The celebration had long since faded into the castle's stone lungs. Laughter and footsteps drifted away one by one until only the wind remained — carrying with it the scent of ash and pine, and something faintly metallic from the arena's far-off ruins.
Alden walked alone along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The evening had settled in shades of slate and amber, light breaking through the trees like cracked glass. His boots left pale imprints in the frost-laced grass; the golden egg hung under his arm, heavy, silent.
He liked the quiet. It was the only time Hogwarts didn't whisper.
A faint hum of beetles reached his ear — soft, quick, deliberate. When the voice came, it sounded like the rustle of parchment.
"Mr. Dreyse."
He didn't stop walking.
"An impressive display today," the voice continued — lilting, polished, oozing the kind of confidence born from manipulation rather than mastery. "The youngest champion in a century. The boy who broke Dumbledore's age line. The prodigy who—what was the phrase?—ended a dragon."
Alden stopped then. Slowly turned.
Rita Skeeter stood a few paces behind him, green quill already hovering over floating parchment, its feather gleaming like a serpent's tongue in the half-light. Her jeweled spectacles caught the fading sun, eyes glinting a venomous shade of satisfaction.
No one else was there. No footfalls. No laughter. Not even an owl. The forest pressed in, dark and listening.
Alden said nothing.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, dear," Rita purred, stepping closer, heels crunching frost. "It's just a chat. The public loves a good mystery, and you—well—you're an enigma wrapped in rumor."
The quill twitched eagerly in the air.
"Some say you're a genius. Others call you dangerous. But the most fascinating whispers…" She smiled, sharklike. "They call you the next Dark Lord."
The words hung in the air like a curse.
Alden's expression didn't change. Only his eyes shifted, pale green-grey in the fading light.
"Is that what you're here for? To see if the whispers are true?"
"Oh, I don't see truth, darling," she said sweetly. "I write it."
The quill began scribbling furiously, tracing letters that glowed before fading into ink. Rita tilted her head.
"You know, the world adores balance. It's so tidy when good and evil are neatly labeled. You'd fit beautifully on a front page beside a photograph of fire and fear. 'The Boy Who Broke the Light.'"
Alden's jaw tightened. The forest wind moved through his hair like a slow exhale.
"I wonder," she went on, circling him as though she were interviewing a caged animal, "how Dumbledore feels. To have a student—his student—reviving Grindelwald's magic. To see his own age line shattered by a spell whispered to have been born in Nurmengard itself…"
The parchment fluttered as her words etched themselves onto it. Alden didn't move. His wand hand stayed relaxed at his side, but his voice, when it came, was quieter than before — softer, and infinitely more dangerous.
"You know a lot for someone who wasn't invited."
Rita's smile sharpened.
"Oh, Mr. Dreyse, I always know too much. It's what keeps me in business. The world will want to know what kind of fourteen-year-old wields power like yours. Whether you're a savior in Slytherin robes… or a shadow with a boy's face."
The quill trembled midair, sensing the shift in tone — her amusement edging toward unease.
Alden took a single step closer. The faint smell of frost deepened.
"You should be careful," he said. "Some truths don't like being written."
"Oh, but that's exactly why people read them," she breathed.
The forest went utterly still. Even the wind seemed to pause.
Alden looked past her — at the quill still scratching, the parchment half-filled with words that twisted and reshaped themselves in Rita's enchanted shorthand. Then his gaze returned to her, steady, unblinking.
"That's interesting," he said finally.
And without another word, he walked past her — into the deepening dark — leaving her standing amid her own echoes, the green quill twitching uncertainly in the frozen air.
Rita's quill hovered a few feet behind Alden, scratching invisible letters into the cold air.He had nearly reached the treeline when her voice followed him again, bright and venom-smooth.
"You can walk away, Mr. Dreyse, but tomorrow's paper will walk faster. Everyone will read what I heard tonight."
He stopped.
The forest was motionless — every branch outlined in silver, every breath of wind frozen between them. He turned just enough for the torchlight from the castle to catch one side of his face.
"You think power is a scandal," he said quietly, "because weak people need names for what frightens them. Call it darkness, call it evil — it makes no difference. The powerful make cowards of the world, and the world calls them monsters to feel safe again."
Rita smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"A speech worthy of Grindelwald himself. Perfect headline material."
"There are exceptions," Alden went on, almost to himself. "Sometimes the powerful aren't cruel. They're simply… higher. They look down and see a system built on fear, rules pretending to be order. The Ministry. The press. You."He paused, the frost under his boots cracking softly. "Here's a story for you, Rita. The world is flawed, and if it breaks far enough, I'll fix it. But not today. I have friends. I like my school. I'd rather be left alone."
"And yet," she purred, "tomorrow, no one will leave you alone. You'll be front page, darling. The boy who thinks he can fix the world."
Alden's gaze lowered to the emerald quill, still twitching in anticipation.
"No, Rita," he said, voice almost tender. "No one will know."
He lifted his wand. The forest dimmed, as if colour itself were holding its breath.
"Oblivionis Verum."
The syllables slid through the air like glass cutting silk. Light bent inward — a shimmer, a soft folding of sound. For one heartbeat, everything unmade itself: air, scent, even memory.
Then the forest exhaled.
Alden stood alone again. The frost at his feet traced a perfect ring. The quill lay on the ground, still, its feather pale and rimed with ice. He bent, picked it up, and watched the ink fade from its tip until it wrote nothing at all.
"That's interesting," he murmured — and walked back toward the castle, leaving only the smell of ozone and a circle of silence behind him.
The dungeons were alive with whispers long before Alden returned. Word had already reached the common room — Dreyse killed the Horntail.
When he stepped through the arched doorway, the sound hit him like a physical force — a hundred voices, low and fierce, reverberating off green stone. The great room glowed with an emerald haze from the lake beyond the glass walls, the flicker of candles throwing serpentine shadows across the ceiling.
The banner that usually bore the crest of Slytherin House had been transfigured — silver threads now spelled his name in the shifting runes of frostfire. DREYSE.
Theo was the first to reach him.
"You lunatic," he said, grinning widely. "You froze the air solid! Even Snape flinched."
Draco appeared next, silver hair gleaming, eyes bright with something between pride and envy.
"You realise, of course," he said, "you've just made every other House irrelevant for the year."
Daphne and Tracey were leaning against one of the marble columns, surrounded by a knot of older students. Daphne's expression was cool, but her eyes followed Alden like she was trying to memorise the shape of his calm.
"He looks like he's just come back from breakfast, not a dragon fight," Tracey murmured.
"That's because he doesn't perform," Daphne said softly. "He arrives."
Someone popped a bottle of butterbeer — it sprayed gold across the table, the scent of cinnamon and smoke rising with the laughter. A few fourth-years had charmed silver serpents to coil up the banisters, hissing Dreyse! Dreyse! in rhythm.
And yet, beneath the revelry, there was a kind of reverence. They didn't swarm him. They formed around him — a ring of motion, like gravity obeying mass.
Alden moved through it without speaking. He nodded once to Theo, clapped Draco on the shoulder, and let himself sink into a high-backed chair near the fire. The green flames reflected in his eyes, making them seem cut from glass.
"Speech!" someone shouted."Tell us how it felt!" another called.
He glanced up slowly.
"Loud," he said simply.
Laughter broke out, relieved and wild. Even the portraits smirked. Pansy Parkinson raised her butterbeer like a toast.
"To Slytherin's champion!"
The room echoed her cry. "To Dreyse!"
Alden lifted his own glass but didn't drink. He was watching the reflections in the lake window — a thousand ghostly shapes moving behind the glass, all green-tinted and warped by water.
Snape's shadow appeared briefly at the entrance. He surveyed the chaos, eyes narrowing — but then, unexpectedly, a hint of something like approval crossed his face. He inclined his head once toward Alden, a silent concession, and turned away.
Theo leaned over, voice low.
"You should've seen the professors, mate. McGonagall looked like she might faint. Even Flitwick dropped his wand."
"They were scared," Alden murmured.
"Of you?"
He didn't answer.
Draco smirked.
"They'll get used to it."
The fire crackled, sending sparks up through the green haze. For a long while, the common room pulsed with the sound of celebration — laughter echoing, banners shifting, butterbeer foaming in cups.
But Alden's thoughts were elsewhere — on the forest's silence, on the way light had folded, on how easily erasure fit into the world when no one expected to see it.
Daphne caught the faraway look in his eyes and frowned faintly.
"You're supposed to enjoy it," she said, voice quiet but steady.
"I am," he said.
And maybe he was. In his own way.
When at last the noise thinned and the younger years began drifting toward their dormitories, Alden stayed by the dying fire. The golden egg sat on the table beside him, faintly humming, its surface catching the light of the lake.
The room had fallen still again — only the heartbeat of water against glass, and the muted rhythm of breath in the dungeons.
He leaned back, fingers drumming once on the armrest. Outside, the lake rippled, erasing the reflection of his face for a moment before returning it — fractured, distant, and whole again.
The celebration had burned itself out hours ago. What remained was the faint perfume of smoke and butterbeer, a few dying embers glowing in the hearth, and the slow heartbeat of the lake pressing against the common room's glass walls.
Alden sat alone by the window, the green light of the water rolling over his face like moving glass. His cloak was folded beside him, boots set neatly by the chair. The noise of the earlier revelry — laughter, shouts, the clink of cups — felt like something from another world.
The golden egg sat on the table in front of him. Its surface shimmered with faint runes, light sliding across it like breath. He had ignored it all evening; it seemed… too eager to be opened, almost alive.
He ran a finger along its seam — cold, perfect, resisting just enough to feel deliberate. Outside the window, schools of fish twisted through the water, scattering the reflection of his face into fragments.
He thought of the crowd that afternoon — how they'd cheered, and yet flinched; how awe and fear had looked identical from a distance.
He thought of Snape's slight nod. Of Dumbledore's silence. Of the way, at the very end, the entire world had stopped breathing.
Alden exhaled once, slow and measured. Then he dug his nails into the groove and pulled.
The egg opened with a soft metallic click.
The sound that followed wasn't quite sound — it was pressure, a raw shriek that sliced through the air like shattering glass. The walls seemed to curve inward; the lake itself trembled, scattering green ripples across the room. Every candle guttered.
Alden flinched, jaw tightening, fingers gripping the table as the wail climbed higher — inhuman, agonised, and endless, as a choir dragged underwater. For an instant, he could almost see it: voices like bubbles rising, breaking against an unseen ceiling.
He snapped the egg shut.
Silence fell like a blade.
His reflection reassembled itself in the glass wall — calm again, though his pulse still hammered in his throat. The egg pulsed faintly, a thin line of steam curling from its seam.
"So that's what you hide," he murmured to it. "A warning, or a secret."
He turned the egg over once, studying it. The gold had cooled to a dull bronze under his fingers, runes still faintly alive. It looked harmless — beautiful, even. That was what made it dangerous.
He set it down beside his wand and leaned back, eyes tracing the faint frost-ring where the egg had sat.
The dungeon was utterly still now — only the distant creak of water against stone and the rhythm of his own breathing.
Alden's gaze lifted to the ceiling, to the cold glimmer of lake-light rippling above.
"Every truth screams," he said quietly, almost to himself. "You just have to decide whether to listen."
The egg didn't answer.
He shut his eyes, letting the silence take him — not peace, but equilibrium. Outside, the lake pressed closer to the glass, as though listening.