Cordelia Rowle

The door to the Headmaster's Office was tightly shut.

It was late at night. Most of the students at Hogwarts still had no idea what had happened, and only a few professors had been summoned. For once, the portraits of former headmasters on the walls were not pretending to sleep. Their eyes were open, their expressions varied as they watched the center of the room.

On his perch, Fawkes buried his head beneath his wing, as though he had no intention of offering an opinion on a late-night human meeting.

The silver instruments on the desk continued to puff out thin streams of smoke.

But the mood in the room was nowhere near as calm as those things looked.

Snape stood beside the fireplace, his black robes hanging straight and his face colder than usual.

"He must be expelled."

He said it without the slightest preamble.

Professor McGonagall sat nearby, her expression taut and her gaze sharp beneath the brim of her hat. Clearly, she had already argued with him once.

Professor Sprout sat a little farther back, her brow deeply furrowed. Professor Flitwick stood beside the desk, absently stroking his beard, his expression caught somewhere between shock, concern, and an ill-timed academic curiosity.

Dumbledore sat behind the desk with his fingers interlaced, his long silver-white beard resting on his chest. His bright blue eyes watched them quietly.

"Must?" he repeated mildly.

"Yes, must," Snape said coldly. "This is exactly how the Dark Lord started, Dumbledore. You cannot let him go on like this."

For a moment, the room fell silent.

Even several portraits on the wall turned their heads.

Professor McGonagall's expression grew colder still.

"Severus, that is going too far."

"Too far?" Snape turned on her at once, the edge he had long kept buried finally showing in his voice. "A first-year student, with no practical combat training whatsoever, killed a troll in seconds using nothing but Transfiguration and a Slowing Charm. Tell me, is that not going too far?"

"The spells themselves are all part of the basic curriculum," Professor McGonagall said, her voice quiet but firm. "Transfiguration is taught in the first year, as is the Levitation Charm. The Slowing Charm is merely another variation of it."

Snape gave a cold laugh.

"We all know that, Minerva. But would you have thought to use a Transfiguration Spell to kill someone in your first year?"

No one answered.

Professor McGonagall pressed her lips together slightly.

Snape stared at her, his low voice like a blade drawn across the desk.

"He is only in his first year. He has learned just two spells, and he killed a troll in an instant. An adult troll, not some potted plant kept in a greenhouse, or a matchstick used for a classroom demonstration. Even an ordinary adult wizard might not be able to handle a troll when caught off guard."

Professor Flitwick coughed softly.

"From a technical standpoint," he began cautiously, "that Slowing Charm actually—"

"I am not concerned with the technical standpoint right now," Snape cut in.

"But I am," Professor McGonagall replied at once, her tone hardening. "Because we are discussing a student, not an execution report. Severus, you cannot ignore the circumstances simply because the outcome was ugly."

"The circumstances?" Snape looked at Professor McGonagall. "The circumstances are that an eleven-year-old child put together a combination of magic capable of killing an adult troll. You, of all people, should understand what that means."

Professor McGonagall rose.

She was not short to begin with, and standing gave her an air that was not easily cowed.

"It means he protected three students in an extreme situation." She met Snape's gaze. "Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley—they are all alive. The troll is dead because it was about to smash them into pulp."

Snape stared at her, his face dark.

"Are you defending a first-year student's use of lethal force?"

"I am stating the facts."

"The fact is, he did not hesitate."

"The fact is, he had no other choice."

"He could have dodged. He could have left."

"Where could he have gone?" Professor McGonagall demanded. "Harry and Hermione were right behind him. Did you expect him to discuss casting distance as elegantly as he would in a classroom while a troll charged at them?"

For once, Snape did not answer immediately.

Professor Sprout finally spoke up.

"I do not think expulsion is appropriate either," she said. "That boy has saved someone in Herbology. He thinks quickly, but he is not reckless. He is not the sort of student who acts wildly just to show off."

"You are his head of house. Of course you would say that. He nearly drained himself dry tonight," Snape said coldly.

"That proves he had not planned it," Professor Sprout countered. "If he truly were as dangerously like the Dark Lord as you say, he would at least value his own life more."

One of the old headmasters in the portraits gave a quiet "Hmm," as though he thought she had a point.

Snape's frown deepened.

At last, Dumbledore spoke.

"Severus, Minerva is right. I have seen their memories."

Snape turned to him at once.

Dumbledore's tone remained steady, as though he were laying out facts already established.

"He meant to avoid it at first. He smelled the troll and followed Harry and Ron, largely out of worry and curiosity—two things that are often difficult to distinguish in young people. After entering the girls' bathroom, he did not join the fight immediately. He acted only when he realized Harry and Hermione were behind him and the troll was already charging."

Dumbledore paused.

"At first, he did not even draw his wand."

Silence settled over the Headmaster's Office.

Snape still looked grim. Clearly, he remained set on expelling Gavin immediately.

"But—" he began.

"I know what worries you," Dumbledore interrupted gently.

Snape said nothing. He only watched him.

"It is not the troll tonight that worries you," Dumbledore continued. "It is that an eleven-year-old child has begun to understand magic in a way far beyond conventional teaching, and that, under extreme pressure, he can turn that understanding into harm with remarkable speed."

Professor McGonagall's expression shifted slightly.

Dumbledore had put it precisely.

That was what truly unsettled everyone in the room.

"Yes," Snape said quietly. "That is exactly what worries me."

Dumbledore regarded him for a moment, then nodded faintly.

"Me too."

Professor McGonagall was taken aback.

But Dumbledore continued before she could speak.

"Concern, however, is not a reason to expel a child."

"Dumbledore—" Snape's voice dropped.

"When he has recovered, I will speak with him," Dumbledore announced.

Snape stared at him, his face as cold as the night beyond the window.

"You intend to leave it at that?"

"Of course not. But before deciding a child's future, I would like to hear what he has to say."

"He nearly killed himself."

"Which is why the most important thing now is to make sure he survives."

At that, everyone fell silent.

That was the most pressing matter.

Gavin Gu was not out of danger yet.

Whether to expel him could be decided later.

He had to survive before there could be any talk of a future.

Professor Flitwick glanced at Snape, then at Dumbledore. "Madam Pomfrey...?" he asked cautiously.

"The Hospital Wing cannot treat him," Snape said coldly. "They are already taking him to St. Mungo's."

Professor McGonagall's fingers tightened around the back of her chair.

Professor Sprout's expression darkened too.

Dumbledore was silent for two seconds before nodding slowly.

"Then we wait for news."

No one spoke again.

Only the fire crackled in the hearth.

Meanwhile, far away in London, night had yet to lift at St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

The lights were dim and warm.

The walls were clean and white.

The air smelled of potions, disinfecting charms, and something particular to places where the gravely ill were cared for over long stretches of time.

Gavin woke to the sound of hushed voices.

Awareness returned slowly. Only then did he feel his body beneath him, lying in an unfamiliar bed, his head aching as if it might split open.

"...He still hasn't woken up?"

It was a girl's voice.

Gavin's eyelids twitched.

He wanted to open his eyes at once, but they felt too heavy to lift.

"Dibby doesn't know," another voice answered.

A House-elf. Gavin often visited the kitchens, and he knew what House-elves sounded like.

At last, Gavin slowly opened his eyes.

The hospital room was small but quiet, its soft light almost hazy. He lay in bed, his arms and legs still feeling a little heavy. After his magic had been drained dry, his body had not yet fully adjusted.

A girl sat a short distance from his bed.

She looked about twelve, perhaps a little younger.

Her face was so delicate it scarcely seemed real, with the pale, cold quality of a marble statue in moonlight and a heartbreaking beauty born of despair far beyond her years.

Her soft, long silver-blond hair hung lifelessly over shoulders far too thin, like torn silk. It made her look as fragile as a withered leaf trembling before a storm. She sat quietly in a loose white silk nightgown that exposed her jutting collarbones, like a little angel whose wings had been broken, abandoned in the mortal world to slowly wither and die.

She was watching him too.

Her gaze was deep, holding a little hesitation, a little wariness, and a curiosity he could not quite place.

She looked like a small animal kept indoors for years, peering through a crack in the door for the first time at another living creature—one that did not seem likely to run away at once.

A House-elf stood beside the bed, holding a tray.

When Gavin opened his eyes, the elf jolted, his ears standing straight up.

"The gentleman is awake!" he whispered, still visibly excited. "Dibby—"

"Shh," the little girl said softly.

The House-elf fell silent at once.

Quiet returned to the room.

Gavin looked at the girl, the fog in his mind not yet fully cleared.

But he sensed something very strange about her.

It was a silence that made his skin crawl.

Beneath that beautiful, broken-winged-angel exterior, deep under her soft silver-blond hair and bloodless skin, an immense, chaotic mass of darkness writhed madly. Destructive power had been forcibly compressed inside that shell. It lay curled and quiet like a dormant black hole, ready at any moment to devour everything around it—including her.

Gavin's breath caught. Instinctively, he sensed something about her... a mingling of deathly stillness and destruction.

The girl was still staring at him without blinking. Something like ink seemed to spread silently through her deep pupils.

Then she spoke.

Her voice was ethereal, touched by the detachment of someone who had seen through life and death.

"Are you... dying too?"