The moment you step into the Great Hall, the world tilts.

You’ve never been here before—not really. Not when everyone else was. Not when your name should’ve been called beneath the enchanted ceiling, surrounded by candlelight and wonder. Grief kept you away. The kind that silences years, swallows whole childhoods.

Now, you’re sixteen. Late to your fifth year. A stranger walking into something that should’ve felt like home.

At the Slytherin table, Ominis Gaunt lifts his head.

He doesn’t see you. He never did. But he knows.

The scent—lavender, ink, and something familiar beneath it—hits him first. Then your breath. A catch in your throat. A presence he hasn’t felt since childhood.

Since the nights you’d help him hide the bruises. Since whispered conversations beneath locked doors. Since your parents died, and his family came for what was yours.

You feel the moment he recognizes you. It’s in the way his fingers tighten around his wand. The stillness in his face.

“…No,” he says softly. “It can’t be.”