Employment Guidance

Hermione wanted to say something more, but a slightly shrill female voice interrupted her.

"Oh—looks like we've interrupted an important conversation?"

Skylar looked up, and his gaze met Daphne's briefly in midair.

That moment of unspoken understanding made Hermione keenly realize that this was no longer a place for them to stay.

She let out a soft breath, tugged at Harry and Ron's sleeves, and said quietly, "Let's go."

As the three left, Ron glanced back at Skylar, his expression complicated. Harry merely pressed his lips together and said nothing more.

The atmosphere around the long table quietly shifted.

Draco did not speak at once.

He stood there, his eyes roaming over Skylar as though he were seeing him for the first time. Those gray eyes were filled with confusion, shock, and a sense of distance that even he himself was unwilling to acknowledge.

—This was his own brother.

Yet everything that had happened last night seemed to have torn an uncrossable chasm between them.

"So..." Draco finally spoke, though his tone was lower than usual. "All those rumors were true?"

Skylar did not deny it. He merely gave him an indifferent glance.

That one look left Draco completely unable to continue.

He had not been at the Ministry of Magic last night, but what he had heard was already horrifying enough—his brother, who had grown up alongside him since childhood, had appeared when the Aurors were on the verge of collapse and turned the tide. He had faced several dark wizards on roughly Voldemort's level head-on—the Ministry of Magic had not released the details to avoid causing panic—and had ultimately driven the enemy back...

If it was true, then Skylar had likely established a prestige within Britain's Ministry of Magic that no one else could match.

This was entirely