Chapter Text
1st September, 1999
It was a day like any other at King’s Cross Station. That September the summer sun had departed early, making way for a damp sky which threatened to bring the first true autumnal storm of the year in the afternoon. Nothing unusual for London; just the usual rain. The usual crowd of commuters. The usual train drivers and guards checking the platforms. The only unusual thing that happened that morning was the comings and goings of people dressed in eccentric clothing, who appeared around ten o’clock and then disappeared mysteriously through the wall between platforms nine and ten.
Among them were a boy in a wheelchair, wearing a black shirt far too large for him, being pushed determinedly by a grey-haired man with icy blue eyes and an odd lime-green uniform.
“Really, I can come on my own next year,” said the boy, his voice quiet and his head resting on his own shoulder. “I’ve learned by now.”
The man behind him shook his head and let out a dry chuckle. “Y’think I’m doing it for you?” he asked. He had a strong American accent. “Nah. I’ll do anything to get away from Ten for a couple of hours.”
The remark, clearly intended as a joke, provoked no laughter. The boy continued to let himself be pushed in silence. The man looked down, his brow furrowed, and found himself meeting a pair of utterly serious dark eyes. He understood, having known the boy for fourteen years by that point, that his words had been taken literally. He sighed.
“It’s not a problem,” he hastened to correct. He slowed his walk until he stopped right in front of the wall between the two platforms. “Besides, how would you get through the wall if I didn’t give you a run-up?”
The boy pondered for a moment. He tried to shrug, but his paralysed shoulders only allowed a tiny movement that resembled more of a spasm.
“I can cast a spell on the chair to make it speed up,” he said. “I’m allowed to use magic outside of school if it relates to my condition, as long as Muggles don’t see me. Professor McGonagall told me so.”
The man closed his eyes, huffed and shook his head again. “Yeah, I know, Gad.”
“Then why—”
“Because I’m happy to be here.”
The boy stopped protesting. He raised his head slightly, just enough to shoot the man a confused look, then mumbled a faint, “Ah.”
The man gestured towards the wall in front of them. “Can we go now?”
“Yes,” the other replied immediately.
Without further ado, the man pushed forward, accelerated until he was almost running, and disappeared with the boy between platforms nine and ten.
The other side was far more crowded. There were people pushing trolleys laden with luggage, others carrying large cages containing owls of every colour, cats running along the platform and children of all ages chatting cheerfully—some with their families and others catching up with friends they hadn’t seen in ages.
Hogwarts had remained closed after the war. All the students had lost a year of school due to the reconstruction, and now those who should have been in their fourth year, like Gad, found themselves in their third. Technically, he wouldn’t have needed to, or so Professor McGonagall had told him.
“If you continue studying while the school is closed, you can easily move up to the fourth year when it reopens,” she had told him one day during her visit to St Mungo’s. “In fact, you could even move up to the fifth year, considering your grades!”
She had spoken the words with a proud smile that should have warmed his heart. But all they had provoked was reflection.
He didn’t want to move up to the fifth year. He didn’t want to move up to the fourth year either. Firstly, he didn’t want to be the strange one who received special treatment. He had been that practically from the day he was born. It wasn’t that he disliked it; he simply wanted a different experience. Secondly, he didn’t want to finish school quickly. He wanted to stay as long as possible. He wanted to learn everything there was to learn and hopefully find a way to put an end to his suffering by his seventh year.
Of course, he couldn’t tell that to the new Headmistress of Hogwarts. He had given her the smile he had learned was the appropriate response to praise, and had only mentioned the first reason.
“Hey, kid,” the man called.
Lost in his thoughts, Gad hadn’t realised that, from the moment he’d entered the magical area of King’s Cross and his wheelchair had begun to float, he had continued forward and left his Healer behind. He turned around and went back to the entrance of Platform 9¾.
Greg the Healer gave him his usual crooked smile. It was a strange smile, very different from those Gad had seen on the many faces that had come and gone during his childhood in the hospital. It almost seemed as if Greg did it reluctantly. As if he waited for the moment when he couldn’t help but smile. Gad had often wondered what it must be like not to be able to hold back a smile. He had always had to force his own.
“I have to go,” he explained. “My shift starts in half an hour.”
The boy looked at him quizzically. “Right,” he said. “Then go.”
Greg sighed. He tapped his foot a couple of times, a sign Gad had learned to recognise as nervousness. He didn’t understand it.
“Will you be okay?” he asked, his gaze elsewhere.
Gad frowned. Define ‘okay’, he wanted to say.
“Yes,” he replied.
The Healer nodded. “Good,” he murmured.
He hesitated for a moment. It seemed as if he was searching for the right way to say goodbye. This time, Gad understood; he never knew how to do that either. That was why he liked this Healer more than the others. He always seemed as uncomfortable as Gad was, sometimes even more so—probably because of some feeling.
The boy watched him raise his arm as if to place it on his shoulder. He wondered why. There was no practical reason to touch him in that situation. Greg must have thought the same, he told himself, because he stopped at the last moment and lowered the arm.
“So… have fun,” he offered.
The boy frowned again. “It’s a school,” he observed. “You don’t go there to have fun. You go there to study.” He raised his head slightly and fixed his eyes on his. “Right?”
Greg blinked, then let out a chuckle that the boy found incomprehensible.
“You scare the hell out of me, you know?”
Finally, something familiar. Gad nodded.
“Yes, I know,” he murmured. “I scare the hell out of a lot of people. But I don’t understand why.”
The man laughed again and shook his head. He gestured towards the scarlet train and smirked.
“Hurry up, the train’s leaving.”
“Okay,” he replied. He turned his chair around and continued along the platform without looking back.
It was true that he scared people. Gad had overheard many conversations throughout his life, but had participated in very few. For the most part, he had spoken with his three Healers: Greg had taught him to play the piano. Zachary had taught him how to behave around others. Quentin had taught him how not to. Apart from them, his only contact with the outside world had been Professor McGonagall.
Then he arrived at Hogwarts and witnessed different conversations. There, people no longer talked about patients, illnesses, treatments or curses. They talked about homework, books and, occasionally, Quidditch matches. But he continued not to participate. He still wasn’t sure if he could pass as one of them.
It was at Hogwarts, however, that he had first experienced the unusual sensation of being seen. While a boy in a wheelchair isn’t particularly remarkable in a hospital, he does attract a lot of attention in other contexts. For example, in a crowded corridor of a castle. Or on a busy train platform.
Gad had learned to disappear. If he was confined to a room with a group of people, he knew how to stay quiet and still enough to be forgotten. But that took time and the right conditions; amidst the constant comings and goings at King’s Cross, it was virtually impossible. Gad took up too much space. He disrupted the carefree atmosphere of innocence and laughter.
Thus, he was seen. He had learned that people reacted in precisely three different ways when they looked at him. There were those who looked at his wheelchair and felt compassion. Those who looked him in the eye and, for some reason, felt fear. And those who made a point of not looking at him at all because they felt embarrassed.
He didn’t understand the reactions because he truly comprehended them. He understood them because, in the black notebook that he always carried with him, he had noted down every gesture and expression that he had ever seen on the faces of the people around him from the moment he had learned to write. Gad didn’t feel those reactions. He just understood them.
But that morning was different. Something extraordinary happened that morning—something unprecedented. As he floated along the platform towards one of the train’s entrances, Gad didn’t just receive a different reaction; he received three.
The first two came almost simultaneously; as he walked in one direction, he saw two people walking briskly in the other. One of them was Professor Snape. Gad had seen him many times before: he had been his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in his first year and Headmaster during his second. Professor McGonagall had informed him that he would resume teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts rather than remaining Headmaster that year—Gad didn’t know why and wasn’t particularly interested in finding out.
For two years, he had categorised his usual reaction from Snape as type three: those of people who refused to look at him because they felt embarrassed. Yet that day, for some reason, Snape looked at him. He ran his gaze over him, lingering a moment longer on the chair, then on his tilted head and finally on the rest of his motionless body. There wasn’t even the faintest trace of compassion in his gaze. He remained impassive, vaguely sullen; just as he was with everyone else. Then he rolled his eyes, turned to the person next to him and muttered something as if scolding her.
The person was a woman Gad had never seen before. She wore an indigo dress under a long black cloak, and had a mass of dark curls that fell just above her shoulders. She returned Snape’s grumbling with a chuckle, which seemed to infuriate him further. Then she turned and looked at Gad, too—she looked him in the eye. She lingered a few moments longer than people usually did, and smiled at him. It wasn’t the nervous smile of someone trying to hide their discomfort or fright. It was a smile that, before that moment, Gad had only ever seen directed at other people, never at him.
Finally, the third came because those reactions had been so odd, so different from what he was accustomed to receiving, that Gad had stopped in the middle of the platform without realising it.
“Oh, shi—”
Someone had bumped into him. Gad turned his chair around and found himself facing a boy who was clearly a student, perhaps slightly older than him. He didn’t have time to take in much about him, though; the boy was too busy trying to steady himself and muttering obscenities under his breath.
“Sorry, mate, I didn’t see you. I really didn’t see you!” he exclaimed. He leaned down and put a hand on his shoulder. “You alright?”
Gad had never been touched by anyone for non-medical reasons for as long as he could remember. He couldn’t even open his mouth to answer.
Meanwhile, the boy had already turned to glance anxiously at the train. “Merlin’s beard, we’re late,” he gasped. “We’re late, aren’t we?”
This time, Gad parted his lips to tell him that no, they wouldn’t be late. That the train was enchanted to carry a specific number of passengers and wouldn’t depart until they were all on board. That it had been like that ever since an incident involving Harry Potter and Ron Weasley a few years back—Professor McGonagall had told him. But the boy had already turned away again.
He waved his hand at someone in the crowd, shouted something in French and rushed towards the train as if his life depended on it.
Nothing particularly remarkable happened in the following hours. Having recovered from the odd events, Gad boarded the train and, as usual, headed for the compartment generally reserved for Prefects. There wasn’t enough space for his wheelchair in the other carriages—something McGonagall had pointed out to the relevant people since Gad’s very first year on that train, but for which apparently no solution had yet been found.
It didn’t bother him anyway. It wasn’t as if he had friends to chat with elsewhere, and he found the conversations among the Prefects more interesting to overhear than those of the younger students. Isobel Arncliffe, one of the new Ravenclaw Prefects, greeted him with a courteous nod before quickly turning towards the window. She was one of those who felt embarrassed. Alex Abbott, who had apparently become a Hufflepuff Prefect that year, met his eyes for an instant, swallowed, and quickly turned towards a Gryffindor boy named Andrew Goldstein, who offered Gad a somewhat pitiful smile.
None of the Slytherin Prefects said nothing to him or the students from other houses. They kept to themselves, an attitude that would persist for several years to come due to the recently concluded Second Wizarding War.
The journey was silent and rather boring. When the time came to put on their school robes, as the train was approaching its destination, all the Prefects hurried to open their trunks to retrieve them and wear them over their clothes.
Gad didn’t have a trunk; he wouldn’t have been able to carry one. Instead, he had a satchel that had been enchanted to contain everything he needed for the school year. It had been a gift from Professor McGonagall shortly after his admission to Hogwarts had become official.
Gad didn’t pull out his uniform. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at himself and gave it a quick wave. His clothes changed from the simple shirt he had been wearing to the Ravenclaw robes he would wear for the rest of the school year. A couple of students still busy putting on their own uniforms glanced at him. He often received such looks when he used magic outside of school. The pity, fear and embarrassment wavered for a moment, and Gad found himself meeting eyes that were almost… almost envious.
He couldn’t understand why, though. He would much rather not have broken the rules if he could have helped it. Breaking the rules made him uncomfortable. It meant that someone might stop to ask questions, and he might have to provide explanations. It meant the possibility of having a conversation he would have gladly avoided.
He floated off the train and chaos reigned once again. Kids of all ages were hopping excitedly or racing to see who could reach the carriages first.
“Hey, look! The freak is back!” a voice behind him remarked.
Gad knew who it was without needing to turn around. It was Elizabeth Sinclair, a brown-haired, blue-eyed Hufflepuff in his year. She had started calling him that since the journey to Hogwarts during their first year. Gad understood why; she was one of those who had looked him in the eyes and got scared. Instead of trying to avoid him like everyone else, Sinclair had decided to do what she could to prove herself unafraid.
“Merlin’s balls! He’s still alive? Didn’t St Mungo’s people say he was supposed to die by the end of second year?”
That was Richard Clarke, Sinclair’s best friend—a blond boy with a plump face and a dimpled chin. Clarke had nothing against Gad; if it weren’t for Sinclair, he would have been one of those who looked at him with compassion. But he had a massive crush on her and did pretty much everything he thought might impress her.
Gad lowered his head, as he always did. He wasn’t exactly ashamed; his condition wouldn’t have allowed that. But he had learned from observing others that shame was the appropriate response in that situation, so he forced himself to feel it. Clarke and Sinclair sniggered as they passed him and walked arm in arm.
Then he heard another, less familiar but still recognisable, voice walk past him.
“I’m telling you, it’s going to be so damn weird,” it said.
It was the boy who had bumped into him at the station. Curiously, instead of wearing the colours of one of the houses, he was wearing the generic Hogwarts robes that first years wore before being sorted.
“Just what I need on my first day at a new school. Being lumped in with the first years…”
A blonde girl in Gryffindor robes beside him chuckled. She seemed strangely delighted by the remark.
“It’ll be fine, don’t worry!” she replied. “It’s just for the Sorting, then you can sit with the rest of us!”
The boy shook his head. “I’m already a year behind…”
“We’re all a year behind,” she observed.
“Yeah, well…” he said sheepishly. He lowered his gaze and ran a hand through the back of his head. “You lot were in a war.”
She giggled again. “Not personally,” she said. “Anyway, you can say you were in it too if anyone asks. You don’t look French!”
He turned towards her and smiled. The path was barely lit, but the shade of green in his eyes was so bright that Gad could see it even in the dark.
“Why, what do French people look like?” he asked.
The girl met his gaze and seemed to stumble over her words. She stammered something incomprehensible and was interrupted before managing to articulate.
“First-years! First-years, this way!”
They both turned around. Hagrid’s giant frame gestured for the students to step forward with one hand, while holding a large oil lamp in the other.
“First-years, ter the boats!”
The green-eyed boy sighed. “I have to go…”
The girl nodded. “Hope you make it into Gryffindor!”
“Yeah, hope so!” he replied, before hurrying off towards the boats.
Gad floated towards the half-giant as well. He stopped in front of him for a moment, waiting for him to return his gaze. Hagrid was one of the few people who offered him something different when he met his eyes. There was still plenty of compassion, but it never became pity. It was a gentle kind of sympathy. Gad had liked it since his first year—it was his favourite gaze, along with McGonagall’s.
“Gad!” he exclaimed, helping a first-year girl into a boat.
“Hagrid,” he greeted him.
“How are yeh, lad?”
“Fine,” said Gad.
“Wan’ a ride in the boat?” the gamekeeper asked, helping one of the boys. “The Headmistress said yeh can.”
“No, thank you,” he replied. “I like floating around when it’s dark.”
“Hmm, right then. But yeh gotta come visit me sometime, yeh hear?”
Gad nodded.
“She’s ain’ force’n yeh ter take all those extra classes, is she now?” Hagrid added.
“No, no,” replied the boy. “She tried, but I told her I don’t want special treatment.”
Hagrid let out a low chuckle and shook his head. “Yeh remind me so much o’ Harry when he was little,” he said fondly. “Have I ever told yeh tha’?”
Gad gave a small nod. He opened his mouth to reply, but by then the line of students waiting to get on the boats had ended, and the green-eyed boy was the only one left in front of the gamekeeper.
Hagrid looked him up and down. “Yer not a first year, are yeh?”
The boy blushed violently under the lamp light. “N-no, but… er… I’ve moved here from Beauxbatons. I need to be sorted,” he explained.
Hagrid seemed delighted. “Ah, Beauxbatons! O’ course, o’ course, get in, now!” he exclaimed. “Yer comin’ with me!” He helped him into the last boat and sat down in front of him. “See yeh, Gad!”
Gad gave him a small wave as the other began to row.
“I know the Headmistress o’ Beauxbatons, y’know?” he said.
“Oh, really?” asked the boy.
“Oh, yeh! She’s a righ’ amazin’ woman, she is. The greatest I know, fer sure!”
The rest of the conversation was lost as Gad had already started heading towards the carriages.
It was true that Gad liked the dark. It made no difference to him, strictly speaking; he couldn’t feel cold or heat, and he had no idea what sunlight on skin felt like. But people spoke in low voices in the dark, and it was much easier to disappear.
Technically, Gad couldn’t travel in the carriages pulled by Thestrals, but he could enchant his wheelchair to keep up with them. He liked Thestrals. He had been able to see them since his first year—a lot of people had died at St Mungo’s since he’d been conscious—and he had always liked them. It wasn’t that he had a particular affinity with that specific animal. It was more the feeling of having knowledge that most people around him didn’t have. It was his absolute favourite thing.
Gad reached the castle thinking he would gladly retreat to his dormitory. He had no desire to attend the Sorting Ceremony, and he didn’t know what to do with a feast, since he could neither smell nor taste food, let alone feel hunger. Actually, he didn’t know what to do with a dormitory either since he didn’t sleep, but there were plenty of books waiting to be read.
However, attending the ceremony and participating in the feast was compulsory. So, Gad, reluctant though he was, made his way to the Great Hall and settled in his usual spot at one of the ends of the Ravenclaw table.
The Sorting Ceremony that year was long. Due to the missing year after the war, there were twice as many first-year students—both those starting that year and those who should have started the previous one. As if that weren’t enough, there were more Hatstalls that year than Gad had ever seen in his time at Hogwarts.
It took the Sorting Hat ten minutes to decide that Cadwell, Irma should go to Slytherin, and then almost a quarter of an hour to settle on Gryffindor for Moore, Margaret. It was exhausting, especially because Gad couldn’t do anything but stay there and watch, and whether he wanted to or not, that endless list of names and houses ended up sticking in his head. It often happened that he would memorise things without knowing exactly when or why he had done so. He just did it without thinking and found his head full of useless information.
“Noxwood, Noah,” called Professor McGonagall.
A confused murmur arose from the tables.
“He’s not a first-year!” observed Bunn, a second-year Ravenclaw boy.
“No, he certainly isn’t,” replied Ferguson, a fourth-year girl. “He’s cute, though…”
“He’s transferred here from Beauxbatons,” stated Gad. “That’s why he’s being sorted.”
The two of them turned in unison and Bunn jumped. They stared at him without saying a word for a while. Ferguson smiled at him uneasily and turned away. Gad told himself that he must have disappeared well enough to make them uncomfortable at being reminded of his presence.
The green-eyed boy hesitantly sat on the stool. Professor McGonagall placed the Sorting Hat on his head, which thankfully took no more than a couple of seconds to declare, “Hufflepuff!”
The Hufflepuffs applauded, and the boy smiled. He sprang up from the stool and rushed towards his new housemates, only to realise that he had taken the hat with him. He blushed and hurried back. He handed it to the Headmistress, who shook her head and briskly reclaimed it. Several students laughed, but Noah didn’t seem to mind. He laughed along with them and, when he finally reached the table, shook every hand offered to him. He even hugged one of the girls. Odd, thought Gad. He had only just arrived in England. How had he already made friends?
Throughout the entire feast, Gad remained perfectly still, watching the others eat. This was one of those times when his condition bothered him. He was desperately curious to know what it felt like to taste food. Everyone seemed much happier with their full bellies and flushed cheeks.
He chatted with some of the ghosts passing along the tables—they could understand him. From time to time, during the many meals throughout the year, the ghosts would ask students to describe the taste of food and the sensation of eating it, and Gad always made sure to be nearby.
Then, finally, the feast ended and it was time to head to the dormitories. Gad met Professor McGonagall’s eyes as the rest of the school rose and chatted cheerfully. From the way she looked at him, it was perfectly clear that she intended to keep him back for a conversation. The last thing Gad wanted at that moment.
He looked around, considering trying to blend in with the crowd, but knew it would be utterly useless. He sighed, waited for most of the students and teachers to leave, and floated towards her.
The Headmistress made sure that everyone had left the Great Hall before dropping her stern expression and giving him her usual smile—half proud, half sympathetic. As expected, she showered him with questions ranging from a quiet, “How are you?” to an unnecessary, “Did you have any trouble getting to the castle? I told Hagrid to take you by boat…” to an unexpected but welcome, “You said you had problems in the dormitory last year? I’ve arranged for you to have a separate one.”
Now that was great news. There had been several problems the year before, in particular the fact that Gad didn’t sleep at all, and the constant snoring of four other boys prevented him from doing what he wanted to do during the night. Like studying, for example. He did his best to ensure that the expression he gave the Headmistress was as close to a smile as possible.
“Thank you, Professor,” he murmured.
“Don’t mention it, Gad,” she replied. “I was quite unsure, to be honest. I was afraid the other students might target you. Accuse you of receiving favouritism. But they don’t. Do they?”
Gad looked up. He met McGonagall’s gaze with cold composure. “They don’t, ma’am.”
It was a lie; they did. But Gad couldn’t have cared less.
The Professor smiled. “Good, good…”
She kept him there for a few more minutes before letting him go to his dormitory and taking her leave.
It was a long journey from the Great Hall to the Ravenclaw dormitory: it was located in one of the castle’s highest towers. Technically, the students should all have been in bed already, but Gad didn’t hurry; he deliberately went slowly. He loved the castle when it was silent. If he were seen, he fully intended to play the victim, telling whichever passing teacher that he hadn’t been able to keep up with the others and had decided to wander off. What could they do? Send him to the Headmistress?
Just as he finished formulating this thought, he turned a corner on the third floor and encountered someone. Luckily, Gad had time to stop his chair and retreat back around the bend before that someone saw him.
There were three boys, all of whom seemed to be seventh-years. Judging by their robes, two of them were Gryffindors and the other was a Slytherin. Something was happening that Gad had never witnessed before, and it was bizarre enough to convince him to stay and watch. The Gryffindor boys were targeting the Slytherin. They weren’t teasing him in the same way that the Slytherins had teased Gryffindors a couple of years before, especially when Snape was Headmaster. But there were still plenty of harsh words exchanged, some of which sounded almost like threats.
“You know the Auror Department is looking for you, right?” sniggered one of them. “My mother works there, you know. They’ll find you all eventually.”
“You bet they will,” confirmed the other.
The Slytherin boy said nothing. He continued walking towards the staircase with his head down and his fists clenched, as if the others didn’t exist—at least until the next sentence was spoken.
“You’ll all end up in Azkaban with your daddies!”
At that, the boy stopped. He stared straight ahead and seemed to be deliberating. With lightning speed, he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the boy who had spoken.
“Silentium Ultimum!” he shouted.
A green spark shot from the tip of the wand and sped towards its target—too quickly for the boy to have time to draw his own wand.
But someone else intervened. At the last moment, the curse was blocked by a Shield Charm coming from behind the two Gryffindor boys. They turned to see who it was and found themselves facing the same woman in the indigo dress that Gad had seen that morning at the station.
The three boys paled instantly, but she didn’t seem angry. She put her wand back in her pocket, walked serenely to the centre of the group, and stopped. She gave each of the three boys the same strange, cryptic smile she had given Gad, then nodded at the Gryffindor students.
“Bugger off.”
They didn’t need to be told twice. They promptly turned on their heels and ran until they disappeared down the corridor. The woman turned to the Slytherin student and took a step towards him. He lowered his head, but she continued to smile at his hair.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“A… Avery,” stammered the other. “Ca… Cassius.”
“Hmm…” she murmured. “Cassius.” She narrowed her eyes and circled around him. “Do you have any idea what curse you just cast?”
The boy lowered his head further. He didn’t answer.
“It’s fatal, you know?” she insisted. There was no reproach in her tone; it seemed more like morbid curiosity. “It empties the lungs of all the air they contain. It’s used to suffocate victims.”
“I-I… I didn’t know that, ma’am,” he muttered. “I thought… I thought it was just one of those jinxes that sticks people’s tongues to the roof of their mouths.”
That was clearly a lie. Even Gad, distant as he was, could tell.
“Hmm…” the woman repeated.
“Please, don’t… don’t tell Professor Snape,” the boy begged.
She burst into a quiet laugh. “Sweet Salazar, boy, of course not. I want you to be punished, not killed.”
The boy’s head snapped up. He looked at the woman with huge, pleading blue eyes. She returned his gaze with a wry smile; that one looked like a reproach, but it was in no way appropriate given the gravity of the boy’s actions. It was the kind of reprimand someone might give for getting mud on a freshly polished floor.
The woman nodded again towards the corridor. “Bugger off.”
Cassius breathed a huge sigh of relief. He looked enormously surprised, but didn’t question it. He quickly turned his back on her and ran towards the stairs.
The woman closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She shook her head as though she had just dealt with squabbling children over a toy. She adjusted the black bag on her shoulder and headed towards the corridor.
Gad was so taken aback by that string of bizarre events that he realised too late that she was coming his way and would inevitably see him. By the time he came to his senses and was about to react, she had already turned the corner.
She didn’t seem at all surprised to see him. She barely looked at him.
“Not bad, this castle at night, eh?” she whispered, as though making small talk with a colleague.
Gad swallowed, but couldn’t speak.
The woman turned and looked him in the eye under one of the castle’s lit torches. They were an odd shade of violet. Still wearing her smile, she leaned down slightly and ran her eyes over his face.
“Bugger off.”
Gad turned his chair without a word and continued towards his dormitory.
By the time he reached the entrance, he was so disoriented that it took him longer than usual to solve the riddle inscribed on the eagle-shaped bronze knocker.
I am the light that does not burn.
I am the treasure that does not deplete.
I am the weapon that does not kill.
What am I?
Gad gave it a half-smile. “Knowledge,” he said. The door opened.
He made his way towards the stairs that led to the dormitories. Right in the centre, between the staircases leading to the girls’ and boys’ dormitories, a third, smaller staircase had appeared. Gad floated up it and reached a door with his name carved into the wood. He raised his hand to the doorknob, but it seemed to recognise him on its own.
The room inside was almost identical to the other boys’ dormitories, except that it was all his. If Gad could have been happy, his happiness would have looked exactly like that. A silent room, a whole night alone, and a pile of books in his satchel.
He closed the door behind him and floated towards the bedside table. He placed his satchel on it, fully intending to unpack it shortly, but not immediately. He had something more important to do first.
He floated towards the bed until his chair bumped against the mattress. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at himself and levitated until he was lying on the bed. Once he was in what he deemed an appropriate position, he waved his wand again and turned off the bedside lamp. He closed his eyes for a moment, then settled his head on the pillow.
He gripped his wand again. With considerable effort and a grunt, he raised his arm enough to point it at his chest.
“Silentium Ultimum,” he whispered.
Gad felt his lungs slowly empty. He lay motionless, eyes closed, his grip on the wand growing steadily tighter, as every trace of air inside his body dissipated without making a single sound.
And then it was over. The spell died out and Gad opened his eyes. Disappointed but unsurprised, he cast another spell and levitated himself back into his chair. He settled into his usual position, lit the lamp again, and reached for his satchel on the bedside table. He took out his black notebook and a pen—one of those Muggle ones; he didn’t like inkwells. Flicking through a few pages, he reached a long list of spells, potions, magical plants and other methods he had catalogued under ‘Miscellaneous’. He added ‘Silentium Ultimum’ to the seemingly endless list of things that had been unable to kill him.
He closed the notebook and put it back on the bedside table. Then he began pulling out one by one all the books he had brought with him. He took great satisfaction in the sight of their combined thickness.
He still had so much to try.