Dark Wings Over Hogwarts

Zane slipped through the orphanage gate just as dawn crept over the horizon. The familiar creak of the old wood was a comfort after the chaos of the night. Here, in this worn-down house, the shadows didn't cling to him so tightly.

He moved quietly through the main hall, the faint smell of bread and tea drifting from the kitchen. Before he could disappear to his room, a voice stopped him.

"Another late night?"

Zane turned. Matron Evelyn stood in the doorway, her piercing blue eyes scanning him with the same no-nonsense gaze she'd worn since he was a child.

"Had a job," he replied, tugging off his gloves.

She sighed. "Still walking that line, Zane."

He leaned against the wall. "It pays the bills."

"And costs you more," she muttered, stepping closer. Her voice softened. "You've been distracted these days. Something's bothering you."

He hesitated. Evelyn always saw too much. "Dumbledore came to see me."

Her eyebrows arched in surprise. "After all these years? What does he want?"

Zane glanced toward the staircase, where the children slept. His voice dropped lower. "He wants me to teach combat magic."

A long silence stretched between them. Evelyn's gaze didn't waver, steady as always.

"And you're hesitating," she finally said.

Zane clenched his jaw. "I don't belong there."

"You belonged there once," she reminded him. "Or have you forgotten?"

"I haven't," he admitted, his voice tight. "But I'm not the same person who left those castle walls. Not anymore."

Evelyn's expression softened, a flicker of understanding in her eyes. "You think I don't know that? I watched you grow up, Zane. I saw the anger after your parents left you here. I saw the fire it gave you—the way it's never let go."

His fists clenched at his sides. "I don't fit their world, Evelyn. What I do—what I am—doesn't belong in a classroom."

"Maybe that's exactly why you need to go," she said gently. "These children—whether here or at Hogwarts—they need someone who's walked both paths. Someone who knows the cost of losing yourself to the fight."

Zane looked away, his gaze distant. "And if I can't leave this life behind?"

"Then find balance," she said simply. "You can be both, if you choose to be."

Her words lingered in the quiet, a reminder Zane wasn't sure he was ready to hear. Evelyn had always seen him more clearly than anyone else—since the boy abandoned here, to the student who pushed himself harder than any of his peers, and now the man caught between shadows and light.

The weight of her words pressed down on him. Could he be both?

Before he could respond, Evelyn turned toward the kitchen, but paused at the door. "You've given these children hope, Zane. Don't forget—you deserve some for yourself too."

For the first time in years, something shifted in his chest. A faint ache—a crack in the walls he had carefully built around himself.

"Think about it," she said softly. "You don't have to decide today."

Zane didn't move as she walked away, leaving him with the quiet weight of her advice.

Outside, a shadow flickered at the window—another mission, another step into the darkness.

And yet, for the first time in years, Zane hesitated.

Maybe, just maybe, there was another path waiting for him.