Chapter Text
"Tha's not goin'. I'm not losin' thee to some fancy-pants school. Tha can learn owt tha needs out on t'street wi' me, just fine."
"Bugger off, Dad. I can't read a bloody thing. I can't even write proper. Hogwarts'll teach me magic, won't it?"
In a run down hostel, near the M62, a father and son could be found arguing in one of the rooms, surrounded by a bunch of cauldrons. The father was a short wizard with bandy legs and long, straggly, matted ginger hair. He had swollen, bloodshot brown eyes, grubby hands and a stubbly beard. He was wearing tattered clothing and he smelt of tobacco and booze. The son was a scrawny and small thing with messy brown hair, grubby hands and big brown eyes. He was also wearing tattered clothes that did not suit him at all.
"Who needs books an' pens when tha can squeeze through tight gaps, nick gear, an' sell it for a fair bit o' brass?"
"Magic could help us nick summat though, Dad. I'm not gonna be reet small and skinny for life. I'm eleven!"
Right now the two were arguing over Hogwarts. The son, Rowan, was finally old enough to go and he wanted to go but his father, Mundungus Fletcher, did not want to lose his stealing tool for 10 months of the year. He was not having it.
"Magic? Tha' think magic makes a thief, lad? Clever fingers and eyes in t'back o' thy head makes a thief! Hogwarts is for soft lads. They'll have thee locked in a classroom, filling thy head wi' rules. Rules don't put meat on t'table." Mundungus spat, a cloud of stale tobacco smoke billowing from his mouth. "I'm eleven, Dad!" Rowan shouted back, his chest heaving under a tattered tweed jacket three sizes too big. "And I'm sick o' sleeping in stolen cauldrons and dodging t'bobbies! There's a whole world ou' there, and I'm stuck 'ere tryin' ta read labels on knock-off potions! I want to know wha' they say. I want to know wha' I can do." Mundungus took a swig from a dented hip flask, his bloodshot eyes narrowing. "Tha'll do what I tell thee. Now, pack it in. We've a drop-off in Bradford at dawn, and I need thee sharp. Go to sleep." He stomped over to the sagging mattress in the corner, collapsing onto it without removing his boots. Within minutes, the room filled with his loud, rattling snores.
Rowan stood frozen in the dim light of the hostel room. His gaze flicked to the cracked bedside table where his Hogwarts acceptance letter lay, the emerald ink catching the moonlight. He didn't need to think. He didn't need to plan. His survival instinct, honed by years of quick escapes, took over. Silently, he slipped the heavy parchment letter into his oversized pocket. He didn't look at the cauldrons, or the piles of dubious silver trinkets, or his sleeping father. He had only the clothes on his back, a mismatched kit of stolen, ill-fitting rags, but as he checked the window lock, his mind was already calculating the exit route. He slid the sash up without a sound, slipped through the narrow gap, and dropped into the cold night.
The journey to London was a masterclass in survival. Rowan didn't have a single knut to his name, let alone Muggle money, but he had a face that looked innocent enough to fool any conductor and a tongue that could spin gold out of thin air. He ducked under turnstiles, blended into crowds of early morning commuters, and spun a tearful tale to a soft-hearted guard about losing his mother at a service station. He was charming, he was quick, and he adapted to every obstacle like water. By the time the smog of London filled his lungs, the sun was high. He sprinted into King's Cross Station, his chest burning, his oversized boots clattering loudly against the polished floor. The station clock read 10:58 AM. He didn't know how he knew where Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was, perhaps it was the magic in his blood, or perhaps he just noticed the peculiar way a family with large trunks and an owl cage seemed to vanish near a solid brick barrier. Rowan didn't hesitate. He took a deep breath, fixed his eyes on the solid red bricks, and charged. He braced for the impact, but it never came.
Instead, he burst through onto a crowded platform filled with a scarlet steam engine and a sea of families in elegant robes. The Hogwarts Express let out a deafening whistle, the pistons churning as the train began to slowly roll forward. Rowan sprinted alongside the moving carriage, his hand reaching out. A sympathetic older student leaned out of an open door, grasping Rowan's grubby hand and hauling him aboard just as the platform began to slip away. Rowan didn't pause for a breather though, no his brain instantly calculated his situation: he had no trunk, no uniform, no books, and crucially, no wand. To anyone else, it was a disaster. To Rowan, the Hogwarts Express was simply a shopping centre where everything was one hundred percent free, provided you were quick enough.
He spent the first hour observing. He walked the corridors, peeking into compartments, mapping out the train's layout, and identifying his targets. He looked for the wealthy, careless students, the ones too busy showing off to notice a scrawny lad sliding past. His first score was easy. A gaggle of loud Gryffindor third-years had left their compartment door ajar while they went to find the food trolley. Rowan slipped inside like a shadow. Within thirty seconds, he had lifted three pristine, unmarked standard-grade cauldrons from under the seats, stacking them silently. He also swiped a bundle of blank parchment, a bottle of ink, and a handful of silver quills. Next came the uniforms. Rowan knew he looked like a gutter rat in his oversized Muggle rags. He needed to blend in. He targeted a compartment of first-years who were busy changing into their brand-new robes. Piling into the narrow corridor, they left their old clothes and spare robes unattended. Rowan snaked his arm through a gap in the door. He snagged a beautifully tailored, brand-new set of black robes that looked like they would fit his small frame perfectly. As his fingers brushed the fine fabric, a strange, unfamiliar thrill shot through him. It wasn't just the thrill of the steal; it was the feel of the material. It was nice. Beautiful, even. He shook the feeling off quickly, no time to daydream. The wands were the real challenge. Stealing a wizard's wand was dangerous, but Rowan needed options. He couldn't risk arriving at school completely weaponless. He found his first opportunity near the back of the train. A chubby, nervous-looking boy had fallen asleep against the window, his wand dangling precariously from his fingers. Rowan slipped into the compartment, slid into the seat opposite, and adopted a perfectly innocent expression. He reached out with two fingers, light as a feather, and eased the wood from the boy's grip. Twelve inches, cherry wood, slightly springy. Rowan gripped it. Nothing happened. It felt cold, dead, and entirely wrong in his hand. He slipped it into his sleeve anyway. His second wand came from a boastful Slytherin boy who was busy showing off a trick to his mates in the corridor. The boy slipped his wand into his back pocket as he turned to laugh. Rowan checked his exits, bumped into the boy with a clumsy, well-rehearsed, "Oh, bloody hell, sorry mate, lost mi' balance," and walked away with the wand hidden in his palm. Ten inches, hawthorn, rigid. Rowan gave it a tiny, hidden flick under his cloak. A spark of dark purple light shot out, scorching his thumb. He hissed, tucking it away. It was a bad fit, but it was valuable. He could always trade it or sell it if he needed the money. By the time the train began to slow down and the dark outlines of Hogwarts castle appeared against the night sky, Rowan's oversized pockets were bursting. He had a full set of books, a stack of parchment, a stolen uniform that actually fit him, a pocket full of pumpkin pasties, and two wands tucked into his waistband. He changed into his new robes in a deserted bathroom stall, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. For the first time in his life, he didn't look like Mundungus Fletcher's street-rat son. He looked like a proper wizard. He smiled, a genuine, charming smirk, before adjusting his collar and stepping out to join the rest of the first-years. He had managed to get everything he needed to survive the year. Now he just had to make sure he didn't get caught using any of it.
"We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."
Rowan found himself smirking at that announcement as the train finally came to a stop. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. The night air was cold but Rowan didn't react to it. A giant man covered in hair and furt with a lamp came walking over the platform at that point.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
Slipping and stumbling, they followed the giant down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was dark on either side of them. They must be in a forest. Nobody spoke much.
"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec, jus' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Oooooh!" The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
"No more'n four to a boat!"
The giant pointed to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Rowan climbed into a boat with a pair of boy/girl twins and a pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails. The twins both had black hair but the girl's hair was long. The boy had brown eyes and he wasn't wearing the uniform properly. His shirt was untucked and his black tie wasn't tied properly. The girl had silvery/grey eyes and she was wearing the uniform perfectly. She had tied half her hair into two pig tails and the rest of it was down.
"Everyone in? Right then - FORWARD!"
And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.
"Heads down!"
As the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.
"Oy, you there! Is this your toad?"
"Trevor!" cried a boy with dirty blonde hair blissfully, holding out his hands. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after the giant's lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle. They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.
"Everyone here? You there, still got yer toad?"
The giant raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door. The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face.
"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall,"
"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."
She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was massive, the stone walls were lit with flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors. They followed Professor McGonagall across the flagged stone floor. Rowan could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right, the rest of the school must already be here, but Professor McGonagall showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.
"Welcome to Hogwarts, The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room. The four Houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the House cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting. I shall return when we are ready for you, Please wait quietly."
She left the chamber. Rowan scoffed and looked around at all the 11 year old around him. He wondered what else he could steal and sell for some money. He was about to pick pocket a kid that was clearly a Malfoy when a handful of students let out a scream. He quickly looked around to find what caused this when he noticed about twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying:
"Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance -"
"My dear Friar, haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost - I say, what are you all doing here?"
A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years. Nobody answered. "New students!" said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. "About to be Sorted, I suppose?" A few people nodded mutely. "Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!" said the Friar. "My old House, you know."
"Move along now, The Sorting Ceremony's about to start."
Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.
"Now, form a line, and follow me."
Rowan quickly got in line between the pair of twins from the boat. The boy glared at him for splitting him and his twin up, though. Rowan just ignored him and followed the rest of the 1st years into the hall. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in mid-air over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor McGonagall led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all as it was bewitched to look like the outside sky. Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard's hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth - and the hat began to sing:
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty,
But don't judge on what you see,
I'll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There's nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can't see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For I'm a Thinking Cap!"
The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again. Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.
"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!" The blonde girl from the boat stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause -
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. "Black, Nash" McGonagall shouted and the boy from the boat smirked and practically ran to the stool as if he already knew which house he was going into. And so did the hat. It barley touched his head before shouting
"Gryffindor"
"Told you" Nash mouth to his sister as he handed the hat back to McGonagall. He then got up and rushed over to the Gryffindor table. He sat next to a pair of identical ginger twins. He seemed to know them very well. The sister in questioned rolled her eyes as "Black, Nyla" McGonagall called her name. She walked slowly to the stool and sat down. The hat covered her face and seemed to think for a few seconds before shouting
"Ravenclaw"
Nyla got up slowly, handed the hat back and joined the blue table. She sat on the side of the table that gave her full view of Nash.
"Bones, Susan!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.
"Boot, Terry!"
"RAVENCLAW!"
Several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them. Nyla wasn't among them. "Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became a new Gryffindor. "Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin.
"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Sometimes the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. "Finnigan, Seamus,", a sandy-haired boy, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor. "Fletcher, Rowan" McGonagall finally called. Rowan walked towards the stool quickly and sat down. The Sorting Hat had barely brushed the tips of his hair when it let out a low, appreciative whistle inside his mind. "My, my, what a fascinating tangled web we have here," the Hat's dry voice echoed in his ears. "It's been a long time since I sat upon a mind so sharp, yet so utterly guarded. Let us see behind these walls of yours, shall we?" Rowan instantly tensed, his hands gripping the edges of the wooden stool. He immediately tried to feed the Hat a false narrative, putting on a mental act of a frightened, normal boy. The Hat chuckled, a rustling sound like dry leaves. "Oh, don't try to play tricks on me, young man. You can talk your way out of a locked vault, perhaps, but you cannot lie to the one who sees your very soul. You view the world as a game of survival, don't you? Quick fingers, quicker wits, and always, always keeping an eye on the exit." Rowan forced himself to breathe, his heart hammering against his ribs as the Hat dug deeper, unearthing things he hadn't even admitted to himself. "You think you are only a thief," the Hat mused, its tone turning surprisingly gentle. "You think that is all you are capable of being. But I see a deep craving for consistency. A longing for something beautiful, something normal. You despise the trouble your life brings, yet you know no other way to live. You have an extraordinary talent for seeing the true value in things ..... and people. You adapt to any danger, but oh, how you long to simply be free of the danger entirely." Rowan bit his lip, staring fixatedly at the floor of the Great Hall, 'Just put me somewhere I can survive, you old rag,' he thought fiercely. "Survive? Oh, you will do much more than survive," the Hat replied, its voice ringing with absolute certainty. "You have the cunning to outsmart the system, a deep resourcefulness born of necessity, and an ambition to completely reinvent who you are. You will find your true self here, Rowan Fletcher, but to do that, you need a house that rewards the clever and the adaptable. Yes... it had better be-"
"SLYTHERIN!"
"The posh house?" Rowan muttered in disgust as McGonagall pulled the hat off his head. He gave the hat a look before he got up and made his way over to the house of Snakes. The other members of his house gave him looks, he just glared at them.
"Granger, Hermione!"
A girl with bushy brown hair almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
When a boy called Neville Longbottom was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted,
"GRYFFINDOR,"
Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag." The Malfoy boy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed,
"SLYTHERIN!"
Malfoy went to join his friends Crabbe and Goyle, looking pleased with himself. There weren't many people left now. "Moon" ..., "Nott" ..., "Parkinson" ..., then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" ..., then "Perks, SallyAnne" ..., and then....
"Potter, Harry!"
Whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall as a boy with emerald green eyes and messy black hair made his way to the stool. "Potter, did she say?" and "The Harry Potter?". People craned their necks trying to get a look at the boy as the hat covered his face. It took an age before the hat finally shouted
"Gryffindor"
The boy took off the hat and walked shakily toward the Gryffindor table, sitting next to Nash. And now there were only four people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," a tall Black boy joined Harry at the Gryffindor table. "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then "Ron Weasley" was sorted into Gryffindor. As "Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin, Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away. Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster, had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.
"Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!"
He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered as food appeared on all the plates. "Bloody hell, I could ge' use ta dis" Rowan smirked before filling his plate and stuffed his face, ignoring all the looks and whispers he was generating. He doesn't give a fuck about those posh kids. He didn't even listen to them talking. When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavour you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O and rice pudding. "Oh this bloody brillian'" Rowan whispered before he began to stuffed his face with as much desert as he could.At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent.
"Ahem - just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well. I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death. And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!"
Dumbledore gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.
"Everyone pick your favourite tune, and off we go!"
And the school bellowed:
"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot."
Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Weasley twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Dumbledore conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.
"Ah, music,.A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"
A tall, sharp-featured fifth-year prefect named Gemma Farley marched the huddle of shivering first-years down a spiral stone staircase, deep into the dungeons. The air grew rapidly colder, smelling faintly of river water and ancient stone. "Keep up, the lot of you," Gemma commanded, her voice cutting through the chill. She paused before a stretch of completely bare, damp stone wall. "This is the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room. Never forget that we are the most misunderstood house in this school. The others, especially those self-righteous Gryffindors, will look at your green ties and assume the worst. They think we're all dark, cruel, or untrustworthy." She turned to face them, her eyes narrowing with absolute seriousness. "Let them think what they want. In here, we are a family. We protect our own, and we play to win. But hear this warning, and hear it well: never wander the corridors alone outside this common room. If a Gryffindor or a master catches you out of bounds, you will get no mercy. Out there, you keep your head down, you look out for danger, and you stay in groups. We keep our business behind closed doors." She turned back to the wall. "Pure-blood," she muttered clearly.
The stone brickwork groaned and slid aside, revealing a magnificent, low-ceilinged room. It was bathed in a hauntingly beautiful green light, cast by the Great Lake pressing right up against the large glass windows. Deep, luxurious green leather armchairs sat before a crackling open fireplace, and ornate silver tapestries hung from the walls. Rowan's eyes instantly widened. He didn't see a dungeon; he saw pure, unadulterated luxury. The sheer quality of the silk banners and the heavy silver trimmings made his fingers itch. "Girls' dormitories are through the left archway, boys on the right," Gemma directed smoothly. "Your trunks have already been brought up." Rowan casually kept his hands stuffed into the pockets of his stolen robes, blending into the crowd as the boys trooped up a winding set of stairs to the first-year dormitory.
He stepped into the circular room and immediately spotted five four-poster beds draped in deep green velvet. Four massive, expensive leather trunks were already sitting at the foot of the other beds. Names were embossed on them in gleaming gold lettering: Malfoy, Nott, Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle were already grunting as they shoved their shared luggage into a corner. Rowan walked over to the only bed without a trunk, his mind instantly mapping out the room's exits. He memorised the window lock and the distance to the door.
"Where's your gear then?"
Rowan turned. A pale boy with slicked-back white-blonde hair and a smirk that screamed generational wealth was staring at him. Draco Malfoy crossed his arms, looking Rowan up and down with immediate disgust. "Left it behind, didn' I?" Rowan said smoothly, his thick West Yorkshire accent cutting through the posh, aristocratic air of the room. "Travel light, mate. Less hassle." Malfoy's sneer turned into a look of absolute loathing. "What is that accent? Who even let you in here? You smell like a Muggle petrol station, and your robes look like they've been dragged through a hedge backward." He complained. "They're brand new, actually, just prefer a loose fit. Gives me room ta move" Rowan retorted with a charming, easy smile, though his internal alarms were screaming. Rich kid. Spoilt. Target or threat? Target, definitely. "You're a total embarrassment," Malfoy snapped, looking over at Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, who cracked their knuckles on cue. "My father told me Hogwarts was slipping, but I didn't think they'd start admitting street rats. Don't touch any of my things, Fletcher. If I find so much as a single Galleon missing from my cabinet, I'll have my father speak directly to the Board of Governors and get you chucked into Azkaban."
Across the room, Theodore Nott didn't even look up from the heavy, leather-bound book he was opening on his nightstand. He flipped a page with a look of supreme indifference, completely ignoring the tension. Nearby, Blaise Zabini merely glanced at Rowan through heavily hooded eyes, a faint, bored expression on his handsome face, before turning his back to arrange his expensive silver hairbrushes. To them, Rowan wasn't even worth acknowledging. Rowan just smiled, a sharp, glittering expression that didn't reach his eyes. He sat down on the edge of his velvet-draped bed, leaning back casually. Malfoy thought he was insulting him, but Rowan had been cursed at by furious market traders and chased by the police since he was old enough to walk. A blond boy with a loud mouth didn't scare him. In fact, as Rowan watched Malfoy carelessly toss a heavy, solid-gold pocket watch onto his bedside table, his fingers twitched with anticipation. This room was going to be dangerous, but it was also going to be incredibly lucrative.
"What on earth is this?"
"You're timetable, Mr Fletcher. You need to follow it to a T"
There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and the coats of armour kept moving. The ghosts didn't help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Peeves the Poltergeist was no help. He was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak Up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, "GOT YOUR CONK!" Even worse than Peeves, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Argus Filch, who kept threatening students with painfully punishments. Filch owned a cat called Mrs. Norris, a scrawny, dust-coloured creature with bulging, lamp-like eyes just like Filch's. She patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of her, put just one toe out of line, and she'd whisk off for Filch, who'd appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Filch knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick.
"It's only three days into the new term, Mr Fletcher, how have you already got5 detention's?"
"Wha' are a? A bloody nark?"
And then, once you had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic than waving your wand and saying a few funny words. They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for. Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up. Rowan uses that close to pickpocket people. It was fun. Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry Potter's name he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight. Professor McGonagall was again different. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class. "Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," she said. "Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned." Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn't wait to get started, but soon realized they weren't going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes (Rowan took none, earning himself a detention), they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only a Ravenclaw student had made any difference to her match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave a rare smile. The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Quirrell's lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he'd met in Romania and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren't sure they believed this story. He was really easy to scare abd steal off. Potions class takes place in the dungeons with the Gryffindors. It was a very cold room but the potions needed that. Not many people liked Professor Snape, they called him a greasy dungeon bat. He was strict and harsh but he needed to be to prevent injuries. Snape might have been the head of Slytherin but he appositely hated Rowan and Rowan hated him back.
"ew, you look disgusting. Have you never heard of a shower?"
"Who needs a wash when the rain is plen'y"
But Rowan had his own problems while at Hogwarts, problems he used to his advantage. The academic side of magic was a minefield of shifting letters and impossible ink; unable to read or write, Rowan spent his first week secretly shadowing the other Slytherins just to draw a pictorial timetable so he could navigate the castle. His homework was a mountain of incomprehensible squiggles that landed him in endless detentions, a hurdle he cleverly bypassed by swiping duplicates of his classmates' textbooks and bribing students to read the chapters aloud under the slick guise of testing their knowledge. The isolation in his own house was just as severe, leaving him trapped in a dormitory where Blaise, Theo, Crabbe, and Goyle treated him like thin air, while Draco Malfoy's vocal loathing became a daily baseline. He found zero comfort across the Great Hall either, fostering a fierce animosity with Ron Weasley and clashing violently with Nash Sirius Black. To Nash, Rowan was a cynical, unprincipled street criminal who cared nothing for right or wrong; to Rowan, Nash was merely a privileged, arrogant pure-blood playing at being a rebel because he possessed the safety net of a loving family and a famous legacy to catch him if he fell. Yet, recognizing immediately that the castle was packed with wealthy, naive kids absolutely desperate for contraband, Rowan adapted by establishing a strict, ironclad system. He nicked a spare trunk, retrofitted it with a complex, non-magical physical padlock that wizard fingers couldn't unpack, and used it to cache his acquired inventory. Before long, the scrawny lad became the premier underground middleman for the upper years, slipping past the boundaries into the Forbidden Forest or the locked greenhouses to harvest rare ingredients like Boomslang skin and lacewing flies, turning the desperate fifth and seventh years cramming for OWLs and NEWTs into his most lucrative, tight-lipped clientele.
"ya got beat by a girl? Oh mate"
"Shut up, Fletcher!"
But life continued and before anyone realised, two months had passed. On Halloween morning, they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly, something they had all been dying to try since they'd seen him make Neville's toad zoom around the classroom. Professor Flitwick put the class into pairs to practice.
"Now, don't forget that nice wrist movement we've been practicing! Swish and flick, remember, swish and flick. And saying the magic words properly is very important, too - never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."
It was very difficult. Rowan and his partner swished and flicked, but the feather he was supposed to be sending skyward just lay on the desktop. At the table in front of them, Ron Weasley, who was paired with Hermione Granger wasn't having much more luck. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he shouted, waving his long arms like a windmill. "You're saying it wrong, It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the 'gar' nice and long." Hermione snapped. "You do it, then, if you're so clever," Ron snarled. Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, "Wingardium Leviosa!" Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads.
"Oh, well done! Everyone see here, Miss Granger's done it!"
Rowan found it laughable how angry it made Ron. Heading to lunch, he overheard Ron complaining about Hermione. "It's no wonder no one can stand her," he said to Harry and Nash. "she's a nightmare, honestly." The girl then shoved past him, crying. The girl never returned to lessons that afternoon and she wasn't at dinner when Rowan aarrived. However, before anyone even started eating, Professor Quirrell came sprinting into the hall, his turban askew and terror on his face. Everyone stared as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know." He then sank to the floor in a dead faint. There was an uproar. It took several purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Professor Dumbledore's wand to bring silence. "Prefects, lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!" he rumbled. "But the Hufflepuf's and Slytherin's common rooms are in the dungeon" Rowan heard people around them mutter as the table made their way out of the common room. But as soon as Rowan left the great hall, he noticed Ron, Harry and Nash joining a gang of Hufflepuffs. 'Wha' are they up to' Rowan found himself thinking before he followed after the three Gryffindor's. He followed them down the corridor and then into a deserted side corridor. He made sure they didn't notice him as they made their was through several corridors. He also made sure Snape didn't notice him as the professor made his way towards the 3rd floor corridor. At the end of the 3rd corridor, Rowan finally saw what had caused all this panic. It was a horrible sight. Twelve feet tall, its skin was a dull, granite gray, its great lumpy body like a boulder with its small bald head perched on top like a coconut. It had short legs thick as tree trunks with flat, horny feet. The smell coming from it was incredible. It was holding a huge wooden club, which dragged along the floor because its arms were so long.
The troll stopped next to a doorway and peered inside. It waggled its long ears, making up its tiny mind, then slouched slowly into the room. Rowan moved closer slightly to listen to what the three boys were saying. "The key's in the lock, we could lock it in." Harry muttered. "and we could earn so many points for that!" Nash said, happily. "Good idea," said Ron nervously. The Gryffindor's edged toward the open door, mouths dry, praying the troll wasn't about to come out of it. With one great leap, Harry managed to grab the key, slam the door, and lock it.
"Yes!"
Rowan quickly hid out of the way as the Gryffindor walked back past him. He had a bad feeling about this and he was right to do so because a second later a high petrified scream came from the chamber the Gryffindor's had chained up. "Idiots" Rowan muttered as he heard the boys shout as they ran back and turned the key. "Oh, no," said Ron. "It's the girls' bathroom!" Harry gasped. "Hermione!" Ron added. "Right then," Nash said, his voice carrying that familiar, chaotic loudness inherited straight from Sirius Black. "We can't let a bit of overgrown leather ruin our Halloween. Let's go, boys." Harry pulled the door open and they ran inside. Rowan stood by the door and watched them. Hermione Granger was shrinking against the wall opposite, looking as if she was about to faint. The troll was advancing on her, knocking the sinks off the walls as it went.
"Oi, pea-brain!" Nash roared, stepping directly into the beast's line of sight. "Over here!" The troll blinked, its tiny dull eyes focusing on the charismatic boy waving his arms. "Confuse it!" Harry shouted, scanning the room for a weapon. Nash sprang forward with pure athletic grace, dodging a spray of broken pipe water. He picked up a jagged chunk of a smashed sink and hurled it. It struck the troll squarely in the jaw. "Is that all you've got?" Nash mocked, slipping into a flawless, aristocratic bow that would have made Lucius Malfoy seethe, completely out of place amidst the chaos. "My Aunt Andy hits harder than that, you giant lump!" The troll bellowed, enraged by the noise and the strike. It swung its massive club in a lethal arc. Nash dropped flat, the wind from the club whistling directly over his hair. "Harry, now!" Ron yelled. Harry sprinted, launching himself onto the troll's back from a remaining cubicle structure, his wand driving straight up the creature's nose. While the troll thrashed in agony, Nash scrambled back to his feet. The club coming down toward Harry. Nash lunged forward, grabbing the back of Harry's robes and pulling him clear just as the club slammed into the floor, shattering the tiles where Harry had been a second before. "Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron shouted from across the room. The club left the troll's hand, hoisted high into the air. It flipped, paused, and came crashing down onto the troll's head with a sickening thud. The beast rocked on its feet, its eyes rolling back, before collapsing forward onto the stone floor with a crash that shook the entire castle.
Silence descended on the bathroom, broken only by the drip of broken pipes and the boys' ragged breathing. Nash stood over the unconscious beast, his pristine posture returning as he brushed a speck of dust off his sleeve. The chaotic grin returned to his face, bright and entirely unbothered by the fact they had almost died. "Well," Nash exhaled, looking at Harry and Ron with a spark of pure mischief. "That was definitely against the rules. Excellent work, lads." Rowan shook his head but a sudden slamming and loud footsteps made him quickly run off. He was not going to get caught by the teachers.
"Where have you been, Fletcher? Making us lose points"
"none of ya bloody business, posho"
As they entered November, the weather turned very cold. The mountains around the school became icy gray and the lake like chilled steel. Every morning the ground was covered in frost. Hagrid could be seen from the upstairs windows defrosting broomsticks on the Quidditch field, bundled up in a long moleskin overcoat, rabbit fur gloves, and enormous beaverskin boots. The Quidditch season had begun. The 1st match took place on the 1st Saturday of November. Gryffindor vs Slytherin. The whole school filled the stands for the game. Rowan stood in the shadows of the bleached to watch. The two quidditch teams walked onto the pitch, brooms in hand, too boos and cheers. Madam Hooch was refereeing. She stood in the middle of the field waiting for the two teams, her broom in her hand. "Now, I want a nice fair game, all of you," she said, once they were all gathered around her. "Mount your brooms, please." Everyone got on their brooms. Madam Hooch gave a loud blast on her silver whistle. Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off.
"And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor - what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too -
"JORDAN!"
"Sorry, Professor and she's really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood's, last year only a reserve - back to Johnson and - no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes - Flint flying like an eagle up there - he's going to sc- no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood and the Gryffindors take the Quaffle - that's Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and - OUCH - that must have hurt, hit in the back of the head by a Bludger - Quaffle taken by the Slytherins - that's Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goal posts, but he's blocked by a second Bludger - sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can't tell which - nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway, and Johnson back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes - she's really flying - dodges a speeding Bludger - the goal posts are ahead - come on, now, Angelina - Keeper Bletchley dives - misses - GRYFFINDORS SCORE!"
Gryffindor cheers filled the cold air, with howls and moans from the Slytherins.
"Slytherin in possession, Chaser Pucey ducks two Bludgers, two Weasleys, and Chaser Bell, and speeds toward the - wait a moment - was that the Snitch?"
A murmur ran through the crowd as Adrian Pucey dropped the Quaffle, too busy looking over his shoulder at the flash of gold that had passed his left ear. In a great rush of excitement, Potter dived downward after the streak of gold. The slytherin Seeker, Terence Higgs, had seen it, too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch - all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch. Harry was faster than Higgs but he put on an extra spurt of speed -
WHAM!
A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors. Marcus Flint had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry's broom spun off course, Harry was holding on for dear life. Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goal posts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.
"So - after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating -"
"Jordan!"
"I mean, after that open and revolting foul -"
"Jordan, I'm warning you -"
"All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor Seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."
It was as Harry dodged another Bludger, which went spinning dangerously past his head, that it happened. His broom gave a sudden, frightening lurch. For a split second, Rowan thought Harry was going to fall. It happened again. It was as though the broom was trying to buck him off. But Nimbus Two Thousands did not suddenly decide to buck their riders off. Rowan suddenly realized that his broom was completely out of Harry's control. Lee was still commentating.
"Slytherin in possession - Flint with the Quaffle - passes Spinnet - passes Bell - hit hard in the face by a Bludger, hope it broke his nose - only joking, Professor - Slytherins score - oh no ..."
The Slytherins were cheering. Rowan seemed to be the only one who had noticed until Jordan had pointed it out. Harry's broom had started to roll over and over, with him only just managing to hold on. Then the whole crowd gasped. Harry's broom had given a wild jerk and Harry swung off it. He was now dangling from it, holding on with only one hand. Harry's broom was vibrating so hard, it was almost impossible for him to hang on much longer. The whole crowd was on its feet, watching, as the Weasleys flew up to try and pull Harry safely onto one of their brooms, but it was no good, every time they got near him, the broom would jump higher still. They dropped lower and circled beneath him, obviously hoping to catch him if he fell. Marcus Flint seized the Quaffle and scored five times without anyone noticing.
"BLOODY HELL! SNAPE'S ON FIRE!"
"Oh piss off, Fletcher, Potter's broom has stopped"
Up in the air, Harry was suddenly able to clamber back on to his broom. Harry was speeding toward the ground when the crowd saw him clap his hand to his mouth as though he was about to be sick, he hit the field on all fours, coughed and something gold fell into his hand. "I've got the Snitch!" he shouted, waving it above his head, and the game ended in complete confusion. "He didn't catch it, he nearly swallowed it," Flint was still howling twenty minutes later, but it made no difference, Potter hadn't broken any rules and Lee Jordan was still happily shouting the results. Gryffindor had won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty.
"hey, your the 1st year who can get me some cigs right?"
"Bu' wha' are ya gonna pay me if i do this for ya?"
Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again. No one could wait for the holidays to start. While the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. The Slytherin common room and the potion classes were the worst because they were in dungeons. Rowan had decided to stay at Hogwarts for the two weeks. He wasn't gonna spend two weeks running around different hostels and hotels.
"Did Black's hair just turn icy green?!"
"He's a Metamorphmagus, ya idiot"
The two weeks of the holiday offered Rowan a blissfully quiet castle packed with empty dormitories to raid and distracted faculty members to avoid. While the Great Hall filled with festive warmth, Rowan preferred the frosty, vacant corridors, moving like a phantom through the shadows of the castle at night. It was during one of these late-night excursions, wrapped in his stolen winter cloak, that his hyper-aware instincts caught the soft, rhythmic patter of footsteps that didn't match the heavy gait of Filch or the crisp stride of a prefect. Crouched silently behind the dark tapestry of a hidden alcove, Rowan watched through a narrow slit as Harry Potter crept past, moving with a strange, deliberate caution that practically screamed he was up to no good. For multiple nights, Rowan trailed him from a safe, undetectable distance, eventually watching from the cracked doorway of an abandoned classroom as Harry stood transfixed before a massive, ornate mirror. To Rowan's sharp, cynical mind, the sight was deeply unsettling; he couldn't see what the boy was staring at, but he recognized the dangerous, addictive spell of obsession when he saw it. Part of him wanted to slip into the room and check the gold trim of the frame to see how much money it would fetch on the black market, but his ingrained survival rule, always prioritize an exit over curiosity, kept him firmly in the shadows, silently memorising Harry's vulnerability for a rainy day.
"Bloody brilliant these owls are"
"Why don't you have one, Fletcher"
Students came back a few days after new year's day and Rowan's free-range was gone. Classes soon started up again. So did homework. So did getting in trouble. So did detentions. But none of that stopped Rowan from continuing his speaking and underground shop. Time seem to fly by and before long it was the Febuary quidditch match, Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff. Though, while the rest of the school were at the quidditch pitch, Rowan was sneaking around hogwarts. He was trying to find all the secret entrances and tunnels. The castle was beautifully, blissfully empty. Rowan slipped along the stone corridors like oil on water, his light footsteps making no sound against the flagstones. He had already noted down three new structural anomalies on his hand-drawn picture map when a sharp, hacking cough echoed from the end of the corridor.
Filch.
Rowan froze, his hyper-aware senses instantly mapping out his immediate surroundings. To his left, the corridor was a dead end. To his right, the heavy, dragging footsteps of the caretaker were getting closer, accompanied by the low, menacing purr of Mrs Norris. Rowan's chest tightened as he darted backward into a dark recess. He was on the forbidden third-floor corridor. If he got caught here, it wouldn't just be another detention.... it would be expulsion, or worse. Filch's lantern light flickered against the wall just twenty feet away. Rowan didn't panic. His mind worked in numbers, exits, and odds. Directly ahead of him was a massive, heavy oak door. It was firmly locked, a large brass keyhole staring at him like a closed eye. "Thought I heard a scritch-scratching," Filch wheezed, his shadow lengthening around the corner. Rowan didn't hesitate. He reached into the lining of his tattered jacket and pulled out a thin, rigid piece of silver wire he'd swiped from an upper-year's Charms kit. Shoving his wand aside, magic was too loud, too unpredictable, he jammed the wire into the lock. His grubby fingers worked with frantic, practiced precision.
Click.
Tumbler one.
Click.
Tumbler two.
The lock gave a heavy, satisfying clunk just as Mrs Norris rounded the corner. Rowan threw his weight against the door, slipped through the narrowest gap possible, and pulled it shut behind him, easing the latch back into place without a sound. He let out a ragged breath, pressing his back against the wood. It was pitch black. He had escaped Filch, but the air in this room felt heavy, smelling suffocatingly of damp fur, sour breath, and old meat. A low, vibrating rumble shook the very floorboards beneath his oversized boots. Rowan's eyes adjusted to the gloom, and his heart nearly stopped. Towering over him, filling the entire space between the floor and the ceiling, was a monstrous, three-headed dog. Six enormous, bloodshot eyes glared down at him through the dark. Six rows of razor-sharp fangs glistened with thick, dripping saliva. Most eleven-year-old wizards would have screamed. But Rowan was a thief, raised by Mundungus Fletcher. Fear was a luxury that got you caught. Instead of panicking, his sharp eyes instantly went into survival mode, scanning the room for value, threats, and an exit. He didn't look at the monster's snapping jaws; he looked past its massive paws. There, directly underneath the beast's belly, was a wooden trapdoor with a heavy iron ring. 'They're hiding summat' Rowan's mind clicked instantly 'Summat bloody valuable.' One of the heads let out a deafening roar, snapping its jaws inches from Rowan's face. The blast of hot, foul breath nearly knocked him over. His back was pressed tight against the locked door. Filch was right outside, and a three-headed brute was inside. He needed a trick, a distraction, an exploit. His eyes darted across the floor, catching the glint of gold in the corner of the room. A beautiful, ornate harp sat near the wall. But it wasn't the gold that caught his attention; it was the fact that the instrument was entirely still, yet a single, faint, enchanted chord was still echoing in the air. Rowan noticed the beast's ears twitch at the fading sound. The massive central head dropped an inch, its eyelids fluttering heavily for a split second before snapping awake again. 'Music' Rowan realized, his brain firing at lightning speed 'The bloody thing goes to sleep for music'. He didn't know how to play a harp, but he knew how to cause a racket. Rowan lunged forward, staying low beneath the reach of the left head's snapping jaws, and threw himself toward the instrument. He grabbed the golden frame and yanked his grubby fingers violently across the strings. A loud, discordant, crashing jangle erupted through the room. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. The moment the loud, vibrating notes filled the air, the three-headed dog stopped growling. Its massive legs began to tremble. The three heads blinked stupidly, shaking themselves as if trying to fight off a sudden, heavy wave of exhaustion. Rowan didn't stop, aggressively sweeping his hands back and forth across the strings, keeping the chaotic melody going .With a deafening thud that shook the entire third floor, the massive hound collapsed into a heap, its six eyes rolling back as it fell into a deep, snoring slumber right on top of the trapdoor.
Outside the door, Filch's raspy voice muttered, "Must've been ghosts... bloody Peeves..." before his footsteps began to fade back down the corridor. Rowan stopped strumming. He stood in the quiet room, his chest heaving, staring at the sleeping monster and the hidden trapdoor beneath it. The sheer value of whatever was down there made his fingers itch with a fierce, burning desire. But he knew his limits. He was eleven, he had no wand that worked properly, and his exit window was closing. Silently, Rowan unlocked the door from the inside, slipped out into the empty corridor, and melted back into the shadows of Hogwarts, a triumphant, brilliant smirk spreading across his face. He didn't know what was under that floor, but he knew exactly how to get to it when the time was right.
"Black and Weasley beat you up? Gonna go cry to ya mummy"
"shut up, Fletcher"
However, the Easter holidays weren't fun. With 10 weeks until the exams, the teachers were pilling tons of homework on the students for them to complete during the holiday. Rowan appositely hated it. Essays are horrible when you can hardly write so he refused to do them. Which led to more detentions. However, a couple weeks into the new term, Rowan was heading back from detention (though the short cut of the library) which he overheard some exciting news. Tucked safely behind a towering shelf of ancient Arithmancy texts, Rowan stood frozen, his sharp eyes narrowing as he listened to a hushed, frantic conversation a few feet away. It was the Gryffindor lot: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Nash. They were huddled over a table, whispering about a bloody dragon, an illegal Norwegian Ridgeback named Norbert, and how they were going to smuggle it up to the Astronomy Tower to hand it over to Ron's older brother, Charlie. Rowan had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing out loud.
A crate?
On the tallest tower in the school?
At midnight?
It was the most clumsy, amateurish smuggling plan he'd ever heard in his life. These rich, naive Gryffindors didn't have a single criminal bone in their bodies. If they tried this on the black market, they'd have been nicked, stripped of their money, and dumped in a canal within five minutes. Part of Rowan wanted to step out and offer his professional services as a middleman for a steep fee, but his thief instincts told him to stay put. Information was currency. He'd let them do the heavy lifting, keep his mouth shut, and see if there was a way to turn their idiocy to his advantage.
When the designated Saturday night arrived, Rowan didn't go to sleep. He waited until the Slytherin dormitory was filled with the rhythmic snores of Crabbe and Goyle, slipped out of his bed, and glided through the common room into the dark castle. He didn't need to read a map; he knew the routes to the upper floors by heart from his hand-drawn picture timetables. The climb up the winding stone stairs to the Astronomy Tower was steep, but Rowan moved like a phantom, his oversized boots making absolutely no sound. He reached the cold, windy top of the tower just in time to see the silhouettes of Harry, Hermione, and Nash silhouetted against the starry sky, desperately hauling a heavy wooden crate toward a group of four people on broomsticks. Just as the dragon handlers securely buckled the crate to their brooms, waved goodbye, and shot off into the moonlit night, Rowan stepped out from the shadows of the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Well, that were a right blooming circus, wernt it?" Rowan said smoothly, his thick accent cutting through the whistling wind. Harry and Hermione whirled around, gasping in horror, completely terrified that they had been caught by a prefect or Filch. Nash, however, reacted with a violent jolt of pure shock. His face drained of colour, and before Rowan's eyes, Nash's hair, which had been a careless, messy brown, instantly flared into a bright, shocking shade of neon pink. "Fletcher! What the hell are you doing up here? Sneaking around to see what you can steal, you cynical little rat?" Nash hissed, his hair quickly shifting back to a defensive, stormy black as he stepped protectively in front of Hermione. His perfect pure-blood posture returned, rigid and mocking. "best keep ya hair on, lad-reight literal, too," Rowan smirked, gesturing vaguely to Nash's head. "I daunt care about thi massive lizard. I just wanted to see how many rules t'great 'rebel' Nash Black could break in one night. Tha lot are bloody lucky it was me who found thee and not Filch. Thi plan was reight rubbish. Next time tha wants to smuggle contraband, come find me in t'dungeons. I'll charge thee a fair price, and tha won't have to lug a massive crate up eight flights o' stairs like a bunch o' muppets." Nash glared at him, his jaw twitching with that signature Black family stubbornness. "We don't need help from a criminal who only cares about himself, Fletcher. We did this to save an innocent creature. You wouldn't understand that if it bit you on the nose." Rowan just chuckled, turning on his heel to head back down the stairs before the caretakers caught the scent of trouble. "Aye, keep telling yourself that, rebel. See you in detention."
"I would be happy Gryffindor have lost most of their points if it wasn't for Fletcher losing us a ton by doing that same thing and earning us both detention"
"You should've never bin a spy, tha posh git"
Rowan watched the fall out from the Astronomy trip with calculated glee. From being two of the most popular and admired people at the school, Harry and Nash were suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs turned on them, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose the House Cup. Everywhere Harry and Nash went, people pointed and didn't trouble themselves to lower their voices as they insulted the two. Slytherins, on the other hand, clapped as the two walked past them, whistling and cheering, "Thanks Potter, we owe you one!" Only Ron stood by him. Hermione and Neville Longbottom (who had also been caught out past curfew) were suffering, too. They didn't have as bad a time as Harry and Nash, because they weren't as well-known, but nobody would speak to them, either. Hermione had stopped drawing attention to herself in class, keeping her head down and working in silence. Rowan didn't care about how the Slytherin's were reacting to him and Draco because he is used to detentions and loosing points for Slytherin. Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione, Nash, Rowan, Draco and Neville at the breakfast table. They were all the same:
Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight.
Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.
Professor M. McGonagall
At eleven o'clock that night, Rowan and Draco made their way up to the entrance hall where they met up with Filch, Hermione, Nash, Harry and Neville. "Follow me," said Filch, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. "I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, eh?" he said, leering at them. "Oh yes ... hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me. ... It's just a pity they let the old Punishments die out ... hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed. ... Right, off we go, and don't think of running off, now, it'll be worse for you if you do." They marched off across the dark grounds. Neville kept sniffing. The moon was bright, but clouds scudding across it kept throwing them into darkness. Ahead, Rowan could see the lighted windows of Hagrid's hut. Then they heard a distant shout.
"Is that you, Filch? Hurry up, I want ter get started."
"I suppose you think you'll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy - it's into the forest you're going and I'm much mistaken if you'll all come out in one piece." Filch said to Harry as the boy smiled. At this, Neville let out a little moan, and Draco stopped dead in his tracks. "The forest?" he repeated, and he didn't sound quite as cool as usual. "We can't go in there at night - there's all sorts of things in there - werewolves, I heard." Rowan smirked. "Scared are ya?" Rowan teased only to be glared at. "That's your problem, isn't it?" said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. "Should've thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn't you?" Hagrid came striding toward them out of the dark, Fang at his heel. He was carrying his large crossbow, and a quiver of arrows hung over his shoulder.
"Abou' time, I bin waitin' fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione, Nash?"
"I shouldn't be too friendly to them, Hagrid, they're here to be punished, after all."
"That's why yer late, is it? Bin lecturin' them, eh? 'Snot your place ter do that. Yeh've done yer bit, I'll take over from here."
"I'll be back at dawn, for what's left of them,"
Filch turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness. Draco now turned to Hagrid. "I'm not going in that forest," he said, panicked. "Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts, Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it." said Hagrid fiercely. "But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he'd -" Draco started. "- tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid growled. "Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an' pack. Go on!" Draco didn't move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze. "Right then," said Hagrid, "now, listen carefully, 'cause it's dangerous what we're gonna do tonight, an' I don' want no one takin' risks. Follow me over here a moment." He led them to the very edge of the forest. "It's naw that scary, thi knows. I've been in't many a time." Rowan scoffed
Holding his lamp up high, Hagrid pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest. "Look there, see that stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? That's unicorn blood. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat. This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We're gonna try an' find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery." said Hagrid. "And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?" said Draco, unable to keep the fear out of his voice. "There's nothin' that lives in the forest that'll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang, An' keep ter the path. Right, now, we're gonna split inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over the place, it must've bin staggerin' around since last night at least." said Hagrid. "I want Fang," said Draco quickly, looking at Fang's long teeth. "All right, but I warn yeh, he's a coward," said Hagrid. "So me, Harry, Nash, Hermione'll go one way an' Draco, Rowan, Neville, an' Fang'll go the other. Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we'll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an' practice now - that's it - an' if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an' we'll all come an' find yeh - so, be careful - let's go."
The forest was black and silent. As the group walked the right-hand path, Rowan walked in front. He was bored. This forrest was nothing. When they reached a particularly dark thicket, Draco decided he'd had enough of Neville's heavy breathing and Rowan's creepy boredom. To prove he wasn't the one who was scared, he sneaked up behind Neville and grabbed him by the waist with a loud shout. The reaction was instantaneous: Neville absolutely lost his mind and fired the red sparks into the air in a blind panic. Fang let out a yelp and tried to bolt, nearly knocking Draco over. Draco doubled over laughing, though his laugh sounded a bit too high-pitched to be truly confident. Rowan simply watched the chaos with a bored sneer, disappointed that the trouble wasn't something more dangerous. However, they were soon found by the other group which weren't impressed.
"We'll be lucky ter catch anythin' now, with the racket you three were makin'. Right, we're changin' groups - Neville, you stay with me, Carina an' Hermione, Harry, you go with Fang an' this idiot. Nash, Rowan, you go off together"
The announcement from Hagrid was met with a heavy, suffocating silence. Nash's jaw twitched instantly, his messy hair flaring a violent, agitated shade of crimson before he forced his Metamorphmagus traits back under a tight leash of stormy black. Rowan, however, didn't say a word. He just crossed his arms, adjusted the cuffs of his oversized, stolen winter cloak, and rolled his eyes.
So the groups set off in the different directions.
The crunch of twigs and dead leaves beneath their boots was the only sound separating the two boys. Rowan kept his eyes moving, not out of fear, but out of a casual habit of logging the quickest path back toward the castle lights. Nash marched slightly ahead, his perfect posture making him look absurdly out of place among the gnarled, decaying timber. "Don't get any ideas about slipping off into the brush, Fletcher, I'm not spending my night tracking down a gutter rat because you think there's summat valuable to nick in the dark." Nash muttered coldly, not looking back. "Save thi breath for walkin', rebel. I've no interest in thi' babysittin'. Just mind thi own skin, tha. I've been dodgin' reight worse than this since I were born." Rowan retorted. "You don't know a thing about what's in these woods, This isn't a back alley in Bradford. There are real dangers here. Not that a cynical criminal like you would care about anyone but himself anyway." Nash snapped, turning his head just enough to flash a fierce, stubborn glare. "Aye, and you're a grand hero, ain't ya?" Rowan sneered, picking up his pace to match the Gryffindor's stride. "Actin' the hard lad just 'cause tha's got a posh name and a house full o' folk to bail thee out when tha mucks it up. Tha's got no clue what real survivin' is like, lad."
Before Nash could fire back, the ambient noises of the forest completely died. The distant hoot of an owl cut off sharply. The rustling wind stopped dead. Rowan's eyes narrowed as his street-honed senses picked up the shifting air, but before he could even reach for his stolen waistband wand, a dark, heavy mass dropped from the thick canopy above. They were completely cut off. Nash and Rowan had wandered deep into a tight, narrow hollow. Cornered against a wall of jagged stone, they stood face-to-face with a rogue Acromantula. The monster was the size of a small car, its eight massive, hairy legs glistening with midnight dew, and its cluster of shiny black eyes catching the faint, filtered moonlight. A thick, greyish ooze dripped from its massive, snapping pincers, sizzling as it hit the forest floor. Rowan immediately calculated his odds, he could duck low, climb the roots to his left, and be out of the strike zone in three seconds flat. It was a classic self-preservation play. But he never got the chance to move. With a fierce, wordless shout, Nash physically threw himself sideways, using his entire athletic frame to slam into Rowan and shove the scrawny Slytherin completely behind him. Rowan hit the damp earth, his back slamming against the stone wall, but as he looked up, Nash was already standing tall, his body acting as a literal shield between Rowan and the snapping mandibles of the giant spider. Nash didn't look back to see if Rowan was alright. His jaw was set in a hard, rigid line, his eyes burning with an unshakeable, protective chivalry that ran deeper than any rulebook. He drew his wand in a flash of perfect pure-blood etiquette, his posture shifting seamlessly into that of a defender. "Lumos Solem!" Nash roared, a blinding, brilliant burst of daylight-bright magic erupting from the tip of his wood. The sudden, searing flash caught the Acromantula directly in its sensitive eyes. The massive beast shrieked, a high-pitched, scraping wail, and recoiled violently, its legs thrashing as it turned and scurried back into the deep shadows of the thicket to escape the light.
The forest fell silent again. Nash stood there, his chest heaving, his wand still raised, his hair gradually shifting from a defensive, stormy black back to its normal, chaotic brown. Rowan pushed himself up from the dirt, his hands covered in mud, his tattered cloak torn at the shoulder. He stared at Nash's back, his sharp mind completely failing to calculate what had just happened. There was no profit in what Nash had just done. It didn't make sense. It wasn't logical. Nash could have run and left the street rat behind, but his reckless impulse had turned entirely into protective chivalry. Nash slowly lowered his wand, turning around to look down at Rowan with a tense, complicated expression. "You alright, Fletcher?" Rowan swallowed the lump of confusion in his throat, dusting off his knees and forcing his familiar, cynical smirk back onto his face to hide how deeply unnerved he was by the gesture. "Aye. I'm reet. Nice trick with the light, rebel. Though tha' near reight chucked a perfectly guid set o' stole robes." Rowan slowly lowered his arms, his sharp gaze fixing on Nash's rigid back. The Gryffindor's chest was still heaving, his wand tip smoking from the sheer force of the daylight charm. Rowan's brain, always calculating risks, profits, and motives, completely failed to find the logic in what had just occurred. There was absolutely zero profit in what Nash had just done. Jumping in front of a giant spider for a scrawny street thief made no tactical sense. "Don't go thinking that changes anything, Fletcher," Nash muttered, his voice tense as he kept his eyes trained on the dark brush where the Acromantula had vanished. His posture remained impeccably straight, that mocking elegance snapping right back into place like armour. "I didn't do it for you. I did it because it was the right thing to do. My family doesn't leave people behind, not even cynical criminals who only look out for themselves." Rowan sneered, his hands instinctively diving deep into his oversized pockets to hide the slight tremor in his fingers. "Aye, keep waving your family banner, rebel. I didn't ask for a bloody shield, did I? I had a perfectly good climb mapped out on them roots. You just got in mi' way." Rowan sneered. "You're unbelievable, I just saved your skin, and you're complaining about the service?" Nash snapped, his hair flaring a sharp, defensive shade of electric blue before he forcefully reined it back to his usual chaotic brown. "I'm saying I don't owe thee a single brass farthing," Rowan shot back, his thick accent hardening. "People who look for heroes usually end up dead or broke. I survive just fine on mi' own."
Before Nash could fire back with a biting retort, a sharp, crashing sound echoed through the dense thicket to their left. Both boys instantly spun around, Nash raising his wand again while Rowan stepped lightly to the side, already looking for a new exit strategy. But it wasn't another monster. The heavy, unmistakable thud of boots crushing undergrowth signalled a massive arrival, followed by the deep, booming voice of the gamekeeper. "Nash! Rowan! Over here!" Hagrid shouted, bursting through the thick briars with a glowing lantern swinging in his massive hand. He looked completely frantic, his wild beard tangled with twigs. Beside him, Fang let out a low, relieved whine. But it was the figure trailing right behind Hagrid that caught Rowan's eye. A majestic white centaur with a human torso and a gleaming horse body trotted calmly into the clearing. Straddled right across the creature's glossy back was Harry Potter, looking pale, thoroughly shaken, and completely out of breath.
"Thank goodness we found yeh, Firenze here saw the red sparks Neville sent up, then we heard a massive racket over by this hollow. What happened? Yeh alright?"
"We're fine, Hagrid. Just a bit of a disagreement with a local spider. I handled it." Nash said smoothly, adjusting his robes with perfect etiquette as if he hadn't just been battling a car-sized Spider. He cast a sharp, warning look at Rowan. "Aye, the rebel played with his flashlight," Rowan muttered under his breath, crossing his arms and refusing to look Nash in the eye.
"Right then, no more splittin' up, The forest ain't safe tonight. Not with whatever's out there hunting. We're headin' straight back to the hut. Come on, march."
The trek back out of the Forbidden Forest was conducted in a heavy, tense silence. Firenze trotted ahead, carrying Harry safely on his back, while Hagrid kept a watchful eye on the rear. Nash walked with his chin held high, the very picture of arrogant Gryffindor chivalry, while Rowan slinked along the edge of the path like a shadow, completely ignoring him. Nash had proved his bravery, but to Rowan, it only highlighted the massive gap between them; Nash could afford to play the hero because he had a proud legacy to live up to. Rowan only had his own two hands, and heroes didn't keep you warm in a run-down hostel. By the time the damp, chilly air of the woods gave way to the open, grassy lawns of the grounds, the eastern sky was turning a faint, pale grey. Hagrid ushered the exhausted huddle of students right across the threshold of his cozy wooden cabin. The warmth of the roaring hearth fire instantly hit them, smelling of boiling copper kettles and wet dog. Rowan didn't take a seat on the oversized wooden chairs. He stood strictly by the heavy timber door, his eyes locked on the latch. Across the room, Nash sank into a chair, his face pale with exhaustion, but the moment his eyes met Rowan's, the cold, unyielding wall of their animosity was right back in place. They had survived the forest, but it was abundantly clear that they were never, ever going to get on.
"was poor draco scared of the dark forrest?"
"shut up, Fletcher!"
Exams were upon them. Exam after exam after exam. Rowan hated it. It made him feel dumb. It was sweltering hot, especially in the large classroom where they did their written papers. They had been given special, new quills for the exams, which had been bewitched with an Anti-Cheating spell. Rowan do the theory exams at all. They had practical exams as well. Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tap-dance across a desk. Professor McGonagall watched them turn a mouse into a snuffbox, points were given for how pretty the snuffbox was, but taken away if it had whiskers. Snape made them all nervous, breathing down their necks while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion. Their very last exam was History of Magic. One hour of answering questions about batty old wizards who'd invented self-stirring cauldrons and they'd be free, free for a whole wonderful week until their exam results came out. Rowan slept through the exam. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment or to wake up in Rowan's case, he couldn't help cheering with the rest. Rowan decided to celebrate the end of exams on his own way.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, Rowan snuck up to where the three headed dog was. He was determined to find out what it was heading before the school year was over. When he arrived to the room, the door was already ajar. Rowan slowly sneaks inside. A low, rumbling growl met his ears. All three of the dog's noses sniffed madly in their direction. Their was a harp at his feet. Rowan was about to grab it when Harry, Hermione, Ron, Nash and Nash's sister, Nyla, suddenly appeared out of no where. "oh fuck nuggets! Where did you lot come from?" Rowan sneered, glaring at them. "What are you doing her Fletcher? Are you helping Snape steal the Philosopher's stone?" Nash demanded to know. "I could ask thee the same. What tha's doin' 'ere, Black?" Rowan asked back. "We are here to apparently save the world by stealing Nicolas Flamel's stone before Snape. And these idiots need my smarts. Now please leave. You are wasting precious time" Nyla said as she straightened her robes. Everyone gave her a slight look. "yes well..... you need to go, snake" Ron commented. "how about no? If ya stealing that stone thingy, ya need a proper thief" Rowan commented. Nash looked like he was about to say something else when Harry cut him off "We haven't got time for this. We need to get going" that shut everyone up. Harry then pulled a flute out of his pocket and started playing. It wasn't really a tune, but from the first note the beast's eyes began to droop. Harry hardly drew breath. Slowly, the dog's growls ceased, it tottered on its paws and fell to its knees, then it slumped to the ground, fast asleep. "Keep playing," Ron warned Harry as they crept toward the trapdoor. They could feel the dog's hot, smelly breath as they approached the giant heads. "I think we'll be able to pull the door open. Want to go first, Hermione?" said Ron, peering over the dog's back. "No, I don't!" she snapped. Nash rolled his eyes, stepped forward carefully over the dogs legs, bent forward and pulled the ring of the trapdoor, which swung up and open. "What can you see?" Hermione said anxiously. "Nothing - just black - there's no way of climbing down, we'll just have to drop." Nash explained before jumping, too quickly for anyone to stop him. "my brother is an idiot. We should have thrown a rick first" Nyla muttered. "It's okay!" Nash called up "it's a soft landing, you can jump!" after that, one by one, they took in into turns jumping down the trap door. Rowan was the last to jump. Cold, damp air rushed past him as he fell down, down, down and -
FLUMP.
With a funny, muffled sort of thump he landed on something soft. He sat up and looked around the dark room. It felt as though he was sitting on some sort of plant. "What's this stuff?" Ron asked. "Dunno, some sort of plant thing. I suppose it's here to break the fall" Harry answered. "We must be miles under the school," Hermione said. "Lucky this plant thing's here, really," said Ron. "Lucky!" shrieked Nyla. "Look at you!" She, Hermione and Rowan leapt up and struggled toward a damp wall. They had to struggle because the moment they all had landed, the plant had started to twist snakelike tendrils around their ankles. As for Harry and Ron, their legs had already been bound tightly in long creepers without their noticing. Rowan, being the last down, was able to free himself before the plan got a firm grip but the others weren't so lucky. The three Gryffindor boys all fought to pull the plant off them, but the more they strained against it, the tighter and faster the plant wound around them. "Stop moving! I know what this is - it's Devil's Snare!" Hermione ordered them. "Oh, I'm so glad we know what it's called, that's a great help," snarled Ron, leaning back, trying to stop the plant from curling around his neck. "Shut up, I'm trying to remember how to kill it!" said Hermione. "Well, hurry up, I can't breathe!" Harry gasped, wrestling with it as it curled around his chest. "Devil's Snare, Devil's Snare ... what did Professor Sprout say? - it likes the dark and the damp -" Nyla muttered to herself. "So light a fire!" Harry choked. "Yes - of course - but there's no wood!" Hermione cried, wringing her hands. "HAVE YOU GONE MAD?" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?" Nyla whipped out her wand, waved it, muttered something, and a jet of bluebell flames shot at the plant. In a matter of seconds, the plsnt unraveled itself from their bodies, and they were able to pull free. "Lucky you pay attention in Herbology, Hermione, Nyla" said Harry. "Yeah, and lucky Harry doesn't lose his head in a crisis - 'there's no wood,' honestly." said Ron, "stop being mean to the lady, Ron" Nash complained. Nyla let out a frustrated sigh and Rowan rolled his eyes at them. "This way," said Harry, pointing down a stone passageway, which was the only way forward.
All they could hear apart from their footsteps was the gentle drip of water trickling down the walls. The passageway sloped downward. "Can you hear something?" Ron whispered. Rowan listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead. "Do you think it's a ghost?" Nash asked. "I don't know ... sounds like wings to me." Harry commented. "There's light ahead - I can see something moving." Rowan pointed out. They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewelbright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door. "Do you think they'll attack us if we cross the room?" said Ron. "Probably," said Harry. "They don't look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once ... well, there's no other choice ... I'll run." He took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms, and sprinted across the room. He expected to feel sharp beaks and claws tearing at him any second, but nothing happened. He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked. The other six followed him. They tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn't budge, not even when Hermione tried her Alohomora Charm. "Now what?" said Ron. "These birds ... they can't be here just for decoration," said Hermione. "They're key's idiots" Rowan said, rolling his eyes. "So that must mean ...yes - look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!" Harry looked around the chamber while the other two squinted up at the flock of keys. "But there are hundreds of them!" Ron examined the lock on the door. "We're looking for a big, old-fashioned one - probably silver, like the handle." Ron, Harry and Nash each seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. They grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to catch one.
"That one!" Harry called to the others, pointing to a large silver key that had a bent wing. "That big one - there - no, there - with bright blue wings - the feathers are all crumpled on one side." Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, crashed into the ceiling, and nearly fell off his broom. "We've got to close in on it!" Harry called, not taking his eyes off the key with the damaged wing. "Ron, you come at it from above - Nash, stay below and stop it from going down - and I'll try and catch it. Right, NOW!" Ron dived, Nash rocketed upward, the key dodged them both, and Harry streaked after it; it sped toward the wall, Harry leaned forward and with a nasty, crunching noise, pinned it against the stone with one hand. Ron, Nash and Hermione's cheers echoed around the high chamber. The two on Gryffindors stayed silent. The three landed by the three on the group and Harry ran to the door, the key struggling in his hand. He rammed it into the lock and turned, it worked. The moment the lock had clicked open, the key took flight again, looking very battered now that it had been caught twice. "Ready?" Harry asked the other 5, his hand on the door handle. They nodded. He pulled the door open.
The transition was instant and chilling. Instead of a soaring ceiling, they were met with a room filled with a thick, shimmering silver mist that clung to the stone floor like frost. The air tasted faintly of ozone and old, bitter iron. In the dead centre of the chamber stood a massive, cracked obsidian mirror, its dark frame carved with weeping faces that seemed to shift under the torchlight. "Right, We need to get across. Carefully." Harry breathed, his eyes darting through the swirling vapor. "It's an emotional resonance trigger, Brilliant. Because what this group of emotionally stable eleven-year-olds really needs right now is a mirror that weaponises our insecurities. Absolute genius." Nyla said, her voice dripping with dry, sarcastic venom as she adjusted her Ravenclaw robes with impeccable posture. "Just keep your eyes down," Hermione warned, her voice trembling slightly. "If we don't look, it can't trap us." Rowan stayed near the rear, his back naturally finding the stone wall, his sharp eyes mapping out the dimensions of the room. His thief's instinct told him exactly what this was, a trap meant to catch the proud and the foolish. He could easily look away; he'd spent his entire life wearing a mask to survive. But Nash couldn't help himself.
Inheriting his father's loud, chaotic aura and a fierce, reckless impulse to confront threats head-on, he stepped forward into the silver mist, his chin held high with pure-blood stubbornness. "Nash, don't!" Nyla snapped, her quiet voice suddenly carrying that dangerous, sharp edge. Nash didn't listen. He stepped directly in front of the cracked obsidian surface. The dark glass rippled. The shimmering silver mist inside the frame coalesced into a horrific, distorted reflection of his father, Sirius Black, laughing maniacally behind the iron bars of an Azkaban cell, surrounded by gliding, faceless Dementors. From the depths of the mirror, a chilling, hollow voice began to whisper, echoing through the chamber.
"The traitor's son. A reckless boy playing at chivalry, hiding behind a broken name. You are nothing but blood-taint. And your precious sister Nyla? A bitter little girl who will end up just as mad, twisted, and rotten as the rest of your degenerate family bloodline."
"Shut up," Nash growled, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles turned white. "Nash, look away!" Harry yelled, sprinting forward a step, but Ron pulled him back. "It's a lie!" Nyla shouted, her excellent posture breaking as a furious, terrifying anger flared in her eyes. Her jaw twitched violently. Nash saw the twitch, his role instantly tried to switch to protecting her, to holding her back, but the insult to his sister and his family name had already breached his defences. His emotional explosion was entirely uncontrollable. The sheer, raging fury inside him bypassed his mind and went straight to his magical core, triggering his Metamorphmagus abilities wildly. Rowan watched from the shadows, utterly transfixed, as Nash's hair and eyes began flashing violently through a chaotic spectrum of colours, neon pink, electric blue, stormy black, and a deep, bleeding crimson.
"A failure, Just like your father."
"I said, shut up!" Nash roared, drawing his wand to blast the glass to splinters. The moment his rage peaked, the cracked obsidian flashed. Thick, binding chains of blinding, hard silver light erupted directly from the frame. They wrapped around Nash's chest, his arms, and his legs, pinning him instantly to the stone floor. He thrashed against them, but the hard-light links were unbreakable, locking him in place. "Nash!" Nyla screamed, lunging forward, but Rowan's hyper-aware instincts fired. He sprinted out of the doorway, his small, scrawny frame moving like oil, and grabbed Nyla by the collar of her robes, throwing his weight backward to yank her away from the mirror's radius. 'Let me go, you cynical little street rat!" Nyla snarled, turning her quiet fury on Rowan, her hand reaching for her wand. "Use your bloody brain, Ravenclaw!" Rowan hissed back. "Look at him! The mirror feeds on thy temper! If you jump in there, you'll just be another pair of silver cuffs. We have to keep moving!" Harry looked between Nash and the heavy iron door leading to the giant chessboard at the back of the chamber. "He's trapped. We can't break those chains from the outside." He commented. "Go," Nash choked out, his hair finally settling back to a dull, exhausted brown as he fought to regain his breathing. The chains of light hummed, binding him tightly but securely. His pure-blood posture was forced straight by the restraints. "Harry... you have to get to the stone. Don't let Snape get it. Nyla, go with them. Keep them alive. I'll be fine." Nyla stared at her twin, her chest heaving with a deep, volatile anger, but her brilliant, logical mind knew Nash was right. She gave a single, rigid nod, her posture snapping back into a defensive shield of pure-blood etiquette. "If you die in here, Nash, I'll kill you myself." She promised. "Move! Now!" Rowan ordered, already sliding along the far wall of the chamber, his eyes completely averted from the dark obsidian glass as he targeted the next exit. Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Nyla followed his lead, keeping their gazes locked firmly on the stone floor, completely neutralizing their emotions by focusing entirely on the mission ahead. One by one, they slipped past the whispering mirror and stepped through the far doorway, leaving Nash alone in the silver mist to fight his own demons.
The next chamber was so dark they couldn't see anything at all. But as they stepped into it, light suddenly flooded the room to reveal an astonishing sight. They were standing on the edge of a huge chessboard, behind the black chessmen, which were all taller than they were and carved from what looked like black stone. Facing them, way across the chamber, were the white pieces. Harry, Ron and Hermione shivered slightly, the towering white chessmen had no faces. Nyla and Rowan didn't show anything. "Now what do we do?" Harry whispered. "It's obvious, isn't it?" said Ron. "We've got to play our way across the room." Behind the white pieces they could see another door. "How?" said Hermione nervously. "I think," said Ron, "we're going to have to be chessmen." He walked up to a black knight and put his hand out to touch the knights horse. At once, the stone sprang to life. The horse pawed the ground and the knight turned his helmeted head to look down at Ron. "Do we - er - have to join you to get across?" The black knight nodded. Ron turned to the other four.
"This needs thinking about. ...I suppose we've got to take the place of three of the black pieces. ...Now, don't be offended or anything, but neither of you are that good at chess and Nyla, Fletcher, i know nothing about you-" he said. "We're not offended. Just tell us what to do," said Harry quickly. "Well, Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you go there instead of that castle," Ron directed, his eyes scanning the massive board before landing on the remaining two. "Nyla, take the other bishop's spot. Rowan... go over by that pawn." Nyla stepped forward with rigid, flawless etiquette, though her jaw twitched with a simmering, volatile anger over Nash still being trapped in the mirror chamber. "Wonderful," she murmured, her voice dripping with sharp, sarcastic venom. "Using human lives as expendable wooden tokens. McGonagall's sense of educational enrichment is truly breathtaking." Rowan, meanwhile, didn't move an inch onto the board. He stood on the edge, his hands stuffed deep into his oversized pockets, his sharp thief's eyes scanning the towering stone chessmen. He wasn't looking at the game; he was assessing the materials. Solid obsidian and premium white marble, his brain automatically calculated. 'If I could chip a hand off one of these, it'd fetch a pretty penny from the fence in Knockturn Alley.' He thought. "I'm not steppin' on that board, lad. I'm nawt one for rules, and I'm reight not lookin' to get flattened by a ten-foot rock. I'll keep an eye on t'exit for thee." Rowan said smoothly "There's no time to argue!" Ron snapped, stepping up to his own square. "I'm going to be a knight." The chessmen seemed to have been listening, because at these words a knight, two bishops, and a castle turned their backs on the white pieces and walked off the board, leaving empty squares that Harry, Hermione, and Nyla took. Rowan remained firmly on the side-lines, casually leaning against the stone doorframe, his hyper-aware instincts logging every possible escape route if the whole room collapsed. "White always plays first in chess," said Ron, peering across the board. "Yes... look..." A white pawn had moved forward two squares.
Rowan watched the madness unfold with his hands still wedged deep in his pockets, his internal calculator running the high-risk odds of the game. Ron started to direct the black pieces, barking orders as they moved silently through the silver-and-black grid. Rowan's sharp eyes darted from the board to the players; Harry's knees were visibly trembling, a dead giveaway of a target who was about to fold under pressure.
"Harry - move diagonally four squares to the right,"
Their first real shock came a moment later, and it made Rowan's cynical mind instantly evaluate the exit routes. The white queen lunged forward, her massive marble arm swinging with brutal velocity as she smashed their other black knight straight to the floor and dragged him off the board. The stone figure lay quite still, facedown in the dust. "Had to let that happen, Leaves you free to take that bishop, Hermione, go on."
Rowan scoffed silently under his breath. Letting your own crew get taken was lousy leadership on the streets, but he had to admit Ron knew how to run a con. Every time one of their men was lost, the white pieces showed absolutely no mercy. Soon, a pathetic huddle of limp, broken black players was slumped along the far wall. Twice, Rowan noticed the danger before Ron did, his street-honed hyper-awareness tracking the white pieces as they threatened Harry, Nyla, Ron and Hermione, but he kept his mouth shut. It wasn't his game. Ron himself was darting frantically around the board, taking almost as many white pieces as they had lost black ones.
"We're nearly there, Let me think - let me think ...Yes .. It's the only way ... I've got to be taken."
"NO!" Harry and Hermione shouted from their squares. Across the room, Nyla's jaw twitched with that familiar, volatile Black family anger, her arms crossing over her chest as she glared at the ginger boy. Rowan just raised an eyebrow. "That's chess! You've got to make some sacrifices! I make my move and she'll take me, that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!" Ron snapped, his voice cracking under the tension. "But -" Hermione started. "Do you want to stop Snape or not?" Ron yelled, his posture rigid. "Ron -" Harry started "Look, if you don't hurry up, he'll already have the Stone!" There was no alternative, and Rowan's muscles tensed, preparing for the inevitable spray of rock shrapnel. "Ready?" Ron called out, his face completely pale but determined. "Here I go - now, don't hang around once you've won." He stepped forward onto the marked square, and the white queen pounced with terrifying speed. She struck Ron hard across the head with her massive stone arm, and he crashed heavily to the floor. Hermione let out a piercing scream but stayed frozen on her square, while the white queen mercilessly dragged Ron's limp body to one side. He looked completely knocked out. Rowan winced slightly, calculating the potential medical bills if they were Muggles, but his gaze immediately snapped back to the surviving players. Shaking violently, Harry moved three spaces to the left to seal the game.
The moment the heavy stone crown clattered to the floor, breaking the eerie silence, Hermione broke rank and sprinted toward Ron's limp body. Harry followed right on her heels, his breath catching in his throat. Nyla stepped off the board with rigid, graceful posture, though her eyes blazed with white-hot fury. She marched straight over to Ron, her boots clicking sharply against the stone floor. "Brilliant strategy," she muttered, her sarcasm dripping like acid. "A completely textbook execution of Gryffindor idiocy. Sacrificing the commander for a tactical victory. If Nash were here, he'd probably call it chivalry. I call it an absolute miracle he isn't dead." Rowan finally detached himself from the doorway, his hands still stuffed deep into his oversized pockets as he slid toward the group. His eyes completely bypassed the unconscious Weasley boy, instead zeroing in on the shattered, unmoving white chess pieces strewn across the board. "He's breathing, But he's out cold." Hermione sobbed, checking Ron's pulse with trembling fingers. "Aye, and he'll have a reet nasty lump on his forehead tomorrow," Rowan observed. He casually nudged a broken stone fragment of a white knight with the toe of his boot. His internal calculator immediately estimated the black market value of the marble. 'Too heavy to carry,' he thought with a sour grimace 'Shame.' He looked up, his sharp eyes meeting Harry's frantic gaze. "Listen, lad, we can't lug 'im, and we can't leave 'im here if that thing in t'next room decides to wander back. Get 'im up against t'wall."
Together, Harry and Hermione carefully dragged Ron to the edge of the chamber, propping him up safely against the cold stone, away from the grid. "What do you reckon's next?" Harry whispered, trying to steady his shaking knees as he stared at the heavy iron door at the end of the clear path. "We've had Sprout's, that was the Devil's Snare; Flitwick must've put charms on the keys; McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive; that leaves Quirrell's spell, and Snape's ..." they made their way over to the door. "All right?" Harry whispered. "Go on." Harry pushed it open. A disgusting smell filled their nostrils, making them pull their robes up over their noses. Eyes watering, they saw, flat on the floor in front of them, a troll even larger than the one they had tackled, out cold with a bloody lump on its head. "I'm glad we didn't have to fight that one," Harry whispered as they stepped carefully over one of its massive legs. "Come on, I can't breathe." He pulled open the next door, hardly daring to look at what came next. But there was nothing very frightening in that room, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. "Snape's," said Harry. "What do we have to do?" They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn't ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped. "Look!" Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles.
Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,
Four of us will help you, whichever you would find,
Two among us seven will let you move ahead,
Another two will transport the drinker back instead,
One among our number hold only nettle wine,
Two of us are killers, waiting hidden in line.
Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,
To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:
First, however slyly the poison tries to hide
You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;
Second, different are those who stand at either end,
But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;
Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,
Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;
Fourth, the second left and the second on the right
Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight.
Nula smiled widely and cracks his knuckles. "Move out of the way peasants. This is my challenge" she said, smirking. "Everything we need is here on this paper. Seven bottles: two are poison; one is wine; two will get us safely through the black fire, and two will get us back through the purple." Nyla read the paper several times. Then she walked up and down the line of bottles, muttering to hsrself and pointing at them. At last, she clapped her hands. "Got it," she said. "The smallest two bottles will get us through the black fire, toward the Stone." Harry looked at the tiny bottle. "There's only enough there for two of us," Rowan said. "Which two will get you back through the purple flames?" Harry asked. Nyla pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. "Nyla, Hermione. You drink those. No, listen, get back and get Ron. Grab brooms from the flying-key room, they'll get you out of the trapdoor and past Fluffy, go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, we need him. Me and Rowan might be able to hold Snape off for a while, but we are no match for him, really." Harry explained. "But Harry - what if You-Know-Who's with him?" Hermione called out. "Well - I was lucky once, wasn't I? I might get lucky again. And I'm sure Rowan knows some trips as one of Snape's students and as a theif" said Harry, pointing at his scar. Rowan nods smirking. Hermione's lip trembled, and she suddenly dashed at Harry and threw her arms around him. "Hermione!" harry muttered in shock. "Harry - you're a great wizard, you know." She muttered. "I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him. "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!" said Hermione. "You two drink first," said Harry. "You are sure which is which, aren't you?" Nyla nodded as she and Hermione grabbed their potions. They quickly down them. "It's not poison?" said Harry anxiously. "No - but it's like ice." Nyla explained. "Quick, go, before it wears off." Harry instructed. "Good luck - take care -" Hermione added. "GO!" Rowan shouted. Hermione and Alya turned and walked straight through the purple fire. The Boys quickly grabbed the small bottles, faced the black flames and chugged them. It was indeed as though ice was flooding his body. Harry put the bottle down and walked forward; Rowan quickly followed. He braced himself, saw the black flames licking his body, but couldn't feel them, for a moment he could see nothing but dark fire, then he was on the other side, in the last chamber. Harry went to speak but Rowan shushed him and pointed. There was already someone there - but it wasn't Snape. It wasn't even Voldemort.
"What the fuck! Quirrell?"
Quirrell smiled. His face wasn't twitching at all. "Me, I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here, Potter twins." He said calmly. "But I thought - Snape - " harry started "Severus?" Quirrell laughed, and it wasn't his usual quivering treble, either, but cold and sharp. "Yes, Severus does seem the type, doesn't he? So useful to have him swooping around like an overgrown bat. Next to him, who would suspect p-p-poor, st-stuttering P-Professor Quirrell?" Rowan glared at him. "I ne'er did like thee" He muttered. "But Snape tried to kill me!" Harry argued. "No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse, trying to save you." The teacher argued. "Snape was trying to save me?" Harry muttered. Rowan gave him a look meaning 'yes keep up"
"Of course, Why do you think he wanted to referee your next match? He was trying to make sure I didn't do it again. Funny, really... he needn't have bothered. I couldn't do anything with Dumbledore watching. All the other teachers thought Snape was trying to stop Gryffindor from winning, he did make himself unpopular... and what a waste of time, when after all that, I'm going to kill you tonight."
Quirrell snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of thin air and wrapped themselves tightly around Harry and Rowan.
"You're both too nosy to live, Potter, Fletcher . Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that, for all I knew you'd seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone."
"You let the troll in?" Harry asked. Rowan rolled his eyes and began trying to get out of the rope.
"Certainly. I have a special gift with trolls - you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off - and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly. Now, wait quietly, Potter. I need to examine this interesting mirror."
It was only then that Rowan realized what was standing behind Quirrell. It was the Mirror of Erised.
"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone, Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this... but he's in London... I'll be far away by the time he gets back...."
"I saw you and Snape in the forest - " Harry blurted out. Rowan raised an eye brow at that
"Yes, He was on to me by that time, trying to find out how far I'd got. He suspected me all along. Tried to frighten me - as though he could, when I had Lord Voldemort on my side...."
Quirrell came back out from behind the mirror and stared hungrily into it.
"I see the Stone... I'm presenting it to my master... but where is it?"
Harry and Rowan struggled against the ropes binding them, but they didn't give. "But Snape always seemed to hate me so much." Harry argued. "Snape's hates everyone" Rowan whispered but was ignored.
"Oh, he does, heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know? They loathed each other. But he never wanted you dead. Because of your mother, the one your twin looks so much like"
"But I heard you a few days ago, sobbing - I thought Snape was threatening you...." Harry commented. For the first time, a spasm of fear flitted across Quirrell's face.
"Sometimes, I find it hard to follow my master's instructions - he is a great wizard and I am weak - "
"You mean he was there in the classroom with you?" Harry asked. Rowan was disgusting by that idea.
"He is with me wherever I go, I met him when I traveled around the world. A foolish young man I was then, full of ridiculous ideas about good and evil. Lord Voldemort showed me how wrong I was. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.... Since then, I have served him faithfully, although I have let him down many times. He has had to be very hard on me. He does not forgive mistakes easily. When I failed to steal the stone from Gringotts, he was most displeased. He punished me... decided he would have to keep a closer watch on me......... I don't understand... is the Stone inside the mirror? Should I break it?"
Rowan continued to try and get out of the ropes. But nothing worked. Suddenly Harry tried to edge them to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around their ankles were too tight: harry tripped and fell over, pulling Rowan over to. Quirrell ignored them. He was still talking to himself.
"What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!"
And to Rowan's horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself
"Use the boys... Use the boys..."
Quirrell rounded on Harry and Rowan.
"Yes - Potter, Fletcher - come here."
He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry and Rowan fell off. Harry and Rowan got slowly to their feet.
"Come here, Look in the mirror and tell me what you see."
Harry and Rowan walked toward him. Quirrell moved close behind them. Rowan breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell's turban. He closed his eyes, stepped in front of the mirror, and opened them again. He saw his and Harry's reflections, pale and scared-looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection of Harry smiled at them. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket, and as it did so, Harry gave Rowan a look, harry had the stone.
"Well? What do you see?"
"Finally having a house to live in" Rowan commented. "I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore," Harry invented. "I - I've won the house cup for Gryffindor." Quirrell cursed again.
"Get out of the way,"
"They lie... They lie..."
The boys hadn't walked five paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn't moving his lips.
"Potter, Fletcher , come back here! Tell me the truth! What did you just see?"
"Let me speak to him... face-to-face..."
"Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough... for this...."
Rowan tried to move but he couldn't. He watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot. "What the...." Rowan whispered. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was a face, the most terrible face Jacob had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake.
"Harry Potter... Rowan Fletcher....See what I have become? Mere shadow and vapor ... I have form only when I can share another's body... but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds.... Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks... you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest... and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own.... Now... why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?"
Suddenly Harry stumbled backward, Rowan rushed after them.
"Don't be a fool, Better save your own lives and join me... or you'll meet the same end as Potter's parents.... They died begging me for mercy..."
"LIAR!" Harry shouted suddenly. "Why do you not have a nose?" Rowan yelled. Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.
"How touching... I always value bravery, even in a Slytherin... Yes, Potter, your parents were brave.... I killed your father first; And he put up a courageous fight... but your mother needn't have died... she was trying to protect you.... Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain"
"NEVER!" Harry yelled, but the snakelike face on the back of Quirrell's head ignored him, its gleaming red eyes shifting entirely onto the scrawny Slytherin standing beside him.
"And what of you, Rowan Fletcher? I know who you are. The street-rat son of Mundungus Fletcher. A boy who sleeps in stolen cauldrons, hidden in the shadows because he has nowhere else to go. Why fight for a school that isolates you? Why die for a world that treats you like thin air?"
Rowan tensed, his hands clenching deep inside his pockets, his hyper-aware senses locking onto Quirrell's slow, backward advance.
"Join me, Help me secure the Stone tonight, and I will grant you everything you have ever stolen for, and more. Unlimited wealth. Gold to fill a hundred Gringotts vaults. A real, grand home where no one will ever look down on you. And a family... a true family that does not abuse you, nor drag you through the gutters. I can give you the consistency you crave. I can make you powerful."
For a split second, the sheer weight of the offer hit Rowan right in the chest. A real home. A normal family. No more running from the bobbies or his father's drunken rages. It was everything his truest, deepest self had ever wanted. But as the words settled, Rowan's lifelong talent for spotting a fake deal snapped aggressively into place. He looked at the way Quirrell's hands trembled. He looked at the desperate, sweating desperation of the man before him. On the black market, when an offer sounded too good to be true, it meant the bloke on the other side was completely broke and preparing to cut your throat the moment you turned around. Voldemort wasn't offering a partnership; he was running a sloppy, high-stakes con. Rowan let out a sharp, cynical laugh. "I've dealt wi' proper scoundrels in Knockturn Alley far worse'n thee," Rowan quipped, squintin' his big brown eyes in pure contempt. "Thy pitch is reet messy, and thy face is on t' wrong side o' a lad's head. I'm ou'"
The evil face contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"Kill him!"
Quirrell whirled around with terrifying speed, his grubby hands clapping together as he shouted a curse. Rowan instantly tried to execute an exit plan, his muscles springing toward the stairs, but he didn't have a wand that worked properly to defend himself. A jet of blinding red light clipped him squarely in the chest. The force of the spell lifted Rowan right off his feet, slamming his scrawny frame hard against the solid stone wall of the chamber. His vision blurred instantly, the roaring fire and Harry's panicked shouts fading into a distant hum, before the darkness rushed in and knocked him completely unconscious.
"-at's terrible - you could have been killed."
Rowan woke up a few days later to Nash, Ron, Hermione and Harry talking very loudly. "No, it isn't," said Harry thoughtfully. "He's a funny man, Dumbledore. I think he sort of wanted to give me a chance. I think he knows more or less everything that goes on here, you know. I reckon he had a pretty good idea we were going to try, and instead of stopping us, he just taught us enough to help. I don't think it was an accident he let me find out how the mirror worked. It's almost like he thought I had the right to face Voldemort if I could. ..." Rowan groaned in pain as he opened his eyes. He seemed to be in the hospital. "Will ya bloody shut up, I'm trynna sleep" Rowan muttered angrily as he sat up. Nash just glared at him, other than that he was ignored. "Yeah, Dumbledore's off his rocker, all right," said Ron proudly. "Listen, you've got to be up for the end-of-year feast tomorrow. The points are all in and Slytherin won, of course - you missed the last Quidditch match, we were steamrollered by Ravenclaw without you - but the food'll be good." At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled over. "You've had nearly fifteen minutes, now OUT," she said firmly. "Bye bye!" Rowan called before laying back down and going back to sleep.
Rowan and Harry were realised from the hospital wing the next day, just in time for the end of year feast. When the two walked into the great hall there was a sudden hush, and then everybody started talking loudly at once. Rowan just ignored them and sat at the end of the Slytherin table. Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived moments later.
"Another year gone! And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were ... you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts. ... Now, as I understand it, the House Cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Gryffindor, with 262 points; in third, Hufflepuff, with 352; Ravenclaw has 426 and Slytherin, 472"
A storm of cheering and stamping broke out from the Slytherin table. Draco banged his goblet on the table. It was a sickening sight.
"Yes, yes, well done, Slytherin, However, recent events must be taken into account."
The room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little. Rowan smirked.
"Ahem, I have a few last-minute points to dish out. Let me see. Yes ... first to Mr Nash Black for bravery against his insecurities. I award Gryffindor House fifty points."
The Gryffindor table cheered loudly.
"Secondly, to Mr. Ronald Weasley for the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years, I award Gryffindor House fifty points."
Gryffindor cheers nearly raised the bewitched ceiling; the stars overhead seemed to quiver. At last there was silence again.
"Thirdly, to Miss Hermione Granger ... for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor House fifty points."
Gryffindors up and down the table were beside themselves - they were a hundred points up.
"Fourthly to Mr. Harry Potter for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor House sixty points."
The din was deafening. Those who could add up while yelling themselves hoarse knew that Gryffindor now had 472 points, exactly the same as Slytherin. They had tied for the House Cup, if only Dumbledore had given Harry just one more point.
Dumbledore raised his hand. The room gradually fell silent.
"There are all kinds of courage, it takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom."
Someone standing outside the Great Hall might well have thought some sort of explosion had taken place, so loud was the noise that erupted from the Gryffindor table. Harry, Ron, Nash and Hermione stood up to yell and cheer as Neville, white with shock, disappeared under a pile of people hugging him. He had never won so much as a point for Gryffindor before.
"Which means, we need a little change of decoration."
He clapped his hands. In an instant, the green hangings became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took its place. Snape was shaking Professor McGonagall's hand, with a horrible, forced smile. "I were reight dere too, an' so were Black's sister, tha daft apeth. Where's our points then?" Rowan muttered but was ignored. The next day, exam results came out. Rowan's practical exams were the only thing that got him a pass, but it was by a tiny margin. After breakfast, everyone was sent home on the Hogwarts Express. Rowan spent the whole train ride tricking some Ravenclaws into doing his summer assignments for him.
"Well, if it isn't the King's Cross runner returning to his castle,"
"Aye, and I've come back wi' more magic than tha' can shake a stick at, Dad,"
"Magic don't impress me, lad, unless it's gonna help thee unlock that back door in Bradford tonight."
"Keep thy boots on, I've already got the lock picked in mi' head."