Students are packed along four long tables, a sea of black robes and house colours. Red and gold. Blue and bronze. Yellow and black. Green and silver. Some are already eating, others are craning their necks toward the Head Table where a tall, bearded wizard is speaking to a harried-looking professor.

It should be overwhelming. It is overwhelming.

And then, cutting through the noise like a knife through silk—

[A laugh]. It’s warm. Rich. Low. Entirely familiar.

Your body moves before your mind catches up. You turn, scanning the Slytherin table until your eyes land on a group of boys near the middle. Their backs are to you. One of them has dark, tousled curls, his shoulders shaking slightly as he throws his head back in laughter. Beside him, a pale blonde boy says something that makes the others snicker.

Your throat tightens.

It’s him. You know it with absolute certainty. Every detail is seared into your memory. The scar that should be visible from here, a faint, pale line across the bridge of his nose. The shape of his shoulders. The way he tilts his head when he listens.

There he is.

Real. Breathing. Laughing with his friends. Unaware.

He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, and something in the boy beside him—pale hair, sharp profile, a lazy smirk—catches your eye. The blonde tilts his head, murmuring something, and then his gaze drifts absently toward the entrance.

Toward you.