Katie.

The others had already left.

Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fred, and George were barely out the door before McGonagall turned to us and said, "Stay behind, girls. We need a word."

That word turned into a staircase, a spiraling phoenix knocker, and the heavy silence of Dumbledore's office pressing in around us like the weight of a secret.

Adrien and I sat side by side. Shoulders squared. Faces neutral. At least... as neutral as we could manage after the week we'd had.

Dumbledore stood behind his desk, hands folded calmly in front of him. McGonagall perched stiffly on the edge of her usual armchair.

And then—

"Miss Blackwood, Miss Blackwood," came the voice like a curse. "How lovely to see you again."

Umbridge.

In her awful, fluffy pink cardigan, smile carved from something sharp and venomous. Sitting in the third chair like she'd been invited.

Adrien shifted beside me. Her hand twitched like it wanted to reach for her wand, and honestly, same.

"We appreciate you staying behind," Dumbledore began, voice even. "Professor McGonagall and I were briefed on the situation at your family home, but I'd like to hear it from you directly."

I cleared my throat. My voice didn't shake. "It was gone."

McGonagall frowned. "Gone?"

"Not destroyed. Not vandalized. Erased." Adrien leaned forward, her tone clipped. "The entire property was aged magically — the house, the grounds, the entire place looked like it had been rotting for decades."

I nodded. "We were there at the start of term. It didn't look like that."

Dumbledore exchanged a look with McGonagall.

Umbridge smiled. "And you expect us to believe this was done deliberately?"

I stared her down, grabbing Adiren's hand immediately as I felt the familiar heat wave of magic brushing off her at the implication. "There was a note."

That got her attention.

McGonagall stiffened. Dumbledore's brow lifted, just barely. "A note?"

Adrien reached into her coat and pulled it from the inner pocket — the same piece of parchment, now sealed in a protective charm. She handed it to McGonagall, who examined the jagged scrawl.

"A," she read aloud.

Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "I recognize that handwriting."

"You should," Adrien muttered. "It belongs to the man who got us expelled from Beauxbatons and nearly killed us in the Forbidden Forest last year."

"Anselme," I said flatly.

Even Umbridge stopped smiling.

"I thought he was presumed dead," McGonagall said.

"He's not," Adrien replied. "And he's making it very clear he remembers us."

Umbridge tilted her head. "A single letter hardly proves intent. Perhaps it was... symbolic."

"Oh, it was symbolic," I snapped. "It was a message. He knew we'd come back. He wanted us to see it—empty, broken, silent."

Dumbledore's face went quiet. The kind of quiet that always meant thinking three moves ahead.

"You believe Anselme is responsible for the erasure?" he asked gently.

"Yes," Adrien said. "And we think he's working with someone."

"Possibly Deatheaters," I added. "Someone feeding them information."

"And this message—this 'A'—you're certain it wasn't planted by someone else?"

Adrien met his gaze evenly. "It felt like him."

Dumbledore nodded. Slowly. "We'll begin an inquiry immediately. The Ministry will not be involved."

"Oh?" Umbridge cut in. "And why not?"

"Because I no longer trust the Ministry to protect any of my students," he said, without blinking.

Umbridge opened her mouth—

—and McGonagall stood, stepping between her and us like a shield.

"If what the girls are saying is true," she said, "this is not just a personal attack. It's a declaration."

"It is, we weren't alone—there were other witnesses" I whispered, feeling Adrien shrink back into herself. "He's back. And he's not just targeting us. He's targeting what we stand for."

Adrien let out a breath. "He wants to erase us. Like he erased our home, like Mum."

Dumbledore nodded once, slowly. "Then we won't let him."

Umbridge looked positively furious. But she didn't argue. Not with McGonagall's glare on her. Not with Dumbledore watching.

"Thank you," he said at last. "Both of you. We'll be in touch shortly regarding security and supervision. Until then..."

His eyes softened.

"...stay close to those you trust. And keep your wands within reach."

Adrien stood first. I followed.

"Speaking of keeping those we trust close..." I snarled, sticking a piece of parchment into Pansy's Slytherin bag as we shoved past her. "We'll get to the bottom of this—"

"What about Dumbledore?" Adrien asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"I trust him and Professor McGonagall..." I stated, glaring down the corridor behind us before we turned off. "But not the pink fluff sitting next to them."

"Fair."

We slipped out the side hall toward the Gryffindor common room, the weight of the confrontation ahead pressing heavy on our shoulders.

When we pushed through the portrait hole, Fred and George were mid-discussion over something suspiciously fizzing in a teacup. They both looked up the second we entered.

"Trouble," George said, grinning. "Our favorite kind."

Fred's eyes immediately found Adrien. His smile softened.

"Hey," he said, crossing over, brushing his knuckles gently against her arm.

Adrien didn't say anything. She just smiled faintly, stepped forward, and kissed him. Quick. Warm. Real. The kind of kiss that says, I'm here, but we have work to do.

Fred blinked for a second like he was stunned, then grinned, arms slipping around her waist for just a moment. "That's the best hello I've ever had."

She rolled her eyes, but didn't move away.

"Everything alright?" he asked, voice low.

Adrien shrugged. "Depends. Do you consider confronting two potentially morally-compromised Slytherins in an owl-infested tower a reasonable evening plan?"

Fred blinked. "You're joking."

"She's not," I muttered. "We're meeting Draco tonight. One Slytherin at a time—although we both know Blasie wills how."

George raised an eyebrow. "And you were just going to go alone?"

Fred folded his arms. "Not happening."

"It has to happen," I said. "But alone? No. Not anymore. We're done doing this without backup."

Fred nodded once, serious now. "Then we're coming."

Adrien opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. "Not as bodyguards. As your people."

George clapped his hands together. "Excellent. I was hoping for some owl shit and emotional trauma tonight."

Adrien smirked, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"This might get ugly," I warned.

"Please," Fred said, looping his arm around Adrien. "Have you met us?"

And just like that, for the first time that day, it didn't feel like we were walking into the fire alone.

The Owlery always smelled like old feathers, storm-wet stone, and barely-contained magic. Tonight, it smelled like confrontation.

We arrived first.

Adrien stood with her arms crossed, eyes fixed on the open window, the wind threading through her hair like tension, she was fidgeting with that sword charm on her necklace, in deep thought.

She hadn't said much all day. She didn't have to. I could feel it radiating off her — that quiet, simmering kind of rage that only showed when she was trying not to kill someone.

This was mine.

And she was letting me have it.

Fred and George took opposite corners like they were preparing to flank a battlefield.

Fred, though, kept glancing toward Adrien — not worried, not intrusive. Just watching. Studying her like she was the only thing anchoring him to the moment. His face was unreadable, but his eyes were full of raw, unspoken emotion. George noticed too, but said nothing.

Neither said a word, but they didn't need to. They were here. Ready. Watching.

Draco showed up exactly on time — as if punctuality made up for betrayal.

He stepped through the door like it didn't feel like walking into a fire.

His eyes landed on me first. Then Adrien. Then flicked back to me like he already knew this wasn't going to be friendly.

I didn't say anything at first.

Just looked at him. Really looked.

He looked exhausted. Hollow around the edges. Like maybe this was breaking him too.

Good.

"You came," I said flatly.

"I always do," he muttered, voice low.

"Not when it matters."

That hit. His jaw flexed.

"Why am I here?" he asked, already defensive, his eyes glaring from one Weasley twin to the other, "Why are they here?"

I took a step closer. "Because I want to know how much of this is your fault."

He blinked.

"You heard me," I snapped. "The house. The name. Anselme. How much did you know, Draco? How much did you tell?"

"I didn't tell anyone—"

"You expect me to believe that?!" I snapped, louder now. "After everything? After what we saw? After Lucius looked me in the eye and called me by a name I haven't used in years?"

Draco flinched.

"I didn't tell him," he said. "I didn't tell any of them."

"But you knew," I hissed. "You knew something. You always know something. And you said nothing. You watched us fall apart and stood there silent."

He shook his head. "It wasn't like that."

"No?" I stepped forward, fire in my throat. "Then how was it, Draco? Because from where I'm standing, it looks a hell of a lot like fear. Like you were too afraid of what they'd do to you to think about what they're already doing to us."

"Already—?" He paused, blinking away from me for a second. "I didn't want them to come after you."

"And look how well that worked!"

My voice echoed off the stone walls. Several owls shifted restlessly on their perches.

Draco's fists were clenched now. "You think this is easy? You think I can just say no and it all disappears?"

"No," I said, quieter now. "I think you let your fear outweigh everything else. I think you made your choice. And I'm done carrying the weight of it for you."

Silence. Sharp. Heavy.

Then his voice cracked open and bleeding: "You think I wanted this?"

"It's not about what you wanted or what you meant to do—it's what did happen." I snarled, allowing my glare to burn, "I think you let it happen."

And that's when the door creaked again.

Blaise.

Of course.

He stepped in without a word, expression unreadable — but his eyes went straight to Adrien.

And Adrien?

Adrien finally moved.

She stepped forward, shoulder brushing mine, eyes locked on Draco's first — then flicking to Blaise like she'd been waiting for this.

And maybe she had.

"Who the hell invited you?" she snarled, glaring between the two as I stepped forward a little too, tugging on her sleeve—feeling the magic start to rumble the very floor we stood on. "What? Was this a group project?" she said, voice like shattered glass. "Because it feels like we were the only ones who didn't get the brief."

Blaise didn't speak.

"Say something!" she challenged, her voice echoing around the walls.

But it was Draco who spoke instead — voice sharp, raw, desperate. "We didn't know—"

"You knew enough," I cut in.

"We were trying to protect you," Blaise added.

Adrien laughed once — cold and hollow. "You don't protect people by lying to them. You protect them by standing beside them when the fire hits."

Draco turned toward me again. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"You did anyway," I said. "And I don't know if I'll ever be able to trust you again."

I felt Adrien's energy shift beside me — steady, dangerous, ready.

This wasn't just a fight. It was a reckoning. And neither of them were walking out clean.

"Why the hell haven't you asked what happened?" Adrien blinked, letting me tug her back as both Weasley twins pushed off their opposite walls, wands drawn.

My heart dropped at that question — neither of them were asking why we were so livid, why we were confronting them.

They knew.

They were lying.

Adrien turned fully on Blaise now, like the eye of a storm landing squarely on him.

"You knew about my mum," she snapped. "Didn't you? Maybe not everything, but enough. Enough to know something was happening, or was going to happen, and still say nothing."

Blaise's jaw locked. "Adrien—"

"Is it true?" she pressed, stepping forward. "Did you know? Is your family—Are they Deatheaters?"

He didn't answer.

"That's all I needed," she said bitterly. "You don't get to say you care and still keep secrets that get people taken. You don't get to say you were trying to protect me—us—when you let us fall apart in silence."

And that's when something changed.

His eyes flicked downward.

To the necklace.

To the glint of silver at Adrien's throat — the one shaped like a sword, delicate and deliberate.

He blinked. Once. Then again.

"...Where'd you get that?" he asked, voice quiet but not calm. Controlled. Too controlled.

Adrien's fingers brushed the charm instinctively. "It was a gift."

Blaise's gaze snapped — from her face to Fred's.

Fred, who stood too close. Who looked too smug. Who hadn't taken his eyes off Blaise once.

And that's when it hit.

Blaise's expression didn't crack.

It erupted.

"You're wearing his necklace," he spat, voice going low and sharp.

Adrien's chin lifted. "Yeah. I am."

"You and Weasley?" he hissed, stepping forward, eyes blazing. "That's what this is now?"

Fred didn't even blink. He shifted — just slightly — sliding in front of Adrien like his body was already trained to do it.

"Got a problem with that?" Fred asked, calm, cold, lethal.

Blaise scoffed. "You think this is some game? You think you win because you gave her some shiny trinket and a few half-decent lines?"

"I didn't give her anything," Fred snapped. "She chose me."

Blaise barked a humorless laugh. "She doesn't even know you."

"She knows enough. Enough to know I don't run when it gets hard. Enough to know I won't leave her to bleed alone."

Adrien's voice cut in — rough and bitter. "You knew everything, Blaise. And you still let me crawl through it alone. And now you want to act territorial?"

"I didn't tell anyone—"

"You didn't ask anything," she shot back. "You didn't stay. You didn't fight. You just stood there with your silence and your cowardice and called it love."

Blaise's jaw locked. His hands clenched at his sides like they wanted something to hold — or destroy.

"You're too much of a coward for this," Adrien said again, softer now. Quieter. But the kind of quiet that hits harder than a scream. She moved to be near Fred, leaning into him. "And I can't be strong for the both of us anymore. I don't know why I didn't see that before."

His eyes flicked to her again — and then dropped.

To her hand.

To the one resting lightly against Fred's chest, fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt.

Fred didn't look at Blaise.

He looked only at Adrien — and the way he reached for her, the way he brushed his thumb along the inside of her wrist — it wasn't just comfort.

It was intimate.

Familiar.

Claimed.

Blaise's whole body tensed. Something cracked behind his eyes.

"You don't know what she's survived," he growled, turning on Fred. "What we've been through. You don't get to touch her like that."

Fred didn't move.

Didn't flinch.

He just looked back at Blaise — even, grounded, steady.

"No," he said. "I don't know what you had. But I know what you lost. And I know what I see now."

His hand slid up Adrien's spine, slow and instinctive — like it had been there before. Like it belonged there.

Adrien didn't move away.

Didn't even blink.

"You'll get burned," Blaise muttered — but this time it came out strangled. More plea than threat.

Fred's jaw tightened. "Then I'll burn with her."

The room snapped.

Magic flared in the stone — not cast, not channeled. Just there. Heavy. Brewing. Waiting.

Then Blaise lunged.

Straight at Fred.

Adrien barely had time to react before Draco was there, grabbing Blaise by the collar and yanking him back with more force than finesse. "Don't," Draco snapped, voice low and furious. "Not here. Not like this."

Blaise fought him, rage boiling under his skin. "He touched her—"

"She let me," Fred shot back, stepping forward.

But George was already there — solid as a wall, sliding in front of his twin with wand drawn and eyes sharp. "You want to take a swing?" he said, deadly calm. "Go through me."

My hand flew to my wand.

Adrien's was already half out of her sleeve.

And for a second — a full breath — it looked like this was going to turn into something worse than heartbreak. Something that might not end clean.

Draco shoved Blaise back a full step, forearm braced hard across his chest. "Think," he growled. "Just—think."

Blaise's chest rose and fell in harsh, uneven breaths, eyes lit with something between fury and desperation.

Adrien looked at him like she didn't recognize him anymore.

I didn't blink.

And Fred?

Fred didn't look scared.

Just ready.

Adrien's voice cut clean through the static in the air. "Don't come after me again," she said, low and steady. "Not unless you're ready to tell the whole truth."

The necklace at her throat glinted — that silver sword catching the moonlight like punctuation.

Blaise didn't speak. Couldn't. Because there was nothing left to say.

She wasn't the one bleeding anymore.

But maybe... now he was.

Behind me, Fred's magic still buzzed through the walls like static in a thunderstorm — charged, crackling, unrelenting. Adrien hadn't moved. George's wand didn't lower.

But my focus? It had shifted.

To him. To Draco.

Because now? It was his turn.

I stepped toward him, slow but deliberate, like something sharp just beneath the surface.

"That," I said, nodding toward Blaise—toward Adrien still burning in place— "is what happens when you pretend silence is protection."

Draco's jaw clenched. "I didn't know they'd go after your family," he said, voice rough, hollow. "I swear I didn't—"

"But you knew something," I snapped. "You always do."

"I was trying to keep you safe—"

"Stop saying that!" Adrien exploded from behind me, voice like fire meeting wind.

I threw an arm out, holding her back, eyes still locked on him.

"Don't look at her," I snarled. "Look at me. You don't get to say you were protecting me when you let me walk into every trap blindfolded. You let us go around, uninformed, while our Mum was taken."

Draco's mouth opened. Closed. No words came out.

"That's not love," I bit out. "That's betrayal dressed up as cowardice."

"Katie—"

"No," I cut in, voice rising now, shaking the rafters. "This is the part where you give me your best sorry, and I pretend to believe it, and we both walk away pretending we're still something worth salvaging."

He flinched. Like I'd slapped him.

But I wasn't done.

I stepped closer. Right into his space.

"I'm not doing that anymore."

His breath caught. His eyes — wild, cornered, like he knew he was losing something he didn't know how to name. But he still didn't speak.

And that silence? That was the end.

I stared at him — this boy who once made me feel invincible, who now looked like a ghost stitched into skin — and I let the final word settle in the space between us like a curse:

"I hope one day you're brave enough to stand for something. But until then—" my voice cracked, but I held it together, "I'm done standing with you."

And then I turned. Not because I was done hurting. But because I wasn't going to carry him anymore.

Whatever we were—whatever we could've been?

He left it behind.

And I wasn't staying there with it.

Not with my name hanging in the mouths of Deatheaters. Not when he had the chance to stop it... and didn't.

Behind me, I felt Adrien's presence. Solid. Steady. Home.

Fred's hand brushed against hers. George stepped back into place beside me.

We walked out together.

Not broken. Not bleeding. Just done.

We didn't fall apart. Not right away, at least.

After the Owlery, the rage settled into something colder. Sharper. More dangerous.

We got quiet. But not still.

Throughout the next few months things were still, quiet (for the most part). Thanks to what happened at the Blackwood house, the confrontation with Draco and Blaise—we had to dial back on the pranks for a while and focus on training.

The Room of Requirement flickered with golden light as Dumbledore's Army sharpened like blades beneath it.

My wand cut through the air without hesitation, my stance tighter now. Stronger.

Adrien's spell hit harder, faster—silent and direct—while Fred cheered obnoxiously from the corner.

George called us "terrifying in the best way."

When we weren't training, we were in the Gryffindor Common room, fighting between snickering and studying.

Ginny snorting cocoa through her nose while Adrien would argue with Ron about which magical creature had the best kill stats.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

Fred and Adrien, tangled together on the floor in a mess of limbs and sarcasm, looked like they'd been that way forever.

And me? I was starting to breathe again. Piece by piece.

Even if the edges were still sharp.

Then there were the quiet moments, Adrien sat by the fire scanning magical papers and Muggle headlines like they held the missing half of her. Every issue. Every edition.

We stopped asking if she found anything.

Because we already knew the answer.

We still practiced—harder now. Speechless magic. Wordless spells. Defensive hexes disguised as flourishes. Every movement deliberate. Controlled. Silent.

The pranks slowed.

But only for now.

It was April when it happened—we should have known not to get too comfortable...

"Where is he?" Hermione's voice cracked over the common room like a curse.

We snapped our heads up.

"Who?" George asked, but he already knew.

"Harry," Ron said, pale. "They know."

Hermione was breathless. "The DA's been compromised. Someone told. And they're—they're in Umbridge's office right now. Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape..."

My stomach dropped.

"...and Harry."

Adrien stood so fast her chair nearly toppled. "What?"

George was already on his feet.

Fred's face darkened like a storm cloud rolling in. "How bad?"

"Bad," Ron said. "Real bad."

The common room exploded into motion—books shoved aside, cards forgotten, every heartbeat syncing to the same beat:

War's back on.

And this time? We weren't going to wait to be told what side we were on.