The Entrance Hall glowed dimly with the last light of the storm. Water pooled on the flagstones where students had shaken out their cloaks, and the air smelled faintly of rain and wax and stone left cold too long. The Slytherins were among the last to arrive from the carriages—dark robes and emerald trim cutting through the crowd like a single living shadow.
Alden stepped inside first. The torches lining the walls flared slightly as the great doors swung shut behind them, casting a soft gold sheen across the wet marble floor. For a brief moment, the echo of the storm outside seemed to hush, replaced by the low rumble of hundreds of voices filtering from beyond the doors of the Great Hall.
He stopped there for half a breath, letting the familiar weight of the castle settle over him. It was the same Hogwarts scent—dust and parchment, candle wax and old magic—but it felt different now. He felt different.
Theo brushed past him, running a hand through his damp hair. "Feels like we never left," he said, half-smirking, half-shivering. "Though, the ceiling looks about as welcoming as last year."
"Maybe it knows what kind of year it's in for," Tracey said, tugging her hood back. A strand of her brown hair clung stubbornly to her cheek. "Give it a day before the gossip starts slithering through the walls again. They'll have a field day now that he's back."
She didn't look at Alden when she said it, but she didn't have to.
Daphne shot her a warning glance before turning to Alden. "Ignore them," she said, her voice low but firm. "You know how it is. They talk because it's all they can do."
Alden's eyes drifted to the massive double doors of the Great Hall. Light leaked through the thin cracks where they met—the warm, golden kind that never quite reached the dungeons. "It feels different," he murmured.
Daphne tilted her head. "Because it is?"
He looked back at her, a faint curve at the corner of his mouth. "Because I am."
Theo let out a short laugh, breaking the sudden heaviness. "Merlin's beard, he's starting early with the dramatics. We haven't even had the feast yet."
Tracey elbowed him lightly, but she smiled all the same.
Alden didn't rise to it. His gaze was distant now, on the long corridor that led toward the Great Hall doors. The faint hum of voices behind it rose and fell like the tide—familiar, constant, and full of people who already had their stories written about him.
He drew a quiet breath, straightened the collar of his cloak, and said, "Come on. Best not to keep the whispers waiting."
Daphne rolled her eyes but stepped beside him, their footsteps echoing together. Theo and Tracey followed, their laughter fading into the vaulted air as the group crossed the last few steps of the Entrance Hall.
The heavy oak doors creaked open as they approached, spilling light and warmth into the hall. For a heartbeat, Alden hesitated at the threshold, looking up at the floating candles, the shimmer of enchantment spilling into the corridor.
He could hear it already—the wave of chatter, laughter, and the sharp hush that always followed him now.
Then he stepped forward.
The Great Hall swallowed the stormlight behind him, and the quiet ripple that followed his entrance was all the confirmation he needed: Hogwarts had been waiting for its monster to return.
The Great Hall was alive with light and noise — a sea of flickering candles floating beneath a ceiling charmed to match the storm outside. Thunder rumbled faintly beyond the enchanted clouds, but within these walls, the laughter and chatter of hundreds of students echoed like the pulse of something ancient and familiar.
And then Alden stepped through the doors.
The sound did not die all at once — it shifted. A subtle change in tone, the way a room stills when someone mentions a name they shouldn't. Forks paused mid-air. Conversations stumbled, broke, and bent into hurried whispers.
Theo, Daphne, and Tracey followed a half-step behind him, and even they felt it — the way the air seemed to tighten around him, every eye catching the glint of his silver hair in the candlelight, the faint shadow of something unspoken that trailed him wherever he walked.
"There he is—" someone hissed from the Gryffindor table.
"—the Grindelwald heir—"
"—Dumbledore's keeping him here, can you believe it? After what happened—"
"—should've been expelled—"
"—lucky Potter survived—"
Alden's steps didn't falter. His boots clicked evenly against the stone floor, a steady rhythm against the growing murmur. He kept his chin level, gaze forward — an old habit now, born from long practice. The hall's candlelight turned the silver in his hair to quicksilver, the faint shimmer of his robes catching with each movement as though even the air refused to touch him directly.
At the Gryffindor table, a few faces were more familiar than the rest. Ron Weasley glared openly, his freckles stark against the flush rising in his cheeks. Hermione Granger watched, lips pressed tight — conflicted, her eyes darting between Alden and Dumbledore at the staff table. And Harry… Harry's gaze lingered longest. There was no hatred in it, nor pity, just something quiet and unreadable — a memory of a graveyard neither of them had asked for.
From somewhere down the Hufflepuff line came another hissed whisper: "They say he tried to curse Potter first.""Rubbish — my mum says he saved him.""Saved him? Please. You don't 'save' someone with magic like that.""Darkness sticks to blood, doesn't it? Grindelwald's great-grandson—what did anyone expect?"
Theo muttered under his breath, just loud enough for their group to hear, "If they stare any harder, they'll go cross-eyed."
Tracey smirked faintly. "Half of them already have."
Daphne said nothing, but the faint tilt of her head toward Alden was protective — a small, unspoken show of loyalty.
They reached the Slytherin table, where familiar faces watched their arrival with varying degrees of interest and caution. Blaise Zabini gave Alden a cool nod — not approval, not judgment, simply acknowledgment. Further down, Crabbe and Goyle shifted awkwardly, glancing between Alden and Draco, as if waiting to see how the hierarchy would arrange itself this year.
Alden slid into his seat, Daphne taking the place beside him, Theo across, Tracey next to her. The candles above flickered, their light catching on the faint silver veins of scars tracing Alden's wrist where his sleeve had shifted.
The whispers hadn't stopped. If anything, they'd grown bolder now that he was seated, cloaked by the hum of dinner beginning to appear.
"Monster.""Should've gone to Azkaban.""Imagine sitting next to him—"Dumbledore's pet dark lord."
Alden reached calmly for the goblet before him, the faintest sound of metal against stone echoing louder than it should have. He took a sip, unhurried, eyes drifting toward the staff table.
There sat Dumbledore, his expression serene, yet his gaze sharp — old and knowing. And beside him, that woman — short, squat, with a face like a sugared toad. Her pink cardigan clashed violently with the somber hues of the staff robes.
Alden's eyes lingered. Something about her smile — small, sweet, rehearsed — made the hairs on the back of his neck stir.
Theo followed his gaze. "Who's that? New staff?"
Draco leaned forward from across the table, his prefect badge catching the light. "That's Dolores Umbridge," he said with his usual drawl. "She's been visiting the Manor a lot recently. Father says she's lovely. Always polite."
Theo snorted. "Lovely, right. So are grindylows until they drag you under."
"She doesn't look so bad," Tracey said, eyeing her thoughtfully. "A bit too pink, maybe."
Alden's voice was quiet, almost distant. "People who look harmless rarely are."
As he spoke, Umbridge's gaze turned — just slightly — as though she'd felt his eyes on her. And when their eyes met across the candlelit expanse, she smiled. It wasn't cruel, exactly. It was worse. It was pleasant.
Draco shivered, rubbing at his arm. "Creepy."
Alden turned back to his plate, expression unreadable. "She's not here to teach," he said softly. "She's here to watch."
Daphne's hand brushed his beneath the table — brief, grounding. He didn't look at her, but the smallest flicker of warmth broke through the cool control in his face.
Overhead, thunder rolled again, making the windows tremble. The sound covered the last of the whispers, and for a moment, the Great Hall was just noise and light again — as though the castle itself exhaled.
But Alden knew better. The whispers hadn't stopped. They never did. They had only grown quiet enough to listen.
The rippling chatter of the Great Hall ebbed into silence as Professor McGonagall entered, her emerald robes damp at the hem from the storm outside. She carried the patched, ancient Sorting Hat upon a small stool — its folds drooping, its frayed brim hanging low like the tired eyelid of something very old and very wise.
She set it down at the front of the hall and stepped back.
A hush swept over the tables. The candles trembled. And then, with a long sigh that sounded almost like breath drawn through centuries of dust, the Hat stirred — the tear near its brim widening until it became a mouth.
Its song came deep and slow, like thunder rolling from the castle's bones.
THE SORTING HAT'S SONG
When Hogwarts' stones were young and new , Four kindred souls stood tall —To shape a home for learning's flame, A haven safe for all.
But hearts once bound by noble aimTurned cold with fear and pride,And shadows rose where sunlight stood,As hope and trust both died.
Said Gryffindor, "Let courage shine!"Said Ravenclaw, "Seek truth!"Said Hufflepuff, "Hold kindness near!"Said Slytherin, "Guard blood and youth."
They parted ways, yet Hogwarts stood —Though battle scarred her stone, For even when the dark returned, Her children stood alone.
But I have seen — oh, I have seen —How darkness wears new skin, How names once feared may rise again, Not from without — but in.
Beware the ones the world condemns, Whose power they despise, For monsters often are mirrors made, By terror's trembling eyes.
The serpent and the lion's roarStill echo through the hall —And one who walks the line of bothMay break us — or save us all.
Unite, I beg you, while you can, Before your fate's entwined; For Hogwarts' heart is bleeding slow —And danger stalks her mind.
So weigh your hearts, be wary, too, Of judgment dressed as law; Not all that gleams with holy lightIs justice without flaw.
Now place me on your waiting head —My duty must begin; But mark this truth before you're led: The war is not without — but in.
When the last note faded, the Hat fell silent once more — the brim drooping as if exhausted by its own prophecy.
No one clapped.
For a heartbeat, the entire Great Hall held its breath. Then came the rustle — uneasy, feverish — of hundreds of whispers rising all at once.
"Did it just—?""—'names once feared may rise again'—""—it meant him, didn't it?""The Grindelwald boy—""—' walks the line of both'—what else could that be?"
Alden sat utterly still, expression unreadable, though the candlelight caught faint silver in his eyes. Daphne glanced at him, half-expecting anger — but found only calm, that cool detachment he wore like armor.
Theo leaned across the table. "Tell me it's just me, or did that hat practically sing you into the curriculum?"
Tracey gave a soft, incredulous laugh. "Brilliant. Year's not even started, and you're already a school-wide prophecy."
Draco tried for a smirk, but his voice was lower than usual. "Well, at least it didn't say you'd end us all. Just maybe."
Alden said nothing. He lifted his goblet instead, the soft ring of silver against stone slicing through their hushed murmurs. The movement drew eyes again — every House table, every whisperer — and for an instant, even that small sound felt like defiance.
The Great Hall remained uneasy long after the applause finally, awkwardly began — not out of joy, but out of habit.
And when the first trembling first-year stepped forward to be sorted, Alden thought, quietly, even the Hat sees it. The war's already here.
Platters shimmered into place, steam curling from roasts and puddings; pumpkin juice poured itself into goblets. The smell of rosemary and gravy chased away the last of the storm's chill, and for the first time since stepping off the train, Hogwarts felt alive again.
Harry speared a chop and tried to pretend the silence at the Gryffindor table wasn't thicker than usual. Ron was attacking a pile of potatoes as though they'd personally insulted him, while Hermione had gone quiet — eyes narrowed, fork untouched.
Across the room, the Slytherins were a dark mass of motion and whispers. The occasional flicker of candlelight caught on silver trims and pale hair — his hair — and each time, Harry found his gaze slipping back there.
It was odd. He hadn't spoken to Alden Dreyse since June, since the graveyard, but his presence still shifted the room. Even now. Especially now.
Hermione followed Harry's gaze and sighed. "They're already talking about him."
Ron looked up mid-bite. "Course they are. He walks in like some ghost prince and the Hat starts singing about monsters wearing new skin — what'd you expect?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione said, though her voice wavered slightly. "The Hat wasn't talking about him. It was a warning, that's all. It's done it before—"
"Yeah, but this time it rhymed about him," Ron said, jabbing his fork for emphasis. " 'One who walks the line of both may break us or save us all' — how's that not him?"
Harry stayed quiet. His fork had stilled halfway to his plate.
He could still see the graveyard when he closed his eyes — Alden's figure half-crumpled in the grass, wand still raised though his arm was shaking. The look in his eyes when Voldemort turned on him: not fear, not rage — resolve.
Harry swallowed. "He saved my life."
Ron blinked. "Yeah, and nearly died doing it. Doesn't make him a saint."
"I didn't say he was," Harry said evenly. "Just that he's not what people think."
Hermione leaned closer, lowering her voice. "The Prophet's been ruthless. They've tied him to Grindelwald in every article since June. The Ministry even started some ridiculous committee — the Lineage something?"
"Integrity Commission," Harry muttered. "I saw it in the Prophet before term. They're investigating 'unstable magical lines.'"
Ron scoffed. "Meaning: anyone Fudge doesn't like."
"Meaning," Hermione said sharply, "they're terrified. Fudge won't admit Voldemort's back, so he needs another villain. Dreyse just… fits the narrative."
Across the hall, Alden raised his goblet to his lips. A few nearby students flinched as if the motion itself were dangerous.
Harry frowned. "You ever notice how easy it is for them? Turning someone into a monster?"
Hermione gave a small, sad smile. "Easier than admitting they created him."
Ron muttered, "You're both starting to sound like Dumbledore."
"Good," Hermione shot back. "At least someone's thinking."
Harry didn't answer. His eyes stayed fixed on the Slytherin table, where Alden now spoke quietly with Daphne Greengrass — her blond hair a pale gleam against his dark robes. The sight was oddly peaceful, almost humanizing. He wondered if she saw the same haunted exhaustion Harry had glimpsed in that last moment in the graveyard.
Nearly Headless Nick floated past, breaking the tension. "Excellent feast, wasn't it? Haven't seen roast like that in a century."
Ron grunted his agreement around another mouthful. Hermione rolled her eyes.
Nick lingered a moment longer, glancing toward the Slytherin table. "Strange verse from the Hat, wasn't it? Always sings loudest when the castle's uneasy. When it feels danger coming."
"Danger?" Hermione repeated. "You mean, like last time?"
Nick smiled thinly. "There's always a last time, Miss Granger. And always another waiting."
He drifted off, leaving a chill that didn't belong to the weather.
For a long moment, the trio sat in silence, the noise of the Hall swelling around them — laughter, chatter, the clinking of plates — all too normal against the weight of what they knew.
Finally, Ron said, softer than before, "You think he's dangerous, don't you?"
Harry's gaze didn't leave the far table. "I think he's tired."
Hermione glanced at him, brow furrowed. "Tired of what?"
Harry's hand tightened around his fork. "Being blamed for someone else's war."
Outside, thunder growled again — and for a fleeting second, the flash of lightning through the high windows seemed to find only him, standing apart at the Slytherin table.
The whisper of his name rolled through the Hall again, unspoken but felt. Alden Dreyse.
The last crumbs of treacle tart vanished from the tables, replaced by steaming goblets of cocoa and glinting pitchers of water. Conversation hummed once more across the Great Hall — the storm outside drumming faintly against the enchanted ceiling, soft and steady like a heartbeat.
At the staff table, Dumbledore rose.
The hall quieted at once. Even the ghosts seemed to pause mid-glide. Harry, though still turning the Sorting Hat's song over in his head, felt that familiar comfort — the weight of Dumbledore's presence, calm and golden, like light cast from a high window.
"Well," said Dumbledore, his voice rich and clear, echoing pleasantly off the walls, "now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices."
He smiled faintly as a ripple of laughter swept through the room.
"First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students — and a few of our older students," his blue eyes twinkled toward the Gryffindor table, "ought to know by now too."
Harry grinned despite himself. Beside him, Ron gave a snort, and Hermione muttered, "Honestly, as if you two ever listen."
Dumbledore's gaze swept the room — kind but sharp, lingering briefly on the Slytherin table, where Alden Dreyse sat motionless amid the candlelight. For an instant, his expression softened — not pity, exactly, but something that felt older and sadder than concern.
"Mr. Filch," Dumbledore went on, "has asked me — for what he assures me is the four hundred and sixty-second time — to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other activities, all of which can be found on the ever-growing list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door. I trust that most of you will never see that door close up."
A murmur of amusement rippled through the hall. Peeves, hovering high above, blew a wet raspberry that made a group of second-years giggle.
"And now," Dumbledore said brightly, "for some staff changes. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons."
There was polite applause from most tables, though a few of the Gryffindors exchanged worried glances. Hermione clapped earnestly, while Ron whispered, "Bet she's already fed Hagrid's creatures better than he ever did."
Harry frowned, but Dumbledore had already continued.
"And," he said with his usual flourish, "we are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Applause rose again, polite but uncertain — a kind of forced rhythm that echoed strangely beneath the ceiling's storm. At the staff table, the pink-clad witch from earlier rose from her seat, the light catching the gleam of the ridiculous bow in her hair.
Beside Harry, Hermione stiffened. "Oh no."
Harry's stomach sank. "That's her — from the hearing."
Ron craned his neck. "You mean—? That's her?"
The applause was already fading into scattered claps and nervous glances. Even the Slytherins looked uncertain, whispering among themselves. Dumbledore's expression hadn't changed, though there was a glint in his eyes — the faintest warning.
He continued, as though nothing were amiss."Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the—"
"Hem, hem."
The sound was soft but sharp, slicing through his words like the crack of a whip. For a second, no one moved; it was unclear where it had come from.
Then, realization rippled through the hall as Professor Umbridge stood, hands clasped primly in front of her, that fixed, sugary smile plastered across her face.
Even seated, she barely reached the height of Professor Flitwick. Yet the pink of her cardigan glared like a wound against the subdued colours of the staff robes.
The silence that followed was almost reverent in its disbelief.
No one — no one — interrupted Dumbledore.
Dumbledore, for his part, merely blinked once. His surprise lasted no longer than a breath before he sat back down, folding his hands and watching her as though this were a curiosity he had fully expected.
At the Gryffindor table, Hermione gaped. Ron leaned toward her, whispering, "She's not really gonna—?"
But she was.
"Hem, hem," she said again, voice syrupy and sharp. "If I may have a few moments of your time…"
From the far side of the hall, the whisper came, low and sardonic — Theo Nott's voice carrying faintly from the Slytherin table."Oh, this should be good."
The candles flickered, thunder rumbled beyond the enchanted ceiling, and Professor Umbridge, all pink fluff and poisoned sweetness, began to speak.
A silence settled as Professor Umbridge's tiny form adjusted her pink cardigan, giving a delicate cough that somehow echoed through the Great Hall like a curse."Hem, hem."
"Thank you, Headmaster," she simpered, her voice a syrupy treacle Harry could barely stand — and Alden found equally nauseating. "For those kind words of welcome."
Her smile spread — all teeth and falseness — and her eyes twitched over the crowd like a beetle searching for somewhere to land." Well! It is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!" she continued brightly. "And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!"
At the Slytherin table, Theo leaned toward Alden and muttered under his breath, "Does she know we're not five?"
Tracey stifled a snort; even Daphne's composed mouth curved slightly. But Alden didn't move. His gaze was fixed on Umbridge — the way her eyes flitted briefly over the staff table, then lingered, just for a heartbeat, on him.
"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all," Umbridge went on. "And I'm sure we'll be very good friends!"
Her voice, though still girlish, had begun to sharpen — less childlike now, more like glass hidden in lace." I must say," she continued after another dainty cough, "that the Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of the utmost importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and guided by the careful hand of authority."
The word authority seemed to hum in the air.
"The ancient skills of our world must be preserved," she continued sweetly, "but they must also be regulated. For without discipline — without proper respect for order — we risk slipping into the chaos of dangerous ideals and ungoverned power."
Her eyes flickered again, this time more openly toward the Slytherin table. Daphne's fingers tightened on the edge of her goblet.
Alden didn't look away.
"Now," Umbridge said with a little bow toward the staff, "each Headmaster and Headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something unique to the running of this venerable school. That is as it should be! For without progress, there is stagnation. And yet," she added, her voice cooling, "progress for progress's sake must be discouraged. Some traditions need no… reinterpretation."
A murmur rippled faintly through the hall. Professor McGonagall's mouth had drawn into a thin white line. Snape sat utterly still, hands folded, expression blank as carved obsidian.
"Balance," Umbridge went on cheerfully, "is the key! Between the old and the new. Between the pure and the impure—"
That word caught like flint.
"—between permanence and change. And in times such as these, when falsehoods and dangerous rumors have spread beyond their boundaries, the Ministry must take an active role in ensuring clarity."
A hush fell so deep even the candles seemed to dim. Harry stiffened at the Gryffindor table. Hermione's knuckles whitened around her fork.
Umbridge smiled wider, her voice sugar-smooth and deadly."Certain young witches and wizards," she said, "have been… misguided into believing that they possess knowledge beyond their years. That their personal experiences — or their heritage — entitle them to interpret truth as they see fit."
She turned her head slowly, her beady eyes gleaming like wet stones." And some," she added, "have been unfortunate enough to believe that walking the path between light and dark makes them wise. The Ministry does not share that view."
Theo muttered something that sounded like a curse. Daphne's jaw clenched.
Alden remained still. His hand rested on the table, calm, deliberate. The faint pulse of the basilisk-scale core in his wand-holster warmed against his wrist.
"Let it be known," Umbridge continued, voice bright again — too bright — "that any student under investigation by the Lineage Integrity Authority will be expected to uphold the highest standard of behavior while enrolled here. Compliance, humility, and cooperation are virtues most becoming in a young witch or wizard."
She paused delicately, eyes finding him once more." And any student — or teacher — who believes themselves above such virtues," she added, "will be reminded that no bloodline, however storied or… infamous, excuses arrogance."
A cold, creeping quiet slid through the hall. Even those who hadn't known what she meant could feel it — the shift in tone, the veiled barbs.
Harry's stomach twisted. Hermione's lips parted as if to protest. Ron just muttered, "Bloody hell."
At the Slytherin table, a dozen eyes had turned toward Alden — some cautious, others curious. Blaise Zabini leaned back, one brow arched; Pansy Parkinson smirked faintly, though her eyes darted away when he didn't react.
Alden merely exhaled, his face unreadable, pale hair catching candlelight like silver thread.
Umbridge gave a satisfied smile, as though she'd placed the final brick on a well-built wall."Let us move forward," she concluded, "into an era of unity, accountability, and moral clarity — preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what must be perfected, and pruning wherever we find… rot."
She beamed — a child's expression on a serpent's face — and sat down.
No applause followed. Not even polite clapping.
Only the echo of her last word — rot — seemed to hang above the Slytherin table.
A hush fell over the Great Hall like a drawn curtain. The candles guttered, as if the very air had been wound tighter; plates ceased their clatter. For one trembling heartbeat, no one breathed. Professor Umbridge's smile froze on her face, porcelain bright and monstrously small, as the silence stretched and gathered weight.
Then the sound of living things returned — a whisper first, like dry leaves, then a ripple of startled voices that could not quite become an uproar because the teachers' faces had not given them permission. The professors exchanged glances that were sharper than any words. Professor McGonagall's mouth had thinned to a slit; her eyes burned like live coals. Professor Sprout's hand clenched white-knuckled around a fork. Even old Hooch, seated at the staff table's far end, looked as though she might stride down the hall and rip the pink thing from Umbridge's shoulders.
Snape alone did not twitch. He sat in the half-light like carved onyx — still, too still. For a sliver of a pulse, Alden half-expected the room itself to shudder at him, as if something under the stone recognised the charge in Snape's stare. The potion-master's face was a mask; his fingers tightened around the stem of his goblet until the knuckles showed pale. Alden had seen Snape look like that before — when a bad potion refused to settle, or when a student had been cruel. It was an expression that promised consequences without promising mercy. For a second, Alden thought he could read the shadows behind it as easily as runes: if Snape could have moved, he would have taught her a lesson in pain learned slowly and properly. He liked Snape that way. It meant someone cared enough to be furious.
Every head in the hall tilted in the same slow motion to where Alden sat. The Slytherin table seemed suddenly to be the eye of a very loud storm. He felt the weight of those looks — accusation, curiosity, hunger for spectacle, a few thin ears of admiration daring to poke through the mud. Many remembered last year not as a sequence of events but as a motion-picture reel of oddness: the second task borne on a wave of cold cleverness; the way a male Hungarian Horntail's head had flashed under a boy's blade and been taken cleanly to the surface of the Black Lake; the return from the maze, dishevelled and broken; the terrible, breathless scene in the Great Hall when he had stood, bandaged and bare to the waist, and said what he had seen. That memory was an ember in the mind of the school. It smoldered now, warming some, frightening others.
The silence pressed and then parted with the soft scrape of a chair as Alden moved a little, not rising, only shifting. His fingers went toward the leather holster at his hip, where the wand slept. It was an old, automatic gesture—habit, muscle memory, the small ritual of reassurance. The wand was there, true and low-warm against his palm; he felt its familiar thrum through skin and bone and something darker that had nothing to do with wood and cores.
From beneath the table, Daphne's hand closed on his. It was a quick, sharp pressure — owning and steadying in one. She drew the tips of her fingers under his palm, curled them tight. "Don't," she breathed, not loud but fierce; it was a tether as much as an order. Her eyes flashed at him, and in that flash, there was everything she would not say aloud — danger, logic, loyalty.
Theo muttered something under his breath, the sibilant edge of it a promise that sounded wilder than any schoolboy oath. "You wait, mate," he hissed, almost too low for anyone but Alden to hear. "Give me five minutes alone and I'll—" He broke off, lips pulled tight by the absurdity of such vows in such a place, by the impossibility of promising Azkaban to any man. A blush rose in his cheeks, not from shame but from the heat of his own bravado.
Across the hall, a cluster of Gryffindors leaned forward, eyes bright with that mixture of dread and awe that only teenagers can keep from tipping into malice. Ron's jaw worked; Hermione's hand flew to her mouth; Harry sat straighter than he had all evening, an entire trial and a war and a fragile truce reflected in the set of his chin. He looked at Alden then, and for the briefest of seconds, there was pity and an ache that needed no translation. Harry remembered the boy who had bled to buy him time and the same boy who had told anybody who would listen that Voldemort had returned. The two images lived in Harry's face at once, tangled and raw.
Under the staff table, Professor Dumbledore's fingers steepled, his long face grave; he did not clap. He had not clapped for the woman who sat in the place of the teacher. He blinked once and said nothing. That silence—Dumbledore's deliberate withholding of applause—sounded louder than the speech itself. It hummed through the room like an edict.
Alden's left hand tightened around the wand-holster; his right hand, the one not under the table, lay flat and still. He had a taste of something metallic at the back of his mouth, as if the room had aged and left a tang on his tongue. For one tiny, dangerous moment, he could picture the classroom floor tiled with consequences: the pink cardigan gone, Umbridge's simper stopped dead, the slow unscrolling of a reprimand that would tear paper and very possibly reputations. He could imagine snide smiles wiped off faces with a quiet spell, the hall made to watch silence instead of speeches. He could imagine Snape, eyes burning cold, taking a step forward with the casual cruelty of a teacher who knew too well how to punish.
But Daphne's fingers were iron under the table, and her eyes were steel above it. "Not here," she mouthed, the movement small and absolute. Alden blew out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and let his hand fall away from the wand. Theo's promise died as a mutter into his collar.
Around him, the murmurs turned into a low, persistent hum: students picking over meaning, teachers exchanging legalistic glances, the staff calculating the cost of confrontation. Umbridge sat very still, a small triumphant smile returning to her lips as if, for a moment, she had won an invisible game. She had declared war by syllable and left the hall in the dark, humming the aftermath of it; she had made a target of a boy and hung the notice in plain sight.
Alden made no outburst. He did not stand. He did not call her a liar or a coward; he did not use the moment to defend himself from the roving, hungry narrative. He kept his voice small and his movements minimal, as if conserving and precision were their own kind of power. In his chest, something hardened, a quiet folding away of the soft things he still remembered — the last of any naive hope that words could fix the world.
Instead, he looked to his friends. Daphne's jaw had hitched; Theo's face had gone pale with impotent rage. Tracey sat very still, eyes narrowed. Draco's face, across the way, had gone a fraction paler than usual; he had the look of someone who had been personally affronted and could not understand why his anger had not been called upon. Blaise watched like a gambler reading odds.
The hall exhaled slowly, a weary thing. The teachers began to rise, plates scraping. Conversations resumed, less joyful than before, but they resumed. The spell of silence broke into countless small noises—silver cutlery, the rustle of robes, the soft, terrified laughter of children who did not yet know what it is to be hunted.
When the Slytherin table stood, Alden rose with it. He did so in a manner that would have seemed unremarkable to any casual observer: a boy getting up to leave the hall. But everyone watched him as though expecting thunder. He moved with the economy of a man who knows the value of a moment and the cost of wasting it. As he passed Professor Umbridge, her eyes met his for the span of a breath — wicked, bright, pleased. Alden's face betrayed nothing. He inclined his head once, formal, as though to an equal who had merely made a poor joke at dinner.
Outside the Hall, the torchlight painted the stone in long bands of shadow and gold. Alden stepped from warm air into colder stone, and the conversation that followed him was a brittle thing. Daphne's grip on his hand tightened in the corridor and for the first time that night he allowed himself a small, private expression of anger—less a flare and more a cold, deliberate planning—so that when the castle closed around them he had something like a map: inked with names and measures, of how he would move and how he would not be moved.
Theo's whisper, now almost a smile, scraped at his ear. "You did right, mate, not then and not now. We'll not let them make you a monster in their papers." Daphne's voice, under her breath, was steadier. "We'll be everywhere you are."
Alden let them promise and let them be brave; he kept his own resolve like a thing folded and hidden under his cloak. The Great Hall's candles burned on behind them, little islands of light over a sea already turning to rumor.