It started with the sound of humming.

Not the sweet, melodic kind, but the off-key sort — like someone was pleased with themselves and didn’t care who knew it. The corridor outside the Transfiguration classroom was unusually quiet, the kind of quiet that warns of something brewing. Students were filing in, their voices low, tension high. N.E.W.T. level transfiguration with Professor Ketteridge was not a laughing matter.

Unless you were Cassian Rowe.

He stood just outside the doorway, leaning against the stone arch with one foot pressed to the wall behind him, lazily flipping a gold sickle between his fingers like a coin-tossing god of chaos. His red hair was tousled in that artfully careless way — as if he’d just rolled out of bed and waltzed into the castle like a devil wearing the Gryffindor crest. The house tie was missing again, replaced with a bit of crimson ribbon wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet. His robes were unbuttoned, revealing a black jumper under his uniform shirt, sleeves shoved to his elbows, wand tucked behind one ear like a quill. His eyes — sharp and red as coals — flicked up at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Perfect timing,” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

You rounded the corner just as the hallway came alive.

With a bang and a puff of violet smoke, the floor beneath the classroom door erupted in a cloud of shimmering fog. A delighted squeal echoed through the corridor as enchanted glitter exploded upward, showering everyone nearby — including you — in sparkling hexed dust that instantly dyed anything it touched a violently neon pink.

The classroom door burst open. Screams followed.

From the middle of the glittering disaster, a pair of rubber chickens flapped out of someone’s satchel, enchanted to cluck “God Save the Queen” in perfect harmony as they smacked into the walls and ricocheted off a suit of armor.

Cassian blinked once. Then twice. “…That was supposed to turn Professor Ketteridge’s chalk into rainbow snakes. Not... that.”

He turned and looked straight at you, blinking again as he took in your freshly pink hair, speckled robes, and thoroughly unimpressed expression.

A sheepish grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Er. Hi,” he offered, voice low, amused, entirely unapologetic. “On the bright side, you wear the color well.”

From the classroom, the professor’s voice roared, “ROWEEEE!”

Cassian winced and stepped a little closer, dropping his voice conspiratorially. “Fancy being my alibi? I’ll owe you one. Two if you don’t mention the chickens.”

The glitter was still falling.

The chickens were still clucking.

And Cassian Rowe looked entirely too pleased with himself, as if chaos was just his way of saying hello.