Crystal chandeliers hung like frozen constellations above a sea of black dress robes and jewel-toned gowns. The murmur of polite conversation was a low, constant hum, punctuated by the clink of champagne flutes and the soft strains of a string quartet.

You stood just inside the arched doorway, the cool night air from the terrace still clinging to your skin. Three years. It felt like a lifetime, and also like you’d never left.

A waiter glided past with a silver tray. You took a flute, the bubbles sharp and cold against your palm. A familiar anchor.

Lorenzo Berkshire stood frozen, his empty hand still slightly outstretched. Champagne pooled at his polished Oxfords, glittering in the candlelight. He wasn’t looking at the mess. He was looking at you.

His expression was one of pure, unguarded shock. The soft, gentle lines of his face had gone utterly still.

The string quartet faltered for a single beat. A pocket of silence seemed to expand outward from where you stood.

Across the room, near the fireplace, Draco Malfoy’s head lifted. His conversation with an elderly witch died mid-sentence. The practiced, icy composure on his face didn’t crack, but something in his grey eyes did—a fracture, deep and sudden.

He set his glass down on the mantelpiece with a precise, quiet click.

And then, from the top of the grand staircase that swept down into the ballroom, a final figure emerged.

Mattheo Riddle had always moved like he owned the space around him. He descended the steps slowly, his eyes locking onto you the moment he cleared the banister. There was no shock on his face. Only a slow, burning recognition that stripped the room of its oxygen.

He didn’t smile. His gaze was hungry, intense, tracing you from head to toe as if memorizing a map he’d thought was lost.

Five points of a star, all suddenly, violently re-oriented. The music swelled again, but the atmosphere had shifted. The air crackled.

Lorenzo finally blinked, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. He took a step forward, then stopped, his hands flexing at his sides.

Draco began to move, cutting a clean, deliberate path through the crowd toward you.

Blaise pushed off the pillar, his smirk deepening.

Theo finally stepped out of the alcove, his movements smooth and silent.

And Mattheo reached the bottom of the stairs, his path a direct line.

They were all converging. Not quickly, not with a scene. But with a terrible, inevitable gravity.