Minor Paradoxes & Major Inconveniences

[MoonyNightShade]

Chapter 1: Is It A Bird? Is It A Plane? No, It's Harry Potter!

Disclaimer:

I don't own the characters or the world appearing in this story. They are creations and property of J.K. Rowling. I'm not sure if I can claim any OCs as my own, so I'll play it safe and dedicate them to her as well.

---

Author's Note:

Hi! Detailed notes are below, but I just wanted to quickly say a few things first. This fic is fully planned out and will most likely run about ~15 chapters. I've already drafted 9, so rest assured—I won't be dropping it.

Now with that done, dive in!

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The silence was the worst part.

In the months since the wizarding world had been saved—or what was left of it, anyway—silence had become a predator. It stalked the empty corridors of Grimmauld Place, crouched in the corners of his too-large bedroom, and feasted on the space between Ron's booming laugh and Hermione's exasperated sighs. They were trying so hard, both of them, to stitch the world back together with cheerful normalcy and plans for the future. He loved them for it, which only made him feel more like a ghost at their victory feast.

While they talked about Auror training and re-taking their N.E.W.T.s, Harry found himself wandering. He'd Apparate to the cliffside near Shell Cottage or pace the grounds of a Hogwarts still scarred by battle, the silence there thick with the memories of screams. Tonight, he had sought refuge in the one place whose silence was meant to be sacred: the Hogwarts library.

He was deep in the stacks, far beyond the sections any student—even Hermione—would bother with. This was the territory of forgotten theories and banned treatises, where books smelled less of parchment and more of dust and decay. Under the shimmering invisibility of his cloak, he ran a hand along a row of cracked leather spines, feeling restless and adrift. Kingsley wanted him for Ministry press events. Ron wanted him for games of Quidditch. Hermione wanted him to talk about his feelings. Harry wanted none of it. He wanted to feel like the war was actually over, but the quiet it had left behind was just a different kind of battlefield.

A loose flagstone caught the toe of his boot, and he stumbled, his hand shooting out to steady himself against a shelf. The entire section groaned in protest, and one heavy, unassuming tome was jostled free. It fell not to the floor, but backwards, vanishing into what should have been solid wall.

Curiosity, that old, treacherous friend, was the one part of him that hadn't died in the forest. He pulled the cloak tighter and peered into the gap. Behind the row of books was a dark, hollowed-out space, an alcove no bigger than a broom cupboard, clearly meant to be hidden. And inside, sitting on a small stone pedestal, was another book.

This one was different. It was bound not in leather but in what looked like polished obsidian, held shut by two interlocking silver clasps shaped like coiled serpents. Very clearly of Slytherin origin. There was no title, no markings at all. It felt ancient, heavy with the kind of magic that made the hairs on his arm stand up. He reached out, his fingers tracing the cold, smooth surface. It pulsed, faintly, with a cold, rhythmic beat, like a heart made of ice.

He lifted it. The weight was substantial. With a click, the clasps sprang open. Inside, it wasn't a book at all. There were no pages. Instead, recessed into the stone-like material, was a crystalline structure of breathtaking complexity. It looked like an insect, some kind of prehistoric beetle or mite, fossilized in flawless amber. But it wasn't amber. The crystal was humming, glowing with a faint, internal luminescence. And it wasn't a fossil. As he watched, a minuscule leg, thinner than a hair, twitched.

"A Chrono-Mite," he whispered, the name surfacing from an old Hermione rant, something she'd found in an obscure text. Not for travel. For observation. A temporal parasite that could, in theory, let one peer into the past. Insanely dangerous, catastrophically unstable. It was a containment device.

He should have closed it. He should have put it back, walled it up, and told Hermione where to find it. But he stared into the creature's crystalline prison, thinking of Sirius. Of his parents. Of Remus. Just one look. What would he give for just one, fleeting glimpse?

His grip on his wand, tucked into his robe's sleeves, loosened. It was a stupid, thoughtless movement. The wand slipped out, clattering onto the open device.

The reaction was instantaneous and violent.

The world wasn't torn, it shattered. A flash of blinding, white-hot light erupted from the device, swallowing the library, swallowing everything. The sickening lurch of Forced Apparition was a gentle nudge compared to this. His entire being was hooked and dragged through a non-space of screaming, agonizing friction. There was no air to breathe, only a torrent of pure, unrefined time rushing past him.

Images burned themselves onto the inside of his eyelids, too fast to comprehend. A younger Dumbledore, his beard auburn, arguing with a stern-faced man. The chilling sound of Bellatrix Lestrange's laugh, high and girlish. The flash of green light, seen not from his own eyes, but from his mother's. A girl with sharp, intelligent eyes and a contemptuous sneer he'd never seen before, turning her head. The roar of a crowd. The scent of rain on stone.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

For a moment, he knew nothing but the abrupt return of sensation. The overwhelming warmth of a thousand candles. The scent of roast chicken and potatoes. The deafening roar of hundreds of conversations crashing back into existence. And gravity. Gravity, which had been absent, now reasserted itself with a vengeance.

He was airborne. And then he was falling.

The Great Hall of Hogwarts looked exactly the same, yet completely alien. Hundreds of young faces, upturned, mouths agape. A sea of black robes, splashes of house colors. He saw a flash of brilliant red hair—Lily Evans, impossibly young and beautiful—her green eyes wide with shock. He saw a boy with untidy black hair and glasses—James Potter—mid-laugh, his jaw slackening in disbelief. A devastatingly handsome boy beside him, Sirius Black, pointed a fork at him, a wide, incredulous grin spreading across his face.

There was no time to process any of it. He was a human missile, trajectory pre-ordained by a magic he didn't understand. He wasn't aiming for the Gryffindor table, or the space between the benches. His arc was carrying him straight, unerringly, toward the sea of green and silver.

The pandemonium of his arrival was surpassed only by the sheer indignity of his landing.

He crashed onto the Slytherin table with a sound that was a sickening symphony of splintering wood, shattering porcelain, and wet, percussive squelching. A massive tureen of mashed potatoes erupted like a miniature volcano, showering the surrounding students in a hot, starchy rain. A silver jug of pumpkin juice spun through the air, drenching a sneering boy who looked suspiciously like a young Evan Rosier. Salad greens flew like confetti.

His momentum carried him forward, skidding through the culinary wreckage on his stomach. He was a human toboggan on a luge run of gravy and shattered hopes. He slid past a furious-looking Slytherin prefect, past a calm, assessing Severus Snape whose greasy hair was now flecked with parsley, and finally, mercifully, came to a halt.

His face was inches from the stone floor, his body half-on, half-off the table. A piece of wilted lettuce was stuck to his cheek. He was drenched, humiliated, and utterly, profoundly lost. He pushed himself up slowly, his muscles screaming in protest, the silence in the Great Hall now absolute and suffocating.

And that's when he saw her.

He had come to a stop directly in front of a girl who was the very picture of poised, aristocratic perfection. Her black hair was sleek and immaculate, her posture ramrod straight. Even amidst the chaos, she hadn't flinched. She'd been in the middle of a sentence, a delicate, long-fingered hand raised to emphasize a point to the boy beside her.

Now, her hand was frozen in the air. Her eyes, a sharp, piercing shade of grey, were fixed on him. He watched, as if in slow motion, as she tracked the trajectory of a single, thick droplet of brown gravy arcing through the air. It landed with a tiny, obscene splat right in the center of her pristine, perfectly pressed white shirt, just below the knot of her silver and green tie.

For a single, solitary second, her mask of composure vanished. It wasn't anger that flashed in her eyes. It was a flicker of pure, unadulterated disgust, the kind one might reserve for finding a slug in their salad. It was the deepest, most profound revulsion he had ever witnessed.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone. The shock receded, the disgust was locked away, and a new expression clicked into place with chilling precision. Her face became a perfect, beautiful mask of icy, impenetrable contempt. Her lips, which had been parted in surprise, pressed into a thin, dismissive line.

She didn't scream. She didn't shout. She simply looked down at the stain on her robe, then back up at him—this strange, pathetic boy covered in her dinner, panting on the floor at her feet.

"Unbelievable," she whispered, her voice low and laced with venom, meant only for him.

A sharp, authoritative voice cut through the stunned silence like a whip crack. "Mr. Filch, kindly clear this… mess." Professor McGonagall was on her feet, her face a thunderous mask of disapproval.

Dumbledore rose slowly, his own blue eyes no longer twinkling. They were sharp, piercing, and fixed entirely on Harry. There was no anger in his expression, only a terrifyingly intense curiosity.

Pinned by the collective gaze of the entire school, the disgusted glare of the girl in front of him, and the analytical stare of a Dumbledore he did not know, Harry Potter wished, for the first time since the war had ended, that Voldemort had just finished the job.

---

The walk from the Great Hall was a unique and excruciating form of torture. McGonagall led the way, a rigid black pillar of fury, while Dumbledore walked beside him, his expression one of placid, unnerving curiosity. Every single student and professor watched them go. The whispers followed them like a swarm of invisible doxies, nipping at his heels. He could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes boring into his back, a mixture of shock and amusement.

But the reaction from the Slytherin table, however, was a far more complex and chilling tapestry. There was derisive laughter from the edges, sharp and mocking, from those who enjoyed the chaos from a safe distance. Closer to the epicenter of the splash zone, where students were dabbing at ruined robes, the looks were of pure, disgusted disdain—personal, acute, and aimed directly at him. But from the older, more powerful students—a young Evan Rosier, a stony-faced Snape, and especially the girl whose robes now bore a prominent gravy stain—there was no amusement at all. Only a cold, reptilian assessment, the kind of stillness that precedes a strike. It was not simple loathing; it was a mixture of outrage, suspicion, and calculation, sizing him up as either a pathetic joke or a dangerous new variable.

As they passed the Gryffindor table, he risked a glance. James Potter wasn't even trying to hide his laughter, covering his mouth with a hand while his shoulders shook. Sirius Black offered him a dramatic, sympathetic wince that was completely insincere, followed by a double thumbs-up behind McGonagall's back. Even Remus Lupin, who looked weary beyond his years, had the ghost of a smile on his lips. Only Lily Evans looked genuinely concerned, her brow furrowed as she watched him pass. The sight of her kind face, so alive and so achingly familiar, was like a physical blow. He snapped his gaze back to the floor, focusing on the rhythmic tap of Dumbledore's boots on the flagstones.

He didn't need to be told where they were going. He knew the path to the Headmaster's office as well as he knew the path to his own dorm room. The gargoyle sprang aside at Dumbledore's crisp, "Fizzing Whizbee," and the moving spiral staircase carried them upward. The feeling of being back in this office, alive and yet not, was profoundly unsettling.

Everything was the same, but different. Brighter. Newer. The silver instruments on the spindly-legged tables whirred and puffed with more vigor. The portraits of previous headmasters were all present, though they feigned sleep with less practiced ease, their eyes cracking open to peer at the strange, gravy-spattered boy. And on his perch, preening a magnificent scarlet feather, was Fawkes. The phoenix met Harry's gaze, let out a soft, questioning croon, and blinked slowly. He looked exactly the same. An anchor in a sea of temporal madness.

"Please, sit," Dumbledore said, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk. Harry sank into it, acutely aware of his damp, sticky clothes and the faint scent of salad dressing that now clung to him. McGonagall remained standing, her arms crossed, looking as if she had personally discovered a troll attempting to teach ballet in her classroom.

Dumbledore settled into his own chair, steepled his long fingers, and peered at Harry over his half-moon spectacles. The twinkle in his eyes was gone, replaced by a calm, powerful intensity. This was not the familiar, eccentric headmaster who had guided him. This was Albus Dumbledore in his prime, a wizard who had defeated Grindelwald and commanded the respect of the entire world. He was terrifying.

"An impressive, if somewhat unorthodox, arrival," Dumbledore began, his voice mild. "One might even say unprecedented. Now, perhaps you would be so good as to tell us who you are, and how, precisely, you came to apparate within the walls of Hogwarts?"

Harry's mind raced. He needed a story. A good one. One that was just strange enough to be plausible in a world of magic. Panic gave way to a cold, hard focus, a survival instinct honed over years of deadly confrontations.

"My name is Hadrian Thorne," he said, his voice a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. "And it wasn't Apparition. Not exactly. It was… an accident."

"Thorne?" McGonagall's voice was sharp. "I've taught every witch and wizard in this country for thirty years. I do not know any Thornes."

"My family values its privacy, Professor," Harry said, latching onto the lie and spinning it out. "We live in… isolation. On a small, unplottable island in the Shetlands." He hoped his geography was right. "We haven't had contact with the broader magical community for several generations."

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed slightly. "A self-imposed exile? That is a path few families choose. And your education?"

"I was tutored privately," Harry continued, gaining a sliver of confidence. The key was to keep the details sparse. "My magical education has been… unconventional. My practical skills have outpaced my theoretical knowledge, I'm afraid. I was practicing a complex transportation charm. An experimental one. I believe I overloaded it."

It was thin. Merlin, it was tissue-paper thin. But it was the best he had.

"An experimental charm that managed to bypass every ancient ward placed on this castle for the last thousand years," McGonagall stated flatly, her disbelief a palpable force in the room.

"Indeed," Dumbledore murmured, his gaze unwavering. "A truly remarkable feat of accidental magic. And your wand, Mr. Thorne? If I may?" He held out a hand.

Harry's heart hammered against his ribs. No. Not that. Never that. The holly and phoenix feather wand was a part of him, but worse, its twin feather belonged to the phoenix on the perch not ten feet away. It was a direct, irrefutable link to a future that shouldn't exist.

"I apologize, Headmaster," Harry said, trying to sound respectful rather than terrified. "But my father has strictly forbidden me from ever allowing another to handle my wand. It's a… a family tradition."

McGonagall made a sound of utter exasperation. Dumbledore, however, simply leaned back, a thoughtful expression on his face. The mental chess game continued in silence. Harry knew he was being evaluated, his story dissected for every possible flaw. He met Dumbledore's gaze directly, channeling every ounce of Occlumency Snape had ever tried to beat into him, creating a surface of calm, confused sincerity over the roaring panic beneath.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Dumbledore spoke. "Well. It would seem we have a conundrum. A young man with no records, from a family we cannot contact, who has appeared in our school through means unknown. We cannot simply turn you out, Mr. Thorne. Until we can verify your story and make contact with your family, it seems the only responsible course of action is to have you join our student body."

Harry's stomach clenched. This was the last thing he wanted.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said, turning to McGonagall. "If you would be so kind as to retrieve the Sorting Hat."

McGonagall looked as though she'd been asked to fetch a basket of Blast-Ended Skrewts, but she gave a curt nod and swept from the room. A few moments later, she returned, holding the familiar, frayed, and filthy hat.

This was it. The one entity in this entire timeline that could shatter his fragile cover story with a single word. Dumbledore placed the Hat on the corner of his desk.

"After you, Mr. Thorne."

With trembling legs, Harry walked forward and picked up the hat. He sat on the stool McGonagall had conjured and placed the artifact on his head. It slipped down over his eyes, plunging him into familiar darkness.

A voice immediately echoed in his mind, sharp and clear. 'Well now, this is a turn up for the books. It has been a very, very long time since I have found a mind so… complicated. Full of echoes. Full of ghosts. And full of a future I should not be ableTo see. What have you done, Harry Potter?'

Harry's mental voice was a desperate, silent scream. 'Please. Don't tell them. You can't. It'll destroy everything.'

'Destroy what?' the Hat mused. 'This reality? Or the one you left behind? The threads of time are tangled around you like a nest of Fwoopers. It is a dangerous thing you are.'

'I didn't ask for this,' Harry pleaded, feeling tears prick at his eyes. 'I just want to go home. Please, just put me somewhere I can stay quiet. Hufflepuff. I'll be a great Hufflepuff, I promise. I'll work hard, I'll be loyal…'

The Hat gave a dry, mental chuckle. 'A Potter in Hufflepuff? My dear boy, you are many things, but you are not built for quiet. There is ambition here, oh yes, enough for Slytherin, if you had not already set your heart so firmly against it. There is a keen mind Ravenclaw would prize. But overriding it all… foolish courage. A recklessness that could level mountains. A talent for finding trouble that transcends even time itself. There is only one place for you. It has to be…'

"GRYFFINDOR!" the Hat shouted to the room.

Hadrian's heart sank like a stone. He pulled the Hat from his head, his hands shaking. Of course. Of course, it was Gryffindor. The universe truly did have a sick sense of humor.

McGonagall, looking profoundly unhappy about gaining another troublemaker, took the hat from him. "Very well, Mr. Thorne," she said, her voice tight with resignation. "Follow me."

The walk to the Gryffindor common room was a silent daze. When they reached the Fat Lady's portrait, McGonagall turned to him, her lips pressed into a thin, stern line. "Wait here."

She gave the password—"Fortuna Major"—and the portrait swung open to reveal a wall of noise and chaotic warmth. McGonagall stepped inside, her presence immediately commanding a degree of attention. "Quiet down!" she called out, her magically amplified voice cutting through the din of the party. The chatter and music sputtered to a halt.

"As some of you already have an empty bed in your dormitory," McGonagall announced to the suddenly silent room, "it will now be occupied. This is Hadrian Thorne. He is a new transfer student and will be joining you as a seventh-year. See that he is… acquainted with the tower." Her tone made it clear that "acquainted" did not mean "interrogated," though she must have known it was a hopeless request. With that, she gave a curt nod and stepped back out, gesturing for Hadrian to enter.

He took a deep breath and stepped through the portrait hole.

It felt like stepping onto a stage. The entire Gryffindor common room was packed, and every single person was staring directly at him. The boy who fell from the sky. The boy covered in gravy. He was already a legend for all the wrong reasons. A wave of whispers erupted through the crowd, his new name spreading like wildfire. Thorne. That's him.

Before he could even process the overwhelming sight of the familiar red and gold room, a crowd of curious older students began to converge on him.

"Is it true you landed right on Vexley's lap?" a tall boy he didn't know asked with a laugh.

"How'd you get through the wards?" another girl, who he vaguely recognized as Marlene McKinnon, chimed in, her eyes wide with curiosity. "No one can Apparate in!"

He was surrounded, a flurry of questions hitting him from all sides. He felt a wave of claustrophobia, his instincts screaming at him to find an escape route.

Then, two figures pushed their way through the throng with the easy, parting-of-the-waters confidence of people who owned the space they were in.

"Alright, give him some air, you lot," James Potter said, clapping Hadrian on the back with a familiarity that made him flinch. He had a proprietary grin on his face, as if he were laying claim to the most interesting new toy. "Can't you see the man's had a rough evening?"

"Thorne, is it?" Sirius Black said, coming to stand on his other side, his grey eyes alight with manic glee. "I don't know how you did it, but that was the best entrance I've seen in seven years at this school. Worth fifty points to Gryffindor, I'd say!"

"And the look on Snivellus's face when that potato hit him!" James crowed, picking up the thread seamlessly. "Pure poetry! You're alright, Thorne. A bit messy, but you're alright."

Harry couldn't form a sentence. He was standing in front of his seventeen-year-old father and his seventeen-year-old godfather, both so vibrantly, painfully alive it felt like staring into the sun. He managed a weak, noncommittal shrug.

"That was quite a fall," another voice said, softer this time. He turned to see Lily Evans approaching, her green eyes—his eyes—filled with genuine kindness. "Are you sure you're alright? You look a bit pale."

He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He was here, in this room, surrounded by ghosts. They weren't just alive; they were happy, carefree, their biggest worries being Quidditch scores and N.E.W.T. exams. They had no idea of the darkness gathering outside, of the fates that awaited them. And he, the sole survivor of their future, was trapped here with them.

The laughter of the common room, the crackling of the fire, the cheerful banter—it all faded into a dull, meaningless roar. He had never felt so completely and utterly alone in his entire life.

---

Author's Note:

Hello there, you brave brave soul.

So, you decided to pick up Minor Paradoxes & Major Inconveniences… I thank and wish you well. This is a sort of Marauders fic, a story where Harry Potter gets accidentally yeeted back to 1977. If you're expecting him to meticulously plan how to save the world, you might be in the wrong place. If you're expecting him to stumble into a vicious conflict with a brilliant, ambitious Slytherin that escalates from witty banter to questionable life choices in dark corridors... well then, welcome home.

I hope you're enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

Be warned: this fic might get explicit, contain sarcasm, bad ideas fueled by adrenaline, and an ending that might make you want to throw things. We're here for a good time, not necessarily a long time.

Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Just a quick note on what to expect: This is a short, completely planned story, and I'm aiming for about 15 chapters in total. My goal is to update weekly, with the next chapter planned for Friday, July 25th, 2025.

Thank you so much for your time and support!

---

You can find free illustrations for every chapter and read ahead over at my Patreon!

patreon.com/MoonyNightShade

 

[Maragas]

Looks to be fun. I have a soft spot for HP time travel stories. (I hope you are posting on other sites like Ao3, non-NSFW Creative Writing on this forum doesn't get that much attention)

 

[MoonyNightShade]

Looks to be fun. I have a soft spot for HP time travel stories. (I hope you are posting on other sites like Ao3, non-NSFW Creative Writing on this forum doesn't get that much attention)

Click to shrink...

Great, I love time travel fics as well! I am posting on other sites, including ao3 and ffnet, thanks a lot for the consideration.

 

[hacks]

I was NOT expecting that what an entrance! Also OC character? Romance maybe? Who knows anyways great writing!

 

[MoonyNightShade]

I was NOT expecting that what an entrance! Also OC character? Romance maybe? Who knows anyways great writing!

Click to shrink...

Spoiler maybe? There is romance. But not very straightforward... Well, you'll see.

 

[MoonyNightShade]

Chapter 2: Why Is It So Hard To Hold Back?

Disclaimer:

I don't own the characters or the world appearing in this story. They are creations and property of J.K. Rowling. I'm not sure if I can claim any OCs as my own, so I'll play it safe and dedicate them to her as well.

---

The first few weeks passed in a blur of managed paranoia. Harry—or Hadrian, as he was forced to constantly remind himself—adopted a simple mantra: Observe. Don't engage. Survive.

He became a ghost, a quiet presence at the back of classrooms and a silent observer in the boisterous Gryffindor common room. He was the weird, socially inept kid who appeared out of nowhere. It was a surprisingly effective camouflage. His initial, humiliating arrival had branded him as a curiosity, but his subsequent silence after made him boring, and in the bustling ecosystem of Hogwarts, boring was safe.

From his self-imposed exile on the fringes, he watched the world of 1977 unfold. It was a living, breathing historical document, and it was deeply, profoundly strange. He saw the dynamics he'd only ever read about or heard in passing stories.

In Charms, Lily Evans was a genuine marvel. While other students struggled with the precise, flicking wrist movements for an Impervius Charm, Lily's was effortless and perfect in just a few tries. Professor Flitwick positively beamed at her, holding her work up as the standard.

Then James Potter, from the other side of the room, would inevitably try to "help" someone nearby, performing the charm with an unnecessary amount of flair, making a grand show of it until he caught Lily's eye. She would give him a small, exasperated sigh and turn back to her work, a faint blush on her cheeks that was equal parts annoyance and something else Hadrian couldn't—and didn't want to—decipher.

The Marauders were a constant, chaotic force of nature. They were the undisputed beacons of Gryffindor Tower. James was the charismatic leader, Sirius the handsome-rebellious second-in-command, and Remus the quiet long-suffering conscience who always seemed to be fighting a headache. Peter Pettigrew trailed in their wake, laughing a little too loudly at their jokes, his watery eyes filled with a desperate, hero-worshipping admiration that made Hadrian's stomach turn.

However, Hadrian kept his distance, offering clipped, one-word answers when they spoke to him, an impenetrable wall against their casual offers of friendship. The pang of longing he felt watching them—this living memory of his father and his friends—was a physical ache he had to ruthlessly suppress. Engaging with them was a temptation he could not afford.

And then there was Cassandra Vexley.

He learned her name the day after his arrival. The one he had seen in the Great Hall, a picture of chilling composure.

Vexley never travelled with a gaggle of giggling friends like other girls. She moved at the center of a small, rotating court of serious-looking Slytherins. Evan Rosier, whose arrogance was a flimsy imitation of their once senior Lucius Malfoy's. Wilkes and Mulciber, who radiated a casual brutality. They didn't banter; they conferred in low, serious tones. She surely had the lead, not through force, but through sheer, undeniable intellectual supremacy. Her robes were always immaculate, her books were always pristine, and her sharp grey eyes missed nothing.

Whenever those eyes happened to land on him, a flicker of something—contempt, annoyance, a memory of gravy—would cross her face before she dismissed him as if he were a piece of lint on the castle's tapestry. Hadrian was sure. To her he must be the clumsy oaf who had ruined her favorite shirt. A footnote. An embarrassment. He was more than happy to keep it that way. The less the ambitious, eagle-eyed queen of Slytherin noticed him, the better.

His quiet existence, however, was predicated on one thing: mediocrity. And that was a problem.

He could fake social awkwardness. Though it didn't take much effort, really. But faking magical ineptitude was far more difficult. His ego wouldn't allow it.

In Defence Against the Dark Arts, he instinctively corrected the professor on the proper shield for a Bone-Breaking Curse.

Hadn't wanted to. But the mouth didn't listen.

In Transfiguration, he transformed a hedgehog into a pincushion with an ease that earned him a surprised, searching look from McGonagall. After having it drilled into him, Hadrian wasn't sure he could mess it up anymore. The muscle memory from seven years of life-or-death struggles didn't just vanish overnight.

For all his efforts, the true end to his anonymity came on a Tuesday afternoon in the Great Hall, which had been cleared to serve as a practice space for the newly resurrected Duelling Club. Professor Flitwick, standing on a stack of books to see over his lectern, was ecstatic.

To Hadrian, who had personally partaken in the club in his second year, it wasn't clear how many times the club had been resurrected only to be shut down.

"Welcome, welcome!" Professor Flitwick squeaked, his voice echoing in the vast space. "For too long has the noble art of formal duelling been neglected at Hogwarts! Today, we shall begin with a simple demonstration. A friendly exhibition between two senior students to showcase proper form and etiquette!"

A wave of murmuring went through the assembled students. Hadrian stood near the back with the other seventh-year Gryffindors, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

"For our first duellist," Flitwick announced, "from the house of Slytherin… Mr. Mulciber!"

A burly, heavy-set boy with cruel eyes swaggered forward, cracking his knuckles. He was a known bully, skilled with the kinds of jinxes that left nasty boils and twitching limbs. A smirk was plastered on his face as he accepted the applause from his housemates.

"And for his opponent," Flitwick chirped, consulting his list, "from the house of Gryffindor… let's see… Professor McGonagall has made a special request to see what our newest student can do… Mr. Hadrian Thorne!"

A cold dread washed over him. This was a setup—Flitwick had admitted as much himself. McGonagall's sharp, assessing gaze was on him from the staff table. She didn't believe his story, not for a second, and this was his trial by fire.

"Go on, Thorne!" Sirius whispered, giving him a hard shove forward. "Show 'em what you've got!"

Every eye in the Hall was on him as he walked the long stretch to the duelling platform. The whispers followed him again. "The gravy-stain kid?" "Mulciber's going to turn him into a ferret."

He stepped onto the raised dais. Mulciber stood opposite him, his smirk widening into a predatory grin. "Try not to trip over your own feet, Thorne," he sneered, loud enough for the first few rows to hear.

Hadrian didn't respond. He focused on his breathing, the familiar pre-combat ritual settling over him. The sounds of the Hall faded away. The mocking faces blurred. It was just him, his opponent, and the space between them.

Flitwick gave them the rundown. "Wands at the ready! On my mark, you will bow, and then you will commence. The objective is to disarm, not to injure! We are practicing for sport!"

Hadrian's mind went cold and quiet. Sport. He hadn't fought for sport since his fourth year at Hogwarts. Every duel since then had been a desperate scramble for survival or in preparation for it.

He and Mulciber faced each other. Mulciber gave a theatrical, mocking bow, a flourish of his wrist that was pure arrogance. Hadrian's bow was a short, sharp nod, his eyes never leaving his opponent's. It wasn't a gesture of respect; it was an acknowledgement of a threat.

"On the count of three!" Flitwick squeaked. "One… two…"

Hadrian felt a familiar, ugly shift inside him. The scared, out-of-place observer receded, and the soldier he'd been forced to become stepped forward. This was a language he understood far better than small talk.

"Three!"

Mulciber didn't wait for the echo of Flitwick's count to fade. He lunged into motion, his wand whipping through the air in a vicious arc. "Furnunculus!" he snarled, a jet of ugly purple light shooting toward Hadrian.

It was a standard bully's hex, designed to cause a painful and embarrassing outbreak of boils. It was also sloppy and slow.

Hadrian didn't even bother with a Shield Charm. With a subtle twist of his body, he sidestepped the curse. It zipped past his shoulder and slammed into the stone wall behind him with a wet sizzle. Before Mulciber could even register the miss, Hadrian's wand was up. He didn't waste his breath. A non-verbal Impediment Jinx, cast with a flick of his wrist, shot from his wand.

Mulciber's second curse, a Leg-Locker, died on his lips. He froze mid-lunge, his body seizing as Hadrian's jinx hit him. His sneer was replaced by a look of shock as his momentum carried him forward in a slow, unnatural stumble.

The entire Great Hall, which had been buzzing with anticipation, fell silent. They had expected a flurry of spells, a back-and-forth exchange. What they got was a sudden, jarring halt.

Hadrian pressed the advantage. This wasn't about flashy magic after all, it was about ending a threat efficiently. As Mulciber struggled against the jinx, his movements sluggish and uncoordinated, Hadrian moved forward. Two quick steps, wand held low and steady. He didn't cast another spell. He didn't need to. He saw the opening Mulciber's clumsy form had created.

Another Slytherin in the crowd, perhaps Wilkes, yelled, "Get him, Mulciber! What are you playing at?"

But Mulciber wasn't playing. He was trapped. He finally broke free of the Impediment Jinx with a furious roar, swinging his wand around wildly. "Confringo!"

The Blasting Curse was a serious escalation, far beyond the bounds of a friendly duel. A flicker of genuine anger ignited in Hadrian's chest. This wasn't a game to him, and Mulciber's casual disregard for safety was an insult to everyone he had lost.

Instead of shielding, he dropped. He let his knees buckle, falling into a low crouch as the jet of fiery light passed harmlessly over his head, exploding against the wall with a deafening bang that made several students scream. As he rose, he swiped his wand sideways.

"Expelliarmus!"

The word was sharp, clean, and utterly commanding. A bolt of scarlet light, brighter and more concussive than any the students had ever seen from a simple Disarming Charm, slammed into Mulciber's chest. The Slytherin was lifted off his feet, flying backwards several feet before crashing to the dais with a loud, graceless thud. His wand flew from his hand, spinning high into the air.

With a flick of his own wand, Hadrian summoned it. The wood slapped neatly into his waiting left hand.

The duel was over. It couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds.

Silence. Utter, deafening silence. Hadrian stood on the platform, his wand held loosely at his side, Mulciber's wand in his other hand. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. The adrenaline receded, leaving him standing there under the gaze of hundreds of shocked faces. Mulciber groaned on the floor, trying to sit up.

Professor Flitwick broke the spell, scurrying onto the platform. "Mr. Thorne is the winner!" he squeaked, his voice filled with a mixture of awe and alarm. "A most… efficient demonstration of defensive and evasion principles! Ten points to Gryffindor!"

The Gryffindor table exploded in a roar of triumphant shouts and applause. James Potter was on his feet, yelling his approval. Sirius Black was howling with laughter, pounding the table with his fists. Even Lily Evans was clapping, a look of profound surprise on her face, her eyes fixed on Hadrian with a newfound respect. He had just publicly humiliated a notoriously nasty Slytherin, and done it with a terrifying economy of motion.

He walked calmly off the platform, tossing Mulciber's wand onto his chest as he passed. He ignored the glares from the Slytherins, a sea of hatred and disbelief. He had won, but he had also failed his own primary objective. He was no longer Hadrian Thorne, the weird, quiet kid. He had just painted a massive target on his back.

As he reached the Gryffindor side, James slung an arm around his shoulders. "Merlin's beard, Thorne! Where did you learn to fight like that? That wasn't duelling, that was… an execution! It was brilliant!"

"He didn't even sweat," Sirius added, his grey eyes shining. "You walk over, bam, thwack, done. Meanwhile, Mulciber's still trying to figure out which way is up. I owe you a butterbeer. A whole bloody keg of them!"

Hadrian shrugged off James's arm, feeling claustrophobic. "He was overconfident," was all he said, his voice flat. He retreated to the back of the crowd, the praise and cheers feeling alien and unearned.

Across the Great Hall, one person wasn't cheering.

Cassandra Vexley had watched the entire exchange without blinking. She hadn't been worried for Mulciber; he was an arrogant thug, useful for intimidation but ultimately expendable. Her focus had been entirely on Thorne.

Because for all his expendability, Mulciber was not incompetent.

She had dismissed Thorne. Categorising him as a clumsy, socially inept fool. A nuisance, but not a serious player. She had been wrong. Catastrophically wrong.

What she had just witnessed… It wasn't the norm. That much she could figure out. It did not adhere to the principles of formal dueling she had studied. Duels were about form, about the elegant exchange of spells, about establishing dominance through superior technique. They were a magical debate. What Thorne had just done was something else entirely.

There was no posturing. There were no flashy, extraneous wand movements designed to impress. Every step he took, every spell he cast—or, more accurately, didn't cast—was ruthlessly thought through. The sidestep, the Impediment jinx, the drop and finally the Expelliarmus. It was pleasing.

An Experlliarmus…? She was finding it hard to wrap her head around it.

His power was undeniable. But it was an instinctual application of it that was frightening. He fought without flair, without artistry. His magic lacked the beautiful, woven complexity of Lily Evans's spell-work; it was all straight lines and hard angles. It was pure, brutal function. And yet… it was lethally effective.

She watched as he was swamped by his jubilant Gryffindor housemates, his face a strange, detached blank. He didn't look triumphant. He looked… done. As if he had just completed a distasteful but necessary task.

He was no longer just the boy who spilled gravy on her. He was an anomaly she hadn't accounted for in her meticulous plans for dominating the school year. An unpredictable, chaotic force of power, now aligned with the Gryffindor idiots she so despised.

He wasn't a fool. He was dangerous. He was a threat not just to her rivals, but to the very order and predictability she relied upon to succeed.

Her perfectly manicured fingers tapped a slow, thoughtful rhythm on the cover of her textbook. The game had just changed. Hadrian Thorne had just moved from the "irrelevant" column on her mental ledger to the very top of the one marked "problem." And Cassandra Vexley always dealt with her problems.

---

Author's Note:

Thank you so much for reading. Please leave any and all feedback!

You can find free illustrations and read early drafts over at my Patreon!

patreon.com/MoonyNightShade

 

[Nicohals J Westerberg]

Pretty cool, can't wait for more.

Also did this Harry train more?

 

[MoonyNightShade]

Pretty cool, can't wait for more.

Also did this Harry train more?

Click to shrink...

Honestly, completely up for interpretation. I'd rather the readers have fun with it, y'know? Imagination running wild and all that jazz.

 

[hacks]

When he talks about lily potter it feels a little off like he says she's a marvel but I think I would freak out a bit more if I time traveled and saw my dead mom and dad in genreal it's still a good chapter just a little critique.

 

[MoonyNightShade]

When he talks about lily potter it feels a little off like he says she's a marvel but I think I would freak out a bit more if I time traveled and saw my dead mom and dad in genreal it's still a good chapter just a little critique.

Click to shrink...

Can see what you mean fr, honestly can write a whole story on just the freak outs. It's just I didn't want to dwell on it with this story, not the core point right?. Should definitely try in a future attempt...

 

[hacks]

Can see what you mean fr, honestly can write a whole story on just the freak outs. It's just I didn't want to dwell on it with this story, not the core point right?. Should definitely try in a future attempt...

Click to shrink...

Totally get that angst that takes to long is very annoying however emotions are what make us human and skipping over that can make it hard to relate and sympathy for a character you don't have to over do it but so far he's seeming kinda robotic this is just some advice good story so far!

 

[MoonyNightShade]

Chapter 2.5: Who is he?

Disclaimer:

I don't own the characters or the world appearing in this story. They are creations and property of J.K. Rowling. I'm not sure if I can claim any OCs as my own, so I'll play it safe and dedicate them to her as well.

---

The Gryffindor common room was a sea of triumphant red and gold. In the corner, James Potter and Sirius Black were performing a dramatic and wildly inaccurate reenactment of the duel for the younger years, using a bewitched sofa cushion as a stand-in for Mulciber. Each time James gestured dramatically, the cushion would let out a piteous squeak before collapsing in a heap. The scene was met with roars of laughter and applause. One small, particularly emotional boy was in tears.

Remus Lupin, sitting by the fire with a book open but unread in his lap, did not join in.

He, too, was replaying the duel, but his memory was sharper, colder, and far less amusing. He remembered the hush that had fallen over the Great Hall. He remembered the way Thorne had moved—not with the flashy arrogance of James, but with a fluid, terrifying economy. It wasn't a duel at all.

A prefect's duty was to maintain order and ensure student safety. What he had witnessed was a blatant, if efficient, display of overwhelming force that had technically ended with Mulciber attempting to use a Blasting Curse. But Remus was no fool. Mulciber had been trapped, panicked, and reacting. Thorne had been in control from the first instant to the last. He should have reported the incident to McGonagall—the sheer disproportionate skill of it. He should have been concerned.

And he was. But the part of him that was a Marauder, the part of him that had spent seven years watching Mulciber and his ilk hex first-years, felt a grim, undeniable satisfaction.

"He barely even moved."

Remus looked up. Lily Evans was standing there, her arms crossed, her brow furrowed with the same analytical concern he felt. She nodded toward the boisterous celebration. "They see the win. But the way he did it… that was frightening, wasn't it?"

"It was practiced," Remus said quietly, relieved to have someone else who saw it.

"He used a non-verbal Impediment Jinx, followed by a simple Expelliarmus that was powerful enough to knock a boy twice his size off his feet and into the air," Lily murmured, thinking it through. "I didn't know Expelliarmus could do that! Who is he?"

That was the question, wasn't it?

"Moony! Lily! Stop looking so glum!" Sirius bounded over, his face flushed with vicarious victory. "Thorne's a hero! Took ten points for it and everything! You should've seen Snape's face. Looked like he'd swallowed a bucket of slugs."

"It was a bit much, wasn't it?" Remus offered, trying to frame his unease in a way they would understand. "For a simple exhibition."

"Mulciber deserved it," James said, abandoning his theatricals to join them. He slung an arm around Remus's shoulder. "He's had it coming for years. Thorne just paid the bill. He's a good lad. Quiet, but a good lad. We need more Gryffindors with that kind of grit."

Remus looked from James's carefree, handsome face to Sirius's manic glee. They saw a victory. Lily saw frightening skill. But Remus, who lived with a violent secret coiled in his own bones, saw something else. He saw a kindred spirit.

He remembered the look in Thorne's eyes after the duel. Not triumph. Not relief. Just a hollow, weary emptiness, as if he'd been forced to unveil a part of himself he desperately wanted to keep hidden. Remus knew that look. He saw it in the mirror every morning after a full moon.

"I just think he's… carrying a lot," Remus said finally.

Sirius snorted. "Well, he can carry the House Cup for us if he keeps that up."

James laughed, clapping Remus on the back again before turning his attention back to Lily, his voice softening instantly. "C'mon Evans, admit it. It was brilliant."

Lily offered a tight smile but her concerned eyes met Remus's over James's shoulder.

Remus let it drop, turning a page in his forgotten book. He wouldn't report it. It wouldn't do any good. But he resolved in that moment to watch Hadrian Thorne. Not as a prefect watching a troublemaker, but as an outcast watching a puzzle. Because whatever Hadrian Thorne was running from, it was far more terrifying than a Slytherin bully. And for reasons he couldn't yet explain, Remus Lupin found himself wanting to be on Thorne's side.

---

Author's note:

I thought I'd include snippets that don't make the cut for the main chapter as interspersed mini ones.

---

You can find free illustrations and read drafts early over at my Patreon!

patreon.com/MoonyNightShade

 

[space turtle]

The wolf identifies another predator in its midst.
And it recognises that it might not be the scariest thing in the forest.

 

[MoonyNightShade]

Chapter 3: You Screw Me, I'll Screw You

Disclaimer:

I don't own the characters or the world appearing in this story. They are creations and property of J.K. Rowling. I'm not sure if I can claim any OCs as my own, so I'll play it safe and dedicate them to her as well.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

In the wake of the duel, Hadrian's carefully constructed wall of anonymity crumbled into dust. He was no longer Hadrian Thorne, the quiet transfer student. He was now Thorne, the guy who had flattened Mulciber in ten seconds.

This newfound reputation came with unforeseen consequences—the most immediate and worst of which was the relentless, gravitational pull of the Marauders.

His quiet corner of the seventh-year boys' dormitory was no longer a sanctuary. It had become mission control for a level of orchestrated mayhem he hadn't witnessed since the Weasley twins had run rampant through Hogwarts.

"The key," James Potter announced one Tuesday night, pacing between the beds with the frantic energy of a caged lion, "is maximum humiliation with minimum evidence. We need to hit the Slytherin common room. What do you think, Hadrian?"

Sirius Black, lounging upside down on his bed with his long hair brushing the floor, snorted. "Subtlety is for the Puffs, Prongs. I say we transfigure the entrance password into a five-minute-long aria about the moral failings of snakes. In a soprano. Right, Hadrian?"

"Too simple," James countered, waving a dismissive hand. "They'd have Slughorn fix it in an hour. We need something that lingers. Something… odorous. I'm thinking a series of Dungbombs linked to a perpetual Sticking Charm, right over the doorway. I know Hadrian agrees with me."

"Messy," came a tired voice from Remus Lupin's bed. He was lying on his side, a book propped in front of him, though his eyes were closed. "And Filch would have us scrubbing cauldrons until we graduate. If we don't get expelled first."

"Ah, Moony, you wound me!" Sirius declared dramatically, flipping upright. "Where's your sense of adventure? Come on, Hadrian, back me up."

"I think I left it in the Shrieking Shack last month," Remus muttered dryly.

Hadrian sighed, realizing they wouldn't leave him alone until he contributed. His brain—desperate for quiet so he could return to his own problems—dredged up a memory: a late-night conversation with Hermione during the Horcrux hunt. She'd been explaining how ancient castles like Hogwarts had a kind of rudimentary magical consciousness, how their enchantments were layered—more like an ecosystem than a simple lock and key.

"You don't have to break the door down, Harry," she had said. "You just have to convince the door it doesn't recognize you."

He channelled her logic, offering them the simplest, most effective solution.

"If you want to annoy them," he began, a distant echo of his friend's lecturing tone creeping into his own voice, "don't be loud or messy. Be inconvenient."

The three other conscious Marauders looked at him.

"Go on," James prompted, intrigued.

"The stone wall of the Slytherin entrance," Hadrian said slowly, thinking it through aloud. "It's not just a door; it's an enchantment that recognises a specific stimulus—the password. But it also has to recognise the speaker. You don't need to change the password. You need to confuse the enchantment itself." He tapped his temple.

"Cast a subtle, recurring Confundus Charm on the stone. You can probably key it to react to the unique magical signature of the Slytherin house crest on their robes. Every time a Slytherin says the correct password, the wall will receive a conflicting signal. It won't know what they said—only that it feels wrong. They'll be stuck outside their own common room, forced to get Slughorn to let them in, one by one."

He finished, the theory sounding surprisingly solid now that he'd said it aloud.

"It leaves almost no magical residue, it's nearly impossible to trace, and it will drive them absolutely insane within a day."

The room was silent for a moment. Remus had actually lowered his book, his eyes open and wide with a newfound respect. James's jaw was slightly slack.

Sirius was the first to speak, his voice a whisper of pure reverence. "That… is the most elegantly evil thing I have ever heard."

James's face broke into a slow, wolfish grin. "Thorne, you are a menace. I love it."

Hadrian had just wanted them to be quiet. Instead, by channelling the memory of his brightest friend, he had pushed himself even deeper into their chaotic little circle. He had been fully and irrevocably integrated.

He sank back against his pillows with a silent groan, the brief flicker of Hermione's memory making his solitude feel all the more acute.

His life was getting more complicated by the second.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The very next day, a world away from the Gryffindors' boisterous plotting, Cassandra Vexley held court in her usual corner of the library. It wasn't a gathering of friends; it was a staff meeting. Wilkes was there, looking sullen after his friend Mulciber's public humiliation. Evan Rosier was preening, polishing his wand. A sharp-eyed witch named Eleanor Frye had a stack of charts and timetables laid out.

"The final Charms essay is due in two weeks," Cassandra stated, her voice low and crisp. Her gaze fell on Frye. "Eleanor, I need your notes from Slughorn's advanced lecture. Compare them with mine. I want to be certain I haven't missed any nuances in the reading list for the theory section."

"Of course, Cassandra," Frye said dutifully.

"Evan," she continued, not looking at him. "Find out what extracurricular project Lily Evans has chosen for her Arithmancy NEWT. I need to know what she's focusing on."

Rosier smirked. "Trying to keep tabs on the competition, Vexley? Worried the mudblood will outshine you?"

Cassandra's grey eyes lifted from her notes and fixed on him. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees. "I am not 'worried,' Evan. I am thorough. Lily Evans is brilliant, popular, and has the unwavering approval of nearly every professor in this castle. That makes her my direct and primary competitor for the summer internship at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I will not secure it by underestimating her. I will secure it by being better prepared. Do you understand the difference?"

"Crystal," Rosier said quickly, his smirk vanishing.

"Good." She turned to Wilkes. "And you. Stop sulking. Mulciber lost because he's a cudgel. He was beaten by another cudgel. Brute force against brute force." She made a dismissive gesture. "That's not how real power works. Thorne's little victory is an irrelevance. The Gryffindors celebrate their muscle. We will celebrate our achievements." Her gaze swept over them, sharp and commanding. "The Vexley name may not mean much now. But when I am Head of the DMLE, it will. And I will remember who helped me get there. Don't forget that."

The message was clear. This was not about house points or schoolyard rivalries. This was about the future. Her future. And nothing, and no one, would be allowed to stand in her way.

That resolve was tested two days later, deep in the Restricted Section.

Hadrian had, after much effort, convinced Madam Pince that his "specialised homeschooling" had left him lacking in certain areas—gaps that required access to advanced texts. In truth, he was hunting for one thing: a way home.

He needed books on temporal theory, paradoxes, anything that mentioned Chrono-Mites.

He finally found what he was looking for on a high, dusty shelf: a massive, iron-bound book titled The Chronomancer's Codex.

His heart leaped. He reached for it, his fingers brushing the ancient leather. At the exact same moment, another hand—pale, with perfectly manicured nails—shot into his view and clamped onto the spine.

He turned. It was Cassandra Vexley.

Of course.

"Excuse me," he said, his voice tight. "I was about to take that."

"Were you now?" she asked, her voice dripping with cool amusement. She tugged the heavy book from the shelf with surprising strength. "A bit advanced for you, isn't it, Thorne? I would have thought you'd be more comfortable with books that have pictures."

"What do you want it for? Planning to club someone to death?" He said, his temper flaring. "In that case, might I suggest 'talking'. When done by a Slytherin, it's especially poisonous—I've heard."

"Funny," she replied, tucking the book under her arm. "The seventh chapter contains a fascinating, though largely theoretical, discussion on meta-morphic transfiguration as it relates to temporal entropy. Crucial for my final essay. I'm afraid you'll have to wait until I'm finished with it. Try not to hurt yourself lifting anything else."

With a flick of her immaculate black hair, she turned and walked away, her heels clicking softly on the stone floor. Hadrian stood there, fuming, his hands clenched into fists. The battle lines had just been drawn.

He found his chance for revenge the next afternoon. He saw her at her usual table, the Codex open in front of her. She was called away for a moment by Madam Pince. It was all the time he needed. He moved swiftly, pulling out his wand. He didn't want to damage the book, just… inconvenience its reader. He whispered a quiet, complex charm at the open page, one he remembered Fred and George using on Percy's prefect manuals.

Later, he watched from a distance. He saw her sit down, her brow furrowed in concentration. He saw her lean in, re-reading a passage. He saw her blink, then shake her head slightly, as if to clear it. He saw her read it again, her lips moving silently. Then, a faint line of pure, unadulterated frustration appeared between her perfect eyebrows. The charm was working. Every time her eyes passed over a key phrase, the letters would momentarily, almost imperceptibly, rearrange themselves into gibberish before snapping back into place. It was the magical equivalent of a fly buzzing in one's ear—maddening, but almost impossible to catch. He allowed himself a small, vicious smile.

His victory was short-lived. The next day, he went to retrieve his own research book, Applied Paradoxical Theory, from a nook where he had hidden it. He opened it to his bookmarked page.

Instead of a strip of parchment, a small, bright yellow rubber chicken sat between the pages. As the book opened, it let out a magically amplified, ear-splitting squawk.

"THORNE IS A DIM-WITTED, GRAVY-STAINED TROLL!"

The magically projected voice echoed through the entire silent library. Every head turned to stare at him. Madam Pince's face was a mask of pure fury. Hadrian slammed the book shut, his entire body burning with a humiliation so profound it eclipsed even his initial arrival.

He looked across the room. Cassandra Vexley was watching him, a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised. A slow, cold, utterly triumphant smile spread across her face.

Oh, it was war.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The burning humiliation of the rubber chicken incident did not fade. It settled deep in Hadrian's gut, a hard, hot coal of resentment. Cassandra Vexley had not just retaliated; she had made a public spectacle of him. She had turned his own desire for quiet anonymity into a weapon and used it against him. In the silent, bitter war of the library, she had just dropped a magical bomb. He knew, with absolute certainty, that a commensurate response was required.

For two days, he did nothing. He watched her from a distance, observing her routines, her habits. He saw the way she organized her notes, the specific brand of ink she favored—Selwyn's Ever-Black, for discerning potioneers—and the meticulous way she laid out her supplies before beginning her work. She was a creature of precision and order. He decided, then, that his revenge would not be loud. It would be an insidious corruption of the very order she revered.

His opportunity came during a crowded study period. He saw her inkpot sitting on her table while she was briefly conferring with Eleanor Frye a few rows away. Under the cover of a dozen other conversations, and with a swift, almost imperceptible movement of his wand beneath his desk, he cast a highly complex, multi-layered charm. It was a piece of chaotic magic the Weasley twins would have been proud of, refined with his own combat-honed precision.

The effect was not immediate. He waited. He watched. He saw her return to her desk, dip her quill, and begin to write. For half an hour, nothing happened. Then, he saw her pause. Her quill hovered over the parchment. She was writing her Transfiguration essay, arguing a point about the fundamental ethics of human-to-animal transformation. He knew the charm he had set was keyed to specific emotional triggers—arrogance, ambition, condescension. As her thoughts sharpened into a particularly cutting turn of phrase, a formulation designed to showcase her intellectual superiority, the magic took hold.

The pristine, Ever-Black ink that flowed from her quill momentarily flashed a brilliant, garish Gryffindor scarlet and gold. The word "inferior," in reference to a rival theorist's argument, blazed on the page like a tiny, triumphant sunset before slowly, begrudgingly, fading back to black.

Cassandra froze. Her eyes were glued to the page. She blinked, her expression one of utter disbelief, as if the parchment itself had betrayed her. She dipped her quill again, tentatively, and wrote another sentence. Again, as she formulated a particularly self-aggrandizing point, her signature phrase "a predictably pedestrian conclusion" shimmered with audacious Gryffindor colors.

A slow, dark flush crept up her neck. This was an attack on her very thoughts. It was intimate, insulting, and utterly infuriating. He watched as she took a deep, steadying breath, her knuckles white where she gripped her quill. With a visible effort of will, she attempted to write a simple, declarative sentence, devoid of opinion. The ink remained black. She tried again, adding a slight intellectual flourish, and was met with another defiant flash of red and gold.

Her control finally snapped. With a low hiss of pure rage, she made a sharp, angry stroke across the parchment, meaning to cross out the offending sentence. The volatile charm, agitated by the spike of furious magical intent, reacted. The inkpot on her desk gave a violent shudder and then exploded, sending a geyser of Ever-Black ink all over her meticulously written essay, her notes, and the front of her robes.

The soggy splat echoed in the relative quiet. Every head within a twenty-foot radius turned. Madam Pince materialized at the end of the aisle, her face a mask of apocalyptic fury.

"Out! Both of you! OUT!"

Cassandra was on her feet, her face pale with rage, her robes and priceless essay ruined. Hadrian was already gathering his things, a mask of innocent surprise on his face. Their eyes met across the ruined table, and in that instant, there was no more subtext. This was no longer a game. It was a declaration of total war.

The next day, a note arrived for Hadrian via a grim-faced first-year Gryffindor. "Mr. Thorne. You and Miss Vexley will report to the vacant Charms classroom on the third floor after dinner tonight. Do not be late." It was signed by Remus Lupin, with his looping, neat script and the small prefect's badge stamped at the bottom.

Hadrian felt a knot of dread tighten in his stomach. The war had drawn official attention.

He arrived at precisely seven o'clock. The classroom was empty save for three chairs arranged in a triangle. Remus was already there, looking profoundly weary. Cassandra Vexley stood by the window, her arms crossed, staring out into the twilight. She had changed into fresh robes, but she still radiated an aura of barely contained fury.

"Sit," Remus said, his voice quiet but firm. He didn't sound like their classmate; he sounded like the adult he was so often forced to be.

Hadrian sat. After a moment's hesitation, Cassandra turned from the window and took the other chair, her movements stiff and angry. She refused to look at Hadrian, keeping her gaze fixed on Remus.

"Right," Remus began, running a hand through his sandy hair. He looked as if he would rather be anywhere else in the world. "Madam Pince has lodged a formal complaint against both of you. Professor McGonagall has asked me to… mediate… before this escalates to official detentions and a loss of house points for the rest of the term. So, I am going to ask you both a simple question. What is going on?"

Cassandra spoke first, her voice like ice chips. "I was attempting to study. Mr. Thorne's persistent and clumsy presence was a distraction. His oafishness resulted in an accident which destroyed my Transfiguration essay."

Hadrian scoffed. "My 'oafishness'? I was fifty feet away from you. Unless I can now project clumsiness, I fail to see how that's my fault. Maybe your equipment was faulty."

"My equipment," she said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper as she finally turned her glare on him, "is of the highest quality. Unlike, it would seem, your personal hygiene. Perhaps a lingering bit of gravy was attracted to my inkpot."

"That's enough," Remus cut in, holding up a hand. "Veiled insults are not going to solve this. Look, I don't know what the feud is between you two, and frankly, I don't care. But it is disrupting the entire library and has resulted in property damage. It stops now."

"There is no feud," Cassandra stated coolly. "A feud would imply a degree of equality between the parties involved. This is merely a pest-control issue."

"And I suppose you're the exterminator?" Hadrian shot back, his temper rising. "Funny, I thought you were the pest. The one who thinks library books are personal property."

"Are you accusing me of something, Thorne?"

"Are you?"

"Enough!" Remus's voice was sharper this time, with an edge of the authority he rarely used. "This is ridiculous. You're both seventh-years. You're supposed to be setting an example. Instead, you're acting like first-years fighting over a Chocolate Frog card." He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Let's try this again. I am not going to ask who charmed whose ink or who hexed whose book. I am simply going to state that the hostilities will end. From this moment on, you will occupy opposite sides of the library. You will not interact. You will not speak to each other. You will not acknowledge each other's existence unless a professor forces you to. Is that understood?"

Hadrian looked at Cassandra. Her jaw was tight, a muscle fluttering in her cheek. He could see the fury in her eyes, but also the sharp, calculating intelligence. She knew, as he did, that Remus was offering them an out. No detentions, no lost points. Just a forced ceasefire. Continuing their fight here, in front of a prefect, was pointless.

She gave a stiff, almost imperceptible nod. "Understood."

Remus looked at Hadrian. "Thorne?"

Hadrian grit his teeth. He hated backing down. But he wanted, more than anything, to be left alone. "Fine," he bit out.

"Fine," Remus echoed, looking relieved. "Then we're done here. Shake on it."

It was the last thing either of them wanted to do. For a moment, neither moved. Remus just waited, his expression expectant and unyielding. With a low hiss of frustration, Cassandra stood and held out her hand. It was a clear challenge.

Hadrian stood and took it. Her hand was cool and firm. His was warm and strong. Their grips were tight, not a handshake but a contest of wills. For a tense second, they stood there, hands clasped, grey eyes locked on brown. The air between them crackled with unspoken animosity. It was a truce in name only. What they were really agreeing to was a change in the rules of engagement. The lines had been drawn in the sand, and now, they were being forced to retreat to their respective sides. But the war wasn't over. It had only just been officially declared.

"Excellent," Remus said, blissfully unaware of the silent declarations being made. "Now get out of here. Both of you."

They dropped their hands as if burned and turned, walking toward the door. They left without another word, on opposite sides of the corridor, the space between them a tangible, humming no-man's-land.

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Author's note:

This one was so much fun to write, just pure joy. I think I might be a bit of a sadist.

I've seen some lovely comments from you all, and I'm hoping to keep getting feedback. I'm currently posting a fluffy Hermione/OC romance too—please check that one out if you haven't already!

Alright, that's all for now. See you guys next week, I've got to go watch the Budapest Qualifier. Piastri FTW!

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You can find free illustrations and read early drafts over at my Patreon!

patreon.com/MoonyNightShade