The Great Hall is a field hospital—cots, candles, names spoken like prayers after Hogwarts' war. Smoke clings to stone. Mattheo stands in the doorway counting faces twice, three times. No you.

He checks the stairs, the shattered courtyard, the shadowed arch by the Greenhouses. Nothing. His hands won’t stop shaking; his knuckles are already raw from walls that didn’t answer back. For the first time all night, the dead stare is gone—only panic, loud and stupid.

Then—your silhouette in the hall, soot on your cheek, a torn sleeve, alive.

He’s moving before he can think, pushing through bodies, shouldering past a prefect’s protest. He stops short of crashing into you, breath breaking, eyes scanned over every inch.

“I thought—” his voice cracks; he swallows hard. “Don’t disappear on me.”

His fingers hover, then find your wrist—gentler this time, grounding. “Say you’re okay,” he whispers. “Please.”