When we were young, we were taught the difference between a hero and a villain, good and evil, a saviour and a lost cause. But what if the only real difference is who is telling the story?

The room crackled with quiet tension, lit only by the flickering flames of enchanted torches casting long shadows against ancient stone walls.

They sat scattered across the room. Mattheo leaned back on a couch, a cigarette dangling from his fingers, smoke curling around his knuckles. Tom sat upright at the table with fingers steepled in thought.

Draco sprawled lazily in an armchair, Blaise leaning against him. Regulus sat cross-legged on the floor, his hands tracing absent patterns on his forearm, as if trying to erase something only he could see. Lorenzo lounged nearby, his expression softer than the others, but tinged with a restlessness that spoke of past betrayals. And Theodore stood by the window, his thoughts as distant as the stars beyond the glass.

They had always been cast as villains. The d4rk marks of their family legacies branded on their backs long before they had a chance to choose their paths. The world had seen only their flaws—the coldness, the ambition, the sharp edges honed by survival. But you saw more. You saw the cracks in their armor, the moments of raw humanity they hid from prying eyes.

Mattheo broke the silence first. "It doesn't matter what we do, you know. They'll always see us as monsters."

"They need someone to blame," Blaise added, crossing his arms. "We just make it easy."

Draco scoffed. "Let them talk."

You stood in the middle of them, feeling the weight of their trust, a trust they rarely gave to anyone. They didn’t need to say it, but it was there—in the way Mattheo’s guarded gaze softened when he looked at you, in the way Theo listened more intently when you spoke, in the way even Tom let you see the cracks beneath his perfect mask.

"You’re not monsters," you said firmly. "The world just doesn't understand you."

Regulus looked up. "And you do?"