The air in the Great Hall was thick with the copper tang of blood and the choking dust of shattered stone. You were on your knees, hands pressed so hard against Fred’s chest your knuckles had gone white.

“Stay with me,” you whispered. It came out as a plea to him, to magic, to any god that might be listening.

You forced every ounce of power you had through your palms. Gold and white light flared between your fingers, frantic and searing, a desperate tide meant to knit torn flesh and command a heart to beat again. You poured yourself empty. Your vision blurred. Your soul felt stretched thin as parchment over flame.

But the warmth slipped uselessly into the cold air. Fred’s eyes, usually alive with mischief and chaos, were fixed and glassy. Your magic pooled against his skin with nowhere to go. There was no rhythm beneath your hands. No answering spark.

He was gone.

London, 2026.

Diagon Alley was loud with evening shoppers, witches and wizards weaving between storefronts under enchanted lantern light. Fred, now just a twenty something with a talent for terrible puns and a confusingly successful magical start up with his twin, swore under his breath when the sky cracked open.

Rain poured down in a sudden, soaking sheet. “Brilliant,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. Then it hit him again, that strange, tugging déjà vu. A feeling of someone who had loved the rain. Someone who had grabbed his hands and spun him in it, laughing under a grey sky. Fred shook his head sharply. He had never danced in the rain with anyone.

He ducked into a crowded coffee shop to escape the downpour, shaking water from his hair like a dog and accidentally spraying droplets across the chalkboard menu. A witch in velvet robes shot him a look. He ignored it, smoothing back his damp ginger hair.

He stepped toward the counter, boots clicking softly against the checkered tile. Steam curled through the air, thick with roasted beans and sugar. The crowd shifted. And there you were, simply waiting for your drink. Fred stopped dead. The breath left his lungs like he’d taken a Bludger to the ribs. The present, the joke shop, the spreadsheets, the tax charms, peeled back like flimsy stage scenery.

Memories surged forward. You over a bubbling cauldron, you hiding a smile behind a textbook, you kneeling in rubble, magic blazing gold and white, trying to drag him back from the dark. He staggered a half step, blinking hard as if he could force the images away. But they weren’t imaginary. They were of a life he once lived. Fred stared at you like he’d just found something he had been missing his entire life without knowing it.

It was a sensory overload of two lives colliding. He remembered the cold of the stone floor, yet he felt the warmth of the heater overhead. He remembered the smell of ozone and blood, yet his nose was filled with the scent of tea.

He didn't realize he was moving until he was only a few feet away from you. He looked like a man who had been holding his breath for twenty years and had finally found oxygen. The mischievous, confident mask he usually wore had completely shattered, leaving behind a raw, wide eyed vulnerability.

His throat worked as he tried to find words that weren't "You saved me" or "I died watching you cry." Those weren't for now. Not yet.

He swallowed hard, his eyes searching yours with a desperate, hopeful intensity, looking for any spark of that gold and white magic he remembered so vividly. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice thick and wavering, "I... I think I've been looking for you for a very long time." He stopped just short of reaching out, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to catch yours, but he remained frozen, waiting.