Obscurus

Dumbledore looked at Gavin. The corner of his mouth seemed to twitch.

"I don't doubt that for a moment, Mr. Gu."

He rested a hand gently on Cordelia's shoulder. Only after making sure she was all right did he speak.

"Cordelia, sorry for the trouble, but could you fetch Gavin a blanket?"

"Of course, Grandpa Dumbledore." Cordelia left the courtyard.

Watching her go, Dumbledore said slowly, "Cordelia Rowle's Obscurus erupted unexpectedly when she was seven. Her mother died on the spot, but Cordelia survived by some miracle."

Gavin listened closely.

As Dumbledore spoke, a tragedy unfolded.

Cordelia Rowle was the Rowle Family's only daughter. By the age of seven, she had moved into a private room at St. Mungo's. For the past five years, the only person she had spoken to was Dibby, her House-elf.

Voldemort was indeed gone by the time Cordelia was old enough to remember, but she grew up in a family where the dead held more sway than the living.

Her childhood happiness had not ended in a single moment. It had been worn away by endless funerals and screams.

During the Great Purge, the Pure-blood families that had followed Voldemort faced a reckoning. On one side, Pure-bloods held memorial services for their "heroes." On the other, the Ministry of Magic put former Death Eaters on trial.

She still remembered the day the Aurors stormed the manor. Their boots trampled the expensive carpet as they seized her uncle with magic. Then her older and younger cousins were taken too. Every familiar face she had once chased through the garden vanished that day, leaving only an empty dining table.

The aunt she had depended on most, the woman who had taught her manners and grace, had a hysterical falling-out with her father before Cordelia's eyes, all for the hollow promise of "Pure-blood glory."

The elders who remained sank into a twisted sickness. They cowered before the Ministry of Magic's investigators, yet behind drawn curtains, they held frenzied memorials before portraits of their supposed "heroes." To young Cordelia, magic was no miracle. It was the blade that tore families apart, the poison that drove her elders mad.

Deep down, she believed, If there were no magic, maybe none of this would have happened. Home wouldn't be so empty.

That extreme self-repression eventually gave rise to an Obscurus.

"Later, Cordelia's father, Alaric Rowle, came to me and asked me to look after her." Dumbledore's expression turned wistful. "As it happened, I had an Alchemy item that could temporarily prevent her Obscurus from erupting."

"The bracelet?"

"That's right. Nicolas and I developed it together. We'd hoped it could cure an Obscurus. Clearly, we failed. The bracelet can only suppress it for a short time."

A trace of pain entered Dumbledore's voice.

"You know the rest. Hogwarts wasn't a suitable place for Cordelia, so I could only arrange for her to stay at St. Mungo's. She's been here ever since."

Gavin fell silent for a long while. It was a heavy story.

"Well, Mr. Gu, we should talk about you now." Dumbledore changed the subject.

"Gavin is fine."

"All right, Gavin. Madam Pomfrey and the Healers at St. Mungo's have both confirmed that you're out of danger for now. You still need time to recover, though."

"Could be worse. When can I go back to school?"

"Some of the professors have reservations about that. We discussed it in the Headmaster's Office yesterday." Dumbledore smiled at Gavin.

"What reservations?"

"Someone feels you shouldn't return to school."

"Let me guess... Professor Snape?"

"I never said that." Dumbledore winked, a mischievous smile on his face.

"I can understand it." Gavin nodded.

"But Minerva disagrees," he said. "She believes you were protecting the other students, and strictly speaking, everything you used was first-year material."

It was first-year material, with a few minor enhancements. Gavin nodded.

"I saw everything while sealing Harry's, Ron's, and Hermione's memories. I'm sorry I had to do that, but the final scene was too bloody for them," Dumbledore continued. "You truly had no intention of fighting at first. You decided to act only when you realized you were their last line of defense."

Gavin thought for a moment, then nodded.

"More or less."

"So," Dumbledore said, "Hogwarts won't expel a student for saving lives."

Gavin looked at him. After a few seconds, he gave a quiet "Mm."

Cordelia returned with the blanket just then and stopped beside Gavin. Her gaze moved between the two of them before settling on his face.

"Could you be expelled for saving people?" she asked.

"Almost," Gavin said. "But it looks like the school is reasonable after all."

"St. Mungo's has Hogwarts beat on that," she said.

"How so?"

"At least no one here risks being expelled for saving someone."

Gavin couldn't help laughing.

"You've got a point."

Dumbledore smiled too, then glanced out the window. "I should go."

He said nothing more to Cordelia, only patted her shoulder lightly.

"Until next time, children."

With that, he turned and left, his robes brushing the floor as he disappeared around the side of the courtyard.

After Dumbledore left, Dibby immediately reminded Cordelia in a small voice that it was time to rest.

Cordelia did not move.

She looked at Gavin, her eyes full of curiosity. "You really aren't afraid of me?"

"Of course not," Gavin joked. "Do you know how many people would love a chance to study an Obscurus up close?"

Dibby gasped.

Cordelia stood frozen. After a long moment, she suddenly smiled. "Is that so?"

After that, Cordelia said nothing more. She quietly accompanied Gavin back to his room.

Over the next few days, Gavin recovered quickly.

By the third day, he could already get out of bed and walk a few steps. Even his Healer was surprised.

Gavin's verdict was simple: his new body came in handy.

During that time, Gavin tried to visit Cordelia several times.

The first time, her room door was shut.

Dibby stood outside with his ears drooping and apologetically told him that Miss Cordelia was asleep.

The second time, Dibby said she did not want to see anyone that day.

The third time, Dibby was more tactful. He said she had gone for a walk, but Gavin made a circuit of the floor and never saw her.

"Is she avoiding me?" Gavin asked.

Dibby's ears flattened against his head.

"Dibby doesn't know, sir."

Gavin began to suspect his earlier joke had been ill-judged. "Looks like I really have no talent for being a therapist."

He had thought that, since an Obscurus was born of negative emotions combined with suppressed magic, he should start by helping Cordelia heal her emotional wounds.

He had not expected to hit a wall at the very first step.

For the first time, he felt frustrated by his own foolishness.

He could more or less guess why.

He was not going to force his way into her room, so he sat outside her door and started telling stories about the world beyond St. Mungo's, mostly about Hogwarts. He had noticed before that Cordelia was especially interested in anything to do with the school.

He talked until his mouth was dry, but Cordelia showed no sign of opening the door. Gavin had to return to his room; in his current condition, he could not keep it up for long.

Looks like I'm really not the guiding type. Gavin felt helpless.

For the next few days, he spent a little time outside Cordelia's room each day, talking to her, but he never saw her again.

Before he knew it, discharge day had arrived.

The sky was as gloomy as ever, without a ray of sunlight.

The Healer at St. Mungo's finally allowed Gavin to leave, but sternly laid down several rules: no excessive spellcasting, no overtaxing his mind, and no conducting experiments on his own.

Gavin agreed to every one of them.

He still wanted to return to Hogwarts. He had no desire to be put back to bed in the last five minutes before his discharge.

Before leaving, Gavin made one last trip to Cordelia's room.

It was still early. The corridor was quiet, and St. Mungo's familiar white walls looked even colder in the daylight.

He stopped at her door and knocked.

"Cordelia," he said. "I'm being discharged."

Nothing stirred inside.

He could not hear so much as a rustle of fabric.

Gavin waited a while, then knocked again. "I know you're in there."

There was still no answer.

Gavin looked down at the door handle. In the end, he did not turn it. He only said,

"Then I'm leaving."

He waited a few seconds. When the room remained silent, he had no choice but to walk away.

His footsteps rang out, unusually clear in the quiet of St. Mungo's, then slowly receded down the corridor.

One step.

Two steps.

Farther and farther away.

Only after the sound had vanished around the corner did the faintest movement come from inside the room.

The door handle turned slightly.

Cordelia stood behind the door, her face as pale as ever. Her fingers rested near its edge. She looked as though she had been pressed against it the whole time, breathing so softly for fear that he might hear her.

She stared down the now-empty corridor for a long time.

There was nothing at the far end.

He really had left.

Cordelia had been avoiding Gavin lately because she feared this day would come. It had come anyway.

She did not dislike Gavin. On the contrary, she found him interesting, unlike any wizard she had met before.

She hated goodbyes. There had already been too many in her life.

So she had suddenly wondered whether parting might hurt less if she never got to know him any better.

Cordelia lowered her eyes, her fingers curling slightly against the edge of the door.

There was nothing surprising about it, really.

Everyone was the same.

They appeared now and then, stayed a little while, said a few words, showed a flicker of curiosity or pity. But in the end, they always left. Patients were discharged, Healers went away, and visitors returned to their own lives.

Then everything here grew quiet again.

As though nothing had happened.

She should have been used to it by now.

"He won't come back, either," she whispered.

Even she could not tell whether she was stating a fact or trying to comfort herself.

After standing there a while, she turned and went into the room next door, where Gavin had stayed.

The room looked the same as before.

The bed, the cabinet, the window, the white walls—nothing had changed.

But after only two steps, she stopped.

Something had appeared on the bed next door, which should have been empty.

A book.

More precisely, it was a thick book with a cover unlike the ones usually seen in the Wizarding World. There were no moving illustrations, no glittering gilded edges, no pages turning themselves. It lay quietly on the bed, unfamiliar and out of place.

Cordelia walked over slowly and picked it up.

The cover bore a few words she did not recognize very well:

"Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind"

A folded note was tucked between the pages.

She pulled it out and unfolded it.

The handwriting was beautiful, written in elegant script:

"For Cordelia: The Muggle world has no magic, but people there still kill one another."

"Magic isn't what's wrong. People are."

Cordelia looked down at the note for a long time without moving.