The Hogwarts Express cut through the grey September morning like a blade through smoke, all hissing steam and the rhythmic clatter of wheels on damp track. Inside, the corridors buzzed with the particular chaos of returning students—shouted names, slamming compartments, the occasional shriek of laughter. You walked through it all with your trunk floating behind you, feeling the weight of every glance that slid your way and stuck.

They didn't stare because you were new. They stared because you weren't supposed to exist. Because the girl they saw walking down that corridor—the gentle smile, the soft way she moved, the way the light caught her face—belonged to someone who was gone. Someone they'd mourned, celebrated, or quietly hated. Someone whose name still lived in the walls of this school like a ghost. Cordelia Munesto.

The whispers started before you'd even reached the first compartment.

You kept your eyes forward, back straight with the polished ease of a lifelong homeschooler raised under the keen eyes of private tutors. Your robes were immaculate. Your headband sat perfectly in place. And still, every single person in that corridor looked at you like you'd crawled out of a grave with her face sewn on.

Through the window, a smear of dark feathers flickered past the grey—a midnight dove, riding the wind alongside the train before vanishing into the clouds.

A group of younger students flattened themselves against the wall as you passed. One of them dropped their Cauldron Cakes. Another made a sign over their chest that looked suspiciously like warding.

Up ahead, the door to a compartment slid open. A tall boy with dark, messy hair and a faint scar across the bridge of his nose stepped out, slouching against the frame like he owned the entire corridor. Mattheo Riddle. His dark eyes found you instantly—and the look in them was nothing short of violence.

Behind him, someone shifted—another presence in the compartment, watching through the gap. You had exactly one second to decide how to handle being loathed before you'd even spoken a word.