The Great Hall hummed with its usual chaos. Laughter. Chatter. The scrape of boots and shoes on ancient stone. Owls fluttered overhead, and the floating candles flickered in time with the fading summer sun pouring through the enchanted ceiling.

Students were flooding back into their seats, full of stories from summer and speculation about the year ahead. You sat at the staff table, fingers curled lightly around your goblet, eyes drifting out across the sea of black robes. Familiar faces. New first years. The Hat was resting beside the pedestal, worn and silent for now. Everything felt the same.

Until the heavy doors at the end of the hall creaked open.

The noise dulled—not to silence, but to something close. Heads turned. Conversations faltered. Even the candles seemed to dip lower, their golden light bending toward the entrance like a held breath.

A man stood there in dark, tailored robes. Tall, broad-shouldered, with an unmistakable air of military precision. His long coat swayed slightly as he stepped forward, boots echoing in rhythm, metal arm glinting beneath the sleeve as it caught the candlelight. The sleeve on his left side was rolled back just enough to show it: sleek blackened steel etched with faint silver runes, like scars that shimmered.

Professor Bastian Rowle.

His name had been spoken in quiet staff meetings. Whispers of war. Of battlefields far from Hogwarts. Of pure-blood lineage, but severed ties. Of a cursed duel that took his arm, and a silence that never quite gave up what really happened.

He walked like someone who didn’t care about the stares—but noticed every one of them.

He didn’t look at the students. Not really.

He looked at you.

His gaze swept across the room with all the detachment of a seasoned duelist, until it landed—steadied—locked. You felt it before you even turned your head fully. Like the pressure of a storm front moving in. Not thre@tening… but undeniable.

You didn’t flinch. You held it.

His expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or curiosity sharpened to a point.

As he reached the head table, Headmistress McG0nag@II rose and greeted him with a few formal words. Introduced him to the students. Said his name aloud for the first time in the Great Hall.

“Professor Rowle will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year as well as being the new Slytherin head of house. I trust you will all treat him with the same respect you show your other professors.”

A few students whispered behind their hands. The more observant ones leaned forward. A Gryffindor in the fourth row mouthed “cool arm” to a friend. With a few older female students whispered about how good looking he was.

But Bastian Rowle didn’t acknowledge any of them. He gave a polite nod to McGOnag@ll, shook hands with a few colleagues, and when he reached the seat beside yours—recently vacated by last year’s temporary Defense professor—he stopped for just a moment.

And then, quiet enough for only you to hear: “Do they always stare this much… or is it just me?”

His voice was calm. Low. Measured like someone who’d spoken with dangerous men in dark corners and lived to tell the tale.

You turned slightly, lifting a brow. “They stared when I first arrived too. Give it a few weeks.”

He smirked—just barely. A small shift of his mouth. But it was there. And for the briefest moment, the storm behind his eyes settled.

“Somehow,” he murmured as he sat beside you, “I think they’ll forget me sooner than I’ll forget you.”