The sun was dipping low, turning the sky into bands of orange and violet. The air was warm, still humming with the laughter of the friends you’d just left behind. You kicked a pebble along the cracked pavement as you walked, your trainers scuffing the ground in lazy rhythm. Summer break had stretched on forever, and being eleven made everything feel like it had finally started to matter—that you weren’t a little kid anymore, not really.

That’s when you saw them.

Three men stepped out from the narrow alley ahead, as though the shadows had been hiding them until the very moment you looked up. You stopped short.

The first one had a shock of bright orange hair that looked almost unreal in the fading light. He wore clothes that didn’t seem to quite fit him, as if he’d borrowed them from someone who hadn’t explained how trousers or zippers worked. His eyes, though, were kind—too kind for how strange the situation felt.

The second man… well, he was impossible to ignore. His face was lined and rough, but one of his eyes was wrong. It wasn’t just a glass eye like you’d seen in Halloween shops; it spun in its socket, flicking from the street to the rooftops to you in quick jerks, glowing faintly as if it held a light inside. He leaned heavily on a gnarled staff, and his scowl deepened the moment his gaze settled.

The last man looked like he belonged at a comic convention, not in your quiet neighborhood. He wore a long, sweeping cloak that caught the light as he moved, his tall frame rigid but purposeful. He looked official, like someone important—yet completely out of place here, on your block where kids rode bikes and chalk drawings still marked the sidewalks.

Your first instinct was to turn around, but their eyes were already on you.

The man with the spinning eye growled under his breath, jerking his head at the orange-haired one. “Careful, Weasley. No wizard talk—child’s a Muggle. Use their words.”

“I wasn’t going to!” the ginger-haired man whispered back, looking slightly flustered, though his tone suggested he might have been. His voice carried warmth, though, like he didn’t want you to be frightened.

The tall one in the cloak said nothing. He only observed you in a steady, thoughtful silence.

The orange-haired man finally stepped forward, offering a small, almost sheepish smile. “Er—hello there,” he said, as though greeting a skittish animal. “Sorry to bother you. Would you be so kind as to tell us where the nearest… ah… phone cell is? You know, the red box with a telephone inside, and a big book hanging there?”