This Time, It Wasn't an Illusion

Just after three on Saturday afternoon, St. Mungo's was at its busiest.

People streamed through the corridors. Healers hurried past pushing carts, their heels clicking sharply against the floor; visiting families carried fruit, pastries, and flowers, speaking in hushed voices outside the doors; patients took slow walks with someone supporting them, followed by fussing relatives and stern-faced Healers. From a ward farther away came the faint sounds of an argument—a wizard apparently insisted that the feathers growing from his head did not interfere with daily life, while his wife clearly disagreed.

The air held a mixture of potions, hot milk, the cool trace of disinfecting charms, and the smell of food brought in by visitors.

Clearly, everyone on the floor was doing their best to live.

Cordelia had long since grown used to it.

Her life often felt like a glass of plain water left to go cold—

Nothing stirred in it, and it had no taste to speak of.

She got up in the morning, ate, listened to Dibby chatter about how she ought to walk a few more steps that day, then answered a Healer's questions about her health, asked in a voice that tried to sound gentle but always held a hint of caution. Most afternoons, she sat by the window and watched the sky fade from bright to gray. Lately, she had also been leafing through the copy of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind that Gavin had left her.

She had already made a fair amount of progress with the book.

Not because she especially liked it, but because it really was unlike anything she had read before.

It was not about magic, or families, or whose surname was more respectable. It was about people who could not cast spells, could not ride broomsticks, and had no House-elves to carry their trays—and how they had argued, fought, cooperated, and betrayed one another all the way to building cities, only to plunge each other into even greater chaos.

There were parts she did not quite understand.

But she kept thinking about Gavin's note.

She did not much want to admit it. The line was not particularly clever, but it had slipped into a place deep inside her like a fine needle: the place where she had always told herself, If there were no magic, everything would be different.

It irritated her a little.

And it also made it... impossible to put the book down.

So that afternoon, as usual, she sat with the book on her lap by the window at the end of the corridor, staring into space. The sunlight was weak. It fell through the high window and spread a small patch of pale light across the floor. She had just sent Dibby to fetch hot milk, and for the moment, no one was nearby.

It was one of the few moments in the day that truly belonged to her.

She simply sat there quietly, as though the bustle around her had nothing to do with her.

Until a familiar figure appeared at the edge of her vision.

He was coming down the corridor toward her, step by steady step. Black hair, a slender build, a face a little paler than most children's. He wore Hogwarts robes, black with yellow trim that looked almost gold in the sunlight. Against all the white and green of St. Mungo's, he stood out.

Cordelia's first reaction was—

Nothing.

She just watched.

She did not even move a finger.

Because she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her again.

It was not the first time in the past few days that she had looked up in an absent moment and thought she saw Gavin standing at the far end of the corridor. Sometimes it happened by a ward door, sometimes in the reflection of a window. Once, when Dibby opened the door, she had even mistaken the House-elf for someone else for an instant.

It was not strange.

When someone thought about a thing for too long, they started seeing it where it had no business being.

So she did not call out this time, either.

She just held the book and sat where she was, watching the figure come closer, step by step.

Closer and closer.

Close enough for her to make out his expression, the slight curve the corridor breeze lifted in the hem of his robes. She even saw that, when he stopped, his gaze went first to the book on her lap, then to her face.

An illusion would not have details like that.

Only then did Cordelia slowly sit a little straighter. Without realizing it, her fingers tightened around the edge of a page.

Gavin stood before her, glanced down at the cover, and asked as naturally as could be:

"How far have you got?"

At last, the question seemed to wake Cordelia. Her fingers curled slightly. She glanced down at the book without thinking, then jerked her head up to look at him.

"You—" She stopped, as though she needed to piece even a single sentence back together. "How are you here?"

"I came from Hogwarts," Gavin said.

"I mean..." Cordelia looked at him. Her voice was soft, but a little strained. "Why did you come back?"

What she seemed to be asking was, Weren't you supposed to leave and never come back, like everyone else?

Visit once, leave something behind, then return to his own life. If he ever thought of her again, it would only be as "that strange little girl I met at St. Mungo's once."

That would have been normal.

Gavin looked down at her, his expression perfectly natural, as though there were nothing surprising about it at all.

"Why wouldn't I?" he said. "You're my friend. I'm not going to leave you here on your own."

Cordelia froze.

"Friend" was clearly not a word she had expected to hear that afternoon.

She stared for a moment, then turned her face slightly away, almost on instinct.

"I don't need friends," she said.

The words came out quickly.

As though saying them any slower would make them sound less convincing.

Gavin looked at her and nodded.

"All right," he said. "You can keep thinking of me as a fellow patient, then."

Cordelia turned back to him.

There was something complicated in her eyes now, as though she wanted to argue but could not decide which part to challenge first. In the end, she only looked down at the book on her lap. Her voice grew softer.

"You shouldn't have come."

"Why not?"

"Because..." She paused, unconsciously rubbing the edge of a page between her fingers. "They all say I won't live to see my next birthday."

The corridor went quiet for a second.

In the distance, cart wheels rolled softly across the floor, then faded away.

"Who said that?" Gavin asked.

"Lots of people," Cordelia said. "The Healers, Grandpa Dumbledore, and the adults who thought I couldn't hear them."

She looked up at him. There was no sadness in her eyes, no obvious hurt—only a deep weariness that was hard to notice.

"That's why I didn't want to see you before," she said softly, looking away. "If we spend too much time together, you'll be sad when that day comes."

Gavin looked at her, and for the first time, he felt something sink inside him.

"When's your birthday?" he asked.

Cordelia seemed surprised that he had asked that first. After a moment, she answered quietly:

"July twelfth."

July twelfth.

Gavin repeated the date to himself.

July twelfth next year.

There was still time.

It was certainly better than hearing "next Wednesday."

"Don't listen to them," he said, trying for a joke. "You have to believe in progress."

Cordelia looked at him.

This time, she did not even nod along.

Her eyes seemed to say, Listen to yourself. Is that supposed to be comforting?

Gavin realized his joke had been pretty bad.

It might barely have passed in an ordinary ward. But to a girl who had spent five years in St. Mungo's, surrounded every day by Healers, a bracelet, and a House-elf, it was hardly convincing.

Cordelia lowered her head again. Her voice was very soft.

"I don't believe it."

The three words were simply a statement of fact, without a trace of hope.

Gavin fell silent for two seconds, then decided to try another approach.

"All right," he said. "Then I'll tell you the truth."

Cordelia looked up at him.

"Actually, I don't think of you as an ordinary friend, or as a patient," Gavin said with a straight face. "I mainly think of you as a research subject."

Cordelia: "..."

She clearly had not expected that.

Gavin's tone remained level, with a perfectly natural note of earnestness.

"Cases involving an Obscurus are too rare," he said. "Compressed magic, emotional triggers, erosion of the host's life, and a suppressive interaction with external spells. And you're clearly in a very stable condition, without any danger. You have considerable research value."

Cordelia was close to crumpling the book in her hands.

She stared at Gavin. Her expression slowly shifted from Did I hear that right? to Does this person have any idea how to comfort someone?

Gavin went on:

"So when that day comes, I probably won't be sad."

He paused, then added:

"At most, I'll think it's a shame the research was cut short."

Cordelia stared at him without a word for a long time.

A few seconds later, she suddenly turned her face away and sniffed very softly.

"Has anyone ever told you..." she murmured, "that the way you talk is really irritating?"

"Thank you," Gavin said.

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I gathered."

She still did not look at him.

But her grip on the book was noticeably less tight than before.

Gavin stood beside her. He did not offer any more blunt reassurances, or explain that he had not really meant what he said. Sometimes, spelling things out only made someone retreat behind their defenses again.

That counted as gently steering her this time, right? Gavin thought.

After a while, Cordelia finally spoke again.

"How's Hogwarts?"

"Not bad," Gavin said. "Still lots of homework. Today's Quidditch Match was pretty good."

"What's Quidditch?"

"A traditional sport that bundles high-altitude pursuit, ball games, and dangerous school incidents into one package."

Cordelia finally turned her head to look at him.

"That doesn't sound very smart."

"It isn't," Gavin said. "But people in the United Kingdom clearly love it."

The corner of her mouth twitched, as though she had almost laughed.

It was more noticeable than last time, though it still lasted only an instant.

Gavin saw it, but said nothing.

The light in the corridor slowly shifted, falling near their feet. In the distance, Dibby returned with the hot milk. The moment the House-elf rounded the corner and saw Gavin standing beside Cordelia, Dibby froze so abruptly that the cup nearly slid off the tray.

Then Dibby visibly relaxed.

It was so obvious that the relief showed in Dibby's ears almost at once.

Cordelia had clearly seen Dibby too, but she did not end the conversation and retreat to her ward as she had before.

She only glanced down at Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in her arms. After a moment, she asked softly:

"Will you come next week?"

She tried hard to sound casual.

But after asking, she kept her eyes on the edge of the page and did not look up again.

Gavin thought for a moment, then nodded.

"If Professor McGonagall doesn't tear up my request to use the Floo Network, I'll come."

"Oh," Cordelia said.

The "oh" sounded faint, as though she did not particularly care whether Gavin came.

But when Dibby approached with the hot milk, Dibby could already tell that the young mistress was in a different mood than usual today.

Gavin looked at her, then added one last thing:

"And don't worry."

"About what?"

"Even if you decide you don't want to be my friend, you'll still be my research subject," he said. "That status should be secure for the near future."

This time Cordelia could not help herself. She looked up and glared at him.

"I'm starting to wish you wouldn't come back."

"That's not very convincing right now."

"Why not?"

"Because you just asked if I was coming next week."

She choked on her reply.

A rare flush of embarrassed irritation even rose through the pallor of her cheeks.

"You—"

"Don't worry," Gavin said. "I won't go around telling everyone you asked about my plans for next week."

"I didn't ask," she corrected him at once.

"Understood. It was an academic inquiry."

Even Dibby lowered Dibby's head, shoulders trembling slightly in an obvious struggle to maintain proper House-elf professionalism.

Cordelia held the book in her arms and stayed quiet for a long while. At last, she murmured:

"You really are irritating."

"Thank you."

"Could you stop thanking me all the time?"

"Sure." Gavin nodded. "Then you can't go around insulting people either."

This time, Cordelia really did ignore him.

She lowered her head, as though she had decided to devote all her attention to studying the pattern on the cover of the book in her lap.

But a little of the happiness she couldn't quite hide still showed in the tips of her ears.

Though she probably wouldn't admit it herself.