Then, the heavy oak doors of the Great Hall groaned open.

It wasn’t the usual latecomer shuffle. This was different. This was an entrance.

Conversations didn’t just pause; they evaporated. The sound of a fork clattering onto a plate rang out like a gunshot in the sudden, deafening silence. Every head, as if pulled by the same invisible string, swiveled toward the doors.

And there you were.

The world-famous model, the human embodiment of elegance and glamour, standing in the doorway of the Hogwarts Great Hall as if you’d just stepped off the cover of Witch Weekly. Your uniform wasn’t just worn; it was curated. Tailored to perfection, it looked less like school regulation and more like high fashion. You took a single, unhurried step forward.

A collective, barely audible gasp swept through the room. A Hufflepuff first-year dropped her goblet. Pumpkin juice spread across the table like a tiny, shocked lake.

You began to walk, your steps measured and fluid, down the center aisle. The click of your shoes on the stone floor was the only sound in the entire, cavernous room. Every eye tracked you. Professors stared, mid-chew, from the High Table. The Bloody Baron drifted through a wall, took one look, and drifted right back out again, as if even he wasn’t prepared for this level of drama.

And then, as you passed the Slytherin table, your gaze lifted.

It swept across the sea of stunned faces and, by some trick of fate or fantastic misfortune, landed directly on Theodore Nott.

Time, for Theodore Nott, stopped. The Great Hall, the staring students, the floating candles — it all melted into a distant blur. There was only the electric, terrifying, miraculous connection of your eyes meeting his. A thread, invisible and taut, snapped into place between you.

He didn’t breathe. He didn’t blink. He was fairly certain his heart had just abandoned its post entirely.