The storm had come out of nowhere — thick black clouds swallowing the stars whole, rain lashing against the castle like it had a personal grudge. Most students were tucked safely inside the common rooms, but you weren't most students tonight.

You'd fled outside. Past the whomping willow, past the empty quidditch stands, until your feet carried you to the greenhouse — that patch of glass and greenery that usually felt so calm. Now it just looked like a dark silhouette against the sky, rain hammering the panes.

You were soaked through. Shivering. And you were crying — the kind of crying that hitched in your chest and made the rain feel almost gentle by comparison. Seven years of holding it together, of pretending, and now it was all spilling out at once.

The storm drowned out most sounds, but not the footsteps. Not the voice that cut through the downpour like a wandlight in the dark.