Goodbye, My Family

The dining table was covered with a clean linen tablecloth.

Though Hermione was not home.

Mrs. Granger brought over black tea and homemade pastries.

The conversation was polite, pleasant, even harmonious.

Caesar chose his topics carefully, speaking of the ancient architecture of Hogwarts Castle and its interesting history lessons.

He sincerely praised Hermione's astonishing talent and diligence in her studies.

Patiently and concisely answering the Grangers' curious questions about daily life in the magical world.

His composed demeanor and the insight and steadiness he displayed, far beyond his years, earned the Grangers' silent admiration, their fondness and trust plain in their eyes.

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

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

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

He sat in the spot he had always occupied in his "memories," sipping black tea at just the right temperature, listening as the Grangers proudly recounted Hermione's childhood anecdotes.

Some he had heard her retell with a smile in the depths of the simulation's nights, others were new. His face wore a perfectly appropriate, slightly shy smile of focused attention, nodding at the right moments.

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

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

It would slide past an unremarkable oak photo frame on the sideboard, inside which was a beaming young Hermione.

Hugging a thick book—this photo, in the simulated "world," had sat on the bedside table of their bedroom.

It would skim over the blank wall at the stair landing, where in the simulation a tapestry he had given her once hung, enchanted so its star chart moved with real time...

The objects remained, but the people were gone.

No, even the "objects" were not entirely the same.

Those marks steeped in time and emotion, belonging to a "shared future," did not exist here.

What existed was merely, in this slice of time, an ordinary afternoon where a happy Muggle elite family entertained their daughter's classmate.

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

A vast sense of alienation and nothingness, nearly swallowing him whole, crashed beneath his polite smile and proper words like a silent tsunami against the levees of his reason.

The warmth, companionship, friction, and understanding he had truly experienced in the simulation, the deep bonds etched into his bones and the complex emotions they spawned.

Before this "correct" reality, they all seemed so illusory, so absurd, so... despairingly irrelevant.

He wanted to speak, but had no words.

The cold, heavy torrent churning in his chest found no outlet, nor could it be directed at the kind, gentle couple before him.

It simply settled heavily in the depths of his heart, bringing a dull ache close to suffocation, and a strange, burning sting behind his eyes.

The visit ended in a warm atmosphere.

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

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

Walking down the quiet, tree-lined streets of Hampstead, the afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting shifting patches of light on him.

Unexpectedly, it had not rained in London today.

Yet Caesar felt as if a transparent, unbreakable curtain of rain separated him from this vibrant world.

He stopped, turned back one last time, and looked at the red brick house gradually disappearing behind the street corner's tree shadows.

In the depths of his eyes, the last ripple subsided into absolute stillness.

"Goodbye, my family."

Then he turned and merged into the lazy summer crowd on the London streets.

Sealing that sudden, fragile illusion that had nearly burst through the ice—the feeling of "things remain, but people are gone; words fail, tears fall first"—

Along with the warm currents and stings of memories that should not exist, into the hardest, never-to-be-opened prison within his consciousness.

The August heat had not yet fully faded from the English land.

Inside the oppressive house at Number Four, Privet Drive, the air was still stifling, suffocating.

Outside the window, the sky was not yet fully bright; a gray-blue morning haze shrouded the uniform gardens of Privet Drive.

Caesar sat at the old desk by the window, his fingers unconsciously tracing the rough book cover.

Two long months of vacation at the Dursleys' meant nearly sixty days and nights of idleness and oppressive atmosphere.

Time itself seemed to flow thick and sluggish here.

He did not need this kind of "rest."

His "rest" was accomplished through continuous thinking, deduction, and the integration of knowledge.

The Dursley family provided only a barely usable, magic-free physical space.

True strength enhancement required a freer environment, richer resources, and... the opportunity to lay groundwork ahead of time.

His gaze fixed on the street scene gradually sharpening beyond the window, Caesar's eyes were calm and unruffled, yet deep within flickered a trace of cold, precise calculation.

Hogwarts.

It was time to return.

He had no intention of setting out with Harry Potter.

That boy had his own destined path.

Caesar's itinerary needed no binding to anyone.

As for the defensive measures Hogwarts had in place to prevent students from returning early, they were utterly incapable of stopping Caesar, a former headmaster of Hogwarts.

At the breakfast table, when Caesar calmly proposed returning to school a few days early to conduct "final research for a summer independent study project" in the library, Vernon's brow immediately twisted into a knot.

"Early? Now?" He set down the Financial Times, his voice thick with reluctance. "What about the train tickets? And all those... messy procedures?"

"I've already arranged it." Caesar's voice was low but carried an unyielding steadiness. "The Ministry of Magic has authorized a temporary Floo Network connection, allowing direct return near the school. No extra tickets needed."

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

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

"Is that thing safe? You're not going to bring something strange into the fireplace, are you?"

"Perfectly safe. It's just a mode of transportation in the magical world."

Caesar answered briefly, with no intention of elaborating.

He knew that the more he explained, the more the Dursleys' fear and repulsion would only deepen.

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

Perhaps deep down, they were also glad to see this "odd" son leave early, restoring their home to what they considered "normal."

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

Carrying the old suitcase that had accompanied him 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.