Alden woke to a world of whiteness and whispers.
For a few strange seconds, he thought he was still in the graveyard—that endless grey place where everything echoed, and pain had no edge. Then the sharp scent of dittany hit him, followed by the faint clinking of glass, and the ceiling above him swam into focus. Polished brass bed frames. White linen sheets. The familiar hush of the Hogwarts infirmary.
He blinked hard, forcing the blur to steady. Every inch of him felt heavy and sore, as though he'd run headlong through his own memories. When he tried to move, the sheets rustled faintly, and pain answered from deep beneath the bandages wrapping his chest and forearms.
"Don't you dare sit up yet."
Madam Pomfrey's voice was a mixture of sternness and gentleness that somehow managed to sound like both a scolding and a comfort. She appeared from behind the drawn curtain, sleeves rolled up, a faint smudge of green salve across her wrist. Her expression softened as she reached the bedside.
"Ah, good, you're awake." She adjusted her spectacles, eyes scanning the floating diagnostic charms hovering over him—ghostly ribbons of light tracing slow rotations in the air. "How do you feel?"
Alden's throat was dry, his voice coming out rough. "Like I lost a fight with a basilisk."
Pomfrey sniffed, unimpressed but faintly amused. "You're lucky it wasn't worse. You were losing blood fast when Professor Snape brought you in." She drew her wand and checked one of the charms, the light pulsing softly at her touch. "He said it started during class. You don't remember anything?"
Alden frowned, pressing a hand against his temple. "Just… heat. And then—blood. Everywhere." His voice faltered. "I thought it had stopped. The scars—"
"—should've stayed closed," Pomfrey finished gently. "Yes, I know. But they didn't reopen on their own, Mr. Dreyse."
He turned his head sharply to look at her. "What do you mean?"
Pomfrey hesitated, and for the first time, he saw genuine unease flicker behind her usually steady expression. She lowered her wand and folded her arms. "You were cursed," she said finally. "Something designed to reopen the body's most recent wounds. Not physical ones, necessarily—but those marked by powerful magic."
The words hung there like a cold draft.
Alden tried to sit up again despite her protests. "That's—who would even know a spell like that?"
Pomfrey gave a thin, weary smile. "That's precisely what Professor Snape intends to find out. Though, if I had to guess…" She trailed off, glancing toward the curtained archway at the far end of the room. Her lips pressed together. "You'd better ask him yourself."
He caught the flicker of movement first—the billow of black robes before Snape's low voice broke the silence.
"Madam Pomfrey," he drawled quietly, "I see our patient has chosen to sit up despite your explicit instructions."
Pomfrey turned, exasperated but unsurprised. "You may lecture him if you wish, Severus, but keep it short. He needs rest."
Snape stepped into the light, every line of his face carved with restrained fury. But beneath it, Alden could tell—there was something else. Worry, perhaps, though Snape would sooner hex himself than admit it.
"I leave you unconscious for a single night," Snape said, his voice measured but cutting, "and you wake demanding answers. Tell me, Dreyse—must you always make my life more complicated?"
Alden's lips twitched faintly. "Seems to be a habit."
Pomfrey gave a quiet humph but stepped back toward her desk, muttering about overworked healers and reckless children. Snape watched her go before turning back to Alden, eyes like twin shadows.
He looked older today, Alden realized—not in years, but in weight. The kind of exhaustion that came from holding a world together by force of will alone.
"Professor," Alden said quietly, his pulse quickening, "Madam Pomfrey said it was a curse. Who would—"
Snape cut him off with a gesture. "We'll speak of that," he said, voice low, dangerous. "But first, I want to know precisely what you remember."
Alden hesitated. "Class was over. I was fine. Then the blood—it just started. It didn't feel like… like something new. It felt like the graveyard again." His eyes unfocused for a moment. "The same places. Same cuts. As if—"
"As if you were there once more," Snape finished, his tone unreadable.
"Yes," Alden said hoarsely. "Exactly that."
Snape's eyes narrowed slightly, and for a heartbeat, something unspoken passed between them. A shared understanding of pain neither would ever name aloud.
"Rest," Snape said at last, his voice soft but final. "You'll need your strength for what comes next."
Alden frowned. "What does come next?"
Snape's gaze darkened. "Consequences."
And with that, he turned toward Pomfrey's desk—his robes whispering over the stone floor like a shadow returning to its master.
Alden leaned back against the pillows, the words echoing in his head. Consequences.
He didn't yet know what that meant—but he had the distinct, sinking feeling he was about to find out.
The infirmary had gone still again—too still. The floating charms above Alden's bed pulsed faintly, their silver light washing over the iron bandages binding his arm. The smell of metal and herbs hung heavy in the air.
Snape stood at the foot of the bed, hands clasped behind his back, head bent just slightly as if weighing whether to speak. His eyes, dark and unreadable, flicked toward Pomfrey, who was bustling in the far corner, sorting through jars. She shot him a wary glance, clearly knowing that whatever he was about to say wasn't meant for her ears.
When Snape finally spoke, it was in a voice low enough to slice through the silence but not reach beyond it.
"The curse you were hit with," he began, "is not one we teach here. It's not even one that most Death Eaters will touch."
Alden turned his head sharply, still pale but alert now. "What do you mean?"
Snape's expression barely shifted. "I mean," he said, each word clipped and deliberate, "it's considered cowardly. Weak. It doesn't strike cleanly. It does not duel; it festers. It hunts the most recent injury—forces the body to relive the pain until the victim bleeds to death or their magic collapses trying to resist it."
The faint ticking of the clock seemed suddenly loud.
Alden stared, feeling the cold crawl beneath his skin again. "Who—who would even know something like that?"
Snape's gaze hardened. "The same person you so wisely decided to threaten in front of half the fifth year yesterday."
Alden froze. His mind recoiled as though from a blow. "No. No, she wouldn't—"
"She would," Snape snapped, his patience evaporating. "I saw her this morning in the corridor outside the Great Hall. She was humming. Humming, Dreyse. When I told her you were here, she smiled."
The words landed like stones in Alden's chest. His pulse quickened, hot fury rising from somewhere deep and raw. He sat up too quickly, the motion tugging at the bandages. "She's dead," he said flatly, reaching for his wand on the bedside table.
Snape moved like smoke. One moment, the wand was in Alden's grip—the next, Snape's fingers had closed around his wrist, his other hand plucking the wand away with a speed that startled even Pomfrey, who looked up sharply from across the room.
"Enough," Snape hissed. His eyes burned, inches from Alden's. "Pull your head in before you dig your own grave."
Alden tried to pull free, but Snape's grip only tightened. "She cursed me," he said through his teeth. "She tried to kill me—"
"And she will get away with it," Snape said bitterly, cutting across him. "Because she wears the Ministry's crest. Because she smiles like a toad and drips honey when she speaks. And because if you so much as breathe in her direction again, they'll call it proof of everything they've whispered about you."
The words hit their mark. Alden's throat went tight, his anger curdling into something colder.
Snape's tone dropped, sharp and deliberate. "You will not draw your wand. You will not challenge her. You will act as if nothing happened, because if she can cast a curse like that and walk away smiling, then she is far more dangerous than you realize. Do you understand me?"
Alden didn't answer. He sat rigid, staring past Snape's shoulder at the window, the pale light trembling across the glass. His jaw clenched, the muscles in his throat working silently.
Snape released his wrist at last, the motion careful, almost weary. He straightened, his robes whispering as they fell back into place.
"I told you," he said quietly, "that this year would test you. I warned you not to give her a reason. You have done nothing but hand her ammunition."
Alden's voice was barely audible when he spoke. "So what now? I just lie here and pretend she didn't do it?"
"You live," Snape said simply. "That's what you do. You live, and you let her think she's won."
Alden's hand twitched toward the bedside, but his wand was still in Snape's grasp. The professor turned it once between his fingers, the ebony glinting faintly in the light.
"I'll hold onto this until you remember how to think before you act," he said. Then, softer—almost grudgingly: "Rest, Alden. There's no victory in dying angry."
He placed the wand inside his robes and turned away, leaving Alden staring at the wall, heart pounding, the echo of his own words—she's dead—still ringing in his ears.
But before he reached the door, Alden's voice—hoarse and low—broke the silence.
"Professor…"
Snape stopped, half-turned, the faintest tilt of his head. Madam Pomfrey paused too, her hands resting on a tray of vials, watching him carefully from the corner of her eye.
Alden swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the floor. "Why is the world so cruel?"
It wasn't a challenge this time, not sharp or defiant. It was quieter—like the question had been sitting in his chest for years, and now it had finally broken loose.
He lifted his head slowly. His eyes, dark with exhaustion and something close to despair, met Snape's.
"Ever since I came to Hogwarts," Alden said quietly, "they've whispered it. 'Dark Lord.' 'Dreyse heir.' Like a curse following me down every corridor. I tried to ignore it. I studied. I kept my head down. I wanted to prove them wrong."
Pomfrey's expression softened; she took a step forward, but didn't speak.
Alden continued, his voice trembling with the weight of memory. "Then last year—I thought if I showed them, if I proved that magic wasn't light or dark, that it was the wizard that made it good or evil—they'd see. The inversion work I did, the theories… they weren't curses. They were spells turned inward, rebalanced. I thought I could show them that power didn't have to mean corruption."
He let out a bitter laugh that didn't sound like him. "Instead, I ended up in a graveyard. Facing the Dark Lord himself. I nearly died there—alone. And I came back to find the world calling me his heir."
Snape said nothing. His face remained still, but his eyes—those deep, hollow eyes—gave him away. There was understanding there, quiet and raw.
Alden looked down at his bandaged hands. "And now the Ministry has an entire department dedicated to me—the Lineage Integrity Commission. They call it oversight, but everyone knows it's a noose. They've been feeding the Prophet stories about me, about my blood, about my great-grandfather's brother. Gellert Grindelwald."
He said the name softly, as it burned on his tongue.
"Someone from the graveyard leaked it, and now… now I can't even walk the halls without hearing the word monster."
His breath hitched; he ran a hand through his hair, wincing when his fingers brushed one of the bandaged cuts along his temple. "And when I try to fight back—when I try to defend myself—they call it proof. They say I'm becoming what they already decided I was."
The bitterness cracked into something smaller. Something fragile.
His next words came as a whisper."What good is a Ministry that breeds nothing but fear? That calls children 'dark' because it's easier than understanding them?"
Pomfrey's hand trembled as she set down a glass vial. For once, she didn't scold him for speaking ill of authority. Her face had gone pale, the corners of her mouth drawn tight with pity she didn't dare show aloud.
Snape still hadn't moved. His eyes were fixed on Alden—calculating, grim, but not cold. For a long, terrible moment, he said nothing at all.
Then he opened his mouth—perhaps to offer something, a word of logic or quiet comfort—but he never got the chance.
The great oak doors at the end of the infirmary opened with a sound like distant thunder.
Light spilled in from the corridor, pooling on the flagstones.
Dumbledore stepped through.
He moved slowly, as though the air itself made way for him. His blue robes shimmered faintly in the light, and his half-moon spectacles caught the glow as his eyes settled on Alden.
Snape straightened at once; Pomfrey froze mid-breath.
Dumbledore closed the doors behind him, the soft click echoing through the room.
"I see you are awake, Alden," he said quietly, his voice carrying a strange, weary gentleness. "And, it seems, asking all the right questions."
Alden didn't speak. He only watched as the Headmaster came closer, every step slow, deliberate.
And for the first time since the graveyard, Alden felt something heavier than anger settle in his chest.
It was the feeling that whatever answers Dumbledore carried, they were not ones he would like to hear.
The doors shut softly behind them with a hum of ancient hinges, sealing the infirmary's hush away.
"Come with me, Alden," Dumbledore said quietly. "We should speak… away from ears that have not yet learned when to close."
Snape's brows drew together, but he said nothing. Dumbledore turned to him, his voice calm, unyielding. "Severus, I believe you are still in possession of Mr. Dreyse's wand."
Snape hesitated, black eyes flicking between them. Then, without a word, he drew the wand from inside his robes and laid it across Dumbledore's open palm. The headmaster's long fingers curled gently around the ebony wood.
"I will keep it safe for now," Dumbledore murmured. "Thank you, Severus."
Snape's jaw tightened, but he inclined his head. His voice, when it came, was low and rough. "He'll need it back soon enough."
"I should hope so," Dumbledore said. Then to Alden, with that old, sorrowful kindness that made his words weigh twice as much, "Come along, my boy."
Alden slid out of the bed, every muscle stiff, the linen of his bandages whispering under the dim light. He felt lighter somehow—hollowed out. Like someone had carved the heat out of him and left only the shell. He didn't meet Pomfrey's eyes as he passed.
The corridor outside was almost empty, but not quiet. The castle had a way of carrying whispers farther than sound ought to travel. The torches along the walls hissed faintly, the flames bending toward them as they walked.
Their footsteps echoed through the stones—one soft, deliberate, ancient; the other, slow and heavy, dragging slightly as if Alden wasn't sure he wanted to reach wherever they were going.
He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, on the patterns of worn flagstone beneath his shoes. But the whispers still reached him—hissing, darting through doorways, crawling through cracks in the walls.
"—that's him—"
"—heard he cursed the High Inquisitor—"
"—Dumbledore's finally lost it, protecting him—"
"—bet the Aurors are waiting in the Headmaster's office already—"
"—Azkaban. That's where monsters like that go—"
The words stung less than they should have. They washed over him like rain—cold, familiar, numbing.
Dumbledore didn't speak, and Alden was grateful for it. There was nothing to say that wouldn't sound like pity.
They passed the great marble staircase, the portraits leaning forward in their frames to watch. Some whispered among themselves, others frowned in solemn silence. One elderly witch with a jeweled collar hissed, "Dark blood shows its color eventually," before Dumbledore's quiet gaze silenced her.
When they reached the corridor leading toward the stone gargoyle, Alden risked a glance upward. The stained glass along the upper walls filtered the morning light into streaks of gold and blue that fell across the floor—warm light, almost gentle.
But all he could think about was how the colors looked like bars.
The gargoyle sprang aside at Dumbledore's murmured password, revealing the moving staircase beyond. The Headmaster gestured for him to follow, and the spiral began to rise with a low groan.
They ascended in silence—Alden's eyes on the steps, Dumbledore's on him.
At last, when the staircase slowed, and the carved door loomed ahead, Dumbledore spoke—his tone quiet, carrying that peculiar weight that could make even the castle itself seem to listen.
"You mustn't mistake silence for abandonment, Alden," he said. "Not every whisper that follows you belongs to your enemies."
Alden didn't answer. He only stared at the carved phoenix on the door as it opened, the firelight from within spilling across the landing like molten gold.
For the first time in his life, he wished he'd never come to Hogwarts at all.