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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: The Boy in the Corner

King's Cross Station was alive in every possible direction.

Alden Dreyse stood just shy of the main clocktower, silver fringe untouched by the bustle. His grey-green eyes glanced around, taking in the sight of the chaos of a London train station. With a soft pop of displaced air, Crix appeared at his side. The house-elf straightened his immaculate towel-waistcoat and glanced up at the iron rafters as if the architecture were too noisy for its age.

"London forgets itself every summer," Crix muttered, nostrils twitching at oil and train smoke. "All this hurry to stand still again in a year."

Alden's eyes followed a family of three weaving through the crowd with trunks piled like siege towers on a trolley."They're excited," he said. His voice stayed soft even when it had to cut through the noise. "It's the first of September, the day everyone leaves for Hogwarts."

"Excitement," Crix said, "is rarely tidy."

He snapped his fingers once. The Dreyse trunk, black with silver clasps, crest etched in green lines that shimmered faintly, rose an inch and hovered beside them. He adjusted the tilt so it cast a perfect shadow. "Better."

Steam bled from the far end of the concourse, turning the sunlight to milk. Announcements cracked; owls hooted. A prefect in red robes barked at a pair of younger boys to mind the trolleys. Alden stood perfectly still throughout all of it. Motion came from the world, but stillness only responded from him.

Alden wore dark green robes tailored for symmetry over fashion, collar neat, his wand, crafted out of ebony and twelve inches and three-quarters long, with a dual core of thestral hair entwined with a preserved basilisk scale, lay sheathed inside its guard in his left sleeve. His posture wasn't prideful, only deliberate, the sort that made space seem to adjust around him. Rather than the other way.

"Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, correct?" Crix asked, as if he didn't already know.

"Yes."

Crix's ears tilted toward the clock, whose brass hands pointed to five minutes before eleven. "And the crowd grows louder every minute."

"That's how you know it's almost time."

A whistle blew somewhere beyond the smoke. Children shouted, someone's cat escaped and darted under a trolley. Followed by a man who swore loudly, chasing after it.

Crix fingers reached up and flicked a crumb of chalk from Alden's sleeve, the last ghost of summer work. "That's much better, young master, Hogwarts is no place to arrive looking half-studied."

"I thought they cared more about marks than dust."

"One leads to the other," Crix said, a touch too wisely. With a snap, he set the trunk to glide half a step behind them. "Shall we?"

Alden nodded as he slid a thin green notebook into his inner pocket. The edge of the vellum inside it caught the light like a hidden blade. They walked. People made space without meaning to.

The noise folded around them; shoes clattering, laughter ringing off tile, someone crying because they'd forgotten a wand, another because they'd found there's. It was all motion, color, and warmth, the complete opposite of the Dreyse Manor.

A witch passing by looked twice, and then whispered to her husband, "That's the Dreyse boy, the one who lives alone, the one who..." but the crowd swallowed the rest.

Crix's eyes flicked to the clock, then to the brick between Platforms Nine and Ten. "Humans measure time with clocks," he said. "Elves prefer silence."

"Silence doesn't get you to school," Alden said, dry.

The station clock clicked closer towards eleven. The crowd swelled.

Noise made of magic," Crix said, smoothing his hem. "Slightly more tolerable."

Alden didn't answer at once. He measured faces, movement, and the organized chaos of leaving. Parents stooped for last hugs; older siblings pretended not to care; trunks arced into doors at a dozen different precisions. The air here hummed, like the platform itself had breath.

A swarm of red-haired children shot past, an explosion of laughter, hand-me-down trunks and clothes, but, almost identical energy. The smallest, which appeared to Alden to be a female, looked back at Alden, curious about a boy standing still while the world ran by, then disappeared into family noise.

"Be certain of your carriage before you board," Crix said. "The train prefers decisiveness."

"Trains move because they must," Alden murmured.

"So do some people."

That earned a faint smirk. Crix drew a folded piece of vellum from his sleeve and offered it between careful fingers.

"Another chore list?" Alden asked.

"Hardly." Crix's tone softened. "A pattern for breath. Should the air grow colder than fear itself."

"Cryptic."

"Practical. You'll thank me if you ever need to feel warm, Master Alden." He adjusted the levitation charm; the trunk drifted to a rear carriage door and settled, waiting.

The train hissed again, louder this time, readying to move. Students were climbing aboard now, doors banging, laughter overlapping with last calls.

"This is as far as I go," Crix said quietly. "Hogwarts has rules about house-elves on platforms."

"You're not a servant, Crix," Alden said softly, "Not to me."

His eyes softened. "Then consider me a tradition. Traditions end at thresholds." He bowed, the same precise angle as the night Alden first took the family seal. "Curiosity without mercy is still cruelty."

Alden looked at him for a long moment, then tucked the vellum away. "I'll send word when I arrive."

"Crix expects nothing less," the elf said. "And hopes for nothing more."

The whistle shrieked. Alden stepped up. Through the glass, Crix blurred into steam—a tall silhouette bowing once before the crowd closed.

The carriage rocked once as the train found its rhythm. Warm air pressed close—polish, sweets, too many voices in a narrow space.

Alden stepped from the entry vestibule into the corridor. Warm air pressed close—smell of polish, sweets, and too many voices all competing in the same narrow space.

The Slytherin car was already alive.

Draco Malfoy held court mid-car, half leaning against the window, pale hair catching every flick of light. Crabbe and Goyle flanked him like matching punctuation, nodding to things like puppets, clearly not understanding a word. Next to them, Pansy Parkinson sat with knees crossed, wand spinning idly, eyes cataloging passers-by.

To her left, Blaise Zabini was polishing a signet ring, liking the attention the gleam offered with anyone who would stop and look. Meanwhile, an older Slytherin prefect drifted past, bored with telling first-years to move along. Further down, Theodore Nott had a book open that he wasn't reading.

The air carried laughter edged with competition. Alden heard Draco boasting about Quidditch this year and what his family did over the summer. He heard someone else talking about the new students, and not wanting to associate with muggles. The usual Slytherin hierarchy and attitude were already reformed before they had the chance to pull out of London. 

Alden walked quietly, trunk still gliding a step behind him. He kept close to the window side, eyes steady but not unfriendly. 

"Dreyse!" Draco's voice cut through the chatter. Not cruel, not kind, just testing the distance. A few heads turned after hearing Malfoy call out.

Alden slowed, but only slightly. "Malfoy."

"Didn't see you on the platform," Draco smirked. "Thought you'd skip a year and go straight to teaching."

"I'm still working on patience," Alden said, his mouth curving faintly. "Teaching seems a bit advanced."

Pansy tilted her head, curiosity written on her face. "Do you always talk like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you swallowed a library."

Alden slightly considered that, then with a friendly shrug. "Some pages taste better than others."

That drew a few small laughs from the group, Blaise Zabini's among them. With the type of laugh that said, "Alright, maybe he's fine."

"You could sit here," Draco offered, gesturing at the crowded compartment. "Plenty of room before more of the first-years invade."

Alden glanced at trunks, robes, and perfume. "Looks full already. Perhaps next time, then."

Pansy's mouth curved. "Suit yourself."

"I usually do." He moved on, owning the exit. Voices resumed, now braided with a thread of his name. The train carriage swayed, catching the fringe of his silver-white hair, making it flash in the window next to him.

At the quiet end of the corridor, the compartments had thinned, as if to say no one comes this far. He found a half-closed compartment, empty but for dust motes and afternoon light. He slid the door fully open, lifted the trunk with a flick of his wand, and guided it to the overhead rack. The charm Crix had left on it hummed once softly, satisfied and settled.

He stood at the doorway, and pointing his wand towards the compartment, muttered, "Scourgify," and watched as the compartment cleaned itself of the dust motes before he sat down. Letting his breath match the rhythm of the train, slow and even, until the rest of the platform noise fell away.

Outside, the city blurred into fields; the steam smudged the view like fingerprints on glass. He leaned his temple against the window, watching reflections overlap, his own face, the streak of the sky, the faint ghost of the carriage behind him. 

He liked it better this way, edges, distance, quiet. Yet, he could still hear a burst of laughter that rolled down the corridor like wind. Malfoy's, maybe, he didn't mind it.

Some time passed, and he stood to unlatch his trunk and draw out a slender green-leather book with an untitled spine and a faint Dreyse spiral: continuance.

He flipped through the pages, heading towards his bookmark. Notes about charms, spells, and simple hexes. Skimming through, he saw knowledge he practiced diligently over the Summer with Crix, the cleaning charm, leg locking hex, and the freezing charm Glacius. A bookmarked page waited, a dense Grindelwald-era German translation, clipped and lying there unsuspecting.

Intent ist kein Werkzeug. Es ist der Rahmen des Zaubers.Intent is not a tool. It is the framework of the spell.

"Framework, not blade," he murmured. Then, wry: "That's wrong. It's both."

The reflection in the window caught the tilt of his head and gave it back to him, pale and calm. His silver fringe brushed the glass when the train rocked.

A draft slipped through the window seam and raised a chill along his wrist. He traced a small rune on the sill, nothing official, just a simple stabilizing charm, his own creation based on the notes of Reparo from last year's charms class. The charm sealed the leak and hummed green for a heartbeat, then clear again.

He turned another page in his book. Diagrams of wand motion spiral outward like constellations, early theories of spell lattices, half-forgotten names like Krüger's Veil and The Zweig Principle. Most had been banned, not for harm, but for the complexity of the theories. One sketch showed a theory of redirected force instead of blocking it: a kind of magical aikido.

Elegant. Demands timing - miss time the lattice and you eat the force instead of turning it. He noted it in the margin: combine with shield lattice (see Manor Test I).

Outside, the fields blurred to the moor. A crow matched the train for a few seconds, then veered away. He watched it until it vanished, how it flew level with the train for several seconds, wings steady, before veering away.

He found the folded vellum from Crix in his pocket and didn't open it. The emerald rune in the corner looked like a pulse at rest. He filed it back between pages. Tool, not trophy.

Magic listens. So should I. He wrote the line and closed both books.

The train lurched slightly; the lamps flickered, steadying again. His reflection trembled with the glass, then returned clear, gray-green eyes, unreadable.

He studied himself for a long moment. At thirteen, he didn't feel young. He felt unfinished. Like a sentence paused mid-breath, waiting for its verb. He packed the slender green book back into his trunk, and his gaze returned to the window. Where the light had gone softer, more amber now than gold. Looking out, he wasn't sure which side of the glass he preferred as he watched the reflection merge again with the countryside.

From the corridor, a muffled laugh, Malfoy again, probably. He didn't dislike them. He simply couldn't see what they were laughing about. 

It began with a shiver that didn't belong to the train. The Hogwarts Express had been humming along in the countryside for hours, the rhythm smooth as a heartbeat. Then, without warning, the heartbeat slowed.

The lamps flickered. The hum under his boots faltered, like a living thing holding its breath. Frost slowly crept across the window. Alden's fingers brushed the spine of Ars Magia: Intent does not change a spell's name, only its consequence. Cold drew a clean line behind his ribs. He glanced up from his book, his breath fogged once, then twice, before drifting pale against the window.

A murmur carried down the corridor. Doors slid open. Footsteps thudded softly on the carpet as they looked around.. Someone laughed nervously, but it died quickly in the chill.

Alden closed his book without marking the page. The temperature kept dropping. Within seconds, the edges of the windowpane feathered white. Frost crawled from the corners like slow handwriting.

"Why's it freezing?" Draco's voice, dulled by wood."It's the engine, has to be!" Pansy, high."Feels wrong, though, like it's inside of us," someone else said.

The noise spread further around the cabin, and Slytherin students from all years murmured collectively. Doors were quickly opened, and what sounded like shouting from further down the hall, and whispers and murmurs quickly turned into terror and panic. Alden pressed his palm to the glass. It burned with cold.

Then he understood Crix's parting words. Should the air grow colder than fear itself.

A dementor. He didn't know how Crix had planned for one, but it probably had something to do with Sirius Black escaping Azkaban. 

He hadn't seen one before, but he didn't need to. The presence was enough, like a thought pressed too close to the skin. His pulse quickened despite himself. The cold was in his chest now, threading behind the ribs. He inhaled once, slowly.

Then he unfolded the vellum. His thumb found the rune at its center, a sequence built not for power but for pattern. He murmured the first syllable under his breath, quiet as breath itself.

The charm required almost nothing: intent, steadiness, and breath. He matched his cadence to the train's faint rumble, one, two, three, and the rune beneath his thumb warmed faintly, the ink glowing soft green before fading into his skin.

The air around him stilled. Warmth didn't flood back. Instead, the air around him became less cruel. The frost hesitated, then crept a thumb's breadth past his invisible line. Cold bit his knuckles, and the rune under his skin answered. The white withdrew, sulking to the edge.

This wasn't a Patronus charm. This was breath against panic.

Outside, something in black drifted past the next carriage, its outline blurring into fog. He felt it test the glass, like a hand pressing water.

No further, he thought. The pane misted once more, then cleared.

Outside the compartment, confusion was swelling. He could hear shuffling feet, complaints, and one of the younger students crying. Alden just focused on the warmth under his thumb, making the compartment less cold. Listening to the chaos in the corridor.

"Shut it, Zabini, you're making it worse!" sounds like Malfoy.

"I'm not doing anything!" 

"It's Merlin, it's bloody freezing, my hands..."

Until he was interrupted by someone frantically knocking on his compartment door. The door slid open. A pale second-year peered in.

"Dreyse, your window, why isn't it cold in...?"

"Close the door," Alden said, meeting his eyes calmly.

"But"

"Close it."

Something in his tone cut through the panic, measured, not loud, but a final verdict. The boy obeyed. The latch clicked. The train's heartbeat returned, faint and stubborn.

Minutes stretched, then softened. Frost melted in quick rivulets racing to the sill. Voices returned in nervous layers, chocolate, a white spell forcing the dementor away, Potter fainting, relief pretending to be bravado.

The vellum in his hand was cool again, no glow left, just the faint indentation where the rune had burned for a moment. He traced it once with his thumb, thoughtful.

"Thank you, Crix," he said to the quiet.

A web of melt lines on the glass caught the light like silver veins, smaller than the manor lattice, almost perfect. He leaned back against the seat and let the rhythm of the train fill the space where the cold had been.

Outside, Scotland blurred closer, and the world began to warm again.

By the time the train began to slow, the corridors were alive again.

Students moved shoulder to shoulder, voices overlapping in bursts of excitement and leftover nerves. The lamps glowed brighter now, fighting the dusk outside, painting the windows in warm golds that smeared across the glass as the carriage swayed.

Alden folded his book, slipped it into his trunk, and reached for his robes. The fabric was heavier than he remembered, black trimmed with green, crest glinting faintly when the light caught it. He smoothed the sleeve and buttoned it with the same precision he used for spells: quiet, exact, deliberate.

He could hear Malfoy's voice halfway down the carriage before he even opened his door." And then he apparently fainted, just like that. Potter got a fright from the cold and passed out. I swear, Potter's the only wizard who could lose a duel with the weather."

Laughter rolled down the corridor. Crabbe's inarticulate bark, Pansy's lighter trill. Someone clapped.

Alden stepped into the hallway, tucking his wand into his sleeve. The smell of steam and sweets lingered in the air, mixed with wool and candle wax.

He passed the group without slowing. Pansy caught his sleeve as he went by."Did you see it?" she asked. "That thing, whatever it was?"

"Only what it left behind."

Draco turned, eyes gleaming bright with mischief. "You didn't faint, I hope?"

"No," Alden said simply.

"Shame," Draco replied. "Would've been nice to see company in Potter's club."

The laughter rippled again, easier this time. Alden gave a small, polite smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You'll have to manage without me."

He moved on, their laughter trailing behind him. He didn't resent them for it. They were thirteen. Everyone had to be something, and that was as good a start as any.

Further up the corridor, Theodore Nott leaned against a doorframe, arms crossed."Whatever that thing was," he said quietly as Alden passed, "it didn't like you."

Alden stopped. "It didn't like anyone."

Nott shrugged. "Still. You looked… fine."

"I was sitting still."

"That's one way to survive." Nott's mouth curved faintly. "You'll have to teach me that sometime."

Alden gave a small nod. "Breathing helps."

He kept walking before the conversation could thicken into meaning.

The whistle blew long and low, echoing through the carriages. Outside the windows, the sky had deepened into twilight, the first stars blurred by smoke. Lanterns flickered along the platform ahead, Hogsmeade Station, snow-dusted and small against the dark hills.

Students began shuffling for trunks, pulling on scarves, calling for friends. The noise pressed in from every direction. Alden slipped into the space between it all, calm as a held breath.

He found a moment's quiet at the rear door. The window there was fogged from dozens of hands brushing against it, and he traced a small circle with his finger, clearing it just enough to see out.

Lights twinkled through the mist, Hogsmeade, half-hidden in the dark. Beyond it, somewhere unseen, the towers of Hogwarts waited.

The train hissed as it slowed, iron grinding gently to rest. Students surged toward the doors, laughter spilling ahead of them, voices bouncing off the walls.

Draco's voice rose one last time, mocking but not cruel: "Try not to trip on the ice, Potter!"

More laughter. Then the doors opened, steam pouring out like breath meeting winter.

Alden heard clearly amongst the chaos, "Right, then. First years, this way, please! Come on, First years, don't be shy. Come on now, hurry up." and looked to see Hagrid, the gamekeeper and Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. Towering over everyone while waving his lantern.

He turned, glancing towards the rest of the students walking towards the carriages, eager to get inside for another year.

"Alright, let's go, I suppose", he murmured to himself.

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