The halls of Hogwarts were quiet—too quiet.
Arthur walked ahead with a limp, each step leaving a ghost of pain behind. Elena trailed beside him, her lips parted as if wanting to speak, to fill the silence with something... anything. But the air around Arthur was cold—not cryomancy cold, but grief and steel. She kept her words to herself.
At the door of Professor McGonagall's office, he paused only briefly before pushing it open.
The warmth hit him first—the rush of voices, and the sudden stillness as eyes turned toward the doorway.
Inside were the Potters and the Weasleys. Harry and Ron. Dumbledore. McGonagall.
"Arthur!" Lily Potter gasped, but it was Elena the Potters ran toward. "Elena, thank Merlin—"
They wrapped her in a hug, shielding her, fussing over her. Arthur stood a pace back, letting the scene unfold. His eyes were blank, half-lidded, as if his soul had retreated a step behind his body.
Professor McGonagall stepped forward. "Elena, where is she? There was another girl taken—"
"Ginny," one of the Weasleys said quickly. "Where is Ginny?"
Arthur answered without flinching. "She's still in the chamber."
McGonagall spun toward the door instantly. "What?"
"I didn't bring her up," Arthur added, flatly. "She was still breathing, though."
McGonagall was gone before the last word left his lips, Arthur Weasley stumbling after her.
That left Arthur alone, standing in the middle of the office. Silent. Bleeding.
Harry was the first to notice.
"Wait—Arthur—your shirt—"
They all turned. The boy's shirt was soaked in blood. It clung to his chest in thick patches, torn at the sleeves and shoulder. One eye was nearly swollen shut. His knuckles were crusted with dried crimson. And he hadn't said a word about it.
"Arthur," Lily breathed. "You need help. Sit—"
But Arthur wasn't listening. He stepped forward, reached into his robe, and dropped something heavy and ruined onto Dumbledore's desk.
The diary.
Its pages were torn. Blackened. There was a faint hiss of evaporated magic.
He looked up, eyes dead.
"Is this what you wanted, old man?" he said.
The room fell into stunned silence.
Dumbledore didn't answer. Neither did anyone else.
Lily tried to approach again. "Arthur, we—"
"Don't," he said without looking at her.
James Potter stepped in, voice firm. "Arthur, you've lost a lot of blood. You need the hospital wing."
Arthur blinked slowly. As if just then recalling what he'd been asked earlier.
"It was Riddle," he said. "Tom. He came back."
He looked down, and there was a flicker of something in his voice—guilt.
"I killed him. Along with his snake."
A pause. A breath.
"The snake didn't have to die."
Dumbledore spoke at last, quietly. "Arthur. You need to recuperate."
"I'm perfectly fine."
Then came the drawl.
"I for one agree with the old man, Reeves. You look like hell."
Arthur turned sharply.
Draco Malfoy, leaning in the doorway, his uniform scuffed, his face sporting a faint bruise.
"I'd punch you right now," Draco said, "but you look like you're already losing a fight with a staircase. Just... do what the old schoolers said."
Arthur didn't answer. He walked past him instead, dragging his feet slightly, leaving red footprints on the carpet. At the door, he turned back. His voice was low, dark.
"I don't need your help."
And then—
Crack.
A sudden blow across the back of his head.
Stars exploded behind his eyes. The pain was too familiar.
That voice—too sharp. Too cruel.
"Young nephew," it said, "it seems you don't know how to treat your elders. How about I teach it to you?"
Arthur froze. His body stiffened. His eyes widened, color draining from his face.
He turned around like a child who had been caught doing something forbidden.
Cassian Reeves stood there, dressed to the nines, his face unreadable, his cane tapping lightly on the stone floor.
"No... I... it was—I'm sorry."
Arthur's voice cracked, trembling.
Draco nearly doubled over with laughter. "This—this is too good."
Arthur stood stiffly in place, all fight gone from his body, replaced with fear and shame and a lifetime of memories he hadn't buried deep enough.
And everyone in the room watched the boy who had just slain a basilisk—
Shrink.
The door hadn't even fully closed behind Arthur when Cassian Reeves stepped into the office.
He didn't knock.
He never did.
It was a rare sight. One of the very few times Cassian—a man of American wizarding prestige, power, and presence—had ever set foot in Hogwarts. And it showed. He didn't wear the colors of any House, nor the stiff robes of a professor. His coat was long and dark, tailored in a fashion more suited to the MACUSA chambers than the cozy chaos of British wizarding halls. His cane was silver-tipped. His stare—colder than Dementor's breath.
Even Lily and James Potter, who had faced Death Eaters and war, stood a little straighter.
"Cassian Reeves," Lily said, managing a courteous nod.
She didn't know him well. No one really did. But she had known Philip Reeves, Arthur's father. A brilliant man—sharp, strange, and deeply American—who had transferred to Hogwarts in his final years. That's where he had met Jean Rosier, Arthur's mother.
Dead now, both of them. Killed by Voldemort.
Which made the silent, bruised boy standing in the room—the one with dried blood under his nose and an unspoken storm in his eyes—the Boy Who Lived.
Cassian's eyes didn't even flicker toward the warm greetings. He stepped forward with a smooth confidence that needed no invitation.
Arthur, as if on cue, walked toward Dumbledore. The headmaster hadn't said a word since Cassian entered. He didn't need to.
The air had shifted.
Arthur's lips barely moved. "We need to talk."
Dumbledore nodded once. "I agree."
Cassian turned to face the room and spoke—not loudly, but with a tone that brokered no argument. "If the rest of you would excuse us."
The room hesitated. Lily's mouth opened to protest, but Cassian was faster.
He looked right at her.
"And take the runt with you. He's bleeding all over the carpet."
Lily arched a brow. "He has a name, you know."
Cassian shrugged, unimpressed. "Fine. Take Ar—" he waved a gloved hand vaguely, "—the Reeves with you, please."
Lily smiled tightly. "Better."
James laughed under his breath and clapped his hand gently on Arthur's shoulder. "Come on, kid."
Arthur didn't resist, but neither did he meet anyone's eyes as they guided him out. His feet dragged slightly, head lowered. Not from injury.
From the weight of Cassian's presence.
Draco, still lingering by the door, rolled his eyes at the Gryffindor parade.
"I'd rather walk into a werewolf's den. See you later, Arthur," he muttered, and turned to take the opposite corridor.
As the last of them exited, the door creaked shut behind them with a click that felt far heavier than a simple wooden latch.
Now, it was just Cassian Reeves and Albus Dumbledore in the room.
Two war generals of a kind—one dressed in starched robes and twinkle-eyed wisdom, the other in American steel and secrets.
And for the first time in years, Dumbledore wasn't the most dangerous man in the room.
∆∆∆∆∆∆∆
The room was silent, heavy with unsaid things.
Cassian Reeves stood still, boots barely making a sound on the cold stone floor. The flickering torchlight cast long shadows behind him, but his gaze was fixed—hard and unblinking—across the vast mahogany desk at Albus Dumbledore. His arms were folded tightly across his chest, one brow arched with razor-sharp disbelief.
"What is happening here, Albus?" His voice cut through the air like a blade, slow and deliberate. "Two years in a row. Last year, it was a three-headed dog guarding a bloody ruby that grants immortality. And let's not forget—Voldemort. Now it's a diary. A diary that turns out to be a Horcrux, made by Voldemort , just lying there in your school. Are you trying to get him killed?"
His voice dropped lower, edged with ice. "Because I can think of less dramatic ways, if that's the plan."
Dumbledore's hands remained folded, motionless atop the desk. His eyes—calm, unreadable—did not waver. "I had no knowledge of the diary's existence."
Cassian laughed. Just once. It was a sound devoid of humor—hollow, brittle. The kind of laugh that held back storms.
"But you knew," he pressed, stepping forward, boots now echoing faintly against the ancient stone. "The Chamber of Secrets was opened. From the very first attack—you knew."
Still, Dumbledore offered no reply. His silence said more than words ever could.
Cassian's jaw tightened. "So what now? What's the feature horror next year? Let me guess—werewolves? Or perhaps a deranged soul escapes Azkaban and walks straight into the castle?" He paused, his mouth curving into something sharp. "I hear Fudge would like that."
Dumbledore finally looked up, his face unreadable. Eyes old, impossibly old, and quiet as a winter sky. "Hogwarts is the safest place you can find, Cassian. Believe me."
"See, that's the thing," Cassian murmured. "I find it hard to do, Professor. Believe." He smiled then—not warmly, but with the cutting edge of a man who's seen too much. "Us Reeves? Trust doesn't come naturally."
Dumbledore nodded gently. "It seems Arthur inherited that trait."
Cassian's smile vanished. He stepped back from the desk like the words were fire. "Careful," he warned, voice low. "Don't go there, Albus. That burden—we bear it alone."
"I wasn't prying," said Dumbledore calmly. "But he seems to have… awakened another trait."
Cassian froze. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. The air tightened, wound like a string pulled taut.
His voice, when it came, was low and dangerous. "Now how would you know that?" He tilted his head slightly, tone deceptively soft. "You weren't even there. See what I mean?"
Dumbledore's expression didn't shift. "I know the grievance you carry against me," he said quietly. "And I am… deeply sorry about your brother. I had no—"
"—idea?" Cassian cut in sharply, his voice snapping like a whip. "You didn't know your own supporters were dying off, but somehow you know a child awakened a specific ability?" His gaze narrowed. "What exactly is your aim?"
Dumbledore didn't flinch. "I have none."
Cassian stared at him a moment longer, eyes scanning the man who once led a war. Then he exhaled—slow, controlled, the breath of someone deciding not to fight. Not yet.
"It would seem so."
He turned, his long coat sweeping behind him like a second shadow. The firelight caught the edge of something faint on his skin—runes, perhaps, burned into him long ago.
But Dumbledore's next words stopped him cold.
"Could he be the one to inherit the Fivefold?"
The air changed instantly.
Cassian halted mid-step, shoulders stiffening. The room seemed to hold its breath. Outside, the wind rose sharply, rattling the high windows. The candles flickered violently.
And Cassian turned—slowly, deliberately.
His eyes were no longer human. No longer it's previous blue color. It was now slitted like a predator's, like a wolf's , glowing faintly gold. His voice, when it came, was deeper. Raw.
"Never," he said, barely more than a growl, "mention that again."
The light around him dimmed unnaturally. Somewhere in the walls, mice scurried for cover. Outside the tower, birds took flight, wings casting twitching shadows across the stained-glass panes.
The magic pulsed around him—wild and primal. Ancient. Then, as if retreating back into the skin it came from, it faded. His stance relaxed. His eyes dulled. The power dissipated like smoke after lightning.
A beat later, the office door creaked open behind him.
"Professor Dumbledore," came a smooth, cool voice, tinged with polite venom, "it seems you've managed to anger yet another person today."
Lucius Malfoy.
He stepped into the office with deliberate elegance, cane in hand, platinum hair gleaming like silver under the candlelight. His lips were curled in something that almost resembled sympathy.
Cassian didn't turn, didn't acknowledge him at first. But the flicker in his eyes returned—sharp, alert.
Lucius stopped short when he saw him. And for the briefest moment, just a flicker—recognition flashed across his features. Surprise, even. Quickly masked.
The corner of Cassian's mouth lifted into something that might have been a smirk—if wolves smirked.
"Well, well," he drawled, voice like a knife wrapped in velvet. "If it isn't Lucius Bloody Malfoy. The world's second-best snake."
Lucius gave a tight, elegant smile. "Cassian. Always a pleasure."
"Can't say the same," Cassian replied, stepping aside as he brushed past. "But I do like your tie."
Lucius chuckled softly. "It's silk. French."
Cassian paused at the threshold, back still to the room. "So was the last snake I killed."
And with that, he walked out—quiet as shadow, sharp as glass—leaving tension behind him like a scent in the air.