Goodbye, My Family

The dining table was covered with a clean linen tablecloth.

Although Hermione wasn't home,

Mrs. Granger brought out black tea and homemade pastries.

The conversation was polite and pleasant, even harmonious.

Caesar carefully chose his topics, talking about Hogwarts Castle's ancient architecture and its fascinating history classes.

He sincerely praised Hermione's astonishing academic talent and hard work.

He patiently and clearly answered the Grangers' curious questions about everyday life in the wizarding world.

His composed manner and the wisdom and poise he displayed, far beyond his years, earned the Grangers' quiet admiration. Their affection and trust were plain to see in their eyes.

Yet beneath this seemingly warm and harmonious surface, Caesar's heart was a vacuum at absolute zero.

Every familiar detail, every line of dialogue that seemed rehearsed, even the unique combination of scents drifting through the air, belonging to this home,

was like a cold needle piercing something that had long been declared dead, yet still suffered phantom pain.

He sat in the place he usually occupied in his "memories," sipping tea at just the right temperature and listening as the Grangers proudly shared amusing stories about Hermione's childhood.

He had heard her retell some of them with a smile during simulated late nights. Others were new to him. He kept a perfectly measured, slightly bashful smile of attentiveness on his face, nodding at the right moments.

But his gaze would drift beyond his control to the empty ceramic vase on the study windowsill.

In the simulation, Hermione had once placed in it a bunch of magical forget-me-nots he had brought back from Hogsmeade, flowers that changed color with the moonlight.

It passed over an inconspicuous oak frame on the sideboard, containing a picture of a beaming young Hermione

hugging a thick book. In the simulated "world," that photo had sat on the bedside table in their bedroom.

It passed over the blank patch of wall at the turn of the stairs. In the simulation, a tapestry he had given her had once hung there, its magical star chart shifting with the passage of real time...

The things remained, but the people had changed.

No, even the "things" weren't quite the same.

The traces of time and emotion that belonged to their "shared future" did not exist here.

All that existed was an ordinary afternoon in the life of a happy, highly accomplished Muggle family, hosting their daughter's classmate.

And he was a lonely observer from another timeline, carrying the wrong memories.

A vast sense of estrangement and emptiness, almost enough to swallow him whole, surged beneath his polite smile and measured words like a silent tsunami, battering the seawall of his reason.

The warmth, companionship, understanding, and easy rapport he had truly experienced in the simulation, the bonds etched into his very bones and the complicated feelings that had grown from them—

in the face of this "correct" reality, all seemed so illusory, so absurd, so... desperately irrelevant.

He wanted to speak, but had no words.

The cold, heavy flood churning in his chest had nowhere to pour out. He couldn't share it with the kind, gentle couple before him.

It only pooled heavily in his heart, bringing a dull pain close to suffocation and a strange, burning ache deep behind his eyes.

The visit ended in a warm atmosphere.

Caesar said his goodbyes politely and thanked them for their hospitality. He declined the Grangers' invitation to stay for dinner and wait for Hermione to come home.

As he turned to leave, his steps were steady and his back straight.

He walked along Hampstead's quiet, tree-lined streets. The afternoon sun passed through the leaves, casting shifting patches of light over him.

In an unexpected turn, London hadn't had any rain today.

Yet Caesar felt as though a transparent, impenetrable curtain of rain separated him from this vivid world.

He stopped and looked back one last time at the red-brick house gradually disappearing behind the trees at the corner.

The last flicker in the depths of his eyes sank into absolute stillness.

"Goodbye, my family."

Then he turned and joined the languid flow of people on London's summer streets.

He locked away that sudden, fragile illusion, one that had almost broken through the ice: "All has changed; nothing remains as it was. I try to speak, but tears fall first."

Along with the warmth and pain of memories that should never have existed, he sealed it all inside the hardest prison in his mind, one that would never be opened.

The heat of August had not yet entirely faded from England.

Inside the oppressive house at Number Four, Privet Drive, the air was still so heavy it was hard to breathe.

Outside, the sky was not yet fully bright, and gray-blue dawn mist covered Privet Drive's neat, uniform gardens.

Caesar sat at the old desk by the window, unconsciously running his fingers over its rough cover.

A long two-month holiday at the Dursleys' meant nearly sixty days and nights of idleness and stifling atmosphere.

Time seemed to flow more thickly and sluggishly here.

He didn't need this kind of "rest."

He rested through constant thought, deduction, and the consolidation of knowledge.

The Dursleys' home offered only a barely usable physical space, free from magical interference.

But truly strengthening himself required a freer environment, richer resources, and... a chance to plan ahead.

His gaze settled on the street gradually coming into view outside. His eyes were calm, but a cold, precise calculation flickered in their depths.

Hogwarts.

It was time to go back.

He had no intention of setting off with Harry Potter.

The boy had his own path of destiny.

Caesar's plans did not need to be tied to anyone else's.

As for the defenses meant to keep students from returning to Hogwarts early, they couldn't stop Caesar, a former Hogwarts headmaster.

At the breakfast table, Caesar calmly said that he wanted to return a few days early to the library to finish "the final research for an independent summer project." Vernon's brow immediately furrowed.

"Early? Now?" He put down the Financial Times, his voice full of reluctance. "What about the train ticket? And all those... ridiculous formalities!"

"I've already arranged it." Caesar's voice was quiet, but steady and unquestionable. "The Ministry of Magic has granted temporary Floo Network authorization. I can go straight back to the area near the school. There's no need to buy another ticket."

"The Floo Network?" Petunia repeated sharply, her face paling slightly, as if she'd heard some filthy word.

She quickly glanced toward the stairs, making sure Dudley hadn't come down yet.

"Is that thing safe? You won't bring something strange into the fireplace, will you?"

"It's perfectly safe. It's just a form of transportation in the wizarding world."

Caesar answered briefly, with no desire to explain further.

He knew the more he explained, the more the Dursleys would fear and reject it.

In the end, faced with Caesar's calm insistence, Vernon and Petunia reluctantly gave in.

Perhaps, deep down, they were glad their "odd" son would be leaving early, so their home could return to the "normal" life they understood.

There was no grand farewell, not even a proper send-off meal.

Carrying the old suitcase that had kept him company for two months, Caesar pushed open the heavy oak door of Number Four, Privet Drive amid Vernon's muttered "good riddance" and Petunia's averted gaze.