Chapter Text
The Great Hall shimmered with a familiar kind of magic that night, candlelight reflected and refracted until the air itself seemed to glow. Hundreds of floating flames drifted overhead, their light softened by enchanted mist, turning long house tables into islands of color and warmth. Laughter rose and fell like a tide, silverware chimed against plates, and above it all the banners stirred lazily, as though even they were listening. Hogwarts always knew how to feel alive, especially at the start of term, when possibility still outweighed consequence.
At the Hufflepuff table, Shane sat shoulder to shoulder with Hayden, their knees knocking every time one of them shifted on the bench. It should have felt comforting, this closeness, the easy familiarity of shared meals and shared years, but Shane found himself unusually aware of it tonight. Seventh year had a way of making every ordinary moment feel faintly numbered. He traced the edge of his goblet absently, listening to Hayden talk without quite hearing the words, and wondered when Hogwarts had started to feel less like a home and more like a threshold.
The room began to quiet in pieces. Not silence, not yet. Just a gradual narrowing of attention, conversations tapering off as the head table stirred. Shane straightened instinctively as Professor Dumbledore rose, the way he always did when authority entered the room, learned and unlearned habits tugging him into stillness. The headmaster smiled as he surveyed the hall, eyes bright behind half-moon spectacles.
“Well, now we're all settled in and sorted, I'd like to make an announcement.” Dumbledore said, his voice carrying easily to the farthest corners of the Hall, “This castle will not only be your home this year, but home to some very special guests as well. You see, Hogwarts has been chosen to host a legendary event: The Triwizard Tournament.”
A ripple of awe followed that, quieter but deeper. Shane’s fingers curled against the bench. Legendary did not mean safe. Legendary meant names remembered for the wrong reasons.
“For those of you unfamiliar,” Dumbledore went on, “the Tournament brings together three schools for a series of magical contests. From each school, a single student is selected to compete.” There was a deliberate, weighted pause. “If chosen, you will stand alone. And I assure you, these contests are not for the faint-hearted.”
That did it. Shane sat a little straighter, his heartbeat suddenly too loud in his ears. Alone. The word lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable, pressing against all the careful distance he’d spent years cultivating.
“But more of that later,” Dumbledore said, his smile returning as though he hadn’t just dropped a challenge into the middle of the Hall. “For now, please join me in welcoming our guests.”
The doors at the far end of the Great Hall swung open.
Cool air swept in first, carrying the faint scent of winter and something floral beneath it. A hush fell, instinctive and complete, as the Beauxbatons delegation glided inside. Their robes pale as moonlight, movements precise, faces composed into effortless serenity. Their presence altered the room, elegance sharpening the warmth of Hogwarts into contrast. Shane watched them approach with a strange sense of displacement, aware that the year had already shifted its axis.
Hayden let out a low, appreciative whistle before he seemed to remember where he was. “Merlin,” he murmured, leaning closer to Shane as the Beauxbatons delegation advanced up the aisle. “Do you think they teach posture like that, or is it just genetic? Because I swear they’re all glowing.”
Shane huffed out something that might have been a laugh, eyes fixed firmly ahead. He could see what Hayden meant without really looking for it: the easy elegance, the way even their stillness felt intentional. Beauxbatons didn’t move like they were arriving somewhere new; they moved like they expected the space to make room for them.
“Every single one of them,” Hayden continued, undeterred by Shane’s lack of enthusiasm. “I mean, look at her… no, not her, the other one. The one with the dark hair. She looks like she knows something the rest of us don’t.”
Shane followed Hayden’s gaze despite himself and found the girl almost immediately. She stood a half-step apart from the others, not aloof, exactly, but observant, her attention cutting sideways through the Hall rather than drinking it in. There was something grounded about her, something calm beneath the polish. Shane looked away first, a faint, inexplicable tension settling between his shoulders.
“You’re unbelievable,” he said mildly.
Hayden grinned, unrepentant. “I’m just saying, if this is what international cooperation looks like, maybe Hogwarts should host things more often.” He nudged Shane with his elbow. “Any thoughts? Preferences?”
The question was casual. Too casual. Shane felt it like a stumble he hadn’t prepared for, heat creeping up his neck as he shifted on the bench. He’d learned, over the years, how to deflect these moments, how to smile, how to shrug, how to keep answers pleasantly noncommittal, but seventh year had worn his reflexes thin.
“They’re… impressive,” he said finally, choosing the safest word he had.
Hayden shot him a sideways look, studying him for half a second longer than necessary, then let it go with easy grace. “Impressive is one way to put it,” he said, turning his attention back to the procession. “Still. That one…” He nodded again toward the dark-haired girl. “She’s going to be trouble. I can feel it.”
Shane didn’t answer. He told himself it was because the Hall was loud again, because Dumbledore was speaking, because there were a dozen better things to focus on. It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d already clocked the same thing and that the realization sat uneasily with him, sharp and unnameable, like the edge of something waiting to be tested.
“And now,” Dumbledore said, his tone shifting just enough to signal a change, “our friends from the north. Please greet the proud sons of Durmstrang and their High Master, Igor Karkaroff.”
The doors opened again.
This time there was no music, no glide, no flourish. A cold wind swept through the Hall, sharp enough that the candles nearest the entrance guttered and dimmed. The Durmstrang delegation entered in rigid formation, boots striking stone in unison, dark robes cut severe and utilitarian. Where Beauxbatons had softened the room, Durmstrang seemed to carve space out of it, presence asserted through discipline rather than grace.
Shane felt the shift like pressure in his chest. Conversations stilled. Even Hayden went quiet.
The students moved with the confidence of people accustomed to being watched and to being measured. Their eyes tracked the Hall as if cataloguing weaknesses, exits, advantages. At their center walked a boy who didn’t look around at all. He moved as though the room were already his, shoulders loose, chin lifted, mouth curved in something not quite a smile. Confidence radiated off him in waves, unapologetic and sharp-edged.
Shane’s first thought, uncharitable and immediate, was reckless.
The second was worse: dangerous.
Whatever else the boy was, he did not look like someone who planned to lose. He didn’t look like someone who worried about consequences, or silence, or what came after. He looked like someone who expected the world to give way or burn depending on his mood.
Hayden leaned in again, voice lowered. “Well,” he murmured, equal parts awe and disbelief, “that’s… different.”
Shane didn’t answer. His attention had snagged, uncomfortably fixed, a faint tension settling between his shoulders. He told himself it was professional concern, the instinctive caution of someone raised on stories of risk and aftermath. It had nothing to do with the way the boy’s gaze swept the Hall and paused, just briefly, on the Hufflepuff table, like he was already choosing his competition.
Across the Hall, the boy’s eyes flicked up, sharp and bright, and for the briefest moment Shane had the unsettling impression of being seen.
Then Durmstrang marched on, the doors closing behind them with a dull, final thud.