softened.   

“Do you know, Harry,” he said gently, “most who are truly brave say exactly that.”   

He sat back, eyes glowing with quiet pride.   

“Bravery is not always loud. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice that says ‘I cannot walk away.’”       
Harry swallowed, thinking again of a girl who had said something very much like that, only in different words.   

Dumbledore watched, knowingly. 

And yet Harry just stared at his hands.   

He had never felt smaller.  

Or stronger.  

-Unbeknownst to them, another listener-

Behind the high linen curtained partition a quiet breathing could be heard. In a bed near the corner, Theo Nott, laid awake. He had not meant to listen. 

He had been in the Hospital wing since the night before…couldn’t seem to sleep no matter how much Dreamless Potion he was given. Theo rarely slept well. Not when home meant unrest. Not when silence didn’t feel safe.  

Madam Pomfrey kept the potion steady for him.  

A private agreement, unspoken but understood
But when he heard the words older magic, and saw Harry Potter’s expression…He felt something in his own chest stir. 

Something that did not quite feel like his.   

Something that reminded him of home.  

Not the cold marble floors.  

Not his father.   

No.  

A different kind of home.   

One made of wool blankets and shared secrets.
Her voice, saying quietly, without grandeur.  

“You don’t have to feel brave. You just have to still help.”   

Theo lay still.  

Eyes open.   

And something ancient hummed quietly between the white.   

-The End of Year Feast- 

Great Hall, Last Night of Term. 

Emerald and silver banners draped from every wall. Slytherin House shimmered with victory, the tables proud, loud, smug. Blaise leaned back with a lazy grin. Pansy was pre-counting the prefect badges she was certain would be delivered early. Blaise, calm and elegant, merely smirked, the kind of smirk that didn’t need to brag, because it already belonged. 

Slytherin banners never seemed to shimmer so brightly overhead, Draco felt the victory in his bones. Silver threads, deep green silk, shining like inheritance and destiny. 

Yes. 

His house had won.  

Rightfully.   

Pansy was already whispering about gifts to request for her achievements.  

Theo gathered his books neatly, feeling the excitement but had a quiet tremor.   

Draco looked like Christmas morning wrapped in aristocratic arrogance. His chin held high. His robes, freshly ironed for tonight. That satisfied, triumphant Malfoy smirk settled firmly in place.

The Slytherin table buzzed, boastful, certain, ready to be seen.   

His sister wasn’t grinning though, but she was soft.  

Peaceful, almost.  

Her hands folded, posture straight, gaze lifted at the glowing green banners above.  

She looked content.  

Draco leaned back, arms crossed, satisfied.  

His sister always preferred restraint, but even she couldn’t hide the small, pleased smile from the corner of her mouth.  

This was their house. Their table. Their year.  

Then Dumbledore stood, smiling.  

And Draco’s first ounce of doubt arrived.  

The headmaster smiled a kind of smile that did not give away everything. But always gave away something.  

“Another year gone,” he began. “We are all a little wiser…”. 

Eyes twinkled over his half-moon spectacles. “…and, I hope, a little braver.”  

Draco tried to put his unease away, focusing on the points.  

Slytherin: 472.   

Smug delight. Pansy clapped. Draco didn’t smile, he smirked.  

Hufflepuff: 352.  

Ravenclaw: 426.  

Gryffindor: 312.   

A triumphant buzz filled Slytherin.  

Draco leaned back, satisfied.  

Then…“However…”   

Slytherin fell silent.  

Elara went still.  

Not dismayed.   

Not angry.  

Just…still.  

As if she had already heard the speech before.
Then the points began.  

“…for chess, to Ronald Weasley…”. 

“…for logic, to Hermione Granger…”  

“…for courage, to Harry Potter…”   

With every name, and every point…Harry’s friends sat straighter. The candles flickered and hall shifted. Slytherin noise faded and laughter ended.   

Elara’s hands folded just a little tighter. Draco looked at her, waiting for the frown, the eye roll, the elbow jab at him for “looking too shocked.” 

It didn’t come.  

She looked… as though she had expected this outcome.  

Not wanted it.  

Just known.  

Not angry.  

Not panicked.  

Not even disappointed.  

Just… aware.  

Finally came the last blow.  

“…and to Mr. Neville Longbottom, for showing what true bravery is…”. 

And Elara…

She didn’t react like the others. She sat very still. And the banners turned. The green faded. Scarlet spilled across the ceiling like spreading fire.  

Draco felt humiliation like a slap.  

Pansy gasped.  

Someone cursed.  

Theo froze mid-cheer his hands half-clapped, as if his body stopped before his mind did.  

But Elara pressed her lips together.  

Not upset.  

Not unmoved.  

Just quietly, achingly somewhere else, as though the room had suddenly fallen into perfect, eerie balance. Someone had drawn in a breath, others holding it. Like someone had felt the tide turn a moment before the wave hit.  

Draco confusion fell over him like a cold shower. 

He looked at her first. 

Why wasn’t she angry? Why wasn’t she even surprised? Draco’s chest tightened with something entirely unwelcome. Because for the first time, he had a thought he’d never had in his life: Slytherin had lost.  

Beside him, Theo finally lowered his hands, quietly.  

The smile was gone.  

Not angry. Not disappointed.  

Wistful.  

And very far away.  

Draco frowned.  

“You alright?” he muttered, still irritated from the loss, still struggling to make sense of Elara. 

“Yes,” Theo said softly.  

But he wasn’t looking at the banners.  

He wasn’t even looking at Draco.  

He was looking at Elara.   

Then Dumbledore said it.“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies,”   Dumbledore said, his gaze soft, “but just as much to stand up to our friends. True courage is not loud. Nor is it always seen. But it is felt. And sometimes, quietly chosen.”  

And Draco realized, with startling clarity…Theo Nott, who almost never reacted to anything…was unsettled. But about something waiting for him when he went home. Something only Elara seemed to understand.  

Hermione turned her head, feeling cheery over Gryffindor winning. She stopped and turned her head towards the snakes. Elara wasn’t gaping, or angry, or disappointed. She was white, ashen, faint. Eyes unfocused, like she was listening to something far away. Hermione knew fear when she saw it. But this was not fear. For Elara had stayed still, didn’t speak, didn’t clap or even blink.  

Theo watched as well.

Not at Gryffindors.  

Not the banners.  

But at her.  

And something quiet unfolded behind his eyes, the first thread of understanding. A similar echo through his bones. This moment wasn't just a change in house. But a start to something more sinister.  

Across the hall, Draco finally spoke.  

“…What just happened?”  

━━━━━━━━━  

Banners, Points & What Doesn’t Make Sense
(Daphne, Blaise, Pansy. Hogwarts Entrance Hall, Late Evening). 

Their shoes clicked against the marble in uneven rhythm, interrupted by Pansy’s huffing, Daphne’s thoughtful hum, and Blaise being annoyingly unbothered by the loss.  

“For Merlin’s sake,” Pansy muttered, arms crossed, “Bravery? Chess? Logic? Those weren’t even part of the curriculum. Since when do heroic dramatics earn house points?”  

Daphne stopped on the landing, looking back at the now scarlet Great Hall.  

“They don’t.”  

She said it too calmly.  

Almost like she was figuring something out.  

“Exactly!” Pansy swatted the air. “So how did Gryffindor win?”  

Blaise, hands in his pockets, smirked faintly.
“They didn’t win because of house points,” he said. “They won because they were meant to.”  

Pansy scowled. “Meant to win? That’s not how school works!”. 

“It is,” Daphne interrupted softly, “when the headmaster is making a point.”  

She looked up again, azure eyes narrowed, not in anger, but curiosity.  

“Dumbledore wasn’t rewarding them.”  

She exhaled slowly.  

“He was warning us. Something mustve happened that night we were sent to our room. Neville, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are involved…and I think it maybe…due to that creature in the Forbidden Forest.”  

A chill ran through them.  


━━━━━━━━━ 

Dormitory Shadows: Draco, Blaise & Theo 

(Boys Dorm, Slytherin Dungeon,  Final Night)  

Trunks closed. Quills capped.  

Candlelight flickered against green stone walls.  

Theo sat on his bed, not packing.  

Just staring at the folded letter on his lap.  

Draco pretended not to notice.  

But he did.  

“You wrote to Lady Malfoy?” Blaise asked Draco, not looking up from his trunk.  

Draco nodded.  

“Yes..About Theo staying over the summer… I haven’t had a reply.”  

Theo didn’t react.  

Didn’t look hopeful.  

Didn’t look anything.  

“But,” Draco added, half forcing optimism, “I’m sure she’s just… busy.”  

Theo didn’t look at him.  

He said, quietly, “It’s fine, Draco. The Dark Lord may be gone…”He hesitated.“But some shadows don’t leave just because he did.”  

Blaise looked up.  

Not mocking. Not confused.  

Just… understanding.  

Draco frowned. For once, not at someone.  

But the feeling in the room.   

Like the light didn’t quite reach all the corners.  

━━━━━━━━━ 

(Great Hall, Empty, Echoing, Final Morning)    

Elara stood alone in the threshold of the Great Hall. Not entering. Just… watching, replaying the feast in her mind: 

Not the points. 

Not the cheers. 

But the way Dumbledore looked when announcing them.  

Too calm.   

Too deliberate.  

Like the points were not a reward but a compensation.  

Why house points for things never taught?  

Why honour choices that weren’t part of any classroom?  

Unless the “lesson” hadn’t been for the Gryffindors at all.  

Uncle Severus’s warning flickered in her memory:

“Leave it alone, Elara. Some things are not ours to uncover.”  

Which only confirmed her suspicion.

It was meant to be uncovered.  

Just not yet.  

She exhaled- 

And the Great Hall felt colder than she remembered.  

━━━━━━━━━

The Hogwarts Express  

(Harry, Ron, Hermione)   

Ron had his feet up, grinning like House pride had been personally invented for him.  

“I mean, I get Harry’s points. Bravery, near-death, underground troll, blah blah…very heroic.” 

He took a loud bite of a pumpkin pasty.  

“But explain Neville. All he did was get petrificus totalus’d by Hermione.”  

Harry and Hermione both paused.   

Slowly turned toward each other.  

Not laughing.  

Not triumphant.  

Just… knowing.  

Hermione’s voice was quiet, absentmindedly.  

“Because real danger wasn’t in the forest… or the chessboard… or the flames.”  

She looked out the window.  

“It was in what was coming back.”  

Harry didn’t reply.  

Because he remembered Dumbledore’s words. 

“Not gone. Not really.”   

Chapter Text

Chapter 15. The Night The Manor Shook

-Later that summer-

Malfoy Manor did not like interruptions.

Especially ones that bled.

It preferred dignity. Velvet. Quiet. Secrets whispered but never screamed. Which was why it startled even the walls when the Floo flared alive with a violent crack, spitting out a boy who did not land like a guest, but like a collapsed heartbeat.

Theo slammed against the marble, body twisted, shirt torn, blood soaking through at the ribs. His arm was bent wrong. His breathing was too faint to hear.

Draco made a sound Elara had never heard from him before.

Raw. Sharp. Not dignified.

“He’s-He’s not-HE’S NOT BREATHING!”

Elara didn’t scream first.

She simply stopped breathing.

Then her whole body seemed to move before her mind did-reaching, trembling-until she saw his ribs lift, barely.

The sob tore from her before she could control it.

“MOTHER! FATHER!”

It was the first time she ever screamed inside Malfoy Manor.

It cracked through the manor like lightning.

Lucius and Narcissa arrived at once, elegant robes, icy poise and froze.

Children should not come home like this.

Narcissa dropped to her knees so fast the marble floor cracked beneath her. Hands trembling, wand flashing, voice shaking.

Lucius did not kneel, but his cane did.

Clatter.

That sound would live in Elara’s memory longer than the scream.

“Take your brother upstairs,” Narcissa ordered.

“He’s not breathing-” Draco repeated, then starting to hyperventilate. He didn’t finish the sentence because he didn’t believe it anymore.

Narcissa was tending to Theo. “Oh, sweetheart, what has he…what have they done to you?”

Elara felt her knees give way. She didn’t even realize she’d grabbed onto her father’s robes until her fingers were clenched in the fabric.

“Please-” she whispered. “Please don’t let him die.”

“Draco. Take your sister upstairs” he had never used this tone before. It broke Draco from his daze. His face blotched red, tears streaking down his cheeks, as he took Elara’s hand and pulled her away.

“Why Theo? What did he do so wrong? What if—what if—he doesn’t wake up? What if he—”

She couldn’t finish as Draco’s hand tightened around her..

Not softly.

Desperately.

They didn’t go far.

No Malfoy child had ever obeyed orders so slowly.

They hovered just beyond the corridor, small and pale, clutching each other.

Not because they were cold.

Because now…something in the world felt different.

Like magic had stopped watching…and started choosing.

And whatever had chosen Theodore Nott, had not been kind.

—

Later, in Draco’s room…

Draco finally cried himself to sleep.

Elara sat on the floor beside his bed, back against the wall, knees to her chest.

She couldn’t sleep.

She crept down the east corridor, barefoot, following the faint glow beneath the study door.

Voices.

Three of them.

“This was no accident.”

Uncle Severus had arrived, silent, pale, his wand already out. Running diagnostic charms on the broken boy. His gaze swept the scene, and for once, his voice did not belong to a professor.

It belonged to someone who knew violence intimately.

“The ribs are fractured. Possibly punctured lung. Swelling-internal damage. And the arm was not broken by magic.”

His eyes darkened. “It was force.”

The questions started echoing in her head, Draco’s broken voice.

What if he dies? What if Uncle Tiberius came back for him?

Her eyes burned, but she didn’t know if she was angry or scared. Carefully standing, she brushed tear salt from her palms, and stepped into the corridor.

Barefoot.

Quiet.

Listening.

Behind the study door.

Mother.

Father.

Uncle Severus.

All speaking too quietly.

Severus’ voice, low, grim:
“This was not a warning, Lucius.”

“This was a declaration.” Narcissa insisted.

“I warned you,” Severus said quietly. “Tiberius has grown reckless. He no longer hides his methods.”

“He sent a message,” Narcissa whispered. “Using his own son.”

There was a pause.

Then Severus, quieter, weary:
“This is no longer about Theo. This is about allegiance.”

Elara stopped.

Heart beating too loudly.

“He used his own child,” Snape continued slowly, “to send a message. Tiberius is not hiding it. He will not hide it again.”

Silence.

Then Severus, softer. More dangerous:

“You must make a choice now. We cannot pretend to be neutral anymore. His connections are growing, soon his power. You will have to show where you stand.”

Lucius did not answer at first.

Not quickly.

Lucius spoke, very softly.

“He is only a boy.” Looking at Theo, seeing a ghost of Draco reflected.

Elara leaned closer.

And that was when she heard it.

A sound she had never heard in Malfoy Manor.

Her mother.

Fall.

A choked breath…then a sob.

Not delicate.

Not contained.

A sound ripped from somewhere deep, raw, unguarded, like something breaking.

Her mother was a creature so poised, Elara had thought she could never crack.

The walls heard it.

And for the first time, she understood:

Magic was no longer just watching, it was choosing.

And sometimes, magic did not choose kindly.

End of Part One—————-